Episode 76 - WITH MY BODY, I THEE WORSHIP with Francesca Gentille

Transcript

Francesca Gentille: Welcome to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You the Soul of Sex.

Francesca Gentille: I am Francesca Gentille, usually your host, but with me today is Dr. Linda Savage, and Linda is a licensed psychologist a sex certified sex educator and author of the fabulous book Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality. Linda is giving me the pleasure and privilege of interviewing me today, and welcome Linda.

Dr. Linda Savage: Thank you. Alright, I have some great questions for you, and having read your marvelous chapter in The Marriage of Sex and Spirit, its definitely inspired me to think of all the wonderful things I want to ask. So lets start with the title of your chapter, which is With My Body, I Thee Worship, which turns out to be part of the marriage vows in Great Britain.

Francesca Gentille: I, when I discovered that I was so delighted because it’s been my belief, and since then my finding, that around the world and throughout time, practices of sacred sexuality have been in existence. So for our listening audience I would say wherever you live in the world, whatever ethnic background you’re from or religious tradition you’re apart of, there are archeological shards and little bits and pieces of sacred sexuality that can be found within that. And in Britain it was, that little piece was left over in the marriage ceremony. And if we think about “With My Body I thee Worship”, you know, I promise to be wedded to you and faithful to you, but now I’m going to worship you with my body. That brings the way that we connect body to body to a whole, a whole other level. And it’s that level that this show is all about, is how do we have sex be more than two bodies coming together, how does sexuality become a unifying force, a healing force, and even a pathway to the divine? And there it is, right there, still in England today, and absolutely can be found in other traditions.

Dr. Linda Savage: And in some traditions it’s even called sex magic.

Francesca Gentille: Mm hmm, absolutely. So in some traditions, in some of the more indigenous or shamanic traditions that might exist in the world today, the movement in many parts of the world of what’s called Neo Paganism. So for those of us who come from a, a middle Eastern or European genetic lineage, the tradition of honoring the earth and honoring the cycles of the seasons and seeing the divine imminent or present in nature and in the body, that’s a broken tradition. So after about, you know, couple hundred years of the Crusades and about three hundred years of the Inquisition, whole villages were killed and whole families were killed that had any knowledge of, you know, how to use herbs in a healing way, how to work with the energy of the moon, how to work with the energy of the body, and in Asia, you know, the root of Daoist medicine, of Asian medicine, of Iervata, those roots still include spirituality, so they’re treating, they’re treating us as human beings, heart, body, mind and spirit, the energy is absolutely treated and looked at where the energy’s out of balance, where spiritual connection is out of balance, where (unintelligible) with the earth, how it can come into union. But in the West, in the Middle Eastern and Europe, as the, you know, in the struggles of the institution of the church, and I just when to say that I think the heart of Christianity is gorgeous, but in some of the institutions of the church, you know, when it becomes a business in a way…

Dr. Linda Savage: Mm hmm, mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: And it’s, and it’s, the goal of a business is to expand and to become more successful of the business, when that was starting to happen there eventually became this agreement the what would become our modern day medical profession and the church or the people that were in charge of spirit, is that there was a split. So before that, no split. So before about the nine hundred, a thousand, eleven hundred, the same person who would treat the body would be the same person who also would be looking at the soul and the spirit. After about the eleven hundreds and, you know, for the next four or five hundred years this split gets wider and wider, where the church says anything that has to do with the spirit belongs to the church, anything that has to do with the body as a mechanistic, you know, piece of equipment can belong to doctors, and then that becomes the root of our Western medical practice that’s just now, just now, you know, in the last like twenty years, beginning to bring back this sense of the mind/body connection, the sense of the spirit/body connection. And so when we talk about Neo Pagan, we’re talking about people in the present day that are looking into our more ancient lineage, our more shamanic lineage…

Dr. Linda Savage: Right, grass roots, yeah.

Francesca Gentille: And saying, we want to, we want to be informed by this, by this sacred history and create newly, so we’re creating something that’s Neo Pagan, and the root of Pagan actually means, you know, and heathen is of the country. It’s not, it doesn’t mean devilish or anything like that….

