In this episode I am interviewed by my friend Bianca Taylor to discuss how twerking (which really is just a modern term for a traditional African dance move)+ belly dancing (which is also a modern term the colonizers placed over Middle Eastern dance forms) are also forgotten forms of the sacred feminine path to spirituality.
We dive into how embodiment can somatically heal, and our own journeys that led us to these practices.
We also talk about getting off birth control + it’s unexpected side effects, tuning into your dharma, and changing your career to be more in alignment.
This is a jam-packed, juicy episode that will encourage you to break out of the rigid box we are taught to stay in as spiritual beings. I hope you are empowered to embody your fullest expression after tuning into this transmission.
Connect with Bianca Taylor here https://www.instagram.com/biancataylorm/
Get the podcasts emailed to you each week: https://iamsahararose.com/loveletter
Get 30 days free on Open when you visit https://open-together.com/SAHARA
Go beyond the mind + into the body and connect with your sacred feminine wisdom, magic + intuition in my new Divine Feminine Embodiment Course at http://divinefemininecourse.com/
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
Discover Your Dharma Archetype with my free quiz http://www.dharmaarchetypequiz.com
Download my Goddess Embodiment Practice:
https://iamsahararose.com/embodiment
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 #469: Twerking + Belly Dancing as a Spiritual Practice, Getting Off Birth Control + Changing Your Career with Bianca Taylor
By Sahara Rose
[00:00] Sahara
At the end of the day, why are we even doing the spiritual journey? I think a lot of spiritual people need to start twerking, because they have fucking sticks up their asses and they’re taking the shit way too seriously. Like, you’re healing for what? You know, like, there’s no gold star you get at the end, you’re healing to experience joy. If you start shaking your ass, you will experience joy!
[00:19] Bianca
You really will!
[00:31] Sahara
Hey, hey, beautiful sun being and welcome back to The Highest Self Podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you, your soul’s highest evolvement.
[00:40] Sahara
If it’s your first time listening, welcome to the party, it’s never too late, it’s just been happening for over five years, but in divine timing. We keep getting weirder, now we’re talking about twerking and belly dancing as a form of spirituality, because that’s just what happens when you live your truth, you’re not afraid of showing your full expression. And that has definitely been my journey!
[01:01] Sahara
So, I started this Podcast over five years ago, my first book came out seven years ago, and I was really on a devoted spiritual journey and I needed to learn about the ancient wisdom, the way that it has been taught for thousands of years.
[01:16] Sahara
So, I studied Ayurveda in India, I lived in India for two years, studying this, I wrote my first book, second book, third book, all about Ayurveda. I wrote an Oracle Card Deck, a Yogic Path, I created, just, so many pieces of content, sharing this, but I realized what was missing in my own life and spiritual practice was the feminine.
[01:37] Sahara
When I’m talking about the feminine, I’m not really talking about a gender here, but I’m talking about an energy. So, I’m talking about the energy of movement, of creativity, of community, of caring about earth, of letting your body be a vessel for spirituality. So, the more traditional masculine path of spirituality, which is what a lot of yoga and meditation is based on, which, again, I studied Ashtanga, I was a hard-core, my sore practice every day, raw vegan, like, whole nine yards. But I also wasn’t getting my period for over two years and I was very disconnected from my sensuality and even my sense of playfulness and joy, which obviously you can hear right now, has shifted.
[02:18] Sahara
And so much of my learning has been about tuning back into the feminine, the sacral chakra energy which is all about creativity, abundance, pleasure, joy, that frequency that I feel is so missing and so needed here on earth. And for me, dance has been the ultimate practice for this. And I’m not talking about dance like going to Millennium Studio and memorizing a really hard piece of choreography, like, I can’t do that, and nor do I want to, because that puts me more in my head. What I desire, and what my practice has been, has been letting my body move me. So, being on the ecstatic dance floor – if you haven’t heard of ecstatic dance, it’s a free-form movement, expression, where there is one rule, no talking, so you just get on that dance floor and everyone’s just dancing their own experience.
[03:06] Sahara
So, through ecstatic dance, which I found when I was 23 years old, living in Bali by myself. I had just left India, I was not sure where I was going to go, I had no money, no real sense of purpose, I was writing my Ayurveda book, I hadn’t yet gotten a book deal, I was on non-speaking terms with my family, they wanted to send me to a mental asylum. It was a tough time! And I found myself on this ecstatic dance floor and for the first time, I saw people just, like, fully unleashing themselves and letting their bodies move in the way that they wanted to, without judgment.
And my first couple of times on the ecstatic dance floor, I’m, like, doing my jazz choreography that I, like, remembered from high school, and then I started to drop in a little deeper, a little deeper and a little deeper, and letting my body guide me and it became my savior. It was my church, it was, my temple, it was my Mecca, it was the place that I could truly connect to Source. And there were so many times on that ecstatic dance floor I would go through just the gravest anger at my family for just not understanding me and not supporting me, and also just the sadness of them not understanding me and supporting me and us not being in touch, and the fear of, like, what if I never make it, what if I never make money, what’s going to happen to me, what’s going to happen tomorrow, and the hope of “Here I am, look at the people around me, look at what’s possible”, and the trust that they are not different from me. If they were able to create this reality for themselves, I can create my own too, based on my truth.
[04:34] Sahara
And the curiosity, what is my curiosity, what is my truth, do I have a purpose, do I not? And the joy and the celebration of, like, being in that crescendo peak where everyone’s just, like, together and connecting. You don’t need to say a word, and you’re just in the movement, in the expression, you’re dancing, you’re vibing and you’re like “This is why I’m alive!”, and every peak and valley in between. That is what ecstatic dance did for me, and that is actually why became a DJ, so I could create these experiences for other people, because that healed me more than reading any book or even listening to any podcast, and I did do those things. But the frequency that we get through embodiment, through dance, through music, transcends anything that the mind and the word can create, because it’s an expression, it’s a frequency, and that’s what I feel so called to share.
[05:22] Sahara
So, I give you this backstory because it really speaks into why dance has become my spiritual practice. You know, so many of us look down on twerking, and you know, even the word twerking, they believe the origins come from the Nola Bounce Scene word to work (twerk), to work. And the Nola Bounce Scene is what popularized the twerking movement, but it even came way before that, it comes from African dancing. In many parts of Africa, all parts of Africa, have some form of gyrating hip movement. And I studied dance for many, many years and I am a trained belly dancer and I noticed that in all of these cultures, there has been a form of hip shaking, gyrating and undulating, that all feminine dance practices have, because that Shakthi feminine energy is stored in the hips, and when we trace it back, it’s not twerking, it’s African dancing. And this kind of dance was a practice for celebration, for birthing rites, to prepare the woman’s bodies and hips to open, to bear birth to a child, but also, what my Somalian friend recently shared with me, for funeral rites as well, because when the women were wailing and feeling so much grief, the shaking actually helped them somatically release it from their body.
And if you’ve read books such as “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay, you see that the hips are where we hold on to emotions. So, what a perfect way to, when you’re in the experience of grief, to simultaneously be releasing it through twerking and undulating your hips. And many people, when they’re in ceremony and spiritual practices, that’s the exact movement their bodies want to do because the body knows, it knows that this is the way that we cannot just heal, but celebrate and feel freedom on the other side.
