A woman's life can change just by looking at her Yoni. So, this is Shashi Selina from the Tantra Made Easy podcast. And my quest is to discover how sex can lead to a spiritual experience and today I am hanging out with Courtney Davis and she is the creatrix of Viva La vagina and the empowered woman. So she is helping women to discover their own potential. Through their relationship with themselves so that they can have a more fulfilling and ultimately spiritually enlightening sex wife this very well today, right? Yeah, so Courtney tell me how did you discover this path? I'm always really interested how people moved from like normal sex. So mainstream sex or where you were originally in your sex life. And and how did you make the change? What changed? What put you on the tantric path? So you tell us a bit about like what sex was for you when you are pre Tantra sure. So for me, I guess I kind of had as a teen. I definitely had a bit of an identity around being this like sexually empowered and Sovereign women like I thought you know, I had it figured out because I could sort of shamelessly pursue my own pleasure and and sleep with as many men as I wanted and not get attached. Like there's this really like Out of man-eating way of defining my sexuality that made me believe that I was empowered and and so I guess because of that there was you know this real permission for me to enjoy my own pleasure, but I ended up having to go on this journey of realizing that because I was trying so hard to feel like I was this, you know, sexually empowered women. I was actually quite disconnected from myself and what was really going on in my body and so So, you know, I guess there for whatever reason there was always this massive curiosity around sexuality and pleasure and wanting to feel that I was sexually empowered but it really started to come through for me when I had this year of sort of traveling and self-discovery and I ended up becoming surprisingly reacquainted with my Yoni in a way that started to show me that I guess this construction of what I thought was sexual empowerment. It wasn't really what I had believed. That was uh, huh. So what I'm hearing you describe is that the the empowerment the sexual empowerment that you to climb earlier was it kind of external one was about how you know, how your fellow who acted having any man you wanted I love this. So Manny the description. Yep, so, you know and it's interesting you say that because I think so many women think women's empowerment is like this girl power. I can fight like a man. I can have anyone I want, you know, that's what the media gives us, right? Yeah, like all the pop star. Sighs and everything it's like that's the idea of sexual empowerment. But the question is is that actually fulfilling for a woman and then I'm hearing you say well actually discovered that I had come from inside, right? So you start traveling and yeah, so it's so how did what was the encounter with your Yoni? So Yoni, by the way, in case you're not familiar with it is the tantric term for the vagina and it means like the sacred place. So it's we use the way only a lot in Tantra because it shifts our relationship with our body. To sort of seeing it as a temple. So you you said that something happened with you and Joanie the changed her life. So what happened? I guess I would say that when I had this experience of becoming reacquainted with my Yoni it there was this shift so previously as I said, you know with this sort of man-eating identity. I really I viewed sex from this quite like unemotional perspective. I thought that if there was no emotion involved and if I could have sex without emotion Then that made me empowered and so I had this very embodied experience of basically being invited to Yoni gaze, which is sort of meditatively gazing at your vagina in hand mirror. Mmm, and I recall like I was just blown away when all of a sudden I was, you know, it was sort of confronted with staring at myself and and in seeing my yummy, I was just flooded with all of these emotions, really Wow, so what kind of emotions were coming like describe it? Yeah, I mean, I guess it was beautiful looking bad but it was painful in the moment. Like I felt you know, there was this sadness that came through that I had really like abandoned a part of myself and so in seeing my own it was like, you know, she was in a sense telling me like pay attention to me and you've really not been listening. It's what I heard her say Wow, that's profound. Isn't that amazing that like something as simple as a mirror? Yeah, it's time with your Yoni can make a big shift. Absolutely and I still find like to this day that it's something that I like to do to just sit down and reconnect with myself like just to stare at her breathe deeply and sort of observe what comes up and feel that connection to her. So it sounds like your Yoni was your teacher right? Or you Yoni was somehow that right? Yeah, and she helped me make that connection to really coming back. Into my body and in connection with my emotions, like inviting that back into my notion of sex and sexuality. So how did this happen What shifted? So here you are the man-eater and then you looked in your yummy and you had a lot of emotions moves. So what happened next? How did it begin to change hmm change like instantaneously or it was a beginning of a long journey or it was the beginning of like this. I guess. I'm much more burning. Fire to uncover. What was there? Like wow, you know it was like I'm definitely I've been missing out on something and there's so much more depth to my Yoni my sexuality and you know sexual connections than what I've been experiencing. It was just sort of that light bulb went off. And yeah, it was this invitation to start connecting with myself. Sexually much more deeply than I had been uh-huh. So what did you begin to do differently? You started having more time with yourself? Yeah, I mean, I think it it really caused me to tune into myself. And so I would say it's damned really around awareness for the most part like rather than striving for