Dr. Linda Savage: That’s right.

Francesca Gentille: It just means closer to the earth.

Dr. Linda Savage: Well it seems to me the last piece to be integrated is certainly in our western world, and I think in any culture where the goddess is sort of submerged is sexuality. I mean we’re now starting to talk about holistic medicine, alternative health, but I’ll tell you, occasionally when I’m asked to talk about sexuality and alternative health, people are uncomfortable. That’s the last split, the last thing that isn’t quite getting integrated, so… So tell me how you see that being integrated.

Francesca Gentille: Well it’s almost as if we’re, our cultures are coming down the body, you know…

Dr. Linda Savage: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: Originally, originally we had, you know, that spirit, you know, the body was bad and spirit was good and we were just waiting until the body was done…

Dr. Linda Savage: That’s right.

Francesca Gentille: so that we could return to spirit….

Dr. Linda Savage: Supposed to suffer on this earth and then things get better in heaven, right.

Francesca Gentille: Exactly. And then we had the age of reason, you know, and that kind of, the seventeen hundreds and even in the Renessaince, where we start to elevate the mind, so the mind becomes something that is good and reasonable and that has logic and philosophy and, you know, that even goes back to the Greeks, that sense of the mind is good. But there was still this sense of the body as suspect, and the emotions are really dangerous, don’t even go there.

Dr. Linda Savage: Right, right, right.

Francesca Gentille: And so then, you know, little by little over these centuries it’s like we’re coming down out of the body, so the mind now is good, the, you know, or can be good…

Dr. Linda Savage: The heart is getting pretty darn good.

Francesca Gentille: And then the heart is good, so the mind, you know, we discern between the, I call the tools of the mind and the traps of the mind. And the tools of the mind are vision, are planning, are analysis; these are all the kind of the tools of the mind, philosophy, all the tools of the mind, reason… And the traps of the mind are things like worry, anxiety, judgmentalism, criticism and complaint. These are the traps of the mind. And there’re many techniques that our world is getting so strong in about creating this sense of discernment. And then we have the heart, and more and more there’s practices like non-violent communication and some of the heart opening meditation, that we start to honor the ancient wisdom of the heart. And the 47,000 synaptic neurons that are in the heart and the ancient beliefs…

 

Dr. Linda Savage: That’s right.

Francesca Gentille: that, you know, that wisdom was actually in the heart, not the head, so we start to have this, the heart is also, the energetic wisdom of the heart is important. And then we’re coming down even further into our gut. So then we start to honor our gut truth, and there’s also thousands of synaptic neurons in the gut; our gut wisdom, our gut instinct, our gut truth. We start to honor that. And then like you said, if we come down the body then that last, that last hold, our genitals. And, you know, I mention in my chapter that we have the genital soul. We sometimes talk about the body soul…

Dr. Linda Savage: Yes, I found that really interesting.
Francesca Gentille: And then we start, you know, I started to look at it and I said, well, you know, if my vulva could speak, if your falice could speak for a male listeners, and I actually was blessed by taking some workshops where I was in a room full of 26 women, and we got up in the front of the room and we had a mirror in front of our vulva and we sat with our legs spread and we were literally asked, “If your vulva could speak, what would she say?”, and I was even shocked. I didn’t know until that moment…

Dr. Linda Savage: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: I did not know what…

Dr. Linda Savage: How to speak with your vulva.

Francesca Gentille: what my vulva would speak. And once again there’s this link between where the modern world is finally going to or moving into and the path, because in the path, in the ancient path, one of the first goddesses was the vulva. There’s all, you know, 20,000 years ago these symbols the vulva…

Dr. Linda Savage: Absolutely.

Francesca Gentille: And the, you know, in Greece there is a goddess called Baubo, b-a-u-b-o….

Dr. Linda Savage: Yeah, I love her.

Francesca Gentille: And she is, she is the pudenda, she is the vulva that speaks and that has a deep wisdom, and she was brought in to the Greek pantheon as just a goddess that you couldn’t step over. You couldn’t step over the vulva, you had to bring that energy in. And in some Latin traditions, there’s actually a phrase for a woman who speaks from her vulva, you know, so there’s, you know, and it’s like that deep, deep truth…

Dr. Linda Savage: Wow, I never knew that.

