S2E34: Demystifying Sexual Pleasure With Miriam Elyse

Miriam ELYSE IS A MULTI-PASSIONATE HEALER AND FOUNDER OF PLEASURE AS MEDICINE.

Miriam Elyse is a Licensed Acupuncturist, Certified Tantra Yoga practitioner, and the founder of Pleasure as Medicine; a business created to help people heal through connection. She is initiated in Sri Vidya lineage Tantra and has been a certified practitioner of the healing arts for nearly 20 years.  Miriam works with women, helping them get out of their heads and into their bodies, overcome trauma and heal their blocks to pleasure.

Book a free 20-minute discovery call:
https://www.miriamelyse.com/book-with-me

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Website:
www.miriamelyse.com

Maryann Samreth 0:00

Welcome to mental breakthrough, a mental health podcast about owning our most vulnerable stories. As a reminder, we are all human. I'm MaryAnn Samreth, trauma writing coach, founder of sincerely Miss Mary and your host. In this season, I bring in healers, coaches, therapists and writers in the mental health and thought leadership space to share their stories of overcoming their shadows, to get to a place where the light shines again. These are trauma survivors, mental health advocates, spiritual guides, coaches, and first and foremost, human beings, reminding us to be softer and kinder to ourselves, so we can then meet others with the same compassion. The power and sharing our truths with the world gives permission for others to feel safe experiencing theirs. As a disclaimer, this podcast is not a replacement for trauma informed therapy. But as always, you can find mental health resources on my website at www that sincerely, Miss marry.com.

In today's episode, I bring in Mariam Elise, founder of pleasure as medicine. She is a licensed acupuncturist, a certified tantra yoga practitioner, and she works with women helping them get out of their heads and into their bodies, so they can overcome trauma and heal their blocks to pleasure. Miriam shares her wisdom on the truth of sexual energy, the stigmas around the concept of pleasure and how accepting the sexual parts of us is also activating our vitality. That part of us that feels alive is the sexual parts of us. This is a very, very powerful and just fascinating episode. Sexuality is not just about sex, and Tantra Yoga is not like the bachelor. It's just not about sex. It's more than that. But that is what I used to think of when I thought about tantra yoga, just episodes of The Bachelor anyways, sexual energy is about unapologetically moving in a way we feel alive. This means creativity, this means self expression. This means living your truth and not apologizing for it. When did you ever feel like that? For me, it was probably when I was a child when I literally just did whatever I wanted and just didn't give a fuck that same pure energy of aliveness we experienced in our youth. And that's something that we all have access to that society kind of shamed us for having Maryam dives into the why, and the result of doing the work to heal trauma. Why do we heal trauma? Why do we do this work? Why do we heal ancestral trauma, intergenerational trauma, it's for freedom, the freedom to feel joy, to feel peace, to live. And to do that, to be free to live in the present is to understand and learn, to accept to honor our sexual energy, to know that we are on this earth, to live, to love to be loved, and to just be free to be ourselves. I hope you enjoy this awesome episode. And before I begin, I have a few words from our sponsor. This spring has been a nightmare. I have been very emotional been triggered every other day and it's taking a hit on my body. My body is feeling the stress of my trauma recovery modalities I've done in the past year also just mastering my trauma the past two decades and experiencing trauma in my childhood and it's just been a lot on my body so I've been very very stressed and I feel it I feel my body taking that impact. So one thing that is helping me is this mental health coaching app called Mind shine and I kid you not I use this every single day not just saying this because they are a sponsor but I truly love this app. I think it's so just intelligent and progressive in the mental health space because it is somatic informed. And one thing that I've have been using is the EFT tapping in the stress coaching section of the APA. I do this while I only did it once and it really helped me but the thing that if you don't know what tapping is tapping is a modality that access your meridian points so you can regulate your nervous system and you do a saying to also regulate your mind. So one thing that I've been saying in my tapping sessions is even though I am fatigued as fuck, I love honor and nurture my body. I have had a lot of fatigue the past the past couple of months because of all of them at Mattel All these I've done on my body, it's it's taken a hit. And so I am just trying to regulate my nervous system and take care of my stress because it is not healthy to continue overriding my nervous system like I have done when I was in survival mode, I am leaving survival mode, I'm into healing mode, and that means nurturing my body. And I can't do that alone. So I use mine shine to help me with this every single day. And I highly recommend it. It's a great app. There are so many different different types of coaching you can do on there. I did the relationship coaching one, I did the breathing coaching one. I'm now doing stress management. And yeah, it's great use it. I was also on their podcast last week. So they are a very awesome app. And they are also German, which is cool because in Germany, they really care about mental health, but more so than the US. So I you know, like I'm glad to be able to work with them to amplify this app here in the US because it's affordable. And I'm partnering with them to give you guys one free month of mental health coaching. Again on the mind shine app and you can use my code Miss Mary i s s mar y to get a free month of mental health coaching.

I hope you enjoy this episode.

Hi, everyone, welcome to Mental breakthrough podcast. Today's guest is Miriam Elise. She's a licensed acupuncturist certified tantra yoga practitioner and the founder of pleasure as medicine, a business created to help people heal through connection and we met through our integrative somatic trauma training program. I think that are all those are all the words to that certification. How are you doing today?

Miriam Elyse 7:14

I'm doing so well. Yeah, I'm really excited to be here. And I've been I've been really excited about the topic of trauma and talking about trauma. So I'm just I'm just ready to dive into all this.

Maryann Samreth 7:26

Yeah, yeah, let's do it. So tell me your story of how you got into this work and how you know, you became the healing person you are today?

