Episode 150 - Erotic Wholeness with Darshana Avila
In this episode, I sit down with erotic wholeness guide Darshana Avila to talk about embodiment, authenticity, and coming home to the body. Darshana was featured on Netflix’s Sex, Love & Goop, which was one of my early introductions to a broader idea of eroticism as I began to unravel my good girl conditioning. We explore what happens when women don’t know what they want or don’t trust their bodies—a disconnection shaped by the systems we were raised in, not personal failure. Darshana offers a different path forward, rooted in compassion, nervous-system safety, and learning to listen to the body. Here’s what we cover:
How Darshana defines erotic wholeness and why it’s not limited to sex
Why “I don’t know what I want” is a common and understandable starting point
What compartmentalization looks like in real life and how conditioning keeps it in place
How authenticity begins with sensing what is and isn’t for you
Simple ways to begin reconnecting through your senses and the four allies of erotic embodiment
Darshana Avila is a trauma-informed somatic educator, practitioner and international speaker who helps people reconnect with the most essential aspects of themselves — their truth, their desires, and their capacity for profound pleasure and power. Her work has been featured on Netflix’s Sex, Love & Goop, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and numerous leading podcasts.
Find Darshana here:
linkedin.com/in/darshana-avila
https://darshanaavila.com/podcast/
Find Sara here:
https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations
https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/
https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/
https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach
https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333
What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!
Transcript
Sara Bybee Fisk 00:57
Okay, Darshana, I will say I have seen you before today. I have, because I watched your Goop episode, girl. That was one of my introductions as a recovering good girl who comes out of a very religiously conservative background, but was one of my introductions into this kind of broader idea of eroticism.
Darshana Avila 01:23
Mm hmm.
Sara Bybee Fisk 01:24
And it was really, really helpful for me. And you can tell I'm chomping at the bit to jump right in, because I just did. .Or we'd go much further. I would love for you to introduce yourself to people. What would you like people listening to know about you?
Darshana Avila 01:38
Well, hello, Darshana Avila here. I call myself an erotic wholeness guide, and that is a totally self-styled job title that I got to give myself. Really what I am is an intimacy junkie, an embodiment junkie, which is to say I have always been curious about what my body is capable of, what our bodies are capable of, and how two or more of us, or even us with our own selves, can truly be in relationship in a deep, profound, intimate way. Small talk makes my skin crawl, literally. I've always been drawn to these depths, and sex and intimacy and relationships in general have been playground and laboratory and crucible for growth for me in so many ways, and at a certain point in my life, I decided that in order for me to go on my own journey of ex-good girl-ing, I was going to cut ties with a lot of the very mainstream trappings of what life is supposed to look like and what success is supposed to be measured by and follow what my heart and my body and my intuition were pointing me toward, and that's why we're here having this conversation.
Sara Bybee Fisk 02:57
Okay. There is so much in there.I was writing a few things down because when we think about the line that you kind of drew there from embodiment and intimacy that kind of took you to leave behind some of what our modern capitalist patriarchal, you know, world would call success. Yep. There's a very clear through line for you there.
Darshana Avila 03:28
Yeah, there's a departure from that mainstream definition because it is my assertion and I know I'm not the only one. Our mainstream culture, what you just named patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, we could add a whole other list there. It is fundamentally a culture of disembodiment. It's fundamentally a culture that in implicit and explicit ways has severed us from the wisdom of our bodies, from a connection to our emotions and our sensations, to really being driven by this intrinsic well of wisdom that we all have. And the reason why that's happened is pretty straightforward and simple. You are a far more compliant cog in the wheel, feeding those systems of power when you are not feeling yourself.So to do what I've done is radical, truly. It is radical activism in the world that we live in to say, I'm going to prioritize getting to know my body. I am going to pay attention to my impulses, my desires, my boundaries, and figure out what's authentic for me because we are not compliant cogs in the wheel when we do that. And we're living in a moment where we're seeing this. I mean, it's kind of exciting. We're seeing this grow and grow and so many more people are waking up to this realization. And I believe this will be our tipping point. The more we are feeling our grief, the more we are feeling our longing, our desire, our hunger, our passion, our frustration with the status quo, that is what actually creates cultural change. And that's really what I'm here for.
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:17
Well, me too. Yay. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation, because the thing that I hear most often from the women that I talk to is I don't, I'm not even sure who I really am. And I have them fill out this little intake form and the word authentic, or I want to live with authenticity, which can we please save authentic from becoming, from going the way of the live, laugh, love. I really, we need this word because that's the word that I see over and over again. And I really want to hold that word as hopefully something special and not kind of the trite way that it gets used and abused because it is a source of deep pain.Yeah, I feel that. To the women that I talk to, like, I don't know, like what do I want to do with my life, my time, my energy? I've spent so much time letting the machine tell me what I should be and who I should be and what my body should look like and what my body should do and who my body is good for that I don't know that I have much of a connection to it.