[07:08] Sahara
So, this is why, for me, twerking, belly dancing, odyssey, all of the different forms of dance that involve the hip are such a beautiful healing practice because for the feminine, we don’t want to be contained, we don’t want to just sit all day. Yes. I do meditation, I do breathwork, non-negotiable, every single day, again, I’m an author and a CEO, and many things in my life that are masculine, for sure, and it’s important to have that balance, but our society is so masculine. All we do is sit all day, that when do we allow the space for the body to just tell us what it wants to do, and that’s what these forms of dance do.
[07:47] Sahara
So, in this Episode, I was actually interviewed by my friend Bianca Taylor on her podcast, all about how all of these forms of dance, twerking, belly dancing, shamanic shaking, are all forms of spirituality. And we also talk about getting off of birth control, and some of the side effects of birth control that people don’t speak about, as well as tuning into your Dharma, your soul’s purpose, and changing careers to be more in alignment with it.
[08:10] Sahara
So, this is a rich one, this is a juicy one, this is one, like, if you listen to this Podcast, you know, and if you don’t, this Podcast will let you know what we stand for here!
[08:19] Sahara
So, without further ado, let’s welcome Bianca and myself over here on The Highest Self Podcast.
_________________________________________________________________
[08:26] Advertisement
And before we get started, I’d love to share with you this special offer.
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 had 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 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!
[09:34] End of Advertisement
_________________________________________________________________
[09:36] Interview
[09:36] Bianca
I’m really excited today to sit down with Sahara Rose! Somebody who makes amazing content, is an author, a podcast host, a fellow twerk and belly dance queen, which we love! So, thank you so much for being here today!
[09:52] Sahara
I’m so excited, it’s not every day I get to be on a podcast with a spiritual twerker, so this feels special!
[09:58] Bianca
You know, there’s not a lot of us.
[10:00] Sahara
I know! It’s a rare breed, some bad bitch genre!
[10:03] Bianca
Yeah, exactly, exactly, we have to stick together! So, on that note, I think that’s such a good, like, such a juicy topic, because we were kind of just talking about it off camera, is that a lot of women who are maybe on their spiritual journey or finding their way to their spiritual journey, feel confused or conflicted about that other part of them, like that part that’s sensual expression. And I feel like that’s something that, you know, like we just mentioned, like, you and I really, like, love and celebrate it.
So, how did that journey begin for you? Like, were you always confident enough to post a video twerking and then also in the next one be like “Namaste, here’s some advice!”?
[10:50] Sahara
Not at all. So, my parents come from Iran, the Middle East, where women still don’t have equal rights to men. They escaped from the war and the revolution that happened there in the late 1970s. And my mom came to this country as a refugee, my dad as an immigrant, and it was all about survival. My grandmothers, were both in forced child marriages when they were 11 years old and no woman in my family has ever even worked before. Women have always been the property of men.
So, the idea of a woman being liberated, let alone sexually liberated, is unheard of in my lineage. The womb is considered a commodity, it’s considered an ownership, it’s considered something that men put their seed in to raise more son to take the money, and women are considered, basically, like this annoying thing that you have to then sell off to another family. So, that is my entire ancestral lineage, it’s all about the suppression of the feminine.
[11:49] Bianca
Wow!
[11:50] Sahara
So, I believe that we are all born into the microcosm of the macrocosm that we’re here to solve. So, I needed to be born into this level of female suppression to see it firsthand, to see, you know, my grandmother share that my grandfather, like, chose her when she was playing hop-scotch outside with her friends and like “Oh, that’s going to be my bride”, and she was crying to her father saying “Please, don’t make me marry this old man”. I had to grow up in that type of scenario to see how important it is for women to be free.
So, I naturally gravitated to dance because it’s just such a free-form of expression, there’s really nothing like it where you’re so embodied, and I didn’t know it was a spiritual practice then. I also started doing yoga at a very young age (when I was 12 years old) and reading different yogic texts, but I never really saw dance as a spiritual practice until much later. I always felt just so elated, but I always thought spirituality is linear, and what I had been taught is a masculine structure. Like, the yoga that we do at a yoga studio is very masculine, it was created by men for men. Actually, Ashtanga yoga was created to make pre-pubescent boys sit still and not be horny so they can then later join the military. So, that’s like, actually, when we go into core power yoga, that’s what we’re doing.
So, it wasn’t until years later that, just like, naturally, my body wanted to twerk, like, it wanted to vibrate, it wanted to undulate, it wanted to be free. And that’s the energy of Kundalini, the serpent-like energy that moves through us, male, female, non-binary, it’s the energy of Prana lifeforce.
So, I could feel this energy within me but I definitely felt shameful around it, I definitely didn’t show it to other people. And sexuality, to me, was something that you just did with your boyfriend, but like for him, but not for you. So, finally, when I was like, maybe, 24 years old, I started to go to dance, more hip-hop dance classes in LA, and I ended up at a twerk shop. And that was the first time of really taking a class that was dedicated to twerking, and I was like, I feel like I’m naturally doing this but I’m around these other women who are doing the same thing, and that’s when I started to really practice the art of twerk.
So, when I say twerking, I’m talking about, I mean, we think of Meghan the Stallion and Cardi B, but actually, this dance form comes from the Congo, it comes from African dance culture where women would shake. And if you still look at many different tribes around the world, it’s like a very primal, natural dance form of the womb connecting to earth.
So, I remember, one day, I went to a twerk class with my friend, and, now this was years later, I was probably 28-29 years old, and he (he’s a gay guy) shared it on his stories and I was like “Oh my God, you cannot share that on your stories”, because, by then, I had already had two books on Ayurveda, I was a spiritual teacher, white dress, Mulla Beads, the whole nine yards, I’m like “People cannot know I twerk!” And then, he’s like “Wow, I’m getting such a great response about this”, so then I reshared it and was like “Am I safe?” And I recognize “Okay, I’m safe”, and then I started to share a little bit more “Am I safe? Okay, yes, I’m safe”, and I started to share more and more. And I started to get a response from people like “Wow, I want to do that too”, or “Wow, I didn’t know that you danced” or even like “What are you doing? That’s disgusting! Who are you to do that?!”, and I realized that, what a response, a woman, in her femininity, in her power, evokes – love and hate.
And as I started to dive more into my own journey of expressing embodiment through dance and then realizing that shaking is such a primal practice of releasing trauma and somatic blockages and emotions through our body, especially our hips, our hips, now we know, is where we store out emotions. So, when you are twerking, when you are shimming, you are literally releasing trauma, releasing stored emotions from your hips. When you’re bending your knees, you’re crouching on the floor, you’re connecting to earth, you’re connecting to the womb, you’re restoring your energy. And that’s why it’s not even just an African dance, but in Middle Eastern dance, in Latin American dance, Salsa dance, Bachata, every single dance form has some form of hip movement to it.
This is also why zebras, when they’re running away from a lion and they’re about to get eaten, and they make it in the nick of time, they shake their bodies off, release the trauma and they come back to homeostasis.
