[00:00:00] Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Nicole.
On today's episode, we have Pamela join us for a conversation about liberating our authentic sexual expression. Together we talk about following the zest of life. Connecting with erotic rage and the power of your narrative. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world tuning in for another episode each Wednesday. My name is Nicole, I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy, and I am also the founder of The Pleasure Practice, supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships. Dear listener, the world needs more female leaders turned on. Oh, dear listener. Oh, how I hope you are turned on. I hope you feel that life force in your body. I hope you are enjoying the beautiful journey of following your arrows. The psychological exploration of the things that turn us on, the things that make us orgasm, all of that. Gosh, I just feel like the keys to our liberation are all Right there, and exploring where those desires are coming from and getting to embody your righteous rage against these systems and all the other forces.
Ugh, there's just so much here, specifically for females and women who have been so repressed in American culture. And, dear listener, I know if you have been tuning in to the podcast, you know more of my journey with that and my personal experience with, uh, being restricted and, uh, It's real nice to be here with you now, dear listener, and I really hope that you can take time to honor your body this week.
Really take that full deep breath and just feel that pleasure, feel all the pleasure that is possible in your body because that pleasure is revolutionary.
Alright, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and resources at modernanarchypodcast. com, linked in the show notes below. And I want to say the biggest thank you to all of my Patreon supporters. You are supporting the long term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people, so thank you.
If you want to join the Patreon community, get exclusive access into my research and personal exploration, then you can head on over to patreon. com slash modernanarchypodcast, also linked in the show notes below. And with that, dear listener, please know that I am sending you all my love, and let's tune in to today's episode.
So then my first question is, how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?
[00:03:54] Pamela: Oh god. I know.
[00:03:58] Nicole: I like the question, I do, I do.
[00:04:02] Pamela: Um, I would introduce myself as For 25 plus years, I have been intensely curious what I today name as leadership on the edge. What is on the like, the next horizons of leadership?
What's required of us? What's needed of us? What's desired of us, both as how do I take leadership in my own life? How do I lead others and, uh, how am I a part of leading the next evolving society that is emerging slowly right now? And I'm a speaker, facilitator, mentor, uh, for leaders on the edge. I've been working with individuals, groups, and organizations for 25 plus years.
I have been a project leader. I've, like, I've been writing books. So I could say I'm an author. I do not identify as an author, but I am because I released, I think it's around 10 books. Cool. That was a small audience and still it has been something important, I would say. And I've been working with, uh, many different groups of people.
I've been working with, um, teachers all over, like, uh, my, my home country, Sweden, and we work to educate teachers from, like, the south to the north, and Sweden is a very long country. Working with children, I've been working with teenagers, that has been one part of my leadership training is to With a youth, because they pull forward anything that you do not want to see in yourself.
And if you're not authentic, you will get that mirrored right back at you. Right. Yes. It is such an amazing space to grow in as a leader. If you're willing to sit in that uncomfortableness to constantly be mirrored in your own shortcomings and also in your great possibilities. Yes.
[00:06:03] Nicole: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's its own psychedelic experience.
Children, right? They'll, they'll bring it out of you. Yeah, that's such a joy to have you on the podcast today and get to talk about these topics. And I know you had a sent over in your guest form. The world needs more female leaders turned on. I definitely resonate with that, you know, as a sex educator, as someone in this space and particularly my own personal journey to that level of embodiment where like my life path, what I'm doing actively turns me on.
And so I'm, I'm curious where that journey starts for you and where you want to open up this conversation.
[00:06:49] Pamela: Like there is a part of me who just want to open it up on a systemic level. I really, really feel that it's so. in a way, urgent. And at the same time, I can notice when it's on your personal side, because that's also a way of connecting, like to stay, to start in the personal.
So, um, I would say I will start there. 25 years every day has been deeply meaningful when it comes to my service in the world and my work in the world. Combining on that, that I, in a very young age, have that Risk taking quality or bravery of saying, Hmm, I also want to be a present mother. So, uh, I want to create a lifestyle where I can be both.
And that is also something that I feel very blessed over when I look back in my life, that I, I've spent so much time with my children at the same time. Um, having my own company and doing the things that I really love and allow my creativity to flow into the world and create projects and writing books and creating materials, creating like education, trainings, courses, uh, sharing, uh, like in public speaking and in like inspiring, inviting and educating people to, for new ideas and new perspectives.
So, I'm like, I'm really glad when I look back that I created a lifestyle where I also today find myself, wow, like, I'm, I see myself as a billionaire in meaning, not in money, and where I can look back and say that I'm, I have been in charge of my own time for 12 years, so I could make very crucial choices for living aligned with my values of motherhood.
Parenthood, how do you say, self actualization as like what I want to work with, working with my passion. That I got really right from the start. Yeah. And I also know that, uh, before I turned 30, I was close to my first burnout and I needed, I needed to distract myself, like to just stay on the, like the pressure of the path that.
I created for myself, there was so much beauty and joy in it, and still a deep sense of pressure that I would say today mostly came from within myself. Out of the conditions, condition that I got from probably already in a room space, possibly before that, if you look at epigenetics, like interracial trauma, what I got through my upbringing, through the psych guys that I am a part of out of my generation.
And I went like there was like, um, it was a very profound, like that was a long journey to just start to unravel and understanding, become more self aware and self, how do you say that in English? Like self knowledge. I'm like, what's my driving forces that it goes off. Like, because I honestly, I had created exactly the life that I wanted and still.
