Latest / The Priestess Temple Podcast / Ep 10: Pleasure, Safety, & Sustainable Behavior Change
Transcript
- Embodied By Jenna: Hi, Baddie. Welcome to another episode of Bad Bitch Embodiment Podcast. My name is Jenna. I'm your host and guide, helping you feel empowered and supported to break up with diet culture, fall in love with your body, and call in your dream relationship. Let's get started. All right, y'all. Today we are going to be talking about pleasure, pain, and desire-based wellness. This is a juicy conversation because, as a registered dietitian, I have worked with hundreds of people in the behavior change process. And I have so many clients that are afraid to come see me because they think that I'm gonna be like a drill sergeant. They think that I'm gonna make them do a bunch of shit that they don't want to do, that they're gonna have to give up their favorite foods and they're gonna have to do Exercise routines that they fucking hate. Well, I'm telling you that that is the furthest thing from the truth, which is why I created the term desire based wellness, because I think that the behavior change process should be fun and enjoyable and filled with pleasure. And I saw that the traditional realm of dietetics was really lacking a focus. On pleasure-based practices to make the road to behavior change a little bit easier and a little bit more sustainable. So, we're gonna be talking about why feeling the sensations of both pleasure and pain are completely necessary when on a behavior change journey, and how they can really fuel the transformation that you experience in terms of your health. I have another episode about desire based wellness in previous podcasts. And so if you want to check that out, I highly recommend it because today we're gonna go into part two by answering a common question that I get from clients, which is Jenna, okay. If I'm not going to do shit that I don't want to do, and I'm only gonna do shit that I want to do, well then how Actually, gonna make a change in my life? Won't I get lazy? Won't I get complacent? If I'm only doing things that are pleasurable, how am I actually gonna change my life for the better? Well, my friend, hear me out. This is such a valid question, and I want you to know that there is, in fact, a way to have an emphasis on pleasure in your day-to-day while still making changes. And I'm going to tell you a very real scenario from my own personal life as an example, because I think you can connect to this scenario really freaking well. And then I'm going to take you on a conversation where I give you direct tips and tricks on how to implement this desire based wellness lifestyle philosophy into your everyday so that you can become the happier. Healthier version of you while also having fun in the process. Because come on, isn't that what it's all about, anyways? So let's dive in. I just had to go to the DMV. Yes, the Department of Motor Vehicles. And if you know anything about this place, it is such a dreadful place. As an adult who drives a car, I'm sure you can relate to me. About this DMV experience, it is quite riddled with pain. It really is. Like, my gosh, you go in there, it's cold. There's fluorescent lighting. There's a line of people that you have to wait behind. You're holding this paperwork that you don't know what's going on. Did I fill it out right? Did I not? Do I have the right form? my gosh, now I have to give these people a bunch of money just to keep my car on the road. And I To talk to someone at the front desk who is miserable and doesn't want to be there through having a subpar customer service experience, only to run out the door and get into my car, which I can now continue to drive, yay! Because I went through that painful DMV experience. So on the surface, it might seem that nobody wants to go to the DMV. And this is true, it is quite a pain. Painful experience. However, you do have the desire to drive your car. Do you not? So the experience of going to the DMV is fueled by desire, or else you wouldn't fucking do it. No one in their right mind would go to that place unless it was bringing them something that truly filled them with pleasure. You know, the experience of driving down the highway with the windows down and the wind blowing in your hair as you're heading to the beach on your long Labor Day weekend to have a few margaritas and feel the sun on your skin and the sand in your toes, right? Isn't that the experience that we want through going to the DMV? I think so. And your ability to experience Pain is directly correlated to your experience of pleasure. Hear me out. Because if you didn't go through that dreadful, awful experience of going to the DMV, You wouldn't be able to have that super pleasurable experience of going to the beach while driving your own car. And so, do you see how this pleasure and pain spectrum works? Both of these experiences fuel your desire to have something that is currently outside of your reach. And this is quite similar to the behavior change process, correct? Because chances are, if you are thinking about changing your diet or lifestyle, it's not that you want the diet or lifestyle change. You want the thing that is on the other side of that diet and lifestyle change. So perhaps you want to have a more aesthetically appealing body. Perhaps you want to have lower cholesterol, which would reduce your risk for heart disease. Perhaps you want to be able to summit a mountain. And so there's always a pleasurable experience that's waiting for us on the other side of the pain of changing our diet and lifestyle. So my personal philosophy is why don't we make the journey towards reaching these goals as pleasurable as possible? Because when we are feeling pleasure, we expand our energetic field and it helps to feel Fuel our passion as we move towards the destination that we desire to be in. So I'm gonna talk about this DMV example and I'm gonna tell you what I did because I think it can give you some clues as to how to implement desire-based wellness into your life. The first thing I did, I woke up and I put on a super cute outfit. Okay. I made sure I looked extra pretty. When I went into the DMV, I love fashion. And so for me, it's a way to flex my creative muscle first thing in the morning and just make my body feel really good. I did my hair, I did my makeup, I put on perfume, and I had a really nice nourishing breakfast. So I leaned into pleasure first thing in the morning, especially because I knew I was gonna have to go to the DMV. And have this experience that was gonna be kind of painful. And I go in there, and all of a sudden I'm like turning heads, right? People are captivated by my energy because I'm there and I'm happy and I'm in a good mood and I'm looking really put together. At a place like that, that's kind of rare. Is it not like people there are kind of fucking miserable? And so my energy made a shift in the room. And then I'm waiting to be called and I come up to the counter and all of a sudden I'm having a really pleasant customer service experience. You know, I was being nice to the girl there because heck, why not? They're there to help you. And she was being very receptive with me. And pretty soon, before you know it, we're through the process. And then I'm out the door. Wow, I got to my destination of getting out of