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My guest Ruthie Lindsey invites us into the liberating process of unlearning the stories we have been told about our bodies and finding delight in reclaiming pleasure. Having survived a catastrophic accident that left her living in chronic pain, Ruthie shares her journey toward embodied living and the many tools she’s found to help her along the way. Although the pain still visits her, Ruthie has found healing by learning to love and listen to her body. “Love is always inviting us back home to ourselves, to our bodies, and to healing.”
Learn more about Ruthie Lindsey
Learn more about these topics
Learning to Listen to Your Body
Dating Your Body
Unlearning Body Shame and Understanding Consent
Coming Home to Yourself with Arielle Estoria
My Letter to Young Women
JOIN my Newsletter Community.
FOLLOW on Instagram.
VISIT my Website.
Text me your questions or feedback!
My guest Ruthie Lindsey invites us into the liberating process of unlearning the stories we have been told about our bodies and finding delight in reclaiming pleasure. Having survived a catastrophic accident that left her living in chronic pain, Ruthie shares her journey toward embodied living and the many tools she’s found to help her along the way. Although the pain still visits her, Ruthie has found healing by learning to love and listen to her body. “Love is always inviting us back home to ourselves, to our bodies, and to healing.”
Learn more about Ruthie Lindsey
Learn more about these topics
Learning to Listen to Your Body
Dating Your Body
Unlearning Body Shame and Understanding Consent
Coming Home to Yourself with Arielle Estoria
My Letter to Young Women
JOIN my Newsletter Community.
FOLLOW on Instagram.
VISIT my Website.
That's how I build trust with my body. That's how we're building trust with each other, that she can say she needs something and I'm gonna listen. ["syndie.
Speaker 2:Sharky"]. Welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharky, your host, and it is a delight to be with you here for this conversation. Thanks for listening today. Many of you in this community I know are dealing with chronic pain physical pain, just living with pain in your body every day. So I hope that this conversation will be one of many on the podcast to serve those who are either living with chronic pain or living with someone in chronic pain.
Speaker 2:In this episode, I'm talking with Ruthie Lindsay. As I read her engrossing memoir there I Am I kept thinking this is a person who knows pain very well. This is someone I wanna have this kind of conversation with. Ruthie describes herself as a midwife of souls, helping people feel endeared to their own life, body and spirit. In her road to healing, she has gathered a diverse tool set and she will be sharing some of those tools and practices that she has found helped her on her journey. As she says, healing isn't a process you complete. It's a journey you're on for a lifetime. So let's jump in with my conversation with Ruthie Lindsay. Ruthie, welcome to Permission for Pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I was just saying how much I love that title. I'm so excited to be here and so glad to meet you, so thank you for including me.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to talk to you and I would love for you to tell people listening that maybe don't know you or aren't aware of your work. Just a little bit about you and your work in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much. My name is Ruthie Lindsay and I live in Nashville, tennessee, and I'm an author and a speaker and I get to coach women and lead a lot of circles and ceremony and ritual and retreat and there's not one thing I love more than another. It just has been so beautiful and, I think, part of my work on this planet. I had to live through a lot of crazy shit like my story. We all have wild stories and mine sent me on a really deep journey because I was really really, really unwell for a very long time for most of my life, which sent me to living in a bed for seven years wanting to die, debilitating, chronic pain, losing a husband, losing a dad, losing a life that I thought I was intended for, and what all of that did and what all of that drew me and invited me into was doing some really, really deep unlearning and really wholly remembering of my divinity, of my worth, of coming back into my body. That, I believe, hated me and so I in turn, hated my body and it's brought me into just a really beautiful loving relationship with myself, with my body, my soul, my life, my surroundings, and learning how to do a lot of practices. That included me learning to love all the parts of me that I've despised the most or hated the most, or was shamed the most or told was sinful or bad or dirty or what have you.
Speaker 1:And now, because I'm in constant deep unlearning and remembering and I will be on this journey until the day I die the things that I learn I get to mirror. It's not like I don't consider myself this hierarchical teacher. It's very much like we're all in the same, just human, earth school, and I'm here to help others remember their divinity too, just like I'm continuing to do for myself, and it's honestly the greatest privilege of my life. I am choosing not to have children in this life so I can be the best mother to me and a mother in the world and a mother to steward this land and these animals that I get to steward, and it's messy and it's freaking beautiful and I love it so much. So, yeah, Both and yes.
Speaker 2:You have done so much inner work and introspection and your book is so vulnerable and sharing your story of your pain and what you went through. It is a heartbreaking and also hopeful. It bold. You survived a car accident as a teenager and some people may not know your story right and I mean you really weren't expected to even live.
Speaker 1:No, I did die, but, yeah, I had a 5% chance to live and a 1% chance to walk. But then, years later, the wire from that fusion broke and pierced my brain, which I'm the only human that's had that and I definitely should be alive, walking, breathing, brain functioning, so kind of a two time weirdo that survives some crazy shit, you know.