I could not be in pleasure of it.
[00:10:10] Nicole: Right.
[00:10:13] Pamela: I was on one very advanced self knowledge course and we had like a, like a full deaf day with different modules for that day and exercises and inquiries and meditations and nature quests and went into like, this is my last day life and I'm gonna go to my funeral like that.
It started the day before it was like 24 hours. I remember I was sitting in the nature in one of the exercises and having pen and paper and I looked back at my life and I felt truly blessed. Like I, I felt truly like, wow, I've done good. And then there was still like this really strong impulse of like, and there is one thing missing.
Like, and there was like that, that impulse felt it came from deep, deep inside of me. Today I would probably mention it as like a deep desire, like a deep, deep desire beyond the surface desires that we can have, or the conditioned desire we can have. And that was pleasure. More and more enjoyed life, even if I created like a really good life for myself and my, my, my family and friends and community that I had around me.
So that was like, um, like one starting point of what does it really mean to be a woman? In what way haven't it been safe for me to walk the world and, uh, liberating my sexuality and unshame my authentic expression and, uh, for me has been my spiritual practices.
[00:12:02] Nicole: Yep. Mm. Mm. Powerful. Powerful. Powerful.
[00:12:08] Pamela: And then seeing what qualities that emerge, or maybe this is more the right way of expressing it. What qualities that I, in a way, always navigated by, but never got enough room to be my excellence. Uh, like qualities of deep capacity for presence, qualities to be able to sense. Like, sense the subtleties from our inner and outer knowing.
My capacity for reflection and self reflection and, and peer reflection, like having my capacity for openness, compassion, empathy, fierceness, knowing deeply in my bones what's right and wrong in every situation. Almost like I think most mothers, if they are slightly connected, even if there's a lot of mamas, mamas in our times that's not there because of different.
reasons, but, you know, in our bones, when we see that something's going on, that it's not right for our child, we can roar like we can like, and that deep sense of being in service of life, you know, what actually brings life to life, being in service of how we thrive together. And I could go on, but many of these qualities are we so disconnected from today and in leadership and leadership.
Like, in its core, sometimes I say, one of the first leadership in humanity was probably motherhood. I'm not saying the only one, but one of them. You know, we, we actually are holding space for something to emerge and we are listening in deep connection with the other, the subtleties of evolution and respond to what wants to come forward.
We get out of the way, like, as much as possible to allow this to really unfold in its own right time and space to its fullest potential and regard it with our life. That's the core essence of leadership and we are, like, walking behind it and, you know, induce it to happen.
[00:14:43] Nicole: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing.
Yeah. So much there that we can talk about. I'm really excited to unpack more of this with you. Mm hmm. I'm, uh, a couple of different things were coming up for me just in terms of building the most beautiful life, right? And So many of us under capitalism have this like, production, go, go, go, go, go, especially if you're a mom and you don't have the resources.
Especially if you're a mom and you don't have the resources, right? The systems are not, you know, this expansive community that is helping you to raise the child, right? You're exhausted, right? And you can have the most delicious of meal on your plate, and if you're having to scarf it down and keep rushing, you literally will not taste it.
Right, like the best and the juiciest of meal, but you won't taste it if you're having to run at that pace. Right. And so I think so many of us, even just the act of slowing down would be such a radical, like, act of of pleasure activism, right? To just be with our senses and actually feel what's in front of us, which is why.
You know, practices of gratitude are so powerful, like, look back at the last week, like, what's something good that happened, right? So many of us are just like running, running, myself included in that. And I've always really enjoyed the Buddhist practice of like waking up and meditating on death. Right.
Because the one inevitable I do know is I am going to die. Okay. You know, so it's like, if that's inevitable and like waking up from that space of like knowing that meditating on that, the joy that it does then bring in that embrace of death and that pain, um, for me is absolutely something that, that brings me more into the present of now, right.
More into that taste of, of that delicious meal that's in front of me. But, right. But even beyond that, so many systems are against us. I'm just thinking about particularly my own upbringing of growing up in a religious context. Right from a young age, I was taught the body is sinful, the body is flesh, do not listen to the body, sex and eroticism is only meant for your husband, and you're gonna give it to him, and so any other thoughts are wrong, so just completely disconnecting from my body in that way.
You know, people who didn't even grow up Christian, at least in America. It was fun from puritanical roots. So this is that, you know, you're in Sweden. I hope it's a little bit better out there. But like here, like that sort of lineage, whether you were raised in it or not, is deeply infiltrated through all of our cultural messaging.
And so that connection to your eroticism, like truly in like, in like a life force way, right? Not just like sex and fucking and stuff, but like truly this, like, yeah. I feel in my senses. I feel alive. I feel this zest for life, like truly that level of eroticism. So many of us really don't have that level of connection to even know what that feels like.
And um, I remember one of my mentors along my journey, like She was a, um, a sex educator who had worked with me and she would try and get me to, and I, I was hard for me at the time, I'm not gonna lie, she'd try and get me to like close my eyes and I'd be thinking about like what I was gonna do with a podcast or how I was gonna grow, um, this space and she'd be like, okay.
Take a moment and feel into your pussy. What does your pussy say? And like, actually try to meditate with that. And I was like, I can't feel anything. I don't know what you're talking about. But like, what an act of like, check in there first. Does it bring you that erotic? Like, do you feel that opening, right?