that Motherfucking DMV office faster than I thought. So then I had some extra time and I'm like, you know what? I have to go do some computer work later today. And so I'm going to make the choice to go take a nice stroll by the river to get in some nature, to get in some steps and some fresh air before I have to do more shit that I don't want to which is computer work for the back end of my business. And so as I'm walking and talking, I felt really inspired to share this experience on my Instagram story. And so as I'm walking, I start talking to my phone and I create an Instagram story that had a lot of interaction. And that's where this suggestion to make this podcast episode actually came from. Once I was done taking my walk, I went back home and I did my computer work. And I did it from a really calm, clear, grounded, and energized place. And guess what? It only took me like an hour and a half. I thought it was gonna take me so much longer, but the whole process went by really freaking quick. And so do you see what I did there? I pleasure stacked by doing something I wanted to do, something I didn't want to do, something I wanted to do, something I didn't want to do. And throughout my day, I got a lot of shit done. Like more shit than I thought I was going to because it happened in a quicker time. And here's the thing, okay? When we are on a journey to change our diet and lifestyle, so many people are focused on the destination. Well, I want to weigh this much and lose this many pounds. Well, I want to have. This mile ran in this amount of time. And great, it's good to know where we're going for sure. However, there is always another destination that we are trying to reach. is it not true? Because at the end of the day, once you reach the goal of the certain amount of pounds that you lost or the certain mile that you ran. Well, aren't you gonna wanna try and improve? Aren't you gonna wanna try and do better? Aren't you gonna wanna try and maintain that weight And so I think it's a really, really valid point that we actually hold up, slow the fuck down, and start to focus on enjoying the journey, which is what desire-based wellness is all about. And so here are a couple of tips that can help you to implement this philosophy of desire-based wellness into your everyday life. First off, start the day with pleasure. I swear to God, this practice has changed my life because I think in this society we're so used to getting out of bed, rushing into work, drinking our coffee on the way there, sitting down at our desk, typing and working on our computer until we have to go home, skipping lunch. And that's one way to go about it, sure. But what I'm telling you is that there could be another way. For example, if you start the day slow by waking up, giving yourself some time, putting some effort into your appearance, having a nice breakfast, listening to your favorite podcast or artist on the way to work, not speeding on the way there, and really coming in and sitting at your desk and taking a moment to be grateful for everything that you have. Well, that is gonna put you in a totally different frequency than the one where you are rushing and not feeling any pleasure. And pleasure is one of those things that is so, so, so important for women's health that nobody's really talking about. And I'm gonna make this as simple as possible here. When you experience pleasure through sensation, getting dressed, doing your makeup. Slowing down, eating breakfast, what you're really doing is you are signaling to your body that it is safe. You are putting your body into a state of nervous system safety. And when you do this repeatedly every day for long periods of time, like months and years on end, you rewire your nervous system and you tell your nervous system that your body is safe and When you do this, your energetic field expands and it helps to put you into a different state of health. And so if we can slow down and enjoy the journey by experiencing daily pleasure, we can actually get to our final destination quicker and with more ease because our nervous system is feeling a state of safety. And just like I stated earlier in the podcast with my example of going to the DMV and then taking a walk after before I did my computer work, I want you to implement this concept of pleasure stacking. So this means you do pleasure first, hard activity, take a break, get some more pleasure in. And then do another hard activity. What this does is it brings the body back to a baseline of safety between these harder tasks, and it gives you an overflow of creative energy to pour into those tasks that are quite daunting. As you see, we have this continuum of pleasure and pain stacked throughout the day. Because again, we can't make changes. Without making ourselves uncomfortable. And this is the final thing I wanted to talk about with desire-based wellness. It's not all pleasure all the time. It's not all sunshines and rainbows because at the end of the day, change is uncomfortable, And change stretches us outside of what we know to be familiar to help us get to a destination. That is unfamiliar. and so in order to do that, we do have to experience pain as well as pleasure. We do. Explained this really well in my earlier podcast episode about desire-based wellness. So again, I highly recommend you check that out. But what you have to be willing to do is you have to be willing to make yourself uncomfortable. You do. Because at the end of the day. Losing weight or changing numbers on your blood work or climbing a mountain, these things are not easy. They really take a lot of effort and consistency. And I think this is so, so, so important because typically in our old way of thinking, what we would do is we would just be forcing ourselves to do a bunch of shit that we don't want to fucking do. Well, guess what? When you're following the concept of desire based wellness and you're pleasure stacking throughout your day, yes, you are doing shit you don't want to do, but. You are making sure that you do something that you genuinely want to do beforehand so that you're feeling pleasure, you're regulating your nervous system, and you're making the process fun. You're making the process sustainable. And sustainability and consistency are key when you are trying to get to any kind of health and wellness destination. And so, my friends, I want you to embrace both pleasure and pain on your journey towards desire-based wellness. Think about the goal that you have in mind. I want you to think about what it's gonna take to get there. And then I want you to think about how you can make the process as fun and enjoyable as possible. Through experiencing daily pleasure while also simultaneously experiencing pain and making yourself uncomfortable, You ride the continuum of behavior change through practicing desire-based wellness. And what you'll find is that you're gonna have a lot of fun and you're gonna get to your final destination so much faster. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Bad Bitch Embodiment Podcast. If you enjoyed our conversation, please share with members of your community and be sure to like, comment, and subscribe so we can keep having these amazing conversations every week. I will see you next Thursday. And until then, you are a bad bitch. Don't you ever forget it.