[BONUS] Pursuing Pleasure: The Art of Sensuality, Self Enquiry & Sexuality within the Divine Feminine Power
I’ve recently chatted with some of the wonderful people who have been gracious enough to have me as a guest on their podcasts, and they’ve agreed to let me share our interviews with you here on The Sensuality Academy Podcast.
In this interview, we chat all about my best secrets to spice up your life and immerse yourself on a heightened sensual path. We chat about the importance of self love, the myths around female sexuality and how to set a mood- wherever you may be.
You know how much I love talking about sensuality and pleasure - so I hope you love listening along to this interview!
Enjoy the episode and if you love it, don’t forget to head over to listen to more epic interviews on the Hello BeYOUtiful podcast - check out the shownotes for links to find the podcast and follow Samantha’s amazing work.
This podcast is for YOU, so if you ever have any questions you’d like me to answer on the show, or topics you’d like me to cover – reach out to me on email here or over on instagram @eleanorhadley
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The Sensuality Academy Podcast is edited and produced with thanks to Music Producer/Mixer, Matthew Hadley. You can find his work at www.matthewhadley.net
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Episode Transcript
Welcome to the Hello Beautiful Podcast. I’m your host Samantha Roberto and I want to thank you for joining in the conversation. We are a space of women empowering women and each week we dive into authentic and vulnerable stories with our guests because we believe it's important to have these conversations to learn and grow from one another. Subscribe to get your weekly dose of inspiration.
Today I’m chatting with Sensuality and Self Love expert Eleanor Hadley and it is such a juicy conversation. We dive deep into the art of self enquiry, how to explore and tap into your sensual side and Eleanor gives one easy tip that will completely change your self confidence. So on that note, let’s get to it.
SAMANTHA: Eleanor, I just want to thank you for being here. I am so excited to have you on as a guest. You are just a woman full of knowledge and I’ve loved following your journey for the past 2 years since we met in Columbia.
ELEANOR: Thank you so much. Such an honour to be here. I can’t wait to chat.
SAMANTHA: Tell us about what you do.
ELEANOR: Absolutely, I am a Sensuality and Self Love Coach and Founder of Sensual Yoga which is a grounded embodiment practice inspired by Yoga and exotic feminine movement. This is something that I created after I owned a Pole Dancing studio for 4 years in Melbourne and then I had the idea for Sensual Yoga and then the business kind of grew and evolved and now I’m coaching as well.
SAMANTHA: Amazing. Your background before this was in Pole Dancing. You probably saw behind the scenes the constriction some women might feel within that space. What’s your feedback in that department?
ELEANOR: Yes, I had the pole dancing studio for 4 years and it was a pole fitness studio and we taught women how to move their bodies in a sensual way and become super strong and learn really cool stuff on the pole. What I loved about it is that it was kind of taboo - a lot of people were kind of uncomfortable about it when I first told them what I did and a lot of people had lots of questions. It’s just so amazing to see how powerful movement can be for women especially when we are told a lot of the time that we are not meant to be sexy or that we are but only in certain ways and for certain people and it can get really confusing so I find that movement is such a powerful way to really reclaim your sensuality.
SAMANTHA: I love that. You mentioned the taboo, where do you feel this Taboo started?
ELEANOR: I think it goes back a very long time. I think that there is a lot of taboo around sexuality, sensuality, femininity in general because femininity is so powerful but there’s a lot of patriarchal construct that goes way back in history before all of that. I think people are really scared about sexuality in a lot of ways because we are afraid of intimacy and it is something that I work with a lot with my clients is this fear of intimacy and being seen and showing up, claiming your sensuality, claiming your sexuality, being totally fully embodied in your femininity. It can be really scary for a lot of women.
SAMANTHA: It’s almost like the hidden closet deep within. It’s something locked up deep within but if you open it up you can also open up a power. Would you say?
ELEANOR: Absolutely. It’s the most powerful thing in the world - to be fully embodied in your femininity - it’s incredible.