And so, uh, yeah, I think there's probably more meditation I could be doing on that of like, where do I feel that aliveness, you know?
[00:18:23] Pamela: Oh, yeah, I can so relate to my, my pussy is definitely a part of my navigation for every day.
[00:18:29] Nicole: I love that. Yeah. Say more. Say more.
[00:18:35] Pamela: I, I, as deeper I have been able to connect with my body.
And, um, as DM more I have been able to open and of course also it's a part of like my tantric sexual awakening, like I, I walked the tantric path, I think almost 15 years before I entered like also to go into the sexual space in Tantra, but I can. sense and feel the lifeless energy running through my body.
When I am in the right place and the right time and the right person, and it's connected to my deepest desire, like my business starts burn. Like, and I'm so grateful because I have a strong mind and I have been fooling myself so many times in my life to go on like other ways around instead of for the path that I'm on.
But with this, like arousal, the erotic like response in my system. And as you said, thank you for saying that, uh, there is a very clear distinction between primal sexual energy and, uh, sexual energy as creative. So I'm talking about, and both are good and great, but they're different and they are very connected.
It is like, I'm talking about this spark of eros, spark of erotic. And that's where I, I have that deep experience now for a long time that that universal force of errors is constantly communicating to us through our deepest desires. So it is like, uh, it's not the same as intuition. That's not how I, how I experienced for now.
Maybe I will say different in 10 years, I'm still a practitioner. Exploring, but so today I, I don't walk into new collaborations or projects without a turned on pussy. I don't do that.
[00:20:26] Nicole: I love that. I love that. Powerful. Hell yeah. And it's hard when so many of our desires are again told to be wrong, right?
Like back in my Christianity days, right? When I would have queer desires. Wrong. Right? Back when I was practicing monogamy and I'd have desires for other people. Wrong. Stop. Right? Even when I would have these relationships and have longings for multiple people. Wrong. Right? All these different points where I would have these reactions, but society has told me along the way.
Wrong. Bad. Whore. Burner at the stake. Right? Like, How are you supposed to be connected when that's the response?
[00:21:11] Pamela: Yeah, but I would also say something more. I like, uh, this is a very concrete and, uh, and close example. It just happened a couple of days ago. I have a grandchild and she's turning two in one month.
And she is insanely and madly in love with dogs. Uh, really, it is a passion of her. And we borrowed a dog that she knows a bit, but she hasn't met for a while. And I could notice the intensity coming up in her system when she was like, Full on, like in that excitement, aliveness, like she was like, and I looked at my daughter and my daughter was like, like, I'm getting so tired of it was more like, because the nervous system, my daughter, she couldn't fully hold the intensity of the desire and the excitement and the turn on this in this little two year old.
And I was just like, wow. And then I, when I looked at it, I was like, God. And I could notice my own nervous system moments, like checking out where I'm like, I got disconnected from myself because it was just too much intensity for my nervous system. And then I was like, I see regulating coming back in.
Okay. I'm here again. Yeah. So it was like a very small, nice, like everyday moment of practice, but I just got such a realization. I looked at how many of us have been able to be held in this society. in our community, in our family, where we are the most alive. And we know the answer to that, but it was just a moment when I could see it so clearly and just investigate like me, my nervous system, my daughter's nervous system.
And then I could see when we left the dog, she went into this. Total grief. I told, like, she was like insanely, like, she was crying and like, and then it was next moment of holding the intensity of something so profoundly beautiful. And again, I looked at my daughter and I looked at me and was like, okay we're gonna regulate, we're gonna sit here in this whole space and do something that none, none, I haven't had it.
She has had partially, but not fully, and just like sitting there with like the third generation is like, okay. It's just something in that moment of our own capacity to hold intensity in the society we live in today, in that disconnected world that we live in. Yeah, yeah,
[00:23:50] Nicole: yeah, because she's going to go to school and then they're going to be like, this isn't time to talk about dogs.
This is the time to study this, this and this. Stop, talk, stop. Why are you talking about the focus, you know, and try and get her to go down the path and then you get to some sort of stage where you're like, okay, you want to work with dogs? Well, you could be a groomer. You could be a pet. Well, you know, you can walk them.
How much would. What sort of life are you going to get with that feasibility? Oh, you want to be a vet? Well, here's thousands of dollars of debt to get barely paid to do the job. You know? So like you immediately hit this level of like the passion. So many of us have different path passions, right? Which is great.
We all. Pulled different like, um, threads out of this like rug of when we're dismantling and we all got different passions, right? So someone will have that but then to survive in this world, you're like forced through this like narrow point um that often I think disconnects us from these points of passion or You're that artist, you know, and then it's like, well, you're not the top.
You have to sell here. Right. It's just these different expectations that I think, um, you're right. Like completely pull us away from these life giving, um, forces that we feel the passion, the arrows there. Um, so what does it mean to stay connected to that under these systems? That's a difficult journey for a lot of people to navigate because of the realities,
but yeah, I get turned on by the idea of like dismantling the field of psychology and how it. Impact. Yeah, I do. You know, like, like it's, it's, it's a great, there's a lot of healing that comes from this field, but there's also a lot of harm. There's a lot of problematic abuses of power and the ways that this, this field doesn't always take a systems level per perspective to understand that the individual suffering is not just at the cause of the individual personality disorders.