Darshana Avila 06:29
Yeah. I mean, and my version of that is the most common thing women coming to work with me say is, I don't know what I like. Yeah, I don't know what I want. Yes, I might find myself in a partnership with someone super loving and well intentioned who would really love to know the answer to these questions. I don't know.And that's because at 40 something at 50 something sometimes at 60 or 70 something occasionally I get a 20 something or 30 something like, they're, they're just looking around and saying, Wait a second, there's really never been a moment in my entire sexual experience. There's really never been a moment in all of my years of being in relationships of many forms, when I've ever truly stopped to consider me at the center. What is true for me? What do I enjoy? What's a boundary? It's really a transformative moment. And to your comment about authenticity, I agree, like let's let's preserve that word, please. Here's a few synonyms that I'll toss out there. Wild. I love reclaiming the world the word wild when we think about like we use it to speak about like wild flowers or wild forage this that or the other, which is to say something that has not been cultivated on a farm and messed with by humanity. Who are we in our wildness then? Who are we before this conditioning before all of the things that society and culture have told us, as you said, who we could be should be how to be what to look like, do it this way, do it that way. So what is our wildness? What is our naturalness? What is our state of being before all of that conditioning and all of that acculturation gets heaped on top of us. And my my mission is to help as many people figure that out for themselves as possible.
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:28
Well, I would love to help you get this message out because I feel like it's the same thing that I'm teaching in a different form. Yeah.So let's start with some definitions. So you are an erotic wholeness guide. Yes. What would you want me to understand about what that means and what it would look like for me to go through the journey with you to erotic wholeness?
Darshana Avila 08:53
Fabulous questions. Okay, erotic. Let's define this in its broadest term, which to me is also its simplest term, life force energy. So eroticism is that vital animating force, creativity in its purest form that we can channel into our sexuality, but that's not the only place we get to channel it. And this is where our dominant culture has really screwed up our thinking. Because most of us hear the word erotic, and we think of it as a direct synonym for sex. And some of us actually hear the word erotic, and we think of it as like a very sensationalized, like, oh goodness, clutch my pearls kind of version of sex. And this is a way of really reclaiming what is truly our vital life force.And I need to give credit where credit is due. I stand on the shoulders of giants, chief among them, Audre Lorde, who was an integral, integral figure in the black intersectional feminist movement. And if you have never heard of her, go Google uses of the erotic. It is a beautiful essay written by Audre, and it is gonna go into a really gorgeous explanation of what I mean when I talk about eroticism as life force energy. So it shows up, yes, in your sex, but it's also there in your sensuality. It's in your art, it's in your activism. It's in anything and everything you're passionate about, from the way you tend relationships to the way you do your work in the world. So there's nowhere that your erotic nature is not, because you are erotic by nature. When we reclaim that term as something that's more about our life force, we are then stepping into a tremendous source of power. Because if we're channeling that with intention and we're bringing it with us everywhere, you know, like you hear about this concept of a well-fucked woman. Like I hear about this concept anyway. Like what does that evoke for you? Someone who's in her pleasure, someone who's in her power, someone who feels confident, who's creative and dynamic. So that is what your erotic energy gives you, whether you're getting it through fucking or not. And that's a beautiful way to get it. It's just not your only way. And that's really what I want people to know. And that's a beautiful bridge to defining what wholeness is. So wholeness as a nod to the fact that as we go through life, particularly modern Western life where we have to continually compartmentalize and fragment pieces of ourselves and okay, this has to get contained over here. And I show this part of myself here, but oh, and now this protective strategy is coming out because the only way I know how to stay safe is to people please. And all this chaos is going on. We tend to take this on as a personal failing because that is how our individualistic culture treats this and pathologizes any of us for really just doing our survival dance. So the fragmenting, the compartmentalizing is part of how we've survived. Wholeness is a nod then to what gets to happen, the process we go through when at certain times in our lives, whatever that is, middle years for many of us, sometimes a little earlier, Saturn return maybe, You look around and you say like, wait a sec, there's a different way to do this.
