Unknown Speaker 0:05
Welcome to the sensual artistry podcast, exploring erotic awakenings and liberated love. I'm your host Luna Agneya essential arts and intimacy facilitator Relationship Coach 10 Shreeka and artists with a passion for the path of liberation through the in this podcast you will receive firsthand stories and sacred erotic awakenings, transformational experiences and love that goes beyond the minutes. This podcast is here to inspire, educate and awaken your own central artists. Because when you liberate your eras you liberate your life. All right, so this week's episode, I am going to be splitting into two sections because it was a really juicy conversation. We had so many different things to talk about. And yeah, I think it was over an hour in total. So we're gonna have part one and part two. So here's part one. I hope you enjoy. All right, so today I have more with me from Yeah, where are you originally from your finish? Was it our
Unknown Speaker 1:25
Finland? That's a really well remembered
Unknown Speaker 1:28
Finland to Berlin to Australia, trying to introduce yourself a little bit.
Unknown Speaker 1:36
Yeah, I don't really know what to say. I feel like I'm this chameleon of the world that just keeps traveling and keep seeing around and finding herself in different communities, different projects, different ventures, but mainly centered around embodiment. And in the recent years sexuality, and relating, and yeah, I feel like the embodiment and creativity threads have kept on going for the longest. And now I'm pursuing potential academic futures. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 2:11
yeah, man, I first connected live with each other on a panel for people that had been an adult industry and the intersection with like this spiritual folks that had also, you know, done adult industry work as well. So that was, yeah, nice to have that conversation. It was a really good one as well, for people that were on that shadow side of the feminine Summit. And today, we wanted to connect and chat a bit about Yeah, I guess, like, there's quite a few topics coming up around this. But yeah, it's around kind of power and spiritual communities and the intersection of, you know, the kind of therapeutic healing work, especially around sexuality and spirituality and in the transformational realm, and, you know, kind of things that are coming up a lot in our field at the moment. So yeah, do you want to first I guess, start with like, a bit of a, your story. Around Yeah, you're, you're navigating this field and what you've learned and come to?
Unknown Speaker 3:24
Yeah, I think I want to mention something since I've been in a really big backtrack of my own history in life, and how did I end up in this place and the end of 2022, I was really interested in psychology and arts therapeutics, and I went to study therapy quite early on and like really was excited about making a difference in the world through like creative means of therapy, which was really based on movement and, you know, play, particularly with the adult world. And I left that community back in 2012 2013. Partly because it wasn't handling sexuality, partly because it wasn't dealing with that aspect. And I realized if I become a therapist, I'm not allowed to touch people's genitals, I'm not allowed to even almost like address this whole functioning of our psyches, which is so interlinked with our genitals and our like interrelationships in the world. And as a young woman, I had quite, quite a lot confronted all kinds of, you know, advances and attentions and prepositions, and I didn't really know how to make sense of it. And I knew that that was something that I needed to pursue. And a friend of mine recommended that I go and do a course with ista and hence, it was almost seven years ago now that I got involved with that and kind of met one of the teachers who, you know, I became an apprentice or assistant assistant to really quickly and pursued that thread for about two years, and kind of saw the glory of the kind of what transformational sexuality work and archetypal play can bring to people. And I also feel like I saw the shadow and the dramatic thought, ik almost like dissociation from what's healthy psychological growth versus what's kind of like delusional, dogmatic world of self aggrandizement? Yeah. Summary.