Great example, right? Like there are relational, um, Um, like you said, epigenetic factors, systemic factors, and until we have that, yeah, I want to dismantle that, and I get enraged, and I think that's also where, like, the understanding of women's eroticism and connection to rage, that's something that isn't talked about, right?
Like, any of that, like, there's very limited scopes of what eroticism can be, and so I, I do believe in a future of more women connected to their rage. As a part of their eroticism and pleasure.
[00:26:10] Pamela: Yeah. Sometimes I call it holy rage.
[00:26:12] Nicole: Mm-hmm .
[00:26:14] Pamela: I, I really see the importance of, for me, they're like, together, like for me, connecting to your pleasure or your turn on this or your erotic, it includes the rage.
Yeah. And I, and again, if I bring it back from the personal to the systemic. We seem to be in between worlds, like the society as we know it is crumbling. And that has happened before in human history, that civilization, like they rise and they fall. So in one way, when you speak into that system, almost like, yeah, and we are also in times when a new system is getting birthed.
So I am totally humbled. Or surrender to the fact that I would probably never live in the society that I'm holding space for. And in one way, that's not important because if I live there every day in the way I live my life, no matter if it's small acts, like actually sitting with my grandchild and regulating myself so I can allow her to be more her than I ever had the possibility.
Believe in the, in the world, the beautiful most. Loving world that the hearts know is possible. I don't know something in that direction. And I think that's a lot to like what you're doing just to consciously object to what's not working. And, and in a way, many of us know it, sense it, feel it. Like, I, I have a colleague, Fredrik Liebheim, he's a psychologist, and, uh, right now, like, in his field, and where he's, he's around, like, they have the big events, like, that he goes on globally, like, they're actually start talking about that We have to stop addressing youth's mental health issue as something personal.
We do have to start addressing it as probably a scream of an environmental crisis. That mental health issue is like alarming high as a globally. Maybe that is because we're animals and we can sense that something is really off. But our full body sensing is Disconnected in the modern world, so most of us cannot bring it from the sensing that we have in the body up and make sense of it on a conceptual level.
Yeah. I think we deeply desire more turned on women in leadership positions. Totally. That can grow in holy rage when we are not protecting life. Absolutely.
[00:28:54] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:28:54] Pamela: And having leaders who live turned on means that they are alive, they're connected, they are, they are turning up for their deepest desires, their passion, they bring in the erotic.
[00:29:10] Nicole: Yeah. And the erotic is in that laughter, right? That full body, ha, you know, like. I, I just think about the past of, of women's voices even, you know, this like, Hi, I'm a woman, and this is how I live, and I hold my breath in my chest like this, right? How are you supposed to have a full body orgasm, right? Like, that is No, it is in that laughter right there, that ha, you know, like that full experience.
[00:29:36] Pamela: I could say that when I had that more, more of that voice, I did not have full body orgasm.
[00:29:41] Nicole: Right? Right? So every time I'm laughing here, I'm like, this is a part of the revolution right here. Right? Totally. It's all connected. Yes. And I, um, I think about just the, the pain points of what you were talking about with like the mental health field and I remember, um, I had been traveling and there was this animal.
I feel like it was like a small marsupial. I'll have to like do some research and put this in the show notes. Um, but I remember we had gone to this exhibit to go see the animal and, um, Tiny little big eyed animals with these bushy tails, like, just like, hold them in your hand, small little baby animals, so cute.
Um, and, as we had got to the enclosure, you know, they had said, okay, you have to be quiet as you walk through this space, because these animals are used to a lot of quiet. Obviously the tourists can be a very distracting, um, and chaotic element to bring into the space, so. You have to walk through quietly.
And so we're walking through quietly, and you know, they tell us like, yeah, like, if there's really too much noise, what ends up happening is, the animals will start to bang their heads on the trees and actually kill themselves, because the environment is way too stressful. Now, if we take that as any level of a parallel, The field of psychology goes, that animal probably has a mental disorder.
Let's look at the individual. Let's look at.
So, yes, right. Like, I think that's like, you know, we see that in nature right there. And so, yeah, what's going on in our environment that's causing, you know, so I think all of that being an important piece of of how we need to reshape all of this and so, yeah, I don't have like, pretty words to fix that problem at all.
[00:31:35] Pamela: No, but also here. Like, that's also one thing I said to my daughter when she started to work full time after her parent leave again. And now her, her husband is home. Uh, so we have that luxury in Sweden. We have a good, uh, still a good, uh, social welfare. Very lucky. Yeah, we're very lucky. Um, and still it's far away from what we actually, through nature, needs as human beings.
Right. Yes. It's good. I think it's, I think it's a part of the best. Apparently it was one of the best in the world, so I know we're deeply blessed, like we can, we can do, we can, we are very supported by that. But my daughter came into, we had a conversation and she was like, God, I'm just not enough anywhere.
Yes, that's true. And don't make it personal because the modern society is constructed around the nuclear family and that's a lie. So it doesn't work. Even if you pressure yourself harder, if you, even if you run harder, even if you earn more money, the time will not be enough. And that's not about you . So like, and, and it just felt so insanely good to just like remind her to keep sane.
It doesn't take away like this squeeze under pressure, but you don't have to keep on internalizing that voice. That's about you.
[00:32:57] Nicole: Mm-hmm .
