Latest / The Cyclical Doula Podcast: Fertility Awareness, Charting Cycles, and Reproductive Health Education / Why Pleasure Matters More Than You Think with Kris Hall
Transcript
- emmamma: Welcome back. I'm so excited to have Kris here with me today. Before we dive into all of these things that we're going to talk about today, which I'm so excited. ⁓ Can you tell us a little bit more about just who you are as a human being? Emmamma: Thanks so much for being here today on the cyclical doula podcast. If this episode resonated with you, the most powerful thing that you can do is to share it, send it to a friend, text it to your sister, forward it to that group chat. This is how conversations about our bodies start changing, quietly, organically, woman to woman. you are listening and thinking, ⁓ ⁓ want help applying this to my Kris Hall: Yeah, ⁓ I'm Canadian. I used to live in, I grew up in Ontario, so that's the eastern side, kind of above New York. And then I moved out to the West Coast about eight years ago. So I live in Vancouver, right on the ocean. Literally my front door looks out onto the ocean. It's amazing. ⁓ Yeah, I'm part of like the Burning Man local community. So I do lots of like cool projects for no good reason, other than it's really fun. ⁓ And... emmamma: Beautiful. Emmamma: I offer free cycle clarity calls. It's a relaxed conversation over Zoom we talk through your goals, your charting practices, and kind of support that would actually make sense for you. can book one at emmamma.com / free. And if you already, make sure you're following or subscribe to the Cyclical Doula - podcast so that you don't miss future episodes. Kris Hall: Yeah, I liked a fire spin too. Last night I was part of a fire spitting show. Yeah, those are some cool fun facts about me, I think. emmamma: Cool. I love that. What a cool thing. I feel like that's one of those things where I don't hear that people do that very often, but it's like what a cool thing to be able to see like experience. I'm sure obviously like you doing it, you're seeing it more often and stuff, but that's so cool. Emmamma: And if you feel called to leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps more women find this work. So thank you. You deserve to understand body. You deserve to feel confident in your reproductive choices. And you ⁓ have to figure it out alone. I'll see you next week. Thanks for being here. Kris Hall: Yeah, it's so much fun. It like literally like a pyromancer. Like I get to like control fire. Like it's the most primal human thing ever. It's so much fun. emmamma: That's amazing. Do you do it at like specific events or just in general? Kris Hall: Both, yeah, sometimes it's just like on the beach for my friends. Sometimes I just feel like it. And then yeah, last night we had like, we actually had like a paid performance ⁓ with me and my like local, like non-for-profit fire spinning group. Yeah. emmamma: Yeah. for you. So cool. ⁓ what a cool thing. I love that. Amazing. there some type of rhythm ritual that you just love in this current season? Kris Hall: Hmm, yeah, current season of winter of just like deep rest. My, I mean, my favorite ritual is just meditation. And I have a, ⁓ cause actually like when you're talking about like sex and pleasure, like meditation is actually like the most basic building block for that. but I have this like mantra that I go through while I meditate that helps me connect to all my chakras and helps me like really feel deep and aligned. And it like always cements me back into my body. emmamma: Mmm. Okay. Yeah. Kris Hall: So that's my favorite ritual. Yeah. emmamma: Yeah, that's so good. How did you get to that place of like being in this space of connecting mindfulness, meditation, and being able to know that those things are in line and all of that? Kris Hall: Yeah, I mean, there's a couple different ways that my life brought me to meditation. ⁓ The first was that I did like a yoga teacher training in my younger 20s. And so that like really kind of I already had some baseline knowledge about yoga and stuff. But then this really like whoosh, whooshed me over to like, OK, now I understand this body of work so much better. And then from there, like there was a lot of meditation in my training to become a sex, and relationship coach. emmamma: Okay. Kris Hall: ⁓ Yeah, like lots and lots and lots of meditation. Like it is actually one of the most basic building blocks to better sex is like, how often do you meditate and can you meditate like not well, cause it's not like a well or not well thing, but it is like a, can you sit there in your body for multiple minutes and like feel what's going on inside you? That's the most important thing. emmamma: Yeah. Amazing. Okay, well that like that starts off our conversation really well. How does someone get to like being in that point? Because I think so many people are feeling so disconnected or numb around sex and pleasure. And what's that like first step into into changing their, their behavior and their mindset around it all? Kris Hall: think the first step is realizing you're fucking done with the way it is. Like just having that moment where you're like, no, not anymore. I'm not standing for this. I'm worth more than what I'm receiving either from myself or from a partner right now. I want more pleasure in my life. I deserve more pleasure in my life. Or even just that first step of, no, I won't do this anymore. I just won't. Or my life won't look like this. I refuse. Emmamma: Welcome to the Cyclical Doula podcast. I'm Emma, a certified fertility awareness educator, miscarriage doula and the founder of Emmamma emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Kris Hall: And that's the first step. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, that's, mean, that sounds so easy in the grand scheme of things, but I think it takes a lot of time ⁓ get there for some people. ⁓ Kris Hall: It does, it does. It is not to be underestimated. That is a huge step. Like that moment when everything comes crashing down and you realize that you are so done with this, that's a really big moment and it needs to be celebrated. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Is that something that's part of your personal story and are you willing to share about that a little bit? Kris Hall: Yeah, absolutely. So I experienced many, years of painful sex. And that was like in my 20s too. So it was kind of extra devastating in a way because like I was just really starting to get going. I was just really like starting to go, okay, this is the meat of it. This is sex. Okay. And then my whole body just not my whole body really like my vaginal opening just started like shutting down and saying like, no, and everything was painful when it Emmamma: This space is for women who want to understand their bodies deeply, not just memorize information, but actually feel confident in interpreting their cycles. Here we talk about ovulation, hormones, cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and all that's messy in between emotional layers that come with being woman. We talk about trying to conceive, avoiding pregnancy ⁓ hormones. Kris Hall: tried to go in and it was years of pain. I like could, it was kind of like a roller coaster. Like every once in a while I'd go, okay, I think maybe I have a little bit more energy and maybe I have the solution or I have the next thing I'm going to try and then it wouldn't work and I'd go back into despair. And like, had a couple moments where I was like, wait, that didn't hurt. Why did that not hurt? Like, I don't understand, but it was, it was a long roller coaster. And eventually, Emmamma: postpartum transitions, pregnancy loss, perimenopause, and everything in between. Because body literacy isn't just about charting. It's about the autonomy. It's about informed consent. It's about not outsourcing your reproductive decisions to guesswork or fear. Each week, you'll hear conversations with women's health professionals, ⁓ workers, ⁓ emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kris Hall: I did find the solution. But I think the thing that got me through the most was I was like, I refuse, I refuse for this to be my life. I cannot accept a life without pleasure. And that is not what this life is gonna be for me. And so I just kept looking. And I found a woman on a podcast, Layla Martin. She ended up being my teacher. I took her VEDA sex, love and relationship coach training. emmamma: Yeah. Emmamma: and researchers along with solo episodes where I teach practical skills you can apply to your own cycle right away. if you have ever felt like you should have learned this information sooner, if you have ever felt disconnected from your cycle, Kris Hall: takes like a solid two years and ⁓ over a thousand hours. Like it's just the most comprehensive master's program you could possibly imagine where like your homework is literally like self pleasure. I, yeah, I heard her voice on these podcasts and I thought that, that's what I want. That's it. And I went to one of her like first programs and I was like a smaller program of hers and I was like, nope, I need the full thing, like full throttle, full ways ahead. Like I'm not doing this half ass. And so yeah, I... ⁓ emmamma: Mm-hmm. Emmamma: If you want to raise the next generation without shame around their bodies, you are in the right place. So grab your tea, open up your notes app, and let's build a cycle confidence together. Kris Hall: Yeah, just followed my intuition on that one and I didn't know that I was gonna end up as a sex coach. I just knew that that's what I needed next and that's where my heart was calling me to go. ⁓ Yeah. emmamma: Mmm. Amazing. I feel like many women ⁓ have a similar of realizing like, all of a sudden that they're like, ⁓ they didn't realize it wasn't like sex wasn't supposed to be painful. ⁓ If you're listening this and you don't know that like sex is not supposed to be painful in any way, shape or form. ⁓ But, ⁓ and you mentioned in the information that you filled out about pleasure being a vital sign. Could you share about like maybe how you define pleasures first and then what that what that looks like as it being a vital sign? Kris Hall: Yeah, of course. So pleasure. And I feel like I get asked this question a lot and I always have a different answer. And I think that that's the beauty of it is that something else always comes to me in the moment because pleasure is this ever shifting present moment noticing and paying attention and being in tune with all of the sensations that are happening to you right now. So pleasure is like, is the access to our sexual energy. emmamma: Yeah. Ooh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kris Hall: And that is the most alive and potent force on this whole planet. It literally is the force of creation. It makes babies. It is so powerful. And so many of us have been cut off to this life force in its fullest form because we've been taught that it's dangerous, that it's shameful, that it's... Basically, the patriarchy has ripped it away from women in particular. but all beings because that is where our sovereignty lives. That is where like if we have direct access to our pleasure, to our vitality, to that sexual energy, nobody can control you. Nobody can tell you what to do because you are so deep in your own bliss and you're like, no, I'm going to follow what my pussy says because like, how dare you tell me something that's not true. Like, so accessing your pleasure allows you to access like your fullest self. And yeah. It's this unlimited resource. It's the one energy too. They talk about it in like different tantric and yogic lineages that like it's this one type of energy that can be transmuted into all the other types, right? So like heart energy can't really be transmuted in the same way. And so it becomes this like really potent, basically a battery at our pelvic floor. So yeah, that is, ⁓ that's why it's so cool. emmamma: Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So I could just be like in my circle of where I grew up and who I've been around, but I feel like this is not something that's talked about enough or at all. that what obviously like you're in it, you're in the in the experience in the coaching world in like learning from other people and I'm sure