a goal and you know trying to create an experience for myself with others and with myself that I thought I should be having. It caused me to just start actually feeling what was pregnant for me. And so, you know through self pleasure. Go through my interactions with Partners. There was this there is more emphasis on my body and my emotions my experience and and also actually just wanting to listen to what my only was saying like that was something that was so foreign to me before I looked at her was like she's actually speaking to us all the time. So how does she speak you get a like a feeling or words or insights or hmm? So At first I felt that she spoke to me primarily through like it. Creative downloads like I would just through looking at her or touching her I would feel like, you know a strong emotion or something really like just wisdom with dropping to my awareness. So there's sort of this intuitive download aspect to it. But some it's also quite physical like I can feel what she's saying, you know through expanding and softening or her lubrication is a really big one. I went through quite an interesting Journey with lubrication as well. Where I'd never struggled to become what in any of my sexual interactions for most of my life and I was finally confronted with this relationship where all the sudden it stopped happening for me. And so then once again, you know, it was like I had this idea that I should be aroused I should be wet and she was like literally forcing me to listen to her and and to start turning into like, you know, what is she telling the body through that lack of lubrication? And what was the message like don't have sex with this? And let's slow down or yeah, what did she say? What was the message the message really was that you know, this sexual connection this attraction that I believed was there with his partner was I think somewhat made up like it sounds kind of silly but not had this really beautiful deep spiritual emotional connection with his partner. And yeah, and I believe that therefore it was the whole package and you know when the sex is not happening it was like What's wrong with me what's wrong with me? And then when I finally stopped and listened and honored that lack of lubrication. I immediately became aware of like, oh, there's a lot here that sort of not, you know, not flowing sexually and and actually I don't think my Yoni and my body really do want to be having sex with this partner. So you think that actually would be really helpful for women to start this relationship because then presumably there's a lot of women having sex with people who you know, they're not aligned where there's not really there and then Kind of push it or fake it or for sit here and therefore, you know having superficial experiences. Yeah, and I think there's such a trend in sort of this like sexual empowerment sex education world right now where it's like Lube is the best Loops are best friend like use all the lube you want and I actually feel that that's a huge disservice to women is masking. What the only thing. Yeah. She said no, thank you. And you're like, I'm sucking on some artificial. Yeah. Yeah and a meeting and you know perpetuating again sort of that cycle of dishonoring your Yoni and and women not being able to hear what she's saying. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's kind of like the way we mask over nature, you know and cover it with artificial things and then we can't hear the messages anymore that are so crucial to our from our planet and the same kind of thing. So then you know, can you tell us a little bit about you know before you were pursuing all these men and now suddenly you're more interested in your body or this what I'm hearing watch what? And your personal practice look like what did you begin to do differently as you embarked on this journey. Hmm. So there became a huge emphasis on self-pleasure I would say and that's still you know continues to be a big focus of how I educate women today is just like, you know, how do you actually reconnect slow down and and pleasure yourself? And so there is a learning curve with that I went from, you know, I guess for a while there was this real obsession with just using my vibrator and having a quitter. Real orgasm and again feeling like oh I'm super sexually empowered because I can have 20 clitoral orgasms if my vibrator and the highest speed. Yeah, and that felt sorry for what was this identity? I had and then all of a sudden when I really started to tune into my own a again. It was like this isn't actually fulfilling me. It's sort of this idea that this is great. But I really honest with myself. I'm wanting more here. So yeah, that's how you continuously see this difference between the kind. Externally imposed deception and it's a sneaky thing, you know, we so often look for external validation or you know guidance of how we should be and then try and fit into that model whether it's from porn or pop stars or magazine Cosmopolitan, whatever and try to be that and then think we've got it but actually, you know, you keep showing no that was just forcing it and when I listen to my body, it's a different a different Journey. Yeah different empowerment. Yeah, and I think that that's It's like such an important message right now, you know you can I receive so many questions for women around the issue of libido and it's like I don't want sex with my partner. I don't know what's wrong with me or I don't want to sell pleasure. And I think it's because we're constantly coming from this place of expectation rather than sound permission. Like, you know, there's days for me now where I've realized that sometimes self-pleasure is just laying there with one hand on my heart and one hand on my own e and it doesn't need to be this like mind-blowing like ecstatic experience every time. Because you know, sometimes that's an expectation that just kills the whole thing altogether, right? So your advice to these women is drop the expectations and just tuned in to what's there? Yeah, just selfish a bird itself permission. Yeah, that's