[00:32:59] Pamela: Absolutely pointing the arrows.
[00:33:01] Nicole: Go ahead.
[00:33:02] Pamela: Yeah. No, but also like, so it's like. we are in a system in my opinion that doesn't work. I think we're, and I think because it's crumbling more and more people are actually consciously object to it.
Um, and, uh, I also know something you said before, I'm, I'm, I'm jumping a little bit right now, but I receive it's important that because I have, I've met a lot because I am. a mentor for leaders on the edge, change makers. And I met a lot of leaders with a hero's complex. Okay. And I found myself out to try to change the world into a more thriving, uh, place.
And, uh, where I am right now, I don't, believe or see or my wisdom don't point in any direction that I can create something that I'm not fully am. That I need to embody it myself. So when you said before that many women have their, the narrative, the story, the program, that my pleasure is for the other.
It's not even for me. Yep. Many, many women walk in life in the Western world. That's, I can't speak for the whole because I don't know. I know the Western world more. They walk the world. As, uh, sacrificing mothers, and even if motherhood is about sacrifice, because adulthood is about sacrifice, it is about responsibility.
That's good, and it's great, but when it's a sacrifice that is, gets too unbalanced, you know, then, then we are in lack. And we are in distress, as these little animals you were pointing at.
[00:34:49] Nicole: Mm hmm.
[00:34:50] Pamela: We know out of polyvagal theory that our nervous system is not just you have one and I have one. We have a social nervous system.
So my nervous system that I offer my children, the future generation, will be programmed into the same, uh, disconnection, stress, and so on. Uh, and starting to really take full radical self responsibility over your own pleasure and saying, I have a clitoris. An organ in the body and the science says for now that it seems to be just for pleasure.
Maybe that will change in the future. I don't know. But that's what is now. And the latest science on it is like 10, 000 nerve endings.
It's a potential for a hell of a lot of pleasure. Hell yeah. Yeah. So like, really, how can I, as a woman. Focusing on my sensuality. So I'm actually can experience the world's pleasure through my five or if you would say six senses and being in pressure, then I'm thriving.
And from that space, I can create more pleasure and a community around me, relationships around me, workspaces around me, where pleasure is available. Pressure is connected to like, as I said, abundance, boldness. Genitivity. Erotic.
[00:36:16] Nicole: Mm hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. The people pleasing tendencies of women. Deep. Deep.
Right? Because that's what we've been social conditioned. A good girl does this. A good girl does that. Good girl. Right? Whoa. You know? Yeah. And, and for my own experience, right. I don't have any children right now. Like, you know, I've got my little fur baby fat cat, but that's not the same level of responsibility and not even close.
Um, uh, this podcast, my other child, right. A little baby I've got that I run every week. Uh, but again, not the same level, but in terms of like following my pleasure. Oh my God. I having multiple relationships. Having abundance of relationships, of sexuality, and my sexual freedom, whoa, I, you know, like there was a world where when I was in monogamy, my investment of my time and energy was, of course, in my community of my friends, but it was so deeply into one erotic person, and my own, like, masturbation practices, but then to have multiple relationships across the board where I have lovers that You know, our friends, partners, beloveds across all, and then I have this whole, like, let's just even think about it of a seven day week.
Whoa, where am I gonna spend my time in and I get to whoa. Oh, oh, okay And then what even happens when you know someone new comes into the world and things start to shift And now I want to shift how my schedule has been with other people and then I have to look at that person that maybe I've spent a lot of time with and being like wow my desire and my eroticism is shifting and I want to go in this direction space, right?
Like this practice for me of having multiple relationships has been a deep commitment to my pleasure in such a way that has required me to center myself. Of course, I am conscious of the beautiful people I'm connecting to. I don't just go around and say like, fuck you guys. I'm doing whatever I want, but like, Whoa, has it required me to center myself and what I want as I navigate this in ways I could have.
Never imagined. Radical. Wild. Like, still a process every week to check in with that one of where am I going with this? And like, honestly, I really don't know as I take off the scripts and like redefine what it means to be in loving relationship with people. I don't know where I'm going, but what I do know is that I'm connected to my pleasure and that it changes and I am in connection to her and where she takes me.
[00:38:46] Pamela: I can just notice I'm smiling and celebrating you . Thank you.
[00:38:50] Nicole: I cry a lot in that journey, .
[00:38:54] Pamela: I know. It's a deep radical practice. Yeah. It's, uh, doing that with Grace is a radical practice, right? With Grace. Yep, exactly. It's a radical and, and most often in the start, and in my experience, it's messy as hell.
Yes. If you haven't done the groundwork and most people haven't.
[00:39:13] Nicole: Yep.
[00:39:14] Pamela: And uh, and what I have noticed is that. There is, it's like a practice ground for being able to hold complexity. And to see like it's a, it's a way of molding system thinking of like, okay, it's not only me and you, it's about me, you, and 360 degree, the field of relationships I'm in.
Yep. It's really, and for me, it's almost like going back to. You know, we're deeply immersed into nature. I truly understand that we're in an ecosystem, it's an ecosystem thinking. And I think most people don't look at like polyamory or open relating or polysexual communities. As a radical practice space for ecosystem thinking, if that's what you choose, like you can step around and as I was in an immature way and not be very graceful and like crossing, yeah, breaking windows in, in, in the speed of where you're going.
