Trauma Queen
"The Trauma Within" is a weekly podcast hosted by Jimanekia, a Trauma and Sexual Assault expert, queer media consultant, and comprehensive sex educator. Join us as we normalize conversations about life's most challenging experiences, from sexual assault to mental health and beyond. Discover stories of resilience, expert insights, and a safe space for discussing some of life's most complex topics. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/traumaqueen/support
Trauma Queen
The Trauma Within Embracing Body Confidence and Self-Acceptance W/ Luna
Do you have any questions, any comments about the episode? Jimanekia would love to hear from you!
What if the key to self-love lies in embracing your imperfections? Join us in a riveting conversation with sex and pleasure educator Luna, who shares her transformative journey of body confidence, overcoming trauma, and shattering societal expectations. Luna recounts a childhood memory that profoundly shaped her relationship with her body and details her struggle with shame and diet culture. Her powerful narrative is a beacon for anyone grappling with self-doubt, urging us to refocus on self-acceptance and compassion.
Explore the intricate connection between trauma, body, and wellness as Luna and I delve into how unresolved issues can manifest physically. We dissect the societal pressures that fuel body shame and disordered eating, advocating for a holistic approach to healing. Luna's insightful anecdotes shed light on the resilience needed to navigate a society rife with stigma, especially within the often biased healthcare system. Her candid reflections on living in a larger body and the importance of self-advocacy offer invaluable lessons for anyone seeking to reclaim their health and happiness.
Celebrate the liberating power of community and self-acceptance as we venture into discussions on body positivity and sexual confidence. Luna's experiences with belly dancing and storytelling highlight the joy of self-expression and embracing one's body without judgment. The episode also touches on the profound impact of supportive communities and influential figures like Sonia Renee Taylor in fostering a positive body image. Tune in for a heartfelt exploration of breaking free from negative societal constraints and living an empowered, authentic life.
Thank you all for listening. Set a boundary with yourself this week, set a boundary with someone else. If someone else does not respect that boundary. LET THEM LOOSE YOU! Stay hydrated internally and externally. We do not have an ashy family.
IG: @The_Trauma_Within
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thetraumawithin
Jimanekia Ig: @Jimanekia
luna matadas is a sex and pleasure educator with over 20 years of experience teaching sex and empowerment workshops. She celebrates body confidence, selfadoration and building shame-free pleasure in and out of the bedroom. She teaches 30 plus sexy skills, topics including threesomes, bdsm and sexual confidence. She created honeyarchy and Meditate Medicaid Masturbate brand as part of her sex positive and feminist merchandise. Ladies, gentlemen, them, theys, yams, y'alls, we got Luna, y'all heard it. You already know who we're talking to and we all know. One of my favorite questions is the first question, which also gives people a little bit of anxiety, which might be a little kink, because I would like look at them squirm. Anyway, who are you?
Speaker 1:I like that you have a squirm for your kink. This is something I didn't know about you, I'm learning. So I'm Luna Matadas. I'm a sex and pleasure educator and I'm also a butler to my cat, bubba, and I get to work with people in groups and on campuses and different organizations, talking about all kinds of things, including stuff like erotic communication, erotic confidence, erotic creativity, and I teach online and offline.
Speaker 2:The intranets. What a weird fucking place. How?
Speaker 1:do we meet? You know what I was trying to think about it and I feel like we knew each other virtually for a long time before we ever met in person. So I don't, I don't even remember. You know what? It was through Lola. It was through Dirty Lola, I think, like Dirty Lola kept talking about it, and then we all had this love of like charcuterie.
Speaker 2:Yes, goddamn, love a snack. Love a snack. That makes sense actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so funny. I'm like yeah.
Speaker 1:What does trauma mean to you? Ooh, so trauma is an experience that's either super distressing or harmful to our emotional, spiritual or physical self, and so it definitely changes us. It has this impact on our ability to feel safe and in control of our emotional, physical and spiritual self.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love that question because everyone's answer is so different depending on who they are and their experiences. And today we're talking about belly trauma, which that's something anyone that has a belly stomach has existed with. But my question for you is when did you first notice your body? Was it something you actually noticed? Because I know for myself I didn't notice that I had larger breasts before my reduction until someone else pointed it out to me. So when did you first notice your body.
Speaker 1:I love this question because I can tell you exactly what I was wearing, what the moment was. I was nine and I was wearing this yellow, banana yellow matching jumpsuit of the 80s and I had a very long braid and a pink headband and I was actually in a family gathering, so it was my extended family that I don't see that often. And then my parents and I remember going to the bathroom and everything was fun and happy. And I came out of the bathroom and overheard a conversation where my grandma was asking my parents if, like, they were going to do something about my weight because my belly was big and I was listening to this happening and my parents said oh, you know, she's just chubby, it's just, you know, weight that'll come off when she's a teenager and not to worry about it, they keep me active.
