WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:11.320 Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary 2 00:00:11.320 --> 00:00:15.200 for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, 3 00:00:15.200 --> 00:00:18.720 your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of 4 00:00:18.720 --> 00:00:22.640 inclusion, belonging and societal transformation. 5 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:27.040 Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world? Remember, everyone 6 00:00:27.040 --> 00:00:30.760 not only belongs, but thrives. You're not alone. 7 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:35.200 Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge 8 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:38.760 the status quo and share stories that resonate 9 00:00:38.760 --> 00:00:42.480 deep within. Ready to dive in? Whether you're 10 00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:46.400 sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's 11 00:00:46.400 --> 00:00:50.360 connect, reflect and inspire action together. 12 00:00:51.080 --> 00:00:54.870 Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out 13 00:00:54.870 --> 00:00:58.670 to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk 14 00:00:59.070 --> 00:01:02.590 to share your insights or to join me on the show. 15 00:01:03.470 --> 00:01:07.230 So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to 16 00:01:07.230 --> 00:01:10.830 ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. 17 00:01:14.590 --> 00:01:18.590 And today is episode 176 with 18 00:01:18.590 --> 00:01:21.710 the title the Courage To Be Seen. 19 00:01:22.510 --> 00:01:26.030 And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Ayce Kyptyn. 20 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:30.590 Ayce is a somatic sexologist on a mission to help others 21 00:01:30.670 --> 00:01:34.309 explore their identity and authenticity through deep 22 00:01:34.309 --> 00:01:37.150 healing and embodied self expression. 23 00:01:38.110 --> 00:01:41.830 When I asked Ayce to describe his superpower, he said it is being able to 24 00:01:41.830 --> 00:01:45.790 hold a compassionate space for others exists fully and 25 00:01:45.950 --> 00:01:49.910 truthfully. Hello, Ace, welcome to the show. Hey, Jo, it's nice 26 00:01:49.910 --> 00:01:53.870 to be on the show with you today. So whereabouts 27 00:01:53.870 --> 00:01:57.390 are you in the world? From that accent, I'm guessing you're not in the uk. 28 00:01:58.350 --> 00:02:02.230 No, I'm originally from the Midwest of the United States, but I live in Boulder, 29 00:02:02.230 --> 00:02:06.070 Colorado. Boulder, Colorado, Wow. Is that. That's near the 30 00:02:06.070 --> 00:02:09.910 Grand Canyon? Always a way. But we got the Rocky 31 00:02:09.910 --> 00:02:13.680 Mountains here and so I'm an avid jeeper, so I enjoy being outdoors, 32 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:17.640 doing a lot of trail rides. So this is the perfect place for. Oh, that 33 00:02:17.640 --> 00:02:21.600 sounds awesome. That's loads of fun. Wow. Never 34 00:02:21.600 --> 00:02:25.000 been to Colorado. It's on the list. On the list, but yeah. Well, I got 35 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.520 a place for you to stay if you come. So let us let. Let me, 36 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:31.360 let me know. Ah, well, there we are. We've got a 37 00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:35.200 date. Yeah. Give us sometime when it's possible. 38 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:38.830 Yeah, let's see what we can do. So, Ace, a somatic 39 00:02:38.830 --> 00:02:42.310 sexologist. I mean that. I'm just. I'm just intrigued. 40 00:02:42.630 --> 00:02:46.630 Hopefully if you're listening to this, you're intrigued as well and you've had 41 00:02:46.710 --> 00:02:49.030 an interesting life journey, 42 00:02:51.190 --> 00:02:55.070 discovering yourself and I guess you're using some of that as a. As 43 00:02:55.070 --> 00:02:59.030 a lever to help others. So do you want to give us a 44 00:02:59.030 --> 00:03:02.070 bit of your story? Yeah, absolutely. 45 00:03:03.050 --> 00:03:06.970 So in 2022, my life fell apart. I 46 00:03:06.970 --> 00:03:10.770 lost everything. I lost my job, my family, my 47 00:03:10.770 --> 00:03:14.250 career. Like I had a 20 year career as a professional 48 00:03:14.250 --> 00:03:18.090 theologian. And I was let go due to a reorganisation 49 00:03:18.410 --> 00:03:22.130 and it was completely out of the blue and I was just building a custom 50 00:03:22.130 --> 00:03:25.370 lake house and so I went, oh, no, 51 00:03:25.770 --> 00:03:29.570 like I no longer have an income to afford 52 00:03:29.570 --> 00:03:33.430 the place that I live in. And basically what happened was my life was 53 00:03:33.430 --> 00:03:37.030 thrown into chaos. And from that I started 54 00:03:37.030 --> 00:03:40.950 questioning and critically thinking about how I lived my life for 55 00:03:40.950 --> 00:03:44.910 the first 38 years. And I realised that I wasn't being authentic 56 00:03:44.910 --> 00:03:48.870 to who I am. I was doing what everybody else in this world wanted 57 00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:51.830 me to do. And I think a lot of us do that. You know, we 58 00:03:51.830 --> 00:03:55.270 go to school, we get a job, because maybe our parents said, hey, this is 59 00:03:55.270 --> 00:03:58.840 the path you should take, but it's not necessarily the path that you 60 00:03:59.080 --> 00:04:02.920 wanted to take or I wanted to take in life. And so 61 00:04:02.920 --> 00:04:06.600 in losing everything, I started to critically think about how I got there 62 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:10.920 and what I actually wanted to do with my life. And so as I 63 00:04:10.920 --> 00:04:14.880 was sitting on my therapist's couch, it became really clear to me that I was 64 00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:18.600 trans and I had lived a life as a female. I was an executive 65 00:04:18.840 --> 00:04:22.800 leader and that was all gone. And so I was like, how do I 66 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:26.440 want to rebuild my life? And in such a way that I'm actually happy and 67 00:04:26.440 --> 00:04:30.400 enjoying the lifestyle that I have. And so I ended up 68 00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:34.360 watching a show called Sex, Love and Goop. It's on Netflix, it's free. It's 69 00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:37.680 a really fun show that you can binge watch over a weekend. But basically what 70 00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:41.560 happens is there's somatic sexologists that are taking clients into 71 00:04:41.560 --> 00:04:45.200 a room and as the storyline unfolds, you can see their 72 00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:49.160 lifestyle start to change and they're actually living a life of pleasure 73 00:04:49.400 --> 00:04:53.380 versus a life of pain. And so as I was watching the show, I was 74 00:04:53.380 --> 00:04:56.940 like, I need that in my life because I understand pain really well. 75 00:04:57.180 --> 00:05:01.060 I've been living a lifestyle of pain my entire life, but I 76 00:05:01.060 --> 00:05:04.820 would love to transform it into pleasure. And so 77 00:05:04.820 --> 00:05:08.660 I hired a somatic sexologist. I went and had my own sex loving, 78 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:12.620 goop like experience. And my life 79 00:05:12.620 --> 00:05:16.300 was completely transformed because I was awakened to the 80 00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:20.230 sensations in my body and who I really am. And so from that 81 00:05:20.230 --> 00:05:23.510 I decided, you know what? I need to provide this experience for other people. And 82 00:05:23.510 --> 00:05:26.870 so I got trained in somatic sexology, got a bunch of 83 00:05:26.870 --> 00:05:30.670 certifications, and now that's what I'm doing. I'm helping other people 84 00:05:30.910 --> 00:05:34.710 land in their bodies and have an erotically liberated lifestyle. I've got loads of 85 00:05:34.710 --> 00:05:38.670 questions in my head from that. First of all, there's two 86 00:05:38.670 --> 00:05:42.510 words, somatic and sexologist. Could you just maybe 87 00:05:42.510 --> 00:05:45.680 break each of those two words down and just give me a. Give me a 88 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:49.600 reference point for what a sexologist is and what 89 00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:53.480 a somatic version of a sexologist is? Yeah, So a 90 00:05:53.480 --> 00:05:57.480 sexologist is somebody that studies sex. Right. It's like a theologist would study God 91 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:01.359 or religion. So I study sex. So a lot of it is 92 00:06:01.359 --> 00:06:05.000 gender identity, expression and orientation and helping people 93 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:09.040 critically think about their life and their lifestyle and what they really want 94 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:12.970 out of it. And then how to get that. And then the somatic piece 95 00:06:12.970 --> 00:06:16.810 of it is actually just landing in your body and being true to what's there 96 00:06:17.290 --> 00:06:21.090 and recognising and realising the sensations and the feelings that are going 97 00:06:21.090 --> 00:06:24.930 on and really embodying who you want to be and 98 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:28.010 living that out. So it's that alignment of self 99 00:06:29.290 --> 00:06:33.290 with spiritually, physically, mentally, everything 100 00:06:33.290 --> 00:06:37.250 kind of aligned so that you're, to use the overused expression 101 00:06:37.250 --> 00:06:39.290 true to yourself is what you're trying to say here. 102 00:06:41.420 --> 00:06:45.180 Does that reflect that? Often the 103 00:06:45.180 --> 00:06:48.940 hardest person to come out to, whatever that may mean to you, is yourself 104 00:06:48.940 --> 00:06:52.780 admitting to yourself who you are, what you are, what's important to you. Because 105 00:06:52.780 --> 00:06:56.460 we, we all tend to live by other people's rules, don't we? 106 00:06:56.620 --> 00:07:00.580 We leave as we grow up, we have expectations set on 107 00:07:00.580 --> 00:07:03.860 us by our parents, our community, our relatives, and then we just end up in 108 00:07:03.860 --> 00:07:07.830 conveyor belt. And sometimes we gotta. We gotta 109 00:07:07.830 --> 00:07:11.830 realise that who are we exactly? We 110 00:07:11.830 --> 00:07:15.470 all are playing a character in this world. We all have this Persona that we've 111 00:07:15.470 --> 00:07:19.430 created of who we are and that becomes our identity. But is that 112 00:07:19.430 --> 00:07:23.230 really your identity and who you really are? Are you allowing all of yourself 113 00:07:23.230 --> 00:07:27.030 to exist or are you only allowing a certain portion of yourself to exist? 114 00:07:27.190 --> 00:07:31.030 Because that's okay in society and it's acceptable, right? And 115 00:07:31.030 --> 00:07:33.910 so what I do in my. In my work with people is I allow all 116 00:07:33.910 --> 00:07:37.740 of them to exist. The good, the bad, the ugly, what they think is 117 00:07:37.740 --> 00:07:41.580 right or wrong. Like all of it's welcomed in this space because 118 00:07:41.580 --> 00:07:45.140 it's all of you. And I think what a lot of us do is we 119 00:07:45.140 --> 00:07:48.740 really repress those desires because it's not seen as something that's 120 00:07:48.980 --> 00:07:52.180 actually, you know, okay to have in this world. 121 00:07:52.980 --> 00:07:56.900 And that's where a lot of the, like, incongruency and, you know, the 122 00:07:56.900 --> 00:08:00.780 lack of alignment happens. And that's why we're so Sad and frustrated because we're not 123 00:08:00.780 --> 00:08:04.470 living a life that's true to who we are and expressing that in this world 124 00:08:04.470 --> 00:08:08.070 today. Yeah. You must be a good girl. You must be a strong boy. 125 00:08:09.510 --> 00:08:13.430 Repress your emotions, be emotional. Want a family, 126 00:08:13.430 --> 00:08:17.310 not want a family. Can't be gay, must be straight, can't be 127 00:08:17.310 --> 00:08:20.790 trans, must be CIS living up to those 128 00:08:20.790 --> 00:08:24.390 societal constructs. And often we have our own communities that 129 00:08:24.390 --> 00:08:28.390 enforce and police us into those boxes, doesn't it? Absolutely. 130 00:08:29.100 --> 00:08:33.020 Yeah. You mentioned the fact that. Was it 2022, 131 00:08:34.060 --> 00:08:37.940 your world turned upside down. Was that the 132 00:08:37.940 --> 00:08:41.780 first inkling you had around your own incongruence of 133 00:08:41.780 --> 00:08:45.580 identity, or had it been plaguing you? Absolutely not. 134 00:08:46.060 --> 00:08:50.020 It had been plaguing me my whole life. I mean, I knew 135 00:08:50.020 --> 00:08:53.380 at the age of four, and I think my parents knew it too, right. Of, 136 00:08:53.380 --> 00:08:57.160 like, I was way more into boy things. I wanted to be muddy, be 137 00:08:57.310 --> 00:09:00.750 really active, do sports. I didn't want to wear makeup, do my hair 138 00:09:00.990 --> 00:09:04.950 dresses. Right. Like, it was my entire life that I was. I 139 00:09:04.950 --> 00:09:08.750 was fighting this societal norm. And I knew that I was gender 140 00:09:09.070 --> 00:09:13.070 incongruent. There was no gender conformity. Right. I knew that, but I 141 00:09:13.070 --> 00:09:16.110 was struggling with it, and I. And I felt like I had to align with 142 00:09:16.270 --> 00:09:19.870 who society said I needed to be versus who I actually was. And 143 00:09:20.430 --> 00:09:24.400 you said before you were in your adult career, 144 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:28.400 you were a theologist. Is that theology? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I was 145 00:09:28.400 --> 00:09:32.240 a professional theologian. Yeah. Theologian. Was that 146 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:35.960 associated with the faith or religion, or was that just 147 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:39.640 spiritually connected or. I was 148 00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:44.040 a youth pastor and a missionary within the Christian church. And 149 00:09:44.040 --> 00:09:48.040 so I grew up in, like, the evangelical Protestant denominations, 150 00:09:48.290 --> 00:09:51.730 and that presumably that the. The doctrine would have not 151 00:09:51.730 --> 00:09:55.690 accepted deviation from the typical. From the norm, from the 152 00:09:55.690 --> 00:09:59.570 straight. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they believe 153 00:09:59.570 --> 00:10:03.250 in. There's two genders, male and female. 154 00:10:03.650 --> 00:10:07.410 Right. And so obviously, if you look at science and the facts, 155 00:10:07.410 --> 00:10:11.370 there's a binary. Right. There's a. There's a spectrum of we could 156 00:10:11.370 --> 00:10:14.680 be masculine, we could be feminine, we could be somewhere in the middle. Right. And 157 00:10:14.680 --> 00:10:17.440 there could be fluidity in that. And that's not necessarily the way that I was 158 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:21.200 brought up. And so that was a really hard thing, I think, back in 159 00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:25.040 2022, when I started to actually look at the science versus what I had 160 00:10:25.040 --> 00:10:28.440 been taught to believe. You know, I believed that to be true. But 161 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:32.840 the science is we're all born female, and then, you know, six 162 00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:36.040 to seven weeks later, our bodies start to change, our brains start to develop, and 163 00:10:36.040 --> 00:10:40.000 that's when, you know, we become male or female in 164 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:43.820 society's terms. Right, yeah. And so all growing up 165 00:10:43.820 --> 00:10:47.740 throughout your life, you adopted this spiritual identity, aligned, as you say, 166 00:10:47.740 --> 00:10:51.420 with Protestant Christianity, living in a world 167 00:10:51.420 --> 00:10:55.140 where whoever you were didn't meet 168 00:10:55.380 --> 00:10:59.220 the rules that you were being told and you were conforming to those, 169 00:10:59.860 --> 00:11:03.660 almost like conversion therapy in yourself, aren't you? You're converting, keeping 170 00:11:03.660 --> 00:11:07.630 yourself oppressed. Absolutely. If you look 171 00:11:07.630 --> 00:11:10.990 back now to those times, did you feel 172 00:11:12.270 --> 00:11:16.070 incongruent? Did you feel that you were living that line looking 173 00:11:16.070 --> 00:11:19.950 back? And how do you rationalise that time in your mind? Because 174 00:11:20.110 --> 00:11:23.910 you must have had deep faith in. Yeah, absolutely. An 175 00:11:23.910 --> 00:11:27.790 investment in that religion. Yeah. There was always a tension 176 00:11:27.870 --> 00:11:31.870 within me. Right. Of what I was told was true 177 00:11:31.870 --> 00:11:35.730 and what I felt was true inside of me. And I think what happened 178 00:11:35.730 --> 00:11:39.690 was when my world fell apart, I started to 179 00:11:39.690 --> 00:11:43.250 realise that the rules that I was living by, they're just all made up. 180 00:11:43.330 --> 00:11:45.930 Somebody said, this is how you should be, this is who you should be, this 181 00:11:45.930 --> 00:11:48.570 is how you should act, this is what you should do with your life. And 182 00:11:48.570 --> 00:11:52.490 it's like, who made that up? It doesn't align with what I know to be 183 00:11:52.490 --> 00:11:56.490 true for myself. And so in critical thinking, I 184 00:11:56.490 --> 00:11:59.690 was able to go, okay, I was told that my purpose was this. I was 185 00:11:59.690 --> 00:12:03.600 told that I was supposed to live my life like this, but it goes against 186 00:12:03.680 --> 00:12:07.600 everything that I feel inside. So what would happen if I would 187 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:11.440 just allow whatever's arising to naturally arise and live from 188 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:15.200 that space? And so I learned how to live a more fluid 189 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:18.840 lifestyle of understanding this is what's 190 00:12:18.840 --> 00:12:22.760 naturally arising in me and this is what I 191 00:12:22.760 --> 00:12:26.040 would like to express. And so I just started testing that out. And at first 192 00:12:26.040 --> 00:12:29.780 it wasn't. It wasn't really very fun because my family was like, hold on. 193 00:12:29.940 --> 00:12:33.380 The person that we knew is now 194 00:12:33.380 --> 00:12:37.380 challenging everything that they believed. And so they thought I was a 195 00:12:37.380 --> 00:12:41.100 sinner. And so, I mean, we could go down that road. But that was a 196 00:12:41.100 --> 00:12:44.820 really interesting time in my life where I ended up losing everything 197 00:12:44.820 --> 00:12:48.780 because I had to step away from the 198 00:12:48.780 --> 00:12:52.780 indoctrination that I'd had my entire life to actually 199 00:12:52.780 --> 00:12:56.680 find out who I am and what my. My. What my purpose actually is 200 00:12:56.680 --> 00:12:58.480 here in this world. That's the. 201 00:13:00.400 --> 00:13:04.320 I'm gonna say sad reality. There's a lot of joy in the reality as 202 00:13:04.320 --> 00:13:08.160 well. So it's not all sad. But the hard truth is that 203 00:13:08.560 --> 00:13:12.560 often trans non binary people have to make 204 00:13:12.800 --> 00:13:16.720 a polarising choice around who they are, 205 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:20.960 and often that means leaving behind parts of their life. 206 00:13:21.850 --> 00:13:25.530 That they valued immensely, but it was no longer compatible. 207 00:13:26.170 --> 00:13:30.090 It's what you're saying there is. You've had to. In order to go forward with 208 00:13:30.090 --> 00:13:33.970 your life, you've had to let go of a lot. It's incredibly 209 00:13:33.970 --> 00:13:37.890 painful. I love my family. I love the community that I used 210 00:13:37.890 --> 00:13:41.370 to have. Like, there's a deep relationship there. But 211 00:13:41.930 --> 00:13:45.690 I was unable to find compassion and empathy for who I really 212 00:13:45.690 --> 00:13:49.570 am. And at some point, I needed to walk away. And I 213 00:13:49.570 --> 00:13:52.970 think it's almost out of love for them that I left. Because 214 00:13:53.690 --> 00:13:56.250 in reality, I mean, I was very well known 215 00:13:57.130 --> 00:13:59.450 nationally as an expert 216 00:14:00.650 --> 00:14:04.490 professional Christian theologian. Right. And had I not 217 00:14:04.490 --> 00:14:08.250 left the community that I was in, it really would have imploded. My entire family 218 00:14:08.410 --> 00:14:12.370 and communities, just lifestyle, everything 219 00:14:12.370 --> 00:14:15.610 for my mom didn't change, and I didn't want to do that to her. So 220 00:14:15.610 --> 00:14:19.530 I literally packed up everything and left because I 221 00:14:19.530 --> 00:14:23.210 love my family and because I didn't want them to go through all the 222 00:14:23.210 --> 00:14:26.970 heartache of everyone else finding out about it and then us being the talk of 223 00:14:26.970 --> 00:14:30.770 town and their lifestyle changing. So, moving on. You've. 224 00:14:31.010 --> 00:14:34.610 You made that decision. Well, in fact, you didn't make the decision. The decision 225 00:14:34.850 --> 00:14:38.770 was necessary. It became a something you had to do. Yeah. I 226 00:14:38.770 --> 00:14:42.170 often say to people that I didn't make a decision. The decision made me sort 227 00:14:42.170 --> 00:14:45.740 of think it was a kind of a necessary, not a choice, but 228 00:14:46.220 --> 00:14:49.820 evolution that had to occur. Yeah. The universe. 229 00:14:51.820 --> 00:14:55.660 Yeah. You went through some dark times. You broke a lot of chains 230 00:14:56.220 --> 00:14:59.300 and a lot of relationships and caused a lot of pain to yourself and a 231 00:14:59.300 --> 00:15:02.980 lot of pain to others, I assume. So what joy have you found 232 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:06.540 since? Has this awakening allowed you to explore? 233 00:15:06.620 --> 00:15:10.340 Yeah, So I learned how to transmute the pain into 234 00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:14.070 pleasure. The first 38 years of my life were incredibly 235 00:15:14.070 --> 00:15:17.910 painful because I wasn't able to be who I authentically am. 236 00:15:19.110 --> 00:15:22.390 And as I started awakening that 237 00:15:23.430 --> 00:15:27.230 in myself and in my mind and in my body, things 238 00:15:27.230 --> 00:15:31.110 started to slowly shift from playing pain into pleasure. 239 00:15:31.590 --> 00:15:35.430 And so actually, Jaya's work in the erotic blueprints 240 00:15:35.510 --> 00:15:38.870 is a huge piece of being able to find pleasure in my body 241 00:15:39.530 --> 00:15:43.290 and in who I am and how I go about this world. And her methodology 242 00:15:43.290 --> 00:15:46.410 or her framework, although it's meant for 243 00:15:47.370 --> 00:15:51.010 a fulfilling sex life, it actually can be used in your entire 244 00:15:51.010 --> 00:15:54.330 lifestyle. And so I've taken her framework and I've. And I've 245 00:15:54.490 --> 00:15:58.130 transformed my life so that I'm living out of that space. I'm going to make 246 00:15:58.130 --> 00:16:01.970 an assumption that you have been. You've converted your body from Oestrogen 247 00:16:01.970 --> 00:16:05.610 based to testosterone base, just purely based on 248 00:16:06.360 --> 00:16:09.240 your visual appearance and your voice. So you obviously have a 249 00:16:09.640 --> 00:16:13.560 testosterone dominant endocrine system now. I do. 250 00:16:13.560 --> 00:16:16.280 What were the key things you noticed, maybe in terms of your 251 00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:20.680 sexology of yourself and your outlook on life 252 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:25.160 that changed with that flip, if you like, of the oestrogen? 253 00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:29.720 Yeah. I naturally have this masculine 254 00:16:29.720 --> 00:16:33.650 presence and it was so repressed my entire life 255 00:16:33.730 --> 00:16:37.730 because I was trying to be feminine. And so when I 256 00:16:37.730 --> 00:16:41.610 transitioned, there was just such an alignment with the 257 00:16:41.610 --> 00:16:44.970 way that I come to this world and how I interact with other people. And 258 00:16:44.970 --> 00:16:48.450 so testosterone has been amazing for my body. I feel 259 00:16:49.330 --> 00:16:53.250 so good. I used to wake up in the morning, you know, before I transitioned, 260 00:16:53.490 --> 00:16:56.690 I was sluggish. I didn't really want to get dressed. I didn't want to see 261 00:16:56.690 --> 00:16:59.660 myself in the beer. Right. And now 262 00:17:01.020 --> 00:17:04.900 I wake up and I'm like, all right, let's get the day going. And 263 00:17:04.900 --> 00:17:07.780 I look at myself in the mirror and I'm really excited about what I see 264 00:17:07.780 --> 00:17:11.740 because it actually reflects how I feel inside. Yeah, it's, it's been 265 00:17:11.740 --> 00:17:15.540 such a fun journey. Yeah, I, I, I can relate to that completely. For 266 00:17:15.540 --> 00:17:18.860 me, one, 180, the other perspective, you know, it's 267 00:17:20.220 --> 00:17:24.140 turning off the testosterone. Turning on the oestrogen for me 268 00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:28.439 has been incredibly affirming. As you say, you look in the mirror and 269 00:17:28.439 --> 00:17:32.399 you see yourself, you, the shape and everything else 270 00:17:32.399 --> 00:17:36.279 you see in the mirror is you. And it is wonderfully affirming. And also the 271 00:17:36.279 --> 00:17:40.079 way the brain responds to stimulus emotions, the world around 272 00:17:40.079 --> 00:17:43.639 you, it just feels more comfortable now. 273 00:17:43.959 --> 00:17:47.559 And it sounds like that same for you, where the testosterone is 274 00:17:47.559 --> 00:17:50.850 amplifying your inbuilt personality. 275 00:17:51.410 --> 00:17:55.290 As before, I felt like I was out of control. It was like this masculine 276 00:17:55.290 --> 00:17:58.770 figure in my head was driving me down the path. I was going, hang on 277 00:17:58.770 --> 00:18:02.130 a minute, going the wrong way. No. And 278 00:18:02.610 --> 00:18:06.450 have you ever seen the Disney Pixar inside out with the characters in the head? 279 00:18:07.330 --> 00:18:11.290 Yes. I often described the fact I was being driven by the 280 00:18:11.290 --> 00:18:15.290 little red angry person all the time. And then one day they 281 00:18:15.290 --> 00:18:18.410 kidnapped the little red angry person, strapped it to a chair, and then Joy took 282 00:18:18.410 --> 00:18:22.230 over the feminine started running my brain. And then it 283 00:18:22.230 --> 00:18:26.150 all started working absolutely as it should have done. So maybe you've probably got the 284 00:18:26.150 --> 00:18:30.150 opposite. The joy. Joy's still there, but Joy's got a deeper voice 285 00:18:30.150 --> 00:18:33.630 now. That's so true. Yeah. My mood 286 00:18:33.630 --> 00:18:37.430 drastically shifted. You know, three months into starting t, it was 287 00:18:37.430 --> 00:18:41.350 like, wow, this is what I've always wanted. Like, I had this Long desire 288 00:18:41.350 --> 00:18:44.150 to feel this way in my body and now with these 289 00:18:45.360 --> 00:18:49.360 hormones in my body that have shifted, it feels like there's a, there's an 290 00:18:49.360 --> 00:18:52.240 alignment. So you're, you're now working with 291 00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:56.600 individuals, couples, throuples and 292 00:18:56.600 --> 00:19:00.320 every permutation of, of people who want to 293 00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:04.880 develop their own understanding, their own bodies and the pleasure zones. I 294 00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:08.240 guess. What surprises you about, about people 295 00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:13.240 when they come to you? Is there a common theme or there is everybody 296 00:19:13.240 --> 00:19:16.540 different? I mean, I think all of us at some point in time have a 297 00:19:16.690 --> 00:19:20.450 learned to abandon a piece of ourselves and that's a 298 00:19:20.450 --> 00:19:24.330 self protection mechanism. And so what I've noticed in my work with 299 00:19:24.330 --> 00:19:28.170 clients is they might not even realise that they've 300 00:19:28.170 --> 00:19:32.130 abandoned a piece of themselves and that that's what wants to be expressed. 301 00:19:32.690 --> 00:19:36.610 And so I really enjoy like the journey of getting 302 00:19:36.610 --> 00:19:40.530 curious with clients and trying to find how can we gather some more 303 00:19:40.530 --> 00:19:44.400 information about who you want to be, what your desires are, what do you 304 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:48.240 really want? And then that's actually when the transformation 305 00:19:48.320 --> 00:19:52.240 starts with a lot of my clients, they come to me because they have a 306 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:55.400 problem and they don't know how to fix it. And I don't necessarily give them 307 00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:59.200 the answer, but I give them the safe space to explore 308 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:03.320 what might be arising and then how to get what 309 00:20:03.320 --> 00:20:06.920 you want out of that. So that's what I've noticed is like a 310 00:20:06.920 --> 00:20:10.790 commonality with almost all my clients is there's something 311 00:20:10.790 --> 00:20:14.630 that's repressed and they've learned how to find it 312 00:20:14.630 --> 00:20:18.150 in other ways, but it's not necessarily meeting that direct 313 00:20:18.310 --> 00:20:21.910 need. And if I can give them the tools and resources to actually 314 00:20:23.270 --> 00:20:27.270 go out and figure out what that is and then get what they want, 315 00:20:27.750 --> 00:20:31.710 that's when their lifestyle starts to change and they actually enjoy the life. 316 00:20:31.710 --> 00:20:35.440 I noticed on your website when I was looking earlier that you've kind of 317 00:20:35.520 --> 00:20:39.280 coined the phrase erotic blueprint. Yes. 318 00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:44.080 Dive into a bit of that and how that maps out for people. 319 00:20:44.960 --> 00:20:48.960 Yeah. So the Erotic blueprints was actually created by Jaya. She's 320 00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:52.360 one of the top, I don't know, five or six sexologists in the world. She 321 00:20:52.360 --> 00:20:56.320 lives here in Boulder, Colorado and she created a framework that basically helps 322 00:20:56.320 --> 00:21:00.160 people understand how they're naturally wired. So what 323 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:04.120 happens in our society is we're taught this is who you should be, this 324 00:21:04.120 --> 00:21:07.040 is how you should express, express yourself. This is what sex is. 325 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:12.080 But that's only like a fifth of what's actually possible out 326 00:21:12.080 --> 00:21:15.760 there. And so in her framework she has five different types. 327 00:21:15.840 --> 00:21:18.800 She has the energetic, sensual, 328 00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:23.360 sexual, Kinky and Shapeshifter. A 329 00:21:23.360 --> 00:21:27.320 lot of us learn how to be in the sexual and do our life 330 00:21:27.320 --> 00:21:31.080 from the sexual space, but we don't understand that there's four other 331 00:21:31.080 --> 00:21:34.880 places that we could be living our life out of and actually be 332 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:38.800 wired in and actually enjoy. So what 333 00:21:38.800 --> 00:21:42.320 I do is I take her framework and there's a quiz out there that the 334 00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:46.120 listeners can, can take, or I, my clients, I have them take as well. 335 00:21:46.520 --> 00:21:50.280 That kind of gives us an idea of what their blueprint type might be. 336 00:21:50.680 --> 00:21:54.640 And then I teach them about what does it actually look like to live your 337 00:21:54.640 --> 00:21:58.480 life out of what your primary type is, not what the world says. But, 338 00:21:58.550 --> 00:22:02.470 but what are you primarily. How are you primarily wired? And how can you 339 00:22:02.470 --> 00:22:06.310 get the most fulfilment and enjoyment? We're, we're kind of wired 340 00:22:06.950 --> 00:22:10.910 by society to embrace, if you like, 341 00:22:10.910 --> 00:22:14.030 the sex side, aren't we? But the kink side, if you're not in the right 342 00:22:14.030 --> 00:22:18.030 environment with the safe, with safe people. And we find 343 00:22:18.030 --> 00:22:22.030 we may fantasise about it, but it's always that taboo, isn't it? 344 00:22:22.030 --> 00:22:25.440 I've. I met someone recently. Well, I'll say recently, a couple of years ago. 345 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:29.840 And she was a professional lawyer, a top tier lawyer by trade, 346 00:22:29.840 --> 00:22:33.280 by profession, yet she also ran this alternate 347 00:22:33.280 --> 00:22:37.200 Instagram where she was basically kinky. And she used to 348 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:40.960 wear kinky underwear, bondage gear, not to do anything with 349 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:44.400 it, but as a form of expression about her inner self. 350 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:48.480 So she was not selling that. She was just being that 351 00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:53.080 as an empowered, strong woman, she 352 00:22:53.080 --> 00:22:55.680 wants to take control of that side of her kink side. And I think that's 353 00:22:55.680 --> 00:22:58.840 what you're saying. There is you. They can be separate parts of our identity. We 354 00:22:58.840 --> 00:23:01.680 could be kinky without having to enact it, but feel it. 355 00:23:03.520 --> 00:23:07.520 Absolutely. Yeah. And there's a deep shame in kink, in doing 356 00:23:07.520 --> 00:23:11.240 something that's taboo. Right. We're taught that that's not okay. We 357 00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:14.640 can't express that. We can't do that. It's not right. Whatever. 358 00:23:15.280 --> 00:23:19.190 But if you start to embrace that, there's a depth of exploration 359 00:23:19.190 --> 00:23:22.790 that can happen. And actually you can expand 360 00:23:23.030 --> 00:23:26.910 who you are in this world to some extent. We see a 361 00:23:26.910 --> 00:23:30.550 lot more out and open kink within the, maybe the 362 00:23:30.550 --> 00:23:34.510 LGBTQIA communities, because many of us in these 363 00:23:34.510 --> 00:23:38.430 communities have always had to break out of shame. Once you've broken 364 00:23:38.430 --> 00:23:42.350 out of shame, nothing becomes shameful anymore. You actually, who cares? You know, 365 00:23:42.350 --> 00:23:46.150 you've lost that give a fuck almost. You gotta. Which is probably why you see 366 00:23:46.150 --> 00:23:50.080 more free expression in the queer community, but for other 367 00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:53.840 people who are perfectly heterosexual 368 00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:57.920 cisgender. They've never had to cross that shame barrier, have they? 369 00:23:59.360 --> 00:24:03.360 Yeah, they haven't challenged it, they haven't dove into it. Right. 370 00:24:04.320 --> 00:24:08.080 I don't know if you find this, but just the fact we're having this conversation 371 00:24:08.080 --> 00:24:11.680 today, I've got so used to over the last 10 years, 372 00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:16.000 talking about every inner deep, dark secret I've ever had. 373 00:24:16.740 --> 00:24:20.660 I've lost that red line where I won't cross these days. And it's like people 374 00:24:20.660 --> 00:24:24.020 could talk about anything. And I go, I start off the conversation, I won't say 375 00:24:24.020 --> 00:24:26.420 that, I won't say that, I won't say that. And suddenly, before long, we're just 376 00:24:26.420 --> 00:24:29.820 talking about it. And it is a very. And I'm almost watching the other person 377 00:24:29.820 --> 00:24:33.140 going, too much information. And they're almost backtracking. 378 00:24:33.300 --> 00:24:37.300 Joanne's a bit too open to share anything because I don't have the 379 00:24:37.300 --> 00:24:40.660 same inhibitions I had 10 years ago. It's just 380 00:24:41.140 --> 00:24:44.870 because you become desensitised to 381 00:24:44.870 --> 00:24:47.630 those societal barriers in your life. And 382 00:24:48.590 --> 00:24:52.430 I'm assuming that that's what you're helping people do, is break down that 383 00:24:52.750 --> 00:24:56.750 societal barrier and say, it's okay, there's no shame in this 384 00:24:56.750 --> 00:25:00.550 room. We can go here. Yeah. It's 385 00:25:00.550 --> 00:25:04.470 about creating a space of safety. Right. I think a lot of 386 00:25:04.470 --> 00:25:07.750 us, we walk in this world with our fists up, we're like ready for a 387 00:25:07.750 --> 00:25:11.580 fight or ready to defend. But if we can actually create 388 00:25:11.660 --> 00:25:15.420 spaces where we're allowed to have conversation, 389 00:25:15.580 --> 00:25:19.380 we're allowed to bring up some of the deeper, darker places in our lives and 390 00:25:19.380 --> 00:25:22.300 we actually have the ability to be safe with someone. 391 00:25:23.580 --> 00:25:27.460 That's what our nervous system is really desiring. We're 392 00:25:27.460 --> 00:25:30.940 not meant to be inconsistent. Turmoil and 393 00:25:31.020 --> 00:25:34.220 protection mode and knowing everything that's going on in this world, 394 00:25:35.190 --> 00:25:38.950 that's just not how our bodies are designed. No, I think 395 00:25:39.110 --> 00:25:42.830 you're right, it is. Prehistorically, we're built into fight, flight, 396 00:25:42.830 --> 00:25:45.670 freeze mechanisms, we're built into all these protection mechanisms. 397 00:25:46.790 --> 00:25:50.590 But the modern world doesn't have the same threats or has 398 00:25:50.590 --> 00:25:54.350 different threats. They're maybe not physical threats, they're not going to be 399 00:25:54.350 --> 00:25:58.190 eaten by something threats or poisoned or starved. We 400 00:25:58.190 --> 00:26:02.120 have comfort blanket around us, but we've 401 00:26:02.120 --> 00:26:05.920