In this episode, we're gonna be talking about prioritizing pleasure and specifically self-pleasure, and even more specifically sexual self-pleasure. Yes, I am sharing my journey and my discoveries and inviting everyone who's listening to go have a major freaking orgasm. You ready? Let's do it.

Hello, you are listening to Love Your Life as a Performer podcast. I'm Kelli Youngman and I am the life coach for performers. I help actors, singers, and dancers love themselves and their lives way more so keep listening to learn how you can love your life, both on and off the stage.

Hello and welcome back to episode 48 of The Love Your Life as a Performer Podcast. Wow. It has felt like I've lived a million lives since I last recorded a podcast because, The last episode, I was getting ready to head to my vacation in Italy, and I have to say that it was truly as life-changing as I expected it to be.

I flew into Venice, got to spend about a day and a half by myself before I met up with friends. We drove up to the mountains. Our best friend got married in the freaking mountains. It was incredible. It looked like The Sound of Music. The hills were alive. It was gorgeous. And then on the end of the trip, I drove with my friends to Milan and got to spend another day in Milan, being by myself and.

Just let myself be such a tourist. I went to the top of the Duomo and just had amazing food. Got to see things and I think one of, well, a couple of things were really remarkable about this trip. One, just getting to witness one of my best friends from college getting married was just so special, but truly, for the first time solo traveling.

Really just like trusting myself and having no agenda, right? Like. The simplicity of like, I'm tired, so I'm gonna take a nap. I'm hungry, I'm gonna go find a restaurant, let me go explore. And feeling really just like safe, even though I was in a foreign country, even though I didn't speak the language of the country, and especially once I got to Milan, I took a lot of public transit. And so actually I did in Venice too. The funny thing, maybe this is not funny if you've been to Venice, but the thing that kept blowing my mind was that in Venice, Like instead of there being subways or trains, like in New York City, right? All the public transit in Venice is freaking boats because everything is on the water. So that also blew my mind.

But just trusting that I have the resourcefulness, the skills, the intelligence to figure out where I'm going and to not be lost and to not be scared or panicked or unsafe in a country by myself was just so empowering. Honestly, it really changed my perspective and my own self concept just knowing that I can go anywhere in the world and explore and have a great time even by myself. And of course, yes. Then the part of the wedding when I was with friends was fucking amazing. And I have to say too, that there was a lot of growth and healing for me too, being at a wedding after I've recently ended a relationship, a long-term relationship.

And I feel like for people who have gone through breakups, maybe I will do an episode about this in the future because I feel like I've just been learning so much about myself and I know that the way I'm handling this is very different from other friends that have gone through breakups. Not good, bad, right or wrong, not better or worse, but I feel a lot of freedom and peace in this journey, even though yes, there is a lot of sadness and grief and mourning the relationship right.

I think something that I truly walked away with as well was even in the moments of the, of the trip that were hard, even in the moments that were sad or that brought up nostalgia or hope or grief from my relationship, it was so beautiful to also witness my willingness to feel the feelings right, to like go through the hard and to know that even though it sucked in the moment, it was going to be okay. And so I have to just like shout myself out because I feel like, you know, after the welcome drinks and the little apertivo, I noticed that I was really having a hard time. But giving myself permission to just be where I was allowed me to like process my feelings in a really big way, so that on the actual wedding day I was fully available.

Like I've actually noticed that over the past few years, my memory gets better because when I am in moments, I am fully present. Like I can remember what specific foods and textures tasted like, I can remember certain songs that were played, I can remember the energy of the whole entire day. Because I wasn't somewhere else, right? I wasn't still in my feelings and still holding on or resisting any of the sadness that was coming up. I let myself fully go there, which gave me the emotional availability then to really be present and enjoy celebrating love, enjoy celebrating my friend, and like genuinely having the best freaking time. So anyways, that's just a little bit about my trip to Italy. It was a life-changing, expansive opportunity to just freaking grow, celebrate, to love, to connect, and yeah. Wow. It was great.

Okay, and let's jump into today's episode. Okay, so I am going to just give you this little baby warning that this episode is going to be talking and mentioning sex and pleasure and masturbation. And I've been telling friends, clients, everyone in my life that I am in like this very sex positive phase and honestly like it's totally up to you if you wanna proceed to listen. And what I'm going to just invite you to explore, because I've said the word masturbate or pleasure sesh, or something along those lines on my Instagram before on my stories, and it's been fun to watch the numbers drop. Not that I'm paying like that, that much attention, but I know that people are not comfortable with this and that's okay.

Right. And. I'm just going to invite you, again, if you wanna stop this episode, and if you're like, this is not for me, that's totally fine. And if that is you, if you're like, okay, I'm opting out. It might be fun to just get curious and ask why. What about my own sexual pleasure makes me uncomfortable? What about my own sexuality makes me uncomfortable? And it isn't good, bad, right or wrong. And I wanna share this on the podcast because it's been really healing for me to really be so in touch with my body and to prioritize pleasure, including sexual pleasure in this way. And so that's what this episode is gonna be about. Like I said, you have the option to stop and not listen and you know, if you're gonna join me, let's freaking lean in.

So something that has really been just changing my life so much is opening myself up to enjoy my body to love, my body, to please my body, and not only in a sexual way, but also in terms of like taking nice baths or getting massages or receiving acupuncture or prioritizing things that just take care of the way that I feel prioritizing the sensation in my body when I get my nails done or when I take like, again, it doesn't have to look exactly like how I live. Right. And what does it look like to normalize pleasure, including sexual pleasure?

And I say this because I think growing up Catholic for a lot of my life, there was a lot of shame around sex and pleasure and the idea of a woman just like owning her body, right? And I think we've come a long ways. I think that younger generations than me are also like wildly more sex positive, but it has taken me a long time to get to this place. And now that I'm here, I'm like, wow, what have I been waiting for? What have I been so afraid of? Right.

And something that I've kind of casually mentioned on my Instagram stories, again, have been stepping into over the last few years is really owning my own bisexuality and allowing myself to be attracted to women and humans in general and not feel shame about that, right? So this has all been one giant unfolding and freeing of myself over the past few years. And again, I feel like growing up with specific religious beliefs, it's not good, bad, right or wrong, but it was like not something that I grew up talking about. Like it was not something that was very normal or common in my household to talk with my parents.

I've been thinking about a lot how, you know, back in the day, of course most of us had like sex education in school or something of that nature, but I remember my mom, love her so much, but like giving me a book of like, okay, I want you to read this. This is the book about your body. And honestly, the book was interesting. Fascinating, of course, very informational. But I remember being really scared or like having fear that there was something bad about my body or something shameful about my body, simply because it wasn't something that we talked about. Right?

And so again, stepping into owning my sexuality, but then also owning my sexual pleasure has been such a beautiful unfolding. Now, I also, I think I mentioned this, I don't know where I mentioned this, I say a lot of words... but I have a podcast episode coming out and I remember, not to spoiler alert anything, but being asked sort of like rapid fire questions. And something someone asked me was like, what is one thing you can't live without? And in my blunt, first thought, best thought answer, I said my vibrator.

And then I started laughing and I noticed myself being like, oh gosh, was that inappropriate? Was that too much? Maybe I should take that back. And I had this moment of like feeling nervous about expressing that and feeling nervous about if that was, again, too much and I feel like I'm just gonna be so open book right now, but I feel like I remember back in the day having like a very, um, very explicit, um, vibrator, dildo. I don't know what you wanna call it, but it was like very realistic, penis shaped and now that I think back on it, it makes me laugh so much. But aside from that, I hadn't really like let myself have any other kind of like toys.

I feel like I had that for a while and it felt like exploratory and like, oh my God, so wild. And then it eventually I got rid of it because it felt like something silly that I just had in my twenties and I was, you know, being wild. And only recently I finally was like, well, wait a second, why? Am I not prioritizing my own pleasure? Why am I not having a vibrator or something of that sort for myself? Like, I'm a grown ass woman. Why do I not have a vibrator? And so, Again, only recently I went on to Bellesa and saw that Demi Lovato had like a line of sex toys that she made in collaboration, and I finally just ordered one and I was like, cool, like I'm doing this for me.

And I just noticed within myself even this like, I don't know, like, oh my gosh, this is so naughty. Or this is so, um, I don't know, like that fear of like, I'm being so overly sexual because I'm doing this. And again, this might not be your experience at all, but I feel like I wanna share this to keep inviting normalization of sex, of pleasure, and prioritizing the pussy. And if you're not a female, if you're not female presenting, prioritizing the penis too. Okay? We just get to love this sexual side of us and allow our pleasure to be just like an integral part of our lives.