Darshana Avila 12:15
There's a different way to be. There's a different way for me to relate to myself and to move in the world. And that's to gather up all those fragments. That's to open up the compartments and figure out what integration looks like. And get in touch with the part of you, call it soul. Call it capital S self. Call it your higher self, whatever you wish. The part of you that has always been and always will be fully intact, overflowing with wisdom, clear in direction. And when you can get in touch with that part and let that part really be the one that leads and holds all those fragments and all those compartmentalized ones, you stand in an embodiment of your power, unlike anything else. And so guiding people toward their erotic wholeness is about understanding your erotic nature, stepping into the whole full power of your being, and really living a life that turns you on and contributes to something greater than yourself.For me, one of my little darshanisms, my slogans, is erotic wholeness is about personal liberation and service to collective liberation. And what I mean when I say that is each and every one of us getting free contributes to the totality of us getting free. We can only begin where we are. So for many of us, it's I got to look at myself. I got to do my work, not because you have to do everything by yourself, but because the more you've done your own work and you are piecing this together for you, the more effective you're going to be in creating broader change.And that collective liberatory action really gets to unfold. So that's the first answer. I have a lot to say here. Do you want me to pause for a sec or should I get right into what the journey look like?
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:12
So let's pause because I should have known I was going to want to jump in. And so I love thinking about things like granularly. So my question is, how would someone know if they were compartmentalized? What would their life look like?What would their... Because some people listening might be like, am I compartmentalized?
Darshana Avila 14:37
Yeah, yes, you are. That's the answer. Yes, you are. Yes, you are because we all are, myself included.I'm sure you would self-identify it that way too, Sara, because any of us who has begun to pursue our healing and our wholeness, whatever that path looks like, whatever it's called, I use the term survival dance, protective strategies, adaptive strategies, things that we do that oftentimes actually curry social favor. So for a woman to be accommodating and pleasing, a good girl, a people pleaser, to be the one who's the peacekeeper in her family dynamic, to be the martyr who's forever overextending herself so long as everybody else is taken care of, this has been bred into us. Those are not our authentic ways of being. Those are not the only ways that we are being. And I assure you that if that's how you're moving through the world, you are compartmentalizing a lot. You are, by very nature of living with those strategies at the forefront, your relationship to your own sense of agency, to your preferences, to your desires is being sublimated. To an extent, we could say, sure, this is the nature of what it is to parent, for instance. One of my best, best friends is a single mother by choice. And it was her child's birthday over the weekend, so her birth-a-versary. And she leaves me a voice memo, and she's like, my mom kept her overnight last night. This is the first time I've woken up in my own house without my child, and I don't know how long. She has to sublimate every one of her impulses, her needs, her rhythms, but she's the solo parent of a six-year-old.Like, it makes sense when you put it into that kind of context. But many of us are playing out these patterns even when it isn't an absolute necessity, and we're doing it because culture teaches us to do that. So learning to recognize these strategies for what they are, learning to create that sacred space, and it is a sacred, sacred thing to get curious, to be in a degree of self-inquiry that might lead you to find, like, huh, do I even like fill in the blank that I have been doing on repeat? That could be the way that you're having sex with your partner, that could be the food that you're eating, that could be the clothing that you're wearing, it could be the exercise class that you're going to, you know, like, do I even like these things that I'm quote-unquote choosing? Or am I doing these things out of a certain habit or conditioning, cultural incentivizing that just has me going on a degree of autopilot without ever questioning what's true for me? So that's a great way to signal to yourself that there's compartmentalization going on. And like I said, we're all doing it. So welcome to the club. You're not the only one. It is not a personal failing. Please hear me say that. If you hear nothing else, we need to stop pathologizing this as if I, Darshana, you, Sara, you person listening are the sole one to be responsible for this and at fault for this.
Darshana Avila 18:03
What we do each have is opportunity. And only we can take advantage of our own opportunities for ourselves. So while it may not be a personal failing that you're doing this thing, it is a personal opportunity and responsibility to do it differently.
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:20
Yeah. Especially if you want a different experience, right?Which by the time you get to midlife, that's just beautiful kind of natural time in a lot of women's lives where they look at the first half of their life and they think, is it always going to be like that? Am I always going, are there always going to be parts of myself that I don't know? Are there always going to be emotions that I'm uncomfortable feeling or talking about? Are there always going to be places in my friendship where I don't feel like really seen and heard because those are some of the common things that I hear from women? And that to me looks like the compartmentalization in their own lives is that there's parts of myself that I don't know and parts of myself that I can't share.