Speaker 2:Wow, yes, as I read your story I mean as a nurse reading your story I think I emailed you like I was throwing up in my mouth over some of the procedures you had to endure and the pain. I just it was things to save you and at the same time as you say, they destroyed your body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's been whoa. It's been a wild ride and, as crazy and insane as this probably sounds, I wouldn't change any of it because I couldn't do the work that I do today and show up and mirror in the way that I get to do today and that is invaluable to me. It's like it sent me on this roller coaster journey and I won't take away from how freaking, brutal and painful and I still live at the very high level of pain in my body it's really, it's exhausting at times and it could take up a lot of space and energy and the fact that I still get to be here and I'm walking and I'm breathing and I dance and I get to do this work. You know, it's like I just I receive it all to be able to get to this place and to be able to experience the love that I have and the love that's in my life and the love that I have for myself and the love that I have for the collective. I just it all was a part of it.
Speaker 1:It's not like I'd wish it on anyone. I don't have a worst enemy, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone and I fully accept that this has been my Dharma. This is my karma Dharma. I don't know. It's my purpose on this planet and I think it all belongs. It's been a lot.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you continue to live with chronic pain. So many people do not to the level you do, probably, but it's just such a journey to live with pain every day. People have been asking about having an episode even talking with someone who lives with that, because so many do to different levels, and it is so challenging, ruthie, it is like you said, it takes up so much space in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely does. And you know I've had to go through all the stages with it. I've hated it, I've, you know, cussed at it and I thought all of the stages belong and they all get to be here, you know, and I've shamed it, I've loathed it, I've denied it, I've avoided it, I've numbed it. I mean, you know, they had me on every narcotic under the sun for seven years and now I see it as this thing that's invited me into like being with myself and just these like messages to actually come back into my body, because I believe my body is the wisest. I mean, this sweet little brain of mine lies to me all the time, makes up all kinds of stories, and that's like what my partner and I say, like the story my mind is making up right now, whereas my body holds just this ancient wisdom right. And she is so intelligent and understanding that when something's wrong or hurting or screaming, it's always this invitation to come back in and its messages. And you know, for a really long time you could not have told me that the pain that visits my body had anything other to do than the fact that, like, my neck looks more like a toaster oven than a spinal cord and that I've had all the wires and screws and surgeries and things like you could not have convinced me that it maybe also could be connected to a lot of trauma, to a lot of pre-verbal trauma, to maybe, who knows, past life trauma, epigenetics, trauma that I'm carrying in my moms and her mamas, and there's a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of trauma in those bodies. You know, and for the longest time I would have wanted to punt you to the freaking moon if someone would have been like it's more than maybe just the neck thing. You know, because of my being the only one in the world, I got to just kind of that's my claim. It's like I'm the only human in the world. Try to tell me it's anything other than that.
Speaker 1:And now, oh goodness, like, thank God, there's books like the Body Keeps the Score and all these other books that we know it's a fact that it's all connected and I believe in dis-ease, like when we're not in communion with our body, when I'm not eating foods that ground me. That is medicine. I don't take Western medicine anymore, even though I think there's a place for everything. I really believe that Mama Earth and being in communion with my body and living in integrity and doing so much work. It doesn't have to be as extreme as it was, and that has been true for me. You know, it's all connected. I'm not a doctor, I'm not here to you know, but I do believe that it's all really connected and it's always inviting us back in.
Speaker 1:And the pain that visits my body Daily is constantly calling me back home to her, to this body, to inquire, to be curious, to feel her, to commune with her, to nurture her, to listen to her. And if I had not had the pain in my body, I don't know that I would have ever gotten there. I don't believe it would have awakened me to such deeper membranes about my soul, about what I'm on this planet to do and to be and how I get to. Just, you know, my intention is to be the divine's love. Like this sounds cheesy, but I didn't believe all this before pain visited my body. Like I believe my role is to like, be the eyes of God, to be the voice of God, to be the heart of God.
Speaker 1:And I think that's all of us.
Speaker 1:You know, we just forget, we believe in this separation, the illusion of separation, or that we aren't extensions of the divine right and all of it.
Speaker 1:It just invited me into doing the deepest, deepest unlearning, remembering soul work, excavating of so much of the conditioning that I was handed. I could not have gotten here Like I would have been the sweetest, most basic I was. I was just the sweetest, most basic girl ever, who just fit in the tiniest little box to get belonging and for you to like me and love me and tell me I'm good and tell me I'm worthy and tell me I'm deserving. You know, that was what drove me and that's not to say those parts don't still live in me. I love having people think I'm great. You know, like my ego thinks it's the best thing ever, whereas my higher self knows it's like it's not in my business what people think of me, because we're all just seeing each other through our own lens, like the niacin, and quote no one sees the world as it is. We see it as we are, you know, and so it's a wild journey and thank God, you know, like wow, I'm so grateful.