So, I started to realize, as I was doing this, I was healing myself through all of these generations of collective trauma, that now we know, with epigenetics, is actually stored within our systems. And I realized that twerking, shimming, undulating, shaking, truly is a spiritual practice, and now, I share it as much as I can. It definitely evokes a reaction from people, and we can dive into that because I know you’ve experienced it too. But then, once people try it, and often times it’s people who are first like “How can you do that?”, because they’ve only seen twerking in a really mainstream media depicted way, where it’s directed by a man, for a man, and the woman is not in her power. And that’s what we think of sexuality is being sold back to us. But when we, as women, especially, reclaim our sexual power for ourselves and bring that erotic innocence back to it too, of like “I’m just doing it for my own fun, it’s not for anyone else”, there’s such power in that, that those very same people often come back and they realize they just needed to twerk.
[17:29] Bianca
Yeah! I’ve experienced the same response, sometimes receiving messages saying “I used to get really upset or triggered or annoyed when you would twerk, and then one day I decided to try it and I get it now”, and it’s such, also an empowering way to celebrate our bodies. Our bodies, that we have been told for so long, to not allow our bodies to jiggle, to tone and tighten, and be thin, and we don’t want cellulite, we don’t want to jiggle, so when you take your power back, with everything that you just said, connecting to earth, releasing trauma from your hips, you’re also celebrating your butt, your thighs, your belly and just allowing that all that to shake, saying “You don’t tell me, the world doesn’t tell me, men don’t tell me that my body is not meant to jiggle. My body can move however it pleases”, and that is such an empowering and spiritual practice.
[18:23] Sahara
Totally, yes! Because even in yoga, in ballet, and all these practices, tuck in, suck in, be straight. And I mean, even in the 90s, like, having a big butt was not a good thing, it’s like sir-mix-a-lot, like “I like big butts”, and that was considered a thing that was only in women of color communities, whereas now, it’s becoming mainstream. And there is a distortion happening, for sure, in mainstream sexuality, but to me, people say “Well, why do you feel like you need to show it on social media?”, and to me, it’s, when we are in authoritarian cultures, whether it’s our government, our media, our parents, any form of tradition that’s suppressing you, to fight back, you need to be the opposite, you need to show that resistance, right?
So, for me, twerking is also an act of resistance to the patriarchy, because it’s showing that I am not going to sit still and be quiet and do this for you on your time, I’m going to enjoy my body and do it in public at a concert and do it when I feel like it, and my husband is the one who’s taking the videos. And it’s so out of people’s norm, they’re like “Wait, you aren’t single? You’re married and you’re doing this?! You’re Middle Eastern and you’re doing this?!” And to me, it’s giving people that permission slip to step outside of whatever box they’ve put themselves into and to reclaim the thing that brings you joy.
At the end of the day, why are we even doing the spiritual journey? I think a lot of spiritual people need to start twerking because they have fucking sticks up their asses and they’re taking the shit way too seriously. Like, you’re healing for what? You know, like, there’s no gold star you get at the end, you’re healing to experience joy. If you start shaking your ass, you will experience joy!
[20:09] Bianca
You really will! It’s so much fun, it’s good exercise, it feels so good, there’s so many benefits to it, and like you mentioned, dance being an embodied practice. And embodiment is one of my favorite words, it really just summarizes a huge part of the spiritual journey because when people are on our spiritual journeys, we can find that we get so stuck in our head and we start thinking “Oh, okay, I need to become more self-aware, I need to do this and to do that”, and like you said, literally, they’re sick of their butt, and then they can do all of the practices that can be very stiff.
[20:44] Sahara
They’re spiritually constipated!
[20:46] Bianca
Yeah, exactly! And then, when you really come into embodiment, that’s another, like, layer that you peel back of healing. And for the feminine, especially, for women, I have found that to be so, so important.
[21:01] Sahara
And you can feel the energy around how someone is dancing, right? You can feel the difference of someone who’s dancing for themselves and someone who’s dancing for someone else, just like you can tell the difference of someone who’s dressing for themselves or dressing for someone else.
So, often times we get triggered because we are perpetuating whatever we’re doing it for, we’re assuming it’s the other person, it’s hard for us to believe that someone is just enjoying themselves and that’s it, they’re just doing it for them and it’s fun for them.
And you know, for me too, just like, when we talk about coming out of the spiritual closet, it’s even like coming out of the twerk closet, right? Like, that is a closet of – most of the resistance comes from other women, you know. And it does become, I think this, like, innate feminine wound of, if you are attracting attention, it will take away from me. And it’s like this deep fear that’s real, like, there is such abandonment that is in the collective feminine shadow that the patriarchy has inflicted before us. So, when we see a woman who’s sexy, who’s in her power, a subconscious fear happens of “Then there will be less for me”, “Then my man will leave me”, “Then people will forget about me”, and that’s really the work to sit with. It’s that feeling of unworthiness and that feeling of a woman’s beauty is not taking away from her own, in fact, it’s a recognition, it’s a mirror of your own. And not everyone needs to twerk, per say. Someone else might love to do Salsa, someone else might love to do Bharatnatyam, traditional Indian dance, or whatever it is. But I think dance, having some form of free flow, non-linear movement is so essential, especially for the feminine path of spirituality, which again, both male, female and non-gender can experience.
[22:45] Bianca
Yeah! I agree with everything you just said! I want to talk a little bit about coming out of the spiritual closet. Like I mentioned, we talked about it before, with some other guests, and…
[22:55] Sahara
“I’m out of the closet!”
[22:56] Bianca
Yeah! And I’ve been coming out of my closet with this podcast and just over the past six months or so, since I really deepened. I’ve been on my spiritual journey for a number of years, but then in November, I had an explant done, and that was, I mean, it just cracked my heart open, literally, I mean it was right on my heart center, and that was when I had this call to start making more content about spirituality and having conversations and talking about all the stuff we’re talking about here. And I experienced a lot of fear and that which hunt shame “I’m going to be burned at the stake if people think I’m doing something wrong”, and my own, kind of, religious trauma as well with having a history of growing up in a Baptist Christian church. You know, I was baptized when I was 12, my own decision, because I’ve always had, honestly, a call to spirituality, I’ve always wanted to be close to Source. And so, that was the way that it showed up for me.
So, I know that a lot of other people experience that same fear of “I really want to talk about spirituality online”, or even just be more open about it in their own friends and their family, and they experience that fear and that shame. So, I wonder what that journey was like for you when that started, maybe before you started your journey with Ayurveda, or if it was, maybe, after that?
[24:23] Sahara
So, I started blogging, like, 12 years ago, as a health, a food blogger. My blog was called Eat Feel Fresh, and I did that, really, for 7+ years. And I remember, finally, in 2017, I was so sick of talking about food and making these recipes and taking pictures of them, and I was like “For what, what am I doing this for? What’s the end goal of this?” And I, personally, was so interested in Past Lives, and Karma, and why are we here, and those were the rabbit holes I was going through, and I, genuinely, wanted a place to be able to discuss it, especially in a more grounded approach. I’m also a woman of color, and it’s just, I feel like a lot of spirituality is very, like, white-washed, LA, Valley girl, and I’m like “I want a side of twerk with my spirituality”, you know. So, I was so sacred to change my Instagram from my blog name (Eat Feel Fresh) to my name (I am Sahara Rose), I was prepared for everyone to unfollow me, the end of my career to happen, but I couldn’t just post another recipe anymore, it just felt like I wasn’t living my truth. So, I remember, I finally, at, like, midnight, I changed the thing and I wrote this thing and like “I understand if you want to unfollow me, but I got to be honest with myself”, and most people just don’t care. People kind of like come and go out of your field, we think it’s the end of the world. So, that’s when I started my podcast (Highest Self Podcast), five years ago, and since then, it has been such a beautiful journey because in me sharing, it gave voice for so many people who are like “I felt the same way to, I’ve just never seen anyone that looks like me, talking about it, has similar interests to me talk about it, who’s speaking about it in this way that just resonates with me”. So, the moment I started sharing, I was really just, like, welcomed with open arms. And I believe that when we’re living in alignment with our Dharma, our soul’s purpose, we experience the flow, the Kriya, the synchronicities, the path of least resistance that people talk about. But sometimes, to get to that path of least resistance, you first must follow the path you’re the most resistant to. And for me, that was, like, basically the end of my career. I had just come out with an Ayurveda book and I had a cook book coming out, but I just couldn’t do it anymore.
And this fear, I think, of coming out of the spiritual closet, is actually a very deep-rooted fear throughout history. So, again, epigenetics, we hold on to trauma intergenerationally.
So, women, since the beginning of the patriarchal era, so, over 2000 years ago, before this, it wasn’t actually patriarchal, but when the patriarchal agenda started to come forth, it actually saw the power of women going against each other.
So, it you look at the Witch Hunt, they used to, and I actually grew up right near Salem, Massachusetts, I was, like, a witch growing up and I would, like, go there all the time, I was just obsessed with it. And what they would do back then is, if someone in the village was considered to be a witch, they would go to all of the different girls there and be like “Do you know anything about Bianca being a witch? Do you know anything? Do you know anything?”, and if you gave me even a peep, then you’re considered a witch too. So, having friends was considered a danger, because the more people knew your name, the more people could throw you under the bus, and that’s more likely for you to be killed. So, women started to see other women as huge threats of “I can’t even let women see me, know me, because that means my name could be thrown into the hat of being a witch”. And since then, this divide has been happening, of, and I think a lot of us have this deep-rooted fear, which is perpetuated by Cancel Culture, of “If I say the wrong thing, If I’m too out there, If I’m to woo-woo, groups of people, moms of people will come against me and it will be the end of me”.
And I’ve had to do, like, Past Life regressions, and even in this lifetime I was thrown down a hill. In 4th grade I got a concussion because the kid said I was a witch and I needed to (for real) experience that in this lifetime, to realize that, to get through the Karma. Like, we have lessons in our life that we keep repeating until we’ve learned the lesson of.
So, I think a lot of us have been witches, reborn in this lifetime, to realize it is safe for me to be magical, it is safe for me to speak my truth, and I am safe even if people don’t like me.
[28:36] Bianca
Yeah, I think that that’s huge, and it really says a lot. Everything you mentioned about, kind of, that ancestral pain that we carry and having to walk through it in this lifetime. And it does feel like there is a really big wave of women and all people, but of witches, kind of coming back to heal from all the pain that we’ve endured for so many generations. And doing that through community, through sisterhood, through being expressive about out spiritual journey, because that awakens the next witch. And you know, especially with the power of social media, you know, people may not even be activated yet, until they see a post from somebody and then they start asking themselves questions and then they go read a book and they start their journey.
[29:34] Sahara
Yes! And even the meaning of the word witch is wise woman. Like, we think of witch as like Hocus Pocus, which, again, I love that movie, but, like, that was the best depiction of witches, you know. But the word witch, like, when they called someone a witch, these were healers, these were medicine women, these were people who worked with sound, these were people who were doulas and midwives. I mean, even till this day, midwives and doulas are being killed in Guatemala. Women who are working with medicine are being killed in many parts of Africa. Women who have any form of intuition or practice, in the Middle East, are being killed. I have a friend in Egypt who was sent to jail for having a yoga center. So, like, this is still happening, the wound is real, because the woman who’s in touch with her intuition is powerful, and the patriarchy knows that. So, they try hard, as possible, to suppress us from our innate nature, because deep down inside, they know that women carry the codes, we carry the hologram that creates all life – the womb. Every single person was created in a womb, we have a portal that is able to take the non-physical into the physical.
And that’s why, in ancient times, we gathered in a red tent, when we were bleeding, and we would sit under this red together and bleed on our menstrual cycles, and sing, and read poetry, and the men would come to us with questions for the village of “Which direction should we go in? What should we do about this?”, and because the veils were so thin when we were bleeding, we would give them the answer. But with the patriarchal shift, and you could say it was the beginning of a lot of monotheistic modern-day religions, you know, it wasn’t an over-night thing, it was a gradual process with the Roman Empire, and you can really look into that. But right now, I mean, there is this rising of the feminine, but we still have a long way to go. I mean, female reproductive rights, right now, are still being questioned by our Supreme Court. And I think that this is why it’s so important for women to come together and to realize the patriarchal shaming within ourselves, that we’re so focused – all the things I see about cancel culture are women tearing down other women, I don’t see men doing it to other men. And that’s divide and conquer, because if we’re all tearing each other down, then the patriarchy continues.
[31:43] Bianca
Right!
_________________________________________________________________
[31:44] Advertisement
We’ll take a quick break, so I can share with you this special offer.
So, have you been on your spiritual journey for a while, but to be honest, you don’t resonate with a lot of the practices like hours of seated meditation, reading all these really heady spiritual book, but instead, you’re craving something that invites the full you, that allows you to be radiant and beautiful and connecting with your intuition and womb wisdom?
Well, I felt the exact same way on my spiritual journey, I went from spending hours doing really rigid Ashtanga yoga every year, where I actually lost my period for over 2 years, and even went into perimenopause in my early 20s, into connecting back with my sacred feminine energy. And this is exactly what I share in my new course Divine Feminine Embodiment.
So, this is really about dropping out of the mind and into the body, because the truth is, a lot of the spiritual practices that we hear about right now, really were created by men for men. And our culture is very masculine as well, it’s very focused on productivity and hustle, and if you’re ready to go beyond that, and reclaiming your ease, your joy, your bliss, your juiciness, your dance, then this course is for you.
So, I discuss the different art forms of Divine Feminine Wisdom, such as the Art of Magnetism, the Art of Embodiment, the Art of Ritual, and so much more.
So, this is also a really powerful entry point into stepping into deeper sacred feminine work. I teach you my Goddess Embodiment practice, my Goddess Breathwork practice and much more.
So, if you’re interested and curious to learn more about what’s inside, head over to divinefemininecourse.com. Again, that’s divinefemininecourse.com, you can find that link in the show notes. This month, the course is over 50% OFF as our special introductory price. So, I highly recommend diving into it right now and beginning your sacred feminine immersion.
[33:47] End of Advertisement
_________________________________________________________________
[33:48] Bianca
Yeah, exactly, that’s it! And I believe that this is, you know, we have opportunity to reclaim the word witch, to reclaim not having shame over our menstrual cycles as well, and for speaking up about out reproductive rights. I actually have a tattoo that says ‘witch’.
[34:07] Sahara
I love it!
[34:10] Bianca
Yeah. And I think that, as content creators continue to share our messages and just our own spiritual journeys and practices, online, it allows more women to awaken and to come together.
And I don’t know if you’ve ever received this, but I’ve received a lot of messages, kind of like I mentioned the kind of twerk comment. People (women) would message me saying that they felt a lot of anger or, you know, not good feelings towards me, and then, over time, they went on their own feminist journey and they started to realize all this internal misogyny that they harnessed, and they would come back and apologize. And it’s actually really cool, I don’t ever have any anger when women send me messages, I’m never that person, I’m like “Yay, welcome! Welcome to the sisterhood!” When women come together, we are extremely powerful. And I’ve become so – the more spiritual I become, the more fascinated I get with periods as well because I used to, just like everybody, I’m sure, find that time of the month really shameful, you feel really ugly.
[35:18] Sahara
Stick a tampon in.
[35:20] Bianca
Yeah, you stick a tampon in, and when you have to pass a tampon to another girl in public…
[35:25] Sahara
Yeah, buying a tampon, it was like they taught you that should be shameful, like, WTF?!
[35:30] Bianca
Yeah. And I’ve just done a complete 180° now, I love the whole – You know, I mean, I’m not saying that I’m like “Yay, my period is here”, but I have so much respect.
[35:41] Sahara
Oh girl, it’s some Christmas Eve for me! I’m like “My body is healthy enough to bleed!” I didn’t get my period for 2 years because I was doing so much Ashtanga yoga, and I was a raw vegan, I was, like, so in my masculine that my feminine energy literally cut off. I didn’t bleed for 2 years, so that made me realize, like, the power and the gift it is to bleed. If you are menstruating, that means your body thinks it’s healthy enough to be able to create life, whether you want to do that or not. And so many women, right now, are not menstruating, or they’re taking birth control, and that’s not a real period, so they don’t know what are the underlying – I didn’t know what my underlying issues were until I got off birth control and I realized “Wait, my body’s not even producing hormones anymore”.
[36:21] Bianca
Yeah, yeah! I also lost my period for about a year after I did bodybuilding because my body fat had gotten so low, I was extremely, and I looked really fit, but I was so thin, I didn’t have any body fat, so I stopped getting my period. And then, I like to say it came back with a vengeance, it came back and it was like really intense and that was, you know, a part of me.
[36:41] Sahara
She’s like “Listen to me!”
[36:43] Bianca
Yeah, she’s like “I’m back, bitch!”
[36:45] Sahara
“You better work!”
[36:47] Bianca
Yeah, yeah. And now, yeah, it’s been such a journey, like, celebrating, you know, celebrating my period and that time of the month.
I like that you brought up birth control as well, because it’s a question I get asked, surprisingly, a lot. People ask me “What about birth control?”. I was on the birth control pill when I was 15, for, I think, two years, and when I got off of it, I felt completely crazy. I felt like I wasn’t myself, my mood, my depression, it was just a rollercoaster. And so, you know, I learned how to just, you know, track my ovulation. And when you learn how to track your cycle, you realize how that feminine cycle that we have, 28 to 30-something days, depending on each person’s body, there’s so much to learn week by week, when we’re in our follicular phase and we have energy that’s completely different from when we’re in our luteal phase and we need to, kind of, be more at home and be resting. And so, when we’re menstruating and the fact that it syncs with the Moon, I mean, it’s just, women are just, we’re just so cool.
[37:53] Sahara
We’re so magical!
[37:55] Bianca
It’s so magical!
[37:57] Sahara
Yes! And birth control is going to be considered the largest medical experiment of our time. We don’t know what are long-term repercussions, the – I consider myself to be a feminist as well, and the 1960s Feminine Movement was very needed. However, we did not know what medically happens long-term with birth control.
I think birth control is very important and women should not be forced to have children, you know, when they’re teenagers. However, birth control pills are not the only solution, we are taught that they are. And have you heard that birth control is actually called the divorce pill? Have you heard about this?
[38:34] Bianca
I haven’t heard it called the divorce pill. I did watch an episode of Explained on Netflix, about birth control.
[38:40] Sahara
About the pheromones?
[38:41] Bianca
Yeah. It’s just really, really interesting, I mean, how – we know that there’s so many, you know, side effects and everything to it, but it really just – like, the pamphlet that comes with it, when you unfold the pamphlet, it’s like this big…
[38:55] Sahara
It’s like blood clots, this, that. So, they call it the divorce pill because there were a lot of women, like, thousands upon thousands of women who would meet their partner, get married, get off of birth control pill and be trying to have a child, but all of a sudden they could not stand how their husband smelled. Something about him was repelling to them, and it was causing many women to get divorced. So, scientists started to look into this, of like, why is this happening, what is the common cause between all these different people, and they realized it was the fact that they had met their partner on birth control and then gotten off.
So, when you are on birth control, your body thinks it’s pregnant. When your body thinks it’s pregnant, it wants family near it, it wants people with a similar immune system to you, kin.
And that’s why, often, especially in the first trimester, women are actually repelled by their partners, right? So, our bodies think we’re pregnant when we’re on birth control pills.
Now, when we get off birth control pills, we start to (our bodies) look for a mate again. When we’re looking for a mate, we’re naturally looking for someone with an opposite immune system to us, because that’s going to have the highest survivalhood of our offspring. So, that’s why when you just meet someone, just the pheromones and the attraction is there, it’s often because you have very different and complementary immune systems, it’s actually what’s happening on a chemical basis. So, these women were meeting men who had similar immune systems to them and then when it was time for them to get off the pill, they couldn’t stand how they smelled, because, to their body, it smelled like family, it’s not someone you want to reproduce with. So, that’s why, if you are on birth control, I suggest, and of course, work with your doctor, work with your naturopath, Ayurvedic practitioner, whoever you want to work with, to do it safely, but smell your partner, you know, because you don’t know. And it’s so intelligent how the body works, that there’s so many chemicals, subtleties that we don’t realize. And if it’s doing it to such a basis that it can create aversion to our partners, then, like, what is it doing on a daily basis to all of these different factors in our bodies, from our bone density issues, to our circadian rhythm cycles, to our digestion, to out metabolism, it has effects on all these different systems that we haven’t fully understood the solution to.
[41:05] Bianca
Oh, I didn’t know that, about the pheromones, but, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. From my, you know, experience, from when I was a teenager and I got off birth control, I experienced feeling like a completely different person and feeling out of control with my hormones, and my mood, and my body, and just my skin, and everything really changed. And so, because of that, I’ve always, you know, used other methods of birth control. And I think it’s important for women to know that there are other options and sometimes, you know, just because something is popularized, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best choice for our bodies.
[41:41] Sahara
For sure! Especially when it’s medication.
[41:45] Bianca
Yeah, especially when it’s medication. You want to do a little double-check there before.
[41:49] Sahara
Yes, read those side effects.
[41:51] Bianca
Yeah!
_________________________________________________________________
[41:52] Advertisement
I know this Episode is good, but so is this sponsor!
This Podcast is sponsored by Better Help. We all need someone to lean on, or at least someone to talk to because life is crazy and a lot goes on that’s out of our control. And sometimes we just need someone to hear us out, to give us the support that we need so we can come back into alignment. And this is why therapy is so important, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, like former generations have felt, but it’s actually to me, I’m like “Shout your therapist out”, because a girl is always looking for a good one and I find a lot of really great ones with Better Help, that’s where I’m currently matched with one. I live them because you don’t need to actually drive anywhere and be stuck in traffic, and be like stressed out about going to your therapist, but it makes it really easy, they’re all online, they’re affordable and they’ll match you to a new one according to your survey.
So, you can fill out information about yourself and get matched with the perfect therapist and actually try out different ones until you find out your right fit.
So, to get 10% OFF your first month, head over to betterhelp.com/sahara. Again, that’s betterhelp.com/sahara and you can find that link in the show notes.
[43:06] End of Advertisement
_________________________________________________________________
[43:07] Bianca
So, I want to, also, ask about, you know, your – so, I know your book is called “Find Your Dharma”.
[43:13] Sahara
“Discover Your Dharma”
[43:13] Bianca
“Discover Your Dharma”, and that’s a big topic that you talk about, and I want to touch on it a little bit. You mentioned, you know, earlier in our conversation, you know, Dharma is, essentially, your purpose. And I know a lot of people are not living in their purpose, they are going to work, they are doing the 9-5 thing, they’re plugged into the matrix, they want to break out, they feel like their purpose is bigger, but they are stuck in that place where it’s “Well, I feel like my purpose is bigger, I don’t really know what that it and if I quit then I won’t be able to pay my bills, so what am I going to do in the meantime?”, that kind of, that little loop that keeps being stuck in there.
So, with all the work that you’ve done, you know, around helping people discovering their Dharma, how do you help people make that transition?
[44:04] Sahara
So, living your Dharma, your soul’s purpose, the big reason why you are here is the most important work that you can do in this lifetime.
So, when I had my health issues, I had issues with my family, my parents disowned me, so many things, living my purpose was the thing that allowed me to get through all of it. Because life can be hard and it can be dense, and you need to have that North Star of something greater than you. And your Dharma is where your highest form of joy meets your highest form of service.
So, I have many, many different tools, one of them is taking this quiz I’ve created called The Dharma Archetype Quiz. So, it’s what’s your main archetype – are you a Teacher, someone who’s here to guide and share wisdom with people; are you a Nurturer, someone who’s here to care and connect and hold space; are you an Entrepreneur, here to create solutions for world’s problems; are you a Visionary, here to share inspiring messages; are you a Researcher, here to dive in and get information and look at the facts and data; are you an Activist, here to raise awareness about social justice causes; are you a Warrior, here to use your energy, especially physical energy for a shared goal?
So, I have this quiz at dharmaarchetypequiz.com you can dive into all the archetypes, but I feel like that’s the best place to start because when I did not know my purpose, it was hard for me to even think because I didn’t even know what I was good at, right. So, sometimes it takes you being part of an archetype that’s greater than you and you’re like “Okay, I know I have qualities of the Teacher, and I have the qualities of the Artist, per say. So, who are the people that inspire me, who are also Teacher and Artist? What are the mediums that come through me?”, and then you look at next “Okay, what’s exciting for me right now? What are the things I’m Google searching? What are the podcasts I’m listening to? What are the conversations I want to have?”, and then you look at obstacles you’ve overcome in your life.
I have this whole Dharma Blueprint that people can go through, of putting together their superpowers, their obstacles, their archetypes, and giving them something really actionable to put their energy towards.
So, your Dharma is not just one thing, like, I think sometimes we think “Oh, I need to find my purpose, and it’s this one thing, and that’s what I’m going to do forever”, but your Dharma really has iterations, it has soul contracts, right? So, for example, I had a soul contract to write books on Ayurveda and bring Ayurveda to the Millennials, and then it was very clear to me that when that contract was complete because I no longer wanted to talk about Ayurveda anymore, I had other things that were interesting to me, and I started to ask “Well, what is the purpose of even being healthy?”, it’s about living your purpose, and that brought me into my Dharma journey. So, it’s really about following that red thread that’s connecting different experiences and moment in your life, and then, that joy, that excitement towards where it’s guiding you next.
[46:51] Bianca
I love that you mentioned the evolution of it, and the soul contracts, because I think that that’s another piece that cause people to get really stuck in places (including myself). And I’ve gone through, feel like, so many lifetimes in this lifetime.
[47:07] Sahara
Yes.
[47:08] Bianca
I have been a student, I have been a caretaker for children, I’ve been a dancer, I’ve been a content creator, I’ve been, like, so many different types of content creators.
[47:21] Sahara
You’ve got the Nurturer archetype, the Teacher, the Artist, the Entertainer.
[47:25] Bianca
Yeah. A personal trainer, I also travel the world to speak veganism, so it’s like activist in there, you know. And, you know, I’ve experienced that, and even so, recently, with making my decision to quit OnlyFans and to kind of shift from, like, doing sexy content. It really felt like, for me, I was, you know, when I was making sensual content, it really was a celebration of my sensual self, which was really important and I felt like I needed to share that and activate other women in that way, and I also enjoyed making money from it. And then came a point when it was, where it was over, and I just felt this knowing and learning how to honor that truth when it time to change. Like, for you “Okay, I don’t want to make recipes anymore”, like “I want to talk about this stuff now”. And I think because, you know, when we’re little and people ask us “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. “I want to be a teacher” or “I want to be an astronaut”, and then you think that that one thing is the one thing that you have to do when you die, when it’s really, we can have all of these different experiences, and, like you said, following that, kind of, thread that strings them all along in cultivating all of the different lessons and wisdom and tools that we cultivate through each experience.
[48:46] Sahara
Yes! And your purpose is not what you do, but rather, it’s a frequency that you embody. So, I think, so often, we look for our purpose in terms of an action, a career, a project, and it may manifest in those forms, but it’s your energetic signature, it’s what you bring through every conversation you have, interaction you have, project and role that you play, and that rally is what your Dharma is. So, for me, whether I’m doing an interview with you here, before I was doing this Ayurveda old-school documentary, whatever it is, it’s my frequency, it’s my signature, it’s the way that I talk, it’s the examples I give, it’s my essence, that is my purpose that can be in many different types of conversations and forms.
So, really, when people are looking for their purpose, you’re looking for yourself, you’re looking for your truth, you’re really looking to get to know you. So, that’s why doing quizzes, like the Dharma Archetype Quiz, or diving into your Myers-Brigg, enneagram, diving into shadows and your trauma, diving into your dreams and your desires, the more you get to know yourself, the more your Dharma naturally unfolds.
So, so many of us, we’re looking for our purpose like it’s a game of Where’s Waldo, we’re like “Where that bitch at?”. And it’s like, your purpose is you being you, to your fullest expression, and when you are you, to your fullest expression, you can’t help but do.
Like, here’s one of my things, my pet-peeves in the spiritual community – everyone’s like “I’m a human being, not a human doing”, and it’s like, yes, we are here to be, but when you’re so naturally in your being, you want to create, and we humans are here to create. I think creativity is the highest form of spirituality because we’re able to take ideas and bring them to life, like, we are the womb, we’re here taking the non-tangible into the tangible, like, that is the most out of this world thing possible, right? So, when we are creatives, whether it’s creating a podcast, whether it’s creating your garden, whether it’s creating whatever it is, that’s really coming from your essence and your heart, that is you, living your Dharma.
[50:48] Bianca
Wow! Snaps! I love that! And I think, you know, I love that you mention creativity because part of my journey has really been following my creative calling from whatever felt natural to me in that moment, and I know it always looked a little crazy to my family, I’m sure you can relate, you know. Because I also paint, you know, I paint, I dance, I make content, I make podcasts.
[51:20] Sahara
All the Shakthi energy.
[51:21] Bianca
Yeah, exactly! And just, like, it’s always very Shakthi energy, and I just follow that flow. And following that flow, it always leads me to the next thing, then I create a coaching program, a community, a retreat, experiences, and asking myself, you know, kind of, checking up on myself and seeing where I’m at and where I’ve evolved to and what is calling me into creation, like “What do I feel like creating right now?”, and then from there it’s always the next step in my journey as an entrepreneur.
[51:53] Sahara
Yes! We are here to literally be living orgasms, to orgasm through that creation so it’s not coming, you can’t force the orgasm and think about it, and plan it out, and map it out, and it’s coming at minute three, it’s like, it happens when you surrender, and when you surrender to your creative flow and you allow yourself to be a channel, it’s just moving through you.
And I think the challenge of that comes in the social media world, and I struggle with it too, of like, a personal brand, because it’s like, to build up “personal brand”, and I’m using this is quote marks because I don’t even believe it truly can exist, because you’re a person before a brand, you have to repeat the same thing again, again and again, but we’re changing on a daily basis so it confuses people because we’re so not used to it. We’re used to a brand being like Coca Cola, it’s the freaking polar bear forever, right? So, then when I see, let’s say I’m following you and you’re like “Wait, shit, she’s painting one day. So, is she a painter right now? She’s dancing, now she’s doing fitness, now she’s coaching, I can’t put her in a box, I don’t understand her, I can’t!” But it’s like, you’re a multi-faceted human being and so are they. And your frequency, that you bring to your painting, and you bring to your dancing, and you bring to your coaching, and you bring to your podcast, that’s your brand.
So, I think that we need to step away from thinking a brand and a niche is one action and thing, and move into it as a frequency, that also will shift and evolve over time. But I will say, that when you step into who you really are, it’s like a landing that happens.
So, I see, sometimes, people when they’re like newer to the coaching space, content creation space, they’re, like, really changing their brands a lot, that they’re like “Okay, now I’m a Human Design expert with, like, all white font”, then they’re like “Now I’m aura expert”, and they, like, delete their old account and it’s, like, something new, you’re almost trying on different identities. But when you really land into who you are, there’s less of that shift and then you can do all of the things but you’re, like, bringing your essence to it. Like Frieda Kahlo, you know, whether it’s her fashion or her art or her singing, or anything that she does, it has the Frieda essence to it, and that’s really what we’re all here to be. We’re all here to be our own fragrance.
[53:57] Bianca
Uh-hum, yeah! I love that! And I definitely, I’ve experienced it myself and in other people have, is that “Who do I show up as on social media?”, and when I’m evolving, am I allowed to change? And it can feel really vulnerable, as well, to have your evolution so public.
[54:17] Sahara
Because people are like “I liked the old you. I miss the old Kanye!”
[54:22] Bianca
Literally! Like, I was, for a couple of months, it kind of, stopped now, but for a couple of months people, pretty much just men would comment and said “Oh, I liked you better when you had boobs”, I’m like “Okay, like, she’s dead, RIP! I haven’t got the same boobs anymore, so!”
[54:40] Sahara
Yeah, like, who the fuck do you think you are?! It’s like, I’m not a tv show, bitch, even they change season by season, why shouldn’t I change the same? And there’s a level of entitlement that happens with social media, too, of people like “No, I subscribe to the Bianca boobs channel, so it needs to be that channel perpetually, because you are in this area of my mind that I have depicted you as this one thing, for this one void, so if you change, that means I have to change where I’ve sorted you, and that’s too much work for me”. And it’s like, friends change, relationships change, your partner changes, we’re on a moving planet that’s moving at thousands of light years through space, like, if you think anything in this world is going to remain the same, you’re fucking crazy!
[55:21] Bianca
Right!
[55:22] Sahara
So, it’s like, people are going to change, and, like, guess what, you can unfollow, you can move on or you can use it as inspiration. You don’t need to completely agree with someone, you don’t even need to really like everything about someone. I think that’s the entitlement piece, like, we expect people to be like these content tv shows to give me exactly what I need, when I need it, but it’s like… And I’ve seen this happen even with friendships, it’s like, friendships in the social media age have become so transactional, but it’s like “You’re supposed to be my friend that listens to me whenever I have a problem”, “You’re supposed to be my friend who always wants to go out with me”, “You’re supposed to be my friend with this”, and if that friend changes, we’re like “I need to replace you”. But it’s like, back in the day when we lived in villages, we just accepted people, throughout whatever stage of their lives that we were at, and I think we need the same level of acceptance because we actually might learn from someone a lot more when they’re showing up in a new way that we’ve never seen before.
[56:15] Bianca
Yeah. There definitely is a massive feeling of entitlement, and I think that it’s important for people to reflect upon whatever is coming up in them when somebody you’re following starts posting different content. And you know, if you want to unfollow them, you can, but why do you feel so activated by somebody changing their hobbies of what they share, or their business?
[56:41] Sahara
Because they probably aren’t changing themselves.
[56:43] Bianca
Yeah!
[56:44] Sahara
So, it’s triggering what you have stepped outside of the box that they have put themselves into. So, it’s like “I don’t allow myself to change, so therefore you must not change, because if you’re changing that means I have the potential to change, but that’s too much responsibility for me to hold, so I would rather make you wrong, for growing, than admit I am not on a growth journey”, and that’s the truth of it.
[57:04] Bianca
Yeah! Yep! Snaps!
[57:07] Sahara
A-ho!
[57:09] Bianca
Uhm, so what are you creating right now?
[57:13] Sahara
Yes! So, I’ve written four books and had a podcast for five years, and I run a business, and all the things, and I was like “Okay, what do I do next?”, and I was like, honestly, like, when I think of what is my highest form of joy, like, when have I been the happiest? I think of when I lived in Bali and I was ecstatic dancing and there was always some sort of gathering going on, whether it’s like authentic relating or improv, or karaoke, or kirtan, or whatever, and I’m like, I so miss that, like, being in community, creating, like, going with the flow. And I feel like we’re so isolated.
And even myself, like, more recently, I experienced, even though I have so many friends, so many people, but like, this like deep-seated loneliness, and I was like, where is this coming from, and I realized it’s like, even when you meet up with friends, it’s like “Okay, two weeks from now, we’re going to meet up, at this time”, and it’s this thing that you need to plan and put a lot of energy towards and I’m like “I miss that flow”, and I’m like “Okay, I guess I need to move to Bali”, and my husband’s like “Well, I’m not going to move to Bali, so what’s going to go on?”, and I’m like “Okay, how can I create this type of community and creativity?
My husband works in the music industry, he manages artists and producers, so we came together, and this is a very recent creation, but like, is happening, to really birth this center of creativity in Miami, which is where we live, that has music studios, podcast studios, places for events. So, you could be recording your album and then do a cacao ceremony and have ecstatic dance there and have beautiful conversations, and do art and photography, and improv, and karaoke, and like all of these different forms of creativity in a multi-purpose space where you’re really collaborating with people.
I know I get my best ideas through conversation, when I’m, like, talking to you, when I’m listening to a podcast, when I’m coaching someone, like, it sparks something in me that I don’t get when I’m by myself. So, I want to create a space that people can really drop in and create art.
I really believe, and I was a hardcore activist, like, my entire teen years, I was the president of my Amnesty International chapter, I went to school in D.C., I studied International Human Rights Law, like, really deep in the social justice space. And I realized, even the purpose of that is to bring beauty and joy to the world. And that art, again, is our highest purpose.
So, to be able to just create and be channels for art, because art can really speak words, and even beyond words, vibration, into topics that no book – like, I was going to write a book about joy (and I still might), but I’m like “Does one read a book about joy and become joyful?”, like, that hasn’t been my experience. Like, joy comes to me, when I’m connected, when I’m signing, when I’m dancing, when I’m evoking my inner child.
So, the next iteration of my Dharma is to create that place that people can go and drop in. So, our next podcast will be there!
[1:00:10] Bianca
Yay! That’s so exciting! Wow! That’s going to be so cool! Definitely have to come visit and check it out! I think, you know, like what you mentioned, kind of, bringing out that inner child, and it’s like, when we’re children, we have – like, when you go to a pre-school, they have all of these different activity rooms and you get to go and you get to play on the playground, you go to arts and crafts room, you have, kind of, like, this different experience.
[1:00:35] Sahara
That’s the best, like, I want to go summer camp!
[1:00:37] Bianca
It was fun, like, summer camp, exactly! And as adults, we, kind of, all isolate in our homes and we lose touch with that sense of community and that creativity mixed with community, because that’s when it really can just become something so special.
I mean, like, music, obviously, like music, one person singing and playing the guitar is great, but you throw in a couple more people and now you have a band and now you create, you know, something beautiful. And the same with dance, right? Like, dancing by yourself is really fun and great, dancing with a group of women is, like, the best thing in the world.
[1:01:12] Sahara
Totally! Because something, when we’re around other people, just gets activated within ourselves. And healing has always happened, communally, like this individualistic form of healing is, like, less than a hundred years old, you know.
There’s this interesting story that, after the Rwandan genocide, they sent these top psychiatrists from the US government, to Rwanda, to work with the people there. And after a few days, they kicked them out of the village, and the government’s like “Wait, why did you just kick out, these are our top psychiatrists here?”, and they’re like “No, no, no, I think you sent the wrong people, because these people wanted to take us away from our community to be in a dark room by ourselves and keep talking about what happened. But in Rwanda, the way that we heal is that we go outside, under the sun, and we hold hands, and we sing, and we dance to the drum beat in community, that is how we heal”. And I think we should really look at that joy-based healing, community-based healing. It doesn’t have to be analyzing the problem again, and again, and again, and again. Again, there’s a time and space for that, but sometimes, the best way to heal is to stop identifying so much with the mind. And we’re so obsessed with this analyzation and healing and fixing, that we’ve turned, again, the patriarchal culture, into our spiritual and healing journey again, that there’s something inherently wrong with us that you’re never going to be totally healed. For as long as you’re alive, there’s going to be another past life to heal, another childhood thing, another forever, you know. And it’s like, are you going to make that the purpose of your entire existence or are you going to create art out of that?
[1:02:49] Bianca
Yeah, I love that! And I’m the same place as well, like, coming back into my art journey, really, over the past couple of years is, I’ve deepened my healing journey and that really feels like what’s next for me, is to spend more time painting and dancing and putting all of the – like, I’ve done a lot of hard healing stuff, I know that there will always be more that comes up, but now with all this stuff, I’m like “Okay, learned all the stuff, what to do with it?”
[1:03:14] Sahara
Yes!
[1:03:15] Bianca
Create with it!
[1:03:17] Sahara
Exactly! That energy of transmutation. And I think, so many of us, we’re just used to things always being hard, and that’s our mindset of it. We always need to be struggling, we always need to be working on something in a really, really hard way, but it’s like, you can do that forever, and, like, be on your deathbed, and like, I don’t think anyone’s like “I’m so glad I did a million Ayahuasca ceremonies and a million hours of shaman work or I made a million dollars”. No one talked about, in their obituary, about how much money they made, or any of these things, they talk about their relationships, and their joy, and their purpose, and their fulfilment. So, these really get to be the epicenter, the North Stars of our lives, so we can create lives that we know that we’re going to look back on with just such, such warm, loving eyes and zero regrets.
[1:04:06] Bianca
Yeah! I love all that! Thank you so much for being here today! I loved this conversation, it was so juicy! We talked about everything from twerking, spirituality, periods, I mean, activism.
[1:04:19] Sahara
All of it!
[1:04:20] Bianca
We covered all of it, it was great!
[1:04:22] Sahara
It was that Shakthi, she’s flowing!
[1:04:23] Bianca
Yeah, 100%! Where can everybody find you and your community and everything?
[1:04:27] Sahara
Yeah. So, my Instagram is @iamsahararose, I do lots of reels and dance videos and bringing dance and spirituality together. My podcast is called Highest Self Podcast, we’ll definitely have to do a conversation on there.
And yeah, and you can just connect with me on iamsahararose.com and the quiz is dharmaarchetypequiz.com, you can find it there as well.
[1:04:48] End of Interview
_________________________________________________________________
[1:04:48] Sahara
It feels so good to drop in with sisters who just understand it, who aren’t judgmental, who aren’t in competition, where we can share our full expression and not feel shamed for it! So, I’m grateful for Bianca, for interviewing me, and for you, for being here on this Podcast and tuning in and for being open-minded, and honestly, being part of the new wave of spirituality that is not just the masculine-seated path, but also honors the feminine, dance, Shakthi, creativity, joy, expression and fun path! Because that is what we are here to co-create in this new paradigm! And I am so excited to have you here!
[1:05:27] Sahara
So, if you want to drop in further, be sure to join my Sacred Feminine Mystery School, Rose Gold Goddesses, which is all about these tenants – joy, creativity, womb wisdom and so much more! You can find the link in the show notes below.
[1:05:40] Sahara
And if you loved this Episode, I would love for you to leave a review, and as a free gift, I will send you my free Turn Into Your Womb Wisdom Meditation. So, this meditation allows you to ask a question to your womb and receive her answer, which is the ultimate way of tuning into your truth, because it’s not outside of you, it’s actually within.
So, leave a review over on the iTunes Store, you can just look up this Podcast, leave a review, take a screenshot before you send in that review and email it over to me at [email protected], you can find that in the show notes as well and I’ll send you back that womb meditation.
[1:06:15] Sahara
Thank you so much for tuning in! Be sure to share this Episode with anyone in your life that might benefit from it, share it on your stories, share it on your Facebook, share it on your LinkedIn, like, get this shit out in the world, because we need more people in their bodies, in their joys, in their celebration. Imagine how beautiful this world could look!
[1:06:32] Sahara
So, thank you for tuning in and I’ll see you on the next one!
Episode #469: Twerking + Belly Dancing as a Spiritual Practice, Getting Off Birth Control Changing Your Career with Bianca Taylor
By Sahara Rose