Ep. 23 The Erotic Gaze: Awakening Your Erotic Wisdom

Enjoy this fascinating conversation with my guest Jessica Badonsky, Family Nurse Practitioner and erotic awareness coach with over 18 years in the wellness industry. In this episode, learn about the power of the erotic gaze formed at birth (based on the work of poet and theorist Audre Lorde), and how to tap into this often-dormant power to continually and authentically lead our most creative and fulfilling life!
 
This discussion also dives into gender inequality, the roots of repressed sexuality and how to rethink and connect to your erotic power (it's not what you may think)!

0:00    Welcome
0:31    Introduction to Jessica
3:37    Jessica's nursing background
5:58    Health issues and life passages (death) that we don't talk about
7:29    The cultural silence and pathology of sex and sexuality
10:52  Sex is a quality-of-life issue, at end of life and for healing
16:01  The work of Audre Lorde and erotic power
21:10  Puritanism and the difference between privacy and secrecy
24:08  Sexual feelings, shame and culture
28:58  The starting point of the erotic gaze
34:28  The erotic gaze – parents, children and when it’s missing
38:06  Trauma, loss and DNA
41:46  Reclaiming our erotic power
50:46  Erotic Power / Audre Lorde
56:16  Ways to tap into your erotic power
1:02:59 The power of connection
1:07:59 Awakening to your erotic energy
1:10:26 Jessica’s resources
1:13:44 Closing

Jessica's links:
privatepartsofwellness.com
Email
Instagram
Facebook

Mentions:
Essay by Audre Lorde

Brought to you by:
vonnesolis.com

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Transcript

Vonne Solis  0:00  
Welcome to another episode of Grief Talk. Everything you want to know about grief and more. I'm your host, Vonne Solis. As an author, life transformation coach, online instructor and bereaved mom since 2005, I'll be bringing you great content that is informative, inspiring and practical. Whether you have suffered a loss or other adversity, stay tuned and tapped in as I cover a variety of topics to help you get where you want to go on your journey to heal and grow. 

Vonne Solis  0:31  
Today's guest is Jessica Badonsky. Jessica is a nurse practitioner and founder of The Private Parts of Wellness, where she offers courses and coaching to help guide her clients back to the parts of them that lie dormant and forgotten. For the last 18 years plus, Jessica has explored wellnesses private parts in the roles of doula, yoga instructor, nurse, now nurse practitioner, knowing that expanding in knowledge about self and body requires exploration of those parts of ourselves that are most private. The erotic has the power to motivate people to care for themselves more deeply, whether through sexual, artistic, or vocational expressions.

Vonne Solis  1:17  
So welcome to the show Jessica. I'm so excited you're here.

Jessica Badonsky  1:21  
Thank you Vonne for inviting me. I've been excited to be part of this.

Vonne Solis  1:26  
Yes. And in my growing community, you are without a doubt a super important voice. And I'm, I want to get to, you know, having you dive a little deeper into what you do and how you came to do it. So, but for my audience, I just want to introduce a little bit about Jessica and how I came to know her. So we met rather recently on a networking site, which is amazing. And Jessica's work in erotic awareness, erotic development, she'll explain it a lot more clearly than I can. Anyway, it drew us to have a conversation together. And as we go along, I'll explain from the bereavement side of thing, things or the broken side of things, quote, unquote, broken side of things, what it feels like.  I am a bereaved mother of a suicide in 2005 for audience that doesn't know me, and I've struggled the last 17 years. And I'm making some wonderful breakthroughs now, 17 years later, after losing my only daughter at the age of 22. And you can imagine it's been a real struggle. So it leaves parts of us dead and empty inside. And Jessica, we're going to speak about this hopefully a little bit. You have worked in palliative care as well. So you know all about bereavement. You know about the dying. You know about birthing as a doula. And you see how audience how exciting this is going to be. And those parts of ourselves that become dead inside. I want to speak with you a little bit about that after we've had, you know, an initial conversation so the audience can understand more about your work, explaining more about what erotic means and what wisdom means, which we'll get to in our second question. But if I could just turn the floor over to you and ask you to let our audience know how you got into doing what you do. I know you are a nurse practitioner, and you may want to speak a little bit about that. And if it led you from traditional nursing into this more, I don't know enhanced practice. And we'll take off from there over to you.

Jessica Badonsky  3:37  
So I, it's, I'll try and be as condensed as I can. Years ago before I became a nurse, like when I was a kid, like a five year old six year old kid, I wanted to be a mechanic opera singing obstetrician gynecologist. That's what I wanted to be right? And I learned about becoming a doula and I thought I was going to become a midwife. So I started, I started to work as a doula and decided to go to nursing school. And in nursing school, I realized I was not going to be a midwife. 

Vonne Solis  4:20  
Oh, okay. 

Jessica Badonsky  4:21  
But I think that was one of the first times that I felt grief that wasn't related to a passing of a human being like a grandparent, which was my other kind of association with grief. Because I associate I kind of, I think about it as I had. It was like I had this lover, who I was so madly in love with, and I realized I still loved them, but I wasn't going to marry them. Right. And that pain. And when I decided I was not going to be a midwife, that's how it felt. I literally cried and said thank you for accepting me into your program, but I'm not going to do this.

Vonne Solis  5:03  
Wow. Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  5:04  
Yeah, it was, it was very, very deep. It that is how it felt. It felt like I was breaking up with somebody that I was so madly, madly in love with but I knew we couldn't be married. Fast forward, I became a nurse and I worked on the floor. Bedside nurse, a medical surgical nurse. So the beauty of the hospital that in the unit that I was on is that I saw everything.

Vonne Solis  5:29  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  5:30  
Kidney issues, broken bones, diabetic problems, you know, surgical issues. And what happened is that I started to, I don't know, I don't even know how it popped in. You know, sometimes things just pop into your head and you start investigating. So I started to investigate female ejaculation. 

Vonne Solis  5:53  
Okay. 

Jessica Badonsky  5:54  
And that's a thing. Ish. 

Vonne Solis  5:57  
Yeah 

Jessica Badonsky  5:58  
That may be at a different time. But I started to look at the structure of the body. And this kind of phenomenon that was happening. And I was talking to a the chief resident for the urology service. And she was like, Jessica, what are you talking about? We don't talk we barely talked about men's sexuality in school. 

Vonne Solis  6:24  
Yeah

Jessica Badonsky  6:25  
We don't even talk about women's.

Vonne Solis  6:27  
Right. Which, which I just want to ask that's still true today. Is it not?

Jessica Badonsky  6:33  
Kinda, yeah. 

Vonne Solis  6:34  
Okay. 

Jessica Badonsky  6:34  
Yeah. And then when we like, if we do talk about menopause, like, that is like something that really people don't talk about, right? They're starting to more and more, but you know, understanding, even therapists don't talk about sex, right? You have to go and search programs that will educate you on how to open up that conversation. But at the same time, people aren't taught about death either. 

Vonne Solis  7:02  
No, true. No. So yeah, birth, sex and death. We only talk about birth, right? Yeah. Wow. 

