From My Bowl Full Of Jelly To Yours, With Love.

Oh, the holiday ten. 

The holiday ten is the much-loathed and dreadfully feared ten pounds that we tend to gain around the holidays. There are thousands of articles out there telling you how to avoid the holiday ten and how to “survive” parties without going overboard.  This is not one of those articles.  This article is going to share with you some tips on how to (reader beware) enjoy your inevitable indulgences, and clear out the some of guilt that may be standing in the way of you taking as much pleasure as possible from this time of year.

Let’s start by making one thing clear. There are two types of holiday indulgences: joy driven ones, and stress driven ones.  An example of a joy driven indulgence would be the other night when I consumed a downright nauseating amount of eggnog while laughing it up around a fireplace with my best friends.  The eggnog made me feel festive and I was in full acceptance of the bellyache that ensued afterwards.  It was well worth it. This is much different than year I snuck a bottle of reddi-whip into the bathroom because my family was stressing me out. I ran the water so that no one would hear me squirting it into my mouth with a speed and efficiency that would only have been rivaled by being hooked up to an IV.

Ahh, memories. 

The antidote to guilt when it comes to indulgence is to slow down and enjoy.  But if you are having a reddi-whip moment and you are anything like me, you may be prone to spontaneously bitch slap the idiot who tells you to ‘slow down’. Slowing down means feeling and often that is the exact thing reddi-whip moments are allowing us not to do. 

First of all, I still love you and think you are awesome no matter what kind of reddi-whip, cookie, biscuit, champagne overdose’s you may have experienced this month.  So if you choose not to slow down, no biggie. There are no points lost.  I've been there and I will be there again myself.  What I do want to offer you is a game that I play that makes slowing down entertaining and fun, rather that punitive.  Or, if you are already slowed down and simply want to enjoy on a deeper level, will give you a whole new dimension of enjoyment. 

It is a game of traveling the world through the senses. It gives savoring a purpose, and if you let it, it can take you on the ride of your life. 

I played this game recently on Sensual Sunday, a weekly date I have with Vivi La Voix, where we go on sensual adventures throughout the city to constantly up our seduction game.  This week we went to a restaurant that specializes in chocolate and wine pairings.  As we slowly wove our way through five different truffles that were elegantly displayed on the husk of a giant cocoa bean (which we promptly threw in our purses to bring home to our altars) we closed our eyes and went on a journey. 

The first truffle we tried was pomegranate and dark chocolate.  Oh my heavens.  Letting this masterpiece melt on our tongues, we both agreed, was like slipping into bed under the softest hot pink sheets under big, warm, fluffy dark brown duvet for a long winter’s nap.

Hand baked by Vivi La Voix.
Photo Beth Mayesh

The next bundle of joy was a cluster of hazelnut and milk chocolate.  As I bit into this slice of heaven I could feel the fierce heat of a fireplace warming my skin as I sat next to it.  For Vivi, she also felt the warmth of a fire, but in her vision, the fire was inside waiting for her as she felt cold nip her cheeks and the crunch of snow fill her mouth after biting into a firmly packed snowball.

On to the mango with paprika and white chocolate.  As I let these exotic flavors penetrate me I could feel myself swaying side to side in a howdah (carriage) on the back of an elephant.  I saw gorgeous silks inside the carriage, feeling the dust around me as my entourage made it's way across a sandy plain.  (Note: howdahs are extremely inhumane, so I am not endorsing them. I digress.)  For Vivi, she felt the caress of an ivory silk garment woven with golden threads and saffron tassels, all being illuminated by a late afternoon sun. 

Finally, the orange peel with dark chocolate.  There was an effervescence to this one, almost a bubbling.  This took us to a fizzing hot tub filled with orange slices and cocoa beans being tossed about around us, giving fragrance to the steam that rose into a chilly December night.

The one that I did not mention was Pistachio and Rose Hip.  We didn’t really like it that much, it didn’t take us anywhere. :)

If you are someone for whom this resonates, good.  If this is making no sense to you at all, that’s also good.  Because the senses don’t actually make “sense”.  What they make is sensation.  

