Heal Shame + Embrace Your Power with Regena Thomashauer | EP 41

Speaker 1 As women, we've been taught to take care of our husbands, our families, our kids, our parents, but we don't get taught how to pay attention to our own pleasure.

Speaker 1 I have never met a woman who was not orgasmic ever. Pussies work, heads sometimes interfere with pussies.

Speaker 1 And so, part of the practice of becoming clitorate is just take your hand and kind of cuff it over your pussy. Don't touch.

Speaker 1 And just see, can you feel a little buzz? Can you feel the tiniest little bit of heat getting generated?

Speaker 1 That's your pussy saying, thanks for noticing me. Thanks for checking in.

Speaker 3 Welcome. I'm Alyssa Nobriga, your host of the Healing and Human Potential Podcast, a place for you to discover the multi-dimensionality of what it means to be human.

Speaker 3 Over the past past 20 years, I've trained thousands of coaches in my methodology, leveraging my experience as a former psychotherapist, and I'm here to share with you all the wisdom and insights that I've learned along the way.

Speaker 3 Each week, I'll share with you life-changing tools to support you in awakening and manifesting your dream life from the inside out.

Speaker 3 We'll be exploring the intersection between ancient wisdom and modern everyday life, really diving deep into the art of human potential through the lens of psychology, spirituality, and coaching.

Speaker 3 Let's let the magic unfold.

Speaker 3 Today we're talking about sex.

Speaker 3 I know this can be a bold statement for some, but I am a stand for people feeling empowered and safe in their bodies and discovering the magic that happens when we have a healthy relationship with all aspects of ourself, including our sexuality.

Speaker 3 So in today's episode, we're going to dive deep into healing sexual shame, finding your power, and how pleasure can support you in being more successful.

Speaker 3 We have the one and only Regina Thomas Shauer, aka Mama Gina, on the show today. She is a New York Times best-selling author.
She is a mother.

Speaker 3 She is at Powerhouse and has been featured on Conan O'Brien, The Today Show in 2020. She is not holding anything back.
So get ready for a fun episode. I'm so happy to have you here.
It's so good.

Speaker 3 We share a best friend, Layla Martin, who is such a queen. And I know we both love her.

Speaker 3 And over the years, you and I have just briefly connected at some of her birthday parties, but I really got to know you and fall in love with you when I read your book, Pussy.

Speaker 3 I felt like I got a window peek into your heart and what you stand for.

Speaker 3 And I'm just like, I was blown away. I'm like, I have to have this woman on my podcast to share your magic and your wisdom and teachings.

Speaker 3 And I know at one point at one of Layla's parties, you had said to my husband and I, Emilio, to read the book with our daughter. And

Speaker 3 the, I had the epiphany of like, wait, she's going to college next year. We were on spring break in Australia.
I'm like, this is the time to read it. So we read it together.

Speaker 3 And I want to thank you also for offering that because

Speaker 3 I had so much shame with my sexuality, you know, with a lot of like Catholic upbringing. My parents never spoke to me about it.

Speaker 3 And so you offering that gave me permission to share in that dialogue and that experience with her, at least her oldest for now. I want to share with all our kids.

Speaker 3 But I just first off want to say thank you for that and thank you for the work that you're doing.

Speaker 1 I'm so grateful to have you like report back around that because I think, you know, let's say ages ago, you know, pre

Speaker 1 the Judeo-Christian era,

Speaker 1 this kind of

Speaker 1 knowledge was passed mother to daughter to mother to daughter where we were the ones that opened the portal of pleasure, sensuality, and connection for our children.

Speaker 1 And we have stopped doing that because our culture teaches us to be so ashamed of who we are as women, of our bodies, of

Speaker 1 the heart and beating core of our feminine power. And so, for you to have taken your daughter on that ride, it's both very

Speaker 1 now, very modern, and very ancient all at the same time, which is an irresistible combination.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I'm so grateful because I think some of my shame would have had me not offer that because nobody talked to me about it when I was growing up.
I learned about it through HBO. And

Speaker 2 thank God. Thank God.

Speaker 3 I have more questions for you about that later.

Speaker 3 But, you know, in a society that really society and sometimes our religious upbringing has so much shame about it, how do you really empower people to take back their,

Speaker 3 yeah, to take back their power around sexuality and their bodies? What are some of, what are some of the wisdom and nuggets that you can offer us?

Speaker 1 Thank you. I think the first thing I want to say is that even though I am the author of Pussy, a Reclamation, I run the School of Women in the Arts, I've literally

Speaker 1 taught over 80,000 women about pleasure and about pussy and about the importance of owning all facets of the feminine and feeling joyful and proud in our bodies.

Speaker 1 When I was raising my daughter Maggie,

Speaker 1 I was filled with all the same kinds of hesitation. I was like, oh, well,

Speaker 1 how do I start these conversations?

Speaker 1 What words do I use? Because if you think about it,

Speaker 1 we are not taught the word for that which is essentially most feminine about ourselves. We are not taught the correct term for our vulva.
Yeah. You know, when I have

Speaker 1 classes, I always ask, I always say, like, what did your parts get called? And there are crazy names, Alyssa, like

Speaker 1 purse, front bottom,

Speaker 1 snatch, coochie, knish, walter winchel, princess little peach um like the names are crazy and uh and so what happens is

Speaker 1 we

Speaker 1 when we we know that this is not the name there's some kind of funny little term that we're given to the heartbeat of our feminine soul shame takes over because we know that word must not be spoken.