Darshana Avila 19:00
Exactly. And in my world, it picks up there and goes into is this as good as sex is ever going to get? Is this all it's ever going to be in my partnership? Am I now that I'm divorced and have a chance to do it over? Am I going to keep making the same choices that old me made or am I going to try something different for myself?And so what you know, the journey that I take people on, it's rooted in two main professional modalities that I work with. So I'll name those first and then kind of explain what that looks like. I am a somatic experiencing practitioner and I am a sexological body worker. Somatic experiencing is a beautiful modality that focuses on how we tend to our nervous systems and heal trauma through the body. Sexological body work is very niche and we could a simple way to describe it is erotic therapeutic explorations. So I do hands on hands in work with my clients. Yes, hands in because most of my clients have vulvas and vaginas and I put my hands in them. So it's definitely out of the box for a lot of people. You mentioned the Netflix show that I was a part of sex, love and goop, which was incredible. And in that series, you see five experts and five couples working together, going on a journey together. The couple that I worked with, Chandra and Camille, a young lesbian couple, one of whom was dealing with much like you mentioned about yourself, Sara, like a lot of religious conservatism that was living in her body in such a way that she couldn't even be open to touch and penetration from her partner. You see me work with them episodes three, four and six. If you want to go and watch it, you see me work with them individually and jointly. And the example of Chandra, who started out not being able to receive any penetration, we were able to do work together that brought her to the place where that could happen, not just without pain, but with pleasure. So that's me kind of like, like I'm going straight to the happy ending. Haha, pun not totally intended. But the work that I do is very much about embodiment, nervous system tending. How do you actually come out from behind these habituated patterns that generally keep us either very dissociated from ourselves or so accelerated, busy, doing, doing, doing constantly that we just don't have to notice because we're not really available to pay attention because, oh, my God, I've got to check 17 things off on my to do list. And that's how our energy feels. So slowing down, cultivating presence. That is where we then begin to learn what your preferences are. We get to explore in a very experiential way that is rooted in consent that moves at a very deliberate and slow pace. What actually brings you alive? What feels good in your body? How do you learn to cultivate this awareness so that you can say, I like this, not that a little more this way, a little less of this element, so on and so forth. And we begin to craft experiences that ultimately can include having a really delicious sexual encounter where you are at the center. So as a practitioner, I don't receive touch from my clients. My clothing stays on.
Darshana Avila 22:25
I've got gloves on my hands. Like there's a lot that's in place to create a very clear container of integrity and professionalism and the roles are very well defined.But I am there as a facilitator of my client's pleasure. Or when I'm working with couples, some of what I might do is guide and teach and then help them relate with each other in those ways. And this is really outside the box for most of us. And I completely get it. If you're listening to this and you're like, are you kidding me? She does what? Like, yeah, I do. I'm a professional pussy stalker, y'all. It's pretty cool.
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:00
I love it.
Darshana Avila 23:01
And I wish we lived in a world where this was not so rare and with the acknowledgement that it is that it is very outside of the box for us to consider that we might step into a professional setting. That's completely above board it's not like you're going you know like through some back channels to find someone like i work in the full light of day everybody knows what's going on it's not all that different really from going to well that's not sure it's very different from going for a regular.But you know like think of it in that kind of framework where you are trusting someone to help you be in your body because you don't know how to or you cannot do these things for yourself, the difference is, unlike a massage therapist who you need them to go and get the knots out what I want is to give you everything you need to not need me anymore to be able to source for yourself this sense of personal power to have clarity about the things that bring you closer to what you need to be in your body.
Sara Bybee Fisk 24:40
Okay. I have so many questions and so many comments. First of all, I am not a somatic experiencing practitioner yet, but I've done my first two years because my guess is I was running into the same maybe thing you were, which is if we can't feel safe in our bodies, we can't feel the different kind of discomfort that comes from asking for what we want or we can't work through the shame. We can't work through the guilt that comes up when my clients are trying to set and keep a boundary. For example, the same thing that your clients need when they are going to ask for something that they want from a sexual experience that feels so dangerous or feels so forbidden. It's such an interesting overlap to me that being able to feel safe in our bodies is, I think, one of the main things that patriarchy does not want for us because we are taught in so many ways that our bodies from the very beginning, if you are in any, you know, everyone, whether you are religious or not, you grew up under the shadow of Eve, right? The one who made the wrong choice and allowed herself to be tempted and fucked it all up for the rest of us and her body became the bad thing. That was cursed. That's why we, you know, it is never endingly fascinating to me the million ways that we are taught to be scared of our bodies, to not trust our bodies and to think that our bodies are actually bad.
Darshana Avila 26:22
Mm hmm. You're 100% correct. And there's another thing that you said that I want to touch on, which is feeling safe in our bodies is also the anecdote, the counterbalance to our experience of safety outside. And that's a mindfuck for a lot of us because you what you said is 100% true, we're, we're taught to vilify and distrust our bodies to shame our bodies, all these things. We're also taught and add this to the list of things that make this make sense because they're so contradictory. We're also taught that other people should know what is good for our bodies. So it's this message of like, you can get safety from for instance, your male partner who will know how to touch you and please you and love you. But you know, actually, really, it's not about you feeling good. It's about you making them feel good. So hot, like, and this confusion plays out, this direct paradox plays out in so many places. So safety is never guaranteed on the outside. Never.I don't use definitive words lightly. So when I say that it's because it's true, no one can guarantee you an experience of total safety moving through life. What you can learn to do is cultivate a felt experience of safety within which is to say be at home in your body. Be so connected that to your point when you get a signal that tells you Spidey sends hackles on the back of my neck or going up. I'm swiping on this guy on the app and I'm like, yeah, I don't know about this one like follow that or you're in bed with your partner and your partner asks you like to do something that maybe feels a little outside the box, but actually you're like, you know, I think I am curious about this. What happens if I decide to lean in with with gentleness with caution like it empowers us to walk away from what is not for us just as readily as it empowers us to then be able to lean in to good growth to generativity to expanding our capacity and we are not taught these things.You know, we are taught like I said like the world is horribly unsafe, but there's probably somebody out there who you could partner with that'll make you feel safe and like all that crazy conditioning that goes on. This is the answer to that. This is the anecdote. It's about cultivating your own personal agency so that you can be discerning about what is and is not for you. If there's I don't know what else could be a more like apt definition of authenticity back to what we were talking about earlier than that. It's you discerning for yourself. This is my authentic. Yes, this is my authentic. No, I desire this. I do not desire that my boundary lies here. My preference is there. Boom boom boom. I'm in my power.
Sara Bybee Fisk 29:17
Yeah, I love that definition of authenticity, knowing in my body, what is for me, what is not for me. What instantly comes to mind is just the hundred million ways in which we are separated from our bodies and we are told to override it from childhood.And I've talked a lot about that on different podcast episodes. I'm sure you have talked about that a lot with your clients and where you kind of share your ideas as well. So then getting back into our bodies has to be something that we feel comfortable doing. Tell me a little bit about how you begin to help a client get back into their body when that is not familiar to them.
Darshana Avila 30:03
Yeah, yeah. Well, we go slow for starters. And that right there flies in the face of how most of us are living our lives most of the time. Right? Like, like we are so sped up. So slowing down to the pace of presence.What that means to me is that we're really creating spaciousness and time to be in a deep listening. I do a practice with my clients fairly early on, like, once we get past some initial sessions are usually like subtle bodywork, more energetic type tendings where I'm basically they're borrowing my nervous system, they may or may not realize it, but I'm the co regulating force and helping them to settle things down so they can start to become receptive. You need to be receptive for any growing to happen, right? Like you can't, if a vessel is full, if there's no room to pour into it, what are you going to do? Like you can pour, pour, pour, it's just going to splash out all over the place, right? So think of yourself that way, we have to create the conditions for receptivity in your body, in your nervous system, before any of this good growth can begin to happen.So I start my clients out at that end of the spectrum and depending upon what they're walking in the door with, for instance, if it's somebody with a very complex or significant trauma history, we might spend a lot of time on that piece of the journey before we move on to anything remotely sensual sexual type of intimacy. As we progress, no matter where they are, we're like we're always starting with in addition to that foundation of tending to the nervous system and creating receptivity, we start to explore the building blocks of safety. What does it actually feel like? And how do we constantly in ways me and another person in this case, I'm that other person that they get to be practicing with distance and proximity, the pace of connection? How do we, you know, animal to animal, do I come at you front to front body? Do I come at you alongside like we actually like play we do experiments, I'm looking out at my office space as I'm talking to you like, we walk all over this room, we do weird things in here that are fantastic to just play around with like, what is it like to be two bodies in space together and choose how you want to bridge connection.So few of us ever slow down enough to think about this, because we're so used to just people invading our space, or going into other people's spaces. And we have certain social norms that you know, here you shake hands, here you hug, oh, go kiss your grandma, like it's so deeply rooted from childhood through adulthood. Again, it's like other people telling us how to be in our bodies. So we slow things down. So you get to figure out how it actually feels for you to be in your body, and begin to identify when you're bracing, when tension and vigilance are coming into your system, and when you are relaxing.
Darshana Avila 32:59
And when there's openness and receptivity available for a genuine connection to happen. Once that's online, we explore in a really nuanced way around touch around consent, all sorts of vocabulary that gets built up to really create a more empowered dynamic where if you are my client, you can be assured that if you say the XYZ word, I interpret it the same way you intend it, because that right there is a place where a lot of us miss the other person in our interpersonal relating.So for instance, we might say very nebulous words like, hey, sweetie, I want you to rub me or touch me words rub and touch are super vague. But if I say, I really would like for you to give me a shoulder massage, medium pressure, nice and slow, and really focus in like up to where my neck connects with my skull. That's a very, very different set of instructions. And can you give me a shoulder rub? Now, if all you asked for is a shoulder rub, and that's all your partner has to go on, and they're just giving you their best approximation of that. Is it really their fault if you're not getting what you want? No.
