The One About the Power of Pleasure with Misty Tripoli [Re release]

Hi, you are listening to Adulting with Ebony and this episode is part of a mini series over the summer of 2024 where I am republishing some of my favorite episodes from season two so that I get to walk my talk and have a summer off while continuing with the consistency of producing an episode for you each and every week. These episodes are my favorite seven from series two which is really difficult to compile by the way. So if you enjoy these episodes you can always go back to the full season and binge listen to a load more. But over the summer of 2024 I am going to be sharing with you seven of my favorite episodes of of season two and I will be back with brand new season season eight in September. Until then, have a wonderful summer. Please as you're listening to these episodes come and connect with me on Instagram, let me know how you're getting on and as always, please share the podcast rate and review. It means so so much to me.

You are listening to Adulting with Ebony. Season seven brings together neurodiversity, human design and embodiment so that Gen X or millennial misfits and late diagnosed neurospices become empowered, embodied and fully expressed. This is the show where I actively encourage you to feel your feelings rather than think them. Glow up, not grow up and become full of yourself.

Because who the fuck else should you be full of?

Each week I have real and raw conversations about what it takes to be fully resourced and have happy, healthy, intimate relationships as a dopamine deficient adult wanting to create a better future by being the change that you want to see in the world. I am your host Ebony Allard, AKA Ebony Alchemy, late diagnosed Aud hder, combined type and Asperger's in case you like specifics. Artist, mystic and self actualization for self facilitator. I'm an international award winning multiple brain Integration Technique Master coach with special interest in Embodied Human design for Neurodivergence. I've been in the personal development, creativity and entrepreneurship spaces all of my Life and as a 5:2 emotional manifesting generator with a left angle cross of distraction, I am here to help you know what to trust and what to tune out. Each week I share relatable practical ways that mean you get to take less responsibility for more reward and safely remove your camouflage for more belonging, longing, acceptance and fulfillment. Ready? Let's go.

Hey everyone. Welcome to this week's episode. I am so excited because today I am joined by Misty Tripoli who is the founder of the World Groove Movement, creator of the Groove Method, Body Groove, and an international presenter, Body image, truth talker, lover of love and warrior for truth. And I absolutely adore all of Misty's work. And I'm so honoured and so happy that you are here today to talk to me. Hello.

Hello. Good to be here. Yay.

So, first up, we are going to navigate the very best we can. Misty is in Mexico, I am in Spain. We are on Internet that is tiny bit wobbly today.

So bear with us.

It will be worth it, I promise. Let's start with a question I ask everybody. What does adulting mean for you?

Adulting to me means taking full responsibility for yourself. Just your thoughts, your actions, your life, your circumstances. Someone said something to me a long time ago that hit me really hard. That was like, it's not your fault what's happened to you. Like, when you're a child, it's not your fault, but what it's your responsibility about what you do about it. And that hit me really, really hard because I had used, like most of us do, the story of my abuse in my childhood or my story of father leaving and all this as an excuse to live the life that I was living at the time. And I realized that I have choices. And that's part of being an adult, is that you get to make the choices and you have to take responsibility for your choices.

I absolutely love that. And what I really love about your work and your story and how you present that is that that responsibility is laced heavily in so much joy and so much empowerment and so much freedom. Whenever you talk about the transitions that you made or about the body, it always feel. Feels like, yes, it's a responsibility, but it also gets to come with joy and it gets to come with pleasure. And I wondered if you would talk a little bit about that and about that shift.