So my invitation to you this holiday as you bite into, let’s say, a mushroom tart, is to see if as you allow that mushroom to dance across your taste buds, you might simultaneously feel soil underneath your fingernails from digging your hands into the earth to retrieve it.  Or maybe you taste the brine of a Wellfleet oyster as the mushroom’s slippery texture slides across your tongue.  Perhaps the flaky, fluffy texture of the tart itself brings visions of being in Paris on a warm spring morning, enjoying a croissant as you stroll through the Tuileries. 

Whatever happens when you embark on your journey, the only rule is to not take it too seriously.  It’s just a game.  It can be played with any of the senses.  Myself, I keep a journal of these joyrides and it's fun to look back at them" "When having my belly massaged, it feels like biting into fresh baked bread.  When smelling the inside of a cookie jar, I can feel the tight squeeze of my Aunt Cathy’s hugs.  When having an orgasm, I feel like a flower that has been filmed through it’s entire unfolding but the film has been sped up to display the whole process in a total of 15 seconds”.

Just some musings from my diary. 

I wish you the most blessed, delicious, light filled holiday this year.  If you wish to send me a note with your sensual discoveries, please do not hesitate.  There are few things that would delight me more.

I am so grateful for you.

Let the games begin!

Kitty

PS - Ever wonder what the difference is between Seduction and Sex? Or how you can use seduction to have your way outside the bedroom as well?  Join me for a free tele-class January 2nd at 8pm ET.  (If you are too busy having a seduction adventure at that time, the call will be recorded and signing up will get you access to the recording.)  

Where Hunger Ends And Life Begins

Enjoying my morning apple

Recently I was watching a certain doctor on daytime TV, not by choice.  It was playing in the waiting room that I was…well, waiting in.  The topic of the show was how to reduce belly fat.  There was a grandiose demonstration of what happens when we pour things like soda, fried chicken, coffee, M&M’s and the like down our gullets.  They had a giant mock belly onstage that inflated as each item went in.  “Now, would you like to hear the solution??” the Doctor shouted like a preacher at a revival.  “YEAH!” the audience cheered.

At this point, even I was on the edge of my seat. Being a woman who has a magnificently round belly, this got my attention.  Number one, because anytime there are messages going out to womankind about their bodies I’m intrigued at what the message really is.  Number two, well, I hate to admit it girls, but I have to really work at loving my belly.  As the body love queen this is a soft spot for me.  When I look in the mirror I still have to do real mental and physical work to generate feelings of love towards my belly, rather than the knee jerk feeling of hatred I have been taught by the culture. 

So, back to the set.  The solution everyone!! Hallelujah! I would like to say I was shocked by what was revealed, but I was not.  The solution included three things: eat fennel seeds to reduce bloating, drink slippery elm tea to stimulate better bowel movements, and a bunch of other poppycock that involves spending more money on more things that don’t actually address the problem.

What is the problem? At face value, we might think it is the soda and fried chicken.  Just replace those things with kale and carrots, right? Then you won’t have a fat, bloated belly.  But it is not that simple friend.  I seriously doubt there is a single adult in this country that does not already know that carrots will make your tummy less bloated than fried chicken.  We have so much knowledge about health nutrition that we are literally drowning in it.  The fried chicken is not the problem. The problem lies in what causes us to choose the fried chicken in the first place.

My husband is very passionate about food and politics.  I have learned so much from him about why we eat what we eat from a socio-economic and political standpoint.  There are so many forces at play that many of us don’t even know about.  I won’t try to address them all in this blog. What I will share is the resources that have helped me to weed out my truth around, food, eating, and hunger.

 

At the end of the day, there is some truth to every nutritional concept and theory out there.  But the only way I think a person can really get to health is by trusting the voices inside, instead of the voices outside.  The voices outside can provide guidance and wisdom, but it is our bodies that know what’s up.  I hope these resources are helpful for you. Please know that trusting your cravings - the ones that go beyond your taste buds straight to that which will nourish and satiate your soul - in my experience this is where hunger ends and life can begin.

Books

• Fat Is A Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach - a must read to discover what really drives you to pick up food, even when you think you don't want to
• Women Food and God by Geneen Roth - I love all of Geneen's work, but this one I find to be truly a masterpiece when it comes to intuitive eating
• Eating In The Light of the Moon by Dr. Anita Johnston - this book changed everything for me with regards to listening to my hunger, and understanding what drives it. There is not a line that has gone un-highlighted by me in the entire book!  I read from it all the time.  This one is truly a winner.
• Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet - don't be scared off by the diet part.  This book is really about taking on a lifestyle that is rooted in self love, living life as you want to live it, and letting your health practices be a reflection of that. 

Movement

Qoya is a movement class founded by Rochelle Schieck that has completely and utterly changed my relationship to exercise, my body, and my life.  Qoya is based on the idea that through movement, we remember - we remember that as women, our essence is inherently wise, wild and free.  Do you ever have moments in your day where you forget that? I do. Qoya draws from the wisdom of yoga, the wildness of creative dance, and the freedom of sensual movement.  The whole point of Qoya: feeling pleasure.  It’s not about feeling the burn, though you do.  It’s not about toning up, though you will.   It’s about listening to your body, rather than telling it what to do. We dance to playlists that take you from the ocean caves of a desert island to the Lower East Side of NYC, up to the clouds of heaven and back down to the dance floor of Soul Train, all at the same time.  The music is as much of a teacher in Qoya than the actual human teacher.

When I dance Qoya, I close my eyes and it is like going to Disneyworld within my very own skin. It is the deepest state of meditation I can imagine.  My head lets go, my body takes over, and I receive deep insights through just feeling, rather than thinking things through. In Qoya we dance it all: our love, our loss, our understanding, our confusion, our gratitude, our frustrations, our ecstasy, our devastation…everything.  All of it is left on the sacred dance floor and blends into the most beautiful mosaic that grounds us into our power as women, our intuition, and brings us a deep state of bliss.  To dance Qoya right now, go to www.embodyqoya.com.  You can also come to my Qoya class every Tuesday from 7-8pm at The Yoga Collective, 135 W.29^th Street between 6^th and 7^th Avenues in NYC.

Programs

Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts is a place that teaches women about using the power of pleasure to have their way with the world.  My life has been profoundly changed by this work, specifically when it comes to realizing what my true hungers are, and going for what it takes to satisfy them.  www.mamagenas.com  

I would love to hear some of your favorite resources in the comments below. Wishing you a happy, peaceful and pleasure filled Thanksgiving.

PS - If deciding what you truly want on your plate, in your life, in your relationships, etc. is something you would like to delve into, there are three spots left in Seduction Is A Spiritual Practice, November 30 & December 1st.  Seduction is all about listening to yourself, and acting on that information. This is the last time I will be teaching this class for a few months.  Grab your spot now, I would love to have you. 

How I lost 30 pounds...(you asked, and it's not what you think)

Thank you all so much for your feedback and responses to my recent blog "I lost 30 pounds...Oh No"! It has been a big leap of faith to live my relationship with my body so transparently and I thank you for all your support. Many of you have asked me, “So...how’d ya do it?”.  Here's the story:

• I went to Costa Rica and became a certified Qoya teacher. I now teach Qoya every Tuesday. Qoya has completely revolutionized my relationship to my body and exercise. Because of that, I now look forward to exercising like I look forward to a massage.
• I read Kris Carr's Crazy, Sexy, Diet, really jived with her philosophy, and have started eating a ton more whole foods, raw veggies, and drinking green juice.
• I really upped the ante of love and passion in my life, my marriage, my friendships and my career. Like, REALLY upped the ante.
• I'm working with an amazing therapist, which has led to more truth telling, and less smiling while flipping the bird under the table.

The list goes on and on. My point is, none of the things on this list, nor the weight loss itself, would ever have transpired without one thing.

Prescription Drugs. :)

Not what you were expecting to hear? Me either. Here’s the story.

My whole life I have experienced moderate to severe depression  (I know, who hasn’t?).  The last few years it got more severe as it began to be served alongside a hearty serving of nighttime anxiety, which led to intense insomnia. Pretty much everyone knows what it feels like to be depressed, but this was depression resulting in an average of 4-6 hours of sleep every night for a good three years.  I would sometimes catch up on weekends, but most of the time I walked around in a state of bitchiness at best, what-the-fuck-is-the-point of-even-living at worst. It was like I had forgotten how to sleep.