Jessica Badonsky  7:09  
We talk about it in this very, like the I used to run this prenatal yoga class. And I used to say, you know, birth is extraordinarily ordinary, right. It's extraordinary to you, because it's you and your family. But it's very ordinary to think of right? 

Vonne Solis  7:27  
Yes, yes, I get that. Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  7:29  
Right. So, um, anyway, what I started to see is that patients had questions about sex and sexuality, in relationship to whatever they were going through. Whether it was a broken hip, or having a knee replacement, right, or having a hip replacement. So or having a bowel obstruction. Right. But it was coming up for people. And the questions that they didn't know who to ask. 

Vonne Solis  8:02  
Yeah

Jessica Badonsky  8:03  
They didn't want to ask questions, because they felt like they would be dismissed, which they were. I mean, I had one, one patient who had her knee replaced, and it was her second knee replacement, I believe. And she was saying that the first time she had her knee replaced, she was 40 years old.

Vonne Solis  8:19  
Wow.

Jessica Badonsky  8:20  
She had a young doctor who said she had asked about sex. And the doctor looked at her and said, You still think about that at 40? Like, come on.

Vonne Solis  8:30  
Wait, how long ago was this? 

Jessica Badonsky  8:33  
So this is what let's see. So I started working on so this is like, 10 years ago.

Vonne Solis  8:39  
That's not long ago at all, you know? Wow. Wow. 

Jessica Badonsky  8:45  
Yeah. 

Vonne Solis  8:45  
So I just I just want to ask really quickly here for for the audience who might be curious about this. Are we being taught and have we been taught and we're continued to be taught, certainly as women and maybe as men, not to talk about sex? I mean in an intelligent way, in an intelligent way.

Jessica Badonsky  9:08  
You know, I think I think and this is not to be political, right? 

Vonne Solis  9:13  
No, no. 

Jessica Badonsky  9:14  
Right. I think that I think that we what is missing in first of all, we have groups of people who will not talk about sex. They don't teach about even the the anatomy, the physiology around sex and reproduction in schools.

Vonne Solis  9:34  
Right. 

Jessica Badonsky  9:34  
They also are not going to talk about it at home. We don't call body parts by their names. I have children. I have children, my youngest at a really young age when they were trying to figure out the difference between boys and girls, they would say, Do you have a vulva to people. You know to understand people will be shocked. That's the name. That is the

Vonne Solis  9:58  
Yeah 

Jessica Badonsky  9:59  
actual name of the body part.

Vonne Solis  10:01  
Yeah, I'm just, I'm just smiling because I'm thinking that most of them probably wouldn't have known what a vulva was. But also secondly, that your child knew. So way to go mom. 

Jessica Badonsky  10:14  
She also knows words like foreskin, right? And knew what that was too. But so so we go with that. 

Vonne Solis  10:21  
Yep. 

Jessica Badonsky  10:22  
And the other thing that once we start to talk about and teach about sex and sexuality in this kind of patholog pathology right, disease, we leave out something really essential, which is pleasure.

Vonne Solis  10:36  
Of course we do. Of course we do. Because we're not supposed to feel we're not supposed to feel pleasure. I don't know. 

Jessica Badonsky  10:43  
Right. Right. Exactly. 

Vonne Solis  10:45  
Or wait or wait, hide that we we enjoy pleasure. Yeah. 

Vonne Solis  10:51  
Yeah. Okay.

Jessica Badonsky  10:52  
So we're not we're not talking about pleasure. And when we really break down talking about sex and sexuality, we're actually talking about a quality of life issue. It's quality of life.

Vonne Solis  11:05  
Which I can guarantee probably almost nobody thinks about in that way or talks about it. Would you agree, would you aggress?

Jessica Badonsky  11:13  
Yeah, absolutely. Kind of fasting forward to my trajectory. So I was I ended up talking to patients about sex and sexuality at the bedside. Talking to my colleagues and then running groups for people over 60. And doing Grand Rounds about the importance of talking about sex and sexuality and exploring and understanding that, that there's no normal. Everything if you like something, there are about a million people who like that thing, too. 

Vonne Solis  11:49  
Yeah, yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  11:50  
And so that there's so much normal. And I learned a ton about sex and sexuality with when when I was working with people who are older, Like a penis is not necessary for having sexual intercourse 

Vonne Solis  12:06  
Mm hmm. 

Jessica Badonsky  12:07  
when you have somebody who's a male bodied person, right? That there's so much that you can do around expressing your your sexual self. Now, the whole concept of erotic which, which you're going to ask me about a little bit, that actually came way before I became a nurse. And this concept of, of, we have to think beyond that pathological biological body parts, right? What's below our waist, and think bigger. Because that concept of pleasure, that concept of quality of life comes from so many different directions. Eventually, I ended up working in what they call an acute long term acute care facility, which there were two types of patients. Those patients that were had wounds, heavy wounds that needed to be addressed, like bed sores, diabetic wounds, that sort of thing. That was a small portion. And the primary function of that hospital was hospice care.

Vonne Solis  13:20  
Okay.

Jessica Badonsky  13:21  
End of life. And even there, the erotic, and that idea of the sexual being, and the idea of pleasure at the end of life being a quality of life issue was like slap me in the face. And one of the first questions that they ask, and not all nurses would ask, but if you read the intake, was, Do you have any sexual concerns that you want to address? 

Vonne Solis  13:51  
Okay.

Jessica Badonsky  13:52  
Because that's one of the things that so many of the people who are passing on or moving into that next phase of their journey

Vonne Solis  14:02  
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  14:04  
would use to feel a sense of aliveness.

Vonne Solis  14:08  
Okay, this is all kind of new to me. So it's interesting.

Jessica Badonsky  14:11  
It's yeah, it doesn't mean that they were having some people were having sex.

Vonne Solis  14:16  
Right. 

Jessica Badonsky  14:16  
But it means that they were connecting on this deeper, intimate level of being seen of being vital of being alive if only for that moment. You know, it reminds me, do you remember that show like 100 years ago? 30 something?

Vonne Solis  14:37  
Yes, I do actually. 

Jessica Badonsky  14:39  
There was the one couple and she got breast cancer. So I was, I'm 50 years old. So I was a kid. 

Vonne Solis  14:48  
Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  14:48  
Like a solid child 

Vonne Solis  14:50  
Yeah

Jessica Badonsky  14:51  
at that point. I don't know if I was a young teenager. I don't know if I was a preteen I don't remember. 

Vonne Solis  14:56  
Yeah

Jessica Badonsky  14:56  
But I remember watching this. And I remember there's a scene where they make love. 

Vonne Solis  15:01  
Okay. 

Jessica Badonsky  15:02  
And she's already had maybe a double mastectomy? I don't remember. No hair. She's got a scarf on. 

Vonne Solis  15:09  
Right. 

Jessica Badonsky  15:09  
And this idea of them having this connection. 

Vonne Solis  15:15  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  15:15  
And that she needed to have this connection with him. 

Vonne Solis  15:20  
Right. Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  15:22  
Healing.

Vonne Solis  15:23  
So that profoundly affected you?

Jessica Badonsky  15:26  
Yeah. 