Miriam Elyse 7:35

Wow. Well, it's it's been a lifetime of, of seeking healing. And of course, as as, as life goes on, we find new reasons to seek healing. The reasons why I started when I was young, were about childhood trauma, family trauma, even school trauma, things I experienced when I was really young. And I think I've been I've really oriented myself towards wanting to get over the pain that I felt inside wanting to fix things, when to fix myself when to fix other people. That's kind of how I started. And through my journey of of living life and kind of accumulating even more beautiful and painful experiences, I have just begun to approach it differently. Not fixing things, but instead using this, this kind of awareness of showing up in my authenticity in every moment as just a way of life. So it's, it's it's constant breakthroughs. constant challenges constantly being met by my own shadow and having to humble myself. And I think the first the first and most kind of major breakthrough that really, that really set me on this path was realizing that realizing how much I was holding in. And I didn't I didn't know that how much I was restricted in my body and my breath as a young woman feeling really uncomfortable in my skin and how much some of my early experiences with really painful sexual harassment and kind of bullying that happened in my home and in my school, how much I tried to deny that that had an impact on me because I wanted to rise above it. But once I once I was able to feel my body, I was able to feel the impact that that really had on me. Wow,

Maryann Samreth 9:36

was that basically just letting yourself feel that pain rather than just resisting it? Yeah,

Miriam Elyse 9:44

essentially, but I didn't even know what I was doing. You know, I was so young. I started looking yoga when I was 15 years old. And that was that was my big breakthrough.

Maryann Samreth 9:52

That is really young to be doing that work.

Miriam Elyse 9:54

Yeah, I'm I'm lucky to have an ex hippie for a mother.

Maryann Samreth 9:59

I love After that

Miriam Elyse 10:03

she could see that I was kind of depressed as a young person and awkward in my body. I'm six feet tall, you know. So when I was a young woman, I was bigger than the other girls and just didn't really know how to hold myself with, with feminine grace or even just like with full embodiment, I would try to hide, I was slouch, I would wear big clothes to kind of cover myself up and going to yoga. The instructor singled me out. And it was so embarrassing. And she came over to me and she said, she basically told me to look into my own eyes in the mirror when I was doing this swan dive movement. Where is where you can inhale your arms over your head and bend. And I couldn't do it. Because I was so terrified of seeing myself in this full expression, arms open, you know, chest out, eyes forward, I was so terrified. And I was almost like afraid that I was going to be made fun of Yeah. And she had me do it three times in front of the whole class until I got it right.

Maryann Samreth 11:06

Was that did that help him? Or would that make things worse, but I am more trauma

Miriam Elyse 11:11

changed my life. It changed my life. Because I didn't even know at that point. Why I didn't understand that it was going to be that hard for me. So I was like, What's wrong with me? Come on, get it together. And then once I finally got it, I had tears in my eyes, because it was the first time in my life that I saw myself as powerful and graceful. Wow. And and that just got me thinking like, wow, what else can be unlocked? When I when I'm able to fully be in my body?

Maryann Samreth 11:42

Yeah, wow, that's beautiful. And to be able to get there at a young age, too. I think a lot of us, you know, have body just, I mean, I don't even like the word body dysmorphia. But we all you know, have shame around the way we look and the way we feel. And it does start from when we're at a young age, and those beliefs get stuck in our bodies and carried on to adulthood. So I love to hear that, like you had this moment where you were able to like reclaim your body reclaim the love for yourself was this kind of like the beginning of you, you know, wanting to guide others through the way you were able to see yourself

Miriam Elyse 12:23

that started happening way later. So, you know, I was I was really young. For me it was it was a personal thing. At first I realized that I could I could feel confident if I changed the way that I was standing. If I breathe deeper, I could almost almost I don't want to say fake my competence, but create my competence. Right? Because in yoga, I was like, Wow, I feel so a mature at that age, I was like mature was my dad. I was like, I feel so mature. When I stand like this, my be like this, like I feel so in my in my center in my power. And that really at first just helped me realize that I wasn't a victim to my circumstances. And it helped me realize that the kids at school that were harassing me, for example, didn't actually get through to me, like I was able to separate the part of me that was hurting, and then the me that I could connect without in yoga class or when I was meditating.

Maryann Samreth 13:22

Wow. Can you talk about that further? Was that kind of just allowing yourself to experience, you know, the pain but like not suffering in it?

Miriam Elyse 13:32

Exactly. So I think the most healing thing that I've learned to do, I should say that my most beneficial tool to overcoming my own like trauma and pain has been to create a separation between the one who's thinking the thoughts and observing my own mind. Right? Yeah. So being able to say, oh, like, for example. what that person said, is hurting my feelings. And then you watch your mind kind of downward spiral about I'm not good enough. They're probably right, did it die, I'm ashamed. And then I developed the ability through yoga and really through slowing my breath and being aware of my breath. Oh, look at the to say like, Oh, look at these thoughts that I'm having. Like, look at these stories that I'm that I'm believing and look at how they're affecting me. And what if, you know, and I didn't have the capacity to fully do this. At that age. This has definitely been developed over years of like meditation, yoga and all that. But it became like, what if I could watch these thoughts as a story and as something my brain is doing? And understand that even though I can't really control the thoughts, I can at least create some distance and just like witness them as reactions in my brain and sort of the truth of who I am.

Maryann Samreth 14:51

Wow, that is I have goosebumps because it's exactly like you said you're just watching the story instead of embodying it and making Your truth you're you're able to different differentiate the two. Yeah,

Miriam Elyse 15:05

yeah, exactly. Yeah. So just to answer the question, like, I wasn't able to, I wasn't inspired to help other people. Until I think, I guess my early 20s When I got into acupuncture school, and was like, really wanted a way to help people heal, but I didn't have I didn't know all the options back then. I was like, I know, I know that, that modern psychology, isn't it? Because I really don't want to diagnose people and put people in boxes. Yeah, right. And I was like, that's not it. And being a regular doctor, isn't it? Because that's too much school.

