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 114 - Share Your Light, Ignore the Likes
Ever caught yourself obsessing over likes, shares, or follower counts after posting something meaningful? You're not alone. We're living in an age where the value of our creations is increasingly measured by metrics rather than meaning.
This episode dives deep into reclaiming our authentic creative expression in a world that constantly pulls us toward validation-seeking behaviors. I share personal experiences alongside powerful observations about how social media has fundamentally altered our relationship with sharing our gifts. When we create content or art primarily for engagement, we lose the magical flow state that makes creation so fulfilling in the first place.
I talk about transformative conversations with fellow creators who questioned their impact despite deeply touching individual lives. This highlights a crucial truth: sometimes reaching just one person in a meaningful way matters more than amassing thousands of superficial interactions. Your magic doesn't need massive recognition to matter.
The discussion also explores the difference between passion projects and monetized work. Through the example of my uncle—an extraordinary painter who deliberately kept his talent as a personal passion for over 70 years—we see how preserving certain creations from commercial pressure can protect their sacred quality. I also share intimate stories about collaborative storytelling as a connection tool, demonstrating that our most meaningful creative exchanges often happen in private, with no audience at all.
As AI-generated content increasingly floods our digital spaces, authentic human creation becomes not just valuable but essential. This podcast invites you to remember why you started creating in the first place and to commit to never dimming your light—regardless of whether it reaches two people or two million. Your unique voice matters simply because it's yours to share.
- 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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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 talking about how to show up more in our lives and share from our heart. I believe social media is ruining this for us, but how can we take back this power? Hello, sensual being, and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you were listening in real time and you're in the UK, oh my God.
Speaker 1:The summer has been amazing so far, absolutely amazing, and it wasn't long ago for the summer solstice that I hosted the solstice retreat and it was so. It was so hot. It was so hot, but it is the first time I have held ecstatic dance within one of my retreats and I've been to them before and they're great, and I used to go clubbing, so I used to absolutely love the music, but I had my brother make us a fantastic mix of hard house into hard chance and then into techno and into some Acid Techno, including one of his own songs too, and everyone really got into all of it, like because it's it's really hard to dictate to people what you want them to do or not do, because I don't like doing that. But I said to everyone, when you're on the dance floor there's no talking. Unless you want to make some like noises, whips, cheers or sing to the song, that's fine. But I made a real point of saying when you were in here on this dance floor, we are dancing or we are just. We are in here, we don't even have to dance, but we are fully just here in ourself. But if you go outside and want to sit down and make eye contact with someone and chat, then you can. But everyone was so there was hardly any talking. Even when people went outside to take a dip in the ice bucket because, yes, it was that hot I put my ice bucket there. Everyone just stayed in it, like really like in that headspace for a couple of hours and it's like one of the hottest days of the year so far and yet everyone was just so there, 100%, and it was. Oh, it was what we went.
Speaker 1:The journey that we went on together is is very hard to put into words. It was absolutely phenomenal. If if you're listening to this and you were one of the people there, you're probably nodding your head, going yeah, yeah, it was. At the end, we just felt so high and yet there was no drink, no drugs, no, nothing, just us and the music and allowing ourselves to be free. Oh, juicy, absolutely juicy.
Speaker 1:But our topic today is not actually ecstatic dance, sorry to say, but our topic today is something that's very close to my heart, and I'm sure it's probably very close to your heart too. It is sharing our magic in the world. How that lands for you is different for everybody, but I felt like this this has kept coming to me for about the past month, maybe six weeks. I've kept on either talking to people directly about it or seeing indirectly this sort of thing about people are sharing their magic in the world and they're not getting the recognition for it. Yeah, but it's. It's really now. This is really difficult and I struggle with this too, which is why I wanted to talk about it, because I thought it might be one of those topics that actually helps me.
