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 99 - Dandelions in Concrete: Finding Magic in Everyday Life
Sunshine isn't our enemy – it's a source of profound nourishment that modern life has taught us to fear. This misunderstanding symbolizes our broader disconnection from nature's cycles and the present moment, creating widespread unhappiness in our society.
When we spend our days inside under artificial light, obsessively planning future events while consuming endless digital content, we miss the only reality that truly exists – this present moment. The magic of watching silver birch trees dance against blue skies, observing dandelions push through concrete cracks, or simply feeling the sensation of food touched by our fingers connects us to an earthly rhythm that our ancestors understood intuitively.
Our bodies remember these natural patterns even as our minds forget them. Women's 28-day cycles mirror the moon phases, yet we're taught to maintain constant productivity regardless of our energy fluctuations. Our circadian rhythms respond dramatically to even minor disruptions like daylight savings time, yet we pride ourselves on pushing through jet lag and sleep deprivation. We've created artificial lighting that allows us to ignore sunset's invitation to rest, then wonder why we feel perpetually exhausted.
This episode explores how reconnecting with earth's magic might save us from ourselves. When we choose new paths – questioning beauty standards, examining what we consume through media, or simply turning off screens to experience the world directly – we often face resistance. This push-back typically reflects others' discomfort with examining their own choices rather than judgment about ours specifically.
Finding your authentic path requires compassion both for yourself and those around you. As you awaken to new awareness, remember that we're all on this journey together, though at different points along the way. The only thoughts and feelings you can truly control are your own, so nurture your inner truth while extending understanding to others.
- If you would like to connect further you can find me on Instagram @jolenesensualbeing
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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. Join me in this episode as we navigate many, many things that will try and help us stay in the present moment, to try and stay in nature's cycle of life, so that we can really be here on earth side and have a magical experience together. Hello, sensual being, and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. Do you know what?
Speaker 1:At the moment, I'm in the UK and it is spring and it really feels like spring. There is so much sunshine, it is absolutely glorious and it's the sort of sun that is really nurturing, like it really feels, like it gives you something. There's something about springtime, summer and the autumn sunshine as well. That type of sunshine really kind of generates so much healing within the body, because in the depth of summer, whilst it can be beautiful, at times it can be, you know, exhausting. We have to be very careful with the, the sun, not for reasons that I deem are put out on mainstream. I believe there's an element of respect that we need to have for the sun, so I don't buy in to the fact that the sun is so, so bad for you. I try really hard to respect the sun and to do that. I, particularly in the summer, I will try and get out in the sun, particularly in the morning. The morning sunshine really does wonders for my skin and I'm very careful throughout the rest of the day. But the more I can get in the morning sun, particularly without sunglasses, then my body is accepting that there is sunshine coming to it and because I'm not wearing any sunglasses, my skin knows what to do and I find this fascinating. So I've been doing this for a couple of years now and I've also been trying to keep the sun aspect into my life throughout winter.
Speaker 1:It's not the same, but I have been using sunbeds again another controversial one because that has been deemed as being bad, and I remember years ago hearing that well, if you use your sunbed when you're like in your late teens or early 20s and you're doomed and I thought, oh God, I better stop using them. And I bought into it. I bought into all that and now I actually. I think I mean, this is each to their own for what you want to do and what sits right with you, but because I'm a big believer in the fact that the sun actually gives us a lot of life. You know why would plants point to it if it did not give them life? It just baffles me how we are being told that you know the sun is as dangerous as it is and I don't think it is, but I think our lifestyle around it is.
Speaker 1:So me using sunbeds throughout the winter, not for aesthetic reasons, like it's not about trying to keep myself looking like I've got a tan, because actually I don't care about that, but I do care about how my skin is like, how I live that but I do care about how my skin is like, how I live, and I have found that by using them throughout winter I have hardly been ill, and there's been a lot of people been ill around me and I haven't caught anything. And it's really weird because normally throughout winter I catch colds and bugs and things, but this seems to repel it. So if this hits home for you and you're intrigued, look into it for yourself. Don't take what I say as gospel, because I'm just trying to navigate through this life and under a lot of conditioning, as are you probably. So we need to try and find our own ways forward. But if I have planted a seed for you and you're curious, then please do look into this for yourself.