so you have a little bit of a different knowledge. But do you feel like this like talking about pleasure and talking about how important it is for everybody, but specifically for women. ⁓ Do you feel like there's like a shift that's happening? Kris Hall: Absolutely, yeah. I feel like we're kind of going through a little bit of like a sexual reawakening, especially for women. And it's really interesting talking about like the differences in what's happening for men right now and what's happening for women. Because for women, especially like, we're so used to not having power, right? We haven't had power for hundreds upon thousands of years in this current world dynamic. And I mean, that's not true historically. And so what's interesting is like, emmamma: Yeah. Mmm. Yeah. Kris Hall: a lot of the knowledge that we're uncovering is actually ancient knowledge, like stuff that we're finally translating and bringing to light. And we're finally looking at in a different light that humans always knew. And there's always been this kind of like wave of like, we knew it and then we lost it and then we knew it again and then we lost it. And so we are on the uptick where we are finding all this ancient knowledge, like Yoni eggs are coming back into style and all this like ancient Taoist. traditions and tantric traditions are coming out into the light and we're translating them into modern life and being able to use them for what we need today. And so yeah, we're a hundred percent in like a resurgence of feminine sexual energy. But what's interesting is the way that that contrasts with men is that men are like, they're used to being in power. And so with, with women, like, ⁓ my gosh, we're going to reclaim our energy. We're going to reclaim our sovereignty and our sexuality and our pleasure and our power. And then men are kind of getting left behind a little bit because they're like not as used to like stepping up and needing to claim that. So yeah, it's really, really interesting talking to like especially experts in sexuality with men about like what's happening there. And there's like a whole bunch of different complexities there. emmamma: Yeah. ⁓ for sure. Is there, ⁓ do you feel like obviously, this is going a little bit tangent, but like, do you feel like that's something that like, men also are needing to have education around at the same time of like being able to advocate for themselves and be able to have all these conversations in a, you know, the same kind of concept or the same way. Yeah. Kris Hall: Absolutely, yeah, there's a huge need and like, I definitely, like at the moment, I'm serving more women and couples, but like in the future and whenever somebody asks, I'm always open to serving men. But the thing is like, there's not as many of them who are ready to work with me right now. And so there is that like, I'm always open and I know that one day it will come to like bigger fruition, but like they do need a lot of support right now. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kris Hall: Because they're looking at all these women becoming more sexually empowered, and I think it's freaking them out a bit. To be completely honest. emmamma: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you is there one thing so like, somebody's listening to it this and they have a partner who's male who's like, maybe a little bit struggling. Is there one thing that you feel like they can do if they've kind of already come to this this part of appreciating their own pleasure that they can help their partner with? And then maybe vice versa. Kris Hall: Yeah, I think, I mean, I personally had a partner, like I came to my partner at the time when I was discovering this body of work and I was so excited and I was like, I'm gonna go become a sex witch. And my partner was like, I don't have time for that. Like, I don't have the time and energy for that. And actually we ended up breaking up because like, and this was a whole different level of this. Like he was... emmamma: for sure. Kris Hall: really not there for any of it. He was like, sex is just something I kind of do, it's done. And then I move on to other stuff that's more important to me. So I was like, I want this to be a central pillar in my life. And he was like, yeah, no. So in that way, like not to scare you that that might happen, but if you're listening and you're thinking, how do I bring my partner along with me, try to invite them into the conversation as like, this is something I want to do with you. This is a place I want to explore with you. emmamma: Yeah. Kris Hall: There's such an important piece to do by yourself and to not create too much distance between the two of you, like offer to do it together and offer it as an exploration and as something that's like, hey, it's kind of like doing rocket ball. Like, what if we just like learn some new rocket ball skills and that it is something that we can always learn and improve. emmamma: Yeah, that's great. Do you so what's the like starting place for all of this? Other than people becoming like more aware in general? How does somebody start to know and appreciate their own pleasure and make it such a vital part of their life? Kris Hall: Yeah, how do you start to notice and appreciate your own pleasure? Honestly, by noticing that the world feels a little bit gray, right? By noticing that there's kind of a lack of aliveness and vitality and spiciness. And you just start kind of noticing that you want a little bit more. You want a little bit more to sex. You want a little bit more to life. ⁓ you kind of look around and go, is this it? I'm sure that there's more, you know? There's gotta be a little bit more. And that is the most true thing ever. Cause like when people come to me, it tends to be for three different things. One is like relationships, like they want to either call in a partner or they want to strengthen the relationship in some way. Others it's like sex and orgasms. Like we want better sex, we want better orgasms. And honestly, a huge category is like, I just want to feel alive. I want to feel... emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kris Hall: alive again. I want to feel this big turned on vibrant sexual energy and they just don't have that in their life and so that is the first thing you notice is like ⁓ I want to feel more alive. How do I do that? emmamma: Mm hmm. Yeah, that's great. Wow. Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's something that again, like we're not talking about it enough. And I think having those conversations and becoming aware of it is just like just that first step for sure. You mentioned orgasms. I feel like a lot of women don't know how to have an orgasm well or like have experienced it, especially in a lot of like conservative Christian religious spaces and all of those things. So can you speak to to that to some of how to start with that? Because I'm sure that's a whole rabbit hole of conversation, but Kris Hall: It is. Yes, okay, orgasms. What do I say about orgasms? It's a weird dichotomy where you need to kind of take it off the table as a goal. You can't chase an orgasm. You can't want it so badly that you focus on it with all your might because that's when it eludes you. It's more about relaxing and allowing and surrendering to your body and its sensations than anything else. And I think what's so cool is, ⁓ emmamma: Mm. Yeah. Kris Hall: especially like on this podcast is that orgasms actually have the same sort of life cycle that most things go through. They have seasons. And so we have the spring where everything's like hot and sexy and getting turned on and everything's like, you know, that's, that's the turned on phase. And then we have the summer where there's the climax, there's the big boom, there's the fireworks. And then we actually have a fall where, you know, you kind of need to integrate. need to like, go into like, what did just happen and think through it. And then we even have a winter where like you do actually need that like depth and stillness and rest in between. And that can even be in between multiple orgasms in the same sexual session and learning. Like they can be short in the same sexual session, but they do happen. And so that's something to be really aware of and to bring into your like sexual scope is like, ⁓ maybe I'm just having a sexual winter right now or an orgasmic winter. And that What I really need is to rest and go deeper into that state to then allow that orgasmic bliss to come back. emmamma: You mentioned like that cyclical aspect of it, which made me think about ⁓ our cycles in general. I ⁓ teach women how to chart their cycles for health knowledge and family planning, ⁓ and to look at those biomarkers. Some people who are using it to avoid pregnancy, therefore, are ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ like penis and vagina sex during the fertile window because they're trying to avoid pregnancy and I I've seen some of this come up in circles of people saying like It just kind of sucks that like therefore Because of they're trying to avoid pregnancy that they're really not able to have like the type of intimacy that they want ⁓ that time of their cycle that they're feeling most like alive and do you feel like when people are ⁓ in more in tune with their bodies, ⁓ that they can the same experience throughout a cycle like that luteal phase and after ovulation, a lot of people are feeling like a little bit more ⁓ low energy, some people describe it as like less of a and things like that. So do you feel like being more in tune with pleasure can kind of increase that desire or libido or all of those things throughout a whole menstrual cycle? Kris Hall: Absolutely. I work very closely with my own cycle and ⁓ yeah, I used it in my own healing of my gut and body many years ago and ⁓ I actually use my own cycle to prevent pregnancies as well. ⁓ None of the birth control methods work for me and I don't like them. They don't feel good in my body. They've done many, different horrible things to my body. ⁓ And so yeah, I've actually, either because I'm like not as fertile, but I've actually managed to emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Kris Hall: really harness the cycle as a way of like, even just noticing like where am I in my cycle allows me to think and to give myself the grace to understand maybe why I'm not feeling as sexual that day, right? Like, especially right before my period, I tend to not feel as sexual. And it's like noticing that and then giving yourself the grace to say, okay, I don't have to force it today. I don't want to have sex today and that's okay. And like your partner will start to notice that. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kris Hall: be there with you, understand that and know that like, okay, maybe if I run her a bath today in five days, she's going to be a hell of fricking horny because I did that today and we're going to have way better sex later on. And so having like, and having your partner, oh my gosh, the sexiest thing ever is like, where are you in your cycle right now? So when I come over, I can support you best. Like, oh, I want to, I want to die with happiness when that happens. Oh my God. But so, and then like I hear it though that like there's that moment. emmamma: Right. Kris Hall: where you want to try to avoid pregnancy, where you feel the spiciest, you feel turned on. Honestly, the first thought that came to mind, what about anal? emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, other options. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Kris Hall: Yeah, and different other options, like just harnessing those different seasons towards that pleasure. Yeah, think knowing more about your cycle, knowing more about your body always increases your pleasure, always. emmamma: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. I think yeah, I think that that's something like, for me personally, it was when I started learning more about how my body worked that I was like, ⁓ like, this makes more sense. ⁓ I grew up like a purity culture aspect. So that brings a whole nother ⁓ shift to ⁓ I was with with all of that. But it's amazing how much just knowing about your body and how it works, ⁓ and all that aid in ⁓ in pleasure in Kris Hall: Yeah, I help during my in-person retreats as well as my online coaching. I very much bring in the actual anatomy. And sometimes it's a lesson about, here are your different parts, and I want you to even start to somatically be able to recognize where it feels which thing. And self-exploration, you can never have enough. With a wand, with your finger, figuring out where these different pieces are, what they actually are, what they actually do. I help during my in-person retreats as well as my online coaching. I very much bring in the actual anatomy. ⁓ sometimes it's a lesson about, here are your different parts, ⁓ I want you to even start to somatically be able to recognize ⁓ it feels which thing. And self-exploration, you can never have enough. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Kris Hall: And also having that understanding that just because a textbook says that it's supposed to be a certain way doesn't mean you're wrong or broken if you are different because everybody's body is so different. think about people who experienced different neuro spicinesses. All of our brains are wired differently. Why would all of our pussies be wired the same? They're not. They're just so uniquely, beautifully different. Like you're... emmamma: Yeah. Ooh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kris Hall: Vaginal canal could go sideways, you know? not everything is in the exact same place. Some people get more pleasure from different body parts because they're literally just, that's where their nerve endings are. It's great. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I ⁓ think that there's that just having that ⁓ knowledge base around exploration in general and how that can be so powerful of just knowing what body or needs in different parts is, ⁓ just really empowering as a human being. Kris Hall: Yeah, it truly is. ⁓ my gosh, there's, you could spend hours, like, just slowly going through and figuring out where everything is. Even like, there's a really simple and beautiful disarming practice that I love to prescribe to people, which, ⁓ using like a pleasure wand, so I always use like a long curved metal wand. It is the best for getting into all the different places for self-exploration, for being really connected to your body. Cause obviously like you can't reach up there to the places you want to go. Um, and for me, the place I want to go the most and explore the most is, is definitely like the cervix ends up being this place of like really high attunement to your body. There's a lot of power there. There's a lot of sensitivity there. There's a lot of pleasure there, but yeah, using a wand and like pressing on your vaginal walls and you kind of go in a clock around the outside. And so you like breathe in. emmamma: Right. Mm-hmm. Kris Hall: Press in and then hold your breath and then release the exhale as you kind of release the pressure. And you can just do that all over your vaginal wall and see what's there. See what wants to come out and release. And sometimes you end up crying. Sometimes you end up laughing. Sometimes there's deep pleasure. Sometimes there's deep pain. But there is so much of our story and collective grief and pleasure and like ancestral trauma even that's like stored inside the vaginal walls. emmamma: Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned pain. when this when people are experiencing around any type of pleasure, intimacy, all of those things, ⁓ what's the first step in your mind ⁓ ⁓ helping get rid of that since something ⁓ not good to be experiencing in in regards obviously like what you were just talking about releasing that might be a little bit different, but ⁓ just Kris Hall: No, I mean that practice can definitely be used in this, but it is like if you're experiencing pain, it might be a little bit too intense to start with. So the number one rule around all this is that every piece of your body wants to be accepted, wants to be loved and wants to belong to the whole of you and wants to feel safe. And so I work a lot with somatics. And so I do like somatic-sized coaching, which is basically the idea that emmamma: in general. Yeah. Kris Hall: every part of you has intelligence. So, you know, like we can feel it in our hearts, right? Like sometimes our hearts know things that our minds don't understand yet. We can feel it in our gut. Our gut knows things that we don't yet understand. It feels nervous that you don't know why, right? That's a somatic response. The same somatic response exists in your pussy, exists in your throat, exists everywhere in your body. Some places obviously have heightened sense of awareness, like those that I just mentioned. Cause you know, like your fingers have some, but like is less. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kris Hall: And so being able to tap into that deep wisdom that exists within your body. And so once you kind of understand that that's how your body works, your pain is likely localized in a certain spot or in even a certain emotion or in a certain action. And so kind of starting to isolate, like where is that fear? Where is that pain coming up? Like for me, it was really centered around like, like my urethra and my vaginal opening, right? And so being able to just tap into that and basically the first step is acceptance. Most of us are fighting against the thing that's causing us pain. We don't wanna be feeling it. We're afraid to keep feeling it. We're afraid it's not gonna ever stop. And so we don't realize, but we're actually rejecting a part of ourselves. And in that rejecting, it gets louder. Every single time that piece of us goes, ⁓ fuck, no, I'm not gonna be rejected. I wanted like, don't, don't stop paying attention to me, right? And so it gets louder and louder and louder. And that's why it gets more painful and there's more fear. And so when I finally dove deep into my own pain, there was layers upon layers upon layers of fear on top of the pain. The pain wasn't even the problem anymore. It was the fear that the pain would happen. And so it would trigger that like somatic response whenever I went to go have sex. And so it really, emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Kris