Speaker 2:Your perspective is well, it's lived right, and also I think that's why so many are drawn to you, ruthie. I followed you and seen the steps you've taken, the work you've done, and it's not easy. Oh, it is not easy work, and I do think that you live out that idea that you shared earlier that you believe people heal in community and that people we aren't meant to do this on our own. I think that's a beautiful thing. To keep reminding people is that they aren't alone and there is healing within community. And we've had discussions about what you're talking about on the podcast with Hillary McBride, especially listening to our body, and you two do a workshop with pain for chronic pain. What do you call that?
Speaker 1:workshop. Yeah, it's called the invitation of pain and you know, I think pain is always emotional, physical or spiritual pain. It's always inviting us back in and it's so easy in our Western culture to think that we have to be fixed or something's wrong with us. Or you know, we're putting a lot of band-aids on anxiety, on, you know, disordered eating or band-aids on pain, you know, or just thrown narcotics and all these things. We're not getting to the actual core issue and I believe, and Hillary believes, and we're definitely not new in this story we're just amongst many believing that pain is always inviting us in and oftentimes not always but when we go in and start doing and unearthing a lot of this emotional trauma and start honoring our bodies, yes, and our bodies, no, our bodies don't have to hurt so bad, they don't have to scream so loud. One of our dear friends, jamie Lee Finch, always says a loud body is a really loving body, because it's like our bodies get louder and louder and louder because we're not listening and we're not paying attention and so they start screaming at us because it's ultimately calling us back in to attune to ourselves, to listen to her, gee, they, them, him, whatever you know, your orientation is and I really believe that, and you know, I've seen it for myself, I've seen it for countless, countless, countless others when we start learning how to listen to our bodies yes and our bodies no.
Speaker 1:And I remember learning about how, you know, when we learned how to override our agency, that is, very young people like override our yes, override our no at a very young age because we wanted to belong. So it's like you say yes, sir, you say yes ma'am. You know, in my house we get popped if we didn't. And so I learned how to override my knowings which I'm very attuned to my knowings but I learned to override them. And so I would say yes to things that didn't feel right for me. I'd say no to things that maybe did, but I was too scared and I didn't know how to listen to myself, and there were so many ways that, because I didn't listen to my body and because I didn't know how to say no to so many things, so then my body started saying no for me. So you know, I don't feel comfortable going to this thing and being included in this thing, but I didn't know how to say no, but then my body would hurt so bad. So then I had an out and the more I start learning and continue to learn my body's yes and to really honor my body's yes and no.
Speaker 1:You know, that's the other big piece here. She doesn't have to scream so loud because she knows that I'm not going to show up to something that doesn't feel right for me. I'm going to say no when I'm overstretched. I was literally just writing a newsletter, like it was supposed to come out on Tuesday, and I'm like I've been traveling so much for work I did not have the space for it. And so I'm honoring my body's no, even though I actually committed to doing this thing every two weeks. But my body takes precedence and if she is incapable of doing that right now and she needs rest, that is my first and foremost priority over anything else, and that's how I build trust with my body. That's how we're building trust with each other that she can say she needs something and I'm going to listen. She can say that she doesn't want something and it's too much, and I'm going to listen. And this is ongoing practice. Do I always do it right? No, not at all, and I'm building muscle right and that's been practice. It just takes practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that you're including that, because there's no quick fix, and also you're talking about things that we have ingrained for years, and for me decades and decades and decades, and so it's just a constant. It is an ongoing to catch ourselves, or to stop and pay attention, or to learn how to do it over and over again, and also then just to not shame ourselves when we screw it up and say, okay, you weren't listening, okay, that's why your stomach hurts.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Okay, I am going to just let me take a step back. I'm on this journey too. It is just continues to move forward, sometimes two steps forward, sometimes one step.
Speaker 1:That's right, and that's a part of it. I will be on this journey until the day I die. I do not foresee myself becoming a fully enlightened being, this realm, because there is so much shadow in me too. So we all get to be so human and I think that's the thing that I've.
Speaker 1:You know, shame has sat at my table as early as I can remember, which is an inhibitory emotion. There's always something under shame. There's always something under anxiety. Our friend Hilary McBride always says that anxiety and shame are just check engine lights. There's something underneath that wants to be felt, that wants to be communed with, that we didn't feel safe to feel, and so these inhibitory emotions come up, which then keep us from feeling these core emotions. But then we want to numb those because those feel terrible. So then we start scrolling, or we start eating, or we start I mean name all the different you know drinking or drinking, or you know I've done them all and it's so human. And so what I know the most is no one has ever healed through shame, no one. It can toxically motivate us, but it does not heal us, and we only heal through compassion and love.