Unknown Speaker 5:45
Right? Yeah. So you started playing around with that and exploring that realm. And then where did you go from there like after starting to apprentice assists with
Unknown Speaker 5:58
ista? I didn't. I didn't apprentice with a start. But apprentice, particularly with Bruce's work. For those who know he's a really famous character, and has done a lot of his own approach to I guess psychosexual healing. And he was doing his own workshops completely separate from any affiliation. And they were called Wild, this series of workshops, and it was literally, the first statement was, I am not your father, I am not here to hold your hand. This is for you to go through and, you know, take whatever you can out of it. And I thought that was amazing coming from like, the therapeutics where we're so safe. And in a way in his like, there's a similarity in terms of giving up the leadership position. Like, for me, a true teacher doesn't actually lead by example, if they're almost like stepping back and just being part of a circle of like, okay, we're all equal here. And we all make observations of each other. So I was like, Okay, there's something to it. And yet, obviously, as a young, naive apprentice to this lineage, I feel like definitely, there was a modeling of the behavior of my, my teacher, my elder. And I think I didn't really feel like there was a problem with it up until things kind of changed towards when Highden began, and Highden became this, like Mystery Schools, I saw the process of like, that being formed or signed contracts for and the fundraising around it, and the hype around it, and then coming there, and assisting the first training, essentially. And then, because of the experiences that I had, during that first training, and I was like, this is not healthy work, like we've somehow stepped Far, far away from what's healthy, to the psyche, for what's healthy to the people to go through. And I felt like I just saw nervous systems getting fried. And even in terms of having lived in community experiments before it was, it was so intense, it was like, so out of the radar of what's possible, and how to do things, and including relating, including just like the, the pace of temples, and, you know, practices and psychological processing, and it was just non stop. I kind of got used to it, I had like, pretty good threshold to it. But it also I saw how people got burned out. And, you know, I started to have my doubts. And yet, you know, at that point highden was this rising beacon of transformational work. So it was really hard to go against it, speak about it, and kind of diminished based on like, oh, that's just your personal experience. Yeah, so I've been on a journey trying to work through that. And I guess all of my friends have been a part of this community in some way in the last six years. So yeah, I'm coming out of the other end and really wanting to find the way to bridge the therapeutic and transformational work saying that they're not separate and they shouldn't be separate. Like there's something from both baskets that we need to, I guess, integrate and look at. Just before that, can
Unknown Speaker 9:49
we just clarify for people that might not be so familiar with like Highden, just you want to give a little bit of a quick brief of what that
Unknown Speaker 9:58
is. A star is International School of Temple arts, I feel like they're quite worldwide and famous by now, which I think they weren't at the time, like seven years ago, it was still like you kind of hurt like, it was referenced through word of mouth. So someone would have told you like, oh my god, I went to this amazing training and like, everything changed for me and came out completely different. And that's, that's the pitch I heard, and watch some videos online. And it was really mystical. I read the book by Dez. And Kamala Devi before I went, so I was like, Okay, there's a familiarity to the concepts they were teaching. And Biden came off the back of that, particularly initiated by Bruce Lyon. And it, I guess, is a modern day Mystery School, which doesn't really say a lot to a lot of people, if you like Mystery Schools that then again, popped up like mushrooms everywhere. So there's also a trend that I'm seeing. But he's got a particular dogma, a particular philosophy that it's based on. And a lot of the teachings are, let's say they're affiliated, but they're not the same as it's done. So there's definitely a difference that I see in the techniques. Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 11:23
think so. Yeah. So runs like one week based trainings like in different levels, and that Highden's like a six week in person, well, I mean, they did online during the pandemic, but yeah, I'd actually applied in 2020 to go but then the borders were all shot because of pandemics. So I didn't end up there, but I was, yeah, like hearing some interesting things about it, where everyone's like, yeah, it's intense, and there's all kinds of stuff going on, that you're not going to get anywhere else. But also people saying like that, also, I'm not sure if I could recommend it to people because it's so intense, and because of some of that stuff going on. And I seem to be hearing kind of mixed things. And I was kind of challenging myself, like, oh, would I be able to go to a place that I kind of know is basically a cult, get some medicine from it and get to experience some really cool rituals and really cool things without getting like pulled into it because my observation was like quite a few people that were in that scene. Like there was some really awesome people but then there was also a lot of people that I found kind of the spiritual narcissist really intense. People Yeah, that I'd like kind of seen with very, like the culty language where there's very much a language or people that are part of that school and part of that yeah, the dogma I guess, or the the tradition and yeah, that there there's certain way that they speak and certain like ethos and stuff that I'm kind of like I feel like a little bit of a resonance with but also a little bit not so I found it quite interesting to like observe and consider myself going