great. And so what shifts for a woman when she when she starts dropping expectations and shifts to to seeing what's there is it looked as it does the sexuality look different I did it for you. Yeah, for sure. I think that one of the the shifts that takes place is permission to receive it's like when you finally give yourself permission to be exactly where you are to feel exactly what you're feeling and giving yourself what you truly want rather than what you think you should want you actually open up to be able to receive and actually let let that pleasure in whatever is there in and spoken to you as opposed to striving for something. Mmm. That's a that's a wonderful shift. And then how does that look? Actually just a sexual encounter shifter. So let's say a woman spending time with herself and listening to the body and slowing down looking at her the only in a mirror. Is it going to change how she is in the bedroom? What's going to change there for sure, you know, like I think I really believe at least for me. It's been easier to First prioritize connecting with myself really consciously slowly and with presence because as soon as another person is involved. It's that much easier to sort. Of you know, get back out of your body and lose touch with what's going on for you presently. But one is I think once you cultivate that enough on your own and it becomes grounded, yeah, you can you know, you're really deeply able to stay connected to yourself and to receive when you're with a partner. That's right. So take some time because we're so used to species women. I think we want to please our partner. I think that's our one of our big Killers, but sometimes there's wanting to impress sometimes they're wanting to please sometimes you just get lost, you know as the other I'm good time or what do they think of me and all of these things? And so what you're saying is it's actually a good idea to step back from just interacting with others and take time to have interaction with yourself so that you can stay connected to yourself. Even when you're with a partner. Yeah, it sounds like you know really good way forward for men as well as for women. I would I would I mean I think you know, I'm talking about this shift in self-pleasure and connecting with my own body and then how that translates into a shift in sex of Partners, but it's the same thing with men, you know, like if they're masturbating in this super goal oriented way that is all about friction and sort of getting there you're programming yourself in that way and then you're carrying those patterns into your interactions with the partner. So one of my questions is about spiritual experience and I it's interesting because you said this change when you travel the world and started doing, you know self-exploration. And so it's fascinating that you know, the you put that together I think in the mainstream world, you know, like it sex is so compartmentalised into its own little box and to sort of hear you say I'm traveling the world and exploring myself and in that my relationship to my sexuality comes up, so please speak a little bit about, you know, can this be spiritual path? You know, is this a spiritual journey for a woman say to start on her Viva La vagina and You know start gazing at her yummy and self-pleasure is it just pure had an ism or is there a you know, is there more to it? I think for me what keeps me continuously intrigued and in pursuing this as a passion and a journey is the fact that it is this incredible like magnifying lens for you know, your your journey of Awakening of self-realization and I just continued to find that by connecting with myself sexually and what I learned through with Partners is that You know that's showing me these ways that ultimately showing up in the rest of my life. So sort of these these significant experiences. I'm having with myself sexually or ultimately shaping me on the grounder level if you know. Mmm-hmm. So a sexual practice that's conscious can actually shift who you are or your identity or your relationship with world or yeah. I mean, I think there's there's a lot of different levels to this there is you know in Becoming more sexually embodied and connected to myself. I then go about you know interacting in the world and connecting with others from this more deeply self connected Place. Mmm. And with that there's been a lot of I guess sexual self connection is help me to blast through a lot of limiting beliefs as well and a lot of the disempowerment. I've felt as I work through that on a sexual level. It just seems to become easy when I'm going out into the world, so You're going through your journey of sexual empowerment. You're finding that limiting beliefs outside of the Arena of sex. Like you're gonna leave me life are also just spontaneously clearing as well. So it's so it's connected like the sexual empowerment is connected to your apartment and your growth as a human being. Yeah hundred percent and I find that especially with boundaries like the more that I connect with myself and I can really like honor my Yoni and my body sexually. It's like I can actually honor myself in In life I can ask for what I want more. I can have more awareness of what that boundary is. So it's like an empowerment on all levels. Wow. It's very exciting. So what else would a woman get from from doing this path? So it's a path of obviously becoming friends with the body and self-empowerment on all levels. And do you think it you know, it affects your your experience in love making does it affect your relationships? Else everything nothing. So what do you get from this path? I think obviously pleasure like way more fulfilling pleasure for me and many women that I speak to their is this point where I think if all you're having is this sort of more like shallow explosive orgasmic experience specifically clitoral orgasms, although I don't want to shame that experience because that has its own value. Yeah, it feels like is there more to this like, I think we have that inherent desire to feel like United and expanded with