Let’s talk about SEX, baby!
Sex is a great example of the natural CREATIVE PROCESS that is always unfolding in our lives and that we’re either riding with or blocking because of our own EGO ‘stuff’.
Ultimately, life for all human beings is a journey from FRAGMENTATION to WHOLENESS.
Sex is an area where this is most clearly demonstrated.
In this episode of Creative Status, we explore the powerful potential of sexual healing and embodiment with Priestess Francesca, an erotic activist, sexual revolutionary, and advocate for collective liberation through erotic embodiment of all forms.
Francesca shares her expertise as a trusted professional sex worker for seekers, revolutionaries, creatives, and innovators on a healing, growth, and transformation journey who are seeking to ALECHMIZE their experience and grow real.
We discuss the underlying mechanics of sexuality and creation in the human experience, and how de-shamifying unique expressions of erotic desires is an integral part of healing, coherency, and authenticity.
In other words, we look at how “sex isn’t something that you HAVE, but something that you ARE” and that if you’re on a mission to grow real and move towards wholeness (as we all are – whether we know it or not) then removing ego from your sexuality is a massive part of the journey.
We cover loads of ‘stuff’ in this episode:
-Sex (duh!)
-How sex can allow us to move towards wholeness
-Masculine/Feminine polarity
-Kinks
-Attraction
-LOADS MORE
Through her work, Francesca champions the importance of sexual healing and embodiment as powerful tools for individual and collective liberation. We dive deep into these topics and explore the transformative potential of embracing our unique sexual desires and experiences.
Tune in to learn more about the power of sexual healing and embodiment, and how they can move us towards the creative human experience of GROWING real and moving towards wholeness!
Listen using the player above or go to wherever you get your podcasts!
All episodes on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6UG491sXbZv6fUKIMVrIT6
(Scroll down for show transcript)
Leave a voice message to share your thoughts and to be (maybe) featured on future episodes of the podcast: anchor.fm/creativestatus
Episode Links:
Learn more about Priestess Francesca: bio.site/priestessfrancesca
Join the School of Erotic Mysteries: sex-life-liberation.passion.io/learn/products/135986/lessons/2269899
*Creative Status Listeners Special!Use code “Creative Juices” when you register for The School of Erotic Mysteries to receive an exclusive discount and free bonuses valued at $222 (1:1 virtual time with Francesca) – just for listeners of this show!
Francesca’s Instagram: instagram.com/priestessfrancesca1
Creative Status Links:
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Show Transcript
Intro
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about using your creativity to improve your life. I am a life and business coach, and I call myself a creative performance coach, because I help people to tap into their creativity so they can be more whole and do something that’s actually real with that wholeness once they’ve found it to express it.
This podcast is ultimately about that journey, the journey from fragmentation to wholeness, which means that we get out of our egos, we look into the depths of ourselves and bring the shadow self to the surface.
And then we can go out there and start living a life that’s actually real and aligned with our true values and intentions. This podcast episode is an interview with a sexual healer called Priestess Francesca. It’s a very, very open and candid conversation about the creative process of sexual relationships and sexuality itself. Francesca is a sexual healer.
She’s a revolutionist, if that’s the right word, a revolutionary sexual revolutionary. And ultimately she is trying to raise awareness of how the stuff that we all carry around sex is often preventing us from moving towards being a coherent version of who we truly are or in the language that I use, a holistic whole version that’s connected to reality.
We cover all kinds of stuff in this conversation to do with sex and creation and the human experience. We talk about masculine and feminine polarity. We talk about the kinks that people have, why they have those kinks, how the sexual process, which is a weird way of saying it, but that’s how I keep saying it, is ultimately about moving towards intimacy in our relationship with ourselves and relationship with others, how we just attract ultimately what we need because there is a process of alchemization that is always unfolding.
If you’ve listened to the podcast before, that’s basically the process of the unconscious becoming conscious to quote Carl Jung and sex, creativity, yoga, all these things which allow us to become more present and ultimately to raise awareness are all ultimately about that alchemization process. So this is a really interesting conversation that you’re about to listen to.
If you’re not into sexual stuff and you don’t like talking about it or listening to people talking about it, then it’s probably not the episode for you. But anyway, if you’re going to listen, you’re going to get a lot of value. It’s a very real conversation. Francesca, thank you so much for coming on here and just been so open and candid and sharing all your wisdom. Everybody else, thanks for listening and there’ll be another episode of Creative Status next Monday.
But here we go.