Unknown Speaker 13:08
I feel like it's interesting because I was probably on the the other tidal wave of leaving the school around 2019 And then really seeing the same effect like watching my friends online speaking in gibberish, like this actually, like the more I'm peeling layers off, it just doesn't sit with me anymore. Like it doesn't apply to the outside world and when you're in it, and I still fully acknowledged that whole piece around like you can't get this sort of experiment human laboratory anywhere else in terms of lighting and all of that like I really appreciate and I feel like everyone who has gone through that process hopefully appreciates the the gifts of the intensity and the experimentation and yet yeah, there's there's just like all these troubling characteristics that start to I guess become more obvious the further distance you take from it which is near now under a big debates Yeah, and
Unknown Speaker 14:11
I mean, I was that a training or there this year that also was very intense it was more based on like Osho, The Osho style work and yeah, there was like, again, a lot of intensity and yeah, it was quite interesting noticing like how I was before the training and feeling quite like balanced and grounded in myself and required like, comfortable and confident and feeling quite empowered. And then after like so much intensity and so much like shadow intense, like we're gonna crush your ego. We're gonna like pull up all this stuff, then I really was feeling so separated from myself. And so it was really, yeah, hard to describe the kind of thing that was happening to my psyche. Even after just those few weeks, and you know, we've been trying to, like keep pretty good boundaries and stuff like that. But yeah, I was quite surprised even for myself, who's done quite a lot of work, like previous to that kind of environment and felt that I was pretty like solid and myself and have like, you know, developed a pretty good level of, I guess, like self esteem mixed with ego dissolution work and feeling pretty, able to be in that oneness and that unity and not take things so personally and all that, and then how much I kind of fell apart. But then it's just a series of a few weeks. And it really taught me like, wow, like these environments, and no joke, like going into that much intensity. And like the kind of patterns of fawning that show up when you have like this leader, and even if you don't agree with them, how you can start to question yourself and your sanity and all your beliefs. And I mean, that falling apart could be good if it was really held with deep love and compassion. And there was enough. Like, I would say, this kind of motherly holding, you know, where it's like, oh, you can fall apart, and we'll hold you and coddle you back until you're feeling strong again. But when that piece wasn't there, I was just kind of like, what's even happening? And I was like, Okay, I need to take this more seriously about what environments I go into this kind of work, because if I could end up so shifted in a negative way. Within just a few weeks, like, yeah, I really see how these environments can kind of really negatively impact people, especially if they don't already have that much. Of Yeah, foundation before they get into the space. And they're coming in. They're way more naive than I was when I was entering this space. So
Unknown Speaker 16:53
yeah, yeah, just brings up so many good points around resilience, or, like how much psychological work have you already done versus Yeah, like, even such as yourself, I feel like being equipped to handle quite a lot of like holding yourself up. But then being in a group environment, everything's just like, magnified to a whole other level. And there's like a group hypnosis that I'm tracking in spaces. I mean, like I had an even in my therapy education, we did dance therapy, and we had a group process. And for the whole time, even if it was two days a week, we were in a process all together. So like, whatever you're signing up for whatever the length of it is, you are going to be like in a process for that long plus, probably the downfall afterwards is going to last for potentially years, which I've noticed with integration from hiring and training, like it's six week package. And then if you leave, and you try to integrate it into your life, it might be a year, or at least six months before you kind of like return to some form of normalcy. And I guess it's designed as a way of not doing that, as a lot of transformational work, I suppose is queued as being like your life will be transformed forever. So the problematics of why would you want your life to transform in the first place? Like are you running away from problems that you're not facing? And you just want a quick fix solution to it going into a place that's potentially not held by anyone? And that's really a personal inquiry, I suppose. How much holding do you need, and stuff like we were definitely trying to hold each other. And yet, there's no as someone coming from a psychology and therapy background, I was like, I am incapable of holding a room of 20 people or 24 people going into their childhood wounds and processes consecutively for six weeks of time, if I'm also a part of it, if I'm also doing this process. It was just like a matter of fact, I can't be both a participant in the experiment and holding people that are going through it. Yeah. So I'm really hoping that our kind of conversation is on the basis of how do we bridge and how do we actually find the sweet spot because we want to, I guess, do this work in the world of like, hey, I want to offer people a safe space to go into spaces that they need to process information in. And I'm so happy and proud of our generation for doing a lot of childhood. Mother Father wound work. I do feel like it's carrying some effect, hopefully. But yeah, kind of holding does it take?
