Sensual Being
A podcast hosted by Jolene, tapping into your inner wildness, and how you connect with yourself, others and the world around you.
With 20 years experience teaching woman to pole dance, an addiction to Yoga, and a desire to connect with animals and be in nature, Jolene will unlock parts of your soul you didn't know needed unlocking.
This postcast covers many topics including; confidence, intimacy, kink, intentions, and becoming more aware of how we see ourselves.
Sensual Being
Ep 90 - Finding My Spiritual Footing
Imagine finding balance between two contrasting worlds—where spirituality meets skepticism. Join me, Jolene Whiting, as I unravel the influence of a spiritual mother and an atheist father on my journey to discovering a personal connection with spirituality. It's a tale of childhood wonder, where every being and place was filled with energy and purpose. Get ready to understand how these early experiences shaped my belief in the power of personalized spiritual practices to guide us through life’s challenges, offering faith and positivity along the way.
Feel the transformative power of meditation and chanting as I recount how these practices replaced my old dependencies, leading to a natural high akin to the awakening of kundalini energy. Explore the mystical experiences in women’s circles, where goddess energy and nature’s awe helped me find my place in the universe. From paganism to shamanism, and the teachings at the Your Voice is Magic mystery school, discover the importance of embracing our inner energies and realizing our sufficiency.
The journey doesn’t stop there. Dive deeper into understanding divinity and mindfulness. Hear about my struggle and eventual reconciliation with the concept of God through meditation and nature. Spirituality, I found, is more about connection and presence than any specific terminology.
Book: The Universe Has Your Back by Gabby Bernstein
- If you would like to connect further you can find me on Instagram @jolenesensualbeing
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- My Youtube channel: SensualBeingJolene
I hope you enjoy your day.
Jolene
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Hello and welcome to the Sensual being podcast with myself, your host, jolene Whiting. I have been a pole dance teacher for nearly 20 years. I'm also a yoga instructor, and my favorite pastimes are connecting to my own sensuality, connecting with the world and connecting with animals as well. In this podcast, you'll find new and inventive ways of how you see yourself, connecting yourself with others, and also how you see and view the world around you. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about having a spiritual practice, how to do it, what counts and also what does it mean to have a spiritual practice and where to start? Hello, sensual being. I hope you're having a good winter so far, particularly if you are listening to this in real time, because currently there is ice outside. The wolf moon has just started to become present, so you can work out where we are at the time of recording this.
Speaker 1:I would love to chat to you today about a spiritual practice. This topic is quite possibly the most vague topic I could have ever picked. I will not be going over every single type of spiritual practice, because I don't know every single one, and I don't think there's anybody that knows, because it's incredibly personal how you choose to have a spiritual practice, and spirituality is also linked in with religion. So you might see your religious practice as a spiritual practice as well, but it doesn't mean that all spiritual practices have to be following a certain religion. But the two do come very close. They come very, very, very close to each other, but there's so many differences, and between spiritual practices to other spiritual ones there's so many differences as well, so I'm not really about to sit here and list a load of religions to you. I'm sure you probably know so so many of them. Maybe you are a part of them, maybe you grew up with them, maybe you've dived into them now, and however this looks for you, the most important thing is that it is guiding you on a good journey, a journey that makes you feel good. To me, that's the only point. It's a practice that will help you through times of darkness. So it doesn't mean that you won't have darkness in your life and times of challenge, but your spiritual practice is something that is there for you. It's there for you to lean on. It's there to give you faith Faith when things can be really difficult and you start asking questions like why is this happening to me and there could be.
Speaker 1:This again is a whole podcast in itself of like why? Why is this happening to me? What was your blueprint as you were a starseed? What was it that you said that I want to experience X, y and Z when I'm on earth next time. And then we come to earth side and we are born and we don't have recollection exactly of what we signed up for, but we do go through it in our lives. We do go through it.
Speaker 1:So, however you choose to receive, this episode is very unique to you. What you believe in your life is unique to you, and that is something that, out of everything today, is a definite. All these practices I'm going to talk to you about, particularly from my journey, are very relevant to me. They might not bear any relevance to you and they might never do, and that's okay, because we are all on very different parts of our journey in life and the most magical thing about it is that we can come together where we are, meet each other where we are, can come together where we are, meet each other where we are. And I would like to tell you a little bit about my spiritual journey, of what I've done, what I've had happen and how I feel about it now, compared to just how I felt about life even 10 years ago. I am a completely different person to who I was, even maybe six years ago.