Yeah, well, it was a massive shift for me because I was addicted to my sadness. I was addicted to my story and living it fully. And I woke up to the fact that so many things just hit me all at once. This was about 15 years ago. I had a massive shift in my consciousness. My whole life changed in one day. And these truths started to come to me and I realized that I wasn't enjoying my life, that I was living my life for everyone else. I was trying to be perfect. I was trying to please everyone. And I realized I didn't even know who I was. I had all these masks that I would wear for everyone else. And then I just came to these understandings that we weren't born to hate ourselves. We weren't born to suffer. We weren't born to struggle and strife and be miserable. And I literally was miserable and just taking these truths and embodying them and empowering myself. Everything changed. Like, my life now is basically what rules my life now is pleasure. And I let pleasure be my beacon of light in my life. That whatever gives me pleasure, that's what I'm doing. And I will refuse to do anything now that doesn't give me pleasure. And I don't care if there's money attached to it or. I just got to the point where I'm not doing this anymore. I deserve, just like everyone, I'm not different than anyone else, but I deserve joy and pleasure. And. And I did everything I could. And so now it's just. That's my being. I ask myself every day when I wake up and I meditate, like, what today will give me pleasure and what will feel good to me? Whatever it is, from sex to walking, going for a walk, doing yoga class, you know, sitting and doing nothing, whatever it might be. I just. Now it's like I'm on a quest, a pleasure quest. And it has shifted my life completely. And what I found was amazing, is the moment I shifted, my life became more abundant. I made more money than I'd ever made by working less because I just shifted my whole inner world. I shifted the whole way that I operated. And. And I mean, obviously your audience understands about the law of attraction and that we're energy and all of these things. And when I really, I started, I understood these things, but it wasn't until I actually really practiced and applied them. And that's what I understood about a lot of spiritual people, quote unquote, is that they get it. They understand the concepts, absolutely, but they don't really truly believe in them because if they did, they would put themselves 100% into it and see and reap the benefits of it. But it's hard because you have to believe in something you don't yet see. And that's hard for people.

It's really hard. And I also feel like part of that process is embodying those beliefs, right? Like we can intellectually understand them, but until every single cell in your body is on board and aligned with that truth, you're not living it, you're not embodying it.

Right? And that's the hardest part.

I'm not there 100. But one of the things that has massively shifted for me is coming from devotion when it comes to Moving my body. I'm coming from love when it comes to moving my body and focusing on pleasure when it comes to moving my body, rather than it being about punishment and rather than it being about, like, I have to do this every day. And body groove has been a huge part of that, like, body groove for me and being like. And sometimes, forgive me, I don't pay any attention to anything you're saying, but you've DJed for me for a period of time that's going to be like 20 minutes. And sometimes I really, really want to pay attention to everything you're saying because I need instruction. And other days it's a soundtrack, right? And I know that there's going to be something there every day. And it, it takes away that need for structure, that kind of masculine, like, what do I do today? Thing. It means I can come entirely from my feminine show up and be guided into and back to my own body, who has the wisdom of how she wants to move today. And so I just really honor your work because it's so powerful and beautiful.

Thank you. Well, that is. That's the first step is that I. Because I'm also an intellectual and so I'm always in my mind and I came through my consciousness, through my intellect. Things had to make sense to me and things weren't making sense to me. And so I needed it to make sense to me. And all of us come to it through different means, physical, spiritual, mental, whatever. But the groove. And why the groove came about for me is because I realized how disconnected we are from ourselves. Our actual physical body temples that it is the house that houses your beautiful soul. Like, and that it, like, I started to understand that wherever I stand is holy ground. Like, I don't need to go somewhere special. I am like this. I am God personified. As Misty. Like, wow, that's pretty. Pretty fucking cool. Like, and that I needed to learn to be okay with this physical temple and this physical body and learn to enjoy it and dance and movement. Like you said, it is such a powerful, simple, direct way to quickly get there. So leave the intellect out of it, right? Because it just. It takes a while from. For this to get from here down into the heart, from the mind to the heart, and so dance. And that's why this group that I've created, that's now gone all over the world. And why I can understand why you love it so much too, and why most of the people that do it, love it so much is because it's so simple. I'm not doing Anything complex, anything that's going to make you get heady. I give you really simple things and then I keep inviting your own authenticity, your own. Like you said, how does your body, if you really, truly do it your own way and make it feel really, really good in your body, that's the perfect way. And it shouldn't look like anyone else, it shouldn't be like anyone else. And to really set yourself free, really, truly liberate yourself. Because if you can do that through movement, because most people are so afraid even by themselves to look stupid, that if you can move past that, it's like flexing this muscle of authenticity. It's flexing the muscle of being connected to your creativity and your well being. And then it's easier to kind of do those things in other areas of your life. But you'll never find this, what I say, the apex of deliciousness. Until you actually get into your body and learn to embody, be embodied once you're there, like I don't even have to tell you anything. You're already source, you're connected to your creativity. And the answers will come ask yourself after you've danced. What does my body need today? What do I need today? Do I need to rest today? What foods? If I loved myself today, if I was nice to myself today, if I was kind to myself today, what would that look like? What would I do? What would I feed myself? How would I talk? What kind of pleasure would I give myself? And to ask ourselves these questions, like you said, so that you can embody these principles and be a delicious adult and have a delicious adult life, you know.