Speaker 1:And I remember thinking, even at nine, that nobody stood up for me. You know that no one said shut the fuck up, or she's a kid, or she loves art. Ask her about her art. Nobody in that room defended my body. So now I carry this and it's still in me. It doesn't drive from the same spot anymore that everybody is interested in or has an opinion on has to be my body. It can't be that I come into a space and anything be everything but my body. That that's what I have to lead with, because that's all people care about, and a particular shape of my body would give me more validation, more value as a person, which is so shitty Like it really does like set us up to like be fucked, yes, and like think about like a nine-year-old, cute little dummy that outfit sounded cute.
Speaker 2:I don't know it's so cute.
Speaker 1:it's so adorable and the way that we used to walk with our chest out and our bellies out. And I recently learned in uh, pelvic floor physiotherapy, that I suck in my stomach just unconsciously all the time, which is creating all kinds of back problems. And it was because, from that moment, I learned that my belly has to be small in order for me to be beautiful and in order for it to be acceptable, that I couldn't have a body that was acceptable without a smaller, flatter belly acceptable without a smaller, flatter belly.
Speaker 2:That sounds like the root start of some shame shit. Some shame shit that said, hey girl, and also I'm going to bring my good cousin guilt with me while we're here. Just put it in your backpack like Dora the Explorer. What has shame and guilt because that's what I'm also hearing is like the ways that we've held on to it, like what has that look like for you? Like what has that felt like for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for definitely for guilt, where there's this sense of you're not doing enough. You know, why can't you just get a flat belly? Why can't you just do the things that we tell people? That are all lies, that are going to give you the body that you think is most commercially attractive, like why can't I just do them? So this sense of failure at not being able to do it.
Speaker 1:And, of course, I was all wrapped up in diet culture for many decades, many decades, and had such a disordered relationship to food that I was doing all the things and that my body is not built that way relationship to food that I was doing all the things and that my body's just not built that way. Most of our bodies aren't. And the shame piece came around feeling undeserving of things like love or romantic partnerships or good quality sex or pleasure in my own body through clothing or through lingerie or through movement, because I didn't have this body. So my shame actually got me into a very protected place where I thought, well, I don't want to go to the beach in case someone's thinking something about my body that my family thought when I was nine. They're going to confirm all of these ideas. So shame kept me really small.
Speaker 2:Where is shame at for your belly, for you now.
Speaker 1:Well, me and my belly are still working on getting to know each other. I feel like there's just more space. I've unlearned a bunch of narratives, so now there's space for these new narratives. And there's a curiosity right, like is this bad, or did I learn that somebody thinks it's bad? And how much value am I giving to other people's approval of my literal existence? And you know, I often say to myself the jig is up, like I'm not going to have a flat belly. I'm 44. This is not.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to get Like we're here now.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, like this is belly and meat. You know we're going to have to find a different way to find pleasure, outside of the standards of other people, right outside of the standards of capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, all this garbage that actually doesn't guarantee you the things that we think we're missing. It doesn't guarantee you love. You know, I meet so many people in my coaching practice where their bellies would be considered pretty small or unnoticeable and they have the same feeling and hatred about their body that I do as a plus size person. So we definitely see this distortion. It almost looks unhinged when you step back and you think, wow, this was what was going to drive my happiness. It never was going to drive me to that destination.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you think the direct narrative was for you that you kept hearing over and over again?
Speaker 1:That I could not be beautiful, therefore I could not be lovable if my body wasn't appealing and my appeal could not improve unless my belly was flat, so not even just like smaller, but flat like non-existent. When did you start fighting back? It took me a long time. It took me a really long time. Excuse me, I think I started fighting back after my divorce. I was married for nine years.
Speaker 2:Look at you, love found it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, partnership. Okay, now that I left this thing, I'm going to fall in love with myself, and so I started taking burlesque, and in burlesque the jiggle is the joy. So I was jiggling parts of my body that I had no idea could be seen as appealing, and so I did go sort of from a an external validation. I wanted people to celebrate my body, and I later learned you know, you can also step onto stage gifting people yourself, right, instead of being there for their validation. So that that was really the beginning. It was the first time I ever showed my belly in public. I didn't own crop tops, I didn't own bikinis. Now I can barely keep my clothes on.
Speaker 2:It's true.
Speaker 1:It's true.
Speaker 2:I've seen Luna without clothes plenty of times. At this point you brought up a word that I actually have been talking about a lot, and that's joy, and sadly it's so hard to find Like what has been what has it been like finding your joy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're so right. I think joy is so hard to find and so much of it is because of what our how our society is set up and what we're told. But a big thing for me around finding joy has been in finding playfulness and so removing that kind of perfectionism that I always have to look a certain way or have to be a certain way, or that I put on a dress today and I didn't think about does it make my body smaller or bigger? I liked the colors and it was fun to twirl around in. So shifting my experience even into more sensory experiences allowed me to find more play and more joy.
Speaker 2:Something you mentioned and I typed it down as you were writing. I was literally you were talking and I was writing something similar, and it's the ways of, culturally, our bodies are looked at differently, and all I wrote down was not white. And then you mentioned white supremacy and I was like, yes, it's so embedded in us in so many ways, like, culturally, we not white and so our experiences have been different. So what was that like for you culturally?