Vonne Solis  15:28  
Right. Yeah, I think you were tapping in from, you know, into your purpose work at a young, a younger age, a much younger age, which some people really do. Like, for me, I would bang out when I was 12 years old, stories on a on an Olivetti typewriter. I remember having that big lug of a thing on my bed and I'd type out stories. And ultimately, I did become a writer. So I do think we can tap into that. And that's maybe what that was doing for you. That episode, showing you some of what your work was going to be as an adult, which is really kind of cool.

Jessica Badonsky  16:01  
Yeah, maybe, but at the same time, like who you're gonna tell, like, you're like, Oh, I like him. That's yeah, that is very powerful scene for a kid who had no, nobody had had that diagnosis in my family. It was not a family life that was anything like my own life, but but in when I went to college, I was introduced to the work of Audre Lorde. And that's where this whole concept of erotic power comes. So, back to the nursing, I became a nurse practitioner, because it gave me more tools to not only talk about sex and sexuality with patients and people, but offer different solutions. Whether that is hormones, whether that was I didn't know. It just or even working with adolescents in a particular way. And from there for my work of teaching and talking one on one, I started coaching people.

Vonne Solis  17:06  
Okay.

Jessica Badonsky  17:07  
And that evolved into what I call this concept of erotic power coaching from the poet and theorist Audrey Lorde, who is the person who came up with that. And what she was saying is that I actually have if I can read something. It says there are many kinds of power used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plain.  Firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feelings.

Vonne Solis  17:51  
Wow, that's beautiful, actually. And it takes some thinking about right? It takes some rereading, and really thinking about that, because we're going to talk about this in a minute, but the definition of erotic. The definition of wisdom. I do a lot of work in personal power. And for me, this is another branch of it that I'm not even really versed on to the degree I would like to be for a fulfilling life. And I'm going to wager most of my audience and most of women and, and maybe men, because I was going to ask you is this? Is this also this is not gender specific? Is it? 

Jessica Badonsky  18:33  
No, not at all. 

Vonne Solis  18:34  
Okay, so as individuals, a lot of us are not versed in erotic power and erotic wisdom, hence, yeah, right? No, I was just gonna, I was just gonna say, the reason for this show, is to give your work a voice. A bigger voice and help us all understand the importance of this. So when you're ready, we're going to talk into how we can understand erotic and how we excuse me how we can understand wisdom that is not pornographic and physically sexual only, which so many people have a lot of hang ups about. So taking it back, so after your work after your, you became sort of, I would say Audrey Lorde became what a mentor for you? Like, even if it was just her work, like her books like this was a path for you to follow, right? Like, I'll let you explain how she impacted you.

Jessica Badonsky  19:23  
So she so I was introduced to the work of Audrey Lorde through my teacher from undergrad and her, I did. My first degree was on feminist inquiry cultural studies with an emphasis on gender race, third world feminism. So she was the person who introduced me to this work of Audrey Lorde. And it's like those little seeds were planted. And as I was trying to understand that it was more talking about sex and sexuality is not about what's in our pants. Right? It's so much more and when we think about getting hung up on sex and sexuality like it, it's really getting hung up on what we should. We should all over ourselves, right? Well, I should be this and I should have sex this many times. And I should be that and I should be that, and he should have this or she should have that. And getting hung up on that as well. Instead of saying, you know, I feel I'm in that power, that flow, that excitement. That deep excitement when I'm at the typewriter. I could write my writings on the computer but when my fingers are on the keys, and I hear that tick, tick, tick, tick tick that happens on the actual physical typewriter, it just like literally sends electric chills through my body. And the idea is that you feel those chills through your body, and you can actually feel them in your genitals, too. It's that knowing that it's there. And that is the initiation. That's the spark that can take you to the next thing. Right. And that is that erotic power.

Vonne Solis  21:10  
I'm almost thinking as you're talking that I recently did a an episode with someone on breath work. And how vital that is to our life force. And as you're talking I'm I'm thinking about how not that we think of it this way that we could think of the genitalia and the sensations in our genitalia as also life force energy. That we, right, but that we have been so conditioned to associate it with anything perverted, or negative or not allowed, you know, all of those really, really Puritan type values. It's so hard to break it. I think, I think on a very conscious level, particularly in North America, I can't speak to any other culture, but we're so repressed. Because it's just so associated with everything that we've been taught to think of as pretty well, bad or private. Would you agree?

Jessica Badonsky  22:14  
You know, it's interesting, because I call my my website is private parts of wellness, because there's a difference between privacy and secrecy. 

Vonne Solis  22:23  
Yes, okay. Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  22:25  
When we think about secrecy, it's shame. 

Vonne Solis  22:28  
Yes. 

Jessica Badonsky  22:28  
Privacy is only just that. 

Vonne Solis  22:31  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  22:31  
Doesn't mean that I that you have to share your private erotic fantasy. I think that there's I think that there's that puritanical, puritanical thing, but and I'm gonna say something very controversial, probably, for your audience. Right. 

Vonne Solis  22:46  
Okay. 

Jessica Badonsky  22:48  
When we get down from patriarchy, misogyny, Puritanism, really at the foundation, we have this concept of supremacy and white supremacy, which all people are affected by. White people, black people, all people are affected by. And, and what I mean by that is not it's not calling people names. It's not, that's not what I'm saying right now. I am saying that if we think about North America, and I'm going to talk about these 50 United States, right, or the 50 states that seemed very united right? But

Vonne Solis  23:25  
Yeah

Jessica Badonsky  23:25  
these 50 states below Canada. 

Vonne Solis  23:27  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  23:30  
If you think about this whole idea of imperialism and supremacy and kind of how we create things, it's, it's, it's really very steeped in our culture, these 50 states. And again, and it comes back in these ways of repression. Of, 

Vonne Solis  23:53  
Yeah

Jessica Badonsky  23:56  
of withholding. Of shaming. Of putting people down. Of suppressing suppressing people. So,

Vonne Solis  24:08  
because I'll just jump, I'll just jump in really quick because there's a lot of shame associated with sexual feelings, sexual gratification. There's a lot of shame. And so if I'm hearing you, right, I'm hearing that I want to clarify two things. One, physical sensations you're saying can awaken the erotic in us. That to me, I'm thinking your meaning just the senses, all of the senses, including our genitalia, hence the erotic. The other thing is, I want to clarify with you is what you're saying, is because of the way the United States developed and Canada, and it was this whiteness, we've been taught, so some would say that you and I having this conversation might be blaming the white patriarchal society, or holding that accountable for why we have repressed and suppressed a lot of our sexual feelings and our ability to express ourselves. 

Jessica Badonsky  25:16  
Yes.

Vonne Solis  25:17  
In whatever way we want to do it, and it's uncomfortable, but we might go, oh, well, we can really watch Madonna express herself and that's okay. But I can't do it. I might do it privately in my room in front of a mirror, but I would never let anyone know that I have those same moves and all the rest of it. But so so the white the, the whiteness of our birthing of a nation, I believe, well, we are a patriarchal society. No one is denying us that. And I think the woke culture and maybe the new generation coming up, following generations will try and and change that. But we are what we are, you know, from who we were. 

