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 101 - Is Your Soul Fuel Being Drained?
The feeling of being "drained" after spending time with certain people isn't just your imagination – it's a real energetic exchange happening beneath the surface of our interactions. In this deeply reflective episode, I explore why protecting our energy matters and how to cultivate spiritual connection independently rather than becoming dependent on group experiences.
Drawing from years of teaching pole dance and yoga, I examine the powerful collective energy generated in spiritual gatherings, movement practices, and meditation circles. While these communal experiences offer beautiful connection points, the real transformation happens when we develop our own devotional practices that connect us to Source energy in our daily lives.
We dive into understanding the difference between conscious and unconscious energy draining, establishing healthy boundaries, and recognizing when we're being affected by others' energies. I share personal experiences of processing grief through ecstatic dance while being held in community, and how that same healing connection can be accessed through independent practice.
At the heart of this episode is a profound truth: the spiritual "high" we experience in these elevated states is actually a connection to something greater – whether you call it God, Source, or the Universe. The floaty, light sensation that comes through breathwork, chanting, or movement is fundamentally rooted in love. When we recognize this connection and cultivate it with intention rather than fear, we transform our relationship with spirituality and ourselves.
Ready to protect your energy while staying open to authentic connection? This episode offers the first steps in understanding why energetic boundaries matter, with practical approaches coming in the next installment.
Mentioned podcast from Sensual Being: Ep 15 - Reframing Life: The Need vs Want of Holidays
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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. Today, we are going to look at why it's so important to protect our own energy and what that high feeling is you tap into when you're in these beautiful states. Hello, sensual being, and thank you so much for joining me here today. I hope this podcast finds you well and you're feeling good, and if you're not, that's also okay too, feeling good. And if you're not, that's also okay too. Just know that you have support always.
Speaker 1:So today's one is one about our energy and actually how to protect our energy, or why, more to the point, to protect our energy, and it might be that you've never really thought about this, but I'm sure, on an easy level, something that you might may have said before or thought about was oh, you know, so-and-so they always drain me. Drain me Even if you don't really work with energy we all do, but consciously, if you don't really consciously work with energies or subtle energies. You might have used those words and they may have been true at the time, but it's like what is it? What are they draining you of and how is that actually happening? And I thought this would be a really good one, a really good topic to talk about, because everything is energy. There's energy everywhere. There's energy from people to people. There's energy in places. You can go to a place and have a really good feel, but you don't know why. Energy in animals, energy in situations. You know you can walk into a room and be like oh my god, were you just arguing? Like there was an argument here. You know, and you can really like sense into this and everybody's different with how they do this. But this is why I want to talk about it, because energy is everywhere and I think we are coming.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe it's just people that I'm clicking with now, but there's a lot of a conscious awakening happening, so a spiritual awakening happening, and people are becoming more aware of their energy and where they want to put it and what they want to do with it, because our energy is our is related to our time and however we spend that energy, we're not getting it back. That's gone. So it's a bit like our time. When we spend our time, that's gone and we have to then focus on what we're doing, like now, and going forward. So this is why it's like a really important topic, because this a lot of the events I hold now they can actually really generate a lot of energy. So, like when we meditate together, when we chant together, when we dance together, it's all creating a lot of energy.
Speaker 1:And this is one of the reasons I've always loved Sirens of the Moon, which is essential movement meditation, because in that, which is essential movement meditation, because in that, in that session, we all dance, like together, we're doing a very similar routine or combination of moves. Whether it be on the floor or standing, we're doing a very similar like combination. It's not in sync, now that's different. It's not actually all in sync, but it's all about like being there and we are like elevating ourselves together in this very special way. But it's like that joining of energies.
Speaker 1:Now, it all sounds very lovely and it is, but you have to make sure that you are also able to protect your energy, but you have to make sure that you are also able to protect your energy, because in this world we all go through so many different things. Some people outwardly look for these things consciously. Some people unconsciously look for these things and on a conscious level of being aware of it. You've got to be really careful because you can end up taking that on. Is that? This is where it comes back to like, oh, so, and so really feels like they're draining me, and they may be totally unaware that they're doing this, but they also might be aware you know. So it's.
Speaker 1:There is is a conscious and unconscious, with the awareness of what people are actually doing to each other. So you may have somebody who knows a bit, like you could call them an energy vampire. They know they get a kick out of bringing you down, putting you down, saying bad things to you, watching you fall down down as they're talking to you, watching them like, bring you down through, like, how their actions, how they are. So it could be that they're saying negative things to you. It could be that they are just like oh, my god, oh, the weather, oh, have you seen the news? Oh dear, oh, isn't it awful? And then you're like, um, I love you but I can't be around you and you just want to like leave before you just get completely drained.
Speaker 1:But there's a conscious and unconscious doing of this, so I'm not saying that everybody is bad, okay. So please know that there is an integration to be had with our energy out into the world and the more you can be aware of this, the more you can like, for example, take steps to think, okay, I'm not going to hang around with that person, because they always belittle me and it always makes me feel crap and you think, oh, I don't want to be around you. So that's one way of doing it. You might also have a chat with somebody and say did you know that? You know, I'm quite happy to talk to you about the news, but I'm only going to give you five minutes of that before we can move on to another conversation, because I really want to talk to you about like, really fun things, yeah, and see if they're open to it. So that's like setting a boundary and I to it. So that's like setting a boundary, and I'm not saying it's an easy conversation, so make sure you're coming from a place of love and compassion, if you were going to go down the conversation route.
Speaker 1:It might be that you think, well, actually I don't know that I want to be around that person, so maybe I'm going to minimize my time with them so you can always go down that route or set in your own boundary within yourself. So that's very much like a little overview on conscious and unconscious energy draining and being drained. And you might unconsciously be being drained, as in that you're just not aware. They just make you feel like this, but that's how the rules made you feel. Therefore, you just deal with it. You don't have to deal with that the whole time. You don't have to. So a lot of like the gatherings I do like we create a lot of energy, which is amazing. Oh my God, like it's amazing. We all, we are all coming together because we want to feel good. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean we will feel good.
Speaker 1:So I did talk about the intention around being in a social gathering, a spiritual gathering, in the last episode, which was about the looking into sacred gatherings and what goes on there. Your intention of how you are turning up is more important than the actual outcome, because we can set an intention all day long which I swear by, but it doesn't always happen. But it's the intent. It's a bit like I mean, I'm going to an extreme now If somebody dies and somebody accidentally killed them and it was a complete accident, accident and you're like you, you don't hold the same grudge towards that person who killed the other one because that they didn't mean to do it. Oh, it's a complete accident, honestly didn't mean to do it. Now, if I told you that person did deliberately want to stab the other person, you'd'd be like, well, that person is just horrible. Then you know the intent behind something. The intention behind something is sometimes more important than the actual act itself. Now, I know that was off on a real dark tangent there, okay, but that just shows the difference with the intention, the intent behind.
Speaker 1:So when we all go to these gatherings, I like to think that I'm bringing people in who actually want to feel good. It doesn't matter whether they do or not. The important thing is that they want to, and it might happen that day or it might not. It depends if they are in like the holy darkness, if they are in a pit of grief or shock or you know something, if they are down and dealing with something really bad. You do have to be careful because, also, you don't want to take on that energy for yourself. Yeah, you want to be able to create a space, and I don't mean as a facilitator, I mean like as a friend or as a family member. You want to create a space for somebody. They can feel however they need to feel, but they need to know that they are held, they are loved, they are cherished, whatever that good intention behind it is. You need to make sure that you are creating that space for them, because you don't want to fall down in that pit with them, because otherwise we'll never get out the pit. We need to be held in a sense of community.
Speaker 1:Now, I really, really believe in this, so so much. But the opposite is also true, as in, you need to be held by yourself, and this is also what I want to get on to talking about, because you can go to all the retreats, all the yoga classes, whatever makes you feel spiritually good. Yeah, and I'm not talking about getting on the wine and things like that to make you feel good. I'm actually talking pretty much about spiritual gathering. So circles, meditations, shamanic journeys um uh, forgotten retreats, yoga classes, sensual movement, meditation or just qigong, other movement meditation. You can go to all that and be like I love going there because I feel so good and that's great. Can you feel that sort of good on your own?