Speaker 1:I think that's the sort of time that things started to change a little bit more for me, but I've always had this feeling that there was more and I grew. My mum is quite spiritual, I'd say. She's always believed in a little bit more intuition and an inner knowing. So I've grown up with that side of spirituality from my mum. My dad, however, he was very much atheist, and each in their own right. You know, that is a beautiful coming together of quite opposites actually quite opposites and yet coming together in a beautiful marriage. This is where we can meet each other where we are. We don't all have to believe the same thing, but so long as we are wanting goodness out into the world for each other, I think that's the fundamental thing. However we get there, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:So I grew up in very much that type of household. Nothing was ever pushed onto me, ever. So I was very free in this sort of way, this sort of way, and I think this really led me to being outside a lot with animals, a lot playing with my cuddly toys, like they were, like my friends. You know, seeing all these different cuddly animals I had and I I kind of believe that they each had a soul, they each had a spirit or vibration, they had something about them, but I couldn't tell you that at the time. But that's when I look back. I doted over these animals like these cuddly toys, like they were real.
Speaker 1:And when I look at how I treat things now, when I look at how I treat even like places I go, I believe that every place has a certain vibration, a certain energy about it. Like when you go into a place and it feels quite depressive and you sort of wonder if the people that made it were even happy about making it. You know it can go to those sort of levels and I do feel like that was where a lot of my spirituality was growing up. I couldn't look, but I didn't look back and think, oh yes, that's, that was spiritual and I didn't know. I just that's what I believed and I believed that every, every creature, you know it, had its reason for being here. I didn't, I tried not to think any less of anything and I've really worked on that now, because I used to be really terrified of snakes and now I'm not. I mean, I'm not going to lie. If there's an adder that comes out shooting up to me, like when I'm out on a walk, I probably will move out the way and be a little bit bothered, but I used to not even be able to look at snakes on the TV. And why? Why was this Crabs the same as well, and I think I grew up with these sort of fears and fears about like animals. And it came. It didn't really come from a direct source and I've worked through a lot of it now and I've changed. And it's so funny because I say this is funny, this is also sad at the same time.
Speaker 1:I remember chatting to somebody. It was about, yeah, about 10 years ago actually, and I was just chatting to her and we were outside and we were by this like wooden post and there was an ant walking up this post and she just got her finger while she was talking to me, just as I'm talking to you, casually talking, splodged her finger on this ant, looked at her finger, wiped it and then carried on talking to me. I was like, um, what, what, what? Why did you just do that? And she was like, do what? And I'm like, why did you do that? She didn't seem to understand that. I was like what gave you the right to do that? I don't understand? And I think that was quite yeah. Do you know what? It stuck with me for 10 years and it's just a little ant, but I was thinking why? Why does she think she can do that? So I have this kind of feeling of nature connection.
Speaker 1:For me is a big, big spiritual part and I think having my pony when I was growing up he sort of taught me that all weathers, it didn't matter what the weather was, you can still be outside, and I think that has shaped me to be who I am today as well. But also I've come back and forth to yoga over like 25 years. Unfortunately, when I started I didn't have some great teachers so I kept on getting drawn to it and then pulled away from it. But actually when I've really sunk into yoga there's like this connection to my body and to my mind that all syncs up at the same time and I just can't get enough of it and that has led me on an incredibly spiritually spiritual practice and then I've really got led through meditation. This started with self-hypnosis about 15 years ago and then it's like, led me through into meditation of many different sorts. But I would argue now that my meditation journey has brought me into more prayer.
Speaker 1:And again, meditation and prayer are very, very closely linked and it's really hard sometimes to decipher which one are you doing. Are you meditating or are you praying? And when I say praying, I don't mean sitting on the end of my bed at night on my knees praying to God. Please let this happen, please don't let this happen, and please make sure this, that and the other, it's not that. It's a connection to source that fills my whole body with this, fills my whole body with this.
Speaker 1:Now, the only way I can liken the feeling is, once upon a time I used to like cracking some pills, and this was like years ago sorry, mom, years and years ago and this euphoric feeling of when you're coming up and you get this rush come up your spine, of when you're coming up and you get this rush come up your spine. Now I don't touch anything like that anymore and I haven't done anything like that for a very long time and I have absolutely no interest in doing it, but the feeling I get is the same. It's the same rush and it is and I think it can be likened to when people talk about kundalini energy. So when your chakras are aligned and you release this shakti life force energy and it goes up through your body. That is the feeling I have Now. You can see why I love to meditate, because it makes me feel high. Chanting does this as well and I've spoken a lot about my journey with finding my voice through chanting, particularly since March 2023. And that unlocked a hell of a lot of vibration into my body and a lot of the time as well.