Speaker 1:Yeah, culturally definitely. My family grew up with a lot of internalized racism and so wanting to fit into white ideas of beauty was hammered into me from very young age, and these ideas were also about a kind of a sense of safety and trying to align in their minds with, you know, something that might be less harmful for them, when really it was just creating ancestral trauma over and over again. And so if we look at so many of our cultures you know my family is from Guyana and you know so many of our our like cultural expressions, dances, our clothing, our health practices they center around the belly. And if we look at things like intuition, we look at chakra energy, we look at so many spiritual, like earth breathing trauma. Yeah, yes, yes. So it was this liberation not only of the physical self for me, but a connection back to my gut. I couldn't feel my gut, my actual gut, not my belly gut.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I think people forget, and you know everyone's read, the body keeps the score.
Speaker 1:There's other books y'all he's a little shitty, let's be honest.
Speaker 2:But the ways that we hold trauma in our body, having people point it out to you, in all of these things it sometimes isn't ours, oftentimes it's not ours, and then we hold onto it and it manifests into, like you said, into gut issues. Like often when I'm working with folks I'm like when's the last time you had a bowel movement? And they're like what? And I'm like are you pooping? Let's talk about what happened to you. Let's talk, have a conversation. Have you also had those kinds of conversations in your own work?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think people come in with wanting the bullet sometimes or the bullet solution and we have to really go back. Yeah, I mean, I want it too, but we just know that's not usually how it goes, that'd be cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if anyone out there has it, send it to us. But yeah, I think people feel like their sexuality or even their pleasure goals are separate from their other emotional, physical and spiritual wellness, but it's all together, and so we often see patterns. I mean, even in my own self, I have so many gut issues that have gotten so much better, working in a holistic way instead of trying to isolate this part from the rest of my body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's run it back a little bit. Let's skip back a little bit, say, oh, did I sneeze? No, pretend the spiritual connection to our bellies. And in other cultures they really look at bellies of prosperity and wealth and you are a king with that. But here in Western society they're like baby, you're unlovable, we hate you. We're not making clothes for you. We're going to say it's an extra large but it's a too too small. Like what is happening, like why are, why is we're so much tussling? We are a tussling ass country for bodies.
Speaker 1:Seriously, wow, there's so much goodness there. I think when we we look at even just like modern day cultures around the world, like people have body diversity, people see things differently, and there's so many studies that show if you grow up in a place where a beauty is not like this Eurocentric beauty that we have in North America, that when you move to those places, your standards of beauty start to change. Your standards of beauty start to change, and so you know, keeping fat people out of clothing is one way that kept us really invisible up until maybe, like I don't know, like maybe seven years ago, we started to have more options for clothing. And yeah, we see a lot around, even just the connection to warmth, to survival in our bellies. You know there are lots of places where we want to fill our bellies with heavy things so that we stay full longer. So there's a relationship to food that is also just distorted by what we've done in North America to bodies that have more voluminous bellies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Something you mentioned earlier too is when I started working in trauma, I was like I need to know everything. So every two years I worked with a different population and one of the jobs I worked in was in eating disorders disordered eating and 99% of the individuals had had some type of intense trauma, predominantly sexual trauma, attached to it, and that was like a control thing. And you mentioned disordered eating. What was that like for you and the connection to your belly?
Speaker 1:Ooh yeah, so much of my disordered eating came from three big sources. So one was directly my mom, who is carrying sort of the ancestral trauma of not being disconnected to her body, hating her body as well. So I learned kind of that in that environment. I mean society. We know nine-year-olds are able to count calories and do these kinds of nonsensical, harmful things. And then the medical system.
Speaker 1:I have so much medical trauma from not being able to be treated by being in a fat body, you know, and the belly is such a source of where we consider bad fat or good fat.
Speaker 1:So you have a fat butt. You know your doctor maybe is not going to tell you lose weight in your butt, but there's certain places where we've now associated many. There's so much work on this, that being, of course, busting open a lot of the medical research, and I highly recommend the fat doctor who's in the UK. So I think it's a fat doctor UK who really looks up a lot of the research. And you know there's so much to be said about our critical thinking around what we learn from our medical system and big pharma, and so we're seeing I saw so much of that in my body. I could not for the life of me get anything until I went and had more of a holistic team from naturopathy and other kinds of alternative medicine, but nobody would take me seriously or give me any other solution to my problem, whether it was my eyesight, you know, until I lost weight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's just wild having to be your own advocate to be allowed to exist in this body. I mean fat people. And fatness is not a protected category under human rights and discrimination, right? So pretty much doctors can do what they want, insurance companies can do what they want. Human rights and discrimination right. So pretty much doctors can do what they want, insurance companies can do what they want. So we see a lot of people with bodies that are probably pretty normal and average, but being demonized and told that they're not healthy just based on the size.
Speaker 2:We're also in such a time of social media that you know, when I first got on the socials back in the day, we was in the AOL chat room, the line of people and shit.