Interview:
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Priestess Francesca. Thank you for joining me today on this episode of Creative Status. You have got a project that you work on called the School of Erotic Mysteries and you help people with their sexual stuff.
I suppose that’s a fair way to say it. We’re going to look in this conversation at the links between what you’ve learned working in that area and the creative process as a whole. But before I start asking you a ton of questions, do you want to introduce yourself and tell people how you became Priestess Francesca working in this area?
Priestess Francesca: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to have such a juicy conversation today.
So I consider myself an erotic activist, a sexual revolutionary, and I work with people one-on-one in person and then through my group containers with the School of Erotic Mysteries to decolonize our approach to the erotic, to the sexual, and to allow humans to infuse their erotic nature into everything they do in this lifetime.
Oli Anderson: Wow. So it’s just nothing major really. It sounds really boring and… Casual, super casual.
Priestess Francesca: Yeah, super casual.
Oli Anderson You probably don’t get anything out of doing that. So one thing that you said to me last time we had a chat, obviously not recorded, was how people live, how we live as a species is a reflection of how we have sex. There was another quote that I threw out, I think, in that conversation by a guy called Erich Fromm.
He said, sex isn’t something that you have, it’s something that you are. And I think that applies to the creative process as well. So the way that we create things, the way that we get engaged in the creative process is a reflection of how we actually live and who we are. So if we were going to just unpack that to open up this conversation, what do you mean specifically when you say that?
Priestess Francesca: One of the biggest with casualties in the sexual space is having a form of goal orientation.
And I think this tether is really nicely to the creative process, right? But if we stay with the sex stuff for a second, right, we go in, we’ve been indoctrinated under this notion that I’m going to make out with someone and then I’m going to go to second base and then maybe I’ll go to third base and then I’ll have an orgasm and then I’ll pee and take a nap, right?
There’s this like linear progression of how we’ve been taught to have sex and it’s the same exact thing over and over again. And you can kind of see that, oh, that’s also how the majority of humans live, right?
I go to school, I get a degree, then I get a job, then I get a savings account, and I get married and I have kids and then I die. It’s very similar. So part of the decolonized approach is to remove any goal orientation in the bedroom with your partner with sex. And when you approach sexuality without any agenda, all of a sudden, magic unfolds this beautiful arena of expression and connection and divine intervention, you know, usually will come in. And that’s where the beauty way really lives.
How do you live in a beautiful way? Well, if you’re not having sex in that kind of way, how could you ever expect to approach your life? Sex is the foundation of how we were created to be. It’s at the root of us. And so if this really like fundamental foundational piece about being a human has been captured and is being controlled under this indoctrinated mindset, how could you ever live freely?
How could you ever expect to live freely in the rest of your world?
Oli Anderson: Wow, so something that comes up a lot in this podcast and in conversations I have with people when I’m coaching is this idea of outcome independence. And that’s basically what you’re saying. The idea that if you really want to live life, okay, you have a basic goal or a basic direction to move in, but you’re not so attached to that outcome that it distracts you from actually been in the moment and making the most of what’s going on right there in front of you.
And so if you apply that to what you just said about sex, if people are so rigid about following these steps of getting from one base to another, then it becomes more of a mental thing than an actual physical or emotional or intimate thing itself. And I think that applies to the creative process as well, like you just said.
So if people are trying to create something, like write a book or whatever, and they go into it purely with all these mental ideas, then they just end up blocking the real experience of learning and evolving and expanding and all that kind of stuff. So is that ultimately, you know, how you see it and what you’re saying?
Priestess Francesca: Absolutely, because where the mind will come in is it will drape you in all of these shoulds.
It’ll and it begins to blind you in all of these shoulds. And I usually say, like, if someone came to me when I was younger and put a laundry list of things that I could be when I grow up, and they put sex worker on there and was like, you’re going to help people shed all of the shame around their most taboo fantasies. I’d be like, no, thank you. I, that is not what I want to be doing, right? But it was through the very deep listening being really embodied in my life to say, Oh, this is what’s unfolding in front of me.
This is what I will create now. And I have no idea, you know, most of the time what’s going to happen when I’m in connection with another and if that’s where the beauty ends up really like blooming and flourishing when you when you aren’t draped in these shoulds shoulds get really in the way.
Oli: It’s ultimately it’s about it’s a process of discovery in a way and you can apply it to relationships with other people like you’re saying, or, you know, sexual experiences, but also it applies to life.
So if you’ve got this, this mind driven approach to life, where you think you’ve got it all figured out and you’re going to follow certain steps, then ultimately you just end up blocking what is truly possible for you or who you actually are, the discovery of who you really are. And so getting out of our heads is actually one of the best things that we can do. And so a lot of the things that really make a difference in our life, I think, are just the things that allow us to transcend ourselves in that way.