Speaker 1:And I really do feel like the sun gives us a lot of nourishment, but I also believe in the amount of respect that we have to have for the sun. So don't just go out in the middle of the day during the hottest part of the day and just lay there, you know, and be think, oh, jolene said it would nourish me, no, it would probably burn. You see again, that level of respect and honestly, not wearing the sunglasses that is huge, huge, huge, huge for me. My skin reacts completely differently. So I just wanted to plant that seed, really because we are getting a lot of sun in the UK and we do just remember, need to respect it. But I do think there's a lot of goodness and I think we've been really played at this that we're told it's a bad thing and it's difficult as well, because I do believe that most suntan lotions that are out there are actually bad. So I very rarely use any sunscreen and I'm quite pale and I haven't been burnt for two years and with sunscreen I'm not really sure if it's protecting our skin or if it's trying to protect. Maybe the lots of heavy metals and toxins are in our body and in our skin and maybe that is what's burning our skin and not actually our skin, because, like our grandparents, they didn't have sunscreen and they were okay.
Speaker 1:And when I said before about our lifestyle, now this is where it gets interesting and this really stems on to this episode today, which is going to be about how can we be more in the moment, in the presence, because at the end of the day, the present moment is all we have in that moment is all we have. So how are you showing up now when it comes to the, how much time are you spending indoors versus outdoors? And I know we all have jobs and a lot of the time they're indoors and they're at screens. But what do you do around that? And you might be thinking, yeah, but at the end of the day, I just want to go home and sit down and watch the TV or play games or something like that. But I urge you to really think about this, because movement sunshine gives us energy. Sitting down and eating does not give us energy, and there's a time and a place for that. But I believe that we are doing this too much in our lives and it can be.
Speaker 1:It can feel quite edgy to try and change this and you might get pushed back in your household or from your friends to say, well, why don't you want to watch this, why don't you want to play this, why don't you want to eat this? And this is where it gets difficult. This is where it's easier just to say yes and go along with it, rather than be the black sheep of the family and be different and maybe go outside for a walk. Go outside and do something different, and it is difficult to go against what other people are thinking is the right thing, and the problem is is that you can end up getting a bit bullied for this as well, because people don't like to be challenged, and I don't mean that you're challenging them per se, but I mean that the fact that you are doing something different makes them realize they can do something different and they're not, and then it brings out an internal frustration within themselves that they can then take out on you, and this is where a lot of bullying comes from. It's where a lot of it comes from. Lot of it comes from it can be jealousy, it can be envy, but it could. A lot of it can be highlighting inadequacies in themselves, and this is a difficult one to navigate, and this is where you might find that you end up.
Speaker 1:Your lifestyle changes and your friends change, and this is something that I have had to deal with in my life, because, by me doing different things, reinventing myself, a lot of people are here for it, but you find out who your true friends are, because a lot of them are not here for that. They're not here for that. They're here for you to stay in your box, be the person that they know. And the thing is, this comes from survival and safety as well, because when you continue to be that same person that they've always known, and nothing different, there is no challenge. So it feels safe, and it can feel safe to you as well, thinking oh well, maybe if I just carry on in this job for longer, maybe if I just carry on in this job for longer, maybe if I just carry on running this business the way I am. It's safe, it's what I know. But to break out of it feels really edgy and scary to yourself and to other people, because they then realize that they can do something different and they're not. So. I know they'll take it out on you, you know, and it's very difficult to stay on this path, but we need to remember that the present moment is the main thing that should be driving us. The past has already happened, the is coming, but the most the present moment is here now and the more that we can all try and stay in that, the happier we'll be.
Speaker 1:I remember there was a friend of mine. She got married years ago and she was planning, planning, planning, planning this wedding, this perfect wedding. Perfect had to be perfect, it had to be perfect. And then the perfect day came and she whinged the entire day. Every time I saw her she was whinging to me that something had gone wrong, something wasn't right. Now, this wasn't right. They haven't even cut the cake right. And I'm thinking, oh my God, you're not here. And this was before I really started doing a lot of this internal work, but I can just remember. When I look back, I can remember thinking you're missing your day, your day that you'd planned, and this is so true for so many things in our lives.
