Think you know what BDSM is? Think again. Andrea interviews Janelle about her training to be a Pro-Domme and the resulting deep dive into her psyche. They talk archetypes, pain, ritual theater, spiritual growth, the containment of energy and the freedom possible when you’re allowed to desire what society told you not to. Nod to Om Rupani and The Matrix. You’ll hear:
-Where BDSM and Burning Man intersect
-Why dominant and submissive are not hierarchical
-The difference between non-consensual and consensual pain
-How clothing is Janelle’s favorite kink
-Why Andrea no longer feels shame about what she wants
TRANSCRIPT:
Andrea: Welcome to permission to be human. Hello!
Janelle: Hey, Andrea.
Andrea: Hey Janelle. We are here in our new space in the goddess temple and so Speaking of temples, today we're talking about BDSM, kind of a crazy topic, but just wait till the end of this episode and you might not think it's crazy anymore. So why are we even talking about BDSM? we like to talk about taboo topics. That is definitely part of the permission to be human theme, but today I think we're really unveiling BDSM as maybe something a little different than I originally thought it was.
Because I think most people have a vision of chains and whips and black leather outfits that's the vision I had of BDSM.
Janelle: And that's the vision I had too. I had a lot of misconceptions and judgments and fears about what I thought BDSM was. and I was afraid of pain don't like pain, but I had learned over the years that BDSM world was like very into communication and consent. I actually learned this through my work with Betty Martin and the wheel of consent, and I was intrigued by that.
Janelle: So DS play, which stands for Dominance and submission is a synonym for BDSM.
Andrea: What does BDSM even stand for though?
Janelle: there's not one set of acronyms. Interestingly, bondage dominance sadomasochism. BDSM is a, concept it's a wide range, you're hearing my perspective on my experience with this. This isn't the hard in fact, truth. Capital T of what any of this is. But one small aspect of BDSM brave hearts you might have heard of is people hire professional dominatrix and she's like a very dominant archetype and she's getting paid by someone, to tell them what to do essentially, and they're in their submissive archetype.
And that actually brings us back as to why we're talking about BDSM is because I just completed a six month class called the modern priestess of Eros, where I trained to become a professional dominatrix or pro dom for short,
Andrea: So you mentioned archetypes and they're a dominant archetype. Can you explain more about that specifically the dominant and the submissive? can you give examples of that?
Janelle: give examples of those two different archetypes.
Andrea: And maybe how they play out in society or like, I can feel myself getting tense about those things as you talk. Yeah. And in my head, what I go to is the dominant man and the submissive woman.
Janelle: that totally makes sense. That's where my mind, went as well. So I think the first thing I just want to acknowledge is your question about archetypes. In the course that I was in, was a lot of like theory and frameworks that was conveyed. And Omrapani, who's one of the instructors of the course, spoke a lot about the dominant archetype and the submissive archetype and how they each express love.
Each archetype expresses love just in different ways. And some Bravehearts may be familiar with Yögingen, Archetypes of King, Lover, Warrior, Magician. Like the concept is that all of us have all archetypes within us to some degree or another and archetypes are a way to understand ourselves better. it's like in psychology.
It's like, Oh, what archetype are you in right now? It could be the mother, it could be the lover, it could be the maiden, it could be the priestess, it could be the queen, so many different types of archetypes.
Andrea: Are feminine and masculine an archetype?
Janelle: Yep, they can be archetypes as well. And those were new concepts, right? I'm not a psychologist. So although I have read lots of books, I had no idea that this, these concepts related to BDSM.
So what I learned on this very first day was the submissive archetype expresses love by asking for what he or she wants. The dominant archetype expresses love by doing what the sub is asking for. one key, something that I did not understand at all until I took the course. Is that there isn't a hierarchy when you just made the expression of like, Oh, there's a dominant man.
You had your hand raised and a submissive woman and the submissive and the hand was lower, But that actually the Dom and the sub are equal. A BDSM scene can't exist without a Dom and a sub. So in that way, both are necessary to play out the scene. And by scene, I just mean the whatever the, you know, if you're going to hire a pro dom, whatever it's going to look like.