So for me, my, you know, sex, yoga, going for a hike, all these things have the same end result, which is that we expand our ideas about ourselves by getting out of our minds for a little while, and then having a taste of what’s actually real. So my question for you around that is you mentioned shame. One thing that I found, again, when I’m coaching people or, you know, just talking to people in general, is that the more shame they have that is unresolved, the more shame driven they are, the more of a control freak they become.
And when they buy into that kind of control freakery to keep the shame at bay, that’s when they end up in this kind of person you’re talking about, where it’s very outcome dependent, very goal orientated, very, you know, results driven, and they need a plan and all that kind of stuff. So is there something here about control freakery and, you know, how people live and have sex and create things?
Francesca: Yeah, I will usually tether shame to seeking of validation. So very often we’re taught from a really young age that you are not good enough. enough.
Period. When you’re first in elementary school and you don’t get the greatest grades or maybe your art project doesn’t look the same as everybody else’s, you’re taught even in the safest place in society, supposed to be our schools, you’re taught you’re not good enough. And so you’re constantly seeking validation and the right way to do something which kills it kills every authentic expression of life. So exactly what you’re saying around shame, like the shame that we harbor is rooted in seeking a validation and it’s a very long walk for someone to walk through the world, not seeking others validation.
It’s a really tricky place to be. And it happens in waves over and over again. It’s not it’s never a walk that we’re done walking, you know, that’s not a check and I’m done. I’ve shed all of my shame in life. It comes again and again, because you’re always put into situations where critics will come up and everyone’s going to dump their own shit onto you because that other people will dump their shame onto you as you begin living authentically, because it agitates the chains, I call them the chains of shame, that they still have on. And they don’t like it when people are living really authentic lives because it reflects back at them the way that they’re still inchained.
Oli: 100%. So the way that I also see it is, as we get shamed by the education system or our parents or whoever it is, we end up creating a false version of ourselves to live as, which you can call the ego or whatever you want to call it. And we create that version in order to keep the shame that we feel at bay and try to live without it.
But the consequence of doing that is that whatever was shamed, whether it’s certain emotions or certain characteristics about us or whatever, good and bad, those things end up getting disowned basically and sent into the shadow territory, that’s why I always call it. And so if we’re living in that state and we’re trying to keep those disowned parts at bay no matter what, that’s when we end up lapsing into this kind of control free career as well.
Because anything that we don’t control can end up bringing the shame to our attention and then we have to face ourselves and grow through it or just get triggered or whatever. And so if people are living like that with a lot of disowned parts of themselves, then when they’re creating things or they’re having sex or they’re doing anything else real that brings the unconscious to the conscious awareness, then they have to go about it in a very controlled way.
And so is there something there that sex can be used in a way to bring the shadow self or the shadow stuff to the surface in either a controlled way or an uncontrolled way depending on the person?
Francesca: Yeah, yeah, so many things there. I have so many things I want to say to all of this.
One of the places where I will see shame compounding is around any, any taboo fantasy. And I want to name that taboo fantasies can be anything really, because every part of our sexuality in this society is draped in shame, anything. So if having too much sex, having not enough sex, those are pathologized, right? You could be wrong for either one of those.
Without even a taboo fantasy associated it, the narrative can make you wrong for either of those. So you’re shamed in that way. Saying, I dance and I play in the kink world a lot. And the amount of shame that is carried from these fantasies, I absolutely see that shame spilling over into how they’re living authentic lives. Through the de-shamification of this very fundamental part of us that there is no right way, there is no wrong way to do this rooted practice of being a human, aka the erotic, the sex, it will begin to unburden a human from all of the other places they’re holding shame in their life.
It’s almost like, you know, if you spill your body as the root as a tree and your sexuality is the root of you, getting into that rooted place will transform the rest, it will transform the tree trunk and the branches and the leaves and the way it blooms, you know, it’ll transform everything. And that’s why doing this work is such profound work.
Someone choosing to step into the de-shamification process of their erotic nature, of their sexual desires, of their sexual expression, it ripples into every other place. They start to realize, oh my god, I’ve been living miserably in my work world. And now I can see it because I’m finally getting some pleasure through my authentic sexuality.
And honestly, they didn’t see it before. And that kind of interconnection is where the magic happens.