SAMANTHA: So, you say when you are working with them they might come to you for one thing but then all of a sudden all these other things open up. What are patterns that you see?
ELEANOR: Absolutely, every single time I work with a client they might come to be initially because they say they want to feel more self love, they want to embody their femininity, and feel more sensual and what happens a lot of the time - I work with the art of self enquire and ask lots and lots of questions about why they might be feeling a certain way and what might be contributing and a lot of the time we find out there is a lot of conditioning that has gone to how they view themselves and why they can or cannot show up in a certain way. It’s all societal a lot of the time.
SAMANTHA: On a subconscious level right? It goes very deep.
ELEANOR: Very deep, absolutely. There’s a lot of things that we just don’t question our conditioning a lot of the time and when we start to allow ourselves to question and when I talk about self enquiry I always talk about it asking yourself questions from a place of curiosity instead of animosity. It’s not about beating yourself up about why I am this way or what’s happened or society for being the problem - I wonder why, I’m so curious, I wonder why this is how I feel, how I think - now where can I go from here? Coaching is very much forward focus it's not so much about diving deep into the past that we get stuck, it's about thinking - ok, this is what is happening, this what is coming up, this is what is under the surface now I’m aware of it I’m going to move forward and I’m going to really explore the possibilities from this empowered state.
SAMANTHA: It’s the awareness right? If you aren’t aware it’s running on a subconscious level, it’s a software of your computer system that is constantly poking and constantly causing different reactions and different blocks and different constrictions.
ELEANOR: Absolutely. This is why I think that personal development is so powerful because there’s always something that you can learn and discover about yourself. It’s not about fixing, it's not about you’re broken and you need to be put together again, it’s about learning yourself and constantly expanding because how beautiful is it to be growing all the time and learning more about yourself? Just expanding. It’s incredible.
SAMANTHA: No matter what place you are at, you’re always at a new place. You can always go to the same personal development conference, the same class, and each time something different lands.
ELEANOR: Absolutely. I think that is so important. There is never a point when you know everything.
SAMANTHA: Never. I think there’s a point when you realise you don’t know anything. It’s like there’s a humbling to it, the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know anything at all, but that’s ok. It’s a humble that comes with it.
ELEANOR: Yeah, it’s beautiful.
SAMANTHA: What are some things you do in your personal life that keep you grounded and connected to this energy?
ELEANOR: Beautiful. What I do with my daily practice is I love movement, movement is my most important practice for grounding. I do sensual movement, sensual yoga obviously, most days - it’s simple as, I call it rolling it around on the floor, in a way, putting on some music that is really sensual, really sexy, really makes me feel in my body and also music that inspires breath is so grounding.
SAMANTHA: As I talk to you, I’m moving my body. You have this energy that is like moving constantly. You give off this vibe.
ELEANOR: That makes me so happy. That’s like one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. So if everyone can random body roll when you are around me - fabulous
SAMANTHA: Guys, if you are listening to this, wherever you are, if you are in the car, at home, at the gym just start rolling your shoulders back, just start moving your body and feel the energy, feel the movement. This is is Eleanor coming through your earbuds.
I want to know why is this work that you are doing so important right now?
ELEANOR: Right now, I think that in the entire world we are seeing the feminine rising we are in the age of the feminine. It is destined to happen this way and so I think it’s high time that we all start to honour the feminine and not just women - realising its beauty and power but also men realising this in themselves as well as in people who identify as female and its energy. And so the work that I’m doing has always generally been with women. I’m now starting to work with men as well because everybody gets so much out of exploring and honouring the feminine. It changes people's lives when we are given that permission to explore that energy - to be soft and be vulnerable and be open and expressive there is so much to it.
SAMANTHA: For anybody listening, can you explain the feminine, the yang and the yin. For someone who is new they can understand what the balance is, what the difference is?