Speaker 1:And so when I feel that inhibitory emotion of shame coming up and shame is visiting me really strongly, which, my gosh, I know it's so intimately, I can't even tell you. It's always an invitation to be like okay, let me recognize it's here. It's like tar brocks, rain. Recognize, allow, inquire, nurture, you know, allow it to be here, inquire. Where do I feel you in my body? What do you feel like? Is there a shape? Is there a color? Is there a sensation? Is there a temperature? How big are you Like? Just getting childlike and curious, you know. And then I get to nurture it and love on it and commune with it. And when I do that and I ask what's underneath? Shame, because our bodies talk to us all the time. Right, all of a sudden, shame doesn't have to drive anymore and shame like alchemizes. And then I get to feel whatever else wants to come up. And that's what happens. We get to move these things through our bodies yet we weren't taught how to do that and we swallow them right or we numb them or we avoid them, and then they come out sideways and drive. This is all from tar brock, recognize.
Speaker 1:So let's say shame is visiting. You know, I don't like to say that I am shameful, I just say shame's visiting, because it's just a piece of me, it's not my identity. Anxiety is visiting. I even say pain is visiting and it maybe has been visiting for 20-something years, but I also want to give it complete freedom to leave, so I don't need to say that this is my home and this is where you live forever. You know Pain is visiting right now.
Speaker 1:So it's like. I recognize it's here. I I allow it to be here. Like what if I didn't have to be? Like go away, this shouldn't be here. Which should is such a shame word, right, fight, almost fight, and that's like I'm doing that to my own body and to my own self. Right, I'm becoming my own second arrow. It's like it's the Buddhist teaching of you know, the shame feels really shitty, but then I shame myself for feeling shame. Or the jealousy feels really shitty, but then I shame myself for being jealous. And so we're just shaming the shit out of ourselves for being human and like that just feeds it and it just makes it worse, whereas I feel that very human feeling, visit me. I feel that very human thought, that very human shadow, right, and instead of shaming it, I recognize it's here. I allow it to come have a little seat next to me or sit across from me. I have tea with these parts of me and my tea ceremonies I is when I inquire and that's when we go somatic.
Speaker 1:It's when you feel it in your body. Every emotion lives in our body. We can't think our way out of it Like it's so cute, you know, but if it's living in my body and in my nervous system, I can't just think positive thoughts to make it go away. I need to actually come in and feel it and commune with it. And then in is when you nurture it. That's when you love on it, that's when you speak truth to it, that's when you like hug that little girl part of you that felt really wounded and really hurt. And these were survival tactics that came up Like disordered eating.
Speaker 1:Has sat at my table as long as I can remember. It started so young. I started starving myself or binging as early as I can remember. And you know what's so beautiful is it doesn't drive for me anymore, it's just sits at my table. Does it still come up at moments? Yes, and it's really rare, and it doesn't have to drive.
Speaker 1:I get to recognize it, allow it, inquire about it, nurture it, because there's always something that I'm trying to not feel because it feels too big in my body. I don't have to shame myself for it. It probably kept me on this planet for a really long time when I was living in my bed and when I was out of that wreck and did not have one tool on how to commune with these parts or how to deal with this trauma or overwhelm in my nervous system or my body, I binged and I stuffed my feelings and honestly I'm so grateful for that. Now I am so grateful for that thing that brought me comfort when I wanted to die constantly. It served its purpose and maybe doesn't fit anymore, but it's in me. It sits at my table, you know, but I know shaming it never made it better.
Speaker 2:Well, I really appreciate this kind of practical tools because I think some of your language, like it, has been newer for me in the last 10 years, right, and I'm pushing almost 60. And so I know some people listening will be what is she saying exactly? Like that is really different language and so I'm just calling that out.
Speaker 2:Listeners, if you're hearing Ruthie's story and us talking and it feels like this is very unfamiliar to you, there's a lot of beautiful resources available through Ruthie and others that you could get more familiar. So I really appreciate you sharing those four things. And I wonder, too, if someone's listening and hearing that and saying, well, this is really new information for me. Like I have been learning about my nervous system, but this feels a little scary. A lot of people to me they're like Cindy, you're getting a little woo woo on me. Well, I am getting woo woo. Well, I am getting woo woo. And I also want to encourage people with maybe where would you have them start with that? Maybe they do have chronic pain and they're hearing your story and they're thinking, well, where do I even start, ruthie?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know I am very much so here, for if someone wants to call me woo woo because I am very spiritual, I very much believe in the 5D world. But also this is science. Like there's so much science and so many medical documents to back this stuff up. And even though this is more of a scientific book and it's a little bit harder to read mostly because it's so thick but the body keeps the score Definitely one of the most incredible books that I wish every human on this planet read, because that book is just truth and it's written, you know, through a doctor's perspective. It's like this is truth of what's happening in our bodies when trauma happens. Anything by Gabriel Mate, anything by him there's so many free resources in the world by him that he talks about addiction and trauma in our body. He talks about pre verbal trauma, what happens, you know, when your mom is traumatized, when you're born or through adoption, or so many different things that live in our body.