Oli: Yeah, it makes total sense because like we’ve said, sex isn’t something that you have, it’s something that you are. And so if you’re not accepting your true sexuality, then ultimately you’re not accepting yourself. And so if you don’t accept yourself, obviously your whole life is going to be a reflection of that discord. And, you know, everything you’ve brought into your life is going to be authentic as a result, inauthentic as a result of that. And so this process of de-shamification, what does that entail?
Francesca: I’ll give like a real example. And I’ll use myself because I think this is a powerful one. So my name is Francesca, which maybe you’ve deduced is a good Italian name. So I was raised in a very Italian household. And my lineage has mobsters and the mafia in it. And that’s part of my story. You know, my great grandfather, grandfather, that that was their life.
And that kind of energy has been, you can call it epigenetically passed down, you can call it energetically passed down, whatever you want to name it, that lives in me. And it was manifesting in my fantasies and my desires. And so in my 20s, my hottest fantasy was to like be in the kitchen and be like the domestic housewife who was cooking dinner and her angry mobster husband would come home and start yelling at her and throw her up against the wall and choke her and yell at her and slap her. And then all I wanted to do was be like bent over the kitchen table and fucked, you know, that like that was my fantasy. And that was so taboo because especially because my lineage, I come from a lineage of wife beaters. So to have a fantasy of being slapped across the face during sex.
Yeah, that’s a mind fuck. And there was so much shame around it. And I’m, I talk about it now in a really strong way. But for a while, all I did was tell the partners who I knew weren’t going to judge me in that. And so the first part of it is, I always say, do not throw your most vulnerable parts of you out into a world that is not going to understand you and not going to love you.
There are people in this community who do not think anything that you desire is weird. They are not going to further traumatize you through this process, right? And only when you get to a place of real fortification, can you come on a podcast and talk about wanting to get beat up inside. So that’s the first part is like really protecting your most vulnerable creation.
And I imagine in the creative press, like with art, when you’re working on a big piece, you don’t put it in a gallery at the beginning, right? You don’t do that. You like you wait until you are fortified. Yes, this is what I made. This is what happened here.
This is what birthed out of me. And I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks. That’s one of the biggest down for or not downfalls, but the biggest mistakes that I see is that a little bit of confidence and all of a sudden they run out into the world and look what I did and no one’s going to be there to catch you.
This world is not going to understand you. And so there’s a real fortification process through the date de-shamifying that takes time. And I think we need to honor that.
Oli: Yeah. Okay, there’s there’s loads of things that I can ask you. The first thing is just about I suppose kinks in general. So if we’ve got this idea that the creative process or the sexual process, which is a weird way to phrase it, but anyway, both of those things are ultimately about us becoming more real and allowing, you know, the fragments of ourselves to get out of the way so we can become more whole basically.
That’s how I see it. So with that being said, do you think that kinks and in this case, you’re kink about, you know, needing to get beaten up and stuff, like there was something in your shadow territory or in your shadow self that needed to come to the surface and that would make you more whole if it did. And so that kink was actually just part of your real self, your unconscious self, unconscious also calling, you know, for that to happen.
Does that make sense?
Francesca: Totally. Totally. I believe that the sexual energy is alchemizing energy. It’s here to work us. It’s here to reveal more of us to ourselves. The element that I associate with sexuality is fire. It is a clarifying element. It clears away our distortions, our accrued matter from society that really is just burdening us.
If we lean into embodiment of the erotic in a really authentic way for us, because authenticity is going to be different for everybody, it will reveal more of us to ourselves. And so I had that fantasy and I played out that kink. What I really want to make known to all of the listeners is though, I didn’t try to understand it. Like 10 years later, I can look back, connect all of these dots, understand what was happening, kind of fumbling in the wreckage of the pile of shit that was before me and say, oh, this is what you were alchemizing here. I see it now.
I get it. But a lot of people ask me like, do you have a book that I can read on this? I say, no, please don’t read a book. Please don’t try to understand this. Enter into this space as it is the mystery. You don’t know what’s going to come out of it. And I’ll tell her back to when an artist sits in front of their easel and they say, I want to create something.
Do they map out every single thing and try to understand what they’re creating when they begin? No, of course not. That’s where you get this like paint by numbers bullshit. So stop. Don’t try to understand what you’re doing here. Just play. Just play with it and see what happens because magic will happen.
Oli: Yeah, that’s amazing. So this kind of goes back to what we were saying at the start about the control freak, freakery stuff or just been a control freak. So if you’re doing, you know, paint by numbers or sex by numbers, actually, all you’re doing is kind of super imposing some kind of way of forcing the process.