ELEANOR: Absolutely. The masculine vs feminine energy also known as the yin and the yang, the go vs flow. Sometimes when we say masculine and feminine we get in the binary of male and female. It’s more about energy. With the masculine energy it tends to be more in the direct focus, logical, rational type energy that gets shit done. It’s really important and it's really beautiful. It can really hold space for the feminine and it's got that really protective energy.
And you look at the feminine, it’s really wild, expansive and transformational, very creative, flowy, emotional, vulnerable but there is so much strength in that, it's very grounding, nurturing force and its beautiful energy to have in any human being and the thing is both energies exist in all human bodies regardless of how you identify. They both exist and they are both very important and we need both of them otherwise if we are too skewed towards one or the other that is when things start getting out of sorts - wounded feminine or the toxic masculine - and if we are too far in one direction of the spectrum we can cause a lot of pain for ourselves and for others. But when we have both of them and we really honour both of them then that is when things are balanced and harmonious.
SAMANTHA: If we are to look at a society on a macro level would you agree that we have been in the masculine - in the go, go, go. In the power, that place vs the feminine
ELEANOR: Absolutely. We live in the patriarchy, there are no two ways around that, that's the truth and the masculine energy, that ‘go’ energy - that energy is so much more highly revered than the feminine.
SAMANTHA: Just to go into the type of work that you are doing. I’m curious, what are some of the common myths that you see around female sexuality and can you bust any of them from working so deeply in this space?
ELEANOR: This is a fabulous question. Female sexuality is a topic I love talking about because it is so fascinating and we don’t talk about it enough. A lot of myths about female sexuality particularly around pleasure and orgasm. I can’t tell you how many of my friends and my clients think that they are in orgasmic, how many never experienced an orgasm, who accept that it is not something that doesn’t happen have sex and in terms of busting myths - I do believe that every women is capable of an orgasm and there are many things in the way, for sure. A lot of it comes down to this deep-seeded shame or fear around our own bodies and sexuality and so we don’t know our bodies well enough, if we don’t explore them, if we don’t feel we have permission - we don’t give ourselves permission to explore our own feminine beautiful, amazing bodies and our pleasure then of course we are not going to allow that to happen especially with a partner if we are not in touch with our bodies we are not going to open up to pleasure with a partner and it's so important for women especially that we feel safe and comfortable enough to open up.
SAMANTHA: What resources, what would you recommend for a woman who is listening to this right now and is sort of sparking interest - is this me? What would you recommend enquiring more into this?
ELEANOR: I think that if you are really wanting to call in more pleasure and especially orgasm into your life it's important to start with yourself like we have been talking about and really explore what really makes you feel good, what you like, what you don’t like, giving your permission to explore your own body and not feel dirty or ashamed or weird about doing that. I always say to my clients - prioritise your pleasure - you must prioritise your pleasure because nobody else is going to put that first. Sure if you are with a very generous partner, in some circumstances, but you have to prioritise your pleasure. You have got to put yourself first and you’ve got to allow yourself to go there by yourself first then when you are ready to share that with a partner it gives you access to what I like to call your pleasure language. Once you learnt your own pleasure language it's easier to verbalise that, vocalise that to a partner and then you are empowered to say - this is what work, this is what doesn’t, ok, let’s go there. And also feel that sense of trust that they will be able to take you there.
SAMANTHA: And that energy can exude off you in every other angle and affect and everything in your life.
ELEANOR: Absolutely. I think there is sometimes a lot of resentment about when we are with a partner that they just don’t do anything right or they are no good and at what point do you realise that I need to look inside and see what’s my role in this, do I even know what the hell gets me feeling amazing? Do I even know how to explain this to them? Have I vocalised this? I think it's really important you do need to know that deeply about yourself first so you can share it because it is not fair to other people, we are not mind readers. You’ve got to tell them, you’ve got to share it, it doesn’t have to be as awkward as like - hey, do this, left, right, centre, do that - it’s not a handbook. Step 1, Number 1, Step 2. It doesn’t have to be clinical like that is all I’m saying and once you know you can share non verbal cues as well.