Speaker 1:We've already mentioned Dr Hilary McBride. The wisdom of the body is profound, profound, and she's a doctor also and has done millions of hours of research. It's insane to you know. Help us understand. She bridges the gap of the doctor lingo into very layman's terms, because that is not my language. She does that very well. Incredibly, what a bridge she is. I mean, there's so many resources out there, but those would be probably my top three. And then, in terms of like compassion for yourself and self care and unlearning of these shame stories, tara Brock has nine million free resources. Her meditations, her books they are just, and she's a Buddhist teacher, but again, a bridge that speaks in the most compassionate language that it just like your whole body just feels like it wants to melt and exhale when you're listening to her, because for me it feels like utter truth. Right, it feels like utter truth and it's so helpful in learning how to commune with some. You know what we might consider harder emotions and harder feelings and she does it in a very accessible, compassionate way.
Speaker 2:Thanks for sharing that. I will say I put off reading Body Keeps the Score for many years. I was a little daunted, even though I'm from a science background, and yet I took my time with it and I think one of the biggest things I came away with listeners, if you're thinking of starting in is to take your time with it, and what you're going to get is all the different therapies and ways that you can be helped and healed, because one way doesn't work for everyone, and so I loved that. It really sunk into me Some of the things I had never heard of and I thought wow, wow, that is really unique, and I bet there's certain people that that just works so beautifully for.
Speaker 1:And the one other book that I want to throw in there that I've had so many clients read is it Didn't Start With you and that's a really incredible book about epigenetics and about how it's handed down from body to body and you know the trauma that your mama experienced, the trauma that her mama experienced. It's passed down generation after generation because it's actually longing to be healed. And we get to do that work Like I know that I am here. I want to do work for my mama and her mama and I do not want to keep this going. You know I want to do work for my nieces. I want to do work so that they don't have to believe the same. You know really traumatizing inherited stories that have lived within us that are very damaging to our bodies.
Speaker 1:And that book it's also written by a doctor and it's again. It sounds real woo-woo but it's science. It is science. It is the truest thing I know of what this trauma does, passing down from nervous system to nervous system, and we get to break the cycle.
Speaker 1:We really do, and that's why it keeps showing back up, because it longs to be healed and to be felt and to be communed with with so much love and compassion and curiosity and pleasure and play and like so much healing comes through those things. You know it doesn't just have to be this, like bleeding out. I was telling my circle this morning, our sacred rebel circle I'm like, listen, so often we think it has to only be like I'm just dying and it's the worst and I'm wailing and screaming, which I've done. Plenty of that. It doesn't mean that that isn't also a part of it. But so much of the healing that's happening in my body has come through so much joy and play and childlike delight and pleasure and food and sex and you know all of these things that oftentimes I thought were bad or I wasn't allowed to feel or I had to be really serious, you know, and that just doesn't fit at all and I don't believe it's true.
Speaker 2:Yes, and recently you pivoted there to sex. So I'm going to pivot with you because I love. Lately in your newsletter you've been bringing up more about this, about your own journey with it. I mean, you share quite honestly in your book. I usually ask people what kind of sex education they got. But after reading your book I guess I already knew, so I forgot to bring it up. But could I read a little part from it? Of course, yeah, ruthie says.
Speaker 2:After years spent listening to the stories the church tells about a woman's body, mine still feels like contraband. I don't know how to feel pleasure without shame. This is after you had gotten married. I don't know how to touch myself without feeling like a vandal. I don't know what to tell Jack that was your husband then. I know less about my vagina than he does, and even if I did know what the word clitoris meant, I couldn't tell him what to do with it or where to find it. I give him no guidance at all and he doesn't guide me either. We become very polite, very quiet lovers, because love is not self-seeking. Love is always on its best behavior. Ruthie, I have had several women message me this part of your book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, and it's so. Unfortunately, so many of the women that I sit across from every day have these same stories. We are not unique in this, unfortunately, and I recently was telling some friends about reading On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loewam, because she explains so much of why this has happened through our patriarchal system over thousands and thousands of years, since the matriarchy was a thing you know and we believe that's just the way it is. We truly inherit these stories and we believe. We think that and we believe this is what it is and this was what God says. And I don't believe that at all. This is written in the patriarchal lens through men right, and a woman in her body, owning her power and her divinity is such a threat to the patriarchal system because it's so powerful and everyone wins. There's no hierarchy in that either. Like the majorarchy knows that we need men just as much as we need women. Like there's no hierarchy in the matriarchal system.
Speaker 1:And you know I was handed a lot of narratives through the church around sexuality and parody culture and how I had to dress to be deserved to. You know, you want to look very beautiful and you want to be desirable, but you don't want to be sensual. You don't want to cause them to lust. We give women all this power, like the men have none, and they have zero agency. And so if we dress a certain way, then, oh gosh, we're going to cause them to stumble and they're not going to be able to handle themselves and they might act out in a way that's sinful and it's honestly insanity. It's actual insanity.