Francesca Gentille: That truth that is on behalf of the earth. The truth that is on behalf of life and the earth is our genital truth, when we really get down there. It’s primal, and yet it’s also on behalf of life itself. And there’s a way that we have stepped over that, but for our listening audience, you know, in a moment when we come back from a break, I’m going to invite us, or even during break, to begin to breathe down, all the way down into our genitals and to listen, if they could speak right now what might they say. And we’ll, we’ll check into that again after a break and a word from our fabulous sponsors, who we invite you to support. And in supporting our sponsors you help shows like this continue to exist in the world. And we’ll be right back.

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You the Soul of Sex, with my guest host Linda Savage, a sex certified sex educator, psychologist, author of Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality, asking me delicious questions. So what’s the next question?

Dr. Linda Savage: Okay, well we had the breathing into our vulvas, our genitals for the men, and the question I have is what did yours say to you?

Francesca Gentille: Well, you know, even now as I’m (unintelligible) my vulva’s a little tingly and she’s, it’s almost like she’s saying to me, you know, “Can we go out and play? Can you take some time for, for life and for joy?”, and when I did it the first time, my vulva said she was a team player, and that’s not to say she wanted an orgy in her life. What she was saying is, my vulva is very connected to my breasts and my belly and my lips and my hair, and my vulva really likes it when I’m engaged in the sensual world. She, that’s, she’s very happy making for that girl.

Dr. Linda Savage: Yes. Well mine said, “I really love this idea of being worshipped.” I’m like, “Okay, come and worship me.”

Francesca Gentille: I have a beautiful picture in my mind right now with that. It works for me.

Dr. Linda Savage: Yeah, me too. Okay, so what I love about this is that this brings hope to so many people, particularly couples who’ve been together a long time. I hope that couples who are new, younger, in courtship stage can also tap into this because they’ve got this wonderful yummy energy going on of the, you know, intense being in love. But what I am interested in, because I do work with people who’ve come to a place where they feel they’re so far from this concept of, you know, it’s sacred and sexuality’s just this amazing enhancing, life enhancing thing. They’ve either sort of turned into this is a rote thing I do, I sort of plug in, have an orgasm and it’s really boring to me, or for many women and some men, I don’t even like this, I’m sort of shut down. So what can we do with, when we’re kind of far from that wonderful sacred place?

Francesca Gentille: I just want to take a moment to breathe that in, that we can lose that. We can absolutely lost it or feel like we never found it. That we are not enjoying a sense of our (unintelligible) itself. You know, we’re not enjoying our bodies, we’re not enjoying our genitals all that much, maybe we get off a little now and then. Or we’re not even interested in….

Dr. Linda Savage: Or we’re going through performance anxiety, you know, something like that.