Speaker 1:When I'm talking about this to you, I feel a lot of us and sometimes myself included in the past and probably will do this again in the future hence why I'm recording this so I can come back to it is we are not sharing from the heart. We think we are, but we're not. And sometimes we can be sharing from a place of need and I have to do this. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing, but the onset from it is not good, because if we it comes back to comparison and I swear social or anti-social media has got a lot to answer for this because when we see that our accounts don't have as many likes as somebody else, or you might think that somebody else isn't doing as good a work as what you're doing, or maybe you're more knowledgeable or something, and yet they've got way more followers than you. And then you start to think well, you know, my stuff is obviously not as good, or why isn't it getting the traction that it should be? And this is where I think it's very warped when we look online and see social media and all those likes, all those followers, and we base our own validation on that and that's not what it's about. It's seriously not what it's about. It's oh, it's seriously not what it's about. I mean, for a start, how many accounts do you follow that you actually probably don't even see because the algorithm isn't showing you them. You're not even seeing their stuff. So you're a number on their follower list, but you're not even seeing their stuff half the time. So those numbers don't mean anything. They really don't.
Speaker 1:And I do try on my social media pages to like unfollow people who I thought I was clicking with or maybe I've got what I wanted from what they put out and maybe I'm like I'm not in that space anymore. I don't need that. You know, when I've gone through times of grief, if there's some people putting out some really interesting stuff on grief, I will sort of go down that route more because that's what I need, and then maybe other times, if that's still what they're putting out and I think I don't quite click with that right now, I'm gonna unfollow you with love for now and then my circle will find you again. You know, if I need you and that's kind of how I like to deal with the online world, because otherwise there's just so much information and sometimes it can be an information overload, even when it's good or right or correct, whatever you think, sometimes it can be too much.
Speaker 1:You know, we are not designed as human beings to have this much interaction and knowledge about other people's lives and well-being and, let's not forget, it is only their highlight reel. Now, in theory, it's only their highlight reel, but let's not forget the people who like to film themselves. I'm going to set up the camera, I'm going to film myself having a meltdown or a tantrum or something, and then film that and then you're like you're just performing a tantrum. You're not actually having it because, trust me, when I'm having a meltdown, my phone is the last thing I can even fathom reaching for because I'm not in a good place. I'm not thinking I've got to get the phone and film this, I'm just thinking about myself and survival.
Speaker 1:So generally, what you see is either performance or somebody's highlight reel, because actually a lot of what happens in our world of social media is private and that's okay. You can share stuff on there, but generally what happens in our world is a private life you share with those people closest to you your family, your friends or therapists, you you share privately with people like that, because there's real human connection. When you post up something online and you're just hoping to get likes or follows, it's not real interaction. It's not going to help anyone. So I want to come back to the fact that we have been warped by followers, likes, engagement and all this sort of stuff, when actually, why did you start doing the thing in the first place? Because, like I said to you, this message has been kept knocking like hello, do a podcast on this.
Speaker 1:Because I have seen a few things over the past like month, from a few people. Either it's been direct to me in person, it's been a conversation, or it's just been indirectly and I've seen something on their Instagram page or Facebook page and it saddened me. It saddened me so much because one of them I've seen creates amazing content and courses and they really want to help people, because they themselves have been through so many trials and challenges and tribulations in their life that they want to put out stuff that will help people, that help them. Now, this is how the world goes around. Trust me, when we find these nuggets of information out about ourself and how things have helped us, we want to share that with the world because we know that this information will help somebody else. Now that, I believe, is a very potent place to share from, and I am all for that. But the problem is is that, what about if you're expecting it to get more interaction than it has? Maybe you've helped two people instead of 200.
Speaker 1:At this stage, you know, is your mind getting warped because it hasn't had enough engagement and you're like, yes, but you need to know about this stuff. It's coming from a place which is actually, in turn, not going to fill you up. And I know, I know this. Yeah, too, because I feel this, yeah too, because I feel this too at times and I sort of feel like you know, oh, it needs to like reach out more people. But actually, the real world that we live in, things grow organically and they grow better when we trust the process, when we trust the information is getting out.