Sara Bybee Fisk 34:18
It's not. Okay.And I can just hear the collective cringe of women out there, but like, if I'm that specific, that's going to come across as too needy, too demanding, too bitchy, too bossy. Right. And so I can feel like on the one hand, when you are talking about the deliberate, detailed nature of communication, I start to feel that life energy. Like, yes, that is, I want women to be able to speak as freely as they want to about anything they want to, whether it's, you know, where to put the groceries in the fridge or how to give me a neck rub. And that conditioning about don't be too needy, don't be too bitchy, don't be too bossy.
Darshana Avila 35:04
Yep, yep, yep. What would you say to that? What I would say to that is, fair point, well made, Sara. Also true, the reason why that all feels so cringy to us is because we have not created a culture in our relationships that is a departure from that dominant cultural conditioning.So in my space, when you come into my office to work with me, we have a very different culture in here. A culture that celebrates being explicit and thorough and giving direction and feedback as gifts to our relationship. It's going to enhance our mutual sense of safety and satisfaction, so when somebody is taking the time to say, this is how I want it, I'm like, thank you, amazing. I don't have to guess now, woo-hoo. And so you have opportunities, and I absolutely coach my clients around this, whether I'm working with them individually or as a couple. You have the opportunity to create culture in your own personal relationships.All it takes is two or more people agreeing on a certain set of norms for it to be called a culture, so that's why I'm using this word. So if the culture in your partnership is one where in moments of neutrality, when you and your partner are sitting down, checking in about the health of your relationship, maybe it's because you just went through something really frickin' rough together and you're like, okay, we gotta figure out a better way. Well, that might be a great moment to say, hey, I would really like to create a norm for us of being more explicit with our feedback and noticing like, yeah, sometimes we're gonna take it as like a rejection or it might feel a little bossy or demanding, but what happens if we start to think about this as like a gift to the relationship? What happens if we choose to say thank you? It's really great to know what it is that you're needing right now, so I don't have to sit here and try to mind read, or I'm not over here wondering, am I doing it okay? Do they like it? Is this working for them? When we are more generous and clear, we really are creating win-win dynamics. Your point, like I said, was a really fair one where if the culture does not exist to hear these things as a gift, to celebrate and receive them as such, then yeah, the bossy, the too much, the too demanding, all of those narratives, those cultural tropes, 100% makes sense that those would come online, but the thing is those are not objective facts.They are not truth. It is a conditioning that just as it was handed to you, you can toss out the window. It takes practice. I'm not acting as if this is like a one and done situation. It's a lot easier for me to narrate the possibility than for each of us to make this transformation, but that's why you've got people like you and me to help, like you don't have to go this alone. Like those of us who have devoted ourselves to this work, if we're doing it well, it means it's because we've also been unwinding these very patterns in ourselves. Let us help you. Let us help you. That's what we're here for.
Sara Bybee Fisk 38:12
And so many times what I have found is that when someone is feeling in this like really stuck, disembodied, I don't like my life. I don't know what I want. I don't think that this is how I want to keep doing it, but I don't really know any other way. Helping them understand what's on the other side of that journey is really, really helpful because they can point to it and say, yes, I do want that.So when I hear you say, you know, one of the benefits of embodiment, if we're going to reduce it to that, or one of the conditions of living an embodied life is that you know what is for you and what is not for you. You know that from the inside out. That gut feeling that you have about things is true for you. You can be another benefit. The explicitness in communication is a benefit to your relationships. It means that you have more intimate, more deeply connected relationships when you can say exactly what you need and want to say.