Speaker 1:It's like when I used to do pole performances and I would spend. This is why I started just to do freestyle for them, because I could just pick the song and dance. There's nothing to remember, there was nothing to like, go wrong, there was nothing to forget. I could just be in that moment, whereas the routines I put together and I practiced them, polished them over and over and over and over again, I lost the magic of the song. I lost the magic of the movement, the magic of the feeling, and before I knew it, I'd gone to this show and done my three to five minute performance and boof. It's all over and I'm like, oh well, all that build up and I forgot to enjoy it whilst I was here. You know, and when you do a routine, you're always trying to get to the next bit. You know, you're not allowing yourself to be in flow, and I find that that all that pressure and build up for a three minute routine and then it's all gone, it is over before you know it. And again, that was something that really highlighted to me about trying to stay in the moment as much as I can.
Speaker 1:And I also remember, not that long ago, I saw a meme on Instagram I think, and it was like a queuing up system, for it was a little cartoon and there were three queues in this like fairground kind of ride type of thing, and the first queue was overflowing and it was fortune telling your fortune, your fortune, your future. The second cue was for past life readings cue was overflowing, and then the cue for the present moment there's no one there, no one there, and I thought you know what that is. So true, we are so full of distractions, of things that don't let our own minds think, which is why, like playing a lot of like computer games, a lot of um film series, binge watching things, a lot of like drinking as well, all of this stuff is not allowing our creativity to flow and it's not allowing us to see beauty in the present moment. We're not engaging as human beings with each other. You know, we're not engaging on a real level with people, and I think that this is such a root of unhappiness in our lives, and I'm sure we've all been guilty of this. I have, I have, I'm not exempt from this and it's the realization of how I live my life now, compared to years ago, that has made me feel different about this now, compared to years ago. That has made me feel different about this.
Speaker 1:You know, like turning off my tv and that pull to go outside was huge and I've always been a bit outdoorsy. I've always liked going outdoors. You know I grew up having my pony. You know I used to play outside when I was a kid all the time and you know my two dogs, I love outside. But there was a massive pull to get me outside when I turned off my TV and I listened to that. And here we are now. But I listened to that so much and one of the biggest realizations that came from when I turned off the TV was I mean this goes for anybody that I've spent time with, but particularly my dog. You know my first dog and I think of all the years I was watching tv with him sleeping beside me and I missed him. I won't ever see him again. I missed all that time. I mean my little dog pumpkin. I mean I watch him sleep so much because it's adorable oh my god, he's so cute.
Speaker 1:And I'm trying to like soak up all these real present moment feelings as much as I can, because I know that every moment is fleeting. And then, when I look back to all that time I spent watching tv, or even watching tv with my family, you know, and I won't get that time back, like particularly with my dad. I won't get that time back. He's not, he's not here on earth side anymore, so I won't get that time back with him. And all those times I spent watching a square box in the corner of the room and not engaging in meaningful conversation. There are so many things I wish I could have asked my dad when I look back and I didn't. There's so many things I would have liked to ask my grandparents about like simple things, like how they lived their life when they were growing up. I'm so curious about it now, like a switch has been flicked in my head. I'm so curious about how we have evolved as humans to get to where we are now and how we live now compared to then, and they're not here for me to ask them.
Speaker 1:And it's that remembering that this present moment is like, oh, it's so juicy, it's real, it's the only real moment in our whole life is this one, this present moment. And I think there's things that we can really do to like heighten our senses as well, and we have to try and normalize them again. I kind of feel like I just spent about half an hour sitting outside watching next door's silver birch tree, watching it flitter in the wind, in the breeze, and it's got the blue sky behind it and the goldness of the catkins are so bright against the blue sky and the goldness of the catkins are so bright against the blue sky, and I was just like transfixed by it, thinking, oh my god, it just I don't. It felt so magical. But and yet, if me telling you that now you think I'd rather go watch a half hour series on something, or part of a film or something, or play this, you know why can't we normalize really being a part of earth? Because she is just absolutely magic and at the moment we've got such clear skies.
