Sensual Being

Ep 97 - The Messy Beauty of Surrender

• Jolene Whiting • Episode 97

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Letting go might be one of life's greatest challenges, yet mastering this art transforms our relationship with change forever. Join me as I vulnerably share my journey through the emotional process of closing my pole dancing studio after a decade of creating what students repeatedly called their "safe space."

This deeply personal episode explores three interconnected dimensions of release: letting go during times of grief, releasing old habits, and embracing a more playful approach to life's transitions. I reflect on how safety isn't built overnight but develops gradually through trust and consistency—a critical insight for anyone navigating new beginnings after meaningful endings.

We examine the fascinating conflict between our modern world's demand for immediacy and our emotional processes that refuse to be rushed. From Amazon deliveries to binge-watching entire TV seasons, we've grown accustomed to instant gratification, yet grief stubbornly follows its own timeline. This disconnect creates unique challenges when we're trying to make peace with significant change.

The episode offers practical wisdom about gratitude as a powerful healing force (without confusing it with toxic positivity), somatic practices for releasing emotional weight from your body, and embracing the beautiful messiness of authentic transformation. By normalizing the full human experience of transition—including tears, confusion, and occasional backsliding—we create space for genuine renewal.

Whether you're navigating the end of a relationship, changing careers, moving homes, or simply trying to break free from limiting patterns, this heartfelt conversation provides both comfort and practical strategies for moving through life's "death portals" with grace, self-compassion, and an open heart.

- If you would like to connect further you can find me on Instagram @jolenesensualbeing
- You can sign up to my mailing list here: Sensual Being Mailout
- My Youtube channel: SensualBeingJolene

I hope you enjoy your day.
Jolene
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Speaker 1:

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 letting go. Letting go and being more playful, letting go of old habits and letting go if you are grieving as well. Hello, sensual being, and thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 1:

I feel like my life is a bit of a whirlwind right now. I think that's probably the best description of it. That's probably the best description of it when you hear people talking about like a death and a rebirth in their life. This is I'm literally going through the death part now and fortunately, nobody around me have passed away. But, as you know from previous episodes that I have actually been giving up my studio and I would like to talk to you a little bit more about how I've been actually dealing with it, because it's been really hard, like really hard. It's probably one of the most hardest decisions I have ever had to make and certainly not one that I've ever taken lightly, and the last week or so have been filled with so many moments of. This is the last time I'm going there to dance for myself. This is the last time I'm taking my partner there to dance for him. This is the last class of this people. This is the last class of this people. This is the last class of that people. This is going to be the last class overall. And yeah, that, all of that. It's so emotional. It's beautiful at the same time because, as I said before, this means a lot to me and if it was an easy thing to have made the decision on and closed, then it wouldn't have been difficult. It wouldn't have meant as much the impact in my life for this past decade or two decades if I go for the whole of my teaching for pole dancing, but this one decade at the studio, which I'm actually going through now, of closing, that is like almost a quarter of my life. I've been at this studio and I've been teaching pole dancing for about just about half of my life. You know this is huge and it's it reminds me of when there's been people in relationships and they really love each other but one of them wants to have children and the other one doesn't, and then they decide because, because they love each other, that they actually split up and that's kind of feels really weird to be like going through such a big like death portal and grief and it's not just mine either, it's collectively together.

Speaker 1:

There's so many of us, like I've had so many messages saying I was so looking forward to returning to the studio and then they they're not going to because they can't. You know so many of us, like I've had so many messages saying, oh, I was so looking forward to return into the studio and then they're not going to because they can't. You know so many people who have been with me for years and they're leaving. And then other people that I may never hear from who are kicking themselves thinking, damn it, I should have joined when I had the chance and I didn't and I maybe never met them. There's so so much with this and I wanted to kind of like talk a little bit more particularly. I'm going to have three different categories on letting go, but the letting go in relation to my studio is the first one that I wanted to talk to you about, because a lot of people say everybody's saying the same thing and I've never labeled Purity Studio as this, which is really interesting. Literally in almost every piece of writing, every card I've gotten, every post that's been put up online saying I'm going to miss this place, everyone said the same two words safe space. They feel like it was their safe space and it was. It was all of ours Safe space. And it's interesting because I never labeled it as that. I never went around saying Purity Studio, your safe place.

Speaker 1:

Because I believe in that, something you need to feel, and I think that's one of the hardest things to let go of. And there's been such an evolution of what people wear to pole. People start off pole dancing in like leggings and long t-shirts and then it gets a little bit shorter and then they wear shorts and then they wear shorter shorts and then maybe they wear literally lingerie, because you can literally wear what you want to my classes. I believe in that freedom. But then there's this other side of that evolution of what you wear to be oh well, I can wear lingerie if I want, but actually I'm not going to this week, I'm just going to wear a tracksuit, and that kind of embodiment of who you are in that moment is so, so important and it's something that I have strived to allow people to embrace for themselves. And this I think is really connected to this whole safe space is because I have never put it on anybody that you have to wear this, you have to wear that, apart from knee pads, you have to wear your knee pads. Whether people even choose to wear heels or not, it's down to them. And I think this is where it feels harder to let it go, because when it's a safe space in that term, where you literally feel like you can rock up in lingerie or a tracksuit from one week to the next and it doesn't matter, no one in the class is judging you for what you're wearing. I'm not judging you and I hope that you're not judging yourself.

Speaker 1:

And I think to have that kind of freedom takes a long time to build up and it's different for everybody. So it depends on your background, your upbringing, what's happened to you in your life, to how easily you can sink into a space and feel like it is safe, and that takes time. So if you are particularly one of my students right now who are going through this change of wanting to still pole dance, wanting to find somewhere else, but are comparing it to the fact that purity was a safe space. You need to remember that purity probably didn't feel like the safe space it is now when you turned up for your first class. It grew over time. So wherever you go next, you need to allow that to grow. You need to allow that to grow and it might grow quicker because you are already embodying a lot of that for yourself, a lot of that energy. So you might find that that sort of feeling can grow quicker somewhere else because you've already had a taste of it. But you have to give it the time to let that happen.

Speaker 1:

And an interesting thing was said last night and they said I'm gonna have a little break and then I'm gonna work out what I want from pole and then I'm gonna restart, restart somewhere else. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. But I said I'm still not so sure about that. And I was like, well, why don't you? It's good to know what you want out of something, but when every single place is different, you don't, you can't, guarantee what you're going to get. So I kind of feel like If you can be in a space where you're open, where you're open to change, where you're open to see somebody else's take on it Even if you love to dance and you go for the fitness side, it's like that's okay, even if you're like, oh, I don't really want the fitness you might. You don't know until you try it you might. It might sometimes not necessarily be about the discipline, but you might meet an awesome group of people and therefore that changes your perception on what you thought you wanted.

Speaker 1:

So the more you can be open to this change, the better, because in our life if we stay still in the same job I mean people don't really do this anymore, do they? They don't. I remember when I grew up, my dad had his job for like 35 years, 40 years, and he had pretty much the same job all that time. It evolved a bit and changed a bit, but it was still for the same company as well. I'm sure it was. And we live in a time we are so honored to live in, this time where we get to go from one thing to the next and actually experience different things in our life a lot more than maybe our parents or our grandparents used to be able to do. You know, there's so much more freedom of like being an entrepreneur and creating your own business, or whether it's full time or a side hustle, or maybe you've got a few different businesses. We are living in a time where change can be very welcomed and I'm not saying it's easy.

Speaker 1:

So, even though this change was something I wanted to do, whilst part of me, on one hand, is thinking about, like the rebirth side, the opportunities that are, you know, I'm open to the opportunities to come my way, more so than I was before and I'm really excited about that. But leaving behind pole and also I don't easily have a position to actually put up a pole at home, so I'm not even gonna be exercising my pole dancing skills. I'm they're gonna diminish that. That is exactly what's gonna happen, because that's part of our human body. You know, if you don't train something, it will just fade away, and I'm having to be okay with that. And that's quite hard too, because I'm like oh, you know what about all my pole skills? I just got to, like, you know, just drift off a bit. But again, I also then think about the opportunities I could have if I let go. Again, I also then think about the opportunities I could have if I let go.

Speaker 1:

And this takes time. It does take time and I do feel like this week particular is hard. I'm recording this on the last week of the studio, so actually when this episode comes out, I will actually probably physically be at the studio taking stuff down, repainting walls and making it all like I had never been in there to start with. So that's what I'll be doing when this episode actually goes live. So this is on a very potent week, like I am literally in the in-between and I am living through it as best I can.

