This text is a transcript of the podcast episode identically title.
Lore Blancke
Welcome to the Intimate Breath Talks podcast. And I'm here again with Kelsey Philip, body worker, and trauma geek. And I'm here with her because if there's one thing we both really share, it is a dream of a life where even more pleasure is allowed, and how that could look like. And we have been talking and dreaming together, and we wanted to include you in our intimate space of doing that.
Kelsey Filip
So Lore, since you come into my life, we cannot stop talking about pleasure. About what a life of fully liberated pleasure could look and feel like. And you've been sharing with me parts of your life, since you've been kind of the advanced explorer in this area, you could say, and inspiring me so much to allow myself even to dream of what could be possible. And as a body worker, I feel really limited. People come to me to ultimately, I mean, get some kind of pleasure. But I'm not really allowed to... How much... It's a very uncomfortable area that I think extends to our whole lives. How much pleasure do we allow ourselves to share with strangers, with people of the opposite sex, with children, in work situations? It seems like being professional means not bringing your personal pleasure into it somehow?
Lore Blancke
And even beyond the professional and personal lives? How often do we see friends in full pleasure? How often have we seen our parents really, really in the full pleasure. And I'm not only talking about sexual pleasure, but that's also part of it. Like, imagine that that would become a normal thing, where we can not only feel our own pleasure and our own enjoyment of our body, but actually feel even more by seeing someone else in pleasure and just having each other amplifying the pleasure in the room?
Kelsey Filip
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, it reminds me a bit meditation. When we're meditating or observing our body or observing sensations in our body. And we observe a pleasurable sensation in our foot, for example. And, I could feel like all that's happening in my foot. So it's not really me, and I'm left out of it, or we could feel like wow, this is happening in my foot, just like in my area. So being able to live in a world where there's pleasure, manifesting, viewing all around us even beyond our body, it's like, possible for us to take that in as well. For ourselves.
Lore Blancke
The pleasure of seeing a beautiful landscape, the pleasure of hearing the song of a bird and really sharing that with each other. And I think when clients come to me, and we're working around sexuality, it's not only working around what is happening in the bedroom, what is happening in self pleasuring. For me, it's sexuality in a broader sense of how do we move through life? Can we move from our desires and really own them and really listen to them, and make decisions from what feels good? What really feels good? And can we be open and receptive to what is here in every moment? The pleasure is not tomorrow. The pleasure is not next week. It is right now in this very moment. Can I receive that? Can I receive the pleasure that is right now, here?
Kelsey Filip
Yeah. Through our bodies, through our senses. I mean, you're writing on a piece of paper. Are you feeling the pleasure of holding something in your own fingers, of moving that pencil up and down on the paper, creating something, the pleasure of having this power, that we constantly have to move and manipulate and caress things when we're doing the dishes like you mentioned before? Or maybe even fucking up, making a mistake? Okay, I dropped my Yoni egg in the toilet after my daughter had taken a poop and she was in there with me. And I had to reach into the toilet and grab this Yoni egg and it was so pleasurable: this horrible, disgusting experience. Because we were both like: "Oh my God, this is so grose!" And she's like: "Oh my god, Mom! Oh my god, wash your hands! wash your hands!" And when I reflect on this very annoying experience, I could get stressed out about it and be like: 'Oh, no, it's gonna break.' Or: 'Oh, this is grose.' It was so much fun. And so pleasurable, because I allowed myself to feel it and feel it with her.
Lore Blancke
This is such a beautiful example. And, exactly, the pleasure in all the emotions that are there. How pleasurable can it be to just be angry and let it be there? Or be in a complaining mode and share it with someone? And be seen in that? Or cry together? And can you fully include yourself in the experiences that are happening around you? I've heard this agreement of a collective, it's called WeFlow. And they have this agreement where everybody is free to include themselves. There's no one else telling you whether you're part of it or not, you have the responsibility and freedom to include yourself. And I felt so inspired to actually apply that to everything. When there's a couple in the room having super sweet affectionate times... Can I actually, instead of feeling the lack of it in that moment for myself, choose to actually include myself in that experience? Just by making the feelings that I get from seeing them, making them mine? It's pleasurable to feel what they are feeling. It's pleasurable to see their love. And I'm including myself in that moment, just by owning the hormones and the feelings that are running through my body. They're mine.
Kelsey Filip
Just like watching a movie, we get so much pleasure from watching things all the time. What's the difference from getting the pleasure from our life, from the light from the burden just from allowing ourselves to become aware of all the pleasure that is all around us available? All the time. Allowing ourselves to feel all the relationships that we have, our friends. Even just knowing they're in a relationship, knowing they're sharing intimacy. How many times do we allow ourselves to feel and acknowledge these things? I don't know about you. But I grew up in a culture where the idea of our parents having sex was something that people would want to hide and run away from. Ah, don't talk about that. I don't want to hear about my parents pleasuring themselves. But why not? Where did this come from? Where did we start rejecting our parents' pleasure? My parents are no longer together and I would pay all the money I had to find out that they were satisfying each other on the deepest levels. And if I woke up and heard them doing just that: great! Can we celebrate each other's pleasure? Can we celebrate and feel safe with each other's pleasure?
Lore Blancke
'Cause it's never too much. The more you feel pleasure, the more someone else can experience it, too. You can even call it a pleasure prayer. When you have an orgasm, it's a prayer to the world. Because you opening up is allowing others to open up. There's never too much pleasure.