Speaker 1:I mean, for a start, with this podcast, one of the best compliments I have ever had with it was from my mum, probably about six months in, and she said it's changed my life. She said I just feel so free in my own mind and I'm like I just cried. I said, mum, you do realize that if I never help anybody else like with this, if it doesn't ricochet out any further than you, I am happy with that. I am that it just it made me realize that the impact that we can have on people and it doesn't have to be like hundreds and thousands of people, it can be people so close to us. If I had to pick between helping just my mum or helping 10,000 people, easily, I know the one my heart wants the most and it would be my mum. You know, and I talk about her a lot, because the conversations that me and my mum have are incredibly deep and I found that since opening up on this podcast and she sort of listens to, you know, 20 minutes, half an hour of uninterrupted, just me banging on about something like I'm doing to you right now.
Speaker 1:It's undivided attention. It it really can grab you if the topic is right and that's what you're clicking with. It really can captivate you and it goes in so much deeper. This is why I love reading. I love reading because that one-on-one time with what the author has written is it's so powerful. It's so you know if you're not getting any distractions. You were like right there in it and this is why I love this content.
Speaker 1:This is why I haven't really gone into doing videos for this yet on YouTube. I am all set up to do it and I think, oh, there's something about just audio. You know, I'm only tapping into like sort of one sense and I feel like that gives a lot more communication. Anyway, that's just like a little personal view that I have. Other people would think very differently and that is absolutely fine with them, and this is kind of what I want to get at as well. It's like what I feel like I'm putting out in my way. You might not click with, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:I am not trying to reach every single person on the planet, because not everyone needs my magic at this time and if we can remember that, we won't need to get so hung up on engagement. How many people have downloaded this? How many people bought this from me? How many people have signed up? And it is a really tough pill to swallow because we base so much of our life and our success on things like money, and now you know likes and follows. That never used to be a thing. I mean, money was hard enough basing your self-worth on that, you know. Now we've got to add in likes, followers, the algorithm. Are you shadow banned, are you not?
Speaker 1:It's crazy, and I've had this also from somebody else who put out amazing magic into the world that has literally impacted me so much. And yet they said to me about a month ago, like, oh, you know well, I haven't really created anything else like that since, because you know, the thing that I did do hasn't had the impact I wanted it to have, and I was like, are you kidding me? You have no like. I need to tell you about what you've done, and I have told her before. But I said, what you created I absolutely love and I dive into it all the time. You know I'm not about to sit here and start out in people as in saying their names, but I also want to share their magic with you. Um, but that's not what this episode is for, because it's a deep one, and even I have felt this. So I have felt particularly I mean, it's times of, like, heightened emotion as well that we can feel this the most because when I was grieving a lot last year and I was going through some quite awful and quite an awful time, you know, I still showed up and I still did episodes, but I also could feel it in me, this like sharing from a place of like deep emotion, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it was coming from the heart. But it was also coming from a need, and that is not how I want to show up, because it doesn't serve me. It makes me look at numbers and stats, it doesn't make me want to sit down and record another episode, you know. So this stuff is deep, because sometimes I feel like we are only sometimes created for the algorithm and we're just like trying to keep up, trying to do the right thing or trying to direct some out of stories.
Speaker 1:I remember when I had a social media manager about five years ago. She did teach me a lot, but I also thought I don't like it at the same time. She was teaching me stuff that was relevant at the time. It's probably all changed now but she was teaching me stuff about social media that was relevant at the time. It's probably all changed now. But she was teaching me stuff about social media that was relevant at the time, but I was just like I don't want to do 10 to 15 stories a day, you know, and it just sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It just depends what I have to share and I am finding it personally harder and harder to share online. So much content now is so heavily curated, it's having AI in there and you can tell when chat gbt has like actually written stuff for these people. And I'm finding it so inauthentic online now and like, for example, I went onto pinterest yesterday because I'm a bit obsessed I'm getting a new garden soon and I'm a bit obsessed with like enchanted garden, witchy garden, secret garden vibes and I thought, oh, do you know what? I haven't used Pinterest for years. I'm going to go on to that and I'm going to, like you know, save some little cool ideas and inspiration.
