Episode Transcript
00:00:16 Hi, I'm your host Justin Aksoy and this is The Pleasurehood Podcast. A podcast where we explore what it means to be a mother, a leader, and an all around badass from a place of pleasure, empowerment, and turn on. I am here to revolutionize how humans experience sex, pleasure, and motherhood by normalizing self-care, normalizing mothers having desires and normalizing mothers being sensual and sexual beings. Quick side note, you don't have to be a mother In order to listen to this podcast, though I create my work with mothers in mind, this conversation is truly for everyone. I believe that pleasure is one of many paths of healing and I'm here to highlight how to walk that path no matter who you are. It is my deepest desire that wherever you find yourself on this amazing journey we call life, you can experience your power, your turn on, and of course, orgasmic pleasure.
00:01:49 Hello, beautiful radiant one and welcome to another episode of the Pleasure Hood podcast. I am super excited about this next episode because it's actually going to be a series of episodes that connect with one another and it's all about body love. Now I know what you're thinking. <laugh> like body love, that seems so obscure and very buzzworthy, right? Always talking about loving your body. But what I have found on my pleasure journey is that the mind can only understand pleasure. It is through the body we come to know it. That is why I am so deeply, deeply passionate about teaching individuals, especially women, to love their bodies. Cuz it is the first connection that you have to understanding pleasure, to knowing pleasure, and to experiencing pleasure. Our mind's logic is definitely more celebrated than our body's deep wisdom and intuition. Society never tells us to question our thoughts, but we are told time and time again to ignore our guts, our hearts, and any other wisdom that resides in the body.
00:03:42 We are told not to be too emotional or feel too much, but our bodies, our emotions and our feelings can be our greatest teachers if we allow them to. They can guide us towards our deepest desires or keep us from our deepest regrets. The reason our emotions and feelings feel too big is because we've never been taught how to listen to them through our body, only through our minds so they can create chaotic thinking cuz we've never been taught how to flow with them through our bodies. So our sensations don't conjure up a feeling of overwhelm. So in order to cut down the noise, we numb ourselves and we turn off all communication.
00:04:41 But this also cuts off our ability to feel and experience pleasure in our bodies. So in this episode we're gonna talk all about why having a strong relationship with your body can lead to better sex, better intimacy and better relationship connection, but it all begins with you. So with that, we're gonna jump right in to the nitty gritty with our very first body love episode of a five part series. I can't wait to dive deeply in about this juicy, juicy topic. I promise you, after listening to the series, you won't look at your body the same way again. You won't feel the same about your body. You will definitely have the tools to cultivate a more powerful, a more loving and a more intimate, intimate relationship with your body. So are you ready? I'm ready. Let's get into it.
00:06:11 If you wanna have better sex, it is important for you to love your body. If you wanna open up fully to your partner, you must love your body. Oh yeah, we're going straight to the gold my love. I am not burying this lead and here's why I deeply, deeply believe this and why I teach it. Because if you don't feel comfortable in your body, if you are always down on yourself for how you look or don't look, if you're constantly picking yourself apart because you think you don't measure up to what society tells you you should look like, which are based off of unrealistic expectations and standards, mind you and you are about to become intimate with your partner and you have all of these thoughts swirling around your head, and hopefully you're stepping into a scenario where your partner wants to explore your body in a loving and sensuous way.
00:07:24 If you have all these negative thoughts about yourself swirling around in your mind, how can you fully surrender and receive? If you're too busy worried about what you look like, how are you supposed to receive from your partner fully? If you're in your head playing a loop that goes, do they think I'm sexy? What do they think of me? Oh, I don't want them to touch that roll. Is my stomach too big? Do I smell okay? What if they find my belly unattractive? What if they think my ass is too flabby? What if they think my arms are too jiggly? Whatever it is for you, whatever is part of that tape, you run over and over and over on a loop while someone is trying to pleasure you. Instead of being fully present to the yummy goodness your partner is trying to serve you. You are busy living in your head and not in your body.
00:08:34 See, your head will play tricks on you because it takes in all the negative beliefs, thoughts that other people have told you that society has told you, that strangers have told you that social media has told you and you begin to believe it because you think that if you look a certain way, if you talk a certain way, if you walk a certain way, if you express yourself in a certain way, that equals you being enough and you being enough means that you're lovable. But when in truth is you are lovable, you are enough just as you are. There's nothing that you need to do. There's nothing that you need to fix in order to be loved. And I get it. Don't like seriously, I am not like coming from a place of judgment. I'm preaching to the choir because right now I am definitely going through a stage where I have somehow forgotten everything that I teach and I'm having a really tough time finding the beauty in my body.