Yeah, I love that. And I. So for me, as someone who I feel like I embody my authenticity in so many areas of my life, right, like professionally I can do that. And people, you know, people often comment, I live where I want to, I have a business, I've been self employed my whole life. Like there's a whole remit. Some areas of my life where I am, I'm kind of on the, on the leading edge of, of embodying your authenticity. And there are areas where I don't and or there are areas which are still really uncomfortable for me to go into. And one of them is actually around pleasure and is around communicating like what I need, what I want, what feels good. And I know I'm not the only woman in the world who feels this way, right? Because we get really censored around our voice and like you said, we look, we are scared of looking stupid on our own with no One else there.

And it's sad. It's truly sad. But it's an epidemic. And that we're not alone. This is almost everybody. And as women, one thing I had to take responsibility for was my pleasure. And that I realized I was super disappointed in all my lovers. Ultimately, I'd have great relationships, but ultimately I was disappointed. And then it finally woke up to the fact. And this even came later. This was only maybe five years ago when I was, like, 43 years old. I was like, why am I always unsatisfied? And then I was like, it's because I really. I give myself pleasure. Now I'm talking about sexually, because I had learned how to give myself pleasure through so many other things. But we as women, there is so much shit around our sexuality that. And that's like, literally one of the highest forms of pleasure. And to activate your sexual energy, to awaken every other part of your body. And I went through this crazy phase. It was awesome, like, fucking awesome, where when I woke up to it, I had just broken up with the love of my life. And it was devastating. And I went into this super dark, heavy place, and I was just like, I'm a good person. You know, this shouldn't be happening to me. And just all of these things. And then it dawned on me that I had loved this person so much that I stopped loving myself. And I put him as the priority and not me. So my pleasure was secondary to his happiness. And I became very aware of this. And then I just decided, do you know what? I'm not going to get into another relationship until I have learned to love myself as much as I loved that person. The way I talked to him, the way I treated him, the way I prioritized him, the way all of these things, I was like, I'm not even going to consider. In fact, I put a ring on my finger, I married myself. And I was like, until death do us part, I am going to learn to love you. And I didn't even know what that looked like yet, because I'd already knew how to give myself pleasure as far as the external things. I buy myself flowers. I would do all that. But I knew this was the final frontier. And it had been talking to me for a long time. This, like, little voice whispering to me, saying, misty, you have to go through your sexuality. You have to go through your sexuality. And I was so afraid of it because I was intimidated, because I'd never known how to ask for what I wanted and how to communicate my needs. I felt stupid. I felt embarrassed. I didn't want to hurt the person that I was with and make them think that they weren't pleasuring me. And just all of these, like, things started to spin. So during these three years, and I spent three years alone, I decided no more. And I literally entered into a mad love affair with myself. Now, it wasn't until the end of those three years that I finally came. I finally came to the threshold of it's time for sex, Misty. But I was told that I had to learn how to pleasure myself first before I'm going to be entering into another person. And it took me several weeks. Every time I would like, I'm going to masturbate or I'm going to do whatever, I just felt like an idiot. I just felt stupid. Because for me, masturbation was a little tiny pocket rocket. Boom on the clit. Five second orgasm, Bam, wham, bam, I'm done. And this thing said to me, no, you need to learn to make love to yourself. Like, how do you want to. How do you want someone to touch you and talk to you? And how do you want someone to make love to you? And so I finally did it. I finally just said, okay, fuck it, I'm doing it, I'm doing it. I don't care. Bought a bottle of wine, went and bought some toys. Like, just was like, I'm doing this. I feel like an idiot. I feel ridiculous. I locked my doors, I put myself alone. And then I finally started to do it. I finally started to just the way as if I was someone else touching me and what that would feel like and how I want it and what that. And I went there, and I really went there. In fact, I got lost into a vortex for about three months. I would masturbate three hours a day. I know this sounds crazy. No, it was.