something more and and once again like, you know in order to open to that and to receive receive those experiences, it has to come from this place of deep self connection not expectation. Yeah. Wow, that's great. So, can you can you describe a experience I was left here in people's personal stories of their transpersonal experience. Sure. So a big one that comes to mind for me happened earlier on and it really Caught me by surprise. I was reconnecting with an old lover and we were really able to say quite present in our bodies when we you know, when we connected sexually that was something I remember about that partnership was just how present we were and yeah, I guess I remember like sort of this this building up that took place where it actually almost felt as though our sexual episode was sort of coming to an end. it was coming to a close and it was D escalating and then all of a sudden this energy started to move through and it was like we were both immediately like I could tell we were both in the same wavelength, you know, and and he started to feed this movement of energy for me and it's funny looking back because it's like it's hard to analyze what happened because it all just overwhelming but it was like, you know, ultimately I felt like this overwhelming build of energy throughout my entire system that eventually It's sort of overflow door broke open into into probably one of the more profound emotional and releases I've ever had. You know, it's like yeah, if anything it was almost more of like an emotionally cathartic experience than it was like physically pleasurable. It was like I just eyeballed and I wailed and I actually and that continued for like 45 minutes after that. I just laid there sort of in this like mind-body blown space and kind of basically completely completely unaware of what really had happened and it just knowing that it was it felt really good and necessary. Yeah, so feels if you know some people You don't have emotional experiences that like crying like, why would I want sex to make you cry, but you know, you describe that it makes you feel good. So you felt what was the shift in you? Yeah. It was just this this opening. It was almost like a deep acceptance and relief like it felt like I just let go of something really really heavy that I've been carrying that I didn't even know was, you know, I've been there and been weighing on me. So yeah, it was profound relief and sort of connection with something greater than myself. Self and and connection with my partner, you know, so it was yeah, it was fulfilling in a way that was beyond. So this peak pleasure experience of like a little dopamine hit the brain. Yeah, one of those really powerful experiences. That's like yeah changing a life forever. Yeah, and I think I mean once you experience something like that, like nothing else really Compares or for me. Anyway, that's just like you want to be having those transcendental or Transcendent experiences because it's just it Shows you beyond like the the moment that it happens. Hmm. Was it powerful for your partner as well? Yeah, and you know, I was really I was really grateful for how he responded because I have heard stories where women sort of have this, you know, this very cathartic Powerful release and if they start crying and I think it's quite common for the partner to freak out and say yeah, you know, like are you okay like I do so wrong, but he was very in tune with me and he knew you know who just held space really? Only he didn't say anything. He just laid there with me and observed me and and that felt really good for me. And I think it felt really good for him. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, it's great to hear these personal stories. And you know, I think it's really inspiring especially people who are starting out on the path and maybe haven't experienced that yet, you know, and like you said, it's not about shaming the clitoral orgasm. It's just that there's so much more and and many people don't even know that so they just stay. The tutorial orgasm not realizing that you know so much more can be blasted through and bust it open. Yeah. Yeah, and I agree like clitoral orgasms are still enjoyable. You know, I still have them I still use my vibrator once in awhile. But for me there was there was actually like an addiction there, you know, because it took a while to sort of realize what else is possible and there is a lot of frustration up until I find an experienced it so could you describe in a nutshell for anyone who I mean? Has digital business which is quite common. What is beyond the control orgasm? So I would say like the clitoral orgasm is you know, it's this really definable build in pleasure. That feels so good. It's like as soon as you start to feel that build happening. It's like you just want to follow it and you want more and more until you have that burst of like of intense pleasure. But I often feel that like an energetic dip after it. Whereas with sort of internal more energetic orgasms. They have an emotional capacity to them where I often feel as though Almost feel scary as I'm approaching them. Like I'm having to surrender and let go of control and let go of my mind in a sense in a way that makes me feel fearful. Like I'm you know, it almost feels like you're going to die. And yeah, that's why the friends pulled at the little bit Yeah, so and that's the thing is like I don't I don't believe you can experience those those states without being connected to your emotions, which is why I never did experience them until I reconnected to my Tony my body. Yeah great. So there's a path here that other women can follow it's not just like and accidentals, you know series of spontaneous events. Although it might have been for you that you've actually been able to map that out other women right? Because you've got a course that Viva La vagina love this name. I'm so is that it? Can you tell us a little bit about that? What are you what are you helping other women to do? Sure. So the premise of the course is really helping women to deeply connect