Jessica Badonsky  25:58  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  25:58  
And basically, and so, not to bash men. Not to bash whiteness. Not to bash anything. This is just a reality. And so but the other thing I want to throw in there, so I've confirmed that. That's what we're talking about. But the other thing I just want to really quickly ask you is, do you think the suppression and repression of sexual expression, sexual confidence, sexual pleasure, all of those things in North America, we'll just talk about North America here, is culture and that other cultures, I'm not saying every culture, but other cultures are more open to their sexuality as a culture and individually? So in other words, I'm asking is sex related to cultural norms?

Jessica Badonsky  26:50  
I think that when it comes to North America, no matter what you look like, or what your home culture is

Vonne Solis  26:59  
yeah

Jessica Badonsky  27:00  
every human being, every human being has this response that is very American. It's very enculturated in America, right? 

Vonne Solis  27:16  
Yeah. Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  27:16  
I think that other cultures outside of these 50 United States that look at the body, and they see breasts as breasts that feed human beings. They see a culture that is, you know, has nude beaches or has, you know, sees other body parts that are, they're just body parts. It's not a thing. It's just, it's just as it is. They're just body parts. You know what I mean?

Vonne Solis  27:48  
I yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go on a limb here and say, I think a lot of it is cultural. We lived in Holland for three years, actually, when my son was an infant. We lived not very far from a nude beach. And there's a lot of and the regular beach was topless. And so you wear a bathing suit top as a woman. You didn't have to. It didn't matter. It was very normalized, absolutely. And in in a lot of European countries going topless for women is very, very normalized. And one day I took the kids, popped my son in his stroller, and maybe he was a year or two, my daughter, and maybe she was 13 or something. And I was like, oh, let's go over the dunes. Let's go this way to the beach. And little did I know we walked smack dab into the nudist beach. 

Jessica Badonsky  28:36  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  28:36  
And I was like, okay, and it wasn't about me being like freaked out about it. It was more about subjecting my daughter, so I just made as normal and we strolled our way through it and pushing that little stroller through the sand. And just, well, here we are. I just want to focus on culturally how affected we really are. And in Canada, it is the same. 

Vonne Solis  28:58  
I want to talk a little bit about erotic gaze here because you actually helped me in in a private zoom chat with that and and understanding the love if you could just explain that again, for other women here, who we were talking about it in association with pain in the womb when you lose a child, and why the dead in ourselves why we become dead. And so so it's kind of interesting. So this is sort of twofold in terms of the erotic gaze when when you first look at your child, and I'll let you explain it what I took away from that. How you could love so whenever whenever whenever parents have a new baby, the majority of them say they have, they feel a love like they never felt before. It's different from the love they feel for each other. It's different for any other love they've ever had. It is completely on a different level. We're talking about this as the erotic gaze, and if you could explain how it's your baby. That is Receiving the gaze. And the will just speak to the mom at this point. Or well, maybe the dad to gazing at that child, and that is purely erotic. So if you could just touch on that a little bit and clarify for our audience, my audience here, what exactly that means for us as an empowering, you know, change in the body.

Jessica Badonsky  30:25  
So, I want to say a couple of things. So, um So Audrey Lorde says her the erotic is not a question only of what we do. It is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing.

Vonne Solis  30:43  
Okay, that's beautiful.

Jessica Badonsky  30:45  
And when we think about So, Eros is love erotica is love pornography is graffiti. Of prostitution. Right? Okay. It is that kind of graphic thing. Yeah. When we think about Eros, it is love. It is a deep love that can be expressed in the body. Right? of people coming together. Yes. And out of their love and, and attachment. Yes, they create a life. Yes, let's say rice. Yes. When we talk about the erotic gaze, in one way in relationship to how we understand ourselves as erotic beings as adults, okay, my understanding is that when we look back as adults, and I'm going to go back, get I'm gonna circle back to birth. Yeah. When we as adults, when we think back, and we have an image of our primary caretakers looking at us. Yeah. What is that? Look, we see. Is it that love? Is it annoyance? Is it disregard? Is it hatred? When is it that we see them looking their gaze? And that is the that is kind of the starting point of our association with the erotic.

Vonne Solis  32:13  
Yes, we and some people might need to take a minute here and just think about it. And for me when we talked about that the first time, and I went back to those first moments when you look at your child and your baby. But then I don't think that look ever kind of really goes away. 

Jessica Badonsky  32:35  
No.

Vonne Solis  32:36  
Not really, it might alter a little bit, obviously, as your kids become older and adults, and so on and so forth. But so I want you to just expand a little bit. So we're talking about a baby receiving a human being in their very first minute, seconds, minutes, hours, and months and however long if they're lucky.

Jessica Badonsky  32:53  
Years, hopefully. So you're talking about like a five year old looking back at their mom. 

Vonne Solis  32:58  
Yeah 

Jessica Badonsky  32:58  
Seven year old. So now they're totally conscious And they're looking back. But also as the parent, what do you see back when you think of your the gaze you are seeing.

Vonne Solis  33:07  
Yeah, and that's what I wanted to talk about a minute here is so for us to think about that, and we're experiencing erotic in that moment. 

Jessica Badonsky  33:17  
Yes. 

Vonne Solis  33:17  
But as the adults, well, both of us. The baby is experiencing it. We're experiencing experiencing seeing it as the one giving the gaze. The baby's receiving, but also gazing back at us because while we're sitting there going well, they don't really know yet. Maybe well, I'm wondering if they do know that it's mama. But you know, there is a bond that cannot be broken. And that bond never ever, ever, ever breaks. Even after your child is no longer on the planet. And while we're not talking about that today, maybe another conversation, it's so important to understand when we can't break the cycle of pain, which is why you and I got talking about the erotic gaze, it is because we're still in that moment. That love. So I wanted you to just explain what the individual, they can feel it for themselves just thinking back to their first memories of looking at their their newborn. And 

Jessica Badonsky  34:16  
How their parents looked at them. Vonne, it's like how did your parents look at you? 

Vonne Solis  34:22  
Not not, not like that. Not like that.

Jessica Badonsky  34:24  
Which is interesting, right? We carry that in.

Vonne Solis  34:28  
Yes. Yes. I have no memory of that. No memory of feeling safe. So a beautiful erotic gaze that is not dysfunction. A lot of us come from dysfunction. If you're very fortunate that you came from safety and security in that beautiful gaze that never goes away, it must be an incredible feeling. But I didn't come from that. My parents did their best but they didn't listen, we came from dysfunction, which a lot of people do come from. But sticking to what we as individuals can gaze up upon our children, our babies today and our even, you know, I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying we're going to do this with our adult children, but that it stirs up those feelings. Those immediate feelings we had when we first laid eyes on them. And we want the best for them. And those might become a little bit more subconscious than conscious, but that feeling never goes away. That bond is there. I mean, I still light up when my son phones.

Jessica Badonsky  35:28  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  35:28  
And and so if you could just speak a little bit to that, because this is where we're going to move into the power of that. This is what maybe, I'm not sure if it drives us, but it is such an essential part of us as erotic beings. I'm trying to think in a new way of being an erotic being here. So if you could just explain when we're the one giving the gaze, what's happening to us inside our bodies.