SAMANTHA: If someone wants to prioritise my pleasure what’s three things I can do, what’s that look like to do that?
ELEANOR: 1) spend time doing intentional things alone doing something that makes you feel really good - bath, meditating, breath work, find something that feels nice - I love movement. Movement is always my number 1. I highly suggest putting on some really sexy music and allowing yourself to close your eyes and move and breathe and feel into your body.
2) Starting to explore your body with your hands - running your finger down over your neck, really slowly with breath. Then explore more around your body. I think self pleasure is really important because once you are aware of your own body you can share this. It’s the most intimate thing you can do for yourself because you are prioritising your pleasure, getting to know your body, you’re honouring it, you’re showing it love. I love to use crystal wands and yoni eggs. Super powerful tools for healing, getting more in touch with your body.
SAMANTHA: I love that and I like how you say coz when people hear that self pleasure they’re thinking the genitals but its the entire body. It’s not specifically those parts, it's literally everything.
ELEANOR: Everything. That actually comes back to women being multi-orgasmic. We are capable of feeling extreme pleasure in almost every part of our body when we have allowed ourselves to open up to it. It can look any way that you want, it is your body, you don’t need to get permission to be able to touch yourself wherever you want. It’s just about exploring that and enjoying it and seeing what happens.
SAMANTHA: What about your pleasure language, you mentioned being able to find your pleasure language. What is that?
ELEANOR: The idea of pleasure language is deeply knowing your do’s and don'ts, your likes, your dislikes and knowing it so intimately, having almost a map of your body and then being able to share it. Some people will like it when they are touched here but others will hate it. So, it is important to communicate this with a partner both verbally and non-verbally. I think especially when we are relating with men it is important to be verbal sometimes as much as we feel oh that’s not sexy, oh I don’t want to say that, sometimes it's very helpful.
SAMANTHA: I feel a lot of times in relationships there is this miscommunication. If you know yourself, if your partner can also know themselves and you come together you can totally ignite a totally different side of your relationship.
ELEANOR: Absolutely. For example, I have a client who was really struggling with experiencing pleasure and especially orgasming with her partner and she tried giving slightly non-verbal, slightly verbal feedback occasionally about what he could do and his response was - oh, but this is what I did with my last partner and he hadn’t quite cottoned on that everybody is so different, every women’s body, every men’s body, everybody is so different. This is where the pleasure language comes in. You need to be open to learning someone else’s and knowing your own. So you know this is how in my experience so far I know I can experience pleasure. I'll share that with you. They can share theirs with you and then together as a couple you can explore even further. It’s like when you look at a map, this is what I know, and they say this what I know. We can then set out on a new path together and explore what neither of us has experienced or seen before.
SAMANTHA: Yes, it’s never too late to open up that side of yourself that is within you.
ELEANOR: It’s just about going deeper.
SAMANTHA: What other resources would you say for someone who is interested in going deeper? If you were to give 5 recommendations of things that they could do to create space, to learn more about this or things that they can incorporate in their lives to tap into those other layers what would they be?
ELEANOR: 1) Movement + Breath is so powerful. For me, I love yoga but because of my background with Pole I love exotic movement that makes me feel so sensual , so feminine and so powerful, grounded, connected. It’s incredible. Find a song, my playlist is on Spotify and put a song on, turn the lights down and close your eyes and move. It doesn’t have to be perfect, doesn’t have to have set Choreography, it doesn’t have to be a performance, it's just for you, it's just about how you feel.
SAMANTHA: one thing that I want to say is that I have done pole dancing and it's so much fun I have to honestly give a shout out if it's something that you have never done go and go do a pole dancing class because it makes your feel empowered energy that we are talking about here that you are tapping into and it's just like you leave there totally on fire. Huge Pole Dancing fan.
ELEANOR: Absolutely, pole is what changed the game for me and set me off in this path so I have a lot to thank the pole industry for.