Unknown Speaker 19:54
Yeah, and it's interesting. Like I was mentioning this like, kind of, yeah, I mean, they say there's like the motherly, compassionate holding and there's like the fatherly, like challenging energy. And I've found Yeah, like, different teachers will definitely follow it. And it's not even related to their gender, because I've definitely had female teachers that are very, like, Father challenging energy. And I've had male teachers that are very compassionate. And yeah, it's just interesting noticing, I guess, because, like, for me working in the adult industry and having a pretty intense, like, you know, getting into drugs very early when I was younger, and I've had a lot of, like, the challenge and intensity in my life. And you know, I've always lived outside my comfort zone and done a lot of crazy shit. So when I look at, like, the spaces that I have entered, and the trainings of done and stuff like that, the thing that was healing for me was getting compassion and sweetness and, you know, invited to slow down and having people really like know, like, You're beautiful. You're powerful, like, you got this, like this really sweet. Like, yeah, you're you've got this, you can do it. You're amazing. And, like, okay, yeah, I can do it and like letting my guards down and being like, Okay, it's alright, to let people in, it's okay to trust, it's okay to allow myself to be held because I was avoidant attachment. So, you know, for me, it was always like, I've got this, I'm sovereign, I can take care of myself, like, don't check in on me, I'll just, you know, if I'm triggered, I'm just gonna, like, leave and take care of myself. And some of these spaces will be like, yeah, don't don't go in a caretaker mode. People can ask for help if they need it. But like, my avoidant attachment didn't let me ask for help. So what actually was supportive was to actually then have teachers or care team or whatever, like, come to me and be like, Hey, it's okay to get support, we're here for you. It's okay. Like you're not a burden. So it's felt like a burden. So that for me was like, where so much healing and upgrading and change and real like deep shift in my life came was from yeah, having much more of that, like compassionate, loving, supportive. And then yeah, of course, going into some intense processes, like, you know, doing the the deep work and screaming out the, you know, intergenerational trauma of witch burnings, and blah, blah, blah, and doing all the that kind of stuff. But definitely, like feeling that, that love and support around it well, when I've been in environments that are just all like, challenge, sovereign challenge sovereign, and I've just kind of felt myself just shut off more and just go back into old patterns. But I guess different people are different, like I've noticed. And now when I'm running trainings, there's definitely some people that like, you know, they, they haven't been challenged, they haven't done the edgy stuff. They've always played it safe in their life. And they've always had, you know, people taking care of them or whatever. So they do need a bit more of edgy challenge zone for them to kind of get a little bit tougher and stronger. So it's definitely not the same for everyone. But yeah, I definitely was just redoing patterns of like, intensity junkie, and, you know, radical sovereignty, like that was, that was me. So that's not healing to just do that
Unknown Speaker 23:21
again. Yeah, I can totally relate to, Hey, I just want to be challenged. And I want to, like do the edgiest thing in the universe and like see how I feel about it. I'm so like, totally up for it. And I want to recognize that in every like in psychology, you talk about transference and countertransference, like the fact that you're, whoever you're teaching is going to become the child. And if you're a teacher position, you're always going to be the parent. And I feel like the biggest choice in the field is like, are you going to be a good parent or a bad parent? And are you going to model your own parents? Or are you going to really try to like what I hear from your description is actually trying to fix those, like patterns, parenting, to be encouraging of the freedom of the child and like the exploration of the child. So ultimately, I feel like it comes down to having enough freedom in the space that people are allowed to explore and challenge their own edges. And like I've been trying to do this with my dance field where I don't really interfere I don't really do a lot but I'm, I'm there and I'm not. I'm not getting wrapped up in any personal dynamics, whilst I'm holding space in a way of like, okay, I'm still holding safety in the field. If I see someone who's, you know, out in the corner, I'm gonna go check on them like these little bits of you know, you're actually parenting 20 or, you know, 100 children together. It takes a lot. It's like a job.