Speaker 1:

And the thing that's really helped me is the fact that we've all come together and I think because I told people a few weeks ago, we've all kind of digested the news a bit and I think, like the last week of classes, we just have the attitude of I'm just gonna dance. You know that it has been a real good attitude this week and it's been oh yeah, it's been electric in the studio, absolutely electric, and that was the vibe I wanted. So people can still be sad, and we have been sad, but the vibe is there, like I just want to dance, come on, let's go. You know, and that is the go get, go get them attitude, you know, because that's what we need in life and we need to go through all of these emotions and that they'll still continue going up and down, up and down. I mean I stayed into the studio last night after everybody had gone home and I just literally sat there and spoke to the studio and saying how magnificent she's been for us, because I kind of believe that everything kind of has a spirit, you know, and I sort of I sort of feed into that with her. You know she's done her best for us and you know she's ready for a change.

Speaker 1:

You know, it's really when you look at these spaces as having their own like sort of feelings, it does change your perspective a little bit on how you treat places. So that's very much around letting go, particularly when it comes to things that really cause you grief. So losing the studio for us has been a grieving type of experience and the main thing that can really drive us through with it like so if we are going through grief and we have to let go of something like whether it's a place, a relationship, a friendship, a pet, a person that does take time, but the driving force to have at the forefront of your mind, however sad you are, be grateful that you had that experience. That is the number one that doesn't make you happy. No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1:

Please don't confuse gratitude and appreciation with happiness. God, no, no, yeah, just definitely don't confuse them with happiness, because it doesn't make you happy. It makes you appreciate life, it makes you grateful for the gift of yourself being here and it makes you feel like you are deserving of this life because you are. You are a gift to this world. We are all a gift that should be cherished. And that's what happens. It brings you back into appreciation for being here and by doing that it doesn't make you happy, but it keeps you on the path of being grateful to be here, because if you're not careful when you go into these sort of pits of darkness, if you're not grateful for anything, you don't appreciate anything.

Speaker 1:

That is a very, very slippery slope and you can start by the most basic things. Maybe you've got food on your table today and you're grateful for that. Maybe maybe it's just your heart beating in your chest and you're grateful for that. Start small, it doesn't have to be anything big, but to appreciate the experience that you've had or the person you've had in your life or the relationship you've had is an absolute godsend and treasure that we must not lose sight on. But when we are in pits of grief we do lose sight of that and it's very easily done. So you may have to remind yourself, set a reminder on your phone to think about being appreciative of the experience that you've had, because it's so, so important.

Speaker 1:

And whilst we're talking about letting go, that was kind of the biggest part of letting go is what I've just talked about there when it comes to like grief. But when we hear terms of like letting go, let go it can be in so many different ways. So one of them can be letting go of old habits, and these all interlink with each other as well. They might be good habits or bad habits, but my my view is that they're probably habits that you've been wanting to not do for a while, and actually trying to let go of them is hard, like me stopping watching TV a couple years ago.

Speaker 1:

I didn't stop watching TV because I didn't enjoy it. I loved it. I loved it quite a lot actually, and so I had to really work with that to let that go, because I knew that my life would be richer if I didn't really watch TV and that was my driving force. I was thinking I want to test this and see how it goes for a month and I was right. For me, I was right, my life is, my life is definitely richer without it. Everyone is different, completely different. Um, but yeah, for me, two years on, I'm still not watching TV.

Speaker 1:

But letting that go was really hard because, particularly for the first few weeks, because people would say, oh, did you know, series three of this is out and oh, there's a new film out, there's number two film of this one, and I was like, oh, I would have watched that. And then, as time went on because my life was richer without the TV, those little niggles of, oh, I would have watched that. I wonder what that was like. They all started to disappear. They all started to disappear and it did take time. And time, I swear, is the biggest healer. And we are so impatient in our lives and I think this is where letting go is getting harder, because we are so damn impatient. I mean, if we make an order from Amazon, we expect it the next day. Where is it if it's not here?

Speaker 1:

You know we live in a fast paced society and once upon a time I remember when I used to watch Friends and that was when it first come out and there was one episode a week. There was not a plus one to catch it up. If you missed it, you missed out, unless you recorded it, and you were lucky if you set it up and remember to actually do that. You know things were at a slower pace Now. If they were to release Friends as a brand new thing in one go they would probably release season one and then you could just watch them all in one go. They would probably release season one and then you could just watch them all in one day if you wanted to. Season two will probably come out it may be the next year or maybe within six months and you could again watch the whole lot in one go. We move faster now. Once upon a time used to write letters or have fax machines. Now email it across. It's done In an instant. It's done.