Understand.

It was awesome. Like, I was giving myself such pleasure, it was blowing my mind. I'm like, I'm 43 years old. How have I not learned this? How is it that I am so disconnected from my sexuality? I have no freaking clue what even gives me pleasure. Like, I've expected the guy to figure out how to pleasure me. I don't even know what that even looks like. So I figured it out and I really got really clear and how I wanted it. And I allowed myself to have fantasies and I allowed myself to have, but it was all by myself. And then literally after three months, I finally knew something said to me, said, now it's time to try this with someone else. And I was like, okay, and literally within 48 hours, this man appeared. Just bam. And he became my sexual muse. And he was this man that allowed me the freedom to and the safety to fully express myself sexually. And I explained to him, I said, I'm going to be authentic from the get go. I just want to explore my sexuality. I have fantasies, I have things I want to explore. And he's like, cool. I'm like, whatever. And he just made me feel so safe and so wonderful with it. But I know I manifested that because that's what I was ready for. Yeah. But it's because I did the homework. It's because I actually really did. I embodied it. And that's what I invite all women to do. And we all have so much trauma around our sexuality, but our sexuality is such a portal to bliss and pleasure and happiness that it goes beyond dance and movement. This is like what I'm moving into now. A lot of what I'm teaching women now is the importance of this level of pleasure, communicate. And the way that you touch yourself and the way that you allow someone else to touch you and all these things. And it shifted. And the moment I did this, this is what's amazing is my business blew up and I wasn't doing anything other than having great sex with myself and with my partner. I literally, I was getting magic. It was like I was getting phone calls. Misty, you got to sit down. You're not going to believe this. Oh my God, Misty, you just got like Body Group. That's when Body group blew up. Three years ago. I got the phone call that said, misty, you know that video you recorded eight years ago? Well, you're gonna want to sit down for this. Like, so it just, it made me realize that that is one of the keys of tapping into your abundance, is giving yourself permission to really, really experience pleasure on all levels.

I love so much about that. I love so much about that. Yeah, I think it's, it's so important for people to spend that time, you know, really going into the temple.

Right.

Like, that first step is to own the temple and then like go explore every part of it, polish every floor, you know, pray and make love to every part of that temple because it's yours and because you are God personified, as are we all.

Yeah. And we're built for pleasure. We're literally, if you think about it, even like. So I love to use my logic. My logic says you are a sensorized meat suit. Literally, you're just a sensorized meat suit. We were built. Whatever created us, built us for pleasure, from taste, touch, sound, smell, all of it gives pleasure. Now whether we use it for that or not is really our choice, is our responsibility. And I just believe that if you allow that, that you just think, what do I want to look at that gives me pleasure? What do I want to hear that gives me pleasure? You know, and really take an inventory of your life and see where you're inputting things that don't give you pleasure. Are you watching things that make you depressed? Are you listening to things that make you fearful and scared? Are you putting things in your body and tasting things even though you know they're bad for you? Just for whatever are you, you know, how do you touch yourself? You know, do you put lotion on your body every day and feel your skin? And you know, it's like these kinds of things that it's, and it's our responsibility. And you can either enjoy the pleasure that they can offer you or not. Like it's choice.

Yeah.

So they're like, okay, this is a, kind of a big question. It's going to be my last question in this direction. So, so many of the women that.

I speak to are in this place.

Where they, again, intellectually understand everything that you're saying and find themselves in a place where they don't know what they want, where they feel disconnected from their desire, from what, you know, from their visioning, from their yes, from their no, from all of this stuff. And some of the women that I'm working with at the moment are beginning to realize that they outsource their desire, that they martyr their desire, that they go, oh, whatever you're having, well, you make the decision or like fit themselves around their partner or their child or the schedule or work or whatever it is. And I wonder whether for those women you have a way back to connecting with that desire, to knowing what it is that you want.