Speaker 1:Before going to bed and I just go outside and I look up at the stars, I look up at the moon and it it's just magic and I swear, every single time I look up I see a UFO every single time. Even my partner. When he goes outside and looks up, he goes look, there's another one. People aren't looking up. It's weird, you know people aren't looking. I've been watching all the blossom change on all the trees and like I've been watching some of my favorite trees that are on like regular routes I take and like watching which ones like blossom first and which ones like leaf up first, and yeah, it's just, it's magical, but we are just so busy with our lives we are not really taking this time to look at them. And there's just so much beauty and magic around us and currently we are in dandelion season. The dandelions have just popped up in the last few days. So, again, look for them, look for them, even growing out the little cracks in the concrete. They are there, they're there, they're making their way out. They're such hardy little beasts, they're so funny. But yeah, just make sure you are looking for the magic everywhere and don't don't deem it as blasé or anything, because it this is part of earth, this is part of our experience and it's remembering that our calendars aren't even really the correct format.
Speaker 1:And this hour change, time change in the UK really messes with people. It messes with me too. You know we get off our circadian rhythm and we've got to try and get back on it. So it really is a mess up for our system. And I remember my dad used to fly to lots of different places in the world and different time zones to teach people how to do his job. And he said the one time time zone that he really got messed up by was in the UK. When we used to go for an hour forward or an hour back. He said that was the worst. He could go to all places all around the world and have all different time changes, but he said that one. He said that's the worst one. And I always stuck that, always stuck with me because I thought that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:Because why is it that one little shift makes so much difference? And even when you look at like the moon, the moon has a cycle of 28 days and you could kind of argue that maybe our calendar should have 13 months and every month should be like 28 days. This one hour time difference, this one month time difference, it just shifts enough to mess with our internal system of our body and to try and get that back and to get into the flow of nature in life and the seasons is actually something that we are, you know, demonized to do. You know, particularly as women as well, you know we have a monthly cycle where our energy goes up and goes back down. You know, I remember the Tampax adverts when I was growing up and you know she was able to pop in a Tampax and she was able to, you know, live her life and go show jumping in her white job. She was able to do the diving competition for the Olympics and it's like I mean, yeah, great, but so long as you're not sacrificing your energy, if the energy isn't there, why are we being told to push? I just it's never sat right with me and it's that remembering that we do have this energy that goes up and down.
Speaker 1:And if you don't have your cycle anymore, that's a whole different episode in itself. But if you don't have your cycle anymore, that's a whole different episode in itself. But if you don't have your cycle, for whatever reason, then see if you can link into the phases of the moon. So when the moon is full, take that as more of your energetic time, because the energy on earth at that time, during the full moon, is a lot more heightened. I mean, my friend used to work in A&E and she said full moon, always more accidents or everything's all heightened, you know. So it is a real thing, whether you choose to believe it or not. And then at the times of, like, the new moon, then that time is the time of the bleed. So so that would be like your more restful time. So you can take this and like rest a bit more there, push a bit more during the full moon and actually you can work in with the moon and if you don't have your cycle anymore, but you're kind of meant to, you might find that your cycle comes back when you give your body that rhythm, that chance, and see if that kind of works for you, even just on an energetic level, because men have like a 24-hour energetic cycle and rhythm, whereas women have a 28-day. So this is where we are very different to men, and that's okay. We are supposed to be, we're supposed to be. We are supposed to be, we're supposed to be.
Speaker 1:Other ways we can really try and sink into the present moment is I don't know when you last did this, really did this but eating our food with our hands, when we see kids and babies doing this. They are so much more connected to their food than we are using a knife and fork, and I know there's some limits to this. You might think, well, how do I pick up soup with my fingers? You don't have to. You can dip some bread in. You can use a spoon for that. But even like if it's salad, actually just try it.
Speaker 1:My mom did this the other day and she said good, the food taste is so different. It's a bit like when you grow your own food and then eat it. It tastes different than when you buy it from the shop. And it's not just because you've made it more organic or you've grown it better than what you might buy, which is also a real thing. But it can be that that connection with that food is a connection to the earth. It's like that rhythm of life, the earthly cycle, and becoming a real part of it. So I've also seen memes as well where they've got a picture of a load of people on the land harvesting, growing food and things, and then on the next picture you've just got these tall office blocks and it's all very grey, it's all very square and it says on it so like it's only it only took two generations to forget how to live off the land. And that is so true and I feel this massive pull in me that when me and my partner move that we are going to get somewhere where we can actually have a bit of maybe a small holding, maybe have some chickens, have some like pasture-fed hens and have eggs from them, grow some of our own food, try and have a bit of a seasonal living. You know, and we.