Speaker 1:

So we live in such a fast-paced world so when it comes back to the reality of our emotions, we actually do need to take the time we really, really do. But it is such a controversial thing within our psyche now because we're getting more and more used to this modern world. The other part of the letting go is a little bit more lighthearted, a little bit more lighthearted, and this is more on the side of being playful in your life. These all, all three of these, interlink with each other. So you've got letting go and being more playful and carefree, letting go of old habits and being open to change, and letting go of people, relationship, places, pets All of these intertwine with each other. Because if we can let go and be a little bit more playful in life, a little bit more carefree, then that will stem on to making things like change easier, because we'll be like yeah well, we'll see what happens.

Speaker 1:

Because to be able to be a bit more carefree means that it's okay if it's a bit messy. And whenever we learn something new or go to a new place or start something new, it is messy Because, like when you learn, like when you learn how to drive, how many times did you stall the car? Probably quite a lot. But that's okay because you're learning and even you know you stall it. Now it's all right, it's no big deal. But when you're learning it is messy, but you're learning, and then you get it right and you're like, oh, it just did it, I just did it and it worked. And that sort of feeling is something that we just don't embrace anymore.

Speaker 1:

And again, our modern world, social media, really dictates to us that things should not be messy, things should be perfect, perfect and perfectly aligned Life can be perfect if you follow the right influences and their life looks perfect and it's not. So much of our life is not actually real, but the messy parts are. They are, they're the real bit. I mean, how many times in a film? I mean, things may have changed in the last couple of years, as I don't watch tv, but how many times in a film do you see a sex scene? Yeah, as soon as the guy enters the woman. Yeah, it's a hetero sex scene. By the way, she's having an orgasm, she's coming. And how many times afterwards do you see the clearing up, the little bit of mess that happens afterwards, the cum that seeps out of her? Where's that in a film? It never is, but those messy bits are the real bits of life. I mean, come on, nothing is more beautiful than actually just being in the rawness and the realness of life. And if we can really let go and be with all of that, then we can just be more authentic with ourself.

Speaker 1:

And you'll hear probably everyone's heard it, even I've said this before in my meditations to take a deep breath in and as you breathe out, let go. All of that helps, but nothing will help you more than time itself. But when we hear like take a deep breath in, as you breathe out, let go. You know you kind of, if you're in a pit of grief, you just want to smack the person who says that to you. You're like you have no idea what I'm going through. Says that to you, you're like you have no idea what I'm going through. But the realization is to remember that a lot of our emotion, of what we go through, is stored in our body. So even things as simple as a deep breath in and breathing out, visualize and letting go, feeling it that does help your body, because it's not all about the mind, it is also about the body as well. So we need to try and get them to work together with this.

Speaker 1:

And I find dancing is good, shaking the body is good. We did something in my yoga class a couple of weeks ago and we've done it again since. It's been really good. And we do a lot of weeks ago and we've done it again since, it's been really good. And we do a lot of somatic releasing and particularly for the face. So we really like move our face around. I mean, everyone looks silly, you ain't gonna do it and look pretty by the way, but you sort of move your face around and like touch your head and stuff and it really awakens the muscles all around your face and it really connects you in with your body, like so so deeply and yet it's so basic.

Speaker 1:

A lot of these sort of things will help us because they will stop us from feeling stagnant within ourselves. So if you feel a bit stagnant, or you feel like you've been still for a while, or you feel like you've been going through it emotionally with something, however big or small, give your body a little shake off. You know how like dogs do when they sort of come in from the rain and a little bit of rain spotted on the back, so they come in and they just literally shake it off, or even like out in the wild when you watch on um on tv when you watch like the antelopes being chased by the lions. But they get away and now they'll go off and they'll have a little shake and then they get on with their day because they are exiling that sort of trauma from their body as quickly as possible. And we need to do that more. If we can make that a regular thing that we do, then our life will be so much more carefree. But we have to remember to do it. And also it helps being carefree because you don't mind looking silly, having a little shake every now and again or stretching your face around. You know, you just let it go and it will help to let it go. It might not let all of it go in one go, but it will help.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed that episode. I think there's so much in there that you can take away with this and, yeah, I just hope you all have a magical day. I really do 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 being. 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.