Speaker 1:Now, if you are somebody who has just started, maybe and I say just started you may have been going to a few spiritual events like for, say, a few years. That, to me, is still starting to be fair, we're always still starting. But when you go to, do you integrate any of those practices that make you feel good there? Do you integrate them in your own time, doing it yourself, or do you rely on these spiritual gatherings Because we can get addicted to the feel good and I am all about the feel good. That's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. But when you are relying on these events, it's a bit like when we sometimes go on holiday. My partner's a bit naughty for this right, so he's like no, I need a holiday, I need to go. He he's somebody who will push, push, push, really, really hard and then go. I need a holiday now, but he it's just it is also part of his makeup as well like to find that balance between being able to rest but not have to go on holiday. There's a difference.
Speaker 1:Like some people go on holiday to get away from the life that they've got and that I just can't get on board with. I think I did an episode about I just can't get on board with. I think I did an episode about this oh, it was over a year ago actually. I think it was called something like do you want a holiday or do you need it, or something like that, and it was very much about do you have a life that you're trying to get away from or do you have a life that you enjoy going on holiday but you're looking forward to getting back? Which is it? Because if you really hate your life, hate it so much that you have to go on holiday to get any sort of downtime, then you might want to think on that holiday. What am I going to do to change this when I get back?
Speaker 1:But when we rely on holidays, retreats even my weekly class of whatever it is or my monthly gathering of whatever it is that's the only time I get to really feel balanced. I feel so balanced after that. After a couple of days, it wears off, or maybe instantly. It wears off as soon as you get a phone call when you get outside. What do you do to bring yourself back? Do you do anything? Because a lot of people don't, and they just use these events to make themselves feel good, which is great, but then they don't do anything else and it's so important. So I do believe in coming together, I do believe in community, I do believe and I can sometimes slip out with this I do believe in asking for consent before you hug, even from someone who always hugs, because I think that there's a balance.
Speaker 1:There's sometimes like, oh no, no, I'm not having a hug today, and it's just because you want to just keep your energy a bit more protected. And it's not to say that that person you're going to hug is a bad person with bad energy. It's not that. It's the fact that our energy can be so fragile and if we're starting to become more aware of it, you might just want to protect it just for the meantime and think, okay, I'm just going to protect it a bit more and this, like I say, I'm guilty of this sometimes as well. Sometimes I hold my arms out and that's, to be honest, that's sometimes the invite. If someone holds their arms out back, then okay, we can hug, but arguably that's still not consent, because someone might be doing that because of, like programming. Oh, if someone wants to give me a hug, I should just do it, you know. So there is a big minefield and never be offended if someone says no to a hug, because if I know that people have been struggling and they're there in a session with me like they've just turned up for class I see them every week and normally we have a hug and I'm like, do you want a hug? And they're like no, I'm like, okay, cool, because sometimes they want to be there in that space and just be able to be there. They don't want to crumble, because maybe they've been crumbling so much recently that they just want to just let me be. I'm like, yeah, yeah, cool, let's go, let's go, you know, and it's never a bad thing if someone doesn't want to hug. Never a bad thing.
Speaker 1:There is this balance, there is this sense of community, of us coming together, holding a space for each other. That word sometimes holding a space, it's just word. Sometimes holding space it's just. I just need a new way of putting it. I think it's it's got so. Oh, that that phrase holding space, like I mean for a start, you can't physically hold space, so I have issues with it anyway, but you know it's, at that particular phase, has been so like thrown about by people who don't have a clue on, like TV and stuff. Not that I watch TV, but I see YouTube reels and things and I see people using that term and I just like roll my eyes. But anyway, feel free to roll your eyes. If I say, hold in space, you are very welcome to roll your eyes, I don't mind. Um, the reason why this is so important is because, like I said, community is great, very, very, all for community and events that help us come together, make friends, build each other up, hold space for each other. Um, but when you are on your own and I don't mean you have to be a recluse, okay, you have.
Speaker 1:You don't have to shut yourself off from the world, but can you find pockets of time that you can elevate yourself and you might take tips from what you've already done. So if you go to yoga class, you might take some of that and put your mat down in at home or outside, or go to yoga class, you might take some of that and put your mat down at home or outside, or go to the park, put the mat down under a tree and maybe you'll do some yoga and you might think to yourself God, I don't really know what I'm doing, without the teacher telling me who cares. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, just do something of what you think you can remember or what made you feel good, and you might be surprised at how much you remember. It might be as simple as going outside and saying some affirmations, or even just going outside looking at the sky.
Speaker 1:Looking I was going to say looking at the sun. Only on sunset and sunrise look at the sun, otherwise don't. But you can look at the sky, know that the sun is there. You could look at the stars, at the moon. If it's nighttime, even look at the cloud. Honestly, get curious about the clouds. I'm just going to leave that one there. Get curious about clouds, get curious about clouds.
Speaker 1:But when we try and do this for ourself, we want to try and connect in to something that is bigger than ourself. It can be a knowing you might hear something, this feeling that there is more to life than literally the body, that we are in the ground, that we are walking on the job, that we have the money that's in our bank, the bills we've got to pay. There is more, and when you get these feelings, like these spiritual highs, when you are in these other types of gatherings that I've spoken about, the high that you are getting, in my opinion, is a connection to source. It's the interconnectedness of life. Is God? That's exactly what it is, and people get so hung up on God's not real, god's not. Oh, my God. Have we God? Have we been so long-turned in our life to actually believe, for a lot of us, that there's no God? And a lot of the time, people's no God and a lot of the time people can be spiritual and they won't mention the word God. And I'm not about to start Bible bashing you and say you should do this, do that.
Speaker 1:Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs are, they actually come from God. Now, that word is such a trigger word for people. So sometimes I use the word. When I use the word universe, I mean God. When I use the word source, I mean God, not the gods, not like the God of this, the God of that. There are gods and goddesses, like deities and through mythology and things like that I'm just talking about. I'm keeping it basic for you. I'm going to keep it really basic Just source, yeah, just God, just universe.
Speaker 1:That is that connection and it can feel very floaty and like love, like sometimes when you get, when you do breath work oh my God, breath work. When you do some breath work, you can feel like, oh my God, like I feel like if I close my eyes, I kind of feel like I'm floating when I'm doing it and I honestly feel like if someone said, yeah, you levitated off the ground a few inches, I would believe them. Chanting is the same. You can get so elevated, literally. Your body feels so light. This healing frequency that you can put into your body is incredible. It's a connection to source, and I can't tell you what that is, yeah, because it's something that is so much bigger than ourself, but it is so worth tapping into because that energy is there all the time and something that I absolutely love, that I'll never forget from the Harry Potter books and films.
Speaker 1:Dumbledore said light can be found in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light. And that's so true because even when we are down in the pit of grief, hurt, sadness, depression, we can find a light that will lead us out. The light will shine within the darkness, it will guide you. It might just be a little pinprick of light that you can just see off in the distance, but head towards it. Yeah, just stay off in the distance, but head towards it. Yeah, because the light will bring us back. It really, really will.
Speaker 1:And the reason why I want you to like think about connecting more to this energy in your own time, because then when you go, you won't have to rely on these spiritual communities and there is times when you might want the extra, like boost, and I think these sort of community events are amazing because I hold them and I think they're amazing. But I think they are amazing if you're not really spiritual person, you don't really know, or you think you're an atheist, or you just don't really know. That's okay, because when you go to these events and you get a feeling of like oh my God, I felt so good there, like, oh my God, and I haven't taken anything, I haven't drunk anything, and you're like I feel so good and everybody's there on that same sort of level, feeling so good, then you should be able to like tap into that more in your own time, because what you can do when you have that experience, it's a bit like I've said before, with like meditation and stuff, and you close your eyes and you take a couple of deep breaths. Some people have never done that. For some people, that is so edgy and they have never done that. And as soon as they do, they're like oh my God, what is this feeling? Oh my God, I you know it can be so edgy, there can be a lot that comes up, but they can also be like a Wow, that's nice and you're inviting peace into your body. And it doesn't always happen, but it's that invitation of it, the intention of it.
Speaker 1:Now, when you can set more time for devotion for yourself, so much more magic happens in your life and you find that you're not relying on these events, but you can still go and you have an amazing time. Last week I did some ecstatic dance and I do this on my own anyway, but it was different being led through it and it was so good and it was only an hour and and we got so much, I unpacked so much of myself. I let go so much, so much grief that I've been hanging on to the last couple of weeks, because my pony is no longer on earth side anymore and I've been carrying that as well as the studio ending and it's just like one ending after another. It's like like, oh my god, but to be held in that space by somebody else guiding me through, I am also able to embody that feeling myself because I know things that will kind of get me high in that sort of spiritual sense. So I'm not talking about drink or drugs and things like that, but I wanted to be held then and they did that for me. My intention was pure, you know. I wanted to feel good. Even if I didn't at the time, I wanted to and I felt so much lighter.
Speaker 1:But when I've left I still have carried on doing different things in the mornings, particularly in the mornings. I love mornings to really kind of like lift me up, and that devotion to myself is just incredible. And that is I, and I can often slip. If I'm in a bit of a pit, I can slip, and I forget. I don't forget, actually, I never forget. I just don't do my meditation in the morning, you know, and I make choices that don't really serve me because I kind of get that feeling of can't be bothered. So you have to get past that. You really do, and we're all human. I'm telling you, I do it too, but if we can be driven by this unconditional love that you know we feel from source God, the universe to be driven by that, because a lot of the time we're not, we're really not.
Speaker 1:If you are somebody who has a spiritual practice, particularly not necessarily, but particularly if you have a religious background and you're like, yeah, well, I pray to God, I've been worshipping God, blah, blah, blah and all that, that's fine, okay, but what has been your driving force for it? Just make sure you are being driven by the love that God has for you, because if you're driven by thinking, if I don't pray at night, you know that's a sin and I'm going to go to hell and not heaven, and that's bad. That's not really a good enough reason to do the spiritual work. The reason to do it is because you deserve love. You don't deserve to be living in fear. Not all religious people are like this. I know that, but I've met so many people who are, which is why I'm putting this out. If this is not you, then that's fine, that's cool, brilliant, brilliant. But if you are somebody who does spiritual work out of fear. Fear that you're going to go to hell if you don't Fear that you're going to go to hell if you don't Start looking for the love. Because the love is there, that floaty, high feeling you get when you're at these events. It's love, it's love.
Speaker 1:And if you were to write a letter about yourself to yourself from you and then write yourself a letter about yourself to yourself from a friend, I bet your wording to yourself would be completely different from a friend's perspective, probably be full of like you're doing so good, keep going, you got this, I believe in you. Whereas a lot of the time we can be our own worst inner critic and be like oh, you're late again. Oh, you're always late, you're always this, you're always. I can't believe you did that again. Oh, oh gosh, oh, you're so this, you're ugh. So that is completely different language. So if we can actually start being a friend to ourself, then that is so important, so, so important, because I'm sure we would all probably do something for somebody else before we do it for ourself.
Speaker 1:And I have met people before who hold space Ding, ding, roll your eyes. People before who hold space ding, ding, roll your eyes, who hold space for other people, like as in community gatherings sessions. They don't do the work themselves. Not all, not all, obviously. But I have met some of these people who hold really what looks like nice spaces for people spiritual aspect to them and yet they don't embody what they teach at all. They don't embody it. That self-talk is beyond negative.
Speaker 1:Oh, but I've got all the time in the world for you and I'm like you're being really crazy because on the one hand, you're being a right bitch to yourself but and yet you're being all nice to me and I'm like mate, it starts from within. No, definitely not. So, yeah, um, I didn't really get too much on, um, the protection of your own energy, so I think I'm going to do a separate episode. So we've discussed why in this episode, it's so important to protect your energy, but I think in the next episode I'm going to talk more about kind of how to protect it. And, yeah, I think we'll do that because I don't like to run on too much for half an hour because we're busy. We've got to go outside, got to get our butt in nature and worship a tree. So, on that note, I'm going to love and leave you there and go outside and look at the silver birch. Yeah, I'm going to do that.
Speaker 1:So remember, as always, to lead through your life with your heart and to live with intention. Ways 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.