And so I'm gonna share yet again another very personal moment that happened, because I do think that when we're prioritizing pleasure and especially sexual pleasure, I think it invites this opportunity just to be so intimate with ourselves and our energy and to create release, right? And so I feel like the other day, I just had this beautiful moment of yes, masturbating, having a self-pleasure sesh, and realizing that I was so in love with myself. Not in an arrogant or egotistical way, but that there was this deep connection of self, of worthiness to receive pleasure from me, willingness to receive and experience pleasure from myself, for myself. And it was honestly one of the most beautiful experiences so far in my life. I don't know. Yeah, I think really, truly.

There was like this release of emotion too in that moment of awe, appreciation, of wonder for the magic of our bodies, right? Regardless of your gender, like we all have access to really embracing who we are in our fullness, in love and acceptance, in, again, like the feeling of awe. I want you to just get curious for a second. When is the last time that you felt awe about yourself and awe about your body? And like literally the magic of having this human vessel on this planet.

I just feel like sexuality is such a natural part of who we are as humans. And it's so interesting that sometimes in American culture, sexuality is portrayed in this like hypersexualized, like unsafe, um, I don't know, like it is just like very fetishized maybe, or stigmatized. I don't even know now I'm just saying a bunch of words, but it takes on this energy of not being something that's just like inherently part of being human. And so I've just been like rediscovering for myself the connection to sexual energy, that also doesn't have to be so freaking literal, right?

It's not about like walking around wanting to fuck everybody, even though like that is totally in your right to feel that way. But harnessing just like, again, this sexual energy inside of ourselves. And I'm sure that I will have future thoughts about this because again, I'm still on this journey of learning and discovering and exploring it myself too. Right. But it's like, I think there's just so much more room for all of us to feel really safe in our bodies, safe with our own pleasure and safe with, you know, whether it's with partners or with ourselves like expressing and finding what we even like. Right. Like what we even like and giving ourselves permission to explore that.

I just, again, if you have had that experience, I think that's amazing and beautiful, but I feel like I'm late to the party on this, which is why I wanted to bring it to the podcast.

I think that this can be something that's just, again, invited to be normalized in terms of prioritizing, pleasure, prioritizing orgasms, prioritizing tapping into what it even feels like to live orgasmically, right? Like to live a life that prioritizes pleasure and including sexual pleasure. And so I don't know. Whoever needs to hear this is going to hear it, and I want to invite you to explore yourself. Explore what feels good, explore what you like, and know that it's okay to express it too.

I think there's, you know, again, just speaking from my own experience, this fear of not wanting to be too much or not wanting to like, I feel like our culture does a great job of like slut shaming. And again, I think we've come a long ways. I think that we are all in a little bit more of a conscious state about these things and like where can we still soften? Where can we be willing to own our pleasure so much that you're willing to tell someone when you are playing or exploring bodies together, hey, I like it when you do that. You know, like it could be as simple as that. Or just being so intimate with yourself that you know how to trust the pleasure and to lean into it.

Okay, so that's what I got for you this week. I wanna give you some homework to go please your damn self. And if masturbating is not your thing, maybe again, it's like giving yourself time to lotion or to take a nice bath or to just like really be sensation based in your body. I think gives us this opportunity to drop out of our brains and overthinking and again, get back into the sensation and the wisdom of what our body has to offer us when we're not walking around completely disconnected and you know, just using sex as, again, it's not good, bad, right or wrong, but using it as like an escape or an obligation, especially in long term relationships, right? It's like, oh, it's that thing we gotta do. But like coming back to the enjoyment of your body, your sexual pleasure, and harnessing your like sacral chakra energy, right? I just think it's so fun for all of us to be willing to own that, to witness it in others, and to just fucking enjoy it. So I'm wishing everyone an amazing freaking orgasm. That's what I've got for you this week and I'll meet you back here for another episode. 

Hey, I want to invite you to get started. Because if this is blowing your mind, imagine the impact of when we actually work together. If you're committed to loving your life as an actor, singer, or dancer, come join us inside of The Performers Plan. You get lifetime access to the Program, the Community, and high quality Coaching for the rest of your career. Go to kelliyoungmanwellness.com/theperformersplan to join us now. I'll see you inside.