It's like you need, you need, in order for a masseuse to be a masseuse, they need a client. Right. And so there's, it's not like, oh, the client is better or worse than the masseuse. The relationship is that they're equal. One's just doing a service for the other.
Andrea: Okay, so I think it's the important part here for me is just separating out this dominant and submissive terms, which could be applied to anyone in any situation that has nothing to do with BDSM. Oh, he's so dominant over here. Oh, she's so submissive to him. Those have an indication of a character flaw or There's some kind of a judgment there.
Janelle: what you're saying is judgment or the, the preconceived notions or, you know, and the, both of us again, being feminists and growing up as feminists, the, the idea of the quote unquote, submissive woman is very charged. And as a phrase.
Andrea: Absolutely
Janelle: There's a sense of something demeaning about
Andrea: Right. so I just want to say again, in this situation, the Dom and the sub are equal. There is no hierarchy. And I think just wrapping our, your head around that alone is huge.
Janelle: And I also want to acknowledge. Two things, one, if there was even a hierarchy, it would almost be that the sub is higher, is slightly elevated to the DOM since the scene is based on what the submissive wants. But I'll also say that. Ohm, this teacher recognizes that these words are charged in our culture.
And he's like, so take away the words. It's actually not about the words. He's like a gracious woman could be a synonym for submissive, As we get through this whole podcast, the invitation is to recognize if there's any, contraction around when you're hearing you use the words dominance and submissive to try to And I'm going to try to get under that to listen to the overall message that I'm saying without the words.
Andrea: Okay, great.
Janelle: So on my very first day of this course, as I learned more about these archetypes, I was like, I don't resonate with the phrase dominant. And I also definitely didn't resonate with it being submissive, but here I was in a course, me being my surrender to spirit moment and the expectation of the course was.
That in order for us to become masterful pro doms, we needed to understand both our dominant and submissive archetypes. And thus, my journey began.
Andrea: Okay. So it seems like this course, even though the intended outcome was to train you as a pro Dom. It's really a deep dive into your own psyche.
Janelle: Yes, fact, that is actually it. There was 12 women in this course. And. I think more than half didn't. We're not taking it because they thought they were going to get paid as pro doms. There was something about this that they wanted to learn about themselves with.
And for me, I was like, I'm not into BDSM. I don't know that I want to be pro dom, but I also feel called to this course. The first day , he had his raise their hands, who feels like they're dominant and who feels like they're submissive. And I didn't raise my hand for either because I didn't resonate. What became very clearly was that I am dominant and that shows up actually in all parts of my life.
Yeah. As an entrepreneur, as a coach, as a as someone who plans events, as someone who runs meetings, as someone who's in charge lots of the time, someone who can hold space and time containers. All good things. But since I didn't consider myself dominant, it also meant that I wasn't always, you know, I could clean with that energy.
So for example, didn't know I was bringing dominance into the bedroom with my partner.
Andrea: Is it clear that you saw yourself as dominant in other parts of your life?
Janelle: once he explained it, I was like, Oh, right. Like now I'm understanding what being dominant means. Like I had the idea of like, Oh, a dominant man is, is like domineering, controlling, like aggressive. And actually, no, it's not that. So there's like me just having my own incorrect.
Andrea: It can be that.
Janelle: It's not only that. So, yeah. So it's, and so I basically had pigeonholed the idea of being dominant. The definition into dominant means this X, Y, Z, and really dominant meant a whole bunch of other things that I did embody that I wasn't identifying with.
Andrea: Okay. So you didn't have a clean picture of yourself.
Janelle: Correct.
Andrea: I don't think of you as dominant. But, I have noticed, there are times when I feel more in my feminine with you. Like when we're in the car, you totally must have your phone looking at the map.
Like even if there's somebody else doing it, you're like, you're doing it.