Francesca Gentille: Right. Or we’re not even interested, you know, in, sometimes we lose desire all together. So if, I’m going to say it from two directions; one direction is, you know, any of our listening audience that might feel that they themselves have lost that. So, you know, if I say it for myself, I’m the one that’s lost my desire and I feel very suppressed or disconnected or, you know, this stuff is almost oogy, you know, I wish it were done, is that I’m listening to the show. To me that says a part of me is wanting to find it or reclaim it. And so I just want to honor that part that’s saying, “I do want it. I almost don’t have hope, but I do want it.” And I want to invite our listening audience, there is hope, you know, I’ve had trauma in my life, I’ve lost that desire at times myself. And, you know, one time it was because of aging, so I really do encourage people to be tested if they can be on some of their hormonal levels and, you know, on some of their vitamin levels, and just shifting that brought back a sense of desire. One time it was after, you know, a baby, and that can really change hormones and I just wasn’t getting enough sleep, you know, to almost be in my body. So sometimes if we’re lacking sleep or under a lot of stress it’s normal, it’s normal to lose it at times. So we want to, we just want to breathe that in, that there are times where a natural response to stress or anxiety or even feeling hurt by someone is to have, to have that loss. And then what we want to say is that if we’re, if we’re dealing with that, rebuilding trust, balancing our hormones, you know, re-healing from the past, and we still feel a sense of disconnection, this path is a sacred… I always recommend, and I’ve done this myself, is at least a weekly practice of slowly, slowly caressing, I’m doing it now at my kitchen table, I have on leg up on my kitchen table, is just, and I’m starting down at my ankle, is to slowly caress, I’m up to my knee, now I’m up, you know, about mid thigh, now I’m up to my hips, to slow, and now I’m going back down to my ankle, to slowly caress the body in long slow strokes. What does this do? It releases Oxytocin. So I’m going to start feeling a yummy nurturing feeling in my body. It connects me to my body. It awakens my body. You know, often if I’ve experienced trauma, if our listening audience is experiencing, you know, upset, trauma, job loss, grieving, you know, hormonal, child, whatever, I’m, I’ve actually disconnected from my own body. So before I can share it with you darling, beloved, delicious one, I’m really going to need to get it for me. Now that’s if I’m, if I’m the one that’s recognizing I’m disconnected and I’m listening to this show, I can start to evoke that sacred lover in me. I want to light candles, I want to put on beautiful music, and I want to, I always believe in starting with blessing my body. Thank you for being my body. Even if I feel like I’m ugly or I’m blahh, you know, I can just say thanks, thank you, thanks for being here…

Dr. Linda Savage: That’s so important. That is so important, yeah.

Francesca Gentille: And, and as I do this, I start to be back in my body. I want to relax the jaw and the belly. For our listening audience, right now if I were to say, you know, “Okay, everybody tighten your jaw and tighten your belly and try to breathe”, you know, it’s really hard. And then if I say, “Relax the jaw, wiggle that around. Relax the belly, put your hand there. And breathe”, immediately there’s a difference. Immediately there’s a difference. So I invite myself when I’m engaged in sensuality, sexuality, I’ll just say, can I, you know, can, you know, have I relaxed my jaw, have I relaxed my belly? I’ll take a nice deep breath. And often feeling will return to my genitals at that point. Often I’ll return to my body. So that’s if I’m wanting to bring that to myself. And at least once a week, I’d say at least fifteen to twenty minutes, really take some time with caressing the whole body and slowly building a sense of arousal, if I’m the one that’s wanting to evoke the sacred lover in myself or, you know, turn up my erotic fires. Now lets say I feel pretty good. You know, I’m good. I’m the person listening to this show, I feel pretty good, I feel like my erotic nature is fairly vibrant and juicy. But I really feel like my beloved, my poor beloved is checked out. You know, they’re checked out; they’re not in their body, maybe they’ve lost desire, maybe desire is almost like flickering. Like I start to make love to them and it seems to be going good, and then they pull away and…

Dr. Linda Savage: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: it’s very confusing. And I can, you know, sometimes even feel that in the relationship. Now what I want to, this is a great phrase… There’s two magical phrases I’m going to give our listening audience around working with our partners. One is I want to take the pressure off my partner. I don’t, imagine I go to my partner and I say, “You know honey, I think you’re really shut down, and, you know, I’m trying to, you know, reach out to you here and you keep pulling away. I think you’ve got issues, and I want to help you.” So imagine that that’s one way that we could say that to someone, and we just want to breathe in what the possible outcome might be. And then imagine that there’s a different way, and it goes like this: “Sweetheart, I am noticing for myself that there’s, I want to deepen my own sensual experience of life in the world. I want to expand my own sense of pleasure, and you’re like the most precious person in the world to me. Would you be willing to collaborate with me? You know, kind of help me figure out more about my own body? Would you be willing to kind of experiment with me, so I can learn more about my own pleasure, and so that I can share that more fully with you? Would you, would you be willing?” Mostly our partners going to say yes if the pressures not on them.

Dr. Linda Savage: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: I’m asking them to help me. Now at some point I could certainly say, “If you’d like, I’m also happy to, you know, help, you know, support you. If you want to expand your pleasure, if you want to discover more about your body, I’m happy to be there for you.” But usually I want to start with taking the ownership myself because it gives my partner space and, you know, there’s always more. I mean, you and I have been exploring these realms for years, and I mean…

Dr. Linda Savage: Many, many.

