In this episode, I sit down with the Trap Witch to discuss how ancestral veneration has been key in her path. We dive into the balance of psychology, emotions, and shadow work, viewing conflict as guidance, and soul much more.

We get into all the nuances of her journey as an adult industry worker to spiritual worker so make sure to stay tuned all the way to the end! This is a deeply nuanced, multilayered conversation where I get to ask her questions I’ve never been able to ask someone before who had been in the s** industry.

Trap Witch is a fierce, brave, controversial woman who owns it all and I know you’re going to be inspired by her authenticity in this episode.

Connect with Trap Witch here https://www.instagram.com/thetrapwitch/

Get the podcasts emailed to you each week: https://iamsahararose.com/loveletter

If you’re feeling the call to embody more ease, flow, creativity and joy from a cellular level – my Free Embodiment Practice is meant for you: https://iamsahararose.com/embodiment

Get 30 days free on Open when you visit https://open-together.com/SAHARA

Try Betterhelp for 10% off at https://www.betterhelp.com/sahara
*As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided

To receive a free gift, email a screenshot of your review of the Highest Self Podcast to [email protected]

Intro + Outro Music: Silent Ganges by Maneesh de Moor

Follow me your spiritual bestie to active your fullest expression + laugh along the way:
https://www.Instagram.com/iamsahararose
https://www.tiktok.com/@iamsahararose
https://www.Facebook.com/iamsahararose
+ https://www.Twitter.com/iamsahararose

Order My Books: https://iamsahararose.com/books

By accessing this Podcast, I acknowledge that the entire contents are the property of Sahara Rose, or used by Sahara Rose with permission, and are protected under U.S. and international copyright and trademark laws. Except as otherwise provided herein, users of this Podcast may save and use information contained in the Podcast only for personal or other non-commercial, educational purposes. No other use, including, without limitation, reproduction, retransmission or editing, of this Podcast may be made without the prior written permission of the Sahara Rose, which may be requested by contacting [email protected].

This podcast is for educational purposes only. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein.

Transcript

Episode #463: Ancestral Veneration, Facing Your Shadows + Conscious Sex with Trap Witch

By Sahara Rose

 

[00:12] Sahara

Welcome to The Highest Self Podcast, my name is Sahara Rose and this Podcast is all about making the spiritual journey approachable, modern, fun, relatable and grounded. And I am soul deeply excited to be reconnected with you here in this lifetime.

 

[00:28] Sahara

I started this Podcast over five years ago and since then it has become the Number 1 Spirituality Podcast on iTunes because of the depth that we go to in our conversations. We really go there, speaking about childhood traumas, and ascended masters, and Tantra, and Dharma, and Karma, and everything in between. 

And if you don’t even what these words I said are, it’s okay, because we bring you along with us on the journey.

 

[00:57] Sahara

So, a little bit about me. I am an author, I’ve written three books, I have an oracle card deck and journal. You can learn more about me on my website iamsahararose.com and really, I’m here to allow people to see a new lens on spirituality, one that is deeply connected to our feminine, to our joy, to our bodies, to expression and creativity. And again, I am so deeply grateful that you are here! 

 

[01:22] Sahara

So, this conversation is a really and nuanced and multilayered one. 

 

[01:28] Sahara

If you haven’t heard of the Trap Witch, I came across her on Instagram and her posts really just stood out to me because she’s fierce, and she’s brave, and she’s controversial, and to me, that makes for a really interesting conversation. 

So, I invited her here on this Podcast and she shares with us, and really opens up, on her story of transitioning from being a sex worker to being a spiritual worker, and we really get into the nuances of that at the end of this conversation, so be sure to listen to the end.

 

[02:00] Sahara

She also shares about her journey of being involved with Santeria, which is the African traditional, spiritual branch that really comes from the African diaspora and has taken many shapes and forms throughout the Caribbean, Cuba, specifically, which is where her family comes from (as well as in Brazil), and we really speak about how ancestral veneration has been such an important part of her path. But also bringing that into balance with psychology, and emotional understanding, and shadow work, because it’s very easy for us to sometimes just, you know, connect with our ancestors, connect with our spirit guides, rather than looking at our relationships and the triggers that are showing up, and even the conflicts that we are in, and seeing that our prayer, and seeing that as the guidance that our spirit guides and highest selves and ascended masters are giving to us. It’s actually right here, in our present-day reality.

 

[02:58] Sahara

So, we really kind of zoom in and out, and really speak about that higher-arching understanding that we are connected to spirits and also, like, what really matters, which is being here in this human experience.

 

[03:11] Sahara

So, we really speak about many different topics along this subject line and then move into what it was like for her as a sex worker. And this was the first time I got to interview someone who has ever been in that line of work, and for me, my background was working in non-profit organizations for sex trafficking, so it’s always something that I’ve been very interested to know about, how someone chooses this path, an empowered person choosing this path because I had really never met someone before.

So, I got to ask her many questions that I had for myself, and just, her answers were so deeply surprising and shows, again, how multilayered this conversation is. So, this is a good one, you’re going to definitely feel like a fly on the wall, on the most interesting conversation that you have dropped into at the party, that you’re like “Oh, damn, we’re really going there!” and I know you’re going to love this Episode!  

 

[04:07] Sahara

So, without further ado, let’s welcome Tatiana aka the Trap Witch to The Highest Self Podcast.     

 

_________________________________________________________________ 

 

[04:14] Advertisement

And before we get started, I have an announcement for you.

 

1.

The greatest way that we can help balance and heal our nervous systems is through embodiment work. You see, we spend most of our times in our heads, we are constantly analyzing, trying to make sense of the world and predict the future, but what we really need to create the future that we want is to drop into our body’s wisdom and understand what it’s telling us, and that way we can bring about more healing and co-create the circumstances that we desire, and that really comes, first, from knowing our body’s language.

So, I have created my Free Goddess Embodiment Practice which will allow you to drop into your body’s wisdom in under 10 minutes. This is the perfect practice you can do if you have no prior experience to embodiment or if you’re already practicing yoga, meditation, maybe you’re working out, or you want something a little bit more feminine and flowy to add to the end or beginning of it, this practice is for you!

I play incredible music and I guide you through dancing and just really feeling the messages that your body has for you, and you’re going to feel so different on the other side. People seriously say “I can’t believe how amazing I feel in less that 10 minutes”, and I’m so excited to see how it turns out for you. 

So, if you’re interested, head over to iamsahararose.com/embodiment and you can find that link in the show notes and download the practice. 

 

2.

So, there’s a lot of talk about morning routines, and if I have to be honest, there is one practice that I really stick to every single day, it’s my non-negotiable, and that is breathwork.

It really just helps me open up the channels in my body and allow me to receive more creativity, insight, which really supports me in my Dharma. And I have been loving the App Open! I actually have the founder, Manoj, here on The Highest Self Podcast (incredible Episode, I’ll link it below), and this App is really just a modern approach to breathwork. I mean, picture doing breathwork to Berlin house music and you basically got the vibe, and I also love that they have meditation movement classes, and it’s all in under 10 minutes.

So, I love doing their breathwork in the morning, but also their sleeping breathwork at night because it really just helps me calm my mind. 

So, they’re actually giving Highest Self Podcast listeners 30 days free, so you can head over to withopen.com/sahara to get your 30 days free, and you can find that link in the show notes and I’m super excited to see you in class!  

 

[06:40] End of Advertisement

___________________________________________________________________ 

 

[06:41] Interview

 

[06:41] Sahara

Welcome Tatiana, to The Highest Self Podcast, it’s so great to have you here! 

 

[06:45] Tatiana

Thank you so much for having me Sahara! So excited!

 

[06:48] Sahara

And the first question I would love to ask you is, what makes you your highest self? 

 

[06:53] Tatiana

I would say is my undeniable enthusiasm to not be afraid of the dark anymore.

 

[07:01] Sahara

And you have an incredible story about going into the underworld and also with your deep intellectual background as well. So, can you share a little bit about your spiritual awakening story?

 

[07:15] Tatiana

Yeah, I consider myself, by societal terms, to be a late bloomer, not because, I would say, that I was stagnant, but because my plans were interrupted by divine intervention.

So, I graduated high school at 16, I was finished my BSA, I have a Fine Arts Degree, by almost 19. I had a plan and I started working, I wasn’t happy with what I was working with, for my Art degree, and I decided to go back to school. And I was on the path again to be a celebrity photographer and I started freelancing and I was just miserable.

And so, I decided to take a break and try and begin to have this Eat, Pray, Love moment. And I met a friend of a friend who had known me through photography and she was like “Hey, you need money, girl! You need money!” So, I always tell people, if you’re familiar with the movie Player’s Club, I always say she Player’s Clubbed me, she Ronny Player Clubbed me, she’s like “Let me put you onto some game, let me help you in this moment, because you still need to survive”. 

And so, it was that time in 2012 that she was in the sex work realm, and she was actually a daughter of Oshun, she’s also still a daughter of Oshun. For those of you who aren’t familiar, that’s the Orisha of divine femininity, the fresh waters of the world, flow, abundance, under the umbrella of Santeria, Epha, African traditional religion. 