And if you force the process, well, it’s just going to be limited by all of your current thinking, which is what got you where you are in the first place. And so actually, there’s an element of whether it’s the creative process or any other process of having to step back and trust that what will that what needs to be revealed will be revealed.
So if people have kinks or whatever, then if they start analyzing them before they like follow it through and learn the lessons that the kink is going to teach them, all they’re going to do is distort the lessons that are there with their own limited interpretations and all that kind of stuff. And so ultimately, by judging it, or by trying to interpret it or make sense of it, you take away the power of the alchemy or something like that.
Francesca: Yeah, yep. And I when I’m working with people, I’m usually nuanced saying the difference between intention versus attention. And so a lot of people, especially in spiritual communities or conscious communities, you know, they are saying, well, set your intention. And I say, please don’t please don’t set your intention, because intention is a very covert, alluring way of saying, that’s my agenda.
Your mind does not know. Please throw away any intentions here. Now, for any kinksters that are listening, this does not mean we’re not going to do appropriate boundaries conversations, doesn’t mean we’re not going to negotiate not to doesn’t mean we’re not going to make safe containers, right?
None of those things are true. You can have a very safe container, set your boundaries, have your kinky negotiations, because we are doing edge play in these places, right? But then you drop the agenda of what unfolds in that container, and you pay attention, you listen, you stay in your body, you feel every sensation, and you let that be the pathway. Rumi has this great quote that’s that part of his poem that says, take the first step and the path will unfold. I’m not perfectly stating that, but you get what I’m saying, like, you don’t know where you’re walking.
You have to take that step first, and then watch it unfold in front of you. That’s what happens in the arena of the erotic every time.
Oli: Yeah, you’re so right. Like if you set your intention, actually what you’re doing is just um, it’s allowing the ego stuff to creep in through the back door. And it’s a way of kind of tricking yourself into thinking you are going to be fully president and blah, blah, blah.
But actually you’re putting a filter around whatever you’re doing from the outset. How do you think identity feeds into all this stuff that you’re talking about? When you say identity, you know, like sexual orientations and gender identities and things like that. Yeah, ultimately any, any kind of external label that we attach to ourselves and then go into the process of living or creating or having sex.
Francesca: Yeah, totally. There, um, there becomes what I call like an over identification with the label as a means of being understood. And I think this goes back to a worthiness wound of a seeking a validation wound. There’s a, and I think it’s part of the natural process of maybe I’ve been oppressed. A part of me has not been accepted. And so we swing on the pendulum from being super repressed to being almost reckless with our identities, where I’m going to say, this is me.
This is my thing, right? You’re over asserting yourself in a way. Labels can be very over assertive. And what happens when we over identify with these labels is we, we blind ourselves from seeing what might be unfolding in front of us because it doesn’t match up with the label that we’ve given ourselves.
When I’m in practice with someone in person, I put a little box by the door and I asked them, write down all of the labels that you have given yourself, mother, father, sister, bisexual, queer, like whatever it even man, woman, please ditch them. And we put them in the box by the door and we enter into our sacred sexual space without any of those to burden us.
On the way out, I say, you can take the labels that still feel good for you and you can leave the rest trusting. The universe knows what to do with them now.
Oli: That’s exactly it. So I think the identity stuff is ultimately 99.9 % of the time. It’s just fragments that we’ve picked up and attached ourselves to consciously and unconsciously because of whatever we’ve been through. And so it’s the whole thing that the ego is just a way of surviving what we think we’ve already been through.
But if we take that stuff into a sacred place, whatever sacred place that is, then actually it just ends up causing us to miss out on the sacredness itself because sacredness is about wholeness and no label can ever encapsulate a person fully. And so if people don’t understand that, then obviously they’re going to miss out on the most powerful experiences available to them, which is self-transcendence.
So is all this stuff that we’re talking about really just about that? Putting yourself in a situation where you can transcend your ideas about yourself to see something that’s actually there?
Francesca: Yeah, transcendence is a, it gets tricky for me because so often in, especially in like spiritual and conscious communities, it gets conflated with disassociation. And so part of the path that I’m that I’m really inviting people to come into is first full embodiment.
Really. And I’ll give an example of like what does, what it even is that. So the labels, let’s go back, let’s use the labels as an example. If I’m sitting in a full embodied place with myself, one unto myself, and I put one of those labels on, do I feel more empowered, more expanded, more full, more supple with myself?
Or does my body feel burdened, contracted, constricted? Right? There’s like a way that you can from a very embodied place feel and try things on one at a time, be like, Oh, yes, that’s my yes. And that is my no, you know, one of the labels that when I try it on in an embodied way, you would think I might feel more empowered.