Speaker 1:Over this past couple of years I've been going. I knew I wanted to be a part of circle gatherings, particularly women's circles, or just a time when we come together in circle. There's something so primal, a bit like gathering around a fire, dancing around a fire and this type of energy, of energy. But to gather in circle, particularly at my friend Dee's circles, which I just absolutely love she has used over the last couple of years a lot of goddess energy and I used to find that was kind of like really triggering not triggering bad, but triggering in a sense of oh, I don't know if I'm doing it right, you know, or I don't know enough about this goddess to really, you know, ask her questions or ask for her guidance, you know, during a meditation. But that is actually just me getting in my own way, and Dee taught me this just by allowing me to have space. She just taught me this through her meditations.
Speaker 1:Her meditations were, have always been, sort of non-judgmental, non-pushy, no, like I've been in meditations before where it's dance meditations and they've said you will hold so much, so much, um, shame in your hips. You know, release that shame. And I'm thinking, mate, I don't hold any shame in my hips. Have you not seen me dance around the pole, you know? And that's how I feel, because I'm like, well, I don't hold shame there, why are you telling me? And then I have to think, no, no, no, it's okay, don't take that on. But these meditations I have been to a lot for two years have really opened me up more spiritually to the goddess. And since doing that and a mixture of the chanting and the yoga and really getting out into nature more now as well, and I've always got out into nature.
Speaker 1:But there's something else, particularly since I turned off my TV a couple of years ago, I had this real push get outside, get outside. And I was like why? And when I went outside I could look up at the sky and really connect in, particularly at nighttime, when you see the stars or when you see the sunrise, when you see the moon. There's something about looking up that makes you realize how incredibly small you are but how incredibly special you are, and that is a feeling that nothing else can give me, feeling that nothing else can give me. I'm both insignificant and significant at the same time. And if you have never experienced this type of feeling, that's okay too, and you might find that you don't get it in ways that I'm getting mine. You might find, well, I do this and I feel like that that's cool, that's cool.
Speaker 1:I'm just letting you know that your spiritual path can go in many different ways. I mean it could be very. I mean, I think when I sort of look at a lot of stuff, I do I think, oh, I'm quite pagan. Actually, I'd never really thought of labeling myself. I'm quite, quite pagan, okay. And then I've looked into um sort of shamanism and oh, animistic. That's when you have the energies in, like all animals, all beings, all places and things. So I think you know that's a part of me also. I'm incredibly witchy and I believe in like coming together and using our energies together, in like when you hear like people who come together and pray and they pray in mass, for like um, right now praying for water in LA, you know, in this type of mass prayer, this use of our energies like that is incredibly witchy, incredibly witchy. So there is no one way that I think you should have a spiritual practice at all. And during my Voice is Magic mystery school.
Speaker 1:Recently well, I say recently, end of last year, for three months I journeyed with Katerina Rain and a few other women and we were all activating our voices, finding our singing voices, writing songs, writing songs through connecting with Goddess Hecate to actually guide us through. She's known as the triple headed goddess or triple moon goddess, and she invokes the maiden energy, the mother energy and the crone energy and all of this we all have inside each of us. For men it's called um slightly different words, but it's the same for everybody. We don't need to be a certain age or we don't have to have children to have the mother energy. We don't have to be old to be crone. We don't have to be young to be maiden. We are actually all of these things, and this is the power of invoking, like a goddess such as such as ekate, to actually guide us through our lives, to to actually realize that we are everything. We are enough as we are, and not enough people know that they are on the right path, they are who they are meant to be. Because I strongly believe that you can't be on the wrong path. You can be being pushed and guided.