Speaker 1:And so then we inherit these stories and we believe that our flesh is sinful and our heart is deceitful. And you know, pleasure is dirty or bad unless it's with one husband that you're going to live with till the day you die. And, oh my gosh, the stories that this body has believed and still lives in me, that I constantly get to. When those stories pop up, I get to unlearn and I get to tell the truth to my body, right, and it's just been a really really long and beautiful journey of unlearning.
Speaker 1:I've done a lot of sacred sexuality trainings and trauma trainings in those sacred sexuality trainings and a lot of things that I will continue to do to help my body remember that her pleasure, her sensuality, sex orgasms, masturbation, fucking, making love, whatever it's our divine birthright, it's in our inheritance and yet, because we're told so many lies and so many stories about it. There's just this massive stigma and shame, so much shame around pleasure and it just it breaks my heart. And I'm continuing to do this work for myself, you know, because this is ongoing, because these stories live in my body and I mean I have four planets in Scorpio, like I'm a very sexual, very sexual being, and yet so much of that was taught.
Speaker 1:It was bad and you know I didn't get. The messaging in my family was different. It was just something that you don't talk about. It was a very confusing.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of shame around bodies and you know, the only reason I ever heard bodies talked about in my family was if they're skinny, fat, pretty or ugly and we know which two ones don't belong, and that was the end, all be all. You need to be skinny and pretty. That was like the most important thing in my home and that was what's talked about at the dining table was talked about other people's bodies in these ways, and that's what I learned. A body was for period, you know, and so I learned how to make my body look a certain way to be deserving and to be loved. But then nothing about pleasure or about a woman's cycle like it just wasn't talked about.
Speaker 1:I saw a lot of movies that were really not appropriate for a young girl to see, that were very confusing, but then it was. There was still a lot of shame around anything sexual or sensual. It just wasn't spoken about. I've never heard about sex. I never was talked to about masturbation. I was never talked to about periods, you know any of that stuff. So I just was filling in a lot of blanks. It's like this is bad. And then, when I joined a church is when I started learning these other stories that told me which I already believed my body was disgusting and gross and simple and broken and depraved and wretched. So it just fed the narrative that I already believed and I soaked it up. I'm like well, that lands, because that's how I already feel about myself and that's how my mom felt about herself.
Speaker 1:And you know so. It's just been the deepest journey of unlearning and this deep, deep, deep, beautiful journey of remembering my body gets to experience so much beauty and pleasure, and especially when you live with chronic pain visiting you know, even more so is it important for me to be able to practice feeling pleasure and delight and joy and sensuality in this body. This is 100% our birth rights.
Speaker 2:You know, ruthie, this is such a common theme with the women that I teach, meet with, talk to at workshops, and so I appreciate your honesty and how you've evolved in that, and how important it is for us to embrace pleasure, to be delighted, to allow ourselves to be sensual. Oh, these things are so core to how we were made to be, and yet we've squelched them all down into a teeny tiny nothing. It's just a really unsatisfying way to live.
Speaker 1:Well, and the amount of photos I have seen because I've done a lot of research around all of this of children in the womb touching themselves just because it feels good, Because it feels good 100%, it's amazing. And yet then we're taught this is bad or dirty or simple, you know. And what's so interesting? You know, I do a lot of work on what we call like shadow work, which is the unconscious parts that have been shamed and pushed down, which, of course, don't go away. They're going to come out sideways, they're going to end up driving and we don't even realize why. But because it's these unhealed parts of us that we have been shamed over, told or bad, dirty, simple, that come out sideways. And I've seen it in myself in so many ways. I didn't understand it at the time. It was completely unconscious, you know.
Speaker 1:But when these parts of us get suppressed, that is why we either, you know, for example, maybe we're told sex is a simple, bad, dirty, evil, blah, blah, blah. So someone might run the other extreme and maybe become giving their bodies to people that don't honor them and don't respect them. Or, you know, let's say they've been taught the same thing and then men or women end up having affairs and living in shadow and doing you know, acting out, or maybe going to prostitutes when they're pastors or whatever it is. It's because these parts of us have been pushed down so far that they have to come out sideways. Yet when we learn how to commune with them and bring them into the light and stop shaming them, we get to recognize them, allow them, inquire with them, nurture them, because, of course, lust and all these parts of us and desire doesn't go away because you put a ring on your finger or you commit to someone. That's not how it works. Yet when we allow these parts of us to be here, we get to be honest and vulnerable.
Speaker 1:And it's scary this is not me pretending like it's so easy to do but when we learn how to commune with these parts, they don't have to drive anymore.
Speaker 1:I have so many parts sitting in little hot chairs here beside me, you know, because they're in me. They just don't have to drive, and so I think that's what's so important is understanding. This is not saying to be a you know, a woman that loves sex and pleasure. It doesn't mean that I'm out like fucking all the different people when I started learning around sacred sexuality, about honoring my body's yes and no and honoring her desire for pleasure and all these things it helped me attune to only allowing men that are the most embodied, that are the most honoring of who I am, that treat me like a freaking queen. And you know like it changed the type of men that I drew in that I'd be willing to give my body to, and when I wasn't, I definitely had sex with people that weren't deserving of my body or honoring of me. But because it was so suppressed and so in shadow, those parts of me drove and I didn't know that I was deserving of something better, you know.