2) The Art of Self Enquiry. Being able to ask yourself why you are feeling this way, why you are responding/reacting this way with curiosity and not animosity. That is the most important thing because it can be a slippery slope if we start being self critical. It’s not about that. It’s about being curious, what your journey is and how you want to expand and grow. Journalling as well.
SAMANTHA: Gentle with yourself. The curious way is the gentle way, no judgement.
ELEANOR: Exactly. Be super compassionate to yourself. It’s not critical at all, it's coming from a place of love and a place of wanting to grow and expand instead of contract.
3) Self Touch. Get in touch with yourself, your sensuality, sexuality.
It can be as simple as giving yourself a massage after a shower - Ayurveda, Abhyanga is really beautiful and powerful. Oil massage with sexy music on, candles on heightens the mood.
Self touch in any form giving you permission to connect your body. This is your body, you have total permission.
When I used to teach Pole Dancing classes the very first week introduction, my version of an ice breaker we would get students to do sexy walks up and down the studio in their high heels. I would ask them to run their hands all along their body up through our hair up into the air and claim your body. I would say you can touch your boobs, it's ok they are yours, you have total permission, go for it. Things like that touch wherever you want. Breast massage, super powerful very heart opening and taking self touch from massage to self pleasure it’s your body, explore it. You have total permission.
3) Creating the type environment that makes you feel so juicy, luscious and sensual - low lighting and candles, incense, essential oils, fresh flowers, plants, clean and tidy space to feel free and breathe. Luscious cushions and soft blankets. I’m a Taurus, sensuality is the thing, I need everything to be beautiful because why would I want to live or be somewhere that doesn’t feel amazing to be in.
SAMANTHA: I totally agree. It makes a difference. When you start creating that environment you start embodying it and everything else rolls off that energy and the details really matter.
ELEANOR: They really do. The smallest things can make such a huge difference. I always say to my clients - think about the 5 senses. We want to be sensual. To be sensual is to be of the senses. In your life what can you see? Is there a beautiful view? Is there lots of clutter around it that makes me angry to see it? Is it dirty? What can I taste, am I eating delicious food that makes me feel really good? Am I drinking amazing tea? What can I hear?
SAMANTHA: I was going to say, on the taste are you tasting your food or are you just shoving it in your mouth?
ELEANOR: Mindful eating. I do an exercise with my clients about mindful eating and every time afterwards they look at me and say - I never tasted anything as good as that one piece of chocolate that we ate very mindfully. What can you smell? Essential oils, incense comes in, what can you hear? Beautiful music or the sound of silence. Something that makes you feel really good. What can you feel? What are you sitting on? What’s the temperature like? Do you feel comfortable? What are you wearing? Are you wearing a beautiful silk kimono or nice fluffy cosy robe or is your couch nice and soft with blankets. Creating that environment to feel more sensual is going to seep into your very being.
SAMANTHA: What will be your number 5?
ELEANOR: 5) Go from the internal experience from the outside our external experience to our interpersonal. How we relate to other people. We are social creatures and as much as value and play so much importance of the self and knowing self we are social creatures and it’s importance that we recognise the importance of community and I highly value empathy, the art of eye contact. I know that so many people are uncomfortable with this. For me, this is my go to. It is normal for me. I love to make eye contact because I want the other person that I’m speaking to to feel that they are seen, heard and that I am interested, knowing that I am listening to them and only them. A lot of people that I have spoken to are seriously uncomfortable with eye contact. It makes people feel important and it also enhances intimacy and that’s something I feel as humans we are missing a lot.
SAMANTHA: It’s a reaction sometimes, people look and 2 seconds later we look away. If you are one of those people bring awareness to this, acknowledge that you might be doing this and bring your eyes back to them. Little by little try to be more mindful and you will notice. I fully believe in #5 your world with change with that one simple technique. It’s one that’s often really overlooked. I’m so glad that you highlighted it, it will actually change your and the people around you, their world.