Jessica Badonsky  35:53  
So so at that moment, like when we think about the nervous system, most likely, well, here's the thing. I don't I can't say that this is the thing that's happening to everyone, right? 

Vonne Solis  36:05  
Of course not. 

Jessica Badonsky  36:06  
If you were having so let's say that you've associated my father said, he said just we did our best and our best was sh, finish it. 

Vonne Solis  36:16  
Yeah. Aww.

Jessica Badonsky  36:19  
We did our best and our best was

Vonne Solis  36:21  
yeah

Jessica Badonsky  36:21  
no, it didn't. That felt great to me when he said that. 

Vonne Solis  36:25  
Why? 

Jessica Badonsky  36:26  
Because it was a validation. It's not a gaslighting thing. It says like, yeah, everything that you think was off, and that you had wolves raising you is true. The wolves did raise you. Yeah. 

Vonne Solis  36:43  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  36:44  
We're all on the same page. We're all taking responsibility for what we've done. 

Vonne Solis  36:48  
Love that. Truth. Its truth, power and truth. Yep. Okay.

Jessica Badonsky  36:53  
So let's talk about just this. Let's use the word sex. Let's talk about sexual beings in the context of erotic and loss. When we think back and we say. So, we have a family that did not give us that gaze. When we look back, and we look for that gaze from our own family, it was not there. 

Vonne Solis  37:13  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  37:14  
We vow to do different, we vow to do different. 

Vonne Solis  37:18  
Yes. 

Jessica Badonsky  37:19  
We fail ah, over and over and over again. Right? Once these,

Vonne Solis  37:25  
Yes, you can feel that. You can feel that if you've lost a child for sure. Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  37:30  
Even if you haven't lost a child, right? You lost your your collective doodoo because they were throwing things and you hadn't slept in three days. 

Vonne Solis  37:39  
I see what you're saying. 

Jessica Badonsky  37:40  
We fail over and over. 

Vonne Solis  37:42  
Got it. 

Jessica Badonsky  37:42  
We have a chance to do better. 

Vonne Solis  37:45  
Yes.

Jessica Badonsky  37:46  
And in extreme loss, which I haven't experienced that. I can't even we cannot like literally, those of us who have not experienced it cannot imagine it because it was too painful to even imagine. 

Vonne Solis  38:00  
Okay. I get it. So we're not going there. We're talking in general terms. 

Jessica Badonsky  38:06  
But we are going to go there because what we know in science is that our DNA changes by three generations.

Vonne Solis  38:14  
Okay. I did not know that. 

Jessica Badonsky  38:16  
Yeah. So the trauma, in particular with trauma, the trauma that three generations back your family went through is in your DNA. When you had your baby, we're all so connected, when you had your baby, maybe you're your baby and you were sleeping in the bed, taking a nap. And all a sudden you both wake up and you're both sleeping like this. So you don't sleep like this. 

Vonne Solis  38:42  
Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  38:43  
But there's the baby sleeping like this and you're sleeping like this (arms up).

Vonne Solis  38:46  
Ah, I'll bet you that's happened to most most parents. 

Jessica Badonsky  38:50  
Yeah, it happens because you're connected. 

Vonne Solis  38:53  
Yeah. Okay. 

Jessica Badonsky  38:56  
Deeply connected. That is how acutely and fully you are feeling in that moment. So when that's taken away when that loss happens, and even when your kid goes to college, right? I've just experienced sending my firstborn off to college. 

Vonne Solis  39:15  
Yes.

Jessica Badonsky  39:15  
My response that I've noticed is to shut off as everything readjusts. 

Vonne Solis  39:22  
Hmm. 

Jessica Badonsky  39:23  
Because I'm launching her into her adulthood.

Vonne Solis  39:27  
Yes, you are. 

Jessica Badonsky  39:28  
So now, now there's one place, one table setting at the table that's not being filled.

Vonne Solis  39:39  
Yes, yes.

Jessica Badonsky  39:43  
Right? So now I have to deal with my own grieving in a certain way. 

Vonne Solis  39:50  
Yes. 

Jessica Badonsky  39:52  
My own loss. 

Vonne Solis  39:53  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  39:54  
What does that mean? Am I less of a parent? Right? Am I less of a parent to her? Whatever that is. Whatever, like, thoughts are coming through my head.

Vonne Solis  40:03  
 Of course. 

Jessica Badonsky  40:04  
But now I have a partner, too. So that should make more space for my partner. 

Vonne Solis  40:13  
Okay.

Jessica Badonsky  40:14  
Less attention on that other person. More space for my partner. I don't know. 

Vonne Solis  40:20  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  40:21  
Might not necessarily work that way. 

Vonne Solis  40:23  
Mm hmm. Yeah, you got a lot to think about. And there's millions of people who are sending their kids off to college for the first time. And yeah, I, I know I went through a terrible breakdown in terms of not, people wouldn't have known it, but inside when my son left home at 22. He lived with us from, you know, through his his university years, so I didn't have to deal with that. But I can imma I can imagine that when he lived, moved across the country, you know, it, it probably possibly, in part just set me on a spiral where I ended up just having to alter my life. Well, I came out west too. And we're not living in the same place. But anyway, I'm just saying it impacted me terribly. Absolutely. And I didn't understand what was going on at the time. So I'm thinking, because the other thing that going off to college kind of represents for a lot of people is that they're not coming home again, to live. You said you're launching them into the world and that's it. You know? And it is a loss. So you and I talked about that before, like that is an absolute loss. And a complete readjustment for you as the parent and the partner, you know, parents and, and the siblings, the whole family unit. Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  41:43  
But here's the scariest bit about it. 

Vonne Solis  41:46  
Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  41:46  
That has now made space for you to get on that typewriter. And feel the sensation and hear the noise. And let that energy and that erotic power, that erotic energy that you focused on him and her to come back to you.

Vonne Solis  42:08  
Yeah, you really have to it's it's very, very, I knew this was going to be a lot to unpack in this conversation. And we may not be able to unpack everything today. But I do want to move a little bit into we're just audience, we're just giving examples of um. Mostly we've been talking about, you know, just in the last few minutes about losing something and what that can change and do to us. But I want to actually just focus a little bit here. In your work, you say that, you know, you help people, your your job is to guide people to find those things that lay dormant in them, and you know, their way back to passion and purpose. So if we can, at this point in the conversation, bring it to what erotic power really feels like. We've talked about the erotic gaze with children connection, things like that, but as an individual now, because we're using language people aren't used to. And so as an individual, it's not I remember you saying it's not about the other person at all. It's just about us. It's about what those feelings are inside of us. So can you sort of expand a little bit on erotic power, what it feels like in all of our senses? Yes, you're using the example of a writer. I'm gonna say not necessarily me, but I still have the vision of typing at 12 years old. And but even just using the language, that when something changes, and we can view it as a loss, but it's a change of whatever, and it's it empty, and it's making space in our life. Let's think of it as that. It's making space in our life for something else to happen. 

Vonne Solis  43:56  
Now, when our kid goes off to college, well, we're happy. They're we can make space probably a little bit easier than if you've lost a child because you know, and in a normal world, you're going to see them for Thanksgiving, other holidays. You can go and visit each other. They're expanding. They're going into the world as their fullest, most brilliant, successful selves. But when they're no longer on the planet, that is a completely different topic. And we really don't have time to talk about that today, but it is just very different. And I just want to acknowledge that. Many people maybe that watching or listening to this have not lost children because most most more people haven't lost children than have so I don't want to just focus on that today. But when we've had similar loss that has impacted us, where it might be easier to try and reclaim our erotic power. This episode is awakening to our erotic wisdom. So let's even talk about it in terms of erotic wisdom. Because maybe it was something that flattened us that was broken relationship, a divorce, financial bankruptcy or other financial troubles. Getting fired and you just never got over that boss that kept berating you and, you know, maybe fired or, you know, fired you or forced you to quit. Maybe you never pursued the dreams that you really wanted. Maybe you're just living a life that feels dull and purposeless and asking, you know, what's the point? So for any of those dulled senses, if you could expand a little bit here on what erotic wisdom, erotic purpose, but I really also love the term erotic wisdom. What's that? What does that really how does that empower people when they can connect to it? So how can they think of connecting to it? And how can they expect to feel empowered by it?

Jessica Badonsky  45:49  
I think the first thing to know is that it is available to everyone, and it is within everyone, number one. Number two, it doesn't mean that you're going to hear angels singing and this kind of transcendental acknowledgement. It is in this subtle. The subtle details. It's in the in the being present. For me, it's conversation, right? It's when I'm running groups. It's when I'm, I'm like engaging with people, right? I feel this excitement. There's energy I can feel it all throughout my body. For some people, it's going to be cooking or eating a particular thing. Not some not necessarily an Oreo, right? But something that is it could be an Oreo, right? But like not being thoughtless, but being thoughtful. Full of thought around something that is simple. 

Vonne Solis  46:54  
Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  46:55  
From there, it becomes a starting point. So I'm just I want to use like, for example, I'm going to paint a picture as if this is somebody right? 

Vonne Solis  47:04  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  47:04  
So let's go back to this writer and the tactile of the typing. 

Vonne Solis  47:09  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  47:10  
So that person buys a typewriter at the Goodwill. And they get a paper, and they just start typing whatever it is. Just not a should. It's not an assignment. It's not a deep have to do. It's that's the first thing that came to them and they take a moment to listen to the ticking and feeling what it feels like. Are the is it the square? Is it the square buttons from the almost electric typewriters? Is it the round one the round buttons where the letters get caught? 

Vonne Solis  47:57  
Yeah. Yeah, that things you know da da da da. Yeah. The key, the keys.

Jessica Badonsky  48:04  
Is it you know, what is it? Do you have a brother word processor where you used to have the one line, the one sentence that would appear in the thing, right? Okay, what is it? And it's noticing that. And it's noticing the excitement, or the fun or the frustration, right, that comes up. It's that it's that excitement, right? It's that awareness. Now, that same person wrote a letter. They decided to do their journal entry with the typewriter. And they're putting it out there. And all of a sudden they wrote a three line poem. 

Vonne Solis  48:48  
Oh.

Jessica Badonsky  48:48  
Or they started to write a story and it got gets a little spicy. 

Vonne Solis  48:55  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  48:56  
Right? Just a little spicy. Maybe the person enters a room, maybe I don't know, whatever that spice is. 

Vonne Solis  49:03  
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  49:05  
And all of a sudden they start to think about and this doesn't happen in one setting. This is like going back to that typewriter, in a week, in a month, in two months, in three months. But all of a sudden, they start to remember that they love it when their lover would whisper in their ear. And then we're starting to take we're starting to take that private, that energy, that erotic energy, those private thoughts and almost putting out a prayer, right? Or an image, a visual a calling in to a partner if the partner is what you want. 

Vonne Solis  49:49  
Hmm. I, well I would absolutely think that people are thinking that who either are in a relationship and in love and all of those feelings and that might, you know, ignite these feelings in them, brought on by their absolute love of the object that is the typewriter. The feel of the paper. And and then it ignites and brings awareness to all these other senses that all work together. Maybe it's somebody who is wanting a relationship, may see and imagine all this in just looking at a flower bloom. The point I want to get across that it is about the erotic wisdom, the erotic power is about the senses. And the connecting to the senses through any number of means when we are mindful of what the body is picking up. Biologically and mentally and emotionally. Have I pretty much got that?

Jessica Badonsky  50:46  
Yes. Because, so the concept of erotic power is not mine. Right? And she (Audre Lorde) says, for the erotic is not a question only of what we do. It's not a question of sex. It is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. 

Vonne Solis  51:07  
Yeah, I like that.

Jessica Badonsky  51:08  
You're feeling acutely and fully in the typing, in the writing, in the eating, in the cooking, in the walking, in the reading, in the listening. 

Vonne Solis  51:22  
Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  51:23  
In the shopping. Don't put yourself into financial problems, but, right? Whatever you're doing. And she says then, of course, women so empowered, and this would be men, too. This is humans, so empowered are dangerous.

Vonne Solis  51:43  
It can awaken a lot within us. Our personal power. Where we where there is no stopping us once we've connected to our personal power. And this, this, it all works together. So personal power, erotic power, emotional power, any of this power is really, for me how I'm how I'm interpreting this, is a full awakening of all parts of the body and mind, emotions, that when we are very aware of how we are functioning in the doing. I love I love I love that it is how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing, of what we are doing. It is such a powerful way to honor ourselves. Especially if we're doing what we want to be doing. But and a lot of people aren't and that we don't have really time to talk about that today. And I do a lot of work in helping people understand what they really want to be doing to live very, very authentically, particularly if you've come from very trying circumstances. But that is what it ultimately is all about. Is living, for me anyway, our most authentic and powerful, personally powerful life of which the erotic senses, it's just another way to think of yourself, we love ourselves. Isn't that what it's all about? Loving and respecting and honoring ourselves? Because going back to what you said. Eros is love. And it is a lot easier for I think a lot of people to express that for someone else. But how many really express the erotic, the love for themselves? No. This is one of the biggest problems humans have and look to it through others. And so even taking one of the things that stood out for me is when you're saying the connection. It's the connection. So what we're doing is flipping it a little bit here by saying where a person might be culturally even conditioned to look for their empowerment through another individual, possibly what they're doing, right? Like moving into moving into a powerful career or, you know, some kind of position where you have power over others but feel absolutely nothing for yourself. So the whole point of this is to feel all of that for ourselves and act from that. Do from that place. And what I was going to say, in addition to all of this, is that the more powerful we feel and connect to all these parts of ourselves, including our genitalia. The thing that we use to birth other individuals. To demonstrate love for one another and so on and so forth. 

Jessica Badonsky  54:40  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  54:41  
The more we create the life we really want. Would you not agree?

Jessica Badonsky  54:45  
Yeah. I think that it remember sex is a quality of life issue.

Vonne Solis  54:50  
Yeah. 

Jessica Badonsky  54:51  
And you don't necessarily need your genitals to have a sexy life.

Vonne Solis  54:58  
Yeah, well, so when you say sex is a quality of life, but then a sexy life? How do you define a sexy life? 

Jessica Badonsky  55:08  
That would be whatever it is.