Speaker 1:What was your screen name? I saw you there. I don't even remember, but I was big into Yahoo chat. I wanted to be where the oh I was.
Speaker 2:I was at Yahoo, I was in in aim. Uh, let me tell you, my first name was Sab teen W cause Sabrina the teenage bitch name was Sab Teen W because Sabrina the Teenage.
Speaker 1:Witch oh my god, I love it.
Speaker 2:But then it was foreshadowing around sophomore year when my Sophomore or junior, I think it was sophomore when my screen name became Loves to Bite I Do. I said what was happening, Jimenica, what was going on back then.
Speaker 1:Loves to Bite, I Do Awesome.
Speaker 2:That's what it was going was like I was just reading books and shit, like I wasn't doing nothing. I didn't. I wasn't 40k, I didn't have boyfriends. I'm watching wrestling. Look at me now right me now um, you are so vulnerable on the intranet. How has that impacted you? Because I know people love to be behind a screen and just all their goddamn thoughts and feelings that no one fucking asked for. How do you deal?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. So actually, the body work stuff. I went on to teach sex ed stuff and then people would message me and say, oh my God, you're wearing a dress that shows your belly, or I feel so confident because I like that you have a body like mine, and I thought, damn, people care about what I wear and what I look like. Okay, I thought I was trying to go away from this, but I saw it as an opportunity to be like yeah, if I'm doing it, you can do it. Like this is an internal deconstruction. The world is still going to reinforce this. Every single day you step outside and so I take from Sonia Renee Taylor the body is not an apology and I remember seeing her speak once and she said you know, the world can beat you up, the world can do whatever, but you don't have to go home and take that same bat and keep doing the same thing to yourself. So, having these practices, having these moments like my little dance parties or by myself right, or like making sure that I massage my belly in the shower and that I'm touching it because it became such a numb part of me that I didn't want to touch it, I don't want to see it and that that really helped that. That opening it like gave me an opportunity that I didn't see before. I didn't know that that was even possible, and so when I started to tell this to people, it was great.
Speaker 1:I had the people that were supporting me. And then there are the people that are stuck in their own stuff and are lashing out, and I don't get a ton of that because my comments are limited. But I get a lot of DMs and usually they're actually from cis men who have something to say about my body, surprised, surprisingly, so surprising. So what I recommend and what I do in practice is I don't really care if you think I'm beautiful or if you think I'm ugly, like there's a neutrality around other people's opinion. Now for me and I don't get into Internet arguments I don't argue well for important things, yes, but not for some cis man's opinion about my body.
Speaker 2:That's just gross. I always say I don't argue for free and I don't play with peasants.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, I'm up here in goddess land and you're doing what?
Speaker 2:Wow, look at you down there. Peasants. My, my business partner's new word is plebeian. Plebeian, I love that, plebeian, you gotta say it just royal. See it felt good it did.
Speaker 1:It felt better yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:You know what I just noticed in my own body when you were talking about that. I started to to feel emotional and I was like oh my God, am I crying?
Speaker 2:I was like, oh my God, my eyes are watering up and thinking about the ways that I've existed in this body and in my 20s every diet, every pill I could have found, I touched it, every let me try and do this thing. And this whole time I was chasing this idea of a fat body. And I look back and I was like bitch, you had double d titties and you were 130 pounds. Where was it? Where was it I was, I was as fat as I thought. I was like what are you talking about? Like we get this narrative. And also something you brought up that like a word that pinged me was mirrors.
Speaker 2:I have been and still somewhat, and still you know it's a, it's a practice, baby Very mirror avoidant. I've gotten a lot better, where I will look in the mirror and like say things and and write things out, not on my mirror because I don't feel like cleaning, but like put it in a text or something to myself. What has that been like for yourself? Like you mentioned unlearning, also unlearning, and then actually seeing yourself. That's some shit.
Speaker 1:It is. It's wild, and if people think that it's a smooth jump from like self-hatred to, okay, I don't hate myself, it's not. And I remember I started this practice of when I started learning burlesque. I love to dance around.
Speaker 1:I've been doing it ever since, you know, I was living at home with my parents and it's fun for me to have these little solo dance parties, especially to sexy music, and so I started taking videos of myself while I was dancing in front of the mirror, and it took me until video number 12 for me to not watch that video and burst into tears, because I was like this is what you look like, like you were having fun dancing, but then you look like this.
Speaker 1:And so I also had to accept that that mirror, the way that we've learned about bodies, it's distorted my gaze and so it's going to take time to reclaim that gaze and not see myself through this lens of not good enough, or that's the body that people like, or this is the body people desire. And when I got to video number 12, I was like she's having fun, she has moves, look at that. I could appreciate something about the experience and the joy in it, and I think that's what people see when I'm putting my body out there is not like, oh, she has this or that, it's that, or despite this or that, she's doing this, it's that.
Speaker 2:There's a joy coming from it Back to that word joy. Oh, it's so needed in, just like existence Within your belly. What have you found? Let's do that again, chris. Cut that out. She's stumbling Within your body. What about your belly specifically? Has been so impactful for you and how has it really changed your work, like for me? I understand that, like most, traumas affect the way that we exist and that's literally about the why the work I do like. How has it affected you?
Speaker 1:So I found my rage this year.
Speaker 2:You have. I've been watching. I love rage. Thank you.
Speaker 1:It's healthy. It is it's healthy. And just because, like, patriarchy has used it for violence doesn't mean that we would use it that way. Right, like there's so many aspects of rage that we're told. Especially for me as someone who grew up, you know, as a woman, there is so much about like suppressing rage. And my belly my belly was where I found that fire, because I actually started to listen to things that were irritating or annoying about experiences that I had swallowed and just wanted to be kind of managing. You know other people's discomfort, but when I started listening to my own discomfort, I was like, wait a minute, I'm mad. So there was all this new knowledge that came from my belly that I just needed to put a match to the fire.
Speaker 1:Right Like it was there, it's been existing, it's been trying to talk to me, probably through autoimmune disease, but it also is available to me. I mean, I did a lot of therapy also to be able to access that. I could not even think I would do visualizations and I couldn't get into my belly. It was just a dense. I remember the first one was a dense boulder and I just I didn't know what was there. It just felt inaccessible to me. So taking time to do things that were emotionally supportive and also physically exploratory were really helpful for me.
Speaker 2:We can't leave this space without talking about sex and something. I know that you're a fan of kink Ooh yes, Ooh yes. How did you find kink? But also, like, what has sex been like for you? As the narrative told you, you weren't sexy, you weren't desirable. Like, how did you really get into that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is so hard. I think that once that song is written for us, it's hard to take it out of the rotation. But we can play it less right, we can find other things to have our movement go towards. So I had no problem being naked.
Speaker 1:Once I was already with somebody because I'm like, well, you know, like You're here, you can touch it, you can see it, but I definitely wasn't embracing of it. So there were certain positions that I didn't want to be in, where I thought my belly was hanging or that they could see it more. So it made my sexual experiences smaller because I wasn't as expansive. And I think now, now I can see the power of that area, that whole like hip swirling, grinding, that I was missing out on because I didn't want to draw attention to my belly, the jiggle or having someone touch it. It has been really incredible for my sexual confidence, but also for the physical experience of pleasure. There's more blood flow, there's more inhibition. But I found kink through reading my mom's romance novels and it was always some woman being thrown on a bed and then a dude doing something and she would orgasm. So I was like, wow, it's that easy. Your blouse is just like open.
Speaker 2:No, tis not.
Speaker 1:Wish. So I was so interested in submission I was like wow, like that's so hot that someone knows exactly what you want and wants to give it to you. Then I discovered femdoming, and so I'm a big old switch because I'm greedy, but femdoming actually helped me take up more space in my body because I was like a goddess would be not standing here trying to make her body smaller. So that pivot into a role actually integrated parts for me and allowed me to feel that outside of King too.
Speaker 2:That's so, so funny that you're like you know, just throw it on. That's how I learned through them books.
Speaker 2:I learned because I was watching Real Sex back in the day and Taxi Cab Confessions. Baby, they need to bring that back. That was my shit. Imagine the stories now. They probably wouldn't be able to show them honestly. It'd probably be like a random. Why is Dirty Lola in this goddamn car? Yeah, totally, they probably wouldn't be able to show them honestly. It'd probably be like a random. Why is dirty willa in this goddamn car? Um, yeah, he's wearing a dress. What happened? That's crazy. Like that's went left so quick. Um, who were your original belly teachers?
Speaker 1:belly dancers actually, because when I saw belly dancers I thought what are you doing with your waist, like how is that even? Yeah, that's wild, yeah. So I would take belly dancing classes at like rec centers, you know, near my high school or whatever, or my university, and it was the. It was also that, that feeling of that power from your center. So there was things about balance and things about control and because I just wanted that area to not exist, to see it in practice in music, and then I went on to learn the drums that go along with belly dancing, because I wanted that percussive beat that also beats from like your belly to your heart, right. So there were these really musical and body artistic things that really started that journey for me.
Speaker 2:I love that. You know I've been thinking about belly dancing more and more because I know that you have enjoyed it. I know goddess Cecilia enjoys it and I'm like. I want to do. I want my belly to be, cause it looks so beautiful and it's. It's such a story that's told that I think people don't realize and overlook. Yes, what an art. I think it's truly an art.
Speaker 1:Agreed. What does community look like for you? I think community is one of the critical things that's helped me change my relationship to my body, Because seeing you know the Sonia Renee Taylor, seeing the body posi pandas like, seeing people put themselves out there there and really being so vulnerable with not only their bodies and their image but their reflections about what this journey is. I don't feel like this about my body every day. I could not like my belly on Wednesday and then like it again by Saturday. It's just that I know how to get home now faster to this place of peace than I did before. And so the people that were doing this in allowing us to see their journey, allowing us to know that they exist at the same time as the haters in my DM, it just makes me see okay, yeah, my people are out there, I just got to find my people, which is so inspiring, and I hope I'm that for people. I want to be their people too, which is so inspiring and I hope I'm that for people.