Speaker 1:He's always followed the sun to a certain extent, like when it gets dark he goes to sleep, when it's light he wakes up. So he's awake more during the summer than he is in the winter. He's always, ever since I've known my partner, he's always kind of like followed him with the sun's pattern, even though it's not something that he's necessarily tried to do, it's just it feels natural to him. So he'll be up at like four o'clock in the morning. In the summer he's up really early because the sun is up. So he's up and he has this real connection with the sun. He's very much a sun worshipper and, to be honest, he's really taught me to become more of a sun worshiper as well, but I also know to respect the sun.
Speaker 1:At the same time, there's this balance and, unfortunately, because we have lived so much of our lives inside in office buildings, nine till five, missing the biggest part of the sun in the day, that our bodies aren't getting used to the real rhythm of life of nature, and I strongly believe that the more we can get back to that, the happier we'll be. Because so many people are unhappy at the moment, like particularly in the last five years. Unfortunately, I can count quite a lot of people that I've known personally who have taken their own lives in the last five years. Unfortunately, I can count quite a lot of people that I've known personally who have taken their own lives in the last five years. That's more than I've ever known in my whole life. I've never known so many people that I know of to have taken their own life as I have done in the last five years.
Speaker 1:This is why I do the podcast. This is why these subjects are so important. They're not just like oh, jolene's telling me to get outside because she's a, she's a hippie or whatever. I don't care what you think of me, but I care what you think about yourself. Are you happy? Are you fulfilled? Are you following along with something that you're not quite sure about? Maybe you were, and maybe you thought about it now and you're not anymore. Are you following along with medical procedures that you actually you're not so sure about? Are you following on with beauty standards that once upon a time you thought were real but actually you're not so sure about? Are you following along with the next thing to watch? Are you following along with things that you hear like music? Are those actually serving you? What are you watching? What is distorting your internal dopamine system? What are you listening to? Who are you listening to? Who are you listening to? But what are you listening to? What lyrics or songs have you always listened to and then actually now realize I'm not so sure those lyrics are very good for my mind. It's okay, if you are realizing this, I used to be a massive Marilyn Manson fan, massive, absolutely massive fan, besotted by him and his music.
Speaker 1:Now, I can't, I can't even go there with him. I see something and I hear something, and it is so dark I can't, I can't even go there. And this is not something that's been easy, because, you know, I used to identify with being that type of fan you know, and that type of person and I used to like these type of things and now I don't anymore and I'm a different person. But I feel so much lighter days, feel so much brighter, even when there is darkness, like the things. There's things that I'm going through at the moment that are particularly dark, but I believe in the light is guiding me. I don't believe in bypassing the sacred darkness. I don't believe in bypassing feelings and emotions that we have to go through in life because we are on earth side and we have this groundedness in our bodies, but that also comes with emotions. So I'm not bypassing them, but I believe that the light is guiding me and the light is guiding you too, if you let it. But there's a lot of darkness around.
Speaker 1:What we choose to put into our bodies, whether it's food, medical things, beauty, standard things, television, media, social media, music there is so much of it and we have to be, we have to use our discernment a hell of a lot more. But that doesn't come easy. It feels quite edgy, like I said earlier, like people might start thinking well, you're different, you're being weird, but you actually have to get past that and also try and offer those people compassion, not bite back. Let them have that moment, let them have that judgment. It doesn't matter, because it's what you feel about yourself that matters and that's the only. Those are. The only thoughts and feelings you have any control over is the ones towards yourself. You can't change what other people think, and it's so long as you know your inner truth. Even if that's changing now, that's okay. But as long as you know your inner truth, that is what will take you forward in your life.
Speaker 1:So I hope that has landed for you well. I know that there was so much to take on there, but take it on your way, because we are all on this journey together, but we are all at different points. My journey is no more special than yours. We are all here to have this experience together and it's all about trying to meet each other where we are in this moment. I'm a firm believer in that, because we all want to try and integrate with each other and get on, and we all want to still have friends, so that that is so, so important to try and meet each other where we all are in this moment and remember, as always, to lead through your life with your heart and to live with intention.
Speaker 1: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 mailer list will be in the show notes as well. I look forward to speaking with you again very soon.