Yeah. If you are consciously walking that path. That's, um, that's, uh, that's art.
[00:40:21] Nicole: Absolutely. Yeah. And when it goes well, you find multiple relationships that bring you that joy and life force and eroticism. And you're right, the ecosystem is thriving, right? And then maybe you find one relationship that complicates it, and then all of a sudden the whole ecosystem is complicated, right?
And that often happens in monogamy as well, right? Like the different relationships, um, that can bring you down and complicate your life as well. So it is both across the board, but there is something really, really radical about, um, for me being able to explore eroticism with my close friends and lovers.
And, and just even to be able to like. Ah, like I, I, I feel like I still like grasp for language for some of these ideas where like in, in ways where when I was with one person, it was like this open channel of eroticism where it was the expectation that this is how I connect with this person, where when I have Uh, friends that I maybe see at deeper orbits, right?
Like, I don't always want to explore sex with them. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's months, sometimes it's every time we're together, right? And like, just this fluidness of, of that, that I have never practiced. Of like, hey today I just want to snuggle and that's it. Great. Like just the ways that the channel is constantly moving in that way that I didn't necessarily practice when I was just with one person and this was the only space.
It was this expectation versus Hey, this maybe this is a friend. I only want to play within a dungeon. Maybe this is a friend. I only want to play with when we have three people together. Maybe, you know, like, just like so much nuance. And insight into your pleasure that I had never even thought about.
Right. And I'm still unpacking.
[00:42:04] Pamela: Yeah. And, and, and what evokes in me when I listen to you is that. It's like, if I take what you just said and put it into leadership, what I see skills that are required today, because the world gets more and more complex and it's faster and faster changing. So leaders who stands and have like expectations, uh, like judgment, uh, assumptions of, oh, this is the way or a plan.
they find themselves, everything ruptured, like a very concrete example, the pandemic, boom, over like a couple of nights, the territory was different. Like, the requirement, like, the flexibility, the resilience, the fluidity, the truthfulness to what's really here, what's here now, and how do we move with that together?
[00:43:00] Nicole: Totally. Yeah. The insight, the communication skills. The self understanding of when you've put unstated expectations into a dynamic and being able to name your desires, name your boundaries, name your needs, and if you hear a no from someone to not take that as a personal attack on your, you know, self worth, like, Oh my God.
All of those things are deeply related, and I think that that's why I have such a political connection to the erotic, right, is, is this is an area of our life that does mirror out to so many different areas, and it is a unique area of our life because there's so many cultural messages on it that make it so complex, but I do believe that, you know, no matter what sort of relationships style you're practicing when you have these skills of good communication insight and being comfortable with your needs and desires here that translates into leadership that translates into so many different areas of your life.
Motherhood. 100%. Right. And that's complicated because the Madonna and the whore complex. So if we start talking about that in connection, people are gonna freak out, right? But the it's the skills of self knowledge, right? That are so deeply connected there. And I find that to be a very political message that needs to be talked about.
[00:44:14] Pamela: Yeah, and also through the exploration, I've noticed that through my own exploration of my sexuality, when I came to a deep, deep experience of the radical, like, ethical slut and unshaming so many parts of my sexuality, noticing that I am simultaneously unshamed my voice in the world, like the, the perspective that I, maybe if I was sitting in a work meeting and suddenly I could notice like, but I see it like from this angle and just saying it and then realizing my unique, unique way of looking at this, that, that creativity that I pulled into the room made us synthesize.
And then suddenly we had a new solution on something. And then also, I don't know. Yeah, I probably do know. I don't know if I want probably as a protection of myself before saying this. Yeah, because it feels a bit vulnerable. Also, through exploring the sexuality and the erotic, finding almost like new worlds.
I explored like the, the deepest part of sexuality long before I tried psychedelic and I haven't had any experience on psychedelic that I haven't had in the sexual space. I would like, I'm right now, just, it's a book that is, it's a book of a friend. It's not published yet. It's, it's, it's, I'm just reading it the last time before me and a couple of others before it's going to be published.
And it's, uh, he, he writes so precise around what is the narrative and the biases that we get because of we live in the modern world. Uh, it's a very simple, uh, headline on the book, like when logic came to town, the human break apart. And he's just pointing out that because of we are so well trained to stay in our rational mind and cut off our full embodied capacity of sensing, we actually not experience the world as it is.
And through my deep sexual exploration, I realized that there are so many things that I'm picking up that has been hidden for me before I opened up to, to it. Oh yeah. If I would say, if anyone is listening and they don't have that kind of experience, I would say, you know, bats can see red light, like they can see, oh, dogs can hear sounds that I can't hear.
So that's how I would describe it in a more concrete way, realizing that there's so much to sense of how the world are and works and I don't, I, I find here I get like, it's hard for me to find the right wording for it. Should I just like be not specific, I would say like psychedelic. The world is so much more than we perceive through our logic and through our eye.
Yeah.
[00:47:23] Nicole: Yeah. Yes. I feel like just a little baby on this journey, but I feel like I, you pick up stuff, right? The more that you're embodied, the more that you're there, the more that you're sensing, oh yeah. Little small little moments you notice you maybe predict what someone's going to say, right? Like these small little moments of being like, oof, like I felt that before it even happened.