Francesca Gentille: I’m still learning. I’m still learning about my body, I’m still learning what pleases me, so it’s always authentic to say I want to learn more. And then the other thing that I want to say to my partner is, “I want to share something intimate with you. Would you be, you know, can I share something kind of intimate with you?” That’s the point where I can say, maybe I don’t, I don’t like, you know, if I’m, if I’m a woman I might say, “You know, I, I’m not sure I really feel good or fully connected to my vulva, and I’d love some of your support and some of your, you know, just, you know, maybe cupping my vulva and breathing, and while you look into my eyes, maybe telling me what you, what you love about my vulva. You know, would you be willing to do that?” If I’m a man, you know, if a man says, “You know, I have something really kind of tender and intimate to share with you Francesca, and you know, our culturing is kind of wounding around, around the cock, around the penis for men. And, you know, sometimes as women you don’t know that, but it really, it is. We get a lot of conflicted messages. You know, it hangs out, very vulnerable, and you know, I, would you be willing to just take a couple minutes and just, you know, let me know what you love about my penis.”

Dr. Linda Savage: That’s wonderful.

Francesca Gentille: You know, and it’s just such a beautiful, that’s part of the adoring. You know, adoring the genitals…

Dr. Linda Savage: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: And, and it’s not about, you know, sometimes if a man says, “Hey baby, give me a blowjob”, you know, depending on my mood, that might sound sexy or it might sound kind of like, “What?”, you know, kind of like surprising and a little bit like off putting ‘cause it feels kind of out of the blue.

Dr. Linda Savage: Right, right. And sort of a “I’ve got to service you” kind of message.

Francesca Gentille: It could, depending. But if my beloved says in a, you know, that he’s feeling kind of vulnerable or tender, you know, I’m like, oh, I’ve been flagged that, you know, my man who’s, you know, usually, you know, doesn’t share these things is offering something to me, and then if he says, “Would you, you know, would you be willing to say what you like about, what, appreciate or love about my penis or my cock?”, you know, I can take a moment to breathe that in and say, “You know what, I can.” And, you know, and if he says, “Would you, would you be willing to just hold my balls? Or would you be willing to just kind of cup my fallice?”, I will. You know, I mean it’s like, “Of course honey”, because that’s such a gentle thing to do…

Dr. Linda Savage: Mm hmm.

Francesca Gentille: You know, you can imagine for our men that are listening, if a woman has cupped your balls or your fallice and then is telling you how much she adores your penis, you know that that’s arousing right there. And for women, the same thing, you know, just that, just if my beloved just cups my vulva, just cups it, doesn’t, you know, dangle a finger, doesn’t start, you know, doing anything, but just cups it and looks at me and tells me what he loves about my vulva; the way it smells or the way it feels or the way it’s gorgeous or how beautiful it is, you know, I’m, there’s going to be blood flowing to my vulva right there. You know, so that’s, it’s a very gentle way to start bringing forth the sacred, the sacred lover, the sex goddess in someone, and to have them feel that there’s kind of a safe and gentle journey to come back into their bodies. And I’d like to say more about that and how we, also how if we’re the guide, how we bring more of that to our beloved after a break and a word from our fabulous sponsors.

Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Brining You the Soul of Sex, with my fabulous guest host Linda Savage. And we were just talking about the sacred lover. What, where would you like to go from here Linda?

Dr. Linda Savage: Well, I also want to be able to get to the place where we have, some people have a sense of unfulfilled longing for something or someone. But first, is there anything more in this evoking the sacred lover, bringing the sacred lover into your relationship?