Darshana Avila 39:17
And then we become insisting on permission to do this for ourselves. We are also extending that permission to whoever we're in relationship with. In that way alone, it is such a tremendous gift.You just said it. It's like sometimes we need to be shown the example of what is possible. Well, what happens if you get to be the person who's showing your sweetheart or your child or your friend or your sister or whoever it is? Like, hey, guess what? There's another way to do this whole being human together thing. We can actually celebrate feedback and we can take the time to be a bit more thorough. And look, it does not mean that this is carte blanche. You just get up on your soapbox and start finger pointing. You need to da da da da. That's not the vibe. The vibe, if we're talking about this as a gift that's being given and received, is to really be in a loving centered place of like, okay, like here's what feel really amazing to my body right now. Are you down for helping me to make that happen? Like that's what it comes down to in the realm that I'm often talking to people about, right? Like when we are speaking of sexual preferences or sensual ones, the way we wanna be touched, the movements and shapes and so on and so forth that we wanna make with our bodies, who else but us really is gonna know how it feels from the inside? Nobody, right? So if I'm with a lover, I absolutely wanna know what is gonna have my lover feel great in their body while we're together. Why? When? They feel good. It enhances my likelihood of feeling good. We have more fun together. It's like it's a zero sum game y'all. So when we really take that down to its basics of that we're speaking about agency, you in your personal power. And I'm imagining that most people who would be listening to this podcast would be the sort of folks who say like, yeah, our body, our choice. We deserve to be the ones who have a say over what goes on. Well, this is just an extension of that. If we can't tell our partners what feels good to us in the bedroom, what business do we have being in bed with them? Or are they with us? What are we perpetuating when we refuse our authenticity and just keep performing? Like, is that what you wanna do? Is that the culture you wanna uphold? Or are you ready to maybe break out and create a new culture in your relationship? Again, I understand it's easy for me to say it, not undermining that this is deep growth, big transformational work, but what it also isn't is rocket science. It's so complicated, you know? It just takes some practice.
Sara Bybee Fisk 42:12
love that. So what's a simple way that someone who is listening to this can begin their journey toward being more embodied and connected to their eroticism?
Darshana Avila 42:25
Yeah, you've got these beautiful friends. They're called your five senses. And I want you to start getting to know them. So what I mean there is take a little more time, be a little more present with what you are feasting on, literally and metaphorically.What does it taste like? What does it feel like in your mouth when you sip that first coffee, or in my case, your chai latte in the morning? You know, like, what does it feel like? The example I'm often giving is how many of us, and you can raise your hand unless you've got both hands on the wheel right now, how many of us shower fast as can be, moisturize like we're doing like some crazy, like rapid dance, like what if you took time to soothe the spread lotion on your skin and you spent three minutes doing that instead of 13 seconds? Go for a walk and really open up your eyes and ears and nose. What do you smell? What's blooming? What's falling off the trees? How is the light playing? Is there a pop of street art or color somewhere that calls to you? Is there a birdsong? Why we want to start paying attention to our senses is because they are the vehicle. That is how we are perceiving. Well, technically our body is the vehicle. Through our senses, we are perceiving our world and it is giving us information about what we do and do not like because you're gonna have pretty clear preferences of like, that sound is delightful to me. That sound is nails on a chalkboard to me. So we start learning about preferences when we're paying attention to our senses.Then I'm gonna want you to move in the direction of indulging in what feels good. So listen to the beautiful music, eat the delicious morsel, take the time putting your moisturizer on, those kinds of things. That is where you get to create simple accessible practices. It doesn't require money. It doesn't require a lot of time. Your senses go with you wherever you are. And if somebody is listening to this podcast who has a limit to one of their sentences, or senses, excuse me, not sentences, if you are blind, if you are deaf, like you still have your other sense faculties, use them. It is the primary way to get in touch with what your body needs, wants, is asking for. And then I'm gonna give you one more little nugget. And these are your four allies of erotic embodiment. They are also free and very readily accessible. They are breath, sound, movement, and touch. And with those four, with breath, sound, movement, and touch, you have tools available to you to modulate and regulate your experience anywhere, everywhere. Taking deep breaths in through the nose, out with a vocal exhale, three, six, nine of those, you're gonna feel your nervous system tone start to shift downward. You will get more relaxed. Touch, sound, movement. You can do these in little micro ways. Like if you're feeling tight, you might shake your wrists or roll your shoulders. See, you just did it, Sara. Like you're like, oh yeah, I'm gonna roll my neck out.
Darshana Avila 45:43
Self touch, a beautiful simple practice. You can rub the palms of your hands together to generate a little bit of heat and then bring those warm palms to your jawline, over your eyes, a hand on your heart, a hand on your belly. Give yourself a big squeeze if you're needing to feel a little containment and your edges are free and you're like, whoa, I gotta gather it back together. So through breath, sound, movement, and touch, we have ways to soothe ourselves when we need it.We also have ways to amp ourselves up. Boost your energy. Get yourself a little more activated. And these are the fundamental things that we're always going to be playing with when we talk about embodiment. Your senses and these allies are what come with you everywhere. So any which way, even in tiny doses, if you spend one minute today paying attention to what I just gave you guidance around and that's more than you did yesterday, high five babe. Good job. Those are the building blocks that you get to then construct with.
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:49
Thank you for that. And I want to ask another question, because you talked about, you know, if there's one of your senses that is either impaired or not fully accessible to you, then there are still some other senses or ways that you could work on embodiment.What about someone who's experienced trauma? And they either it could be sexual trauma, it could be other types of trauma where their body doesn't feel like the safe place that it needs to be. How can they create a satisfying embodiment experience?