to their vagina, but You know as I've sort of explained over the last 25 minutes, it is so much more than that. It's like your connection with your Yoni is like a magnifying glass for your connection with yourself as a woman. And yeah, so the course is a journey to reconnecting to your own e learning how to hear her messages and sort of, you know, uncovering a lot of disempowering beliefs that may be there and learning what you want like connecting to yourself in an embodied way so that you can truly And from there start unlocking deeper pleasure and fulfillment. Wow, this sounds amazing. Nice, you know this kind of thing. I think we need on every school curriculum to be a full semester. But you know if I could change one thing well, I mean I've changed a lot but I think it would be so good. If before we jump into like, you know having sex with others if we had like a good year just with ourselves and our own bodies, you know and have that on the curriculum. It would be such a better. Better love life a better sex life will get there because we know we know so much we were when I was young we were so pass if we just expected some you know, 15 year old boy to know what he was doing. Yeah. Yeah, it's hilarious to me. Like now it's sort of like intuitively. It's like, of course we should be taught how to masturbate like, you know that something where it's just it almost feels obvious now, but and then you look at it, it's like we're so far from that. Yeah. It's it's I think we are in the mainstream of but hey, there's a lot of Us coming forward with this message because it In our lives and I think you know, I think that hopefully that will reach people so so thank you. So let's wrap this up with what is one thing as a little take home for people listening. What's one thing that a woman is listening to this could do now on our own other than signing up on your full course, of course, but what's the one one little take home you would recommend for a woman to do to shift her path. Hmm. Take a look at her. I only really followed the hand mirror and and it sounds like such a trivial silly thing. You know, I think I get that some people it's like how is looking at my vagina and then we are really going to make a difference but I repeatedly here like obviously my experience and the women in my course over and over it tend to be blown away with how significant that experiences and what you sort of realize about yourself and your union. Yes, sir. That's so pulled the hand here take a look set a timer set a timer so You're not sort of wondering. How long do I have to do this? And how long do you recommend a minimum of five minutes? But like ideally 10:15? Okay longer have a lot of good information. Yeah, ten 15 minutes to begin up to half an hour hand mirror timer. Yeah. Yeah and with that, you know just an emphasis on sort of sitting in a relaxed private safe space so that you can drop into a more receptive mode, like really just give yourself permission to observe really take the appearance of your Yoni. Ian, you know, and it's likely beliefs and thoughts and probably even judgments are going to come up and that's okay. Like you don't have to be like all of like I'm not empowered. I don't have this figured out if if some of those empowering beliefs come up and just observe them be with them and give yourself permission to be where you are. Okay, great. That's really good advice, especially as now so many women are comparing themselves to porn stars or whatever and thing, you know, the wrong shape and color so you just say brief through that and stay present with yourself. Off and just observe. Yeah. Yeah, that's great advice like the minority in love with it immediately how you might have to go through a bit of some of those layers? Yeah. Yeah and like, you know, it's not something that you're going to intellectualize like you don't look and go. Okay. Now I need to change my beliefs about it. It's sort of that principle of feeling as healing so, you know observe what comes up feel it and repeat the practice and you'll notice that things start to shift. Great, so that's a wonderful bit of take-home advice. And yeah, maybe they'll go from there to your course. So I'll add a link in for that. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your stories and your wisdom and your guidance. Yeah. Thank you. I hope that I hope that this this spreads so, you know, if you just listen to this and you've got something out of it and do share it with your friends. Let's wake up the world one yard at a time.
Courtney Davis, creatrix of the Viva la Vagina online training, had an awakening through looking at her own vagina. She had thought she was fully sexually empowered because she was able to "Fu*k like a man", i.e. she could have non-emotional sexual encounters without attachment to the other person. However, one day when she was invited to gaze at her "yoni" (tantric word for the vagina), all of that changed. She realized that she had been modeling an externally-generated empowerment, a style she had learned from society, and actually been completely overriding the wisdom of her own body. In this podcast, Courtney will share with you: ~ The difference between external sexual empowerment and internal sexual empowerment. ~ How yoni gazing can shift your sexuality. ~ How self-pleasure can become a path of self-knowledge and self-growth. ~ Why it is important for us to learn about our own sexuality before we seek out partners. ~ The difference between clitoral orgasms, and deeper more energetic orgasms. ~ How internal energy orgasms can lead to emotional release. ~ How your sexual empowerment can alter limiting beliefs in the rest of your life. ~ Why this shift in sexuality can take sex from the physical realm to a more spiritual and profound realm. And I would like to add that this podcast episode is not only for women! It is also great for men to hear about how a woman can deepen her sexual experience, and learn more about the female sexual mysteries! Find out more about Courtney and Viva la Vagina at: www.theempoweredwoman.ca 