Francesca Gentille: Yes, there’s one more thing I would say, and maybe we could even do a whole show on that, is when your beloved may have experienced some trauma, and birth could be a trauma, a death of a loved one could be a trauma, job loss or, you know, a remembering of abuse or trauma in their past, when that’s happened there’s a, really a journey that if I’m, if I’m the one that’s more centered, that I want to recognize I’m taking beloved on. So I really would want to set up at least once a week for them… Remember we had once a week for me if I’m, if I’m trying to bring that to myself? Well at least once a week for my partner, and in this case, at least an hour, maybe two, lighting candles, getting out the massage oil, beautiful music and starting really, really slowly once again with those, maybe some eye gazing, some long caresses. Really just inviting them to totally relax, like there’s nowhere to go, there’s nothing to do. And you can completely surrender into this, and if you want to fall asleep you can fall asleep. And if at anytime something doesn’t feel good, let me know. So to really take off any agenda of moving to sexuality….

Dr. Linda Savage: Yes.

Francesca Gentille: with the intention of bringing my beloveds spirit back into their body. Their body/spirit connection has been shattered; once again birth, death, loss trauma. Their body/spirit connection has been shattered and before I can get to a delicious relatedness with their genitals, I need to call their spirit back home into their body. I’m going to do this through really goalless caressing, massage, and what we may say, invocation or blessing, really saying, “I bless the beauty of your body. I, you know, your body is a safe container for you to be here.” And I can do that in words or just in my thoughts, so, we can, we can talk about that more another time, but I just wanted to put that idea.

Dr. Linda Savage: So the situation where someone finds themselves in a situation where it’s, you know, either there’s someone that they are longing for that isn’t even in the relationship, or someone that they have had a lover relationship that somehow are now pulling away and they become more or less obsessed with trying to bring that person into their, or bring them back kind of feeling.

Francesca Gentille: I want to breathe that one in too because that happens to all of us. I don’t think we get through life without having at least one experience, that sense of almost obsessive love and obsessive thought where we can’t get someone out of our minds. However, it’s with a sense of anxiety. I mean new love, when it’s met, I’m thinking about you and you’re thinking about me and we’re calling each other constantly and we’re sneaking off to make love, I mean we’re being obsessive, but we’re both being obsessive, so it’s kind of working. Now if I’m more obsessive than you, and/or you’re pulling away or shutting down or you just never were in that with me to begin with, that cycle is going to get more and more painful for me, and it’s going to actually drive you away. If we even are connected, it’s going to drive you away. So what do I do? One of the first things that I want to do, so our listening audience, if this is you try this on… I want to just say to myself, “This is a bodily cycle that I’m going through. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. It will not be infinite. There will be a time where I will, this cycle will complete.” When we get chemically triggered by another person and it feels like love and we can’t stop thinking about them and all we want to do is be with them, usually that cycle lasts no, at the very longest around nine months to a year and often will complete within three months, and, three to six months. And then, so number one, I want to know that it’s not eternal and infinite, although it’s very painful right now. The second thing that I want to realize is that I’m under the effects of the drug and I want to nourish myself; I want to make sure I’m eating well, I want to make sure that I’m getting, you know, massages. There’s going to be a tendency in my obsession to just focus on the other person and not, and actually get myself our of balance…

Dr. Linda Savage: Right.

Francesca Gentille: So that, you know, my own thinking will get worse and worse, so I want to, you know, go, actually it’ll feel counter intuitive. I want to do whatever I can, you know, even if I don’t really want to eat, maybe have delicious smoothies. You know, something. I’m literally kind of under an illness to take care of myself. Then the other thing is to, to tell, remember the tools of the mind, you know, vision, discernment, planning, analysis, reason? I literally want to have the tools of the mind come in and say, “What’s going on here and is this going to help me in any way?” So when I start, it’s a discipline… When I start to think about that person, I’m literally going to say to myself, “No.”

Dr. Linda Savage: Right.

Francesca Gentille: No, I’m going to, you’re going to think about something else. I don’t care what. You’re going to turn on the TV, you’re going to go for a walk, you’re going to get a massage, and if it, my thoughts go back to that person I’m going to pull them back again. Then I want to, you know, maybe make a list and maybe talk to a friend or a therapist; “Okay, what are the things I love about that person? What are the things that I find are an issue?” ‘Cause even if I’m obsessing, if this person is pulling away from me, I have issues with them. They don’t just have issues with me, I have issues with them. You know, maybe they’re lying to me. Maybe they’re not being gentle with me. Maybe they’re yelling at me. Maybe they’re not returning my calls. These are, these are actually qualities, I don’t want that in a relationship with someone ongoingly.