Vonne Solis  55:09  
Everything we're talking about in whatever we connect to. However aware we become of those feelings within us. It's just a different way of thinking about all those feelings within us. And I do get what you're saying and it's a little hard for me to express because I still have to digest a lot of this. But it goes back, for me, the thing that really triggered me to those deep, deep feelings of the love that we have already within ourselves. That everybody is capable of feeling for themselves, I feel it most clearly about my power in that through that erotic gaze example. 

Jessica Badonsky  55:51  
Yeah. 

Vonne Solis  55:52  
And so I'll work on expanding that to other areas because I know that's really what you're I will at least I believe that's what you're really talking about. And be able to able to feel that in the cooking, or the writing or the gardening or the walking in the forest, or whatever it is that triggers that same energy. Which today we're calling erotic energy, right? 

Jessica Badonsky  56:16  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  56:16  
I wanted to ask you and by the way, at the end, I will give you all of Jessica's contact details. Her website, it'll be in the description as well, so that for anybody that wants to pursue more study with Jessica, coaching with Jessica or other things, resources on her website, you'll be able to do that as well. But before we get to that part, Jessica, I just wanted to ask if you would have any tips for I could say advice, you're a nurse so I'll say advice, for people who are alone. For people who because when we think as part of this, it is kind of a process. You have to embrace it in your life and let it work its magic. And part of that, to me seems connection is important. And no one I think would undervalue the connection with another human being. So what would you say to anybody who may be listening to or watching this, who's absolutely alone. And maybe they are blessed already with being able to feel this erotic power and connect to their erotic wisdom, which to me is just understanding about connecting to their erotic power. For the person that really thinks they can't do this, or they really don't kind of understand, or they you know. As with me, I have to think about this for a little bit. And I have to think about myself in a different way. Expanding my thinking about myself in a different way when I think about erotic power, and break this cultural thing where no, no erotic is not a bad word. It's not a bad word. You can put it in the title of the podcast. But what would you say to that person who is feeling still pretty battered? Or is completely alone without connection? And, you know, is curious about this? How would how would they even just begin. I know, you've probably already talked about this, so this is just sort of to just summarize again, how they can start to tap into that erotic power and wisdom within themselves.

Jessica Badonsky  58:21  
So the first thing is, if they are alone, and in touch with that erotic power, probably they are not feeling lonely. And they probably do have connection, right? Because we are pack animals. We need interconnection, period. Like we live in, in in a in this goes back to that whole controversial statement I made, but we go into this. We live in an environment that is so into hyper-independence. 

Vonne Solis  58:55  
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  58:56  
That is so detrimental. Right? And leaves us all exhausted and lonely and isolated. So I think that if that's where you're finding yourself, but you, there's probably grief behind that. And part of for a lot of people, at least how I was raised as well, that grief is something we do not share. It is as shameful as showing your genitals on Instagram, right?

Vonne Solis  59:34  
Well, wait, is it shameful or is it private, grief?

Jessica Badonsky  59:38  
Well, I'm saying that I'm saying yeah, I think that it's shameful to be such grieving. Because you're trying you're fighting on this hyper-independence and if there's grief behind it, to acknowledge that you have grief is to say I'm not okay. I need help. And I need support, and that can lead to shame. And so I think that there is a power in saying, I need to express my grief. Grief move through me and out of me. By letting grief move through me and out of me, that does not mean that whatever I'm grieving goes away. 

Vonne Solis  1:00:24  
Mm hmm. 

Jessica Badonsky  1:00:25  
It, like the loss of a family member or the loss of a loved one right? Doesn't go away.

Vonne Solis  1:00:30  
Oh, of course not. But it's there's it's empowering and telling our stories and sharing and connecting, even in something that is painful. But the more you connect, this is just for me being able to help the audience here, the more you connect to in whatever is painful, and most of us have come from something painful. Doesn't have to be loss, but disappointments, anything, we there's they it feels better when we can share our stories and understand that we're not the only one going through what we're going through. And so I did just want to want to point again to what you're saying about this independence. And this hyper-independence can lead to isolating circumstances. And in isolating circumstances we do lose our power. Whether we think we do or we don't, we do. Because I think it's about the interconnectedness that is so vital to our as pack animals are blossoming. 

Jessica Badonsky  1:01:24  
Yeah, yeah. 

Vonne Solis  1:01:25  
Yeah, it is.

Jessica Badonsky  1:01:26  
So I think that you can, if the idea of sitting down at the typewriter, whatever that typewriter is for you, is overwhelming, I think that the first thing to be done is to make connection and search for the erotic gaze from the people that you start to feel connected to.

Vonne Solis  1:01:49  
Or maybe, uh, well, I was just gonna say, or maybe a pet. Right?

Jessica Badonsky  1:01:54  
Even a pet. A pet can but I, I'd really love you to have a human being to connect to. And it doesn't mean and when, when people are, you know, when people are, but that's just me, you know. I'm not, I don't know enough about like, animal stuff and like pet stuff. And

Vonne Solis  1:02:12  
No, but you do know the science and, and some of the science for sure. And human connection. So let's then let's be really clear about this. Human connection is vital for us.

Jessica Badonsky  1:02:25  
Yes, well, we know that babies will die if they're not touched.

Vonne Solis  1:02:30  
Okay. All right. So people, it's human connection.

Jessica Badonsky  1:02:34  
This is why I've always, I used to start my lecture saying like, the reason New York City has so many nail salons is because we need to be touched. To be touched. We need to be touched. We need to be seen. So this is not to say that this person that is feeling lonely, hyper-independent, you know, whatever that is

Vonne Solis  1:02:52  
yeah, yeah

Jessica Badonsky  1:02:53  
to go and, you know, look for romantic connection. That's not what I'm saying.

Vonne Solis  1:02:54  
No.

Jessica Badonsky  1:02:59  
I'm saying that in the connections that they do have, or in finding community, whether it's the grieving. Whatever that is, notice if there is a touch. Even a taste. Even the sense of erotic gaze from the people you are connecting with, if you don't have your own typewriter.

Vonne Solis  1:03:22  
So you're using that as an analogy, folks, which I'm sure everybody understands here, but it's and it can be very hard to start a connection. But I'll just give a very quick example that I just read about. These three dads in the UK, who lost their daughters to suicide. This is all within the last I think two to three years. And by connecting they've brought other showing the strength of fathers together, they are actually becoming an activist group. Three Men Walking, it's called. But this other fellow just lost his son at 17, to suicide very, very recently. So he joined the Three Dads Walking on a walk. He maybe isn't interested in the activism part of it, but that's not the point. The article I read was by the connection, he immediately felt less alone, less isolated in his grief and the the death and it has changed his life. He's not all better. It's not about that. It's there's hope. And where there's connection, there's hope. There are so many possibilities. There's so much potential. There is also healing, and I can attest to that. So it's it's human connection people, right?

Jessica Badonsky  1:04:39  
Yes, you can do it imperfectly.

Vonne Solis  1:04:42  
Yes, that's a good point.

Jessica Badonsky  1:04:44  
Imperfectly. So you go and just show up, up. I'm Tim. I'm Sally. whatever your name is, but I can't really talk. Right?