Speaker 1:I swear most of what came up for me was AI created content. It wasn't even real and I wanted to go on there for real ideas from real people. Honestly, I couldn't and I don't know if it's like this for every type of searches, because you know the searches I was doing, because I just told you but it was just all AI and I was like, well, where's the real content? You know, this is literally just AI. You can almost tell when it's like an ai created garden picture, because it's all a little bit. You know, paving slabs in the grass, all a little bit just fluffy around the edge. They look a bit too beautiful to be real. If that makes sense, you can just tell it's ai and I. Well, where's all the real stuff? And I spent about an hour on there yesterday. Well, I ain't using that again. That's crap.
Speaker 1:I want real stuff and I almost wonder like there's been interesting conversations with people recently about chat GPT and I'm just like I must be the only person on the planet that doesn't use it, because I you know when something feels icky, but you don't know why. It's like when you meet someone and you're like your little inner voice goes I don't like you, but I don't know why, and you don't want to judge someone or something, but're like I can't seem to shake off this feeling that something isn't right here. That's how I feel about chat gbt. I've asked it two questions in my whole life and I was astounded by the answers and I thought I ain't using you again, it's just no. But coming back to the main topic of sharing from your heart, when you share from your heart, you don't you're. When you're creating something from the heart, you're not sitting there wondering oh, I wonder how much this is going to sell for. I wonder how many people are going to like this. I wonder how many comments I'll get. I wonder if this will go viral.
Speaker 1:When you create from the heart, you're in a flow and that is beautiful. In life, it can be anything. Do you know what? Even in your life, just going about every day and just showing up every day, looking at the magic all around you, looking at the abundance in nature, looking the vastness of the sky, going to the beach and just looking at the waves and the fact that they're just lapping on the shore I mean the ocean is so beautiful, so vast and so unapologetically. Her we can look for, like the breeze coming through the leaves in the trees, going in all different directions. We can look for this sort of magic in our life and realize we are here together, we're not alone. Even if you feel alone, just look at nature, she is always all around you. We can show up in our lives in a magical way which is coming from the heart. It doesn't even have to be about creating something physical in our lives apart from just ourselves being here. So if we can create from the heart in our life and not get caught up on followers.
Speaker 1:Imagine the impact that will have and I'm not talking about hundreds of people loving it, impacting even ourselves. Or maybe you're impacting nature because of how you garden. Maybe you're impacting your children because of how you're treating them. Maybe you are impacting the world of like sharing a craft or an ability that you have, even just with family and friends. And if someone doesn't like it, that's okay. And if someone judges you for it, say okay and that's that's fine. You, just you. You judge on whatever you want to do, because you don't need to take on that judgment. That is always your control, your choice, and something I wish I knew when I was at school getting bullied that I didn't have to take on what they said because I knew the truth about myself. And when we are always looking for outward validation to know if we look good or we sound good or we have done the right thing towards somebody in the world, if we are always outsourcing our validation, then anyone's comments that come back to us which are hurtful will cut because we are letting them, and this can be awful for our creations, absolutely awful, and you don't even have to make your creations in the world pay. They don't have to be professional, they don't have to bring in money.