Speaker 2:I want to be their people too. I mean, clearly, have you had more folks?
Speaker 1:reaching out the more you've been into these crop tops. Yes, yes, I have, because I see you. Like you know, I went to Hedonism for the first time of this year because I was watching.
Speaker 2:Oh my god it was so fun.
Speaker 1:I had such a great time and, you know, the people were amazing. Everybody, everybody was amazing. But it was this you know, I also went during an event that was geared towards fitness swingers, so I am okay, you said challenge.
Speaker 1:I know, and I thought I never would have gone to this. Even five years ago I would have been like my body doesn't belong there. And this time I went and I thought you belong, you belong in this body and you belong where you decide to take this body. So nobody's gonna tell you anything. And nobody did. Of course, I and I had moments of comparison. I really compared myself to other people and then I stood in my power.
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm here to teach these wonderful humans pleasure skills that are going to improve their confidence and their life. I'm not teaching them how to hold their belly in. I'm not teaching them how to angle their body to look skinnier or whatever. I'm teaching them how to belong in their erotic experiences, which is, for me, the definition of sexual confidence. And so I was doing the same thing. I walked around with my belly out and I noticed that it was only when I caught a glimpse of myself in a reflection did I have judgment. When I was walking around, feeling the sun and the sand and a belly full of good food, I didn't notice it. It wasn't an important thing. So it was a good reminder again that it's that gaze that is just so distorted and that we just continually have to remind ourselves oh, oh, sorry, belly, you know that's not. I know we learned that old bullshit, but it's not where we live from anymore.
Speaker 2:I love that. You were like it's bullshit. Okay, so you had fun. Though For folks that don't know about Hedonism, can you just give a little, and this is not a PG show, so go ahead, Just tell us what it is. Now we're here.
Speaker 1:Hedonism is a resort in Jamaica and they're geared towards adult lifestyle communities. So when you go there there's a nude side and a prude side. You can wear clothes on the prude side but you have to be nude on the nude side. So couples go there to just enjoy a nude positive environment or they go there to connect with other like-minded people, like other swingers or people who are looking to do kind of sexy things, so you can have sex like on the beach. There's a playroom. Yeah, it was stunning, it was beautiful.
Speaker 2:How long did you say?
Speaker 1:We were there for a week with this great couple who organized a called naughty gym, and so they they just love bringing people together, so I was with other community connectors, which was amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for folks that feel like that's like something they could never do. What would you tell them?
Speaker 1:You can do it. You can do it. It's so. It's not easy. It won't be easy, but you can do it anyways. I think that confidence and doubt can coexist. You're never going to get to a place where you feel a hundred percent happy with your body, and even if you do, that's fleeting. You know, we're all aging.
Speaker 2:So we are all Honey, quick my knees right now. Yeah, I know my back. That's why I you know we're all aging.
Speaker 1:Honey, quick my knees right now. I know my back, let me re-sit better. And so you know, I remember meeting this woman in a boxing class and she was really young, she was like in her early 20s, and we were chatting and she said to me you know, I really want to go to New York. I said it's amazing, you should totally go. She said to me you know, I really want to go to New York. I said it's amazing, you should totally go. And she said I'm going to wait until I lose 100 pounds because I don't want my photos.
Speaker 2:It's time for that. You breaking up with someone.
Speaker 1:I know and I just thought I want to save the babies. I want to tell you don't not live your life because of what you think other people think about your body, because we usually don't even hate our body. We hate the way that we're treated by other people who don't like our bodies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because the world is so fucking loud. Yes, it's like I go to the gym now I have a trainer and when we first started he's like well, what are your goals? And I was like, honestly, a fat ass. But second, second, I was like I really want to invest in my 60 year old self, like I was like I come from a family of cancer and diabetes and high blood pressure, which is, you know, for the blacks, the sugars and all of this. And I was like I don't want to invest in that, I want to divest from that. And he was like this is amazing. He's like, absolutely Like, let's figure this out.
Speaker 2:And like I still go to the gym and I'm like when does this become fun? When do I start liking this shit? And then I start to get in my head. I don't know if you experienced this. I started in my head and then I like look around. I'm like, well, I don't want anyone to look at me because I'm gonna fuck this. And then I'm like we're all just trying to get through this goddamn workout. Like no one's even looking at me, mind it. Look, bitch, do the squat and shut up.
Speaker 1:Yes, Do the squat and shut up. That's what I have to tell myself too, you know. Yeah, but I think I can really relate to that experience of thinking people are watching when they're not. And even if they are, it's so fleeting, you know, I'll walk outside in an outfit that I think is, you know, kind of cheeky, for my body or that feels risky for my body.
Speaker 1:And I'll notice, people notice and I just keep reminding myself, like, who cares what they think? Like you love your body, you know you're trying to love your body, you're trying to have, you're just trying to have a great day, like you know, just remind yourself to like, have a great day, have a great trip, have a great time at the gym, even though you hate it. But this, this pull to be acceptable and appropriate for other people is totally white supremacy, right, it's totally patriarchy, it's totally capitalism to keep us feeling not good enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if there were some babies listening and they're like I came you going to give me a tip, a trick, something bitch I'm out here struggling.
Speaker 1:What would you say to them? What would you offer them? Yes, I have two things. One you got to find your people. If everyone around you is talking about diets all the time, they're always like criticizing or like criticizing their own bodies. Stay friends with them. But we want to be able to divest from that kind of chatter, that kind of noise you know like, because those are no longer going to be our restraints. Right, we're going to find, we're going to find other ways to have liberation. And then I think the second thing is is really having compassion for yourself. Like this stuff is not easy.
Speaker 1:It's not easy to live in a body that you're not happy in and most people aren't, but particularly a fat body, where we're not protected by categories of discrimination, and you can do that by showing yourself care, and so that care means that maybe you move for fun, you know. Maybe you wear your favorite color, even if it's in. I used to wear like six layers over everything to try and give this illusion that I don't have a shape right, and so who cares Like, start to sweat yes, I was sweating profusely all the time. Wear your favorite nail polish, I don't know. Buy your favorite color of pillowcase, something that says I deserve to make choices that align with my joy, and that's nobody else's business. So small things, small things, babies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we try to do too much Like when you throw everything at it. It's also like in trauma work. They're like I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. I'm like, well, what's going to work if you're doing six things at a time and like overloading yourself? It's not real. It's not, it's not real. Two questions before we'll. We'll get there to the end. But mental health how have you navigated your mental health, as bodies are so on the forefront in this state, in this state, in this country, maybe in this country and people are constantly scrolling through Instagram, sometimes it's like a minefield how have you navigated in taking care of your own mental health?
Speaker 1:A big thing that I saw was a game changer right away is to really be specific and intentional about my scrolling. So I unfollowed a bunch of folks or muted folks that were messages that just didn't align with me anymore or that had sections that I really liked, but maybe I didn't like some of their other stuff, and then I proactively followed people who are reinforcing the message that I am interested in, so lots of fat influencers or fat kind of thought makers or thought leaders, and a big thing too is to do like active practice.
Speaker 1:For me it's not enough for me to just block out stuff, but doing things like I do, a body joy gratitude thing every day where I just write down like two to three things that I'm grateful for about my body and this body has, has suffered. I've been very sick for about three years and now I kind of feel a little bit like I have a bit more energy and I want to put that energy into honoring, you know, the survival of this body and that I still found joy in it, even when I was also very, very miserable in it.
Speaker 1:So that has really helped me, because I thought it was kind of bullshit. I was like whatever gratitude, you know gratitude turn to my ass and then the other thing that's really good for my mental health is my friends. So my dear friends are places where I can also open up about things that maybe are still raw, and for me that feels much more loving versus having engaging my audience in things like that. I think that's also a tool for folks, but for me I need my besties.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's also a tool for folks, but for me, I need my besties. Yeah, we're not meant to be alone even though sometimes you do need some quiet and get the fuck away from people. We are meant to be within community and I think people forget that, because sometimes it's just hard to navigate other people's bullshit and you're like I just need some silence and a break. Yeah, definitely. How do you find?
Speaker 1:your silence oh my god. So my cat, bubba, is the most beautiful cat in the world. So actually he's been. I never realized um that, that I was lonely living at home until I had another live thing that makes eye contact and makes noises and that I have to do things for. So my alone time is often my cat time, where I'm like tending to somebody or my plants. I often love like pruning my plants or like creating clippings and having making them have babies. So things that are really about nourishing other life is a good use of my alone time. I also, you know, lie on the couch and do nothing and smoke hot, so that's also alone time.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Take my braids out and lay on my sofa. You have to do the marking.
Speaker 1:Don't forget the marking.
Speaker 2:Listen, I have to do that, damn it. I do have to do that, damn it. I do have to do that. You're right, he's got a text message about it, uh, so I will do that, all right. Um, how do you balance finding joy and adulting at the same time?
Speaker 1:I don't know, know my taxes are always late.
Speaker 1:I actually think it's about compassion. It's really about saying like today I have the capacity to do this and tomorrow is a new day. I can. I can try again tomorrow and I can, you know, also ask for help and support. That is affirming of kind of my own pace and the things that I need, whereas before I used to do what you said, like really start with this huge goal thing, like I'm going to go to hot yoga nine times a day and then eat nothing but this or you know, which was very restrictive, kind of orthorexic kind of behavior, and so now it's all about gentleness. I'm letting go of this idea that I need to suffer in order to adult. You know, some things are going to get dropped. I probably haven't emailed from you for like three months ago, I don't know.
Speaker 2:The suffering part, right, yeah, I mean, they're like yes, actually we do want you to answer it. What do?
Speaker 1:you mean.
Speaker 2:They're like we heard you on the podcast, so you're telling us you got it. That's wild. One more question before we get to the last question of the show. For myself, I know that when I'm not doing well mentally or I'm tired, the first thing I can do is attack myself, because I can control that. How do you combat the self-narrative that throws back? Like you said, every day is different. Self-narrative that's like that throws back. Like you said, every day is different.
Speaker 1:The first place that I go to when I'm struggling is body darkness, so it could be.
Speaker 1:oh, I did a presentation and it didn't go that well Well, of course it didn't go well because you're fat. You know it's like this voice that just wants to take everything to that place and that also tells me, you know, there's still relationship building for that place. But I think that the thing that helps me kind of surf, that is, I mean, definitely my friends. But there's something about knowing that there is this place of peace that I have cultivated right. I know that I'm safe, I know that my home is safe, I know that whatever.
Speaker 1:So it makes me feel all of the things around me that has made my world softer, and one of the problems of my trauma was that I wasn't able to receive any of that, even if it was there, right, I just wanted to reinforce the narrative that no, if it was there, right, I just wanted to reinforce the narrative that no, you're alone and you have to do this by yourself, and so that softness has really helped me. So sometimes that's physical things, like everything in my house that's going to cover your body is soft soft blankets, soft throws, soft whatever and I make sure that that my space also feels like joy. I have a big orange wall and I have, of course, my plant babies, and my room is like a little oasis, except for the thousands of sex toys.
Speaker 2:For some, though, is that not yeah, Exactly Listen I have dicks, so many dicks around me right now. There's drawers. I'm literally looking. I'm like there's weed sex toys, glasses. There's drawers. I'm literally looking. I'm like there's weed sex toys, glasses. There's so much.
Speaker 1:You are talking very well, from what I can see.
Speaker 2:We're doing great here.
Speaker 1:I don't even know where my glasses are.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know what? I cheated because I bought those glasses stands, because I have like 20 pairs of glasses at this point so I can look over and they're like organized like wild colors, the different shapes, sunglasses. You can get them for like 10 bucks and then I stand about.
Speaker 1:That's so much better than like having a million cases that are like empty.
Speaker 2:Well, I also have a drawer of a million empty cases, which I should probably throw away. Listen, two things, things. Two things can exist, true, true. So for the last question of the show, it's, it's truly for balance and because I'm a nosy bitch. But what is the wildest thing that someone has texted or dm'd you in the last two weeks? Wild is relative. Everyone is different.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, this is going to sound tame, but this person you know how sometimes, like people, come out of the woodworks in your DMs Go back to the woods.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this person messaged me and was like oh hey, and had like kind of a blank account, like obviously was like a secondary sketchy account, and said, hey, do you remember me? No other identifying details. And I was into my head, I'm like I don't want to, but I'm gonna engage in this. So I was like no, I don't, I have no idea who you are. And he was like, oh, it's mike. I was like still have no idea who you are mike.
Speaker 1:we had sex in like whatever year. I was like still don't know who you are and he was like oh, it's Mike. I was like still have no idea who you are, mike. We had sex in like whatever year I was like still don't know who you are.
Speaker 2:I fucked six Mikes. Which one are you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were all terrible. So I don't know which one you are. You know and and I thought this is incredible like the entitlement and audacity to be in my DM with literally no effort, no information and wanting and expecting my attention. So I didn't carry it much further. I kind of I probably was rude, and then this is why I'm banned from Tinder. I'm double banned and my phone number are banned Forever.
Speaker 2:How did you get banned? What was you doing?
Speaker 1:I think it was because men reported me and so they report. If you want to come over right now, they report. If, like, you don't like what they want you to do, they report if whatever. So and there were times where I was rude, back to someone else's rudeness. So if you're going to come in my inbox being like do you want to be my whatever? Blah, blah, blah, I'm going to be like no, you dumb dumb, like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, this has been fun, I think. I think this is something that we all struggle with. Like bodies, and specifically bellies, like that is where the big narrative constantly is bathing suit season's coming, baby, yeah and uh, those bathing suits is getting smaller and I'm confused. Uh, they're getting smaller and bodies are not, so I don't know why it's in child sizes, but I digress. I'm getting older. The bathing suits are getting smaller. It's weird. I'm confused. I was going to say something wild. Anyway, let me come back. Let me come back Before you leave us. Where can he she they them zee z before you leave us? Where can he she they them z z everybody? Where can they find you? Where can they get in your? Where can they book you? Throw some coins.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so my website is lunamatadascom. It's like hakuna matadas, but lunamatadas and um. There you're going to find 35 different classes you can watch on demand with lifetime viewing access whenever you want. You can also book me there for events, private events or organizational events. I love teaching virtually in person and Instagram. You can find me on Instagram at Luna Matadas.
Speaker 2:I love that. Not on Tinder, though. Don't look on Tinder, you cannot find me there.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'm also kind of in a sketchy relationship with Bumble right now. I got a warning, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:We're running out of. What about Field, the off-field in Canada?
Speaker 1:Yeah, field seems to be good. Field is like okay, well, because it's a little looser. Yeah, that's true, it's a little looser.
Speaker 2:This is so good, thank you. This felt good for my. I needed this, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God, thank you, this was pure joy. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Gotta have joy. We gotta have joy in all the fuckery and until next time, y'all Bye.
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