So, she came to me, she was already deep into the practices and she was like “You’re a daughter of Oshun, and I was like “Girl, I do not know what the fuck that means! I don’t know, I don’t care! But let me hear what you have to say about, you, you know, helping me out”.

And so, she introduced me to the world of body rub. So, those of you who don’t know, that’s sensual massage, there’s a bit of Tantra involved. I always tell people, like, I recognize how naturally attuned to Tantra and Reiki I was, once I stepped into that world. 

And so, for five years, I gave myself an Eat, Pray, Love moment, although I wasn’t going around the world, I was deep in trying to find myself. I got married in that time and I just, was trying to figure out who I was, what I was doing, because I knew my plans were not working and I was not happy. 

And so, it was through my, now, ex-husband, and a woman who got me into sex, where I started developing an interest for the Orisha. I really wasn’t drawn into say “Oh, I would like to become a practitioner”, but there was a curiosity. And that curiosity peaked more and more as spirit sent messengers to bring me back home to those practices. 

So, I always tell people, my spiritual awakening was, kind of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I was here, I loved shopping, I loved the 3D, I really loved the 3D, I wanted just to live a very 3D life and now, I recognize in myself, know there’s a Virgo in second house, and so, things I’ve already integrated, I was resisting coming into my purpose by being content with what I thought my plan should be. 

And so, every year, from 2011 until about 2016, spirit would send someone who was either involved in Santeria, in the Occult, in Voodoo, they would just send these people to befriend me and it would never work out well, it would be “Hi, let me befriend you, let me help you”, and in turn, there would be a power struggle or dynamic, not even because I was completely resistant, because at times, there was a bit of malevolence in their intentions.

So, the way I always tell people is that, spirit had to A) rob me of a lot of things that I thought I desired, whether it was my ex-husband, whether it was the type of life that I wanted to live, and also infuriate me to gather interest to walking towards the practices. 

So, I always tell people it was nothing but loss and pure rage that fueled my interest to knock on the door of traditional African religion. I have Cuban ancestry, my mother is from the Cayman Islands, I grew up in the Cayman Islands, but we have Cuban and Jamaican heritage on that side, and then my father was eastern European, Polish-Lithuanian. So, I’d always had a drawn to my Cuban ancestry from around 2010, and it was one day when I literally said, too, I was looking at pictures of Cuba and I said “I don’t know what it is, but I know my soul is there, I know my heart is there”. And whether that was metaphorically, or just knowing that the return to myself would be through these practices, spirit took me through a big season of loss and anger, to welcome me back home, to myself through those practices. So, I would say, that’s how that my spiritual awakening happened.

And I always tell people, I could’ve probably been in that wave of people in 2012, that awakened, but I was still resisting. So, in 2016, they dragged my ass!

 

[12:23] Sahara

I love how, you know, I so relate to, sometimes, we’re drawn to certain parts of the world because our deep feeling, our soul connection is there. The exact same thing happened to me in India, and I know for you, your ex-husband was Nigerian, and that brought you there, my ex was from India, and that brought me there, and it’s like, sometimes love, sometimes just this deep soul calling, you know. Because I also have Indian ancestry but was never really connected to it, can bring us to these places that we have this deep soul contract with, that the only way that we’re going to get there and fulfil that is to be guided through love, but then when that soul contract is complete, that person, that situation, is no longer needed because the deeper work has already begun.

 

[13:03] Tatiana

Absolutely, I totally agree.

 

[13:05] Sahara

So, I want to talk about ancestral veneration, because, you know, connecting with your ancestors is kind of a big thing right now in spirituality, and I’m so happy for it because I feel like, before, we were very separated from our history. Our past spirituality was like, you know “Don’t identify with the human body. Don’t identify with family”, and it was sort of, like, just create your own reality, right? And we’re realizing, well, we’re not only creating our own reality, but we’re connected to our ancestors, our ancestral trauma, gifts and also hardships.

So, can you speak a little bit more about what is ancestral veneration?

 

[13:39] Tatiana

I love how you emphasize that we’re moving away just, solely, like, separation and isolation from the family unit to create your own reality. Because, just like you said, if you don’t understand some of the reasons why you incarnated into this specific family that you did to liberate yourself into your sovereignty, you’re going to still have a hard time creating your reality, especially when other people on this earth come around and remind you of the things you’re in avoidance from healing, because we know that we meet the same scenarios in other people, until we break the pattern.

So, for me, I feel like ancestral veneration is understanding, firstly, that you are not alone on this journey. I think that, for me, when I started my journey of tapping into my ancestors, I was in a very isolated place, just like you were saying, trying to create my own reality and feeling alienated from my family, not even in the sense of that they weren’t around or they weren’t there, but I felt completely different, the black sheep, the not supported, whether it’s because they just couldn’t, because I come from a very emotionally avoidant and emotionally dismissive family. 

And so, for me, I was at a place of rock bottom and I needed to find my faith, and I think, finally, at a point of having an extreme tower moment, I was like “Man, if there’s nobody around me that can help me, there’s got to be something, someone, out there, whether it’s God, whether it’s a guardian angel, whether it’s whatever”. But I was looking for endurance because so many people lack spiritual endurance, and I believe that as long as we are here on this earth, we do have to become warriors because navigating this existence is not easy. We go through spiritual warfare every day, whether it’s within ourself, with the system, with other people. And so, I was looking for endurance by believing and trusting and seeing the invisible, because if people don’t recognize that seeing the invisible is faith, and it’s very hard for a lot of people to have faith especially when they’re co-dependent on putting power outside of them. 

So, I feel like ancestral veneration is giving light to your ancestors, but not just so that they can take your burdens off of you, so that they could reflect back to you the messaging that you need, the codes that you need, in order to break your own patterns, but also to liberate your lineage and your heritage.

And so, I still think, at times, when I work with a lot of people, people are still getting caught up in, I don’t know, would words be like ‘idol worship’, I feel like – you know, I’ve known a lot of people who’ve gotten into ancestral veneration and it becomes a very, like a slippery slope, very easily because, again, it can create a lot of psychosis. 

I think that in general, the Occult and these practices, I think even Christianity, whether it’s Hinduism, when we are looking for extreme faith outside of us, it can create such psychosis, it can create fanaticism that takes us away from our sovereignty. So, more than anything, I think we should just be able to analyze the patterns and from a subjective place and also an objective place, and take that data collection and move forward. 

And I think at times, too, when we are looking to give light to our ancestors, again, we can’t become so co-dependent that we’re like “Oh my God, if you didn’t throw me a burning bush, you’re not there!”  One thing that I’ve learned through ancestral veneration is, sometimes, just the signs are very subtle, it comes but like a quiet whisper, but I feel like that’s what the intuition is too, intuition can be a very quiet whisper. And I always tell people, the moment I really started having faith is when I understood that God was not going to come down as some old fucking white man to tell me what to do and give me a message. So, more than anything, I think it’s understanding, ancestral veneration is understanding that you can create spiritual endurance by believing and seeing the invisible in some sense and understanding cycles of death, transformation and rebirth, because our ancestors came before us. And yes, they have to be released back to the other realms so that the new can enter, and whatever they were not able to achieve, we have a personal responsibility to the ones who came before us to go further.

You know, I don’t know about you, but my father’s parents, you know, worked so hard all their life to build a dream house, to die not long later, both of them from cancer. So, what we could take from that is, well, maybe, survival and not having rest, not working from love, sabotaged their dream before they could even enjoy them. And so many of us understand that through our family having chronic illnesses, having mental illness, emotional dis-ease. So, it’s understanding that life can be as simple and complex as you make it, and there’s going to be seasons of change that are going to be forever consistent. But in spite of it, you can have many days filled with gratitude, love and happiness, but if you are somebody who is reluctant to change, reluctant to transformation and avoidant of death, not just physical death, but spiritual death, it’s going to be hard for you to evolve.

 

[19:37] Sahara

Yeah, I really agree with, it’s that fine balance of trusting that we are supported and also not like “Hey Spirit, if you’re here, give me the sign, and if you don’t give me the sign, then I don’t trust you”, and like, thinking Spirit is here for our beckon and call, or even using it. 

I feel like so much of the manifestation space is “I’m going to do this ritual so I can get”, and it’s like, kind of, taking. Or even in the plant medicine space, it’s like you’re going into it trying to extract form it. So, I think that veneration of you’re here to honor, you’re here to honor the people that have come here before you and stand upon their shoulders of like, yes, our parents had to work hard and sacrifice, and we’re in this mindset of martyrdom, so we could see that first hand and be like “That’s not how I’m going to live my life”. And I’m so blessed, you know, that they did work as hard as they did so I could be able to even entertain conversations like this and be at this level of consciousness. 

One question I have for you, because I hear kind of mixed things of like, when connecting to our ancestors, should we be connecting to the ancestors that are healed and rested and well from, like, generations ago, or is this your grandmother, a passed family member? Can we work with all ancestors, what should we be looking out for with this?