00:09:52 And all I can do is pick it apart for what it's not and what it should be. And I have to constantly remind myself or more ask myself, do I actually believe this? Is this me or is this something else? Is this me? Or is this like a social media post that I saw the other day? Is this me or is this from an image that I saw wherever website that I was buying an outfit from? What messages am I taking in and then somehow believing that it's true for me? Sometimes I have to stop and think, do I even believe this? Who is this voice right now? Because it's definitely not mine. It's okay to question your thoughts. Your thoughts are meant to be questioned. What's not meant to be questioned is the truth of your heart, the truth of your gut instincts, your truth of your intuition.
00:11:03 Those things are the things that we question all the fucking time. But we never take the time to think like, what is this thought? What is this belief? Where did it come from? Is it even mine? Okay, the journey to sexual reclamation begins with the body. And one of my favorite OSHA quotes is start from the beginning. Your body is the beginning. Attuning your body to sexual pleasure means creating an intimate relationship with your body. It means learning the language of your body, which means you have to stop bypassing your body and accept the totality of what your body is.
00:11:54 Whatever we do to our bodies has to be from a place of love and acceptance. You must believe that your body is worthy and deserving of experiencing pleasure before you can even begin to cultivate a relationship with pleasure. The body is so important. It is the first step. It's the one time that I get to check out of my head because I love my head. I love living it in my head. I'm not gonna lie. I love its intelligence. I love that I can create fantasies in my head, but I can also get very, very lost in my head. And the reality that it creates for me sometimes, sometimes a reality that isn't even resonant with who I am and who I want to be. But I realize if I want to fully dive into pleasure, I have to be in my body. If I want to show up fully and be present with my sexuality and my sensuality, I have to be in my body.
00:13:16 Body love and body acceptance has changed for me through the years I have to say because at different stages and times in my life, body love and body acceptance has meant very different things. In the current season that I'm in as a mother body, love and acceptance is less physical. And like I said, there are, I'm going through a moment where I look in the mirror and I find all the reasons why I think my body is less than perfect. But like I said, I'm able to remind myself that those aren't based off of my standards I have for my body or even what I believe about my body. So I'm able to come back to a place of love and acceptance for my physical form and also a deep appreciation for what my body is at the moment. I am more focused on how my body feels because when I feel good in my body, I find that I enjoy it so much more. It feels good to be in my body.
00:14:36 As you begin this journey towards body love and acceptance, the first question to ask yourself is, how do I talk about my body? How do I speak to it? Are they words of affirmation? Are you affirming your body or are you shutting your body down constantly by finding something wrong and constantly finding something that needs to be fixed? And I just wanna say, if that's where you are in your journey, that is okay. It is okay. There's nothing wrong with it, there's nothing wrong with you. But I do invite you to begin to see your body in a different way, to connect with your body in a different way. And I've provided you with three simple but powerful ways you can connect with your body throughout your day. The next time you find yourself getting ready for your day and maybe you're naked, maybe you're not.
00:15:43 Take a moment to look in the mirror and find one thing that you love about yourself, one physical thing that you love about yourself and your body. And throughout the day, pay that compliment to yourself at least three or four times as you go about your business. Okay? And it can sound something like my shoulder. Ooh, my shoulder is so sexy, my shoulder is so gorgeous. Look at that shoulder and that shirt. Oh gosh, I also love my chin. Look at that sexy chin. So beautiful. It brings me so much pleasure to look at it and play around with just touching it. Just explore what it feels like and looks like for you to flirt with your body parts and see what comes up. How does it make you feel? Does it make you feel like feel ridiculous? Does it make you laugh? Does it make you giggle?
00:16:57 Does it make you feel nervous? It can even make you feel angry. Like angry, whatever comes up, don't judge it to the best of your ability. Just notice what is happening inside of your body when you give yourself a little bit of love and attention. The second way you can practice connection with your body is to be present with how you hold it. A lot of times we are unaware that we are slouching our shoulders forward and closing our bodies in cutting off our breaths, making ourselves appear smaller. Sometimes we hold so much stress in our bodies that our shoulders rise all the way up to our ears and we're walking around stiff as a a board holding our breath, cutting ourselves off from the life force that lives in our lungs. So pay close attention to how you hold your body. And if you're slouching and caving your body in and not breathing or walking around stiff practice lowering your shoulders.