ELEANOR: Exactly. While I can talk all day about the self and the internal experience it's so important to recognise that you are not everything in this world. Everybody has experiences and it’s important to recognise them. I think that as a society as a whole we are really isolated, we are missing that connection, that human intimacy and it’s so beautiful and so powerful to allow yourself to be intimate with another person, to allow yourself to be seen as well when you are talking is super transformational to go there with another person. So, for me eye contact is a huge one. I make total strangers that I meet eye gaze with me.
SAMANTHA: I’m such a hugger. If you ever meet me in the street and go introduce yourself the person will go and put up their head and I look at them - I’m a hugger. And then I read their body language and if they are super uncomfortable I go for it still but people love it.
ELEANOR: It’s so bizarre. I find that so many people feel very squeamish around eye contact and I actually asked a bunch of my clients recently - their thoughts about this and a lot of them were saying sometimes they don’t want to make eye contact especially when they don’t believe what they are saying or they don’t feel confident in what they are saying. So practicing the art of eye contact is an amazing way to build your self confidence to start believing in yourself. Like I’m talking, what I’m saying is important. I'm going to hold your eye contact because I want you to pay attention. It's not an egotistical thing, it's a self honouring thing.
SAMANTHA: And you can look at it not just for yourself to honour the person who is around you and I love how you put it - you’re seeing someone else, you’re giving the gift of letting someone else be seen by doing it. It’s completely a balanced reciprocal thing. Eye contact people. If you don’t get anything else from this - eye contact.
Let’s switch it up a little bit. Was there a point in your life where you felt shame or you had blocks that you had to work through that helped you see the importance of all the work that you are doing?
ELEANOR: In terms of my story, I had the pole dancing studio and I ended up selling that because I had the idea for sensual yoga and it also didn’t align with me any more and when I created Sensual Yoga it was coming from a place of really wanting to explore sensuality, my own movement and have it be for me and not from a place where it needed to be witnessed and not from a performative perspective. Pole dancing was very much performative which is great and I loved that but I liked the idea for being only for me and when I sold the studio I had been through a rough breakup where I had felt like I lost my entire identity. I know this is a very common thing with a lot of women I have worked with, they feel like they lose their essence, their values in a relationship. We tend to merge with our partners and that was me. I came out of this relationship and I was like - Who am i? What do I want? What are my values? So it was a real journey of coming back to myself, lots of self enquiry, lots of meditation, lots of yoga and I came to realise that sensuality was part of my DNA in a way. For those of you who are astrologically minded, I’m a Taurus, Taureans are sensual that’s a huge part of our identity and for me movement and feeling this feminine empowerment was so important especially with owning the studio and seeing first hand how incredibly transformational movement and embracing sensual movement was for so many women. I just needed to explore that more and needed to open it up to be more accessible for more women and that is why I am doing what I am doing now.
SAMANTHA: I really do believe that this can help heal so many different women and men and essentially healing that energy can heal the world. It’s really important work.
ELEANOR: I think so too. I think that the more of us stepping into our most authentic highest versions of ourselves for sure we are going to heal the world. We are going to make a huge change.
SAMANTHA: Thank you so much for doing this and taking the time to be here. If anybody wants to find you where is the best place to reach out?
ELEANOR: Of course, thank you so much for having me as well, it was so much fun. If you are interested in finding me and my work - everything is basically my name - Eleanor Hadley.
SAMANTHA: We are going to include everything in the show notes. You can reach out.
ELEANOR: Thank you so much, this is wonderful
SAMANTHA: There you have it. What did you think? Are you feeling more connected to your sensual side? Thank you so much for being here. We would love to hear where you are tuning in from. If you made it to this point tag us on Instagram and let us know where in the world you are. I’ll post a link to Eleanor in the show notes and remember we all have the feminine superpower under the surface it's just a matter of unlocking and tapping into it and as you do watch your world change.
Next week we have another amazing guest so remember to subscribe to get your weekly dose of inspiration until then keep being you, be beautiful.