Vonne Solis  1:04:57  
Yes.

Jessica Badonsky  1:04:57  
But just keep showing up. You keep showing up. You keep showing up, right?

Vonne Solis  1:05:03  
Yeah, yeah. And for many people, like you may be in a place where I live, they have newcomers groups and I just want to throw this out there for people to even think about. That, you don't have to have just moved to the city. Your circumstances could have changed and they are just as welcoming. So if it's really, really hard to go out, and um, it's hard to go out and like, make a friend. So the goal maybe isn't being a friend, like making a friend. The goal is just to have some human connection and maybe a handshake. Maybe a hug was a quick hug with somebody, whatever, right? Join a gardening club. Yeah, sorry. 

Jessica Badonsky  1:05:37  
Exercise class.

Vonne Solis  1:05:38  
Yeah, anything yoga, exercise. There's so  many ways. Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  1:05:42  
Yeah. You go, you go to an exercise class and you know, if that teacher hopefully you get a teacher who acknowledges your presence. 

Vonne Solis  1:05:50  
Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  1:05:51  
And says, I'm glad you're here. 

Vonne Solis  1:05:53  
Yeah. I mean, I can go to a coffee shop and, and sit and have a conversation with just about anybody. I could have a conversation with someone in a grocery store. I, you know, for me, it's very, very easy. But we're just acknowledging, here, we're not telling anyone what to do. We're just acknowledging the importance of connection in addition to everything else, we've said, that will not give you erotic power and wisdom. It will expand and maybe blow it wide open for you with just a start of connecting. Right, so just starting a connection. Did I get that? Did I get that right? Did I get that right? Yeah.

Jessica Badonsky  1:06:33  
Totally. And then if all else fails, there's psychedelic medicine.

Vonne Solis  1:06:37  
Oh, oh, my goodness sakes. Anyway, I I this is this was so much to unpack and talk about. Partly because it's new information for many people and certainly new information for me. And it's a new way of challenging ourselves to think and be. And that takes time. So this conversation Jess, today was not about like, okay, you know, we're all gonna go out and have this down pat. You're farther along, because this is your field, this is your work. And you've been at it for a long time. And clearly, it's your passion, it's your purpose. And so you've been working this. So you're the example of what you are able to teach and say, this works. This works. This is what we need based on from the people you're you've learned from. And it's just another way of being. And I'm so so grateful that we met, and that I'm opening myself up, because there's a gentleness to the energy, at least mine, when I think about the love for myself. And if I can, you know, think and go, erotic isn't too bad word. Erotic is just, it's that gaze I had for my babies. And they brought that out in me. And now, I want to find other things in life that bring that out and empower me as well. And that is what's going to be the journey. 

Vonne Solis  1:07:59  
And you see, and I might feel that, I'll speak personally here from my flowers that grow. I used to be quite the gardener and I lost all of that ability when my daughter passed away and had someone come look after my gardens. And now I'm in a condo and I do balcony gardening. And I truly can say I appreciate and love. Yes, there must be erotic energy awakened within me when I look at my flowers growing. And I am so proud of myself, because it doesn't stop at just the flowers growing. It, it allows me to respect all of the work and all of the doing I did to get those flowers growing. So I am definitely going to practice thinking about myself in this way going forward and how I'm doing. 

Vonne Solis  1:08:49  
And to close out with this, how we are acutely and fully feeling in that moment of our doing. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but I'm going to pay a lot of conscious attention to that. Because for me, it does bring me back to feeling empowered. And overtaking those negative feelings of guilt and regret and shame and all the other things I have felt for far too long as the result of my daughter choosing to leave the planet. And then you can think you're really bad parent and all that kind of stuff. But I'd be I'll be doing coaching calls on all of that too. And this is one new avenue I can bring in about an awareness for the body in as a result of our conversation today. So I do thank you for that very, very much, Jessica. 

Vonne Solis  1:09:42  
Now, I want to just close a little bit with knowing that you have resources and if you want to speak a little bit to I know that you're the website that people can find things. Again, I'll be putting the link below but just if you want to you have a couple of sites that you take people to and what you do and if you could just share that that would be wonderful.

Jessica Badonsky  1:10:00  
Sure. So the first thing that I would urge everyone to do is to read Audrey Lorde's piece on the uses of the erotic. The erotic as power, where that's where that whole those quotes that I was reading, that's where they're from. Because she is just she puts all of those words together. Those are her words that really spoke to you. 

Vonne Solis  1:10:25  
Yes.

Jessica Badonsky  1:10:26  
My website is the is privatepartsofwellness.com. So privatepartsofwellness.com. And I, I do a couple of things. I have a blog there and I also lead a group called the Mistresses of the Menopausal Mind, which is a mastermind for people who are interested in menopause. In perimenopause, going through the symptoms or even postmenopause. And we have we meet twice a month, and we do group coaching. And we also have experts who come on and talk about not just what we think about menopause, but on money, and on sex. And we're doing tonight in fact, we have an expert talking about integrative and functional medicine. We all always talk about menopause, but human design, psychedelics and movement, so and beauty, all of those things. And then in New York State, I do, I do see some patients as well. But and then there's always coaching. But I have a blog. I heard it's kind of interesting, you know, some of the stuff I write people tend to like it. And yeah, and that's all available. I'm privatepartsofwellness.com on Instagram. You can follow me at Jessica_Jolie. J O L I E, that's my middle name. 

Vonne Solis  1:12:01  
Yes. 

Jessica Badonsky  1:12:02  
NP and I'm, that's where I am on Instagram. And yeah, send me questions. send me emails, I love it all. I this is this is this is my this is my this is where my energy goes when it's not going other places.

Vonne Solis  1:12:20  
Yeah, you can tell you're really, really passionate about it. I did sign up for your newsletter, which you might know. And I will put all the links that Jess just mentioned in the description below. And so I just want to confirm. So in terms of if any, if anyone is interested in joining your Mistresses of the Menopausal ind group, they can find that information on your website, private parts of wellness, right?

Jessica Badonsky  1:12:44  
Absolutely. And they can absolutely ask me questions.

Vonne Solis  1:12:49  
Yeah. Okay. Well, that is amazing. So, this has been enlightening, to say the least. And I hope for anybody watching or listening to this, it is at minimum, inviting you to have a you know, to think differently a little bit about yourself. About the word erotic. About erotic energy. About erotic power and erotic wisdom. See, I said it several times erotic, erotic. 

Jessica Badonsky  1:13:16  
I love it. Yeah. I love it. 

Vonne Solis  1:13:18  
Because the more we say it, the more comfortable it becomes. And and we don't have to think about it in suppressed and repressed ways. Our power is our power in how in however we think about it. And I'm all about expanding it and giving people as much information through various voices on this podcast as they can to think about them themselves in their life differently and in a more empowering way. 

Vonne Solis  1:13:44  
So thank you so much again, Jessica, for being my guest. It was truly an honor to have you and I'm sure we'll stay in touch and maybe even do something in the future together again.

Jessica Badonsky  1:13:56  
Excellent. Thank you so much. It was really an honor. Thank you. 

Vonne Solis  1:13:59  
Perfect. Thanks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai