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 111 - Awakening Your Inner Alchemist
What if the most powerful alchemy isn't turning lead into gold, but transforming your inner landscape? After reading Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist," I found myself questioning our obsession with external transformations while neglecting our internal evolution.
We celebrate before-and-after weight loss photos, home renovations, and rags-to-riches stories, but rarely discuss the profound internal shifts that truly change our lives. Our conversations stay surface-level – discussing new cars, homes, or Netflix shows – rather than exploring what brings us joy, fulfills our dreams, or nurtures our creativity. This attachment to external validation leaves us disconnected from what matters most.
The moments we miss while not being present – distracted by screens or mental to-do lists – can become our deepest regrets. I think about all the times I watched TV while my dog lay beside me, missing precious moments of connection I'll never get back. Children grow quickly, relationships evolve, and time passes whether we're paying attention or not.
A simple but powerful practice has transformed my perspective: changing "I have to" to "I get to." This works not just for mundane tasks but for soul-led desires too. Instead of "I have to sing" creating pressure, "I get to sing" creates gratitude and openness. We get to experience this beautiful, complicated life when many others no longer have that privilege.
When we ignore our soul's calling, the universe often delivers wake-up calls through unexpected challenges. My mother needed to break her hip before she was open to making a life change that ultimately brought her joy. But we don't need to wait for difficulties to motivate transformation – we can choose to evolve through joy and love.
Listen closely to your inner wisdom. What is your soul yearning for? Take the easy path of following that guidance rather than waiting for the universe to demand your attention. The true gold isn't external success but the rich, meaningful life that emerges when you dare to transform from within.
Book: Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist
- 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. In this episode, we look at how we can alchemize our life more inwardly rather than just looking for the external success of others. Hello, sensual being, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm so grateful to have you here today.
Speaker 1:This episode is stemming on from thoughts I've been having after recently reading a book called the Alchemist let's see if I get the name right. It's by Paolo Coelho. I will link it in the show notes as well, and it's one of those books. It's a little bit like if you've ever read the Celestine Prophecy. It's one of those books that seems to find you at a certain point in your life and if it to, you read it. And if it doesn't, then don't, because, like I say, it's one of those books that will, just like, find you at a certain time, and I've just been reading it now, and it's a fable about following your dream and like not giving up on your dream and things like that, and sometimes you might not even know what that dream is as well, which is also what I like about this book, but it really got me thinking.
Speaker 1:So the world alchemy comes from Egypt, and an alchemist is someone who is deemed that it's. I mean, to be honest, we are all. We all have the ability to be an alchemist, but the kind of oh, what's the word I'm looking for, the kind of agenda behind being an alchemist is somebody who can actually turn, who can actually turn like lead into gold. They can actually transmutate metals into gold. And also the other thing that they're kind of like famous for is being able to like create an elixir of life, meaning that if you drink it you'll have immortality, and this is kind of done with using the philosopher's stone. It's not just something supposedly out of harry potter, it's actually possibly a real thing. So that is what an alchemist is, but we actually all have the ability to be an alchemist, and I'm not necessarily saying those particular things, but to be able to transform things in our lives. Just an example if you go and buy a load of ingredients to make a cake, you haven't bought the cake. You've just bought flour, sugar, butter, eggs. It doesn't look like a cake, does it? And yet you can create a cake from that. That's an alchemical process to be able to physically make that happen. And you'll start to tap in now when I say this, that you'll think oh well, this is that. This is alchemy, this is alchemy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is so much alchemy in our lives, but I honestly do feel like you've probably picked this up from me in loads of different episodes now that we have been dumbed down throughout generations. We have been dumbed down and I feel now is the time to take our power back, like to actually be more empowered in our lives and not just be, oh, can't do that, oh no, and there's stuff that even I think I can't do and I have to like get out of my way, step aside so I can move forward. I'm not exempt from this. This is why I do these episodes, because they mean so much to me, because I know I can get in my own way, and I feel like I dedicate a hell of a lot of time to like mindset, work, meditation, empowerment, work, happiness, work. I have such a keen, passionate interest in all of this and I have done for years and not everybody has this kind of passionate interest in it like I do. So if even I'm getting in my own way, then surely other people must be really getting in their own way, you know. So I know that we are all human and we are living at this time. It's not about trying to go back to a different life. It's not about trying to go forward to a future life. It's about being here now and what can we do to navigate, like the pressures, the social conditioning, the norms, how we've been brought up. What can we do about that sort of thing now? Because I kind of really feel like this really bugged me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I was thinking we do look for alchemy a lot. We love a, a transformation, we love a before and after picture or somebody who's you know maybe they've released a lot of weight and they've got a before and after picture. You're not seeing the hard work in the middle, and I can tell you there is going to be hard work in the middle of those photos, and you know that, we know that, they know that. But somehow, when you see it a before and after photo somehow you think I could do that. If they can do it, I can do it. Yeah, that's true. That's true, you know. And it's also like before and after pictures with, like houses. I mean I love these. Like you see a before and after. You know redecoration and renovation and things like that. I love a good before and after. Yeah, I love seeing that Like rags to riches as well, like once upon a time someone didn't have any money and now they do.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is. There's so much alchemical processing that's going on within our lives. But this really got me because I kind of feel like we look a lot at external things. All the things I most of the things I've just said are all external. They are easy to talk about to someone. It's much easier to talk about like, oh, how's the renovation going? You know things like that rather than why are you doing it? How's you know? How are you? You know really, how are you, how are you? How are your dreams going in your life? Do you have any dreams are unfulfilled? Do you have any new ones? What are you doing to be creative at the moment? What do you do just for fun, like no, I'm not talking about your work, what do you do? Just to, like, you know, release, let go and things like that.
Speaker 1:You know people don't really talk about this stuff. It's a lot of what we talk about is surface, because it's safer, it's survival. It's easier to talk about that and it's really hard because you kind of feel like, yeah, but Jolene, I don't want to tell my dreams to anybody who says, how are you doing today? You know just someone I walk past in the street and, yeah, I do get that. But when you meet up and go out with your friends or anything, where is the conversation? And sometimes it's not until you've had a drink that you actually let yourself go. And then do you actually remember the conversation that you've had, this deep and meaningful, do you even remember it? Maybe you should be trying to tap into it, just as you are, without any drink, without anything. That helps you to kind of open up in that way, because I feel like it's so much easier just to be surface and just to look at before and after photos and things like that. You know it isn't, it is real, but it's it's not deep and I do feel like we are giving our power away to external things. Oh, if you've got that new car yet that you said about, can I have a look at your new phone? Have you seen this new thing on Netflix? Got that new car yet that you said about? Can I have a look at your new phone? Have you seen this new thing on Netflix?
Speaker 1:We are given so much of our power away to like material items and everything, and I'm not saying a bit like the before and after pictures of people who lose weight. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be releasing weight if it's the right thing for them. I'm not saying that at all. Two things I always live by in my life.
Speaker 1:I believe when it comes to weight, body, anything like that, you need to be happy and healthy. That is down to you to work out what that means for you, because that is just everybody's different. There is no one way that fits everyone. I mean, I used to put pictures of other people on my fridge to inspire me not to eat crappy food or just eat when I'm not meant to be eating and look at their bodies and think I want their bodies. No, no, no, no. It's my body and I've learned this now, and it's taken me a long time to learn that. And that was one of the things I used to do when I was younger, you know, and it wasn't. I wasn't tapping into like what I need, who I am, what's my body makeup, what do I need? What do I respond well to, what will keep me happy and healthy. So that was just a little sideline, because that wasn't really what I come on here to talk about, but it was more like the why.
Speaker 1:For example, why does somebody want to release weight? And I prefer the term releasing? Because if you lose your keys, you're always trying to find them. So if you lose weight, you may mentally always be trying to find it. So let's go with release. So I'm using that one at the moment because I think that one's really important, because sometimes a lot of time, when people release the weight, they're still not happy, because they're not coming from a place of being happy. Maybe it's coming from a place of ego and they think they should look weight, because they should look good.
Speaker 1:For whatever reason, insert whatever reason. I'll get a better job, I'll get a better partner. I'll do the. What is the reason? Is it actually valid? Because if it's not valid. You won't actually be fulfilled by it. You know, even if all these people are saying, oh look, look amazing, look at your pictures, look at this, you won't actually be fulfilled by it. So you have to, like, try and make sure it's coming from within.
Speaker 1:And these are the sort of questions to ask our friends, our family, like when we're having conversations. Actually, you know why is it not normal to sort of ask deeper, more meaningful questions? I just don't know meaningful questions, I just don't know. But it's so much easier to talk about your work. What house are you buying? What car have you got? You know, and it's none of that stuff is real.
Speaker 1:And we can create such a massive attachment to these material things and what goes with it as well, like your lifestyle, a certain way of living. We attach so much to this and I feel that attachment too, because this is why it was hard to give up the studio, because that was part of who I was. I identified as part of that. So I've been having to do a hell of a lot of work to try and unpack all of that, because it's been such a part of my life that studio for 10 years and pole dancing in general for over 20. You know that that's a hard thing to just not do. There's an expectation of you and sometimes this expectation comes from within as well. It's not just external, it's within you.
Speaker 1:But this attachment to things like that, I, just I, I don't. It's really hard to say I don't agree with it, because I do it but I don't agree with that is the way that we can be living to our fullest fulfillment and potential within, and it makes us very not in the present moment, because we're always thinking about the stuff, the next thing, and when you go down the route of looking at, say, buddhists and monks, and how they detach from everything to find enlightenment, and all this At the same time, if that's how you get enlightenment, I don't want it because I want to be attached. But I want to be attached to the things that mean something to me, like my family, my partner, my friends, my pets. That to me is an attachment that is like no other, that kind of love and friendship and connection that you have with somebody else. That to me, that's what attachment is all about. Give me that all day long, all day long.
Speaker 1:But we mustn't forget as well, on the flip side of that, there's an acceptance that that can be taken away at any point, and I'm not saying that when it does, you'll be. Ah, it's okay. I accept that you're not here anymore and I'm fine. No, but it's being aware of the fact that people are not around forever that makes us want to be more in the moment with them, and this is such a tough pill to swallow. It really really is and I just feel like we give so much of our power away to all this material stuff and we're not grounded here in the physical of earth, of nature, of love, and we're just like giving it all away to stuff and that, to me, yeah, just doesn't. It doesn't really work with me and I kind of feel that we look and we value external alchemy so much more because it's easier to talk about that to other people, but it just means that we don't look for it more inwardly.
Speaker 1:And this changes how we show up each day. How we show up each day, like sometimes, like particularly a perfect example somebody who is depressed or was depressed, and they're not anymore. They have found a way through to the other side, and I don't mean that they're still on antidepressants, I mean that they have actually unlocked a way of being a new, way of going forward. Now that is that's major alch. That's incredible. But people don't seem to be wanting to talk about the internal alchemy. But I mean that. I mean that is gold that everyone can share. That's absolutely gold, you know, because we, how we show up every day, is is who we are, is how we present ourselves in the world, it's how we spread our love and joy into the world, and these are things that we want to be really talking about to people.
Speaker 1:This is deep and if it makes you feel a bit edgy talking to people about it, particularly people who are close to you, that's okay. It might feel a bit edgy. You might have some people that you you might. There might be one person in your life that you just talk about all this too and you go really deep in conversation and you know it can be hours go by and you've covered everything. But there just aren't many of these conversations that are being had. They're just so surface and it's funny because so much of our life is actually really simple, like the attachment things that I really rate. They're really simple a lot of the time. Just give you know, love and attention to those around you that you do love, rather than being so focused.
Speaker 1:I haven't got enough money for this. I need enough money for that. I've got to buy this. Got to buy that. It's always got to be new, new, new, new, focused. I haven't got enough money for this. I need enough money for that. I've got to buy this. Got to buy that. It's always got to be new, new, new, new. We haven't changed our living room in a couple of years. We better redecorate, better, buy new sofas.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know people who are actually like this. I know people who are actually like this. They don't thrift anything, they don't get anything secondhand, they just and they don't even sell their stuff secondhand, they just get rid and take it to the dump. And we live in such a throwaway culture as well. Like that's a huge topic to get started on as well. But have you ever found that?
Speaker 1:Particularly older people, like our grandparents, is so often that you will hear them say things like oh, it used to be, like used to be like you, running around like crazy, doing all this, that and the other, and then I realized, you know what? I didn't need to do all that. I'm quite happy with this, and I'm not saying that when you get older you just kind of feel like, well, I don't need to do any of that because I can't be bothered anymore. I've done it is. Sometimes you can look back and realize I never needed to do that, I never needed to lose all those, all that weight. I never actually needed to try constantly to try and have abs and a flat stomach all the time, because that actually didn't matter, and I used to spend so much time thinking about this. And yet when I look back, I wasted so much time thinking about that and not enough time being closer to the people that mean something to me or like just literally just going out and noticing the nature around you, noticing the change of the seasons, the birds at dawn and how they sound different when they're at dusk, you know, not taking in the magic of what is actually here on this planet right now, and it's. It can be so sad, because I've done it too.