Even if you're not driving. Oh, even if I'm not driving. Oh, for sure. and so that, but that's just like, you just, that's fine. You know, it doesn't bother me. And then in meetings, too, you're usually, usually leading. but I wouldn't call you dominant necessarily.
So I think there's, there's where the misunderstanding can happen.
Janelle: Yeah. And so what has happened is that I found archetypes to be a powerful way to understand parts of myself that were obvious to others, but not obvious to myself. So this little exchange about like the GPS on the phone and the car is like, wait, what? I have my GPS on if I'm on the passenger, like I don't even recognize that I do that.
And so you're like, Oh yeah, you do that all the time. And so it's just like, Oh, here's a mirror. There's no judgment to it.
Andrea: So then you mentioned you didn't have a relationship with your submissive archetype either. So did you end up discovering one, or what about that?
Janelle: Yes. So back to the start of the conversation about the guy had so many judgments about being submissive that I was like, there's no way I'm submissive. the contrast of like, if I'm not dominant and I'm not submissive, then like, what am I? I discovered my submissive archetype. And the highlight, which is why I suggest people keep listening to this episode, is that I discovered that the essence of my joy, my radiance, and my freedom lies within my submissive archetype. Because the submissive knows what she wants, and she knows how to ask for
Andrea: Just take a deep breath there. The submissive knows what she wants and asks for it.
Janelle: Which is so fascinating considering we just did an episode last week on learning to ask for what you want.
Andrea Actually, that episode was called Asking for Help. Which is a big difference because I started confusing them when we were writing these and you're like, no, no, no. Yes, you're right. We actually did one about asking for what you want maybe a while back. So, a little bit different, but still it, it centers and starts with knowing yourself. And what you need. Mm hmm. Okay. So, are you submissive?
Janelle: Yes. And what it means is that I have a submissive archetype and that is extremely powerful, but I also have a dominant archetype. I also have a mother archetype. I also hold the queen archetype. So archetypes are not fixed. We dance between them all the time, depending on the person or the situation. you mentioned, right.
That sometimes you become more feminine around me. And I would say that there are plenty of times that you are doming me, especially when it comes to deadlines for this podcast. also want to be very clear that dom and sub archetypes are not fixed to gender. In a broad stroke, Ohm would say that men are more naturally dominant Um, and women are more naturally submissive, but that does not mean that either gender is assigned to any archetype, like some women can be more dominant.
Some men can be more submissive. This is like a huge range that each of us get to explore and play with, Because. What I have discovered is that it's like, Oh, I get to know parts of myself. And in any given moment, just like when we've talked about like, Oh, pleasure gets to change. There's some time that like, I want to be, I'm like in a motherly role with somebody or Oh, here I am being surrendered…Not labeled or in a box.
Andrea: Okay, so what else did you learn?
Janelle: What I learned is that BDSM is the most misunderstood, profound, somatic healing modality I have ever experienced. Everything I had associated to it, black leather, whips, chains, dungeons, dark, aggressive, weird, pain, while all are true, is only one aspect of it. I didn't understand the psychological part, the containment part, the extremely clear boundaries in communication, the spiritual component.
The more I learned, the more BDSM resonated with my system.
Andrea: Wow. Yeah, this has been a huge discovery for me just listening to you talk about this. So you must have had good teachers. Tell me about one of them.
Janelle: Yes, I've already mentioned OM. So there was, there were two teachers, Omar Pani and Lauren Harkness, and they are both leaders in the Tantra community in New York. OM has been in the BDSM world for about 15 years and is an incredible dom and BDSM coach. He has an encyclopaedic brain, and one of his turn ons is synthesizing information and conveying it in a way people can understand.
Not only like just any kind of information, like charged taboo information, And conveying it so that someone like me, here I am, militant feminist. And by the end of a course, I'm like, Oh my gosh, you've just given me the language, the vocabulary and the framework that I have an incredibly.
better understanding of myself. I, so I really, I tip my hat to OM for his skill and that that's not, everyone can do
Andrea: He sounds like a translator. Like he's translating it into relatable human language. From where it sits. Yes. Okay. In an, not an academic realm, but a different way.