Sleep is an essential bodily function, like being able to pee.  Imagine if you just somehow forgot how to pee. The thing about sleep though, is you can survive without it, unlike being unable to pee.  So for a good two to three years I would chase my tail each day and night, lying awake, praying for sleep.  I’d wake up a few hours later in an absolute panic that I hadn’t slept, terrified that I wouldn’t be able to sleep again that night, and the cycle would repeat. This fear would paralyze me throughout the day, and the lack of sleep made me an absolute grouch, anti-social, and opened the door for severe depression.

I tried everything I could think of. Therapy. A new king size bed.  Quitting my corporate job that stressed me out so much.  Rescue Remedy.  Gemstones under the pillow.  All of these things would help temporarily, but each time it was like getting a taste of my tail only to have it slip through my teeth once more, when I’d find myself wide eyed and awake at 2am yet again.  

Now, you might be thinking, “girl, go to the doctor!” I wasn’t raised by hippies, but I do seem to have this gene that leads me to believe I should be able to fix everything with my mind and behaviors (or at least by taking some herbs).  If I just started eating right, exercising each morning, taking the right supplements, meditating, doing the things I really wanted to be doing with my time,  took a watercolors class, did a cleanse at an Arizona spa...I’d be able to work it all out.

Thank God for my husband.  Imagine this poor guy having to deal with a cracked-out insomniac, clinging to her gemstones and chamomile tea as he gently nudged me for two solid years in the direction of getting medical help.  

Sleep aids? I think not.

Antidepressants? Oh no, I am not letting the pharmaceutical companies catch me like a fly in their spider web.

Seeing a psychiatrist to examine my family’s history of depression and mental illness? And then take some magic pill to make it all go away? No thank you.

Wait a minute.  What if there was a magic pill that could make this all go away? Not exactly make it all go away, but at least get me sleeping again. If I could sleep maybe I would have the energy to do something other than barely survive.   And what if there is something going on in my body where I was not getting enough serotonin or whatever.  I mean, even my therapist told me it is not normal to wake up every morning with a feeling of absolute dread.

So finally, I surrendered to the experiment.  I moved the gemstones to a pretty bowl on my nightstand and I went to see a psychiatrist.  After a two hour evaluation, his response was basically, “How has it taken you this long to come see a psychiatrist?” He gave me some Prozac and Klonopin and told me to come back in a month. I figured, let’s give this a go for a year or so, and see what happens.  It can’t get any worse.

That was about six months ago.  I’m happy to say, the experiment is working. I sleep like a dream now. But not a drugged-out, “Can’t sleep without me pills!” sleep.  I am back in the pattern of going to bed, reading or watching Downton Abbey repeats, and just nodding off.  I wake up refreshed and ready.  This morning I have already practiced my Qoya routine for tonight’s class, made lunch for this afternoon, and a green juice for later.  I’ve dressed cute for the day, and I gave myself the luxury of 30 minutes of writing instead of 30 minutes of Facebook.  Because I am rested I now have the energy now to do all the things I described in the bullet points above which, yes, led to my eventual weight loss.

Now, let me make one thing VERY CLEAR.  This is not an ad for prescription drugs. I am not saying that everyone should go get some Prozac and in turn we’d create world peace.  It is simply a transparent account of my journey with my health.  And how interestingly, the thing we resist the strongest, even if that thing might be the easiest way out, is often the very thing that will create real, lasting change. Again, I’m not saying it takes the pharmaceutical industry to create lasting change.  I’m simply saying that this step, which I resisted for so long, is the one thing that has finally worked.    

There will come a day when I’m ready to stop taking these drugs, and I will probably resist that for way longer than I need to as well.  But this has been a powerful learning experience: the thing you think is the last thing you need is at least worth a try.  

I know this is a charged topic.  And I want to hear from you.  What has been your experience with making big life changes you resisted for a long time, and what finally worked? Leave me a comment below.