Speaker 1:And right now I was having a chat with my partner even this morning and I've got an internal conflict going on within me and I'm trying really hard to work through it. I keep saying to the universe universe is chucking signs at me because part of my path is not correct for me at the moment and I know it and I'm aware of it. And I keep having this internal battle with the universe and I keep saying, look, I know you're throwing things at me. Please just give me a minute. I'm trying to do this and I'm doing this so that I can do that and then the universe has thrown something else at me, like literally today I woke up and my two day headache had gone. I have been thrown things by the universe because the problem is and I know this as well, which is why I'm being so careful with how I talk to the universe because I want the universe to know I am listening, I am listening to you and I even say it out loud. You can say it in your mind, but you can say it out loud. You can say look, universe, I am listening to you and I am hearing what you have to say, but I'm just in a position where I just need to do this for the moment, and it can be really hard.
Speaker 1:This internal conflict and it's a little bit like I think I mean you could argue that I'm having a midlife crisis. So when people get to like you know, 50 years old, you hear of this a lot and it's like's like oh, I just blew all my money and bought a sports car, you know, and things like that and it's like actually I'm not saying that's the wrong thing to do at all, but there might be a reason for that. There's an internal conflict. This feeling that time is ticking, because it is always ticking for everybody every day you wake up, is an absolute gift. An absolute gift.
Speaker 1:But we can have this sense of urgency and sometimes we end up kind of like lashing it out and then just doing something which people think I can't believe you just did that. Or like people just suddenly end relationships and I can't believe you just did that. Or like people just suddenly end relationships and I can't believe you just did that. And it's like, yeah, but you know you haven't been inside this internal conflict. So this is how the universe speaks to us. You'll have this feeling sometimes with something that you're doing and you think I know I shouldn't be doing that, I know I shouldn't be doing that, I know I shouldn't be going there, I know I shouldn't be talking to this person, I know I shouldn't be with this person, and sometimes it can be really hard to listen to. But I urge you, if you are going through something like that, which so many of us are going through, these internal battles, they are completely normal, completely normal and do you know what?
Speaker 1:An amazing book which I absolutely love. If you are going through this sort of situation, which actually I might reread now, I'm going to tell you this is a book by Gabby Bernstein or Gabrielle Bernstein, and it's called the Universe has Got your Back. She has written many, many books. I've only read a couple of her books, but that one, the Universe has Got your Back, I'll put a link to it. I'll put the title in the show notes as well. That book, it's like the universe is talking to you as you're reading it and it can be incredibly helpful helpful particularly if you feel like unguided or lost or anything like that. That book is incredibly, incredibly powerful and helpful.
Speaker 1:So when you're having a sort of spiritual practice, it can look like anything. It can look like, um, going for a walk. It can look like actually praying with your hands together. It could look like a meditation. It can look like yoga, any sort of yoga kundalini, ashtanga, hatha yoga can look like anything. It could look like dance, sacred dance. It could look like drumming. It could look like playing a sacred spirit flute. It can look like so many things. It could be just singing in your car. There are so many different things and, like I said, I'm not really touching on religion, but it can be going to church. It can be praying at church, singing hymns at church. All of that is an increase in vibration.
Speaker 1:Just make sure, whatever you do, it feels like it's for the greater good, it's not feeling like you're being demonized. If you don't come here every week, you're going to go and burn in hell. You know that I've got no space for that. I honestly, I just I really really don't. If that's something you believe, that's down to you. For me personally, I just don. I really really don't. If that's something you believe, that's down to you, for me personally, I just don't have any room for that in my world, in my belief. I don't believe that. I believe life is a gift, that we should be cherishing the time here and not being so worried about it. And something else that I want to touch upon which, for me, has been really interesting, and this is going, this word is going to trigger a few people, and it's okay if it triggers you. You don't have to be triggered by it, because you do know that how I believe things is not how you have to believe things either, and that is what the most important thing to take away from this.
Speaker 1:So, when we talk about the universe, source, higher power, do you ever go into the term of calling it God? Now, I've referenced the goddess, but what about God? Who is God to you? Who is God to you? What is God to you? How is God to you? Now?
Speaker 1:The reason why I wanted to bring this up and the reason why I did kind of a warning first, is because that word used to trigger me. I used to think no, no, it can't be God, and I would really switch off from it really, really quickly. And I don't know if it's through conditioning, upbringing, music I've listened to or just seeing, sometimes, the heartbreaking things that go on in the world and the evil people sometimes that I hear and I think God, well, you know God. Well, god wouldn't let that happen, would he? And I don't know why it's a he it is apparently it's a he today, but either way, god wouldn't let that happen. And then that is how I used to get triggered by the word God, because I'm thinking well, god can't exist. God doesn't exist, no way. No way, I can't believe in God. That idea just doesn't work for me. And that's how I used to be.
Speaker 1:But I always used to believe that there was something more and it's my connection out into nature and, through the power of meditation and chanting, has led me and through the power of meditation and chanting, has led me to realize that God is everywhere. God is absolutely everywhere in my world, in my belief, god is everywhere. God is everything. God is love. God is that rooting for you. Feeling God is that guidance along that spiritual path.
Speaker 1:And this can come in in many ways, because a lot of the time I say we are held here by Mother Gaia, mother Earth, and Mother Earth to me is the goddess, mother Earth, goddess Gaia to me. Me, that's the grounded energy, that is the earth side energy, that's our lower chakras, that's our root, that's our sacral, that's our solar plexus. And as we start to come from the heart chakra up, I feel like that is more cosmic. That's the god feeling that is, that's that divine intelligence and that consciousness that's in us. No one is separate from this in my world, but the separation happens when people haven't tapped in to who they are, the spiritual being that they are.
Speaker 1:I'm not telling you that because you haven't tapped into god, you're not this. No, I'm not saying that at all. No, what I'm saying is we all have that higher power and whether you get to that word God, it makes absolutely no difference. It's the feeling. It's the feeling we are looking for, that feeling of love, that Shakti energy rising up through your body, the Kundalini style energy that rises up through your back, that you just suddenly feel all floaty and you feel like you are being guided by presence, by angels, by archangels, your guidance. And it's not necessarily about needing to empower yourself with that word, god. I'm just telling you that's part of my journey.
Speaker 1:But what I'm saying is available to everybody straight away is that feeling of connecting to your own divinity and that if you can take that away with you today in some way, shape or form, if you can put that into your spiritual practice, if you can believe in something higher and bigger than yourself, that changes everything. And there's no oh, I've hit a peak or I'm at this level now. There is no level. There's no level. It's just we are here, we're all sharing this moment together and if you've got this far in the podcast and exactly what you mean, or you might be thinking, I have no idea how do I get what she's having? I want some of that and it is here for everybody.
Speaker 1:But you, honestly, you can find your own spiritual practice in your own way. It can be as simple. You might have a horse and might find that show jumping, does it like because you're so in the moment a lot of the time spirituality if you've really never tapped into it. Mindfulness is a great place to start and you can tap into mindfulness by doing something like at the moment the past month. I got an ice bucket this morning. It actually had ice in it, so it was cold. There's nothing more mindful than getting in that because you can't think about anything else.
Speaker 1:That's a mindfulness practice. It might be singing along to your favorite song. That's mindfulness, because your mind is being taken in and absorbed into that moment. It's a being able to refocus your mind and be fully present in that moment and not thinking, oh, I've got to go do the dishes, oh, I've got to go shopping, I've got to pick so and so up from school and then I've got to go here.
Speaker 1:That is our busy mind, which we all have. Everybody. Everybody has got the busy mind. It doesn't matter if you think you've got adhd or not does not matter. Everybody has a brain that goes.
Speaker 1:Did I put, did I bring the cat in before I went to bed? Oh my god. Did I even turn the cooker off before I went out? Oh my god. I didn't shut the garage door down. Uh, no, I did. No, I didn't. No, I did. No, I didn't. Uh, I've walked into the room. What did I want in here? That's called a brain, and we all have that. So this is why, if you can tap into a bit of mindfulness, something that brings you into the moment, you might think that playing football with your friends or in a game, you're like you're so locked in and you can't think about anything else and you feel so refreshed afterwards yeah, you're tired, but you feel so refreshed afterwards because your mind was so focused and it's such a hard thing to do. So we need to each find the things that can create that mindfulness, and that is where we start.
Speaker 1:I hope you have enjoyed that episode today. It was one that I was oddly just called to do. I was going to do a different one, and as soon as I sat down, I was going to do a different one, and as soon as I sat down, it was like no, no, no, just start talking about this, because you have something powerful that somebody needs to listen to. And I'm like okay, and then it just came through. So I really hope that you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Take from it what you will Believe in yourself is your number one thing, and try and find some mindfulness in your life today and remember, as always, to lead through your life with your heart and to live with intention. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed this episode, please do share it with your friends and on social media. If you have the time to rate or review this podcast, I'd be ever so grateful. If you'd like to follow me on Instagram, you can find me at Jolene Sensual Bean. The links to my YouTube and to sign up to my mailing list will be in the show notes as well. I look forward to speaking with you again very soon.