 

[20:54] Tatiana

So, I think that, that’s a great question, first and foremost. I wanted to just go back for a minute to something that you said that was so powerful about the rituals and the mysticism. I think that there’s tons of mysticism that exist in these practices. I’ve seen so many sayings that you’d be like “Wow!” But, at the same time, do we prioritize mysticism over practical application? And that’s the thing, is that ancestral veneration and practices, you have to put the work into application. It’s very easy to light a candle and it’s very easy to make a beautiful, what we call a sympathetic, a sympathetic offering, right? But until you’re someone willing to work through your darkness and embrace your light and be ritualistic in changing your patterns, those sympathetic offerings sometimes are not a large enough sacrifice. 

To answer your question about giving light to certain ancestors – you know, there are people, there are people that have had really, really terrible experiences with some of their ancestors. There’s also people who come from lineages that have had ancestors that also have done terrible things. By no means is it an obligation for people to give light to an ancestor that they may feel uncomfortable with for some of the things they may have done. But also, we have to understand that sometimes when spirits cross over into those realms, they are not the same embodiment that they were in this realm. And that takes a lot of grace, it takes a lot of compassion.  

You know, I have a grandfather who was not the nicest person when he was here, I still give light to his spirit because I believe that there’s evolution from even giving grace to his shortcomings. But yes, there are some spirits, especially in Santeria, we talk about, you know, like hardened spirits, spirits that are heavy, that have to have extra light being given to them. So, yeah, sometimes we don’t necessarily want to work with a spirit that might be problematic because, yes, spirits can be problematic to people. We talk about spirits (ancestral spirits) that sit on people’s chest at night while they’re trying to sleep. I definitely feel like we have to take our time with going, still, outside of ourselves. 

When I work with people, I tell people at the end of the say, it doesn’t matter if you knew your ancestor’s names, it doesn’t matter if you knew who they were, even if you have an understanding that the average person has a spiritual court 2-20 spirits around them at all times, whether they were ancestral or whether they are assigned spirits that are there to walk with you, you know.

I have a spirit that’s really, it’s funny, my spirits are predominantly women, but occasionally I have a very large male spirit that’s described as Congolese spirit, they say he’s like a tower. I’ve had random strangers on the internet DM me and be like “Hey, don’t forget your big black man because he is, like, just wants you to know…”, like, totally random strangers will tell me about him at the most weird time. 

So, of course we have assigned spirits or we have ones an affinity to, if we build a relationship with them, but the most important thing is, I tell people is like “What the fuck do they want you to do? Like, what’s the next step?” Because a lot of times, I think, the inner child gets caught up in the “Oh, I have unseen support”, it’s like having an imaginary friend, right?

So, sometimes we want to get caught up in imagining what our imaginary friends are like because we want that relationship. But you have to be careful to get distracted by that relationship when there’s real-life people that we need to interact with. 

And I’ve met people who can sit at an ancestral altar for hours and it’s like sitting in playroom with your imaginary friend and they’re feeling comfort, but this person can’t go out into society and have healthy relationships with people, and that’s what we have to be mindful of.

So, at the end of the day, top priority, I tell people, what is it that your ancestors want to guide you with for this human experience? Because I think there’s a lot spiritual bypassing.

And for me, I consider myself, a shadow worker and a middle ground worker, and I feel like I’m here to help people navigate this human existence and enjoy it because at some point we’re not going to be here anymore, and most of us don’t know what it’s like afterwards. I mean, most of us can’t recollect, if we transition and come back, we can’t always remember what it’s like in those other realms. So, when we rush to just in the spiritual realm, we rush to just to connect with entities in that realm, it’s like, you’re missing a whole lot.

I recently saw a video where someone was like “If you ask me why I don’t travel anymore, it’s because I feel like I can astral project to those places, so why would I want to even travel anymore if I can just experience it?”, I was like “Please sir, shut the fuck up!” Like, enjoy this! We’re not taking this with us, so enjoy human connection, enjoy the lessons that come through that, because, again, I think a lot of people have social anxiety and it’s easy to tap into your imaginary friends and your unseen friends because you fear people. I used to be one of those people, I used to be terrified of people, I used to be terrified of myself.

So, if your ancestral practices are not bringing you back to your own humanity and how you love others and love the collective consciousness, and your part in what you’re here to do, I feel like practicing your ancestral practices and it’s not including that, it’s all short. I think that’s why I loved Coco so much.

 

[26:46] Sahara

Yeah, I loved that movie as well! And I totally agree with, it’s so much easier to connect to your higher self, connect to your spirit guides, your ancestors, than it is to really look at “Okay, why do I have conflict in my relationships and what is this showing me?”

And I was, recently, in a, kind of like a work conflict and I could feel my old self of like “Just walk away, just leave it, you don’t need this in your life, move on”, but then there was the higher part of me that was like “This is how you learn, this is how you grow, this is how you get to know your attachment style, this is how you get to witness your ego, and it feels offended, instead of, like, distancing yourself, being in the discomfort, because it’s only through repair, that relationships actually grow. And conflict and relationships actually shows you care about each other, actually means you’re going somewhere.

So, I definitely have recognized, sometimes, on our spiritual growth journeys, we become such isolationists because it’s easier to live in our own minds where everyone’s going to agree with us than it is to be in the real world where people have their own stories and their own fears and their own shadows. And it’s so much easier to call everyone else out on their shadows than it is to really look at our own. 

 

[27:54] Tatiana

Absolutely! You know, in the past few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of people think when we reach a certain status as a public figure, I’m sure you get this, and I get this all the time, they’re like “Oh, you must be perfect, you must be healed”. And I think there’s judgment, sometimes, too when cycles come back for reevaluation, right? Because triggers can always be retriggered, no matter how deeply you healed them; a new situation can present new feelings. And so, I’ve recently just discovered, I was like, damn, I’m really sometimes dismissive/avoidant. And when you’re speaking to that, like, yeah. I always tell people I used to be the queen of ‘God bless you’, like “God bless you, I’m out”, like, I wouldn’t even do the conflict, wouldn’t even do the drama because I just did not have space, it would be better to bless people away or tell the go to hell than to go through the conflict. 

You know, I’m an Aquarius, so I thrive in isolation, but at the same time, there are moments where we don’t need to discard people, like you said, we need to go through the conflict, and sometimes we are avoiding those parts of ourselves that are uncomfortable in communicating our feelings, even, regardless, if people are in agreement or not. And when we think about so many of our ancestors from the past and their attachment styles and the way that they lived, you know, like, my mom’s one of 10 children and all of my aunts and uncles are, like, fucked up from the abuse that they witnessed at the hands of their father, even though they were never abused, but I just see how my grandfather’s sense of self impacted 10 children in the way that they show up. 

And recently, before even talking about ancestral practice, my mom just had a double bypass because, you know, I was supposed to come there to Miami to film this with you, and it was so fascinating, for weeks up until she had that diagnose, because she did not know she had heart disease at all. She kept saying that my father was coming to her in her dreams and she kept saying that my brother as well. My brother passed away from a heart attack last year, my dad succumbed to heart disease. And she doesn’t necessarily believe in the things I believe, but she’ll wake up and she says “Your brother just keeps coming to me, your dad just keeps coming to me, I don’t get it, I don’t get it, I don’t know!” And then she goes to get a catheterization and gets hospitalized and is about to have open heart surgery. And I told her, I was like “They were coming to you because they were trying to give you the sign of what was happening”, and there was a bit of comfort. So, I believe in those sides, but I know, personally, my father succumbed to heart disease because he was dismissive/avoidant, my father died alone on a couch, by himself, and was found days later by a friend. But I think about the times where he was in isolation, not even just solely, voluntarily, like, how he might think, but because he pushed so many people away. And so many of us, it’s easy for us to do it, and whether we are not evolved in our spiritual journey, or we are.

Do you know how many spiritual leaders I meet? And I’ll drop this gem on you, my mentor, my godfather in Santeria, some of the best piece of advice he gave me in 2018, before I went through my larger initiation, he was like “Don’t just become a queen of Instagram”, he was like “Become a queen in real life”. And I meet so many spiritual practitioners who isolate themselves behind the telephone, behind their persona that they’ve built on social media, because a lot of us, our inner child builds these personas. The inner child builds these personas to protect us and we get to a certain level where, okay, it’s great for us to share knowledge to our followings, to our supporters, but where is the evolution where we’re actually putting ourselves in the spaces with other leaders, with other people with the same amount of power? And then I realized how much of us are still dealing with so much healing, and that’s why I tell people, not only putting myself back into human connection with, whether it’s people I work with, but people that I’m here to collaborate with, we have to move past this discomfort and the social anxiety because, again, there’s so much social anxiety and there’s so much hurt that was developed in our lineages through the harm, as human beings, that we have done to each other, our families and societies as well.