Speaker 2:And so it changes you it does, and I'm thinking of parents listening. This is one of my mantras at the parent workshops is do you hear what Ruthie's saying here Is, if we taught our kids about pleasure, if we included the pleasure piece in our sexual health education, it's like if we had that piece included, then maybe our young people would be making the choices you're talking about, of honoring themselves, honoring their bodies, choosing people who do the same. This is how this works, because it certainly hasn't worked the way we've been doing it right. I just think that's really important to point out because you've learned it, and let's keep telling our young people, too, about that piece. It's so important it is, and the other is like.
Speaker 1:You know, I did all the right things when I was like a part of the church and I married the first man that I ever had sex with because I thought that's what you had to do and we didn't even really like each other that much. But that's what you do because you know you can only be with one person, you only have sex with this one person and if you make the mistake of having sex you have to marry them. And then we get in there and I have no tools. I understand nothing about my body, zero about my body, nothing. We have no language for it. We don't know how to communicate. We don't know what we want. We can't even ask what we desire for, because that's way too shameful.
Speaker 1:A woman should not desire sex or be a sensual sexual. You know that's what prostitutes do. Only horrors think like that. It's just you can live in your own hell. And it's so confusing the amount of women that I have worked with and coached that are in these marriages and they did everything right and they hate their bodies, they hate sex, they hate sex with their husband. I have so much empathy and compassion for that because I fully experienced it. You know my own. I don't know their exact experience, but I know my experience of it and that's its own hell too. It doesn't mean it can't get better, but like that's so confusing because you think, well, now that I have the ring on my finger and I'm in this marriage, now it's not bad, it's not simple and I should just be able to turn that switch and feel so great about it and have this Hollywood, you know, experience of orgasm and pleasure and delight. It's heartbreaking to me and thank God for some of my greatest teachers of like London, angel Winters or Michaela Bohem, or, you know, I've done a lot of trainings under this thing called ISTA.
Speaker 1:That has really helped me unlearn these narratives, especially these women, these very embodied, incredible women who just own their power and own their sensuality and own their sexuality and honor the masculine just as much. You know we need both. How do we lift up our men to? You know? I mean this is very much for the hetero world, but this goes for everyone and we all hold the masculine and the feminine within our bodies and these polarities within us, and learning to play with that and work with that is such medicine and I just love that my partner is willing to go there with me and do these kind of retreats and do these kind of workshops. And you know, layla Martin is another one that I love learning from. That I've taken Tantric courses from and there's so much information out there.
Speaker 1:But the teachers that I choose there's a very sacred sexuality. It's not just like how to fuck better, like that is not what I'm here for. I don't care if it's what you you know anybody can do anything but I want the very holy, sacred, because I do believe it's sacred, it is. I've had experience connecting to the divine through sensuality and incredible ways and I think that's a part of what it's pure for, you know, and I mean, the purest form of creation is sex. Like we literally women make babies with men through sex. That is creation. It's like the most profound, beautiful thing. And yet then women are like inferior to men and it's bad and it's just. It's honestly insanity.
Speaker 2:We see the ramifications of that every day. You and I work in with women, and so the hopeful thing, listeners, what I hope you're hearing from Ruthie, is that these narratives that we have swallowed whole and the things that we have believed and taken in and ingested into our bodies, there is healing and work that can be done for us to unravel that, to accept what the story was, as Ruthie is saying, in our body and write a new story.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it is hopeful and there is such delight in it and pleasure, and that's my hope for anyone listening.
Speaker 1:I think, part of like I was saying at the very beginning of this, it's like I hope that my story and my body and my experiences can mirror that kind of hope.
Speaker 1:Because if someone like me, who I can't express to you how much I have hated this body, I loathed sex on a level I can't even describe to you, it was my worst nightmare, truly and hated so many things about myself, my body, thought it was disgusting I can't even describe all the words that I felt, that were just loathsome, you know.
Speaker 1:And if I, coming from that extreme where I just wanted to die constantly, that's all I could think about was death for so many years and just freedom from what I thought of as this meat suit that I'm stuck in, that I want to get the fuck out of and I hated so much, you know, and, oh, I mean I've gotten to, not out of shame, but really apologize to my body for the way that I have spoken about her, treated her, acted about her, ignored her, you know, lied about her, listened to lies about her, and of course I mean living in this patriarchal society and handed the bullshit that we are.
Speaker 1:I am a victim to that experience, like, of course, and yet now, understanding my agency, I don't have to stay in that place. Healing is for all of us and we can unlearn these stories If, truly if, it's possible for me I know it is possible for us Like it is, and I'm continuing to Like, I'm constantly growing in this and I will Like, I will be on this journey again, like I said, till the day I die.