Kelsey Filip
Like, can we let go of all these limits and shame on pleasure? Can we take responsibility for our pleasure and see that it's, like you're saying, one of the greatest offerings we can give? What do you want to see if you imagine your child? Whether you have one or not: how do you want to see them? What's going to make you the happiest? Everything you're doing for them, what is it for? As far as I understand, I want to see my child feeling good, feeling happy, feeling free! I would celebrate any moment of that. What's stopping us from doing that for ourselves and for everyone else? Why is letting all these other people down because you were so passionately in love with yourself and you just needed to cuddle up in bed, somehow something that we need to hide? Something our bosses are going to get mad at us about for example.
Lore Blancke
It sounds like there's some fire here.
Kelsey Filip
Like how do we turn...? How do I turn myself around to remember what's really important?! And what are we naturally made to value? I always come back to what you're saying.... What's the line?
Lore Blancke
Yeah, what if the pleasure is already here, in this moment? For me, there has been such a clear shift in the possibilities of what can excite me. It's not only a sexy move, it's not only a sexy body, it's not only the specific touch that just gets me turned on, but can I get aroused by life? Can I feel excitement in my body, just by acknowledging what I have in my life, what is happening in my life, the choices that I've made, and the way how I showed up, or the people around me show up. Can I can like feel the gratitude of that, and the beauty and the love in that, and then get aroused in my body. That was a whole new experience for me. And it's like an arousal from the inside out. I could say there's an arousal from the outside in and from the inside out. And they work together, of course, and they're both super beautiful. I don't have a preference for either or. But to have this physical arousal coming up just by seeing what is happening in my life and thinking of the beauty and the people around me. And also tuning into my desires, and actually dreaming and envisioning and just acting as if it's already here. And just harvesting the sexual energy that is in feeling the desire. All the creative energy that is in that desire, and just fully enjoying that. So basically, just feeling the desire, and the creative energy and the sexual arousal that is in it, and completely swimming in it and indulging myself in it. Kelsey, do you want to share with me pleasure that he experienced in this moment?
Kelsey Filip
Right now, I'm feeling the light of the day, the sun is out. Normally is not. I can feel the light coming through all the windows and all around us. And then there's this subtle pleasure of even though we're talking to each other, we're aware that other people are listening. And it opens up this space, because there's this possibility that we might be heard. So I feel completely different. I feel a little more nervousness and self consciousness, I feel more attention on myself, actually. Even though there's no one here right now. Just that feeling. And that excites my mind. I feel nervous and it feels good. It feels good to be more aware, to be alert, to feel a little more present. And more alive. More alive, yeah. One thing I'm reflecting on as we speak about this is learning how to feel again. I find there are so many parts of myself or moments where I'm not feeling. And even though I practice yoga, and work with bodywork, there's so much numbness still in my life. I can imagine someone listening to this, who doesn't experience much pleasure. It's easy to talk about something but it's almost like: how many steps ahead is this? Being able to connect with pleasure? How does every individual find the door in every moment? I'm wondering if there's something about trust? To be able to feel pleasure, there needs to be some sense of trust.
Lore Blancke
With my clients, I always go through a journey, often 10 to 12 sessions. And I noticed this general tendency or wave of the first six to eight, maybe even a bit more, sessions really focusing on feeling again. Sensing the body, creating a sense of safety, learning how to take care of yourself and your needs, in every possible way. And it's all about trusting yourself and trusting how to take care of yourself and feeling safe in this body and in this world. And once that's more established, people naturally come up with more aliveness. And the topics that they're bringing in the sessions are about desires, or new things that they're bringing into their life, or new steps that they want to take. That is such a beautiful turning point! Every time when I'm on that journey, where I see: oh, wow, here, the pleasure is coming! They feel safe. And when an animal is feeling safe, it wants to play. And that's exactly what is happening for us. We first need to learn how to create the safety again to feel everything. And once that is happening then we can experience this feeling as something that is actually a gift. Thank you so much for bringing that piece in. Because, indeed, we're fiery and excited just talking about pleasure and possibilities. And that's our truth. And there's more to it. There's also the numbness and the challenge and the pain and everything.
Kelsey Filip
So maybe a little invitation to yourself. The next time you notice any kind of pleasure, any kind of like subtle feeling of Yes, in your body, you can start practicing to reassure yourself. 'This is okay, you're safe, you're safe to feel this pleasure.' You have a choice, you can decide to trust this feeling. So if you imagine that pleasure, or pleasure in life, or creative, fire, our creative energy, our sexual energy, or life force, this is what we're talking about. We're not just talking about some whimsical pleasure, we're talking about the very essence of what allows us to be human and be alive. It's like a fire. So to get a fire going, we need a spark. You have the choice. Whenever you feel that spark, the possibility of spark show up in your life, you have a choice. You can throw some wood in the fire, you can blow on it, you can protect it from the wind... You can do this! Start with your thoughts. Love yourself, hold yourself. 'This is okay, this is welcome. I'm welcome.' These feelings are welcome. And you can make the decision to trust this feeling, to trust in your pleasure, to trust in your body. You learn and explore and find whatever it takes to make you feel safe.
Lore Blancke
I love this. I'm so loving hearing you say all of this. And I also came up with a tip, as I was listening to you. It's those moments that you have difficulty actually feeling pleasure, just asking yourself: how could I make this more pleasurable for myself? If you really don't want to do the dishes, what song would help you? Or maybe you want to have someone next to you who's telling you a story. Lately, I woke up and I felt like crying. And I called a friend and he was with me and there was pleasure in sharing it with him. And then he also asked me: considering you feel grief and you feel sad, what is the best possible way you can imagine to be in this? And I love these questions! Asking these questions to myself and to others. Even if it's just one percentage more comfortable, more pleasurable, more intimate, more connected. Let's go for that one percentage. Kelsey, it's awesome to be with you. Thank you so much.
Kelsey Filip
Thank you, Lore. I am so inspired.
Ps. Never give up on pleasure! Reach out to see what's possible for you.
Comments