 

[32:32] Sahara

Absolutely! Yeah, it feels safe for us to put content out in the world and not receive, you know, feedback, not be in conversation. And I think that it’s so important to have dialogue, because it’s only through dialogue that our true understandings of things grow, you know, because you have such a limited perception of it’s just like “Here’s what I think, bop, bop, bop”, rather than “Here’s what you think, oh, that’s changing my world view”.

So, for people listening to this and they’re like “I’m not even at the point where I’ve gotten too connected to my ancestors, too connected to spirit, I don’t even feel like I have a connection to any spirit guide, to any ancestor, I really want one, but is it in the cards for me, is it not?” How can someone begin this journey?

 

[33:16] Tatiana

Okay, so, I think, firstly, and foremost, is that, it’s funny because I’ve gotten this question before, everyone has ancestors, ancestors are just the people who have come before you and allowed you to be a human in a spirit that’s incarnating in this world. 

Again, although I’m someone who practices ancestral veneration and ancestral practices, I don’t think it’s important to start, necessarily, with knowing who they are. I just think it’s important to cultivate a very strong bond with your own consciousness and knowing that they are guiding that. I feel like knowing that your own consciousness is your GPS, but they’re like a signal, they are a signal that allows your GPS to navigate. Just because, like I said, I’m very big on people not creating co-dependence or whatever it is, whether it’s the crystals, whether it’s the candles. So, I think even just starting with building a relationship, an undeniable relationship with your own consciousness and yourself, and being able to check in. 

I tell people all the time, let’s say, theoretically, like, I post something, you know me, I post a lot of controversial things, and so, sometimes there’s resistance or there’s discomfort or there’s people who are upset. There’s been times in my past of being a people-pleaser or being insecure, I’d be like “Oh, I need to take this down, people are so upset”, instead, I would sit with my guides and I’d say “Hey, is there something I need to take down? Is there something I need to hold space for?” And if I pull a divination spread, I tap in, and there’s a distinct no, I know that I have to move through the discomfort that not everybody is going to be happy and I also need to stand my ground to leave it there. 

I feel like, again, having a relationship with your spirit guides is just going to help you create a stronger sense of security while you’re here on this world so that you don’t go through that disassociation from yourself and so that you feel secure. Because, again, so much – like, last year I did a workshop and they led (my guides) me to do a workshop on social anxiety, and I was like divining and getting the messages, I get blown away by the downloads that they give me and I’m like “Man, there’s so much that’s connected alone to social anxiety because so many people are afraid of being in their body, in the world and amongst other people”. 

So, I think that ancestral veneration and these practices, if they’re not helping you become safer in your body, in the present, in your home, going out into the world and amongst people, or what you’re doing, what’s the sense? It’s just about doing the best that you can to cultivate, not only connection with others, but to also have the things that you desire. But those things are secondary because the one thing I learned through going through a practice like Santeria, before they made me happy, they made me strong. And I think that’s the same, people want all the desires, but sometimes to get to our desires, so how much is given, much is required. So, you have to ask yourself, when you’re coming to wanting to connect with your ancestors, do you want spiritual endurance? Because that’s the most important thing, beyond anything. We could be stripped of our money many times, we could be stripped of relationships, we can be stripped of everything that we use to validate our self-worth, but what is your spiritual endurance like? Because at the end of the day, a person who is able to have spiritual endurance, in spite of what they have, can still achieve anything.

 

[37:04] Sahara

Yeah, I think that we see so much in the Law of Attraction, Abraham Hicks, and a lot of this, just, like, more New Age. I’ve seen Abraham Hicks and I still love listening to them sometimes, but it’s like, if it doesn’t feel good always, then it’s not for you. And we have created this belief of “Oh, if it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t feel in flow, then I’m out!” And I think that, in some ways, this spiritual understanding has robber us from our endurance. A lot of people feel, even if they’re not saying it, “I don’t want to be strong because I don’t want to have to be strong”, you know, “I want a life that’s easy and peaceful and flowy”, which are, like, beautiful things, I think, ultimately, that’s what we all want, but ease doesn’t come because life getting easier, ease comes because you become stronger.

 

[37:52] Tatiana

Period! It goes to that, there’s that saying, “It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war”. Right now, being in your soft era is trending, that’s like becoming one of the new catchy buzz words, like “I’m in my soft era, I’m in my soft girl season”, which is great. And I wanted to talk about this, so I divined on it and I was like “I want to talk about this y’all, but how should I talk about this?”, and I was blown away because they say it’s all great and dandy to have a desire to live in your soft era, but soft era is going to be defined by mood mastery, because mood mastery is what’s going to bring you back to that softness. But like you said, you can’t just say “You know what Spirit, you know what God, I am just not responding to anything that doesn’t feel good”, no, like, you have to learn to adjust your moods.

When I was a sex worker, I had a client one day come in and he said something to me and I was like “Oh, thank you for enlightening me”, because there’s messengers all the time, he said “You have to learn to be a thermostat mentality, not a thermometer”, he said, “Because thermostats regulate their environments and thermometers respond to their environments”. 

And so, I think, a lot of times, people, they don’t want to react sometimes, they don’t even want to respond, they don’t want to even regulate, they just, again, the co-dependence of leaving the responsibility, either to themselves, outside of themselves, or avoiding. And that’s the thing, there’s still so many healthy things that come through conflict, that come through shadow work, that come through disaster, that come through tragedy, and it goes back to understanding that death is unavoidable in life. We’re all going to die, but at the same time so many people have already buried themselves at 25, because they’ve settled for a life that is avoidant of going through spiritual death. 

 

[39:51] Sahara

Absolutely! I have definitely noticed and, you know, I think everything has like an equal and opposite response, that because of capitalism and patriarchy, we’ve become such a hustle culture and so much of us have seen our parents just, like, climb this corporate ladder, that we’ve, like, shifted the opposite of “How can I rest?”, rest has become a revolutionary act. And I think so many of us, we need the reminders of being gentle on ourselves, being kind to ourselves, and, like, that is the yin, that is the half of it, that’s the soft feminine energy. But also, there’s the other side of the feminine energy, which is more of that Kali Ma energy. I feel like the Oshun energy has that, that’s a little bit more assertive, that’s like “Yes, I rest, but then what do I do with this energy?” Resting for the sake of resting is not then resting, it’s like you rest so then you can spring into creation. And like, creativity is ultimately why we are here as humans, we are here to be channels of the divine that is streaming through us and create art.

And I feel so many of us have associated our actions with actions that we don’t want to do, working the corporate job, doing the thing, that we’re afraid of action. Action has become the problem, so then we said “I’m no longer taking any action, I’m just going to let life happen to me, whatever it is, I’m just going to be at peace with it because I just can’t give a fuck”, rather than “Okay, how can I see the situations that I’m in right now as the ancestral veneration?” Like, instead of me necessarily thinking “Oh, I’m just going to get the download at the altar, what if the conflict in your life is the altar?”, and that is the very thing that you get to really pray into and bless and receive, even if it fucking hurts.

 

[41:32] Tatiana

The application is always going to be the ultimate test. There’s tons of people who can do yoga on the mat, but they can’t take that shit off the mat. There’s tons of people who can – you know, it’s just about application.

One of the things that you just said before about initiative, sometimes you really need to pray to your guides and to God, to have a competitive spirit. I think that having a competitive spirit has been looked down on at times, but having a competitive spirit is even just understanding when you need to be self-motivated and you need to take action. Again, I wrote a guide called “Fuck Your Vision Board”, that’s what I called it, it’s called “Fuck Your Vision Board”, if it doesn’t come with accountability. 

And so, in some of the points that I made was that, manifestation and creating your reality, you have to know when to rest and you have to know when you have to get up and fucking go. And one of the best prayers, last year, that my father-in-law prayed over me was “God, grant her the understanding that when it’s time for her to be humble and when it’s time for her to get up and not fucking leave”, and that’s understanding, again, the balance between that yin and that yang.

Just yesterday, I made a video around ego work. I’m not a spiritualist that believes in ultimate ego death, I like that motherfucker, I think that motherfucker does us a great job. And so, some of the things that the video brought up was about ego, it was about vanity, it was about politicking, it’s about capitalism, all of these things, because all these things have nuances, they have a light and a dark. And I talked about, if you don’t have a healthy ego, even if we get into the word politics, because I’m big on language, when you get to the deeper meaning of politics, it is the art of government, the art of power, these are all things that are conducive to our individual spiritual journey.

So, a lot of times, people, like you were saying, they’re getting passive, they’re just letting life pass them by, it’s not about being like a hustler or being in survival, but you still have to understand the polarities between that healthy feminine and masculine energy. And sometimes prayer is action. When you pray, really, do this exercise one day, say a prayer and record yourself, whatever comes through, just allow it to come through, and I want you to listen to that prayer back. One of the words that I tapped into was favor. A lot of people are praying for favor, whether it’s from God, whether it’s from their spirit guides, whether it’s from their ancestors, but favor, at its meaning and at its core, is to be in support of something, to be in approval of something and to actually like something.

And I said, before you go praying outside of yourself to your ancestor, to God, do you like yourself, do you support yourself and do you approve of yourself? And if the answer is no, you have to start there, in your practical application, before you start begging for it outside of yourself. Because sometimes, we have to be honest, sometimes prayer is begging.