Well, yes. The first thing is that you have to recognize that it's not your fault. You have been conditioned to be a people pleaser. We, as women, we're literally we self sacrifice for everybody else and it's a common thing that we all do. And it's not your fault. So don't be like, oh, I don't know what I want. You do know what you want. You just haven't taken the time to actually sit and create an intimate relationship with your inner world. And that, number one, you won't do that until you feel like you deserve it and you're worthy of it. And this is the thing that I had to come to with myself is that I am worthy of my own attention. I'm worthy of my energy and my focus and my more than anyone else outside of me. That's where it starts. I'm worthy. Like, I deserve my own attention. And so see what you give your attention to. And so. And it'll go back to dance. Dance is one of the perfect things. So if you're clients and your audience out there don't have a movement or dance practice, and I say dance because it's more powerful than any other form of movement, more than yoga, more than anything. Because yoga is beautiful and it has its purpose. But yoga doesn't connect you to your creativity. And that's what's powerful about dance, is that it connects you, it aligns you, it atones you with your creativity. And if you take a few minutes every day, whether you do it with me with groove or whatever, or you just put a song on and you just see what your body wants to do, you just let your body let it happen. Don't judge it. Think about it. Even if you look like a fool, let yourself look like a fool. Laugh at yourself, who cares? But start to flex that muscle so that you're connecting yourself deeply to your creativity. That right there is like, for me, the communication of God. Like, that is the pure potential energy that all things are created from. And your deep inner. You know. And so it's these types of practices. When you give yourself fucking five minutes, you have five. Put on a song, breathe into your body. Move your body in a way that feels good. Make your hips feel good, make your body feel good, make your spine feel good, and then pause for a moment and sit in just one or two moments. If you can do longer. I love to sit for hours now. But if you only have a few minutes, and that's really all it takes is just to sit with no movement. After you've moved, settle into absolute stillness so all you notice is the movement of your breath. And in that space is where you ask the questions, what do I want? What does my heart want? What are the deepest desires of my heart? Don't judge what comes. Don't question what comes. What really do you want? And let the answers come. You're not. Like you said, they outsource. They're trying to find the answers outside of them. Tell me what I want. Tell me what I should do. Tell me this and just stop listening to anybody. That's what I did. I was just like, no one has my answers. Why am I asking you what I should be doing that is ridiculous. I need to ask myself. And that's the thing, is getting back is just taking a few moments and trusting trust that you were not created. Look at your miraculous meat suit. That is so miraculous. How do you even fucking breathe? How's that even possible? What's running the show here? What if you tapped into the wisdom and intelligence of the universe that's in every cell of your body and let it guide you? But that won't happen unless you go, I'm worthy of this and I'm going to give myself a little bit of time and attention. Even if it's a few minutes a day to just tune in, tune in and then listen. Because most people don't trust themselves, so they'll even get messages and they don't trust the message, but trust what comes to you. If it feels good. And you know, if it feels good, like you said, they don't understand the yes and the no. When it feels expansive, when it feels open, when it feels exciting, when it feels wow, that's a yes. If it feels contracting, if it feels heavy, if it feels, you know, that's a no. It's super simple. And you do know the difference between the two. It's just an excuse not to. But you do know, we all know, you just have to give yourself enough time and attention and know that you're worthy of that. Just a few minutes every day to tune in.

Yes, absolutely. And you know, the more we flex it, the more courageous we become. The more we trust ourselves, the easier it becomes to communicate that. Because the alternative is. Becomes not possible anymore.