Hall: there's an acceptance and a holding and a loving of that part. I know it's really hard to think of loving the thing that's causing you pain, but ultimately that's what's gonna release it, is telling it you love it and telling it and trying to figure out why it's doing what it's doing, because most of the time it's trying to protect us. emmamma: Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure for a lot of people getting to that route of figuring out why it's protecting you is, is the hard part of, of emotionally getting there and physically getting there. Kris Hall: Yeah, and that is what I work with a lot, right? It is really hard to do alone, but the first step is just recognizing what is causing me pain and can I just accept this just 1 % more? emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's great. Do you, when you're working with people, do you feel like you're helping people release the shame or ⁓ maybe misconceptions around pleasure in a way? Like, I feel like it could go in a couple different ways, but I feel like a lot of people might come in just because of the way our society is come into learning about pleasure with a lot of shame or uncertainty or like not really wanting to go to the extreme of like you called yourself like a sexual witch earlier, which I think is awesome. And also like people may not be ready for that yet. So how do you like kind of like get in that in between spot? Kris Hall: Yes, and you know what, this is one of my biggest challenges, I think, because like, yeah, I'm so deep in the work that sometimes I need to like be brought to the surface, right? And be shown that breath of fresh air and go, right, most people wanna know like, why can't I orgasm? And I'm over here being like, look at Yoni eggs and cervical wands and stuff. And they're like, okay, we don't even, that's not, how do I orgasm? I just wanna orgasm. emmamma: Hehehehe ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. That's cool, but we're not there yet. Yeah. Kris Hall: Yeah, so again, sorry, remind me what the question was. emmamma: Just like how do you get from people from like feeling like shame and like not ready to experience any pleasure or having a hard time experiencing pleasure, not all the way to the extreme of the deep in the spot, but still like wanting to be in that pleasure space. Kris Hall: Absolutely. So my first recommendation is always to look at your own pleasure practice. What are you doing by yourself? And even if you're with a partner, it is very, important to always keep up with your own self-pleasure practice. And are you present during it? Or are you kind of checking out during it, trying to use it as a quick fix, right? Are you kind of outsourcing your pleasure to porn or to vibrators or to things that aren't allowing you to be present in your own body? Because the way that we self-pleasure is the way that we have sex. And so, you you're gonna wire these neurons together, neurons that wire together fire together. And so we're gonna wire them together during self-pleasure and the same combination are gonna start to fire during sex. And so if we're... getting out of our bodies, outsourcing our pleasure, we're not gonna have that same in the body experience that we want to automatically turn on when we go to have partnered sex. So when you're doing your self pleasure ritual, it could be a ritual, but maybe that's too much of a word too, like it's just, it's a practice, close the door, give yourself some time and space by yourself, even just 15 minutes. ⁓ You could go up to an hour if you really wanted to. And the hour is also like, I'm gonna slowly undress for myself. I'm gonna like start to touch my skin really slowly and I'm gonna do pleasure in a way that's not, I wanna get to orgasm, but what feels good? What feels good right now? Because sometimes it's too much to jump straight in. And then in your self pleasure practice, I would really implore people to think about what are the different techniques I'm using to increase pleasure in my body. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kris Hall: And I of course have a couple of suggestions here. ⁓ First is breath. like breathing in and out through an open mouth actually, because when you breathe with an open mouth, you get into your body and out of your head, it kind of stops the monkey brain. So the first is breath, like taking deep inhales in and out through the mouth. It's amazing how fast that like sinks you into your body and all of a sudden you're feeling your sensations. ⁓ emmamma: Yeah. Kris Hall: The next one is sound, like actually using like the sighs and the natural like releases from that and like sounding what your body feels like in that moment. think some of us have been taught that sounds are more like performative or like, you know, we're doing it for the other person. And so like some people say, yeah, I do a lot of sounding when I'm in partner sex, but not when I'm by myself. Try it by yourself. It's for you. What sounds want to come out? It's magically healing. ⁓ And then there's a couple more like more advanced techniques like energy movement and stuff like that, but really just starting with breathing and sounding and a little bit of movement, like really allowing your body to like move the way it wants to is really, really powerful. And I would say the last one is setting an intention. So like setting an intention for your pleasure practice so that it's not like, okay, I'm doing this because I feel like I have to, or that, you know, woman on this podcast I listened to one time told me I should. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Totally used it! Kris Hall: What is your intention, right? Like, I want to feel the pleasure in the present moment. I want to feel the love from my body in my pussy, you know, like whatever it is. Like, it could be really, really simple, even just like, I wanna be really curious with what's here right now. And that kind of gives you a direction to follow. So, yeah. emmamma: That's great. As you're saying all this, what comes to mind for me is that myself included and a lot of people that I'm working with are our parents, our moms. And like adding something else to the list of things to do just sound like can seem ever, ever ending, right? I've just like, it then just becomes another thing to do. And how, how would you like help people who, whether or not they're parents, but just like people who are in that season of like, overwhelm in their in their life, kind of bring this back because obviously it's like, gonna, it sounds like it's gonna be like a grounding and like amazing experience when people get into those, those rituals, those practices, but when life just feels so overwhelming, how do how do we get into it? Kris Hall: Totally. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, the old saying that's like, well, if you don't have time to meditate for 20 minutes a day or five minutes a day, then you should meditate for 20 minutes a day. You know, like, so that is a little bit true here, but I hear you and I understand like life is so busy and like even yeah, suggesting to add 15 minutes to a day, like who has an extra 15 minutes in their day? I would say take... emmamma: Yeah. Kris Hall: Any moment you can, just like how you can turn any moment into meditation, like you don't have to sit down and cross your legs and put on incense to be like doing it properly. You can meditate while you're doing dishes. You can meditate while you're walking. You can meditate in any moment in the same way. What if your pleasure practice could be at any moment? What if you turn on your favorite song and you start to dance really like, you know, with a lot of pleasure, with a lot more movement, even like breathing and just being present in your body, even just for a few minutes. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kris Hall: Practicing that, practicing dropping into your pleasure in the current moment. Pleasure doesn't have to be sexual. It is just the full, sensational experience of the present. emmamma: I love that. That's so good. Another thing came up and depending on how you don't have to answer this if you don't don't feel like it, but therefore talking about all this, I'm now thinking like as a parent, how would one like teach their kids about pleasure in a way that feels safe for everybody? Kris Hall: Hmm, how old are the kids? What aspect of pleasure? emmamma: Let's let's go with like, maybe you can pick the age of when when you would feel like it's a good time to have that conversation. Kris Hall: Hmm, I mean, the most impactful thing I've heard so far is people whose parents, you know, like I think of my best friend who, ⁓ like her parents were very conservative and stuff, but at the same time, like her mom, like she discovered masturbation from a very, very young age. Like she was probably four or five. And like her mom, like saw her kind of like touching herself down there, but like in like the living room. And she just like, her mom just kind of like touched her arm and said like, sweetie, that's wonderful, but not here. Like, and just something really, like those things impact us so much, right? Like the reaction that you have to your kids starting to figure out that there's pleasure to be had in their bodies is really, really important as I love you, I accept you, that's really beautiful and something to explore by yourself in privacy. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kris Hall: you know, just making sure that it's like, okay, here's the limits, but the limits are quite large and I want you to know that you have a safe space to explore. That would be number one. ⁓ And actually like, I've thought more about like how to talk to parents about like gender, to be honest, because like, I feel like a lot of the time we're kind of in this overcorrection moment where it's like, okay, you can... emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Kris Hall: You can choose to be whatever gender you want. And yes, absolutely. But I think first there needs to be an education for kids around, like, there's two different types of energies in all of us. We all have this masculine, solar, more directive yang energy, and we all have this feminine yin, surrendered lunar energy, right? And that you might feel more masculine some days, you might feel more feminine other days. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are one gender or the other, like we all have that healthy expression. And so I think if kids understood that on a deeper level, they might just start exploring the two different sides instead of deciding that they really should switch gender identities altogether. I think that that's a really missing, yeah, really missing piece of it. But I think like pleasure and sexuality, has to encompass all of it. And so it's really just when they have questions, let them know that they can always come to you. and maybe even designate a person outside of you and your partner or the co-parents that you have that answer those questions. Like, I'm so excited to be the sex aunt that everybody comes to to ask the questions. ⁓ my one friend, had a baby and she's like two years old now and she's like, my gosh, she's gonna go to Aunt Kris, she's gonna ask all the sexual questions to her, because honestly, it's the most awkward thing to talk to your parents about. So designate someone else that they can go to. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah Kris Hall: And even maybe be like, okay, if you start hearing about this, this, this, this, this, or if you have questions, you're go over there. I can answer them too, but just so you know, they're ready to answer your questions. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. here's, yeah, here's another person. That's a, that's a really good idea of because I do think like that's for a lot of people, they're a lot of kids, they're not comfortable talking to their parents for a variety of reasons around sex. And I do think like, me personally, I think that comes with a lot of like, moral understandings of what people what kids are interpreting their parents expecting them to do one way or the other. But yeah, having that designated person and what a powerful experience that could be if parents, co-parents have that conversation and be like, yeah, like we're gonna tell our kids that this person is another safe person to have those conversations with. Kris Hall: I'm excited. I'm so excited to be that person for so many kids. emmamma: I love it so much. That's awesome. I feel the same way about like cycles in general. like, and people will keep coming to me. And it's great. ⁓ Do you? So with that, think like, I, a lot of people, maybe it's like the education around it. So like, when we're educating ourselves more about our own pleasure, being able to just educate children about in a way that's age appropriate, that they feel like is age appropriate at different times can be really hard. Kris Hall: Yeah, yeah, definitely. like I said, I think the most powerful thing is just letting them know that they can always ask questions and telling them, like, I will never say no. I will always answer your question if you want to know what it is. like, it's like letting them know it's always okay to be curious. If they have that curious mindset, if they never feel shut down, they'll just keep exploring at their own pace because I think none of us really truly know at what age somebody, it's the right age to say, emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Kris Hall: Okay, this is what sex is. We don't know. Yeah. emmamma: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think like, in my understanding and in my parenting, it's all like, it's little glimpses of just like, these are these are things that it doesn't it's not one conversation. And it's not one one time that we're having conversations about sex and, and therefore pleasure and how our bodies work and how our anatomy is, it's just always always there. And it comes in in bite sized pieces. And yeah, maybe someday you have a full on lesson of like, this is how the act of all of these things take place. But just having those conversations over. Kris Hall: Yeah, and I mean, once the kid gets old enough that it's like, okay, this is actually really relevant, they're like, you know, 14 to 16, kids are starting to have sex in school around them, like, you know, it then becomes like, okay, we're gonna sit down and I'm gonna like teach you, like, I would even get like an anatomy thing, right? Like even just a picture and be like, okay, this is your anatomy. This is how it works. ⁓ This is what you can expect to happen. Like, the kid's probably gonna be so mad at you, or maybe they're not. Maybe they're gonna be like, thanks, mom. Thanks, dad. Thanks. But like, emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Kris Hall: it's very possible they're gonna be like, this is the worst thing ever, but years down the line, they're gonna be like, thank God you told me that, right? But like... emmamma: Right, right. Kris Hall: Teaching them interpersonal relationships is more important than teaching them about sex, right? Like if they know that they can say no, if they feel comfortable in their boundaries, if they know what consent is and how to give it and how to understand it from others, that's so much more important than sex itself because sex is just a conversation between your bodies. So if you're good at conversations in general, you'll be able to come at those sexual experiences with a lot more grace. emmamma: Yes. Yeah. I love that. That's awesome. What a what a good thing. I love how you phrase that like duh and also like hearing it out loud is great. That's so good. awesome. We've talked for a good while. What else do you want somebody who's listening to this to hear about anything that we've talked about or something different? Kris Hall: I want people to know just how important pleasure is. It's your birthright. It belongs to you. Nobody can take it away from you. You don't have to perform it for anybody. It's a source of confidence and vitality. It's your life force. It's the creation energy. You can use it to make stuff. not just babies, but also babies. It is a form of nourishment. You know, it grounds you, it supports you, it holds you, and it releases yummy chemicals into your body and... that sex and pleasure can also be like this teacher that it teaches us to surrender to life itself. You know, like in climax you can hold on to your identity, but in orgasm you can feel the death of every part of your being and you can come apart and fall back in place in this new configuration. You know, like you can you can just be taught how to show up for the moment because that's where magic is. Like It is just so much more juicy to be in the depths of this pleasure. So ⁓ all of that is just so important. And to me, pleasure is a rebellion. Like it is my rebellion against everything that I've been told to be. Told to be small, told to use my sexual energy and personality in a certain way, you know? Like we've been told that it was wrong. We've been shamed for it. for wanting it, for dressing a certain way, for all this stuff. And I just love that that gets to me my rebellion in this lifetime, that I get to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, emmamma: Mm-hmm Kris Hall: Yeah. emmamma: Amazing. I love that. ⁓ So good. Awesome. How can people connect with you? Kris Hall: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ The best place to go is krishall.ca ⁓ I've got all my programs and offers on there. You can find me at the I'll Have What She's Having podcast, where I talk about all things sexual healing and sexual energy and sexual awakening and how to have an orgasm. And ⁓ yeah, you can look up my different retreats as well. do like... immersive women's retreats. I have a couple like three-day ones near Vancouver, Canada, and then I have actually a week-long one in the winter coming up in Mexico. So that's exciting. And then yeah, you can work with me one-on-one if you're like, okay, I'm ready for my pleasure revolution. Let's go. emmamma: Mm-mm, fun. Amazing. So good. So I'll put all those things in the show notes for people to find. But thanks so much for being here and sharing just like a teeny glimpse into what you do and how this can help people on so many different levels. Kris Hall: Thanks, thanks so much for having me.