Speaker 1:This podcast is such a passion project of mine that I don't think I ever want to put any money on it like advertising or affiliates or anything, partly because I hate adverts anyway. But I don't even know if I want sort of affiliates on it, because it means so much to me to make sure this always comes from the heart that if I put a price ticket on it I think it would ruin it for me. I don't think I would enjoy it in the same way and I do find that sort of thought really interesting. I mean, it's fine if other people want to do it, because it just depends where you are in your life or what you're happy to create. But I always find it fascinating that my uncle he is quite literally one of the best painters. I would say he's probably of his own sort of style. I would easily say and it's not just me being biased that he's probably one of the best painters in the world. That is saying something big, because there are incredible artists out there.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about the ones that just slap a bit of paint on a board and go that's art, because they've got a name. I'm talking about real intricate detail and some of his paintings he makes. They literally look like photos. You can see like the shine on a glass and you're like that's a photo. Hang on a minute. No, it's not, that's a painting. How has he done that? And it is incredible work. But even to this day he's not professional, and professional means getting money for it, because he has kept this for god knows how many years now, like over 70 years of it being his own passion. And to me, this, I find, is so beautiful because he's kept it for himself.
Speaker 1:Because as soon as you make a passion pay, it does change things. It's like my classes and dancing. You know I'm doing that. There's you know I'm doing that there's a money transaction. Within it, there's a money exchange. Therefore, you know, all my classes have to be a certain way. They have to please other people. You know, because it's a different type of exchange and it changes things. It doesn't ruin it, but it does change it. But if you want to keep a passion alive forever, you can keep it for yourself. You share from the heart and the magic will last, hopefully forever, but definitely a lot longer, because it's not always about who sees it or who loves it or who buys it, because that's not why you did it in the first place. You do it. You spend hours on these things sometimes because you just love doing it.
Speaker 1:And I remember like in the past I mean, me and my partner haven't done this for years now but we used to write stories together. So, particularly when we didn't live together, like when we first when I used to live like an hour away from him and he would write to me, um, like a paragraph or a page, and then I would write back, and then he would write back, and then he and then I'd write back, and all this was happening within a day I would write to him, then the next day he'd write to me. And this is all online. So you know, it's not like writing letters. We got it straight away and they were like like real and it was. It was so good because we got to know each other so well. This was like getting to know each other in the bedroom, even though we lived an hour apart. It was absolutely wonderful. So we're sort of sharing these fantasies through these stories and, oh my god I could sit there and write a page so quickly because it was all coming like out from the heart so quickly and I just like to sit there and write a page. You know, after my classes, when I got home, it was like 11 o'clock at night and I was like, oh my gosh, I got another bit I've got to write now. You know, I'm excited and it was so good. No one saw them. No one saw these stories. They were just between us and they were just so magical and connective and fun, like so, so fun.
Speaker 1:And you don't even have to live an hour away from your partner to do this. If you live with them, do this. If you find that you don't have much time together and things, particularly if you've got children or busy lives, do this anyway. Do it on the slide, do a paragraph to each other and send it. You know, it's one step up from just sexting, because you're creating more of an atmosphere and a dialogue and oh, it's so much fun, so so much fun. But yeah, and you know what, this doesn't have to be just partners. You could do this with a friend, but you could pick any subject. You could pick any subject and, like, write a story to each other about it and each just add a paragraph every day, and it's so fun and connective.
Speaker 1:It really is, however you choose to do this, but I just want you to make sure and also future me when I listen back to this episode, because this will probably be one that I do listen to at some point again and I just want us all to remember to share from the heart, to create from the heart, to know and trust that our magic actually does have impact. It really does. The two people that I discussed one of them, I have downloaded one of their courses and it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And the other person, who released their magic, is that is absolutely brilliant too, and the impact that these people are having on the world is something that is so well needed, and I'm sure that the impact you have on the world, sharing things in your way, has had so much impact in the world, and I just don't want you to ever dim your light, and I don't want to ever dim my light.
Speaker 1:So if you would like to get your little finger and we'll make a little pinky swear, so just to close your eyes a minute. If you're not driving, close your eyes and we're going to wrap our pinkies, our little fingers together, and we are going to swear. We will never dim our light. We will never dim our light. We will never dim our light. Thank you so much for joining today. 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.