Speaker 1 Because not only can't I use the correct word, but every single one of my little girlfriends has a different word for hers. So we create division and we create shame really

Speaker 1 from the time we can talk. Because

Speaker 1 we don't say this is

Speaker 1 a wee wee or a ha-ha. We're like, that's your hand, girl.
This is your hand. And this is your chin and head, shoulders, knees, and toes.

Speaker 1 We create so much shame in that vacuum and then advance the shame a few decades, and you have a woman who hates her body,

Speaker 1 who

Speaker 1 feels like something is innately wrong with her, who feels self-doubt, who has self-deprecation, maybe even depression, or a sense of being disenfranchised from other girls and women.

Speaker 1 So there's big consequences when we don't use the term vulva, which is the correct terminology.

Speaker 3 Vagina.

Speaker 1 Yeah, problem with vagina is no one can see it except your gynecologist with his speculum. And

Speaker 1 so it's the interior portion. And so we don't want to, you know, that would be like teaching our little boys that their penis was

Speaker 1 their scrotum or something. It's just wrong, just plain wrong.
We wouldn't do that. You know, we teach penises, a penis, as a penis, it's different.

Speaker 1 So I thought, well, the least I could do is I could teach my daughter from the time she can talk and locate her body, at least I could say, this is your vulva, Maggie, and this is your clitoris.

Speaker 1 And your clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings.

Speaker 1 well 8 to 10 000 there's more research now maybe 10 000 nerve endings dedicated to pleasure and touch it mag you'll see it it feels like a little buzzy and nice and it's for feeling pleasure so i got the basics in there and i think as parents if that's all you do you are doing a lot if you just teach your little girl the correct terminology and the same thing with your little boys so that they're all on the same playing field yeah yeah i mean i i also want my son to read this i think my husband couldn't have conversations with him about it but i but just like the more I do my work and I feel sexually empowered and I don't feel as much shame, the more I just naturally want to share that with others, including my kids, of course, where it's like passing it down.

Speaker 3 So some of the work that I'm hearing you say about helping people feel sexually empowered is talking about it and

Speaker 3 you embodying and doing the work, I would say, so that you feel so much more comfortable in yourself that you want to have conversation with others. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Women often ask me, you know, moms and grandmoms that come to my course, they're like, how do I teach my children or my grandchildren to love themselves?

Speaker 1 And the answer is the more you love yourself.

Speaker 1 the more you will just inform by being. You don't have to actually teach someone.
You just are.

Speaker 1 And we, because we learn so much from one another's bodies and the experience, you know, if you grow up in a house where your mother feels a lot of shame about herself, a lot of shame about her sexuality, she feels shut down,

Speaker 1 then you're going to learn those experiences and she will not have to teach you anything.

Speaker 2 That's right. You'll just pick them up.

Speaker 3 It is the teaching through watching, through the example of it.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I think I really like meeting edges. And I think anything that feels shameful that we don't talk about breeds more of it.

Speaker 3 And so, you know, money, sexuality, I like going into those areas to bring greater consciousness, more light, more liberation and freedom into it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Agreed. Agreed.
And I think sex and money are like two areas that we don't get a lot of education and we have to find our own way to freedom there.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I think it's important to chart into those kind of dark areas of what people don't speak about so that we can find our own truth and feel a healthy relationship with all aspects of our life. Yeah.

Speaker 1 yes

Speaker 3 and i know that also feeling safe in our bodies are is really important is there a practice that you have discovered over the years of working with people that supports them in feeling safer in their bodies

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 well there's so many i think you have to i think you have to hit the issue of safety on a lot of different

Speaker 3 levels. Let's do it.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you,

Speaker 1 uh,

Speaker 1 you can, you know, because some people learn intellectually, some people learn experientially. And you want to make sure that you're allowing each way that people consume and, you know,

Speaker 1 digest information to be available.

Speaker 1 So all of my very first book, which is called Mama Gina's School of Womanly Arts, it was like the basic primer for how does a woman learn the practice of grounding inside of her body.

Speaker 1 So for example, if I was teaching a class and you were in it,

Speaker 1 I would say

Speaker 1 we would always start with something called bragging, which is nothing more and nothing less than really truing up to what is, because we as women weren't taught to celebrate ourselves, especially in the presence of other people.

Speaker 1 In fact, we were taught dial down the good news, crank up the bad news, because it's easier to share. People can relate and we relate a lot on mutual victimizations.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 bragging is intended to reverse that by giving a simple practice of self-celebration. And you can do this with your kids.

Speaker 1 also.

Speaker 1 I do it with my daughter. I do it with my entire family, actually.

Speaker 1 Oh my god, I was talking to my daughter today.

Speaker 1 I do three things: I call it a holy trinity, a brag, a gratitude, and a desire.

Speaker 1 And so we get together for the Shabbat dinners once a month.

Speaker 1 And everybody is used to me taking over and saying, Okay, give me a brag, give me a gratitude, give me a desire, because it's an instant way to connect

Speaker 1 with people. So

Speaker 1 I,

Speaker 1 I, you know, my daughter was just traveling with her boyfriend, who she's been with for a couple years, and they were at the family home in Switzerland. My daughter lives in London.
And so they,

Speaker 1 her boyfriend said to everyone in his family, why don't we all go around and do a brag? and do a gratitude.

Speaker 1 And I was just so excited because it wasn't even my kid.

Speaker 1 My kid, the last thing in the world she would do is initiate that. But her boyfriend was really, really cute.
So let's brag together.

Speaker 1 And I invite anyone who's listening to this podcast to practice this practice today, tonight.

Speaker 1 Instead of complaining with your girlfriends or your guy friends, brag with them and see what happens to your body when you brag.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 ready? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Ready to give me a brag?

Speaker 3 Oh, I'm starting it? Are you starting it?

Speaker 3 Are we going back and forth? How does this work?

Speaker 1 Oh, let's go back and forth. I kind of want you to start it because I just want to, I'm kind of, yeah, why not?

Speaker 3 You're bold.

Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

Speaker 3 So I've never done this before. So we're, so I'm just owning.
Do you just pick anything?

Speaker 1 One brag. Okay.
Anything in your life to brag about?

Speaker 3 I am, I am so proud of the relationship that I've cultivated with my husband over 15 years.

Speaker 3 The depth of love that we share together and the safety I have in my marriage is something that I'm proud of and it's a great reward.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 First of all, having witnessed you both and seen this love,

Speaker 1 it is inspiring. It is truly, truly inspiring.

Speaker 1 And we do not get a lot of training or a lot of practice in how to create a relationship that starts good and gets better and better and better over a lifetime.

Speaker 1 So seeing the tracks that you both have laid is thrilling.

Speaker 1 And by the way, that was an upride to your brag, which is a fun thing to do. It's like you grab the person's brag and you're like, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. It feels like you're also mirroring me and helping me feel seen.
So it lets me digest and receive what I'm also sharing and elevates it.

Speaker 1 That's beautiful. Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. I'll brag.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I brag that I

Speaker 1 just back from Turkey. And so I've been waking up at four o'clock in the morning.
And instead of lying in bed and driving myself crazy,

Speaker 1 I got up and I journaled for a couple hours, made a beautiful cup of coffee. And then my ritual is at 7 a.m.

Speaker 1 I meet a little group of, we're called polar plungers, and we plunge into the ocean because I'm at my beach house. We plunge into the ocean every morning at 7, 365 days a year, no matter the weather.

Speaker 1 So I

Speaker 1 journaled, biked, plunged, and I was home by 7.20.

Speaker 3 Oh my goodness. That is incredible.

Speaker 3 I love the way that you live your pleasure and live your most highest delight, that you prioritize that and that you keep having, even just talking to you right now, I feel your aliveness and your vibrancy.

Speaker 3 It's contagious. And I hear how much you're prioritizing your self-care and your the life that you want to be living.
It's super inspiring.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you.
That feels so good.

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Speaker 1 Now, you

Speaker 1 I, it may not seem that brags give you safety in your body, but when you expand your pleasure, you are turning on all of your neurotransmitters, including beta endorphin, prolactin, serotonin, and you're kind of bathing your body in all of this beautiful, healthy hormones.

Speaker 1 That makes you feel safe.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 Yes. It's cortisol.

Speaker 3 I feel more present. I feel more in my heart just having done that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's cortisol. It's a stress hormone that makes us feel terrified and unsafe.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so little tiny practices that can bring us back into that beautiful chemistry that's ours

Speaker 1 are really effective. Okay.
Another thing that I'll do to generate safety is a dance break. Now,

Speaker 1 okay, great. Here we go.

Speaker 1 We're gonna dance.

Speaker 2 Just dance, dance, dance, cup. All those things I shouldn't do, but you dance, dance, cup.

Speaker 2 Sunshine in my pocket. So just dance, dance, dance,

Speaker 2 so just dance, dance, dance.

Speaker 3 I love it. I love it.
Thank you for that.

Speaker 1 It's been a while since I heard that song. That song is so good.
It just makes you get up and dance.

Speaker 1 But it could be any song that has a beat that makes you want to dance. And literally the pleasure rushing through your body.
Once again, it makes you feel safe.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 These are, these are, I love,

Speaker 3 I'm an experiential kinesthetic learner.

Speaker 3 So what what I love that you're inviting is to come into aliveness, into spontaneity, into the moment, and to have some of these practices feel so easy and doable to cultivate more of that safety and that connection is beautiful.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And what about, what about people that feel even self-pleasure can feel shameful for people?

Speaker 3 Is there like a simple step that they can take in the direction of, even if it's just giving themselves permission by listening to a podcast where they're like, like, Oh, maybe that's not bad.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I remember I was, so I was maybe 12 years old, babysitting a little girl, and she was touching herself. And I walked in and I was like, Oh, don't do that.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, Alyssa, Alyssa, I know this was my conditioning from not hearing about like what to do.

Speaker 3 And I later was like, Wow, that's very telling of what I, what I thought was okay and not okay.

Speaker 3 Clearly, I mean, I

Speaker 3 hope that that

Speaker 3 forgive me.

Speaker 3 And that's very telling of my 12-year-old self had so much shame around that's not okay.

Speaker 3 You don't, you know, I never, and then later in college, I learned to take a mirror and look at my Vulva and write an essay about it.

Speaker 2 That's huge. That's huge.

Speaker 1 What kind of class was that?

Speaker 2 It was a human sexuality.

Speaker 3 It was a human sexuality and something class.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It was a great class. I still have the book, The Guide to Getting It On.
I gave it to my daughter. It's a great manual, like a how-to.

Speaker 3 But that was such a beautiful practice to be, to start connecting with my body and having less of that shame.

Speaker 3 And so even the self-pleasure, you know, there's so many narratives that we can, if we don't, if we don't create the narrative, life and society will do it for us.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 something that I'll do, for example, is I'll teach the importance of self-pleasure. First of all, just like,

Speaker 1 I bought those flowers because it's peony season in New York and I love peonies. So that is an action of self-care, of self-pleasure.
It's a bunch of flowers.

Speaker 1 It's not sexual, but it is choosing to take your attention. and place it on yourself

Speaker 1 through the portal of what would make you happy. So that's a really good basic step one.

Speaker 1 Because as women, we've been taught to take care of our husbands, our families, our kids, our parents, our bosses, our communities. But we don't get taught how to pay attention to our own pleasure.

Speaker 1 So just a step like that is a big step. Now, if you want to go a little bit further, you might even just

Speaker 1 gently

Speaker 1 and slowly

Speaker 1 kind of

Speaker 1 run your hand or your fingers across your hairline

Speaker 1 is very calming

Speaker 1 and then when you take your hand away if you go slowly enough you can still feel a little buzz

Speaker 1 just a little shadow of a buzz

Speaker 1 that is turning on your neurotransmitters creating a pleasure pleasure bath

Speaker 1 And then from there,

Speaker 1 what I'll do as a first practice for women that are very shy is when they get dressed in the morning, I ask them to look at their pussies, you know, as they're dressing, and just to say, hello, gorgeous.

Speaker 3 I did that. I saw, I read that in your book.
I did that. I had got a little dopamine hit.
It was very sweet.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
It's what happens.

Speaker 3 It's what happens. And even you having the flowers, I'll say, I feel delighted just looking at them in your background.
I'm like,

Speaker 3 these subtle things also, or sometimes I can be in efficiency mode and put on lotion, or I can take time to just really pleasure my body and feel the sensation of the lotion on my body.

Speaker 1 That's another great one.

Speaker 1 And all you have to do to really take the pleasure is slow down. a tiny little bit because we all know how to slap it on.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So also in your book, which was brilliant, you talk about cliteracy. Talk to us about cliteracy.
I love this term.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 When you're cliterate,

Speaker 1 you are somebody that's paying attention to what your pussy wants or what

Speaker 1 she likes.

Speaker 1 And maybe even just as importantly, what she doesn't like.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 for example,

Speaker 1 she doesn't like to be rushed.

Speaker 1 She doesn't like to be yelled at.

Speaker 1 She doesn't like to be criticized. And by the way, all the rules of cliteracy also apply to women.

Speaker 1 It's like you might as well copy, paste, and print, and you have the instruction manual for how to treat a woman or how not to treat a woman. So,

Speaker 1 when you are somebody who is becoming clitorate, you're beginning to learn

Speaker 1 how you,

Speaker 1 through

Speaker 1 what experiences give you pleasure. And that requires a little research.

Speaker 1 It requires a little putting the key in your own ignition, turning that baby on, taking her down the highway, because then you can invite passengers.

Speaker 1 You know, if we don't, if we don't learn about our bodies and we don't learn what our pussies want or like

Speaker 1 or what turns us on, it's impossible for us to have a lover that can grant our wishes or our desires. We really need to do the, you know, the basic tuning in and learning.
And it doesn't take long.

Speaker 1 Pussies are so grateful. Oh my, they are so grateful when we tune in.
They are thrilled and they unfold and they flower.

Speaker 1 And I and I want to say I've never ever, you know, in teaching the tens of thousands of women that I've had the privilege of working with, I have never met a woman who was not orgasmic.

Speaker 1 Ever, never, never, never.

Speaker 2 Pussies work.

Speaker 1 Pussies work. Heads sometimes interfere with pussies,

Speaker 1 but pussies work. And so part of the practice of becoming clitorate is

Speaker 1 getting out of your head long enough to feel your pussy. And once again, I'm going to be super basic.

Speaker 1 But if everyone is listening to this podcast right now, just take your hand and kind of cup it over your pussy. Don't touch, just cup it over your pussy and just see: can you feel a little buzz?

Speaker 1 Can you feel the tiniest little bit of heat getting generated?

Speaker 1 That's your pussy saying, Thanks for noticing me, thanks for checking in.

Speaker 2 Hello back,

Speaker 1 you know, because

Speaker 1 pussies are the only function of your clitoris is pleasure.

Speaker 1 Clitorises don't do anything else for us except give us pleasure. That is the whole reason they exist.

Speaker 3 And that's that's something.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's that's it's legendary.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And that we are wired for that pleasure and that we were given that pleasure, that we get to.

Speaker 3 And I, I, I, I, why do you think we're so cut off from that pleasure?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 1 I guess you could call it the patriarchal world culture, maybe.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 controlling the feminine

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 1 something that this culture has.

Speaker 1 has as a priority. And one of the ways you can shut a woman down is if you shut down her relationship with her pussy or her pleasure, because if she's disconnected, she's disempowered.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's what the hashtag Me Too movement is all about.

Speaker 1 Women that were, let's say, hurt or injured, or there was some kind of abuse patterning in their family or in their experience, their dating experience, and then they get shut down because they've been hurt through abuse.

Speaker 1 They can't discern their yes or their no.

Speaker 1 They can't find their inner compass.

Speaker 1 So women have a tendency to say yes when they mean no.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or simply not say anything, which can be interpreted as a yes, even if it's a no.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 reclamation.

Speaker 1 of your pussy, of your pleasure is key in

Speaker 1 accessing your confidence, your voice, your sense of power, your sense of ownership of who you are, your sense of trusting your intuition in this world and in this life.

Speaker 1 So it's very key. I think that it's the responsibility, especially of those of us who choose to be parents, is like,

Speaker 1 to own this part of ourselves so that we don't pass ignorance or

Speaker 1 shame onto the next generations, the girls of today who will be the women of tomorrow.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and I know you say that women are the most untapped natural resource. And I hear that

Speaker 3 this is part of the way that we do that to help cultivate taking back our power and pleasure and awakening that within us and healing any of the shame that we've inherited through the patriarchy, through our family conditioning, through society, all of the different facets of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Truly.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 so

Speaker 1 it's a worthy journey because, like, when a mom takes that journey and she liberates herself,

Speaker 2 she

Speaker 1 immediately, instantly charts a new course for her children.

Speaker 3 I feel that. I feel that.

Speaker 3 And it's like we, again, it's like we no longer then just live un we live,

Speaker 3 we're no longer conditioned from the past. We take our power back and then we can create more change.

Speaker 3 Even just being on this conversation with you, Regina, there's so much aliveness and vibrancy that you are tapped in and turned on by life. It's contagious.
It's awakening something within me. So even

Speaker 3 for people that don't, they're not even conscious of doing this work or the work that you're doing, it is a gift to feel the vibration in which you are living

Speaker 3 And I also know that you're a stand for yes for the full human experience and swamping and saying yes to the shadow and the light, which is really important.

Speaker 3 So it's not to say that we bypass or anything because I know you were very much informed with sexual trauma and whatnot, but there is a

Speaker 3 there is a natural aliveness that I feel from you by having done your work and continuing to come back to pleasure.

Speaker 1 Okay, Alyssa, that's so, thank you for saying that. But I swear, if you met me before I did this work, you wouldn't even notice me.
I was like waiting tables in New York City.

Speaker 1 I was like that invisible person that you wouldn't even remember, brought you your cocktail or your coffee. Or,

Speaker 1 you know, I just was so shut down and I didn't know another way.

Speaker 1 It was really,

Speaker 1 and I'd been to therapy, I'd been to all all kinds of different classes trying to figure out like,

Speaker 1 why don't I feel confident? Why do I feel so powerless? Why am I so ashamed?

Speaker 1 I didn't understand that when you grow up with abuse patterning, it can have

Speaker 1 consequences inside of your life. I just thought I was a mess, a messy mess, not even a hot mess.
I was just like a mess.

Speaker 1 And so I,

Speaker 1 it was really my journey to pleasure that

Speaker 1 allowed me, pleasure, it's funny, people think it's about sex, but it's actually healing. Pleasure heals with a velocity greater than almost any other

Speaker 1 discipline that I've experienced.

Speaker 1 You know, all of anything you do is great. If you do therapy, it's amazing.
Transformational courses are amazing.

Speaker 1 But I have found the journey of owning your sensuality, owning your sexuality, owning your pussy, it is

Speaker 1 flips a light switch in such a powerful way.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I think reading your book and hearing that this was not your path and you had skepticism and you had such a transformation because I didn't know you before.

Speaker 3 really helped me buy in to because it's so relatable i think that your story is so relatable where you started from and and where you are now is more of like the invitation of what's possible by saying yes to yourself, by doing this healing work.

Speaker 3 I know you talk openly about your sexual trauma and how you heal that. And so for anybody that, you know, what would you say to somebody that may be listening that's skeptical?

Speaker 3 You know, can you share a little bit about where you were and

Speaker 3 what really has been the result of doing this work?

Speaker 1 Yeah, first of all, keep your skepticism. It's valuable.
You don't want to give that up. Yeah.
It's more like when you begin any journey, you're doing research.

Speaker 1 So if you were to pick up one of my books, you would be doing what I would call pleasure research, where you're just putting on your little researcher hat and you're saying, okay, let me just see.

Speaker 1 Does it feel good to brag? We're not good to brag. Does it feel good to do a dance break? Not good to do a dance break.

Speaker 1 Does it feel good to begin a path of owning my pussy, learning about clitoracy, finding my way, or not? You know,

Speaker 1 it's good to be skeptical and

Speaker 1 keep that sense of judgment until you find

Speaker 1 some openings that are relevant for you. But

Speaker 1 I grew up in a family where there was abuse patterning that

Speaker 1 had a huge impact, really from the time I was a baby, pre-verbal.

Speaker 1 And so I didn't know that to me, that was home. That was just what took place.
I didn't know that I was actually,

Speaker 1 that I could be something different than shy or introverted or scared. I was, I just thought I was a very shut down.
creature.

Speaker 1 And so it was really quite a surprise when I began to learn, I, oh, there's more to me than

Speaker 1 my limitations. I'm bigger than that.
And

Speaker 1 I, and for me, it was, I studied at a school called Lafayette Morehouse, which is in

Speaker 1 outside in the Bay Area in California. And that was my basic training.

Speaker 1 And from there, I,

Speaker 1 you know, after I was there for about four or five years and studied with them and lived with them, it's kind of a high-functioning sex commune,

Speaker 3 which was but in the beginning you were you were resistant to it. And that if I terrified.
And you were also like curious about why you were so resistant and terrified.

Speaker 3 But that curiosity led you to open, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. So

Speaker 1 I go to my very first class. First of all, I didn't want to go.
But then I finally got there and I made it through the first session. There was the lunch break.

Speaker 1 And I was like, these people are so weird. And this is so strange.
And I got into a taxi and I went home and like closed the door. And I was like, I am done with that.

Speaker 1 And then a few minutes later, I was like, What are you doing?

Speaker 1 You just go back for the afternoon and see.

Speaker 1 You know, what are you gonna do? Just like wander around, you know.

Speaker 1 So, it took me a lot to overcome my own fears and my own shyness. And

Speaker 1 I think that the topic of sensuality can be quite terrifying,

Speaker 1 especially if you've never walked the path or if you've bought into

Speaker 1 those

Speaker 1 concepts. Like you were describing, you had a Catholic upbringing, and I'm sure you would have gotten punished if anyone even suspected that you were self-pleasuring.

Speaker 3 I mean, I punished the little girl that

Speaker 3 I was babysitting. Clearly, like that was, that was my conditioning at 12.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So that's pretty powerful.
And that's been going on for generations and generations of,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 that is a lot of repression that we're climbing out of. And so I think it's a very brave pathway.

Speaker 3 It is a brave

Speaker 1 and, you know, it's a life-changing adventure.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I love that your curiosity led you, and also the willingness to test it.
That you don't have to trust it, but just be willing to experiment and find out and see.

Speaker 3 And some of what I know around the topic of sexual healing, and I'm not, this is not my expertise,

Speaker 3 but some of what I know is that, at least with, you know, through the lens of therapy and psychotherapy, bringing some of the contraction and

Speaker 3 any closing pattern, bringing aliveness and turn-on to it is from what I hear, what I see. Tell me if I'm on the right track.

Speaker 3 But from an energetic point, when you're contracted and you bring aliveness and that turn-on, it feels empowering.

Speaker 3 And so, and so that's kind of how I'm holding sexual healing work, like when you're working with somebody.

Speaker 3 Is that somewhat a framework of how either tantric or sexual healing works, where you're taking something where you feel disempowered and you're bringing your power back to it, your turn on your aliveness, so that you can find resolution.

Speaker 3 Is that part of it?

Speaker 1 I think that's beautifully described. What I noticed when I, first of all, I started teaching in my living room

Speaker 1 when I would

Speaker 1 open the doors of pleasure for women. If women

Speaker 1 had

Speaker 1 trauma in their body, or they had sexual trauma, or emotional trauma, verbal abuse, some kind of

Speaker 1 pattern in that body. That once you kind of she connected with her pleasure, she connected with her pussy, she started to reframe.

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 1 that darkness would start woo! You swirling back in almost to say, like, okay, you can handle us now.

Speaker 1 You can handle all of this

Speaker 1 emotional overload that maybe maybe you couldn't have handled prior to your connection with your pussy and with your feminine and with your body.

Speaker 1 And so I developed a practice called swamping so that women could begin to

Speaker 1 make friends, make friends with the darkness.

Speaker 1 Because, you know, if you think about it, when

Speaker 1 did you ever hear this saying,

Speaker 1 little girls are supposed to be sugar,

Speaker 1 spice, and everything nice.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 Just makes my skin crawl.

Speaker 1 So when we're little and we hear that, we're like, oh, I'm not supposed to be filled with rage, filled with grief, filled with heartbreak, filled with jealousy. So what should I do when I feel that?

Speaker 1 I know, I'll shut it down.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'll put a lid on it.

Speaker 1 And so that it stays inside. And you actually kind of walk around, like with, it's almost like having impacted emotions inside your body.
So

Speaker 1 what to do? So I

Speaker 1 began a practice with women

Speaker 1 as soon as they were connecting to their sensuality and their pussies and finding this flood of elation.

Speaker 1 They knew there was going to be a contraction. So we created a practice called swamping where women got to to literally celebrate their darkness

Speaker 1 through dance, through movement, and through like three minutes of a song, for example.

Speaker 1 You can express so much rage or outrage or grief. And then you end it by coming back to your body and turning your body on, which is really just a way of coming home.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it's kind of a nice way of

Speaker 1 building

Speaker 1 the full range of one's emotional brilliance into our lives

Speaker 1 by knowing that it's, you can turn on to your rage, you can turn on to your jealousy, you can turn on to your grief. You don't have to turn it off.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I think that's so important because if we don't express the raw, authentic shadow work, we bypass and it gets stuck and stored in the body.

Speaker 3 And so having permission to go there, but also in community, right? Because swamping sometimes, it's often in community that you have people do. I guess you could probably do it both ways.

Speaker 3 But just the permission to allow the grief, rage, whatever's there, not indulge in it and not avoid it, but just allow it to come up and out.

Speaker 3 And then to finish with pleasure and acceptance and vibrancy and aliveness, even just on an energetic point of view, that makes so much sense to me to just fully allow our full human spectrum just to be allowed and move through.

Speaker 3 Life knows what to do with it when you allow it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's so true. How does that work with your kids? Like, how are you when they have freak outs or temper tantrums? You know, how do you

Speaker 2 feel that?

Speaker 3 They're quite emotionally intelligent. They have, they have permission to go to their feelings.
They also,

Speaker 3 one one practice we taught them was freeform writing when they're angry, just to journal out the rage.

Speaker 3 They've also break in glass, obviously, with permission in a close,

Speaker 3 safe space to just break glass, like to allow.

Speaker 2 Oh my God, you have them.

Speaker 2 You have them throwing glass at the wall?

Speaker 3 No, they've thrown plates on the ground.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I love this.

Speaker 3 Just the full permission. I know even when I was a kid, I would box.
I thought, you know, one of those teardrop punching bags, I would just box.

Speaker 3 And that was helpful to get some of my rage and pent out energy up. And I know there's a lot of, for adults for now, there's a lot of

Speaker 3 support to do this work. Back in the day, there was less, but, and I think some of the, some of the school systems are waking up to emotional intelligence.
So I used to be a somatic couples therapist.

Speaker 3 And in my kids' school, they have something called the peace path, where they, it's essentially a Mago psychotherapy where you say, what I did to cause challenges in this dynamic was and you take responsibility and you walk up this ladder but it's couples therapy for kids in a very physical way so I'm excited about where the future generations are going and what's possible

Speaker 3 but yeah this was you know some of us have to just go back to do some of that healing work for ourselves now you know

Speaker 3 yeah yeah I've I've been curious though I want to ask you your experience because I've thought about this I'm curious if you have found there to be a correlation with maybe your earlier sexual imprinted experiences and what turns you on as an adult.

Speaker 3 So I'll give two examples. One would be like if a little boy saw his mom showering and he got turned on and he's now like a peeping tom, like he, that turns him on.
Or if,

Speaker 3 you know, for like for me, I learned about sexuality through HBO. And so one of the first things I ever saw was bondage.
Now, I love that.

Speaker 3 I don't know if that's because of the original imprinting, if that's just a correlation, or

Speaker 3 if that's more random. I'm curious if you've ever considered some of like the original imprints of what turns people on now.

Speaker 1 Ooh, that is so interesting.

Speaker 1 I haven't studied that, Alyssa, but I love your honesty and bringing that forward. I'm similar to you.
I love that

Speaker 1 bondage. It's so much fun.

Speaker 1 And I've always wondered, wow, I wonder if that's because I had that early abuse situation in my family. I'm like, huh, did it come from there? Quite likely.

Speaker 1 But I think that those things, you want to include them. They're a part of a healthy, well-rounded sex life.
Whatever the origin is, there's a lot of pleasure to be had.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And that would also make sense if somebody didn't feel empowered, that then they would want to intentionally choose it so they could also have the healing-missed experience of feeling empowered in that moment.

Speaker 3 So, from a psychological point of view, that would also make sense. So, I've always just been curious about that.

Speaker 3 But, I'm also curious about how you see the role of pleasure correlates with being more successful and reshaping our narrative around success because of having more pleasure.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's an interesting question

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 our culture has a tendency to

Speaker 1 not prioritize pleasure.

Speaker 1 We tend to value the concept of love

Speaker 1 as the highest value.

Speaker 1 And love is a huge, it's a beautiful value. And very often people use the word love as an excuse to do very painful things.
You know, I have to spank you now or punish you now

Speaker 1 because I love you and you were naughty or you were bad. So,

Speaker 1 we, or you don't agree with my

Speaker 1 religious beliefs. And so, I love my religion.
So, I have to shut you down or

Speaker 1 worse.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 pleasure, on the other hand is almost a higher level of integrity

Speaker 1 because if you're truly practicing pleasure you would never do anything to another person that would in any way harm them why because it would diminish your pleasure

Speaker 1 even something super simple if i was having a loud dance party at my apartment or my house and uh i was blasting blasting the music, and I had neighbors with babies who were, you know, I would, what I'd have to do is go over there and say, hey,

Speaker 1 I'm going to have a party.

Speaker 1 I want to know how late can I play the music so it doesn't disturb you? Or let's organize the volume so it's not disturbing the kids.

Speaker 1 Or maybe the kids are bulletproof and they don't, you know, they'll go to sleep anyway. Let me know.
Let's work it out. And then I get to have my party.
and then

Speaker 1 I get to make sure that my neighbors are handled in a comfortable way that's

Speaker 1 pleasure yeah because pleasure really takes care of everyone

Speaker 3 yeah and it hurts me when I hurt someone right so where there's exactly

Speaker 3 yeah yeah and so what I yeah exactly yeah and I feel like also pleasure supports I know in our society we have this like bigger better faster more do efficiency industrial revolution like conditioning around cutting off pleasure.

Speaker 3 And it's not quote unquote efficient to, you know, I think of the natural seasons of our life also where having the, having the, the...

Speaker 3 fruits of our labor, really enjoying the spring and the blossoming of all of this feels important. There's something in Hakomi, which I studied as somatic psychotherapy practice, that they call it

Speaker 3 the, it's kind of like a hungry ghost where you have a deficiency when you don't receive when you don't have the brag and have the celebration you you don't actually feel fill your cup you feel malnourished and you keep looking for more because you're not actually letting in what's already here and so it's an opportunity for more pleasure and as we feel filled we we what we create in the world comes from that joy and that aliveness the energy is infused in it but it also is nourishing for us.

Speaker 3 And I think part of my edge recently has been to let myself receive more instead of just giving. And

Speaker 2 so I'm on

Speaker 2 the edge.

Speaker 3 It's a, I don't logically, I'm there. I get it.
And I'm, and it's almost like I go unconscious into not seeing the opportunities to let myself tune into what do I want? What do I need in this moment?

Speaker 3 It's just, I've been habituated differently. So I'm intentionally rewiring that and working on that in my life right now, which is feels really important.

Speaker 3 And as I fill my cup, I want to give back to my team and students. Um, but it comes from a different place, it comes from the overflow, which I think is important.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's so important. Uh, because I think,

Speaker 1 I don't know, I was raised by a woman who was always

Speaker 1 putting others' pleasure in front of hers.

Speaker 1 She was always sacrificing

Speaker 1 herself to take care of the family, her husband,

Speaker 1 her community. You know, she was last.
And then

Speaker 1 she would just get depleted. So I have that patterning inside myself.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 it's my edge also is to really allow.

Speaker 1 to really allow myself to receive from others. I'm so glad that you mentioned that.
It's really important. Anyone who's listening, see if you can receive from someone today,

Speaker 1 even in some tiny, tiny way, asking for someone to help you with your bag from the grocery store, asking, oh my goodness, I had one of my clients last week, she had her kids draw her a bath.

Speaker 1 She has kids, a five-year-old and an eight-year-old. And they drew her a bath and it was such a celebration

Speaker 1 for her because she didn't,

Speaker 1 she never thought about that. But imagine how attentive those little boys are going to be to their girlfriends one day when they have them.

Speaker 1 You know, and so it's a way of education for a woman to receive pleasure, she's teaching the world how to cherish her, how to treasure her.

Speaker 3 It's beautiful. And I know that flamingos are the only animal that

Speaker 3 actually lose their pink by giving birth. You can actually physically see the depletion of their body when they are giving, when they've had a baby.

Speaker 3 And so it shows us how important it is to take care of ourselves, to nourish ourselves so that we're not consistently depleted. And

Speaker 3 I think we're rewiring that as a society now. And that pleasure is, yes, of service to us, but also of service to others around us.

Speaker 3 Just by you being bright and being in your joy, it feeds me and reminds me of the sparkle and magic of life.

Speaker 3 And/or these boy, these little boys, like you're saying, attuning and treasuring their mom in the way that they are.

Speaker 3 I'm curious, how can men support women in really reclaiming their sexual and feminine power?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I think the number one value for women, the thing that is the most important to us, more than anything,

Speaker 1 is attention.

Speaker 1 It's more important than food. It's more important than shelter.
It's the most important thing.

Speaker 1 And under

Speaker 1 that category of attention could be something as simple as,

Speaker 1 you look beautiful today.

Speaker 1 Can I bring you a coffee? Can I bring you a glass of water?

Speaker 1 How do you like to be touched?

Speaker 1 It's

Speaker 1 so I think, let's say, I always tell dads who want to make sure that they're being effective with their daughters. I'm like, if you make her feel seen,

Speaker 1 heard,

Speaker 1 loved.

Speaker 1 If you reflect her inner beauty, her outer beauty, her inner brilliance

Speaker 1 to her.

Speaker 1 That is the medicine, the game-changing medicine. And it's very important to do, especially in the world when we're carrying these around,

Speaker 1 to put this down

Speaker 1 when you're with your

Speaker 1 child, your wife, your mom, your grandmother, and to give them your attention because that fills the soul of the feminine.

Speaker 1 And men really do love to serve women. They just want to make us happy.
And so the more we know about what makes us happy, the more they can

Speaker 1 feel effective and powerful. So it's a really symbiotic relationship.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's like we set them up to win by being clear in our communication or by

Speaker 3 they can even see it in our body, but just to say, this is what I would love, because I think men just want to oftentimes be told. And so,

Speaker 3 you know, but I love this paying attention, just like you were saying with your pussy, just like developing the relationship with your pussy to pay attention to, to acknowledge her is the same things that we want.

Speaker 3 I think that's beautiful.

Speaker 2 Truly.

Speaker 1 And I've seen your husband pay exquisite attention to you, which is so delightful.

Speaker 3 He is an incredible husband, father, human. I'm deeply grateful for this man.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 And I know that my audience is going to want to stay connected. I would love, for sure, I want to encourage them to read the book Pussy.
It was phenomenal.

Speaker 3 It's hilarious. It's light.
It's educational. It's everything you are.

Speaker 3 But what else are you up to? Where do people stay in touch?

Speaker 1 Oh, you know, it's if they go to my website

Speaker 1 right now, actually,

Speaker 1 I have a self-love challenge that is a free offering. And the website is mamaginas.com or hit me up on

Speaker 1 Instagram. I always respond.

Speaker 3 That's amazing.

Speaker 2 I love you.

Speaker 3 I'm so grateful for the work you're doing in the world and the embodiment of who you are.

Speaker 1 Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. It was so such a blast to see you, Alyssa.
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 So good to be with you always.

Speaker 3 Thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world, starting with yourself. It truly does make a difference.

Speaker 3 And if you're finding value in this podcast, a cost-free way to support us is by leaving an up-to-five star review. It does mean the world to us.

Speaker 3 And as a thank you gift, we're going to send you one of the most powerful tools that you will ever discover.

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Speaker 3 Just head over to Apple Podcast or Spotify and leave a review now. You can take a screenshot before hitting submit and then go to alissenobriga.com forward slash podcast to upload it.

Speaker 3 And make sure to have your automatic downloads turned on wherever you listen so you don't miss any of the upcoming episodes. I have so much magic.
I can't wait to share with you.

Speaker 3 And you can find all this information in the show notes below. But lastly, if you're on Instagram, I love connecting and hearing from you.
So come on over and say hello. I'm at Alyssa Nobriga.

Speaker 3 Thank you again for being here. I cannot wait to share more with you.