Speaker 2:As we all will. Yes, well, ruthie, it is just delightful to speak with you. I wonder if you might tell people where they could find you if they're listening and thinking oh, I would love to connect with you from your newsletter. I know you have, or you have, women's circles. Tell people how they can find you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much. So the best way would be through my website, which is just ruthielinseycom and it's L-I-N-D-S-E-Y. My Instagram is the same name, Ruthie Lindsay, and I would say like through my website you can find my newsletter. It's called Love's Invitation and what I love about that I have free newsletter, but then I also offer once a month for paid subscribers, which is $6 a month and you can cancel at any time. I have lots of incredible people come in, like Hillary McBride and different teachers or different live things that I'm offering, and a lot of times it's just free stuff to like.
Speaker 1:This coming Tuesday, Kate Northrop, who I've learned the most around money consciousness, is coming on for free. It's a my newsletter to we're doing a live event, you know. So I'm constantly doing things like that. And then I also have a six month container called Love Reflections where I do one on one coaching, and it's just one of the greatest privileges of my life to get to do these things Like I just can't believe I get to sit across from these women and do this work, because it's just pretty much blows my mind. And I also host a lot of women circles.
Speaker 1:We just started the Sacred Rebel Circle today actually, and I mean I'll be doing more next spring, but you can just follow along through my newsletter, through my website. I'm always leading retreats and workshops. I'm going to have one with my best friend, Jedediah Jenkins, next month. You know there's always different retreats and workshops and different things and you can learn all of that. And I have one solo retreat in the spring called the Sacred Rebel Retreat at Art of Living in North Carolina. I think it's like three hundred and something dollars for the weekend to come. So there's just all of it a little bit on my website. You can find me there and I'd love to go on a journey with you.
Speaker 2:Great. I'll link to her website everybody so you can look at all these offerings and see what feels good for you. And on this podcast we share something that's delighting us every day, like an everyday pleasure that makes you pause and be delighted. I wonder if you might share something that delights you. Yeah, oh God, there's so many.
Speaker 1:Can I name a few, or does it have to be just one? Of course you can name a few. The first one I thought of is just waking up and going to sleep next to my partner and he is just the most precious. I mean, I cried yesterday and I told him I was like I just was driving and I started crying. Like I get to be loved by Eric Wilkins, I get to be adored and treasured and attuned to. Like every night when we're finishing dinner and if I'm like working, he cooks for us all the time. He'll be like all right, babe, I'm going to go clean up, can I run you a bath? This is every night, every single night, and he runs me a bath and he turns off the light and he lights candles and he brings because I always have fresh flowers in the house. He brings in fresh flowers and he turns on the music and he puts my little bath pillow in there and I've gotten to a place where I allow myself to receive in that way.
Speaker 1:Right, the feminine is about receiving, receiving, love and, from that overflow, giving. But we have it backwards, right, we think we have to give, give, give to be worthy of receiving, and that's just not how it works. I feel so much safety in my body that I allow myself to receive the abundance of love that he is so willing and so effortlessly Gives to me, you know. So that is one. It's just pure pleasure. It's just pure pleasure and I'm obsessed with it and it never gets old. And he's like I'm going to date you till the day I die and I want to do this for you till the day I die. Okay, his love is so overwhelming, in the best way, I don't even know what to do with myself, and it's the first time I've ever had anything like that, and I think the amount of work I've done to know that I'm worthy of it and deserving of it and that I treat myself that way.
Speaker 1:You know like I am my lover first and foremost, and then the others are just these very simple Like right now. I wish you could see I have bird feeders outside of almost every window and there's just so many animals that we love. I mean, we have literally containers so massive in our pantry. We don't own any animals, which I don't think any of us really do and I mean I do own this house but I'm really just a steward of it, you know, but like we feed birds, we feed cats and we feed dogs and we feed raccoons and we feed possums and it just brings me so much joy, I'll sit in my little meditation tea room and I'll drink my little ceremonial gray tea and I'll watch these birds and I'm like this is the most precious sweetest. It's very simple, it's very slow and it's so. It lights up my whole world and I'm just, I'm so grateful for it.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. I think nature has a lot to tell us everything. We are nature. You know like we are. It gives us so much yeah we just forget. Well, thank you so much for sharing with us, for being with us, ruthie, it's my honor and for your work in the world. I'm grateful for you.
Speaker 1:Oh well, I'm so grateful for you and the work that you're doing. It's so important and it's so needed and it's just like we said, it's like that deep, deep, deep remembering. So I'm so honored to get to meet you and I'm so grateful for what you're doing on the planet.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that and listeners as we wrap up, I hope you heard that last piece of what Ruthie said, that we are worthy to receive. Go back and listen to that again and see if that really holds true for you. You don't have to give to be worthy of pleasure and to receive. You are worthy to receive and you can give yourself permission for pleasure.