Darshana Avila 47:22
the same tools as it were, so it's still your senses, it's still these allies and embodiment, really small doses. In the world of somatics, which is body-based wisdom, and as specifically applied to trauma, we have a notion called titration. And what titration means is that wherever your growth edge is, wherever that limit presently lies, you move toward it, you touch, and then you move back to where it's safe. So a nervous system of human, let's talk about the whole human, the whole human who is still really actively in a trauma response. That trauma could have happened three decades ago. If you are still experiencing the impacts of that trauma and being in your body does not feel like a safe place to be, and for instance, if your default strategy to manage that is constant busyness, thus the thought of stillness is terrifying and feels like more than you can do.Three seconds, like if, okay, like be still for three seconds, great. That's then go back to being busy. Okay, kind of come back again tomorrow. Four seconds, oh, okay, there I did pat on the back. So we've really, really got to lower the bar here. All of us are carrying trauma of some sort or another. Some of us are navigating very significant trauma responses in our bodies. And that may or may not, to my opinion, to your opinion feel correlated to the thing that happened to us. Like we're not here, it's not a competition. It's not a judgment. What it is about is your subjective experience. And if being in your body does not feel like the safe place to be, teeny little micro doses of being there repeated over time, you are going to grow your capacity. That being said, get a guide. Get a guide, get a therapist, get a somatic healer. You do not need to do this alone, really. And look, I would love for anybody who is listening to this and is like, I want what Darshan has got. Come work with me. Here's what's also true. I know I'm not accessible to everyone. That's fine. Go find someone who is. Like let yourself be helped. You do not need to do this alone. Pretty much every single trauma out there happens in a relationship. So it stands to reason that we need relationship to help us resolve and move beyond that. Let it be a relationship of your choosing with someone who's really qualified to join you for this chapter of your journey.
Sara Bybee Fisk 49:57
I love that. Let yourself be helped. Let yourself be held. Let yourself be witnessed. Let yourself be heard. Yes.So important. So if people are interested in working with you because they love, as I have, every sentence that's come out of your mouth on this episode, where can they find you?
Darshana Avila 50:16
You can find me on all the socials, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, I'm kind of sort of there sometimes if that's where you hang out, if you're a business-y type. My website really is the best hub and that's my name, darshanaavala.com. I do have an online community called Galgasm that is basically just like a free repository of a ton of resources that you can dive in with straight away. And then if you wanna work with me, it's totally an option. I am based in Oakland, California, a lot of my clients come from other states and other countries and work with me in addition to people who happen to be local. So if you want what I'm dishing out, then I would be delighted to hear from you and to discuss how we might be able to do that together.
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:01
Darshana, do you have anything exciting that's coming up that you want people to know about?
Darshana Avila 51:05
Yes, actually, I am I've been hard at work over here in a quiz and archetypal quiz, which is the embodied protector quiz. So it's very apropos of what we've been talking about here.And it's a really beautiful way to gain insight into what are your go to protective mechanisms? What are these patterns that you've been playing out? How are they showing up personally, relationally, culturally? So you get a frame of like, okay, this is what I'm up to here. Here's where I maybe have been a little bit blind to some of my stuff. And that's a beautiful place to begin to unwind it and to step more fully into your erotic wholeness. So this is going to be available on my site. And you all might be some of the first to get to experience it and take this quiz. And I welcome you in so that you can learn more about you and what your path to erotic wholeness would be.
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:56
Oh, I love a good quiz. So I will be going to a website to take that immediately because I do think it's so helpful when someone can point out pieces of the puzzle in a different way for me to see myself.So I, yes, go take the quiz.
Darshana Avila 52:13
Awesome. Thank you.
Sara Bybee Fisk 52:16
We'll put all of those links in the show notes and I just want to express gratitude for your willingness to come and share just some really, really beautiful, helpful ideas. Is there anything as we kind of wrap up here that you haven't gotten to say that you really want to make sure gets added to this conversation? Oh my gosh. That's a dangerous question.
Darshana Avila 52:38
No, I'm gonna reiterate something that I did said because it bears repeating and I think I even said if you take nothing away. But this one thing and that is whatever is going on for you dear listener like none of it is a personal failing We have so much cultural heat nonsense Pathologizing making us feel like it's all our fault and then it feels really really hopeless and we feel really really helpless inside of these things No No, right here right now. We're gonna just set that narrative aside You are not at fault and you absolutely are not beyond being helped So let that happen let yourself shed the layers of shaming and blaming your precious self Let yourself be helped as we've already said like that is what I want y'all to know.
Sara Bybee Fisk 53:28
Amen. Perfect note to end on. Again, thank you so much for this conversation.