There are two more chapters coming on this topic. The next is how you can use the art of seduction to make those big life changes with ease and grace.  But that one my doves, you will have to wait for. Unless you want to jump right in with me in September's Seduction Is A Spiritual Practice.

I lost 30 pounds...Oh No!

I definitely used to "Mousercise" with Mickey
Mouse Clubhouse.  If only I could find that photo.

So.  Recently, I lost 30 pounds.

I remember sitting in front of the mirror at 17, pinching my belly, rounding my spine as much as possible to get my belly to look like Jabba the Hut, praying that I would be struck with enough self hatred to lead to an “ah ha!” moment. One that would make me say “enough is enough” and result in me losing 30 pounds like those lucky bitches I read about every month in Self magazine. When I was 17, and I saw my precious teenage body changing and growing beyond my control, I decided that 170 was the weight that I would start seriously considering suicide.  I got up to about 170 at age 18, and then dipped down to 150 after a summer of, well, drugs.  For me, at any point in my life, a significant weight loss can be a big deal.

After my teen years, I went deep down into how I felt about and treated my body.  I did A LOT of inner work to change how I felt about my curves. I did have a miraculous transformation, but I didn’t lose a single pound.  What changed was my belief about beauty, bodies, being a woman, everything.  One of the results of this work was becoming a burlesque performer.  As a woman with a curvaceous, voluptuous body, burlesque taught me that it is not the flat stomach or the perky boobs that make a woman.  It is her smile, her light, and how much she loves herself that will determine how the audience, and the world, feels about her. This was a huge lesson for me that spilled over into every area of my life.  

As I was performing and teaching my burlesque/seduction classes,  my weight vacillated between 165 and 175.  I was fine with that, and my students loved it.  They loved my body.  They loved to watch me dance and perform and seduce.  I didn’t have the “perfect” body, but I sure as hell didn’t care, and that opened up the possibility for them to not care either.  Many women told me how watching me perform profoundly changed how they felt about their own bodies.  Once, after performing at a dear friend’s engagement party, an icon from the fashion world came up to me and said “Kitty, your body makes me want to gain weight”. Wow, I thought.  My body is powerful.

So, after making some changes in my self care over the last few months, imagine my surprise when I hopped on the scale at the doctor’s office and the nurse reported in a blase tone “151”.  
What?  Check again. That’s not possible. How could I have lost 25 pounds? I knew my clothes felt smaller, but Jesus! For a girl who used to weigh herself before and after a poop just for the satisfaction of seeing the ounces go down, this was going to take some adjusting.

The most shocking thing is, after a lifetime of weight loss being a holy grail, my first reaction was to hearing that number was “Oh NO!” Who am I without my total voluptuousness?  My body is my edge.  I mean, who is going to trust a girl that promotes body adoration if she herself doesn’t have a belly paunch? And what about my acts? I will no longer be making a political statement with my body, I’ll look like I’m just doing it to look pretty! And what about when I meet people and tell them what I do? With fat on my body I felt protected.  Like, “yes I teach seduction and striptease to empower women, you got a problem with that?” Without that protection I felt like I would be judged as slutty, vapid, without substance.  Just another skinny girl trying to make women conform to what the culture says their body should look like.

Then I heard a voice (inside my head): “Hey cutie! Knock, Knock! Who’s thinking these things? Them, or YOU?” It’s kind of funny and really humbling when you realize that after dedicating your life to women loving their bodies, you actually judge the living hell out of women with bodies that look more like the culture’s feminine ideal.

So this is my next life lesson.  Learning to love my body at any weight.  Even a lower one.  Of course I enjoy feeling more comfortable in my clothes, feeling lighter and stronger and more connected to my body.  But what I am working on right now is that I do not need my body to speak for me.  My body is going to change and evolve with me throughout my whole life. I have a voice.   I have a life I am living.  I have thoughts, dreams and opinions to share. So as I go on being myself, let’s just let her be herself too.

You also have a voice,  thoughts, and  opinions, and I would love to hear them.  Leave me a comment on loving bodies of all sizes, your experiences with changes in weight, or anything you
would like to share with me in the comments below.  

And, if body love, body worship and body adoration is something you could use a leg-up with, join me for Seduction Is A Spiritual Practice, September 14th and 15th.