Speaker 1:If you listen to a lot of this podcast, you'll know that I don't have a tv anymore and ever since I pretty much got my current dog that I have I've about six months after I got him I got rid of my tv but my last dog, who I had for over 15 years, I always had a tv and I have noticed the amount of. I don't really like to live in regret, but it is regret. I regret how much tv I watched with my dog sleeping next to me and I never saw him because I was watching the screen. And how many times I sat down to have a nice meal with my partner and and now like, like, I just put on the tv, we'd have something on we'd be watching. So, oh yeah, it'd be really good. Yeah, all the things on Netflix, they are absolutely brilliant. Not going to lie, it was very hard giving it up, but we'd be sitting there eating our food, watching the TV and not engaging with each other. And since I've turned off my TV and didn't want it, I never said that he had to turn off his, but since then he stopped watching his too, and I didn't say he had to Like, I'm not like that, it's just. If you want to do it, it's fine.
Speaker 1:Even my mum has changed everything that she watches. She very rarely watches anything that's like a pre-recorded and acted. She prefers things that are actually like real. She loves people's vlogs and like a little bit of true crime, and things are actually like real, not the news, but she used to watch the news all the time, and that's changed, and she said I feel so much better for it, not living in fear, and it's amazing.
Speaker 1:These how I feel, though, about the fact of my first dog, and all that time I mean I regret that more so than having dinner watching the TV with my current partner, because I'm still with him, I still get to see him, I still get to talk to him, which is great, but my dog, I will never see him again, and I now regret all that time I watched TV when I could have been like more engaging with him. And this is time you won't get back. So particularly if you've got children and they're growing up and you are watching, or you're watching the TV together, or maybe they're on their phone and you know the conversation isn't real, it's not there or the attention isn't there either. These are moments you won't get back, and children grow up so fast. Everyone goes through their life fast, but children really make us realize how quickly the clock is ticking. All of a sudden, they're not a baby anymore. All of a sudden they're going to little school. All of a sudden they're going to high school all of a sudden. Hang on a minute. When where was our childhood? Hang on.
Speaker 1:You know it goes by so quickly and we need to be more engaged with each other to form real attachments, real connections, and not have this feeling of unacceptance. If something happens to somebody at any age, it can happen to somebody because there will be regret there that you haven't spoken to them or seen them enough. And I, I just feel like this is such an important, such an important topic. You need to take it on how it sits with you in your life, in your moment, because I also kind of feel that we, we our birthright here of being here and we are entitled, as our birthright, to experience love, to experience joy and to be. I'm not talking about money. I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about deeper than that.
Speaker 1:Success is in the successfulness of being here together. Are you actually able to be here in this moment with me, listening to me, or have you been writing a shopping list? Have you been also watching something else? You know it's very hard to give our full attention to something I'm not saying. You shouldn't be doing that while you're listening to this.
Speaker 1:But what I'm saying is this is why I'm an advocate for meditation because it teaches you to come into the present moment, even if it's only for the breath, even if it's only for an inhale or an exhale, because we are not designed easily to come into the moment. We're always thinking about something else to do, because it's survival. That's completely normal. But we are missing so much of what is actually going on in our life because we are letting our minds just be completely somewhere else and letting our minds just kind of like just overtake, overtake what the soul wants, block the soul by saying, no, you can't do that. No, no, we wouldn't be able to paint this, we wouldn't be able to dance like that, oh, you're not strong enough for this.
Speaker 1:We need to allow time for the mind to step aside so our soul can actually lead, and things like the mindset around the words that we use, because I've said this before with mundane things, yeah, when you change like if, you, if, when you change the words of, oh, I have to do the school one, oh, have to make it, I have to do this, have to try saying I get to, and that changes everything I get to do the school run. How much do you love your children? Therefore, you get to do the school run. As soon as you start changing your vocabulary, even just internally to yourself, it changes everything that happens externally outside you. But I also want you to take that one step further.