Dr. Linda Savage: Right.

Francesca Gentille: So what are the things I love about them? What are the things that are, you know, concerns about them? And the things that I love I want to put that in on my alter, I want to say a prayer, and I want to say to the universe, these are the qualities that I really want in a lover; I want someone sexy, I want someone handsome or beautiful, I want someone who turns me on, I want someone with a great mind, I want someone who makes money, I want someone who’s a good dancer. I mean, whatever the qualities are that just so delight me and excite me about this person, I want those qualities in a mate or a lover or a relationship, so please universe, bring me this one or something better.

Dr. Linda Savage: Yeah.

Francesca Gentille: And I want to let it go, I want to trust that the universe, that the great soul, the divine, God himself, herself, whatever I want to think about in terms of the divine higher power nature, has it in hand, so I want to write it down, I want to, and then give it to the divine, and every time I take it back and I’m like, “Oh, but I want this person, I want this person, and I don’t know what to do if I don’t get this person, I won’t survive”, I want to remind myself, I want these qualities, that these qualities are like vitamins to my soul. I really need these qualities. I want someone who I could dance with or I want someone who I can, you know, share ideas with or I want someone to cuddle at night with. And I want someone as good as this or better. And then keep letting it go.

Dr. Linda Savage: Yes.

Francesca Gentille: And then speak from vision. If in fact I am talking with someone there’s a tendency, I work, I’ve worked with this myself and with others, there’s a tendency to speak from complaint; why don’t you call me? Why don’t you email me? Why don’t you talk to me more? Why don’t you hug me more? Why are you distancing?

Dr. Linda Savage: Right.

Francesca Gentille: There’s a tendency to speak from the complaint. Once again, those are the traps of the mind. I want to notice my complaints, write them down if I need to, and then say, “What’s the vision?” If I’m saying they’re not talking to me, well the vision is I would love a deeper communication and connection. If I’m not seeing them, the vision is I would love to spend more time and delight and joy. So, once again, which is going to get more, more of a positive result? “Honey, you know, I’m really angry at you that you’re not talking to me, you’re not calling me. I think you’re a very selfish person. You know, you said you were going to be closer to me and now you’re not.” Or, “Sweetheart, I’ve been thinking about you and how much I love spending time with you, and how much I love talking, and I’m really looking forward to the next time we get to do that. And I’m wondering, would you be available Friday night for a walk along the river?” You know, which is going to get a more positive result probably? And then we use discernment, that if in fact I’m using in my life the tools of the mind and I’m not living out of the traps of the mind, anxiety, worry, complaint, I’m living in the tools, vision, discernment, analysis, planning, I’m living in those gorgeous tools, compassion, which combines the mind and the heart, and this person is still not responding in a nurturing way, in a connective way, then I bring back in discernment and I go into grieving and mourning, and I go through a process of understanding and it’s time to complete and release.

Dr. Linda Savage: Well that’s amazing, amazing advice. It sounds absolutely right, spot on, and hopefully our listeners are going to be able to take that and really, really work with it. And create more and more beauty and deliciousness in their love and their sex and their relationships with themselves and others.

Francesca Gentille: And I just want to say Linda it’s been such a delight to have your presence here. Linda and I got to talk before this, the interview, and she’s amazing and delightful. I encourage you to find her if you’re in Southern California, to work with her. And how would people find you Linda?

Dr. Linda Savage: My website is goddesstherapy.com, and my emails right on it so you can contact me through the website.

Francesca Gentille: I love that, goddesstherapy.com. And if you want to connect with me and the work that I do in Northern California and around the country, it’s www.lifedancecenter.com, that’s www.lifedancecenter.com or [email protected]. And I want to thank you, our listening audience, for being on this sacred path of relationship and sex and loving, and for being those people that bring back the soul of sex. If you want to get transcripts, learn more about Linda or myself, you can do that at www.personallifemedia.com, www.personallifemedia.com. Thank you for listening to Sex, Tantra and Kama Sutra: Bringing You the Soul of Sex.