00:18:12 First of all, before you lower your shoulders, take in three deep breaths and through your nose and releasing out through your mouth to kind of soften your body. And then as you soften your body, lower your shoulders, pull your shoulders back so you can open your chest, lift up your head, lift up your chin, and then afterwards take three more deep breaths in through your nose, releasing out through your mouth. And then keep reminding yourself throughout the day to lower your shoulders, to open your chest, to lift your head to breathe. And see how that changes your connection with your body, just by transforming how you hold it. And then number three, you can connect to your body through movement. When was the last time you moved your body and like intentionally moved your body? When was the last time you danced? When was the last time you went for a walk?
00:19:36 When was the last time you moved your hips rolled, your shoulders stretched out your neck movement? And my very humble opinion is medicine. Movement is medicine. And when you take a moment out of your day to move your body, to move your hips, your shoulders, your neck, you begin to move stagnant energy, you begin to move that energy through your body. And as you move that energy through your body, you begin to pay more attention to how your body feels and the sensations that are awakening inside of your body. And when you feel sensations in your body, it's so much easier to drop down into your body instead of living up in your head. Cause the sensations that are created when you move, your body feels so good, you get those endorphins pumping and your body begins to tingle and your body begins to open up, feel more fluid, feel more relaxed and at ease, especially when you're moving to your favorite song.
00:21:02 You might feel sexy, deeply connected to your sensuality, awakens your body on so many levels. So the next time you feel less than great about your body, I invite you to move your body. And it might be hard at first, it might be hard, but even if you just close your eyes and begin to sway back and forth, really paying attention to how your body is moving from one side to the other, feeling your feet planted on the ground how it feels to roll your hips, you'll begin to get more and more into it. And the more you practice movement, the easier it will be to drop down into your body and be present with how it wants to move and be expressed through movement. So I know what you're thinking. How does all of this lead to better sex? Well, when you affirm your body by paying it compliments and also paying attention to how you speak to your body, when you become present with how you hold your body and allowing it to soften, to open up, and when you are paying attention to how you move your body and express it, you start to become more attuned to your body.
00:22:51 And when you are attuned to your body, you are more aware of how good it feels to be in it, you'll begin to find more ways to feel good about your body and yourself. And when you feel good about yourself, you have confidence. And having good sex is all about feeling confident in the skin you are in. It won't matter what your body looks like because you'll be too busy enjoying the body that was given to you. You'll be too busy admiring the vessel you experience this amazing world in and you'll be too busy practicing receiving pleasure because it's all about feeling good. It's all about feeling good. And when you feel good, you are too busy focusing on feeling good in your body than criticizing it. Now I want to be clear, anything I share with you in this body love series is not about quick fixes. These are practices that are meant to be practiced, expanded on and grow as you grow. What I share with you in this series is about elevating your mindset so you can cultivate different thoughts and those thoughts can be a catalyst for powerful action and those actions can transform your life. This is not about overnight success. This is about longevity and sustainability. And the tools I'll share with you will provide you with a path to long lasting change.
00:24:46 In the series, we will explore healing your relationship with your body, how to feel more deeply in your body, how to create safety in your body, and of course, how to turn love in your body into a daily ritual. All this will not only lead you to sexual fulfillment, but also a more fulfilling relationship with yourself, which in my humble opinion is the most important thing that you could possibly get from listening to this series. All right, my loves Cannot wait to dive more deeply into what body love means, what body love is. As we head into part two, healing your relationship with your Body.
00:25:48 Thank you for joining another episode of The Pleasure Hood podcast. Catch new episodes every other week on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcast. The Pleasure Hood podcast is now on good pods. And if you're not familiar with Good Pods, it's a podcast centric social network app where you can follow friends, influencers, and of course other podcasters to see which shows and episodes they're listening to and engage with them. Join me on good pods, subscribe, and let's stay connected For more of my musings on pleasure, motherhood, power, and sex, head over to Instagram and follow me at @justineaksoy or @pleasurehood. And if you are ready to take your Pleasure Hood game to the next level, sign up for my newsletter or you'll receive words of love, encouragement, and support. As you take your pleasure, practice a little deeper. You can sign up in the show notes. And that's all for now. Radiate ones. I can't wait to go deeper with you on this path we call pleasure. Until next time, stay wild, sexy, and free.