But actually, I feel really constricted. And that’s the label of being a woman. Like this gender identity is really constricting for me. I don’t, I don’t like it.
It doesn’t feel good on. And so I think there’s a way that you can be fully embodied while sitting as witness to yourself simultaneously without judgment. And that’s what I like to define transcending myself. Okay, I’m not, I’m being fully embodied. I’m fully present with myself.
And I’m simultaneously sitting as a divine witness to myself.
Oli: Yeah, so that’s ultimately what I mean as well when I say that we transcend ourselves. So I don’t think we can ever, you know, with the, you know, in the whole mindfulness thing, there’s the observer and the observed.
So I think when we transcend ourselves, we just go into that observer place of, you know, pure consciousness or whatever you want to call it, where you’re not judging yourself, you’ve stepped beyond the duality of saying this is good and this is bad, and you’re just there in the moment. And if you can get to that place, that’s where, you know, as you said earlier, the magic happens because you can let life just do what life needs to do.
And it’s not the, it’s not you and life, it’s just all one thing in those moments. And so that’s I think the creative process and sex is so powerful, because if you do it right, not that there’s a right or wrong way, but if you do it in the way that we’re talking about, I think, then you fully taste wholeness is how I’ve experienced it. And then you can remember that sensation of, you know, who you really are in that moment as you go about the rest of your life.
And so it shows you that, you know, all these little labels and stuff that we pick up, they’re all just contextual and they’re contingent on, you know, what we’re doing as we go about our day to day lives, but they’re never who we truly are. And the problems for a lot of people in life come from thinking that that’s those labels are the end of the line. And so really, it’s just about getting perspective, something like that.
Francesca: Yeah. And I usually see it, I know you’re using the word wholeness, I see it as this pillar, I call it the pillar of coherency inside of me. And so if you’re if you can almost imagine a big pillar going through the center of your body, and what society will do it is it will fracture that pillar, you know, you can kind of see the part of the pillar that’s that’s on in my head is slanted to the right and then the other one is like to the left.
It’s all fragmented all the way. And what the sexual alchemical power does is and pulls it all together again. And I like, I feel I feel that I am in coherency again. Oh, I feel the pillar of coherency inside of myself again.
Oli: Yeah. And then once you felt like coherence, like I kind of said, it just puts everything into perspective. And it changes the way that you you live ultimately.
Francesca: Then you can’t you can’t unsee it. You can’t see how oh, shit, the the education system really like pulled my brain all the way over here. And it’s like, that’s bullshit. You know, once you touch into it, you touch it, you feel it like, that’s it.
That’s really me. You can’t unfeel that.
Oli: What do you think about the idea that most of this journey that we’re talking about of becoming more whole or real or, you know, in alignment with the other thing, most of that journey is about unlearning stuff. It’s not about adding things. It’s about basically removing all the bullshit, like you said.
So the things you picked up from the education system or the media or, you know, the people down the road, your neighbors, whatever it is, all of that external bullshit that we pick up is the thing that makes us believe in these labels and to become incoherent in the first place.
And so when we reach that point of no return that you’re talking about, and we’ve experienced the real version of who we are, there’s no going back because we’ve just unlearned the futility of all that stuff.
Francesca: Yeah, it is unlearning, deprogramming. And the way you’ll know you are, you’ve deprogrammed yourself or unlearned something is there will be a lightness on the other side of it.
So all of those learnings that society says is the right way to be a human. They are burdens to life. You feel burdened. You feel like you’re carrying things.
I have to do these. This is the way it is. They’re these pressures. And when you unlearn one of those, you deprogram yourself, there is a lightness. And it’s one of the very, almost like anti climactic pieces of this journey is that being a human is very simple. But being this in the simplicity of being a human in this society is very hard. I want to name it because I don’t want to oversimplify that, oh, it’s just unburdened, unlearned from all of it. It’s really difficult to do that, to just be in a simplicity of humanity.
Oli: Yeah. Yeah. But I think once we strip away all of those unnecessary complications and complexity, that’s when life really kicks in. But the problem is, because most people are so driven by shame and all the underlying emotional stuff that we talked about earlier, they have created this false version of themselves that I keep ranting and raving about. And that depends on complexity to exist or to keep its hold over people.
And so part of that control freakery we were talking about earlier is that so many people are running around looking for reasons for their lives to be complicated and to be complex. They need that in order to keep the illusion in place. And so that’s why everyone’s looking for new labels to buy into and all this kind of stuff is because they feed or the ego feeds on that complexity. And then it becomes a barrier to all of the real stuff we were talking about.