Janelle: Very not academic because BDSM is so on the outskirts like of like, this is so taboo and he's relating it to, he's actually relating it to jazz and he's relating it to like the chakra system and he's relating it to other spiritual teachings. So he is just like showing it in this like macro way, how it relates to everything within the human psyche.
And I for me in particular, I felt like I was Neo in the matrix during the scene where all the languages and Kung Fu are getting uploaded into his system. That's how I
Andrea.: Wait, did you just make a movie reference?
Janelle: I did. Yes, I did. I have seen the matrix several times.
Andrea: Okay, so you mentioned earlier that BDSM has a spiritual component. And you just mentioned the chakra system. So, um, yeah, tell me more about that.
Janelle: So for anyone who doesn't know the term chakra. in Sanskrit, the word chakra means wheel or circle, and it's a concept historically associated with ancient India, as well as Tibetan Buddhism and other faiths. So you can think of chakras as like places along your spinal column, where energy and in yoga terms, that would mean prana congregates, or is consecrate is or constant congregates, or is concentrated.
And the OM explained how, when we activate our lower chakras with certain types of play, certain types of BDSM play, such as impact play, sex play, psychological play, it has the potential to release stuck energy, allowing the energy to move toward the upper chakras, with the potential of freeing ourselves from limiting beliefs, shame, guilt, trauma, and change how we view ourselves.
Andrea: that's big. Just take a breath there. There's a huge therapeutic component to this,
Janelle: huge and that can be there right there are some people who just like want to do it for fun, which is which is great, but I was so I was just like, like drawn in by this aspect to it, which is why I said it was like so incredibly misunderstood about the potency. Of the somatic healing So like, you know, almost explaining concepts to me that I've never heard of, but I could feel and knew were true in my body. I felt like I was getting mainlined a drug, in fact, because the first three months were so impactful because he gave me the vocabulary and frameworks that my mind could understand, but then my body already knew in this way.
BDSM helped my mind and body become integrated. And the most important thing, as I said, like not all of us knew why we're even in the course is that while we were being trained on how to be a pro Dom, everything we learned also was applicable to our personal relationships,
Andrea: if you didn't want to do BDSM with your partner.
Janelle: Because there's like these psychological components, how to be devoted in a relationship, how to relate to another in communication boundaries limits. There was just so much.
Andrea: Okay. so what was the framework that you learned? Is there a structure, a formula? How does this work?
Janelle: In the simplest terms, while there is an enormous range of what can happen in a BDSM scene when someone hires a pro dom, we are typically talking about a time range for about one to two hours. And again, I'm just going to shout out a I'm not an expert on BDSM be I'm really giving you my experience of this particular course and aspect.
Someone else with a lot of experience is going to be like that is not there's way more to BDSM than a one or two hour
Andrea: Sure. Just, this is just one example.
Janelle: So for envisioning a two hour container, that the scene is made up of three parts, containment, penetration, and containment. So Now the words may not mean what you think, in fact, they probably don't. Containment means energetically calming and relaxing the nervous system.
Andrea: How do I do that?
Janelle: Well, you felt me do it with you, be, it could be like, holding onto your body, speaking slowly wrapping you in rope, right? And BDSM like, feeling held a really tight hug, So that you feel safe. Like what it was doing is that the containing of your energetic body is helping you feel safe in your body.
There's another term of like going into posture, like kneeling down in front of your dom is that sensation of actually kneeling and bending down is very containing for a nervous system.
So penetration means physically or energetically activating the nervous system. It does not necessarily mean actual penetration.
Andrea: So example of that is tickling, touching, anything?
Janelle: Yes, yeah, it could be spanking, but it could be tickling. It could be flogging. It could be. being suspended in a rope, it could be, sensation play with feathers, so it's really a BDSM scene is a containment sandwich where you're containing. And you're penetrating and then you're containing. So another way to say is that you're, like relaxing the nervous system, you're activating the nervous system, and then you're relaxing the nervous system.
After you activate someone's nervous system, If you just didn't say, okay, bye. And you like leave the room, And they're kind of left hanging and disoriented, , so it's this idea of once they're activated, then you're like, okay, great.
Now I'm going to like. I could just like put my body in type on top of yours. I could just hold your hands. I could wrap you in a blanket and have you feel like a burrito. That sensation then is after having like expanded, like your nervous system has been expanded through this activating penetrative energy that then it comes back to itself.
Andrea: This feels really resonant for me and just the aftercare. of sex or post orgasm, like needing to be held, resting, let me come down, let me land again after I was in the air, my energy was everywhere. Okay, in this way, when I was saying, Oh, this applies to personal relationships. These frameworks are not just, Oh, you're paying someone in a BDSM scene. And this is when it applies. No, it absolutely applies to sexual exchange with a partner.
can you tell me a little bit more about this BDSM scene that you're making reference to?
Janelle: BDSM scenes are ritual theater. Meaning that whatever we see. I don't know if you've watched porn or you were someplace where you were watching this may not be common for everyone. But whatever you have an idea in your head, of what BDSM scene is like, but no matter how much the shock and awe value is of what you're seeing.
Go on between a dominant and a submissive is that it is all made up. It’s actually play.
Andrea: okay, I just gotta stop for a second because when I see the phrase Ritual theater, and you've mentioned this to me before. I'm just like, this is what Burning Man is made of. I've never even fucking been to Burning Man. And I know that from pictures and from videos and like, like, this is like such a good fit for you in so many levels and it's so crazy that you just waited till now to do it.
Like, I don't get it. Like, how is it? It's kind of funny, isn't it? It's hysterical. It's like the universe's joke on you.
Janelle: Is even better joke. This because when I went to the, uh, there was a kink BDSM and kink conference in Washington, DC that I went to in January literally a convention center at a hotel in DC.
Andrea: Whole bunch of sex toys.
Janelle: Yes, and all the things that everyone's dressed up in their outfits and their leathers and their chains and their dolls and all, all of it.
It's all there. And I'm there and I'm laughing at that. but my friend and I go shopping because there's like a marketplace and you can get by clothes and toys. And so I go and I look, [00:24:00] I go the first place I go and I'm like, I know half these brands. I've already bought them for burning me.
Yeah. And it was in that moment that I was like, Oh, BDSM and Burning Man are very
Andrea: They're like cousins. Okay. So funny. It just sounds like Burning Man. Play, all made up, costumes. Okay. So back to this ritual theater and this scene.
Janelle: It's like an infinite number of things. so for example, a submissive may desire to get spanked. And they want to get spanked because they're in trouble. That's the energy of it. Like, Oh, you did something bad. You're going to get spanked. So the Dom agrees. Um, and creates a scene for the submissive to do something where they get in trouble.
But this is play, right? The sub is not actually in trouble because the submissive is asking to be in trouble because they are asking to get spanked because that's what they want and desire.
Andrea: Okay. All play, but it's theater. It's a script. It's a scene. That's why it's called the scene. Okay.
Janelle: And what's a dom is doing is what the submissive is asking for or within the realm. There could be surprises in there, right? Like the submissive might not know what tool they're going to get spanked with, for example. and of course, the submissive can always change their mind or stop the scene, which is not true if they were a child getting in trouble. They might not have had control over the scene.
Andrea: So I'm hearing that consent is really central.
Janelle: yes, hugely consensual. So every scene is based on what the submissive wants and asks for. The dom is an actor in that scene. The submissive has desires and boundaries, and the dom has boundaries. So the scene takes place where the boundaries of the Dom and the sub overlap, meaning the Dom is an actor in the sub scene, but the Dom is never doing what the Dom doesn't want to do, even if the sub wants it, right?
Like the Dom has their own boundaries. And the understanding is that neither party is ever crossing their own or the other's boundaries.
Andrea: Okay, so I just want to be clear that the BDSM, DOM, and SUB are living in the same space. They are coexisting with consent and with boundaries. Individual, not group. Individual boundaries for the DOM and the SUB. I think that just clears up a lot of maybe fear around BDSM.
Janelle: Right, because I think that the impression about BDSM is, is like, oh, someone's getting spanked and they don't want to get spanked and they're crying and they're in pain and that seems terrible.
Andrea: What's wrong with this picture, right? So much.
Janelle: So, like, one of my, like, really big ahas I don't like pain. And then by the end of my course, I was like, Oh, there's actually a difference between pain that's consensual and non consensual. What I actually don't like. Is non consensual pain, but there is pain that I do like, I actually really love contrasting sensations of being scratched with claws and then going with feathers right over it.
And so there's this recognition of, Oh, if I, like, there are sensations that I like. That are painful for a second and then the contrast of like a spank with feathers is actually really yummy. But that's all in consent
Andrea: so this is, this is really big , because I think what a shift that just happened in my mind was, all right, just repeat what you're saying. So pain with consent, okay, pain without consent, not okay, which is very simple and makes a ton of sense. And I don't know why I haven't come up with this myself, I have always.
Craved a little bit of pain, probably in the same way I crave the fear of what when I watch a scary movie, which I no longer do, but did for a long time growing up. I like the pain and I used to ask my husband to like, Oh, I kind of want, you know, can you give me a little bit of pain? And I really thought that there was something really fucked up about me because of that.
I definitely had a bunch of shame around it. why do I crave that? What's wrong with me? Yeah. it made me think that, I had buried some terrible trauma. totally get rid of it.
But this gives me a clear structure, or even yin and yang, just to use that, with this. Great. there's nothing shameful
Janelle: or anything wrong with you. And while they're like the spiritual part, the therapeutic part, like is an aspect of this. It doesn't have to be that. Like lots of people are just like, I just like this, You know, it didn't have any trauma as a child from this or anything like that. So it's important to, to recognize that.
Andrea: This comes right back to our general podcast theme of cultural conditioning, to say, like, if you want that, there must be something really wrong with you.
Janelle: And when we're saying no, there's not, there's not have to be anything wrong. And that's what, we haven't discussed the word kink here, but one of the questions is like, what is kinky? I think Ohms definition is anything that you like that someone has told you you're not supposed
Andrea: Hmm. Oh my gosh. this has crossed the line into my keynote. Which is what Damasa said to me. What are you afraid to love? What have you loved that someone told you you're not supposed to love? Whether that's a gender or a spanking or knitting, whatever, like it doesn't even matter. But someone told us at some point, there's a right thing to love and a wrong thing to love. So yeah, that's, really enlightening to me too.
Janelle: Like back to that a little bit, like one of the scenes that I created, like what's the definition of kink? We were talking about impact play a lot here. Like we've been talking about spanking, there's fogging. But like, for me, I figured out that I was like, Oh my gosh, okay.
For my scene, I want everyone to be dressed up in these really elaborate outfits. I've got this like white collar with a gold chain and I've got this like face veil. I had took so much pleasure in planning my outfit and then being presented by my lady in waiting to my dom and she undressed me and I was like shocked at myself.
I was like, this is my desire, but this is what my submissive archetype was asking for when I asked for a scene and I was like, this is pretty kinky as fuck in my realm. like, I had all these people that I was asking to Um. Fulfill my desires, and I had like outfit requests, and I had roles and I had assignments and I had specific colors of the tools that I wanted.
And I mean, it was wild to see what came out of my brain when I gave myself the permission to ask for what I wanted and the freedom to be like, Anything goes, and then knowing that everyone else was, was gonna be in there, yes or no,
Andrea: And you were never in theater.
Janelle: and I was never in the theater,
Andrea: So I have to ask though, at Burning Man, aren't you doing this as Head Fluffer or as a camp director, in a sense, haven't you done this before or, or is it, is it just really different?
Janelle: I would say, I don't think that those two examples are ways that I've done it. . And what, and what had, what I had buffer is, is, is just like, but you're kind of like, you're, you're just encouraging people to keep working and building in the heat, and so you're giving them drinks and fanning them while you're wearing a cute outfit.
Andrea: Such a great name, Head Fluffer. I heard you talk about the scene that you set up. For the BDSM. With roles, with costumes, with elaborate plans. And haven't you done this same type of thing at Burning Man?
Janelle: No, I haven't. I definitely have elaborate costumes. But I have never designed
Like, just like, lots of people do. Like, for sure, this happens at Burning
Andrea: never orchestrated it. Okay, that's the difference. Yeah. So you've been around it, you've taken pictures with it. Yeah. You've shown me.
Janelle: But it's also like my definition now of what BDSM is is expanded because I had a very like, here's what it looks like. And now I'm like, Oh, right, I can create a scene in lots of different. Like I basically I would say in some ways, like my birthday party that I just hosted was like a scene. I was like, everyone who comes I want you all to get dressed up.
This is what's going to happen. You're going to get abducted. Totally, that's what I was thinking too. It's just like, you do this for a fucking living. Like, this is the kind of parties you throw, this is the kind of parties you go to.
This is the kind of parties that I go to. But my birthday party was the first time that I, I did it. And that is a direct result of this
Andrea: I got it. And so now I would say this is where, I have expanded. I am so much bigger as Janelle than I was because this course has freed me to really, to like, create things in my life that I didn't even know I wanted because I could ask for them.
So, How will you take this into the world? will you be setting up scenes with lovers and partners?
Janelle: Yes, I'm taking it into my life, um, with lovers and partners for sure, because It feels so good. Well, one thing I want to say is there is discernment. I am not going to go do a BDSM scene with any lover that I have. Right. There, there is an, like, that I need for my nervous system to be able to relax and to surrender.
There is a quality that I need in the person who's going to be in the role of Dom in order to do that. So this isn't like, Oh, like you've got a partner, you should go practice BDSM. Like, no, there's actually skill, vocabulary, understanding of consent. Like there's a lot that's necessary to understand. I just took a six month deep dive course.
Andrea: How will this show up in your life?
Janelle: I have one lover who does have experience being a dom. So I'm choosing a lover who does have that experience. Um, so that's one way. And then as far as with clients that I'm seeing, that I am bringing this in as well, because, because for me personally, like the spiritual therapeutic aspect is so important because I want people to feel more wildly alive.
And that is what BDSM has brought me to a place of feeling incredibly wildly alive
Andrea: Like every day?
Janelle: Every day.
Andrea: That's, yeah, it's just impacted you at such a deep level. and that you can like accents. you wrote here, like you can access the essence. Of your joy and radiance and freedom.
Janelle: Yes. And I would say for brave hearts listening, What I want you to hear is that There was something in our culture that I was like afraid of and had told was taboo, And it turns out that BDSM is not what I thought. And I allowed my curiosity to lead in that. If I had continued to be afraid, I wouldn't have ventured into this course.
But there was something that drew me in and I trusted myself to take it. had I let myself continue to believe the misperceptions of what culture says BDSM is, Then I would have missed out on the opportunity to know myself at a deeper level. And then, as you said, ultimately, how to access the essence of my joy, my radiance, and my freedom.
Andrea: Whoo. All right. Thank you for enlightening us. That is it was a great little one on 101 on BDSM just for anyone Who's just even vaguely curious about
Janelle: Yes. And I would say, Braveheart, as I said, like, this isn't like, try this at home with anybody I don't think I didn't give you enough of a tutorial on how to do that, but, someone I would recommend you looking at is Om Rapani, and there is a tremendous amount of books and information out there, so, at the very least, all I want you to, I hope that you leave with is, Maybe it's not what you thought you don't have to like it.
You don't even have to try it You don't have to read anything about it. But at least I'm leaving you with the idea of like, oh Janelle saying something that I didn't know.
Andrea: Yeah, love it Thank you for listening as always, uh, remember that freedom is the new F word and we are both available for coaching, uh, one on one conversation or calls. We love you. Bravehearts. See you next time.
Janelle: Bye.