And I do think that so many of us aren't. In our bodies enough to be in that space. So as I'm starting to notice that, because yeah, if you told me this, like, like, I don't even know, two years ago, maybe even shit. I don't know. Certainly five years ago, I would have been like, these people are wild. Check them into the insane asylum, right?
Like horrible stuff. But you know, where I'm at now, I'm like, oh my God, like I sense things. I feel things. I noticed when I'm in different, you know, areas, like I had traveled home to Utah and just like, The Mormon values and the repression and I can feel that in my body compared to, you know, and a lot of that, too.
We can maybe think about like mirror neurons and and the ways that people are breathing with their breath, right? If they're holding like these little things that you start to pick up on. Oh, my God. Yes. And so I'm only here now. I can only imagine as I continue this practice of embodiment where I'll be at in terms of sensing.
And so, yeah, I do believe that there is so much more than what's at the surface level of our knowledge and particularly what we can even measure with science, right? There's so much that we're completely missing with the tools that we have right now to collect that. And so, yeah, I do believe in what this, you know, sort of connection can mean for other areas of your life as well.
[00:49:06] Pamela: Yeah. And you also mentioned several times about Christianity. And I have to say that I receive, I have had, uh, if I would just use that term, like whatever we want to name it as, but the deepest experience I've had of meeting God is in the bed. Like today I'm like, I get why the church just shut down the whole sexuality thing.
[00:49:34] Nicole: Oh, totally. I get it today. Speaking in tongues, you know, like, I get it. I get it. It's powerful. I get it. I get it. Especially if you're picking up on stuff, right? I get it. Totally. Yeah, that's the 100%, right? The women who were connected to that were dangerous. And we are look at us today. We still are dangerous, right?
And so we're rattling and shaking the system as we feel it in our bodies, right? Again, the more you connect to the pleasure, the more you feel the pain too, right? That is a deep connected practice. And so the more that you're here, the more you feel that the more you Scream, enrage, righteously so at what the hell is going on.
And so, yeah, we are radical, dangerous women to be in this level of embodiment. And so, yeah, when you look back to past religious structures that were ruled by men very clearly. Oh, yeah. No, we do not want women to be in this level of empowerment and sexuality. No, no, no, no, no. So, yeah, it all makes sense. And I think that's why it's such a such a political act to be in this.
I just think about, like, literally a hundred years ago, these sorts of conversations would have had, at least in America, me in jail, right? So, just, I just can only imagine what future generations are gonna run with, right? Like, we're running with the space now of people who have literally Died burned at the stake.
We have lost lineages of women's religion and divine sacredness to their eroticism because of patriarchy. And so I can only imagine like sitting here now what future generations are going to run and I You know, really hope they continue to, to take up the torch and just take it in ways that I can't even imagine right now.
[00:51:25] Pamela: Yeah. Wow. And here I can notice I'm totally with you and I feel both gratitude for all the women who the shoulders were standing on and in the future women will stand on our shoulders. Uh, and we'll be able to do, to be and do, uh, other things in the world as possible now. When I say, when I, when I use that, when I type that sentence into like the form for today's conversation, like the direction want, or we need female leaders to be turned on.
And so we are all needed, like on the, as I see, like on the leadership edge of a birth of a new system, it's actually seeing life as sacred. Because I would say that that's like one of my deepest realizations through my own sexual awakening and entanglement. That was my deepest realization.
[00:52:18] Nicole: Yeah, I think we're all hurting under the current system, right?
Yeah, and so like, I get frustrated with, uh, I understand, right? But I get frustrated with the feminists who get very anti men, no men, screw men. It's like, oh, you don't Yeah, but like, you don't see that they're hurting under this too, right? We're all hurting under these systems. And so, yeah, what does it mean for us to come together in that and to write a new narrative of understanding the ways that we can all be in community together for the collective well being of our futures and the future generations?
That is still unwritten, right? still a page in the book for us to, to write as we heal from the past and move forward. But yeah, that's not a negation of the things that have happened, but an integration of the ways that everyone is suffering under these systems. And so what does it mean to move forward with that?
I'm excited to see.
[00:53:14] Pamela: Yeah. And as I see it for now, you know, like most likely getting in right relationship to yourself and then the other. That's a good place to start. Women, the fluids getting in right relationship to themselves and then each other. Then we're getting into like a whole system and moving together from there.
And in that core, like, that's fucking getting rid of intersexuality.
[00:53:39] Nicole: Yeah, I think that's been one of my, um, favorite aspects of becoming a psychotherapist, right, is the Responsibility for me to be in connection to myself and, you know, when I'm serving my clients, when I am loving my clients through that sort of service, it is absolutely my job to recognize within myself the moment that my chest gets tight.
The moment that I say what internally, right, the moment that that happens, that is the moment where I then have to take first a deep breath, because we start with the body. And then I have to think, what is that bringing up inside of me? What is that challenging in my own narrative and my value systems of how I think the world is supposed to be and then sit with that first, right?
If our society could get that level of curiosity rather than vitriolic attack at the othering of people's different ways of living, like different ways of living life. Whoa. I'd be really curious what sort of collective we'd be living in at that point. And so, and that work never ends. Like that work never ends.
My chest gets tight about different things all across the board. Right. And so like, I'm confident I'll be dying one day going like, Oh, there's still more to unpack of the stuff that's inside. And so I just, yeah, if I could invite people to be more curious about those moments where they do feel that tightness or judgment, you know, like, what is that bringing up in you?