Francesca: Yeah. I’d love to also just give one piece of something that can be actually very addictive is the stress hormone. So it’s not all in our heads. There becomes then a biochemical reaction in our bodies that keeps us addicted to the complexities that we’re speaking of.
So cortisol is the stress hormone and it is extremely addictive. And you see it when people in the corporate world, right, they can’t put their phones down and not check their email.
They can’t just sit on the train on their commute home and begin to unwind and relax because the cortisol is still running through them. And so I also want to say like give yourself a lot of grace in this process of returning to simplicity because there is a process here.
Oli: The other thing as well is like ultimately this process of becoming coherent in the way that we’re on about is it’s about removing the effects of judgment from our lives and because of what you know because of what we’re saying a lot of people actually judge simplicity they think simplicity is you know it’s beneath them.
Francesca: Lazy.
Oli: Yeah, yeah, yeah, like all these different things and that’s part of the problem. It’s like part of the web of judgment we impose everything but let me throw a curveball at this conversation – so you were saying when you know when we get to this state of being coherent you know it’s ultimately life’s very simple and we feel very light and there’s less tension in our lives I think that a lot of the process that we’re talking about, whether it’s you know becoming more real or whole through creativity or sex or anything else, it’s ultimately about the interplay between tension and release.
So a lot of us we picked up all this you know mental tension that we talked about and you know there are certain things we do whether it’s you know creating something or yoga or having sex or whatever that allows us to kind of relieve that tension basically that’s the short version I don’t want to rant about it too much and so this interplay of tension and release is basically essential to the creative process because if you don’t have that tension and release then you can’t go through the process of creative synthesis or whatever you want to call it – synthesis – and that kind of applies I think to the sexual process I keep saying sexual process which sounds really weird it applies to sex because of the interplay between you know polarities basically so this is where I want to bring in the masculine and feminine polarity idea because everyone’s obsessed with that it seems, especially like online, and that obsession is probably for two reasons:
One, people become obsessed with labels in the way that you said so a lot of people feel out of touch I think with their natural polarity and so they go really hardcore about trying to express their divine femininity or divine masculinity and they really turn up the volume so they can condition themselves back into that way of being but another thing as well is just people need this interplay that we’re talking about and that’s an obvious way to get it so – I don’t know if I’m making sense – but what do you think about that in relation to all this stuff that we’ve said?
Francesca: Yeah, I am deeply resonating and what I saw as you were speaking I got this this image of a very concave darkness and then a penetrating light and what I’m going to tether that to in the realm of the erotic is I’ll use the terms Yin and Yang because they can sometimes help the masculine and feminine is so charged with a lot of gendered programming so I want to release those but in the Taoist philosophy there is the Yin field those are the places of deep receptivity the it’s slower darker wetter fecund there’s a steeping feeling in the Yin field and those are the moments where we are deeply listening we are feeling you know we’re receiving those messages and then the Yang is from that place of deep listening I penetrate the world with my creation it’s not a movement of I’m going to create a bunch of stuff and give my gifts to the world because that’s what I should be doing it’s because I can’t not do that from this place of receptivity oh this is what I’m called to be this is what I’m called to make and so I penetrate the world with my gifts and that’s the light and the Yang is this there’s like a swiftness to it a lightness to it I decorate the world you know with Yang and those are my gifts but they’re always my gifts of Yang the movement are always going to be rooted in Yin stillness and that’s why the label of woman is very constricting for me because I feel the places of deep receptivity in me and I also feel the way that I penetrate the world that is it.
Oli: Yeah yeah like that stillness the you know the masculine or the Yang whatever we’re going to call it that is but basically just pure consciousness and it’s something that we can all tap into you and I think that’s ultimately the it’s the place we’re all trying to get to so in a way when you’re talking about coherence or I’m talking about wholeness isn’t that just deep awareness and then all of these these cycles that we have to go through and the release of tension and growing through the fragments of ourselves all that feminine stuff that needs to happen is also applicable in all of our lives but do you think in terms of what we were saying about kinks and all that kind of stuff being away for the hidden parts of ourselves to come to the surface that can apply or that logic can apply to the way that people might come together at specific times in their life to create a scenario or a situation together sexually in terms of masculine and feminine in polarity?
Sso basically what I’m saying is people are kind of attracted to each other because of you know where they are in terms of that polariity but also what they need to bring to the surface of themselves there and then?