Unknown Speaker 24:54
Yeah, and you know, this comes down to also the big talk around like resistance. Oh, If someone's in resistance, and if they're not doing it, right, and they're not having a big enough release or something, and, you know, the like, as a facilitator, are you kind of getting in there and trying to push people and be like, Oh, you're in resistance, and you need to have a bigger experience. And then recognizing, like, where's that, like my ego and my shirt, like I'm shooting them, like, it should look this way. And like, there's, there's like, the way that the practice is meant to be done, where everyone's screaming and crying and orgasmic and having a big experience. And if you're, like, being soft, and not doing it, or just doing something else, and like you're doing wrong, and I need to fix you or something. So like, there's the noticing, and that impulse to want to change or fix and recognizing, like, where is it that someone actually does need some encouragement? They've gone into freeze, or they're going into some destructive paths, or something like that, like, where do I really do need to intervene? And where is it just their experience to have like, I found when I've gone to events, and I've been in resistance, and I've kind of like, not done a practice, and I'm sitting there in my resistance, and I'm like, Oh, actually, I'm learning a lesson right now that this actually is resistance, and actually, I'm hiding and what am I hiding from? And then I kind of go through an internal process, being in the resistance and noticing that I'm not doing the thing, and why aren't I doing it and, like, there's so much evolution and growth that happens from like, just sitting in your resistance? Well, when I've actually tried to sit out of things, because I've known, like, that's not good for my body right now. Like, I have, like some weird body chronic illness II things. Or it's just like, not what I meant to be doing, maybe I'm on my bleed, and I'm like, That's just too intense, then I've had people will like, push, like, you're in resistance, you gotta do it, gotta do it. And then I eventually let down my boundaries, and I do it. And then I end off like overwhelming my nervous system, or hurting myself or being in pain. And, you know, I'm like, Hey, that wasn't actually resistance, that was genuinely a boundary. And actually, what would have been healing for me is to have held my boundary and to be respected in it. And that would have actually been a really nourishing experience for me, and maybe just witnessing what everyone else was doing. So for myself, as a facilitator, I'm always like, checking in on that, like, okay, is my intuition telling me that this is really a time where I do need to call someone in and maybe encourage them? Or is it just that I'm shutting them and I am holding some belief that they should be healing or growing or transforming in a way that's like the way that I've done it, or the way that I, you know, think it should
Unknown Speaker 27:40
be done. I'm so careful of like, the ego getting in the way of like having a result. Which, yeah, I totally understand. Something that I brought with me from kind of dance therapy studies was how, if there's a person that we want to connect to even a group field, you go and mirror them, like, you don't go and interrupt their process, you don't try to push them, you actually just mirror what they're doing in your body language. So that whatever this person's going into, they're not alone in it. And, you know, like, almost like, slowly it starts to unfold from that place. And, you know, I'm starting to track more carefully, these little bits that I actually got from the therapy training before I got into this field that I'm still using, because it's such a piece of nervous system safety, in feeling like, I'm not actually here to do that, and go against whatever your experience is, unlike I'm going to join you in that experience, and try to just understand what's going on. Yeah, and fully trust that everyone's experience is whatever they're meant to be going through at the time. You know, as soon as you choose a theme for a group experience, or a temple space, I feel like it's going to reveal what everyone's stuff is rounded in any way.
Unknown Speaker 28:59
Yeah, for sure. Like, there's just such a trust in that piece of like, everyone's gonna get what they need to get. And like, you just have to kind of trust that in a way that if it doesn't look a certain way, and it looks like they've just, you know, even in breathwork sometimes I'll be like, This person looks like nothing's happening at all. And do I need to like, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, come on. I feel like I need to push and at some point, I just kind of surrender and then afterwards, like, wow, I was like flying through space and having all these epiphanies and they had like, the most powerful transformation in the group, but it looked like nothing was happening. And I've just had that happen, like, time and time again. So that you know, again, just really teaches me like yeah, the important so just kind of stepping back and just trusting and allowing and knowing that yeah, if people always they can come to a future event or do a process again, or you know, if they are kind of missing out on the transmission like maybe it's just not the time for them. Maybe they're no Have a system isn't ready for it, maybe their psyche is not ready for it. And it's fine. And not every practice is for everyone. Like they don't need to get the transmission of every single practice to have a worthwhile transformation in your space in general.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