Maryann Samreth 15:45

It's like 10 years. In law. Yeah. And

Miriam Elyse 15:47

so acupuncture was something that I what I knew about it was that it really did incorporate like the mind, body, and spirit. And I've always kind of been really spiritual. So it just made sense to me. But I did my first yoga teacher training when I was 18, and started teaching yoga, and realizing how much my confidence was improved by just leading other people. Yeah, I was like, it's like, you have to do the thing that you need from you know what I'm saying? Like, you teach what you need to learn?

Maryann Samreth 16:18

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like the students also be kind of kind of become your guides and your teachers as, as you are leading them, you're seeing what is needed. And then you deepen your practice. And then and then you teach them it's like this perpetual perpetual cycle of like, teacher, student it and your own, you know, personal healing journey.

Miriam Elyse 16:39

Absolutely. And also, that's the first time that I experience feeling like I was being healed through somebody else's healing. Wow. Yeah. So watching in, in a yoga class, and I was kind of teaching here and there, I was also in school full time. But when I, when I would teach, watching somebody be moved to tears from a certain posture, or watching somebody stress, just like melt off their body. When I guide them through this movement, I was able to feel my impact for the first time and be like, Wow, I feel powerful that I can help somebody that like that, and how much that would uplift me. And it was so healing for me to watch other people healing. And I think that's when I got like, hooked.

Maryann Samreth 17:26

That is powerful. And I love how you say it, like you felt the impact that people were feeling by you leading them. So you were able to, you know, see yourself because I think when we experience things in our lives, and that disconnect us, we can't see our own power, our own humaneness our own, like amazingness. And you're able to, to see yourself through the lens of other people.

Miriam Elyse 17:51

Exactly, exactly. And that's kind of been it, like along my whole healing journey is I realized that when I'm stuck in my head, I don't necessarily see myself that well, I've had to really come overcome a lot of negative self perception, and fear and shame and thinking, I'm not enough for too much and whatever way and when I when I let myself just share either who I am I share a class or share my gifts. The oftentimes I'm always, you know, not perfect, but oftentimes, the reflection that I get back is better than what I feel about myself. Yeah. And so I'm kind of like, Who is this voice in my head telling me I'm not good enough. Let's just shut her up.

Maryann Samreth 18:36

Haha, that's so true. It's it's hard to differentiate trauma talking and your own inner tube talking. I think it's a constant battle back and forth of who's speaking and who's right and who's wrong.

Miriam Elyse 18:51

Exactly, exactly. And that's, then we come back to that thing of like, being able to create some distance between your thoughts and just watch. Watch it as like a function of my brain doing this thing. Just like my gut. If I eat something bad, my guts gonna feel a certain way. I'm like, Oh, look at my gut having that reaction. But unfortunately, when it's my brain, I think it's me.

Maryann Samreth 19:12

Oh, my god. That's so true. Yeah. When you have a stomach ache, you don't like make yourself feel unworthy. That's a really good comparison. Yeah, yeah. I love that. So you do Tantra Yoga. Was that a different type of yoga than normal yoga?

Miriam Elyse 19:32

Well, I'll just I'll just start by saying that the the perception of what Tantra is in the West is so far off. It's like a game of telephone that went really wrong.

Maryann Samreth 19:43

I just fell from the bachelor, which is like, point not not the truth.

Miriam Elyse 19:48

Yeah, well, yoga is a form of tantra yoga. How about that?

Maryann Samreth 19:52

Yeah. I like that. And

Miriam Elyse 19:53

when I say that, I mean us. And I mean, physical postures are an element of this. Oh, overarching thing, that's Tantra Yoga. So what we in the West understand is yoga is physical postures to help move energy in your body in certain ways. That's the point of them. Of course, it's also to make your butt look great, but

Maryann Samreth 20:14

did not know yoga. What yoga was. Yeah. So for years, but it makes sense. That's why people cry.

Miriam Elyse 20:21

Yeah, yeah. And it started, it started as a way to help people overcome their own desire. So to help like, you know, young men kind of reach handle their sexual energy that was kind of the origin of a lot of yoga and also to help meditators sit in meditation for longer, interestingly enough, so yeah, so Tantra Yoga is, it is, it's more of a religion with this is gonna sound funny, but it's kind of more of a spiritual practice, then, definitely then a sexual practice. And even then, like yogic practice, it's, it's about understanding that non duality, right? So so it's not like God is good, and everything that's not good and nice and fun, must be bad. And that's evil. Non duality is like, actually, what what quote God is or what the Divine is, is everything. And in Tantra, it's kind of like we pay attention to the interplay of opposites. So they coexist. Yeah. And how they're necessary for each other to exist.

Maryann Samreth 21:34

Oh, wow.

Miriam Elyse 21:36

So this helps take a lot of stigma off of like anything. And when we say opposites, opposites, all opposites in the universe are constantly merging and being repelled coming together and pulling apart. That's just the pulse of it's like the intelligence of the universe, whether it's light and dark day and night, masculine feminine life and death. Inhale, exhale, everything. You know, in sacks, obviously, it's a pulling apart and coming together, like, yeah, everything is this merging and separating. And that's just like the rhythm of life. So it's very abstract and spiritual. Yeah. But when we take that into practice, it helps. It helps. It has helped me be more okay with like, the transient nature of everything. And it's helped me understand myself and my body, and especially my sexuality as something. So one part of Tantra is that sexuality is really powerful healing energy that we have in our body that can actually create new life. It's not desire, it's not arousal. It's not lust. It's not penetration and fornication. It's I mean, that's the part of it. Sure. Yeah. But really what sexual energy is, it's like your lifeforce vitality. Wow. Right. So it takes the stigma off of sexuality takes this judgment off of what it is away. And Tantra Yoga is like, sexual energy is one form of powerful energy in your body, just like breath. You know, the prana from the air is another form of energy that that is our lifeforce. You know, there's mental energy, there's our heart energy, the electromagnetic field of the heart is way more powerful than that at the brain. So it's like we actually communicate to each other through what our heart fields are doing. And you can ask your emotions. Yeah. And then sexual energy is this really incredible force that is that is unconscious for for in most, you know, for most of us,

Maryann Samreth 23:48

right? What's it mean to like, have a deeper relationship? What your sexuality, like? How does that transform the relationship you have with yourself?

Miriam Elyse 23:59

That is a great question. Well, well, one thing that I'll say like in terms of sexuality, being an unconscious energy, we're kind of trained to be afraid of anything that's unconscious or hidden. We're trained that anything that is hidden is automatically in the shadow. And that means it's darkness and darkness is bad, right? And Tantra Yoga kind of teaches that it's unconscious, which means that making it conscious essentially shining a light on this shadow part of you, being more aware of, of how sexual energy is repressed inside you or how it's moving inside you or, or maybe even pulling on other people and being manipulative or kind of leaking out everywhere, right? This powerful energy once you're aware of it, then you're more able to use it instead of it kind of just using you

Maryann Samreth 24:49

because it's unconscious. Exactly. Wow. That's very, very fascinating. So what are some examples of like sexual energy that People don't realize they're either tapping into or they're receiving beyond like the scope of like sex.

Miriam Elyse 25:06

Yeah. Yeah, sexual energies in us all the time. I'll say something that's controversial, but it's very true, say it? Well, it's all controversial. But this is particularly controversial. And it's that children are overflowing with sexual energy. Right? But it's not sexual, the way that we think of sex yet. It turns that way at around puberty, it turns into sexual desire and arousal and lust and all that. But as children, it's this pure raw expression of curiosity and excitement and joy and emotion. And this just this what in Tantra, and like the Sanskrit word is the leela, the play of life, like the does, I want this, I don't want that. Yes, no, mine. That energy and the emotional energy actually lives in the sexual centers. So it's being being in touch with your vitality, which is really I see vitality is like this zest for life, this excitement about life. physical arousal, when we're when we're sexually aroused, and we can feel like a buildup of energy in our sex organs. That arousal can actually be kind of repurposed and used for a creative project or for going in exercising or something. And so a lot of the practices in tantra teach you how to build and cultivate that, that sexual energy or arousal and then move it up and out of the sex organs so that your whole body is glowing and more more alive and your brain is more turned on and you're more charismatic and more engaging. Because this this kind of very potent I almost see this like this electric or neon energy is just zooming all of you not just kind of compressed down there and your sex organs.

Maryann Samreth 27:00

Yeah, so what would like what's an example of like, what someone would feel like if they're channeling that, that sexual energy into creativity, or like a workout and other things? Because it's, it's it's so fascinating, like, it's that it's attached to vitality? And where vitality is, is where we find joy and excitement and just being in the present moment.

Miriam Elyse 27:26

Yeah, yes, absolutely. So it feels amazing.

Maryann Samreth 27:32

I'm like, I have I don't even know, like, if I'm intuitive, my sexual energy, and now that I'm like, having this conversation, so yeah,

Miriam Elyse 27:40

just you know, you know, like, whether it's you or whether it's someone else. So say, imagine, imagine you're watching, like Sheila walk into the room after she had an amazing night of sex with like her new lover, and like, something's just different. You know what I'm saying? Something's going on with Sheila. Yeah. And it's more than it's more than the smile on her face. It's all of a sudden, she's like, magnetic. Yeah, right. And when you're, when you're having good sex, for example, more people are attracted to you, because your skin is literally glowing, and you have this error about you, it's hard to exactly put your finger on what that is. But you know what it feels like from the inside out. It's like you're in a more intimate relationship with the present moment, you're just alive, you're not caught in your head, your whole body is buzzing and beaming. And so athletes, for example, will get into the zone or even writers, right? When you're writing your book, you're in the zone, you're in a flow, or you're just channeling that's kind of a form of the sexual energy. activating your, your brain in your body.

Maryann Samreth 28:48

Wow. So like, these forms of if it feels like it sounds like it's creativity, like these pure forms of creativity that that someone is accessing, that's where that sexual energy is, that's where your aliveness comes from when you're fully in these pure states of just creating

Miriam Elyse 29:07

exactly and if we take that kind of understanding right and what we've we've just separated sexuality from sex right so we take that understanding let's put that back into sex okay and say this is an opportunity for you to channel aliveness through your body this is an opportunity to let go of your brain let go of performance and what you what you want to look like for your partner what you think you should sound like and and did you did happen for you yet baby, whatever goals that we have. And just say this is an opportunity for me to practice being free in my body. Yeah, you know, and yeah, it is it is creativity like in in the chakra system. The sexual center is the creative center, but it's also the emotional center. And you think about like what what is what is creativity and emotion internality have in common is it's like you're filled with something that you don't necessarily know where it comes from. And it's just like, you have to let it move through you. Yeah. Right. And so in a sense, it's a form of channeling your your being a vessel for something to move through you just like when you when you have sex, it's like the potential to create a new life, you're being a vessel for a spirit to come in your body and landing. Right, literally, but but also what if you want to bring more spirit into your life into your daily life, you can do that through a sexual practice as well.

Maryann Samreth 30:35

And not meaning like sex, but like creativity and like things that you you talked about, like, creating, and I feel like there's so much stigma with with sex, and it's so interesting. I have I'm having multiple thoughts here.

Miriam Elyse 30:53

Let me let me just respond to that first piece. Yeah, I say a sexual practice, what I mean is, this energy is actually generated in the sex organs. So oftentimes, like the act of sex isn't where we generate and cultivate energy, it's more sometimes we end up like leaking energy, if we're not conscious of it, or a lot of people are just kind of disconnected from their bodies, and they don't feel much of anything during sex. But a sexual practice would be something like a JTAG, or Yoni egg practice, or a lot of the the practices that I do are internal cultivation. So it's like, it's a form of yoga, it's internal yoga, where you're breathing, and basically squeezing or pulsating your pelvic floor along with your breath, and visualization, and actually creating friction in this area of your body with your squeezing. And that's bringing more blood flow and actually generating more sexual energy. Okay, so you have more to use, and it doesn't have to be sexual. But more often than not, this will also give you more sexual desire.

Maryann Samreth 32:00

Yeah, that is so fascinating. I'm just I'm learning all the all of us for the first time right now. It's very fascinating. How did you get into this work?

Miriam Elyse 32:10

Okay, so, so, so I know that I just told everybody that Tantra Yoga isn't about sex. Like, let me go back to that. So I actually, I kind of mentioned that I had had a lot of pain around sexual harassment. When I was in middle school. I was curious, and one of the first girls to like, experiment with boy and the word got out, and all of a sudden, the story got blown out of proportion. And you know, and I was that girl. And I denied it. Right. So not only was I under the pressure of this thing that I had done, I was under the pressure of my own lie, which sucked. Oh, yeah, right. So so I had a lot to work through in terms of like, me feeling like it's okay to be a sexual being an especially a sexual female. I was taught that only boys should want sex and, and it's not lady like, and it's not nice to want this and that's gonna make you a slight and but what I felt in my body felt so real and pure and innocent, and it wasn't yet sexual. When I was a kid, I was full of a sexual energy and, and didn't even understand that it was sexual, necessarily, like, I didn't understand this, what adults do. Amazing, I can touch myself and have all these fireworks go off. So I really needed to heal my relationship to my body and my sexuality. And yoga helped me heal my relationships with my body. But I still felt like I had a lot of kind of unchecked sexual energy, meaning, I wasn't conscious of how it was coming out. I'd have friends of mine get mad at me saying that I was flirting with their boyfriends. And I was totally unaware. I always, really didn't think I was. And I just felt like I was being nice and being friendly. And what they what they saw what they were picking up on, was that my sexual energy wasn't contained. And I wasn't aware of it.

Maryann Samreth 34:14

Oh, interesting, right? Because

Miriam Elyse 34:17

like, if you have a lot of it, it's you better learn how to work with it, or else it's gonna work you. That's so interesting. Yeah. So you know, and a lot of men deal with this. And how it shows up in a lot of men is they get addicted to pornography. And the sexual energy is like this obsession and addiction that they can't stop because it hasn't control of them. Right, so. So I got into Tantra Yoga, because I had a friend actually, when I was in acupuncture school, who was teaching something called tantra yoga, and I had heard like, oh, that's sexy yoga, I'm gonna bring my boyfriend and we're gonna have this sexy yoga experience and it was not at all I was like, regular yoga. And the only difference was that in certain poses, she was telling us to squeeze our Mula Bandha. Basically the the key goals, she's having us, like squeeze the pelvic floor, the key goals, and even pulsate and breathe while upholding yoga poses. And during the class, I was like, this is weird. What is this? I don't really know what this is. And after the class, every time I went to that class afterwards, I was like, giddy and excited. And just like bouncing all over the place. And I felt like, I don't even know if something else took me over. I'm like, What is this energy. And so I got curious and started, I went to my first Tantra workshop, it was all women. So I felt really safe. You know, it was a female teacher, all women. And the tantra workshop was about explaining the philosophy that I shared with you about non duality. And how Tantra is about learning how to breathe more spirit, more vitality into your body, and becoming aware of where you're blocked from trauma.

Maryann Samreth 36:11

Wow.

Miriam Elyse 36:13

Right. And not just in your mind, not just like, oh, I have a hard time with this because my brain is blocked. No, this lives in your body. Yeah, yeah. So I did my first Tantra teacher training certification with this woman. And it was 10 hours a day of really intensive yoga and breath work and, and, you know, bondas, like muscular hold, and really intensive stuff that was designed to give us a breakthrough. And what I found was that I found where I was blocked in my body was in my throat, which is about my, it's about your fear of expressing who you really are.

Maryann Samreth 36:49

Wow, I have goosebumps. I feel like I go through the same thing I think many of us do.

Miriam Elyse 36:55

Yeah, yeah. And what we learned how to do was to cultivate sexual energy through what I was sharing, like some of these tantric practices, pulsation and breathing, and then move that to the place where we're blocked. Wow. And like, just that was so mind blowing for me. I was like, I know, I have an abundance of sexual energy. That's not a problem for me. But what I am lacking is feeling like I'm free to express myself because for so long as a child, I was terrified of how strong my sexual energy was. And so I hit it. I tried to

Maryann Samreth 37:30

Yeah, what is that? What did that like? How did you know it was your throat that was being blocked? Did you feel tension in your throat?

Miriam Elyse 37:39

Yeah, so we would do things like chanting and singing like that was part of it. And I would notice that I would have this constriction around my throat when I tried to when I tried to sing. And part of that class was every day we focused on a different chakra, and the chakras are basically you can see them less spiritual and more as they resemble stages of your evolution, your evolutionary centers. For example, infancy is the root chakra and the needs of the Root Chakra are like, I need food, I need to know that I'm safe. I need to know that I have enough money to put a roof over my head. It's a very basic survival instincts. Yeah, right. And then like the second chakra is the sexual center, and that's around the age between two and four, when kids are first kind of exploring their genitals and realizing that I am separate from my mommy, my body is my own this is and so something about relating to your your sex organs as a young kid helps you understand like I can feel something other people aren't feeling and this is a secret, this is my private part. Right? And, and then the third chakra is like that's when we get into the this is mine and I'm better than you and and I want to you know, we learn how to compete and we learn how to like how to differentiate ourselves and our egos and our confidence and all that so all these you can see this as a stage of kind of development of a child. So oftentimes it said like most people in the world and definitely in our culture haven't gone beyond that third chakra like ego level. And what what there's what happens when you break beyond that is the heart which is like compassion and love and serving people and feeling just like really deeply connected and emotionally open. Right? That's like a healthy heart chakra. So every day during this teacher training, we would focus every practice every breath, work everything on a particular chakra, starting with the root, starting with the first chakra, and when we got up to the throat chakra was the day that I had my major breakthrough. And at this point, I was really uncomfortable crying. I don't think I went years sometimes without crying On that day, I was crying in front of the whole class because we were doing really intensive exercises to open the throat. And I said, Oh, that must be worn blocked.

Maryann Samreth 40:10

Process of elimination.

Miriam Elyse 40:14

And like, the more that I studied about, about what that chakra represents, the more sense it made. And that really helped me like go into my own personal healing journey around that.

Maryann Samreth 40:24

Yeah, that is so fascinating. I didn't know that was what chakras were that it was developed during the evolution of you becoming like a woman or full man, like a digital like, I had no idea that's like, did you see it correlating to like the timer of your of your life where you felt like you couldn't use your voice,

Miriam Elyse 40:44

not necessarily, and they don't always go hand in hand. I do often find that, for example, if somebody has trauma in the stage of development that relates to usually one of the first three chakras, because that's kind of the essentials, that's what it takes to just be a functioning human is the first three chakras. It's basically ego aka like sense of self. Sexuality, which is also our, our, our creativity, our emotionality and our desire to like, you know, explore things and be in our central body. And then the root is survival. So most of us are kind of stuck. It's money, sex, and like ego, you go sexuality and survival, which is also fight or flight. Right?

Maryann Samreth 41:34

That makes a lot of sense, that's very fascinating that like, all of this is all intertwine and relate to each other. It it's very fascinating to learn what is the process of channeling the energy into those places, so you can, I don't know what the word is get your chakras back balance your chakras.

Miriam Elyse 41:55

That's, that's not something that's going to be easy to really share. And like in this format, that's okay. Because, you know, it's it's a practice, it literally just takes practice, but develop developing a understanding how to meditate and understanding how to scan your body so that you put more of your mental awareness into what my body is feeling is a really important kind of ground and foundation to begin to consciously move your own energy throughout your body.

Maryann Samreth 42:26

That makes a lot of sense.

Miriam Elyse 42:28

But I'd say like, the first step is just, you know, learning to tune into your body and then placing your hand over the area that feels like it's blocked or or numb and breathing energy through your hand just imagining it. And it's crazy how energy follows intention, right, what we speak into what we think is where energy ends up going. So it's very true for the body also.

Maryann Samreth 42:54

Yeah, when you say attend intention, do you mean like our, our thoughts? And what we tell ourselves, that's where energy goes?

Miriam Elyse 43:02

Yes, yes. Intention is kind of like the mental direction. Mm

Maryann Samreth 43:06

hmm. What do you think like, in relation to trauma? How does that kind of manifest into, I guess it like the way people see themselves? When they're, this is going to be a long winded question when they're when they have trauma, and they do not know how to differentiate it. They have those repeated intentions, where that the energy of of those trauma beliefs goes too high. Like, how would someone like break out of that? Well? If you can't even answer that,

Miriam Elyse 43:42

yeah, yeah. I mean, so I know that, that Tantra Yoga, in developing personal practices, to constantly again and again, bring your mind into resonance with your body. And when I say that, I mean, oftentimes, it's slowing down the mind enough so that it can actually feel what's happening in your body in that present moment. That's the first step. Once you can do that, you can begin to get curious instead of feeling like you're being overwhelmed by the sensation is usually what starts as a sensation of being unsafe. And then the thoughts start spinning. So you can be more aware of what is the sensation doing where's this sensation in my body? What's What does it feel like? Is it tight? Is it fuzzy as it is, it feels like I'm stuck in this goo right? And then we start to get a little bit more curious about the sensation. And then that actually helps us like I was saying earlier creating distance from it so we can watch what our what our thoughts are doing in response to the sensation what we're actually our nervous systems are actually like, trying to avoid the sensation. And the thoughts happen because we think we can be in control of it. Right? The thoughts are like, I'm not gonna let what happened to me before happened again. So let me try to override this feeling with thinking so that I can brace myself and avoid this pain that I once experienced.

Maryann Samreth 45:07

Yeah, yeah. And it's really just leading into that sensation that I guess, quote unquote, pain and understanding it instead of resisting it and blocking ourselves from building a relationship with it.

Miriam Elyse 45:20

Yeah, yes, leaning into the sensation, and it goes against everything that you're going to want to do in that moment. In that moment, we're going to want to distract ourselves and numb and make the other person the bad guy. And, yeah, these beliefs about why we're right and they're wrong and did it. And if we can just be present with the sensation and actually try to go into the very center, the most intense part of the sensation and breathe there. You can ask yourself, what is this protecting me from? Where have I felt this way before? Right? And what is this protecting me from and what is this sensation need to feel okay, in this moment? Yeah. And sometimes it's movement. Sometimes it's journaling. Sometimes it's crying. Sometimes it's talking to a therapist. Sometimes it's listening. Like what am sometimes eating cake?

Maryann Samreth 46:12

Yeah, it's what our it's our body speaking to us. And we just have to listen. Yeah, I love that. What is your take on like, society's perspective on shaming sex? And it's just it makes sense. Why they don't want us to listen to ourselves.

Miriam Elyse 46:28

Yeah. Well, I have a lot of a lot of feelings about this. You know, I think I think the shame of sexuality, and sensuality, which means our bodies and being in touch with our bodies, there's a lot of shame around the body, like it's an animal thing. Like it's less than R Ma, you know, and I think that really supports the patriarchy and the toxic patriarchy. Because masculine not not good or bad, I love men. But the masculine is the mind and in the spirit, this disembodied energy is considered masculine energy, and the body and the earth is the feminine. Right, so shaming, the body is shaming the feminine, and women do that to themselves are like, Oh, my body should look this way. I don't like I don't like the way my sexual energy is. So I'm just gonna repress it and pretend I don't have any desire. And what this does is it moves us away from feeling our like, true pulse of life, you know, or, and I think there's a lot of primal wildness that lives in the emotions and the sexuality and the earth and our bodies. There's there's a lot that we can't control that wants to come through us that wants to move through us. We're talking about right like creativity and emotionality earlier, yes. Part of it. So it's like we've been taught that what we shouldn't be doing is overriding our emotions, overriding all these natural responses, because the primal is terrifying to structure. Yeah, the primal is like, I'm just gonna serve what's moving through me in a moment. Because that's, that's what gives it life.

Maryann Samreth 48:19

Wow. Because that's, that's where, like, Joy is, that's where the President is, is it's in within the within sexual energy within. All of that is, it's where a lot of us, like don't even know how to I mean, I'm just speaking from my personal experience of recovering from trauma. Like I got to a point where I was like, I don't know how to feel joy anymore. But it makes sense because I've been repressing the parts of myself that is primal. Because that's what that's what I've been taught to fear. That's what a lot of us have been taught to fear our whole lives. But that is where joy is and aliveness is it's just so wild, that, that the way the world works is that we're, we're not taught to look there. We're taught to suppress it.

Miriam Elyse 49:06

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you know, the the challenge that society has, with people being in touch with their primal truth, I think we can all kind of understand why that might be challenging to the structures of society, and how you might quit your job if you are in touch with your primal truth and we're led by that all the time. You know, you might not want to work a nine to five listening to your body. And I'm gonna get again controversial and talk about religion here, but we've been taught to only worship disembodied Gods

Maryann Samreth 49:42

interesting. You can, can you go further into detail about that?

Miriam Elyse 49:46

Definitely. So basically, we've been taught that God is out there. And in order to connect with God, you need to go through a person, a man, usually a white man to go through who this person in order to connect to God because we can't we're too low to connect with God ourselves. And the truth is, and what Tantra would say is that spirit and sex are two sides of the same coin. And if you will, like, like two ends of the same equilibrium, where what what that actually is, is a circle, and one feeds the other. The deeper you go into spirituality, you'll eventually find your arousal, you'll eventually find sexuality. And the deeper you go into sexuality, you'll eventually find spirit.

Maryann Samreth 50:37

Wow. Which is God, which is, it's within us. Like, we are very connected to the earth, the God you source universa, it's within us. And that's where we have our blocks.

Miriam Elyse 50:54

Right. Right. Exactly. You know, and just part of part of our separation from and I'm not saying like, worship yourself, because your ego is amazing. And put yourself on a pedestal. I am saying honor your body, honor your sexuality as if it because it's so freakin powerful. It's our ability to touch something greater than ourselves, through our bodies. And when we're alive in our sexuality, we aren't as easy to be controlled. When we're in touch with our primal self, it's a lot harder to control us more in touch with our intuition, it's a lot harder to control us. And intuition also has a lot to do with our sexuality. So they're like, they're like, No, sex is evil. Sex is bad sex is over here. Follow this God that you actually can't access on your own. Because we've taught you that what you feel inside yourself is is the devil's work.

Maryann Samreth 51:56

It's just our intuition. It is so fascinating. It makes a lot of sense. My mind is blown right now. It's like, the more I like learn more about the healing journey, the less I know about anything. Yeah, this has been this has been such a fascinating conversation. And if you're open to it, would you like to talk about your work in progress? Book?

Miriam Elyse 52:23

Sure. I would. Yeah, this, this book going, Gosh, this book is taking on. I started it. I started it right when I graduated acupuncture school, which was in 2012. And right before I really dove into my tantric journey, and it started actually, because I was having a series of dreams where I would wake up in the morning, and I felt like God herself was talking to me, I kind of say her for effect, and because I think he is used way too often, but really, I think God is a man,

Maryann Samreth 52:57

that is a woman just like Ariana Grande slash, there you

Miriam Elyse 53:00

go. Yeah. So understanding God is a creator, who creates life, the women create life, right? Seated, seated by the masculine anyways, it started because I was waking, I was having these profound dreams where I was reading scripture out of a book in a language I didn't understand. I couldn't like understand my waking state, but I understood it perfectly in a dream. And it was the answer to every question anybody has ever had, it was like, I will have tears My eyes and my dreams, because like, oh my god, this is the truth. Down here, wake up. And I couldn't remember what it said. And I was just like, I need to, I need to write a book and just try to channel so I can try to like, you know, remember what I saw in my dream. That's how it started. It's way different now

Maryann Samreth 53:53

that you find the truth is, were you able to find those answers that didn't come back to you?

Miriam Elyse 53:59

Well, the funny thing is, and I'm what I feel like what those dreams were leading me to was, from that point onwards, I went on the path deeper into my own spiritual evolution that that has led me to find those answers within myself. So channeling didn't do it because I was trying to disconnect from my body in order to get this truth. But the more pain that I've been through the more trauma that I've been through, I've been through a lot in the last 510 years, like 10 years, especially been through a frickin lot. And I realized my book was just evolving as I was evolving. And so so where I'm at right now and then I was like, I need to create a book, a breaking down what the stigmas around Tantra are and, and kind of making it accessible to the modern woman and that's great. And that's more close to what the book is now. It has some elements of my personal story in it and elements of of, you know, stories of clients and what I've seen. Clients have breakthroughs around once they start except their bodies and their sexuality of how much of that opens this door this like, oh my god, this revelation. And it's yeah, it's really focused on helping people remember what matters and remember the sacredness of their body. And it goes through it goes through a healing, a healing journey, like a healing process that, you know, it really I want it to serve as, as both an inspiration and a guide for people to have their own experience.

Maryann Samreth 55:31

I can't wait to read it. Like, my mind was blown 50 million times during our conversation. And I love that you're weaving into your weaving your story into your book as well, because it's it's also a story. It's a roadmap of your evolution, too. And it sounds like those dreams just lead you on to the journey. That's that's where the answers are. And you're still discovering it every day, I'm sure.

Miriam Elyse 55:58

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the dreams were like, Well, what I learned after the dream was, you know, I can't philosophize anymore about these, these truths are too powerful to only live in my brain. Like, I need to go through the experiences, no matter how painful these experiences are going to be for me. I agree to go through the experiences, they're going to make this my wisdom. Yeah, not something I'm pulling from the ethers, but my lived experience. And that invited a lot of pain. And I'm grateful for it. Right,

Maryann Samreth 56:33

right. And writing your book, because I'm writing my memoir. It's like its own journey. It has its own personality, like when I'm done, I'm going to be birthing a book. I'm sure you feel similar, where it's like it's taking a journey on its own, and it's doing what it needs to do.

Miriam Elyse 56:49

Yes. Yeah. And of course, you know, in the process of writing the book, I feel like I'm coming up against all the blocks that are with me in every other area of my life. I'm like, oh, that's something I can work on now. Because I realized, you know, all the different aspects of like, for example, using my voice talk about the best expression using my voice is coming on a podcast like this. And sharing my story with

Maryann Samreth 57:14

blocking, unblocking your chakras is it's happening right now. In process and process. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I have two final questions for you. What do you wish the world has more of?

Miriam Elyse 57:28

Ah, I wish the world has more self acceptance. I wish each individual has more self acceptance. And what comes with that is being okay, when we're not okay. Yeah. And being okay, being vulnerable and what's perceived as weak. Because I think so much pain and so much of the lashing out we do with each other has to do with the fact that we're just terrified to be seen, and terrified to be wrong, and terrified to not be good enough. So I think I think self acceptance and self love and of course, love is a great way to just umbrella that but I think it really starts with the self. I love that.

Maryann Samreth 58:15

And my final question is what would you say to your younger self starting on their healing journey?

Miriam Elyse 58:24

Yeah. Wow, I would just say you have no idea. Good luck. And I think that and also, I mean, you know, the, the ways that I've stumbled along my way, I would say basically, like, stay woke to your own pattern, stay stay aware of your own self sabotage, stay aware of, of, of your need for comfort, and how that stopping you from getting what you actually want.

Maryann Samreth 58:59

I like that, that is very powerful. So how can my listeners follow you work with you? contact you? Where are you?

Miriam Elyse 59:10

Yeah, I so physically, I live in California, Oakland, California. My website is Miriam elise.com. I'm sure there's going to be the spelling of that somewhere.

Maryann Samreth 59:21

Yeah, show notes. It'll all be there. Great.

Miriam Elyse 59:24

And Instagram pleasure as medicine. As as not is pleasure as medicine is my Instagram. I like to post a lot of inspiring content and a lot of teachings kind of through the Instagram page. And and yeah, my business is called pleasures medicine. And on the website, there's an option to book a discovery call, which is a free 20 minute consultation to answer questions and also just see if we'd be a good fit to work together. That would be that's just a great place to start.

Maryann Samreth 59:57

Awesome. All right. I will put those in the show. notes everyone can follow you and work with you. Thank you so much for coming on the show you shared so much incredible mind blowing wisdom things that I've, you know, haven't learned yet. So thank you so much for being open and being honest and being you.

Miriam Elyse 1:00:17

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for bringing it out of me. I felt I felt so good. Like your questions were so on point and so smart and just like really helped me kind of dig deep and excavate the things that that I feel like you know, are hopefully gonna give the people listening, a sense that they can relate and a sense of inspiration also.

Maryann Samreth 1:00:38

Yes, definitely. Thank you so much.

We all have a story to tell and I want to thank you for listening to Miriam's journey. Links to follow and work with Miriam will be in my show notes. I'm MaryAnn trauma informed memoir writing coach and founder of sincerely Miss Mary, you can follow me on Instagram and Tiktok at sincerely Miss Mary for more content about healing trauma, and memoir writing. You can also support this podcast with buy me a coffee that will also be in my show notes. And if you are ready to write your memoir, and you don't know where to start, you don't think your story is compelling. I am here to coach you through the process step by step so you can be the best selling author of your dreams. You can go to www dot sincerely Miss mary.com/dare to rise to apply for a three month coaching program with me. You get me one on one, I help you write a book proposal. I coach you to write chapters of your memoir, and I guide you through this process step by step. This is not easy to do. So I'm here to help you. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will talk to you guys soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai