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 115 - Stepping Back to Move Forward
Ever felt like you needed to step away from the digital noise to hear your own thoughts again? That's exactly what I found myself craving after nearly two decades of constant online presence.
In this deeply personal episode, I share my decision to take a summer hiatus from both podcasting and social media platforms. What started as a practical choice led to something unexpectedly profound—the night before beginning my social media break, I experienced what I can only describe as a mystical purge, complete with unusual physical symptoms and visual phenomena that coincided with the new moon. Whether coincidence or something more, the compulsive need to check social media vanished overnight, leaving me with a surprising sense of freedom.
My concerns about our collective relationship with technology run deeper than personal burnout. The rise of AI-generated content, our increasing disconnection from our surroundings, and the constant pressure to perform online have all contributed to my need for space. This isn't about rejecting technology outright but about creating room to reconsider how I want to show up in these spaces. Sometimes stepping back is the only way to move forward with greater clarity.
Have you taken a digital detox recently? What shifted for you? I'd love to hear your experiences when I return from this intentional pause. Until then, remember to lead through your life with your heart and live with intention.
- 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. Hello, sensual being, and welcome back to the podcast, or welcome here if you are new podcast, or welcome here if you are new. My episode today is one that I haven't done before. It's actually going to be about me taking a little break from doing the podcast and, alongside with it, a break from social media for the summer, which, again, is something that I have not done in like the best part of 20 years and, to be honest, it gets harder and harder now to be able to do this and actually take a break from anything online. It feels like you're missing out, you're not doing enough, you're not doing the right thing, but it feels like it's come at the right time. As you know, I've had a lot of things going on this year. A lot of changes and evolving has been happening within my life and I've decided that this summer I want to put everything I've got into these new changes and alongside that, I'm going to have a little podcast break because I love the fact that I've done an episode every week for over two years. Well, two episodes a week. So I do the intention as well and I found by doing that it's helped me really stick with it and show up because at the end of the day, this is still edgy for me to share my voice in this way. So to have that commitment and consistency of this is what I want to do every week. That's really helped me. I know a lot of other people do theirs as like a series or a season. I I think there's so much value in that and that might even be how I come back to the podcast space is by doing it as series and seasons and doing sort of like a few weeks at a time and then having a little bit of rest.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I'm open, I'm open to see and part of me I kind of I worry that I'm like'm like. Oh, I don't want to take away from this space, because I really enjoy what I've put out and it's helped so many of you, and I really appreciate the fact that you have listened and you've been joining me on this podcast journey. And so what I'm going to suggest for you, if you're a new listener and you're you've taken to some of the things that I've been talking about or if you are an old school, hardcore regular, I'm going to suggest scroll back all the different episodes and just either pick one each week or whenever you feel like it, have a look at the title and just see if one jumps out at you that you want to do, or just scroll down and then stop and see where it's landed and just dive back into the podcast that way because, to be honest, there are so many juicy topics that we've discussed on here. They're all still relevant, they're all still current. I don't think there's any that I could honestly say are out of date. So, by all means, go back and use the back catalogue this summer as a way of still using this podcast, if you want to, or maybe you're going to join me on this break and have a little time off from this and see where your life goes, see what you end up doing. So I have already started my social media break and some interesting things have unfolded since, so I will share them with you. So I was due on last week and I think it was, was it Saturday night, I think it was. I was saying to my partner I want to try and move my Facebook app and Instagram app into like a different folder on my phone, just so it's. It's not gone, but it's just not easy to log into, and I was adamant, I wanted to do it and for some reason it didn't want to let me do it in the way I wanted to do it. So I was just like, well, fine, but I but I'm done now with social media, I'm going to come away from it now and let myself have the break.
Speaker 1:Throughout this summer and the next morning now, I haven't had bad period pain for about four months for about four months, and the period pain that I experienced in the early hours of Sunday morning was some of the worst I even had. Which is weird with this. I even had hallucinations with it and before the hallucinations happened, I also had like this massive, like crack and beam of light. I actually heard the beam of light come into my vision and my room was pitch black and my eyes were closed but I wasn't asleep. And then I had all these hallucinations after and it honestly feels like something happened within. I find it really hard to say what happened because I actually don't know. It could have just been hallucinations, but I don't get hallucinations with a bad period. I never have done. I've not really even had it when I've been ill. So I did find it all very odd.
Speaker 1:But ever since I, like that, all stopped, I haven't been bothered about going on to Instagram or Facebook not at all, and it almost almost, I want to say, feels like something purged out of me and I don't, you know, I don't want the social media anymore. How long it lasts, I don't know. I will report back to you, but at the moment I haven't been on there and it has been so freeing. There are some people that I do genuinely connect with on there. Some of them aren't even in this country and they mean a lot to me, so that level of contact means a lot for me to have them. So I'm kind of finding that bit hard. But apart from that, like the chatter, the thinking, I've got to post something and do something else it's all gone. I don't know where it's gone, but I just had to share that with you because you know what I'm like. I'm got to post something and do something else it's all gone. I don't know where it's gone, but I just had to share that with you because you know what I'm like. I'm going to share stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I would say whether you agree with it or not, but I didn't even know if I agree with it, with what I just said, because it seems so out there. But it was just the timing of it was uncanny, it was incredible timing and also my period had pretty much synced up with the moon as well. So we had just, we were just come out, coming out of a new moon when I was coming on at the weekend. So I was very much in sync with the moon, and I'm not always. And they say, if you're in sync with the moon at the new moon you'll be on your period and then at the time of a full moon, that would be you in ovulation. So that's the kind of the, I would say, ultimate link. But you link, however, you link up at the time. But it was just all very interesting. Let's just say that, um, but yeah, so I've started to take this break from social media, and the reason why I wanted to do it is also reasons that I've discussed on here as well is I'm finding it very hard to be in that particular online space because of all the AI content and some of it is, honest, honestly, shockingly so good and I just but I feel like it's a slippery slope and I just feel you know how I feel about this.
Speaker 1:I feel like it is damaging our inspiration, our creativity. It's not giving us a space to come up with our own creations. I I have had some really interesting conversations with people who have tried to sort of say their point, for me to see it differently, and I'm very open to this, because my way is not necessarily the only way and my way is not necessarily the right way. So I do like to have these conversations with people, but I am finding that it is just something that I'm really struggling to get on board with and I'm just seeing it more and more and more, and I need some space to be able to work out how I want to show up and how I want to be, you know, and a lot of the time when it comes to social media, I think it can be so, so damaging.
Speaker 1:You know we've done episodes of. You know the headphone zombie apocalypse, everybody walking around with headphones on. You know they're not there. You know people are not there in the world. They're not in the moment. We have to just be taking ourselves away from the moment all the time and in the time that you come back in the moment, you can't deal with it because you know there's too much sounds around, there's too much distractions. You know things like that and we're not learning to integrate. We are learning just all the time to numb ourselves, take ourselves away from everything, not think for ourselves, not be creative, and I'm seeing this happen not for everyone, but I'm watching it happen and I feel like by being on social media at the moment, I feel like I'm playing a part of it, a part in it, and I just need to step back. I need to step back to work out how I want to go forward.
Speaker 1:I'm very confident, I think, that I'm going to come back to the podcast and I have dabbled in the idea of making it visual as well and doing videos. Partly that means that if I get inspiration at seven o'clock in the morning and I jump on here and I'm either naked or in my jammies. It means I may have to think that through a bit, maybe or maybe not. But I do value the fact that this is only coming through one of your senses, the fact that it's just audio, and I imagine that if you were sort of listening to this, you might listen to it solidly and not do anything else. But you might listen to it whilst you're in the car. You know you might listen to it whilst you're doing gardening. You know you've got that option that it's not visual and I feel like information goes in differently when it's like that. It's a bit like when you read a book. You know the information goes in differently because you're almost one-on-one with that author. So I am confident.
Speaker 1:I think that I will come back to the podcast space because I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I absolutely love sharing with you on here and I haven't done a big song and dance on social media to say I'm taking a break. You know I'm not going to be on here and the amount of people that do that and then they're back on the next day, I find it hilarious. So I've not done that. I've not given myself any prerequisite of I'm not on there, I'm not doing this, not doing that. But for the podcast, I'm telling you because so many of you are solid listeners and I really value that you've been here with me. So I wanted to share with you that the fact that I'm taking a little bit of a hiatus from it and I have to say, if you've listened to last week's episode, the share your light, ignore the likes it's.
Speaker 1:It's ironic that I'm now doing this episode to say I'm going to be taking a break. The irony is not lost on me and, funny enough, I recorded that particular episode about a month ago, maybe a bit longer, and because of other episodes have just come through, I've just sort of put that one on the back burner. But the fact that I released that last week and now I'm taking a break, the irony is not lost on me, honestly, and I practice what I preach, you know, and I tell people the same thing like, oh, you know, take a social media break, do this, do that. And now here I am talking to you saying, yeah, I'm going to be doing the same thing. Talking to you saying, yeah, I'm going to be doing the same thing, but I really value you as being one of the listeners and I know some of you are actually, you know, friends of mine that I do know well. So I wanted to put it on here and say that I'm really grateful for you and I just feel that there are some times coming up over the next couple of months that are going to be challenging, but in a good way challenging. They're really going to like up level me and I would like to be able to put all of my time into that, 100%, to be there for my partner as well, because we're working on this together and I don't want to do the podcast as second best.
Speaker 1:I don't want to do it half-heartedly. When I show up to these episodes, I pour my heart and my soul into them. I don't take them lightly. I value your time as a listener. I think time is the most valuable thing we've got on this planet. There's nothing more valuable than our own time. So the fact that you are here listening to this and you've listened to other episodes I want to make sure that whenever I turn up, I'm giving you everything from my heart and I don't want to sacrifice any of that for not having much time and things like that.
Speaker 1:So that's why I'm going to have this little hiatus and I very much look forward to catching up with you again Ooh, maybe just in time for the leaves falling into autumn. So I wish you so much love and happiness. I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer and remember, as always, to lead through your life with your heart and to live with intention, 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 Bean. 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.