Right, right, right. And so it got for me. I was just so uncomfortable. I could not continue the way that I was bulimic. Like I'd been bulimic for 16 years. I was living in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills, trying to be super cool and famous and just living a life that I didn't even know. I was just trying to do what everybody else was doing and absolutely miserable. But sometimes, like I say, pain is the great motivator. And so sometimes you have to get to the place where it is so uncomfortable. It is so uncomfortable that you have nowhere else to go but within yourself. And I hope that people don't let it get to that point, but some of us have to let it get to that point because we don't listen to the signals and we don't listen to the inner teachings. And it's not our fault. It's because we've not been taught. We are not taught to do this in school. We are not taught real life skills in our lives. We're not. We're not taught how to manage our emotions and how to communicate properly and how to respect other people and listen. We're not taught any of that shit. We're just taught mathematics and facts and this and now figure all the rest out and we all fail epically. We're not failing, but yeah, because we all. We're all where we're supposed to be. So it's all good. But it's. Where do you want to be? And you have to just ask yourself, where do I want to be? What kind of life do I want to live? And what am I willing to do to do that? It's your responsibility and this is why. It's like the foundation of groove is the five groove truths. The fifth truth is or the third truth is no one's going to do it for you. No one is going to do anything for you. No one's going to get for you. No one's going to get happy for you. No one's going to feel good for you. Nobody. No one's going to take care job. That's your responsibility. And I'm about tough love. It's like, I love you. You better figure that shit out. Like, no one's going to do it for you. You got people like you that are fabulous, that can coach you through it and help give you some assistance. Right? But you're not figuring it out for them. You're helping them and guiding them.

I'm just.

That's a good coach, right? You can't. You have to be. Because it's like, you got to be like, you know, I'm going to ask you the questions that are going to make. You have to answer your own question. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the more thing anyone can do is ask, even ask yourself questions. Ask yourself questions, why am I here? What is this all about? How does this even exist? Like really ask yourself some existential questions and sit in meditation and see what happens. See what happens in the brain Blows my mind.

Me too. Every day. If people want to come and find out more about you or join the groove, I'm gonna put all the links in. But where's the best place for them to come and hang out?

Well, there's a couple. It depends on what you want to do. If you want to dance with me, there's a great opportunity we have called Body Groove is the online dance program that I have. And it's Body Groove on demand. It's an app. And the first 30 days are free. So you can come and dance with me for 30 days for free. And it comes with a 30 day challenge. Every day. You get workouts and videos and exercises to do and a little video for me to help inspire you and keep you going. So you can join that for free. It's 30 day free challenge. If you want to connect with the movement, which is where we have live classes, where we actually have facilitators that are trained to hold live classes. We're not able to hold our live classes right now, but we are holding classes online and that's the World Groove Movement. Or you can go to getgrooved.com like whatever you're gonna do, getgrooved.com so go get yourself grooved. And me personally is just mistytriply.com if you'd like to connect with me personally.

Fantastic. I will put all of those in in the show notes, make it really easy for people to do so. And I am a big fan of the app. It's so easy. So wonderful.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Will you end on a little confession? It's just a sentence. It's. I'm an adult, but.

Oh, dear God, I'm an adult. But even though I talk about responsibility, I resist responsibility and really don't like. I don't like responsibility. I don't like structure. And I know structure is the key to success, but I am a wild free bird that just wants to do. I'm like a little kid. I want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it. I'm not doing that. No. I have these little fits like a little kid. And so even though I adult, I'm still just that little kid inside that's just fucking throwing fits constantly and resisting government. And I'm all, you know, it's just funny. I'm just a little kid throwing a little fit inside most of the time.

Yes.

Yeah.

I have a podcast that's all about adulting because I find it so hard sometimes.

Yes, yes. And when you're not given tools, it's even harder. So that's what I mean. It's like. And that's why I'm so grateful for people like you that help give people the tools to adult and adult in a very productive, powerful, and positive way, which we can. And we have to do it together.

Yeah, absolutely.

Support each other.

Yeah. We weren't supposed to do this alone.

No, we weren't. So don't try.

Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure having you on.

You're so welcome. Thank you for letting me talk with you today.

This has been adulting with ebony. I've been ebony. You've been great.

Thank you so much for all of your support.

Support.

Please keep listening, liking, rating and sharing so that more people can enjoy and engage with us. Go to www.ebonyalar.com. welcome more and I will see you next time.