 

[44:51] Sahara

Yeah. Do you think that having that connection with something greater than you can help you start trusting and believing in yourself or do you think you need to do that more, like, interpersonal, psychological work first and then more of the spiritual application?

 

[45:05] Tatiana

I feel like you can do both. But again, like I said, if you are avoidant of doing deep subconscious work and going through your patterns and your trauma, it’s going to be hard to create really powerful faith, it is going to be hard to create positive self-esteem.

I think, ultimately, it starts with that deep shadow work. I’ve worked with people who are in, like, the more boss-babe community, who have gone on that path, and manifestation, like you were saying, money manifestation, all this shit, Law of Attraction, all that stuff, and some of them still have to come back stop their business, come back and do the dirty shadow work that they were avoiding, because Spirit allows them to get to a certain point and it says “Oh, not so fast, sit down, what were you still avoiding?”

So, I think that people need to recognize that everybody might have a different season, that these cycles come up for reevaluation. 

I think about poor Britney Spears all the fucking time. Like, for the past 13 years, what she went through, when she got into the top of her game in the spotlight, that’s extremely hard to go through when you get to a certain point of success and then you have to do your shadow work in front of everybody. And some of us are different, you know, some of us have to get it from the beginning, you know, create that lotus from the mind, but some people, they have a bit of an advancement and they hit some of the different space. 

So, I think that we have to just recognize when Spirit is inviting us to do the work and be in cognoscente of that. 

 

______________________________________________________________ 

 

[46:44] Advertisement

 

We’ll take a quick break so I can give a shout-out to our sponsors.

 

This Podcast is sponsored by Better Help. It is so important to have someone that you can openly talk to about your issues and what’s going on. Sometimes we use our friends as therapists, but that’s really not what they’re there for. Our therapist is our therapist! 

And I know in my life, it has been beyond helpful to have someone hold space for me so I can openly speak about what’s going on in my mind, and have someone to reflect back my thoughts at me so I can find more clarity and overcome any anxiety that I have been feeling.

So, I am so excited to be partnering with Better Help. Better Help is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. You can even message your therapist throughout the week for additional support. 

It’s much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours. So please, don’t wait weeks to find someone to talk to. There has never been a more important time to invest in your mental health because you my friend are your greatest asset.

Again, this Podcast is sponsored by Better Help, and Highest Self Podcast listeners get 10% OFF their first month at betterhelp.com/sahara

 

[48:11] End of Advertisement

______________________________________________________________ 

 

[48:13] Sahara

So, how can you tell the difference between whether it’s coming from your spirit, from intuition, from your ancestors vs. if it’s coming from fear or just, like, sometimes the randomness of the world?

 

[48:28] Tatiana

That’s a really good question! I feel like, sometimes, it’s also intertwined and also interconnected. I believe that, again, there’s polarity, I believe that there are light spirits, there are dark spirits. I think that there’s light parts of ourselves, I believe that there’s dark parts of ourself. 

So, I don’t feel like I always get hyper-focused on that, I just focus on being present and asking, in this moment, what am I supposed to do? I made a post that I had a supporter, who is now a former supporter, confront me and I had spoken out about abuse, I don’t know if you know, I speak a lot about spiritual abuse, that’s something I hold a lot of space for. And so, I was speaking about my own personal story of spiritual abuse through a mentor and this person was like “I don’t believe you, I think you’re fake, I think you’re lying, I think you’re only sharing a part of the…”, and that was, like, deeply triggering, okay? It was deeply triggering to me. But I had also just shared a full Moon exercise for my family, but I realized that this was about to apply to me as well. And so, it was about looking at the scenario and then asking yourself what you’re learning from this, or something like that. And so, I recognized that in that moment, I could go into extreme rage or anger or clap back, and I’ve been really trying to harness that energy. My rage is very powerful, I’ve built probably the first two years of my practice and online following, from a lot of rage, and processing a lot of anger. But I’ve been trying to be more gracious and humble as I climb. So, I, you know, said to her, I was like “Wow, I feel like…”, because she was another practitioner as well, I was like “I feel like this is really dangerous. If I was someone who didn’t have tough skin, then I could take this really poorly, but I’m just going to politely check you, whatever”. So, in that moment, right, we can look at something like that and be like “Is this a spiritual attack? Is this a test of my confidence? Is this a test of my ego?” I had literally just gotten to a place where I was like sitting with the fact that I have still a lot of repressed rage and I feel like my shadow wants more space. And so, what I asked, I sat down and asked my spirit guides “What do I need to know about the situation? Am I allowed to express myself openly?” So, I still think that it was a test of not repressing my voice.

So, I think, in times when we have different things, it’s more important to look at the lesson and then ask “What can we do with this?” And a part of, also, what I do is, I am here to take a lot of my rage and turn it into teachable moments instead of allowing it to be destructive. 

So, I guess to answer your question, I feel like it’s more important to ask what we’re supposed to be doing in that moment. Yeah, there’s times where I know that a sign is coming from a guide, but I feel like, again, we have to be so careful about fanaticism. And this is something I really want to highlight, I’ve been talking about this recently. Like, I made a post because, you know, people were talking about this new Jeffrey Domer Netflix series, and they were like “Oh, don’t watch it, his spirit is in it, all the evil energies are going to come magic”, there’s tons of that going on. And I think, again, these practices can be kind of tricky if you’re somebody who has obsessive tendencies or you’re somebody who has fanatical tendencies. So, again, I think it’s more about understanding, in a moment, whether you receive a trigger, whether you’re going through feeling insecure. I think it’s, again, asking yourself what you can do and what you should do in a moment in order to, again, keep your spiritual endurance high. I always tell people that I work with, like, I believe that depression is something that people have, throughout their times, comes to visit them, it’s like rage is a visitor, depression is a visitor, all these things, and we get to decide how long we allow that visitor to take up space on our couch. And so, when I teach people about depression, rage and all that stuff, I say intuition is like a power window, like, you know how you have a power window in your car that goes up and down, the more you allow those things to come in and take up a lot of space without dealing with them, it’s like the intuition starts operating very low. But if you are handling these things head on, then the intuition is going to stay high. So, it’s making sure that as you’re navigating through life and you’re bobbing and you’re weaving, that you’re just making sure you keep the intuition high and you don’t allow these things to come in and then cause you to have to do more work in the long term, than you need to. 

 

[53:38] Sahara

Yeah. I think that’s like the eternal question of like, is it intuition, is it fear, and it’s both. And for me, I always feel like the voice of my intuition is always going to bring me to greater expansion, and the voice of fear is always going to be greater contraction. So, if I know it’s making me closed or blame or disappear, just, like, be so angry or also “I need to protect myself, I need to protect myself”, which, sometimes we think that spirituality “spiritual protection, more sage, more this, more that”, but that can also be the voice of fear, you know. 

And there’s also that voice of, like, the expansion of “Maybe I do need to pause rather than responding right away in this”, or maybe it’s the opposite, maybe you tend to step away and you need to respond right then. So, it’s so nuanced and it depends on the situation, but I love to tune back into the body of like “Does this cause me to feel more expansion” or “Does this cause me to close up?”

And for me, too, sometimes it communicates to me through my dreams. So, like, when I was in this, it’s this conflict, I went to bed so angry, but my dream was just like “Just love them, you know, just love them”, and I was just like, I woke up like “Argh”, but I knew that was my higher self telling me, in this situation, don’t show up with that, like, boundary energy, show up with the love energy. Sometimes spirit speaks to me through music, like when I’m playing music it’ll just give me those exact lyrics and tell me exactly what I need to hear. Or even if I’m writing through songs; opening, even, your Instagram feed and, like, it’s the exact post that you needed to read, or you just open up a book and you read the passage. So, I feel like they use this reality to really speak to us and it’s just a matter of being, like, in that conversation and acknowledging like “Yes, I heard that”, and then more of it is shown to you. Have you noticed that? What is it like for you?

 

[55:29] Tatiana

Yes. You know, as I went into my spiritual awakening, I became hyper-aware, I don’t miss much. My partner always says, he’s like “You, like, just see everything”, I was like “Yes, because I’m looking everywhere”, especially when you know that they can speak to you through many things, like, they could speak to you through the numbers, they could speak to you through the music, the animal. The animals are, like, for me, I’m like “Damn, am I Snow White, the way the animals are coming out?” 

But again, I think, one of the things I do on highlight with that is too, is like, I love how when people go through that awakening and they have a desire to connect, they tap into that hyper-awareness, but again, right, there’s still a slippery slope. I also have experienced people who go into, again, fanaticism and obsessive behavior, addictive behavior. So, it’s about finding that balance and receiving your light, like “Okay, that feels good”, but how much you go down the rabbit hole. Because, I mean, I’ve personally just met people who have, they’ve lost their mind, they’ve either lost their mind or they have developed attachments or become possessed. And so, it’s about finding that happy medium where you allow yourself the confirmations without going deep into the abyss.

 

[56:50] Sahara

So, I want to touch upon something you mentioned of good and bad energies. And I think this is another, kind of, like, big universal topic of like, is there good and bad, is there right and wrong, is this creating more separation or do we just need to acknowledge that there is evil on this planet? So, I’m curious, your perspective on that. 

 

[57:09] Tatiana

Even when things, I think, are evil, they still bring data that we need. You know, we would not know light if there wasn’t darkness, you know. There’s so much of our individual journeys that we have to give thanks to our shadow, give thanks to other people’s shadow because that’s where the potency is, that’s where the real medicine is. 

And so, again, like, I feel like there’s spectrums. There’s spectrums where I’m the villain in someone’s story, you’re the villain in someone’s story, you’re bad in someone’s story, you’re evil in someone’s story. But the measurement of the potency of that, like, again, if we want to go back to now this trending, you know, Domer story, that’s an exceptional case. When we talk about people who are extremely disturbed like that, we’re talking about people who have exceptional amounts of darkness that they are dealing with. 

And even recently, when that came out, I did a post around Cardology, because there was connections in the cardology to, like, even his murder, and I brough up people like Joseph Mangalay, I don’t know if you know who that was, he was like the angel of death, he was a Nazi doctor who was experimenting on people, I just brough a bunch of pretty terrible people. And I looked at the cardology because a few of them had connections to, like, their transition.

 

[58:32] Sahara

What is cardology?

 

[58:33] Tatiana

Cardology is a divination system, it’s a divination and astrology system that’s based on the playing cards. So, depending on your birth day, you have a certain playing card. I’m a five of spades, and it’s a really freakily accurate system that brings together a lot of synchronicities and really rock solid predictions at times.

And so, I’m fascinated by it, I’m not an expert, but I have noticed, like, the correlations at times and the synchronicities are so scary and eerily spot on, that I can’t ignore them. 

And so, I looked at the cardology of quite a few of these people and, for example, I was talking about the topic of Karma. And so, for example, one of the serial killers was actually executed on a day that was like his Mars or Saturn card in his spread. Jeoffrey Domer was actually murdered in prison by a man whose card shows up in his life spread. So, when we think about stuff like that and we think about like “Oh, can you really get back what you put out?”, yes, I believe it. I believe that there’s Karma and I believe that there’s Karmic retribution at times, but again, they’re spectrums, they’re spectrums. And so, we have to understand I think, even with the universal justice, and just justice in general, yes, there are people who are operating from and extensive amount of dark, but it’s how much do they need to be held personally accountable to the amount of harm that they cause, I think that’s a better way to measure. And again, I always tell people, you still have to learn to hold a little bit of space for the reason why somebody might have ended up like that. You don’t have to rationalize it and say “Oh my God, they deserve a pass for that”, but just that understanding can bless you.

And I think when we’re talking about ancestral veneration or talking about clearing our ancestral trauma and lineage, like, yeah, you might have a mom who has borderline personality and she’s narcissistic and she’s terrible to you, but she might also be operating from the place of that wounded inner child and she’s got stuck at 10 years old, in her storyline. And so, when she’s projecting and causing harm to you, she’s operating from that, her 10-year-old. 

I think situations like that, you have to find ways to protect yourself, energetically, from these harmful vibrations, but at the same time, still in the human experience, I think we have to understand the data. And I think, again, sometimes people just want to say “You’re a bad person, you’re a bad person”, it’s like, without understanding the data. And I’m someone who likes to understand the data, I want to understand why someone is the way that they are. So, when I was a sex worker, that’s actually what got me into this work, I wanted to know why people were there, I was like “They’re either here because they’re lonely, they’re neglected, or they want their cake and eat it too”. And I had some fascinating – you know, it’s 2022, as we say 222, the signs, I wanted to know why people thought that they did or they acted the way that they did because there were times I had people request things that I’m like “Why?” 

You know, when we get into fetishes, when we get into kinks, we have to understand, sometimes there’s a connection to why people do what they do and why people want what they want and why people act the way that they act. 

So, I think, you know, yes, we can say people are good or bad, we can say that, as a very superficial lens, but then we have to break down the data of “Okay, well, why are they bad? Why are they good?” And some people have good and bad.

I have friends, I have a friend who is on death row right now and he made an impulsive decision in the height of an egotistical moment that cost him his life. Was he a good person to me? Absolutely! And I actually wrote him a letter in jail and said “Man, look, I know you did some fucked up shit, but even if no one tells you this, before, you know, they potentially execute you, I want you to know you were good to me, if no one says that to you”, you know.

So, I think we have to, yeah, there’s good and bad, but we still have to look at the nuances.

 

[1:02:58] Sahara

Yeah. And it all comes back to trauma, you know, what traumas did that person go through as a child? And so much of the darkness that we experience as humans is just an absence of light, an absence of love, it’s a yearning for attention and for caring. 

I’m curious for you and your experience as a sex worker, what were the reasons that people would choose to come?

 

[1:03:21] Tatiana

See, I had all types of clients. I did it for 5 years and I had, I’d say a regular clientele, of regulars, that were about 70 people, and then just strangers who would come and go. 

You know, I had some exceptional cases that stood out in my head. I, one time, had a gentleman who had elephantitis, he had elephantitis of his genitalia and I felt so much empathy for him because, literally, this was somebody who cannot experience intimacy in the same ways another average man could experience intimacy, so, he wasn’t even there, necessarily, for a release, he was there just to feel safe. 

Most of the time, when we were having conversation, it was about me affirming him. So, for someone like him, he can’t create the same intimacy as the average person, he has to deal with his insecurity and he has to live with that, unless he had a major, potentially life-saving surgery, and it might endanger his life, so we had people like that.

I had people who had just got diagnosed with prostate cancer and they might have to have a release and their wife doesn’t want to do it. You know, I had a gentleman who had just come one time and he had just gone through a biopsy and he said, you know “The doctor said if I release, I might bleed, I don’t want to scare you”, and it taught me to create safe space, a sacred space, for people in their shame, in their darkness. So, I remember just saying to him, I said “No problem, it’s fine, I’ll handle it, you know, I’ll clean you up, whatever”. So, it really taught me how to create safety for a lot of shame that people had.

And so, there was tons of times where, yeah, I just had regular Joe Shmoes, but I also had people who are dealing with high anxiety jobs, you had people who were upset in their relationships. And you know, I know that there’s always two sides to a story, but sometimes people did not feel safe communicating with their partners. 

People ask me what’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen, or the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, to me it was the average man who looked like your guy next door who had secrets that he could never tell his wife, not because he couldn’t, because he didn’t want to. And I can’t imagine sleeping in a bed with somebody and calling them your life partner and they don’t know who you are. 

So, I feel, you know, I always tell people, again, there are spectrums. There are sex workers, I’m sorry, will just say, there’s hoes, there’s just hoes, and they’re doing it for the money, they’re doing it for whatever reason, survival. But when I got into that work, I really chose to make it what I wanted to be. And I considered myself a high priestess of sorts because sex worker is my first initiation into being a sacred space holder. 

 

[1:06:28] Sahara

Yeah, it’s such a tricky topic because it’s so rare to hear someone that chose and felt empowered in their journey as a sex worker because so many of them have been trafficked into it, they have pimps who are actually taking their money, they’re abused, and from what I’ve heard, only 1% of women who are sex trafficked, make it out. Is that something that you saw a lot of, like, women who were in it against their will or brainwashed, or did you find that a lot of the women actually felt this was part of their purpose? 

 

[1:06:59] Tatiana

I was fortunate to walk into a very empowered safe space. When I got into it through this woman, who, like I said, was a priestess, I walked into a space that on the surface was operating as a wellness center and had us under the table, and so, we actually had to go through training. The lady that we worked under, she required us to go through a 5-day training with her in order to facilitate being able to create a safe, pleasurable experience. And so, the women that I worked with, some of us did it full-time, just doing that, and some of them were – I had a girl I worked with, excuse me, a woman I worked with, she was a hematologist by day, and a worker by night. I had another woman who worked at a lawyer’s office by day and worked, on the weekends, with us. So, I worked at a space with a lot of women who were choosing it. I, personally, knew, at some point, during that journey that I was going to be working on the other side. And what do I mean by that? I knew that I was going to probably work with law enforcement organizations to help people with trafficking, understanding the dark side of it. I’ve actually had a few scenarios where spirit has dropped abusive spiritual leaders into my inbox. I had a girl reach out to me and was like “Hey, this spiritual leader tried to traffic me, here’s a five-page document that he has created for women who like to come into his hair room. And when you read the verbiage, it was nothing but size a high control group in a cult and he was trying to traffic the women who were coming to him for emotional vulnerability. 

So. I personally was blessed to work in a safe environment and then probably a year and a half into it, I went independent. So, I created my own practice, I rented an upscale apartment, and I would only work out of it, I’d work there, go home, work, go home, and I say that was my first spiritual practice.

So, unfortunately, yes, there are women who get into this from being trafficked, forced against their will, from survival, but I’ve also met a significant amount of women who are empowered through it.

Last year, there was an astrologer who made an international sex worker day appreciation post, and there was a woman who commented in the comment, she was like “I don’t understand why you would even post this, nothing good comes from sex work. I’ve never met a sex worker who was empowered, who wasn’t desperate and who wasn’t a crack head, or whatever afterwards”, all this stuff. And so, I chimed in and I said “Hey, sis, former sex worker here, I don’t know if you’ve been one, but I would appreciate, if you’ve never walked in our shoes, don’t comment for us, because I can tag ten others who are deeply empowered, who are either married, have children, thriving businesses”. But a lot of times, I can’t tell you how many women who have been in that realm of work, who do not come out of that closet because of the shame or the judgment, or they think that people are going to treat them differently, having come from that path. And that was something that was dictated to me through many spiritual readings, that I am not supposed to allow anybody to look down their nose at me about where I’ve been because it’s going to inspire many women. And there are many high priestesses, especially that have walked that walk. 

Maya Angelo was a fucking sex worker. Tony Morrison, there was just a post yesterday about Tony Morrison and her promiscuity. And so, it’s like, I think that, again, we have to look at the nuances and the spectrums. And absolutely, there are terrible things that happen to women and girls through greed, through control and how they end up in those things, but there are also, I think, women who go through a sector of work that’s here to understand the depths of the human psyche, that big 8th house energy, that big scorpionic energy.

 

[1:11:23] Sahara

Yeah! It is such a tricky and nuanced topic. You know, I somehow ended up on a TikTok, and it was this guy who hired a Vegas escort. And in Vegas, it’s actually legalized, and he just had her come and just started asking her questions, you know “Why are you doing this?”, and she kind of gave this, like, fake response, and he was like “Tell me the truth of why are you really here?”, and she confessed that she was given up by her foster parents, she had a boyfriend who was a pimp and brought her into this and that she doesn’t receive any of the money. And he’s like “What if I could help you run away?”, and she’s like, she ran out of that room because she’s like “They will kill you and they will kill me”, and there was so much fear. 

And so often, I feel like the conversation is, well, if prostitution is legalized, then pimping women out won’t happen, but that was still happening there. So, seeing that reality, it’s so heartbreaking. Then, on the other side, there was this other woman I saw on TikTok who is a sex worker for handicapped people and she’s like “It’s my passion to be able to give love to people who normally, like, no one would want to give love to”, and she really believes “This is my Dharma”, and she works with many disabled people. And it’s true, and she says most of the time it’s their parents who hire her because they want their child to experience love and connection in this lifetime. So, like, both ends of the spectrum and there’s so much nuance in between.

 

[1:12:55] Tatiana 

Absolutely! You know, there’s a great movie called The Sessions, with Helen Hunt, and it’s based on a true story, again, like you said, of a man who, like, spent most of his life inside what they called iron lung and I think he was paralyzed from, like, the chest down, I can’t remember. But there’s actually a legal certification called Sex Surrogacy, and when I was a worker, and I’m actually going to share this story very soon. When I was a worker, I had a client come in and he was concerned for my safety and he was just like, I always tell people like, he saw something in me, that exists now, as the Trap Witch, that I wasn’t seeing in myself yet, and he said “Hey, I want to help you. Have you heard of Sex Surrogacy certification? There’s actually a legal certification that you can get, you build through insurance, you can work with therapists and psychologists to help people and couples through any blockages”, and he gave me like a whole business plan, it’s sitting in my email still. Recently, I looked back and was like “Wow, this man was trying to give me messages about some of the work I would be doing now”. 

But yes, like you said, there’s the beautiful aspects of this, because, again, sex in itself is not a terrible thing, it’s not – we’re spiritual beings and our spirituality is deeply connected to our sexuality, not on a fleshly level, but how we show up in our voice, how we express our thoughts, how we show up in our embodiment, is all deeply connected. But when, again, nuances and spectrums, when people are only operating from greed, from control, from objectification, then it could be a different thing, it’s not about connection, it’s about objectification. 

And absolutely, and it’s not just here, I’ve watched so many documentaries. There’s a beautiful movie called Sold, it’s about, you know, a woman, I believe it was in the Middle Eastern or in India, where her mother sold her, you know, her mother sold her into prostitution. There’s a documentary called Whore’s Glory, and it’s about prostitution from three different lenses, I think one was Thailand, one was Bangladesh and one was Mexico. The one in Thailand was a very empowered perspective, where it showed when women could go – it literally showed that walking in, they do their prayers, they go get their make-up done, it was a very, you know, communal environment, they supported each other. But the heartbreaking one, for me, was Bangladesh, where you had girls who were 12 and 13 years old, being sold into brothels by their mothers, and then end up servicing ten men a day. And there was a young girl who said, it broke my heart, she goes “Is this the birth right of a woman?”, can you imagine, at 12 years old, already saying “Is this the path and the birth right of being a woman?” 

So, I believe, the more we have conversations about these things, and not avoid them, we can get to solutions that look like integrating the empowering aspects of these things, and so that we can cut down on the control and the greed and the objectification.

 

[1:16:07] Sahara

Absolutely! Yes, there is a movie, an Indian movie, I saw recently called Gone Goodbye, and it’s the story of this, a real story that actually happened in India, this young girl was sold into trafficking by her husband. She went into Mumbai thinking she was going to be a Bollywood star and he sold her to a brothel, and within that first year she realized if she was going to get out of here, she needed to become the master. So, it’s like her story of, like, hardening and then becoming the madam of this brothel and then managing multiple brothels and then becoming the mayor of that area, and then becoming this, like, politician who eventually went on to speak to the Prime Minister of India to try to legalize prostitution, and her say on this was “If it’s legalized, then there won’t be girls who are forced into this like I was. There would be people who could choose”. And another thing that she said that was an interesting perspective I’ve never heard before, and I’m curious your take on this, she said “If prostitution is made illegal, there could be more rape”, because, she said that “This can alleviate some of the sexual desires of men in, like, a safe and consensual way”. And I had just never heard that, that, bringing that together. I don’t know if this is, like, a common argument that is in the industry?

 

[1:17:28] Tatiana

You know, it’s fascinating to me and I was going to put it all out there. When I was a worker, you know, I live here in Georgia, I had a high percentage of my clientele who were Indian, okay, I did. I was fascinated that people who invented the Kama Sutra were so sexually repressed. And I think, again, sex being a taboo topic, increases repression within people, and then when they’re repressed, they have to find outlets to safely express these things. 

You know, I had clients, I remember to this day, I had this client, he was an Indian man, and more than anything, he just wanted to come in and just say “I love you”, it was almost, it was scary to me because I had very good boundaries as a worker, but he would literally give out off the table, he, like, grabbed me by the shoulders, he’d be like, at that time my name was Danny, he was like “Danny, I love you, I love you, I love you, just tell me you love me!” His wife was emotionally avoidant and she was just very stoic, and he wanted nothing than just to be more than him”.

So, I think, when we look at what is repressed within people, we can understand how they show up and why might they need these spaces. And I think, too, when we speak about places, you know, like India and the Middle East, we have to understand that women’s embodiment is very repressed there. 

I, literally, one time, had someone who’s Indian, and she’s a worker, not a worker, but she’s a spiritual worker, and she felt deep shame because one of her photos, which was fully clothed, showed up on this page for Indian men for very sexy women, but it wasn’t, to me, when I saw it, I was like “This is not even, like, that risky!” But what we recognize is, certain codes for women and levels which they can express their abidance. So, all this repression is going on, of course, there’s going to be so much rape, I mean, there’s so much rape in India, there’s so much rape in South Africa, and it’s happening because people are repressed, people are being shamed, you know, 

And again, we can, we have to ask ourselves, how much is it because women have not been able to claim the sovereignty, claim their sexuality, also have boundaries with it. And again, we have to ask some of these places, how much are women still objectified, not even in a sense of sexuality, but in their duty and their honor to their husband? We can look at those places and be like “Oh, you’re an object of your husband”. So, of course, if you’re an object or possession of someone, and your identity is tied to that, of course they’re going to think that they’re allowed to do anything with you. And I think we have to understand too, rape is just not for strangers, there are women that are forced against their will even in relationships, and that doesn’t give allowance. Just because someone is your husband, just because someone is your partner, no is no.

So, I think it’s the bigger topic of why are we avoiding having these conversations and why are we avoiding allowing people a larger embodiment? And I think we’re seeing that, you know, with Iran right now. Women and girls have had enough, and it’s beautiful to witness right now. We’re at the, what’s the word, the turning of the tides? And women are rising, and I feel like, finally, in places of the world where women are still deeply repressed, like, we are seeing that sacred rage of the divine dark feminine rise up and say “Enough!”

And I don’t know about you, I’m really grateful to be alive to see it and to be a part of it!

 

[1:21:24] Sahara

Yeah, absolutely! You know, I think India’s culture, it’s not, yeah, we have to look at the whole context of the fact that women are not seen as equal, women’s wombs are seen as commodities, women are even legally in Iran considered half of a man. So, like, for every two female witnesses, you just have one male witness, you know, like, because woman’s worth is only half. So, of course, the way that they show up in sex work is going to, like, hyper the sentiment that you are my possession. On top of that, when it comes to something sex, or if it’s transactional, I think we see, often, the most disgusting behaviors, you know, because, often times, these men, too, especially living in India, who would go to these types of places, because my whole life, I’ve been very interested in helping women leave sex trafficking, and often it was the men who felt abused during their days. They worked as servants for people, they were drivers for people, they were working at hotels, so all day, they had someone else telling them what to do, what to do, what to do, and had to be like “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir”, and then, finally, when they were with a woman, they could be powerful and have dominance over someone, and then this poor woman would, often, be like a victim of this rage.

So, it’s a larger topic, it’s like looking at the cast system and like, why are some of these men basically feeling like the bitch of other men and then needing to have dominance over women. And I think that it’s, I guess it’s places like Amsterdam are an example of sex work thing done in an empowered way, that these women are choosing to be there. They are independent and of age, but yeah, I think this larger conversation, I think why sex work is an important piece of it is it’s because it’s like, to see someone empowered in sex work is like the polar opposite of the oppression, you know.

And I think it’s still so hard for us to even fathom of how it could even be possible, so, I’m so grateful that you are open and sharing about your experience, because I do think we need to hear more from people who have been in this work, rather than just, like, assuming from our own assumptions.

 

Tatiana

Yeah, and you know, I think it’s so powerful what you just said about how you witnessed it in India, especially like you said, these men who feel powerless, or might feel purposeless, and then they get to be in a dynamic where they get to express their rage and their anger and take it out, right? 

Again, I think it’s so interesting, that’s just the cycle, I think, of life too. There’s tons of people who have been victimized, who have been hurt, who have felt powerless, felt purposeless, and they turn into the extreme side of their shadow or the imbalanced toxic masculine, and that’s not relative to men. I see women do it all the time too, I was just having a conversation, publicly, about this viral moment that’s going on right now with this low vibration plate, with coach Stormy. Someone brought up that, you know, a lot of women, at this time, are still enjoying some of their coaches being dominatrixes, or their coaches being sadists. And there’s this desire where people want to be talked to in a way that’s still a little bit demeaning, but that, again, because a lot of people, too, are into masochism and they’re into their own suffering, and they’re into their own humiliation, and they’re attached to it. So, we have to have a lot of these conversations. 

And I think it’s so fascinating, again, like, when you were talking about your experience with workers in India, mine was a completely opposite. Like, sex work is where I got to develop my queendom, meaning, I dictated how my ads were run, meaning, I was really adamant about my verbiage, my photos, when I talked with people on the phone, I had such fierce boundaries. So, when they came into my queendom, they came into my domain, they were under my rule, I only had, maybe, like, a handful of people who ever made me feel unsafe, but I was in complete control and they were in my submission when they were in my sacred space. 

And so, it actually taught me a lot about my healthy masculine energy. I got to dictate the amount of money that I made, the respect that I required. If I didn’t have respect from the time someone was booking, they didn’t see me. 

So, I always tell people, again, that space in my life was actually preparing me for who I was to become as a spiritual practitioner, because the way that I ran my business doing that work is not much different to how I run my business now. 

 

[1:26:17] Sahara

Wow! That could be a really fascinating book from sex work to spirit work, and seeing the parallels between them.

 

[1:26:25] Tatiana

Yeah. And there’s so many of us, there’s so many of us, now, that, you know, are transitioning out. So, usually, I work with a lot of women who want to get out and start a different business or do something else. I help girls stay in and be healthy and create fierce boundaries or goals. You know, because again, like, some people look down on that work, but, like, it’s in the cards and it’s in the destiny for some of us. 

 

[1:26:51] Sahara

Yeah, I’m so curious to learn more about this Cartography, is that what you call it?

 

[1:26:57] Tatiana

Cardology. 

 

[1:26:57] Sahara

Cardology. Do you recommend anywhere to learn more about it?

 

[1:27:01] Tatiana

Aquarius Maximus has a great page, diamonds_8learnthe cards. Those are always the ones I can remember off the top of my head. But yeah, cardology, increasingly fascinates me. 

Like, I’m a five of spades and my father was a three of diamonds man, my ex-husband was actually a three of diamonds man, and my current partner is a three of diamonds. And then I recently found out that my mom’s Karma card is a three of diamonds. 

So, I’ve looked at the synchronicities and the patters, sometimes, of how people can show up in our lives and how they are connected to our Karma, or how they are connected to our fate and to our expansion. 

And so, I think it’s a fascinating system, it’s a little overwhelming at times but it’s fascinating.

 

[1:27:50] Sahara

Do you have any Scorpio placements that often related to sex work?

 

[1:27:55] Tatiana

Yes, I have a Pisces North Node in the 8th house and my Venus is in Pisces in the 8th house. 

 

[1:28:02] Sahara

Okay. 

 

[1:28:03] Tatiana

So, you know, I’m definitely someone who’s connected to the realm, of spirits and astral, but to me, it’s more dark – I always tell people, I don’t represent the aspect of Pisces that’s like coy, I say I’m the kraken, not the koi.

You know, kois are very on the surface and the fountain, and I’m deep at the dark bottom. So, that’s how I would describe Pisces, but in the 8th.

 

[1:28:32] Sahara

Love that! So fascinating! Well, you have shared do much wisdom, and experience, and stories today, I am so grateful for you opening up. I think that this was probably the first time that many people have ever even of heard someone who has been in sex work and their experience, and has transitioned to spirituality. So, I just want to thank you for your vulnerability and courage for sharing that. I know that that can take a lot from people to be so open and you’re so courageous.

And where can people learn more from you, follow you on Instagram and be in your field?

 

[1:29:07] Tatiana

www.atthetrapwitch.com I have one-on-one offerings through there and I have a few guides on there as well. So, if anybody would like sacred space holding, like I said, I focus on shadow work, subconscious blockages, stigmas, addictions, anything that might just be holding people back. You can book me through thetrapwitch.com and then you can find me on Instagram under @TheTrapWitch.

And I appreciate you, miss Sahara Rose, for having me on. It’s been such an honor and privilege, I never take lightly when people invite me into their space, especially, I’m a Human Design Projector, I’m a Splenic Projector.

 

[1:29:45] Sahara

I’m a Splenic Projector too! 

 

[1:29:47] Tatiana

Okay, what number are you? I’m 6-2.

 

[1:29:49] Sahara

4-6.

 

[1:29:51] Tatiana

Okay, yeah.

 

[1:29:52] Sahara

My husband is a Splenic Projector 6-2.

 

[1:29:55] Tatiana

Ah! Yes, so, thank you for extending the invitation!

 

[1:29:58] Sahara

The Projector in me sees the Projector in you! 

 

[1:30:01] Tatiana

Yes! Absolutely! I appreciate you so much! 

 

[1:30:04] Sahara

Thank you! 

 

[1:30:05] End of Interview

_______________________________________________________________ 

 

[1:30:06] Sahara

I am so deeply grateful for her vulnerability and courage in sharing that experience. You know, so many people have a lot of shame if they have ever worked in the sex industry and never speak about it. And I really salute anyone who has been in this, who is opening up, regardless of what their experience has been. I think that it’s so important for us to speak openly about all forms of conversations, otherwise it perpetrates in the shadow and that’s how wed get the dominant patriarchal culture that we see around the world, because we don’t talk about these things.

 

[1:30:43] Sahara

So, I encourage you to continue the conversation because every single person carried a unique code and a unique understanding of this very complex topic that can be very, very dark, but also can be empowering, as Tatiana shared. So, that was really interesting for me because I had really never heard someone give that perspective before. And I just encourage you to continue to be curious and talk to people from different walks of life and get curious about their stories and their backgrounds because that’s the only we that we grow, by really exposing ourselves to totally different world views, even if it doesn’t go with the norm that we have grown up associating ourselves with.

 

[1:31:23] Sahara

So, I hope that you enjoyed this conversation and if you loved it, I would love for you to leave a review for this Podcast, it helps more people find it, and as a free gift, I will send you the first half of my unreleased book “Eat Right For Your Mind-Body Type”, which is all about Ayurveda and how to apply Ayurvedic nutrition and wisdom into your life. So, this talks about the Doshas, nutrition, self-care and so much more! And all you’ve got to do is just leave a review for this Podcast and it really helps, you know, spread the word, because I’ve never done really any marketing before, it’s all been from word of mouth, and I deeply appreciate your, just, sharing it and passing it along to someone who might be interested in these types of conversations.

So, again, leave a review for the Podcast, take a screenshot of it before you hit that submit button and email it over to me at [email protected] and you can find that link in that email in the show notes. 

 

[1:32:20] Sahara

I’m so grateful to be connected with you and I’ll see you on the next Episode!

 

Episode #463: Ancestral Veneration, Facing Your Shadows + Conscious Sex with Trap Witch

      By Sahara Rose