Speaker 1:So that was just the mundane stuff. I want you to tap into your soul and what your soul wants. What are those things you've always wanted to do or go back to doing? It doesn have to be new. And when you, when you say like things like like for me personally, singing, voice activation and things like that has been huge for me in the last few years and I just have this real kind of passion like I have to sing, I have to sing, I have to sing, but somehow that puts a lot of pressure on. But when you say I get to, I get to sing, it unlocks everything.
Speaker 1:And I was reminded of this recently by watching a reel from my friend Dee and she'd used this have to get to not for a mundane thing, but she'd used it for something that was incredibly moving for her soul-led path and it changed everything. So I wanted to bring this to you because I was like use this for everything, because we get to live here, we get to have a life, we get to experience things. It's not all gonna be good, but that's okay. We're, we're able to do it, we get to do it. We get that privilege to be here. And not everybody does Not. Everyone does Not. Everyone is here right now listening to this, because that's just the way life goes sometimes. So it's so important to try and be here, be here right now.
Speaker 1:And I heard something the other day that there's nothing that would bring you. I'm not suggesting this by the other day, that there's nothing that would bring you. I'm not suggesting this, by the way, but there's nothing that would bring you in the moment more than if you walk up to a stranger on the street and slap them in the face. You will be in the present moment. You won't be thinking about what you're going to do later for dinner, and that is also why I said that is how the universe gets our attention.
Speaker 1:So if we are pushing down our dreams, we are pushing down our inner alchemist. If we are telling ourselves we can't do X, y and Z, what you might find is the universe will jolt your existence, throw something in your way, shake everything up for you like you've never believed, to make you realize that maybe you do need to take a break from your work, maybe you do need to go in a different direction, maybe you do need to leave that partner. Whatever it is, the universe can shake us to our core. If we keep ignoring that, calling that inner voice, the one that's coming from your soul, we can keep ignoring it, but then the universe will literally come up to us randomly one day and slap us in the face and we'll be like, oh shit. But I don't believe that all our alchemy, all our transformations in our life has to come out of bad things. I mean, we hear a lot of sad songs written during breakups, you know, and they go on to winning lots of winning, earning lots of money and things. But I don't believe that we can only alchemize our lives from dark paths, sad paths, anger. You can also do this from joy. You can also do this from love. You do not need to be able to have a bad thing happen to your life to invoke change. But the thing is, the longer we go on doing things that we know deep down is not what we're supposed to be doing, the universe will have a way of slapping you in the face, and that's what we don't want.
Speaker 1:A very good example of this, hi, mum, if you're listening is when my mum broke her hip about six years ago. So I mean, I, since my dad passed, I always wanted to like, like, move back up and be near me, like, because we were all grieving at that time and she was down in Cornwall on it well, I say on her own, she was living on her own but had my auntie next door, but you know, she was supposed to be there with my dad and six months later he passed. So ever since then I was trying to get right with me. And then, like 10 years later, she fell off her bike and broke her hip. And then, about six months after that, I convinced her no, I think it's about three months. I convinced her just come up and stay with me, have a holiday with me for a month, I'll sort you out a room and have a little suite, don't you worry. And she said oh, actually that sounds quite nice. And she did. And the first night she was here, she she said you know what? I could imagine myself living here. And I was like right done, got you, you're staying, we're going to do this, you're going to live with me, we're going to sort this out, and it was great.
Speaker 1:And then we look back now and we talk about that and I almost feel like the universe slapped her in the face by breaking her hip so that she would make a change in her life, to actually move and do something different. But it wasn't until that happened that she was actually then open to the change. But even then it wasn't straight away. It wasn't straight away. It took a few months. But then, you know, about three, four months after she broke it, I then wormed my way in to her little world to get her to come and live with me. You know, and it's like the universe will have ways and I'm sure now you can probably backtrack in your life and think, hmm, well, that happened there. But look where I am now because that happened.
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes in our we are destined to learn certain things within our life and if we're not going to learn it the easy way, sometimes we're going to end up learning it the hard way. So if there is an easy route for you to take, I'm suggesting that you take it. If there's something that your soul wants to do, go and do it. Just get on, have a play with it, see what happens. But, yeah, yeah, I hope that's landed for you well, because this book really did make me think a hell of a lot whilst I was reading it. I will link it in the show notes as well. But oh, 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 Bein. 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.