Francesca: Yes yes so I absolutely believe that we are attracted our sexual alchemical powers get activated when we are in the presence of someone who is going to help us alchemize something yes for sure and in that alchemical interplay both people are going to flow between the masculine feminine, the Yin Yang, whatever words we want to give to it.
That’s where it’s really important for not one person to over identify with the masculine or the feminine. I’m going to stay in places of deep receptivity, deep listening, and I’m going to penetrate the world. Same way as my partner, I want them to stay in deep receptivity and penetrate my world as we’re interacting with one another. But certainly, I don’t know any person that I’ve worked with that hasn’t brought something to the surface for me.
It’s the magic that the clients that are attracted to me, they always help me see something deeper in myself. It’s an ongoing, I have never arrived. That’s not how it goes. And I’ll give a real example because I think tangible examples are helpful.
Right now, I’m attracting so many clients who have who want to be regressed back into little space. So they want to have diapers on or they want to be in eroticizing themselves as a baby. And I’m needing to deal with the fact that biological motherhood is not in the deck for me this lifetime.
And there’s a way that the pain of that truth is being alchemized through my playtime with these clients who want to be in diapers. You know, I don’t think that’s an accident.
Oli: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
That’s basically that’s exactly kind of what we were saying. So people are attracted to the things that are going to help them alchemize whatever they’re dealing with at that moment, whether they know it or not. And people come into our lives that are things coming to our lives with this creative project that help us to bring the unconscious to the conscious surface, etc. But also to alchemy ourselves. And I suppose the lesson is exactly what you just said, which is that things are always coming to the surface.
Always. It doesn’t matter how deep we think we’ve gone into life. There’s always something that is emerging, like always. And so if we can accept that, that makes it easier to understand, you know, the processes that help us to engage with life. So sex, creativity, etc. Is that it is the alchemy thing that you’ve talked about, but it’s always happening.
Francesca: Always. Because and I will always use nature as an example. The tree does not stop cycling through the seasons, just because it feels like it’s mastered the seasons.
It doesn’t matter how many winters that tree goes through, it doesn’t say, okay, I’m done cycling through the seasons now. That’s not it.
Oli: Yeah. And that’s ultimately what this is all about, I think. So for me, creativity and growing real, and all the things I talk about, and sex as well, from your point of view, and well, from the point of view of how it is, is ultimately just about aligning ourselves with our nature.
And our nature is that to keep evolving, to keep expanding, to keep moving towards owners in the language I keep using, and to alchemy is everything that we experience, basically. And it’s always, always happening. I feel like I could talk to you for like another three hours or something, and in a way, we just track this open. But we’ve run out of time. Have you got any final words? Or like, if you’re going to sum all this up, and, you know, maybe let people know some changes they could maybe make if they were thinking about working on any of this alchemy stuff. You know, what would that be?
And also, can you tell people where they can find you on the internet?
Francesca: Yes, absolutely. So the thing I want to, if you get nothing else from this entire discussion is notice when you are, quote, shoulding yourself. And just notice, I am doing this because I think I should do this. And then ask yourself, if I didn’t feel connected with that should, but it feel burdened from that should, what would it look like? And without any pressure, right, you don’t have to change super fast, we’re not here to pathologize shoulds either.
Just notice what shifts in your paying attention to these shoulds and see what unfolds in the bedroom in your creative projects, in your work with your relationships. Just begin to notice that if you get nothing else.
Oli: That’s amazing. Because, you know, all of those shoulds are ultimately just judgments of some kind. And they block the awareness and yeah, so powerful. Where can people find you? What’s your website again?
Francesca: So my website is priestisfrancesca.com. And what I would like to offer to all of your listeners, I hold containers for the School of Erotic Mysteries every season.
And I go through this by the seasonal wheel, not the calendar, not Gregorian calendar, we stick with nature here. And so there’ll be a link in the show notes. If it’s not currently open, what I’d like to offer is you can get yourself on my love list. And you put in the code when you register for the love list, put in the code creative juices.
And if you end up joining, if you feel like joining in the create in the School of Erotic Mysteries, and you use that, I’ll know that you came from this podcast. And I will give a bonus, a special bonus valued at over $200 just for the listeners here, which I’m really excited because I want everyone to make beautiful creative juiciness in their life.
Oli: That’s a very sexy code, “creative juices”. So I doubt anyone’s gonna forget that, but I’ll put it in the show notes anyway. But Francesca, thank you so much for this conversation.
It’s given me a lot of food for thought.
Francesca: And just really enjoyed talking to you. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed playing today.
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