And that's not always a bad thing, right? There are some times where it brings up frustration when I have clients who are, you know, homophobic if they say judgments about other, you know, that brings up a valid righteous frustration, right? So it doesn't have to be an attack on you. But sometimes there's often things that it brings up that are unprocessed parts, jealousy, insecurity.
internalized systems of oppression, right? And so I think it really is that insight, that continual practice of curiosity about your experience that is going to help us move forward as a collective.
[00:55:43] Pamela: Thank you for your, I just want to say, like, thank you for your capacity of defying distinct and being so gracious and specific with the way you communicate.
It's so
[00:55:54] Nicole: I went into lots of debt to be able to have this education.
[00:56:01] Pamela: And the nuances and the clearness of how you communicate. Beautiful.
[00:56:07] Nicole: Thank you.
[00:56:08] Pamela: Yeah. And again, I can notice my, my My eyes is falling on the harness behind you. Like, uh, it brings forward like the, my, my exploration in the BDSM, uh, world and God damn it. How much that I could unravel when it comes to like follow and leading and dominance, submissive and really be truthful, like to the impulse and the boundaries.
And like, that's an amazing leadership training.
[00:56:38] Nicole: Yes, it is.
[00:56:40] Pamela: Keep training.
[00:56:42] Nicole: Uh huh. Yeah, absolutely. I see the paradigms of consent. I see that crossover to therapy, you know, psychedelic therapy. It's immediate, right? Like the when done well in that level of intentionality of power play and relational dynamics.
There's so much there. Let alone the narratives. I feel like that's something that we didn't talk about, um, today that I, I continually sit in of just like the power of the narrative of the story of who you are, like, who do I think I am in this moment? When we do like a couple's therapy work, like there's that moment where you've gotten the ick of your partner, something, something shifted and I can ask clients like.
Like, who is this person that you're in connection with, right? And at that moment, oh, my partner's horrible, they do this, they do that, right? And so, of course, the eroticism is, is not there, right? But when you first met them, you're like, oh my God, they're amazing, they do this, and they do that, and the eroticism is so there, and, and what has shifted is the narrative of who this person is, right?
And so, I think about the narratives of who we think we are, right? Oh, I'm this hot powerful woman. Whoa, you know, versus the, Oh, I don't know. Um, I have wrinkles and I have this right? Like, and that changes how you move through the world erotically. And so I just, I want people to think more about the narratives and that is something that BDSM.
deeply plays with of like, Oh, you're submitting and you're in, you know, the narrative unfolding and the juiciness of that. It's a very intentional choice of, okay, here's the ritual. We're going to sit down and play with this narrative, this type of, uh, energy exchange right here. Right. But that narrative is, is happening for all of us and all of our lives.
Like right now in this podcast, who am I? Who are you? Who are you, dear listener, right? Like all of that is happening. And so I'd love if people could take that deeper level of understanding of the narratives are a part of our eroticism as well. Yeah. Long career. I'm really excited.
Yeah. Hmm. Well, if it feels good to you, it feels like maybe we're hitting that, you know, the embodiment that like collective deep breath of feeling like we've had a deep, lovely conversation, but I want to check in with you and take that breath together and just see if there's anything else that you'd want to share with the listeners.
Otherwise, I can guide us towards a closing question. No, please guide us. Okay. Well, then the last question that I ask everyone on the podcast is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?
[00:59:25] Pamela: The possibility of having a relationship. with the erotic. Then I mean beyond your own sexuality or the expiration of your own sexuality or awakening.
If you follow what you desire deeply, that that turned onness, you are exactly in the movement of your life, like in that movement of your life.
[00:59:52] Nicole: Yeah, which takes those small moments of checking in with the body, right? Like, Is this a person that brings me more of that energy or do I feel drained? Is this a space that brings me more of that?
Is this something, you know, like your granddaughter at the dog? Oh, I'm so excited. Right? Like when I'd be reading books on these theories, I was just like devouring them like a monster. Right. But then you couldn't get me to read any other book. Like I'd struggle. So, Oh my God, but you get the right topic.
Whoa. You know? So like, I'd love to invite more people to follow that. Like, what is that passion? What is your thread of the large tapestry to one like pull and unravel these systems? Cause again, it's going to be different for all of us, but we all have that internal connection to something that we're passionate about.
And it, it breaks my heart when I meet with people who say, I don't have that. I don't have that. I don't have that. It's like you do. Let's get quiet. Let's really think about it. You know, so such a good invitation to invite people to really like believe that that is possible. Yeah. Well, it's been a joy to have you on the podcast today.
Thank you for joining us.
[01:01:01] Pamela: Thank you.
[01:01:01] Nicole: And I want to hold some space too for you to plug all of your links and where people can find you if they want to work with you and your mentorship. Here's some of your talks. Where can they go to find you?
[01:01:14] Pamela: You can find me on my webpage, uh, pamelafonsabriar. com, and there you can find, uh, different links to different, uh, offerings that I have.
[01:01:24] Nicole: Great. Okay. I'll have all of that linked below. And yeah, thank you for joining me in this divine unfolding of, uh, eroticism.
[01:01:33] Pamela: Thank you so much for the invitation. Absolutely.
[01:01:38] Nicole: If you enjoyed today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. And head on over to ModernAnarchyPodcast. com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode. I want to thank you for tuning in and I will see you all next week.
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