THE GET FOXY SHOW – Episode 77 

TERRY:     [2:46] Today, we have a return guest, and I’m so glad I was able to get her to come back. Her name is Joanna Shakti, and she is the founder of Ecstatic Intimacy and the Soul Love Mentor, and Joanna inspires anyone who hungers for deeper love and intimate pleasure to find and build a soulmate partnership where the love runs deep and the passion stays hot. You might call her a Dating Coach, a Relationship Coach, an Intimacy Coach, a Tantra teacher, or a Spiritual Guide, but she’s all of that and so much more as she guides men, women, singles, and couples to walk the spiritual path of love creating relationships that are an expression of ecstatic authenticity, intimacy, and ecstasy, and I am so glad and excited that she was on the show, and I’m excited to share that interview with you today. 

              We’re live once again with Joanna Shakti. 

              Joanna, thank you so much for taking the time and coming back to The Get Foxy Show.

JOANNA:  Oh. Absolutely. I’m excited to be back here. You are one of my favorite people and I love what you’re up to, and so it’s exciting and fun to be back here. 

TERRY:     Today, I wanted to ask you some questions because one of the things that I’ve kind of brought into a theme on this show is this idea of divinely given femininity, and a lot of that idea actually came from you as I went through some of your training a year or two ago, and so I thought this would be a good place to start when we talk about this. So what exactly is divine femininity, what is divine masculinity, and how do they interplay?

JOANNA:  Yeah. Oh, it’s such a beautiful question. And so which one do we want to take first, divine or feminine? Let’s take divine. Let’s start with divine. And this idea of divine can stir up for a lot of people a lot of different stories, and for some, they can make it religious; for others, they can make it something that is superior or separate; for some, it is, oh, that. I want that, but maybe don’t even really know what “that” is. And so when I use the word “divine,” I hold it as this that is innate. It is the part of us that is beyond explanation. It is the part of us that is quote, unquote, God-given, but even if we don’t believe in God per se, that the god which I hold that space for this blessing, this love, this essence that holds us all, guides us all, can access all. And so it is this innate essence, our divinity, that innate essence that we all have that connects us, units us, that is pure love. 

                    And “sacred” is another word that I hold close to that. And when we really look at the word “sacred,” it’s something that we treasure. It’s something that we hold priceless. It’s something that we hold irreplaceable. And my belief about our own human expressions, and I’ll bring the word “human” into that, our own human expressions is that they are priceless. They are completely unique and sacred. There is not another being walking on the planet identical to us in any way, shape, or form. We are a unique contribution right here, right now, and we’re so needed. So that to me is our divine essence. 

                    Then there’s this part of us that learns to live in the human world, and it goes okay, I’m afraid and I have to control, and I have to make sure this happens, and oh, my gosh. What if they reject me? And so that’s more of our human nature that forgets our divinity. So now with kind of those two distinctions made, human and divine, ego and divine, ego and spirit, now let’s bring in masculine and feminine. 

                    Masculine and feminine:  Masculine energy is sometimes easier to describe first, especially in our culture. We recognize it so easily because we are rewarded for masculine energy. Masculine energy is the energy that produces a result. It drives to a goal. It is focused. It is a solid energy. It’s a more erecting upward energy. We’ll find that masculine energy goes more up and down erect in almost a column or a pillar, as we might use that description for a man at times. Now, I’ll speak to men and women in just a moment in regard to the energies. And that energy is also very focused in coming off the body. It’s a penetrating or driving energy. Now, some people might think those words can be like oh, I don’t want that. I know there are certainly men that go, oh. They imagine that that masculinity makes you quote, unquote, alpha asshole, and it’s not that. It is the generative, powerful committed energy. Now, it can show up in an unconscious way in quote, unquote, alpha asshole. But what I’ve discovered is that anybody that’s afraid of being that, they’re so not that that they couldn’t ever be that. So that’s our masculine energy.

                    Feminine energy, and I’m using the word “energy” really consciously and intentionally because we are not talking about gender here, although I’ve referred to men. Before I speak about feminine energy, let me say that energy, the masculine, the feminine, the yin and yang, exist in every single human body. It doesn’t matter our gender. It doesn’t matter our orientation. It doesn’t matter any way that we express in love or relating, or any way in life for that matter. They simply exist, and Eastern medicine has known this for years, Chinese medicine. The balancing of the yin and the yang energies within all the organs and the systems and the energy channels. So this is just another expression of that. And so to just to say to listeners, I’m not saying men and women. However, it is common that a female body, someone that identifies predominantly as female, will tend to more frequently have feminine energy. Someone that identified as male will tend to more frequently have masculine energy as their predominant energy. Sometimes they’re reversed in a small number of people and sometimes there’s a neutral energy. In our society, a lot more people think they’re neutral or balanced than actually are because that’s what we’ve been rewarded for for the last 30 years. 

                    Okay. Now, let me bring in feminine, and then I’ll be quiet for a moment. It was a big question. Feminine energy is the creative, receptive, flowing, expressive, embracing, collaborative, connective energy. It’s a vulnerable and surrendered energy. And very often there can be a fear and a judgment that that feminine energy makes someone a doormat, makes them a pushover, makes them weak, makes them pathetic. Those were some of my old beliefs. And that really, truly, I have found that when we can really discover the authentic power of feminine and the authentic power of masculine that the two are such a powerful compliment to each other and neither one is as strong without the other. So what’s important for us as individuals is to discover what is the authentic divine feminine or divine masculine expression within us and then come to live in alignment with that.

TERRY:     That’s such big stuff, just those ideas. There’s so much depth to be found in those. You mentioned our society and how society tends to drive us more — make sure I got this correct.

JOANNA:  Uh-huh.

TERRY:     Society tends to drive us more kind of towards the masculine end of the spectrum versus the feminine. Have I got that correct?

JOANNA:  I would say that that is my absolute experience, and particularly when I’m working with women that they feel — so often I hear well, the only way to get things done, I have to show up masculine in my job, whether I’m in the corporate world or whether I’m an entrepreneur or even whether I’m a stay-at-home mom. Like to manage the schedule and the tasks, we imagine that that has to be masculine energy, and truthfully, we were rewarded for it, and still are in the corporate space in particular. 

TERRY:     So then how does one show up as feminine and be in the feminine in our culture without, I guess what am I trying to say here, without backlash?

JOANNA:  Yeah. That’s a great question and it takes a big answer, and it starts with individuality and it starts with authenticity because what happens whenever we are told that we should be something other than who we are, we step away from our divinity. We step away from our biggest gift. We step away from our uniqueness trying to live to someone else’s expectation or identity for us. I think most of us walking in human bodies could look at a time where in our lives we tried to be what mom or dad wanted us to be; where we tried to be what our teachers wanted us to be; where we tried not to be what the kids on the playground judged us for; where we try not to be the one that is criticized because then we get embarrassed or ashamed. Like all these ways that we have tried to orchestrate how we show up in the world so that we’re liked, loved, respected, or we’re not rejected of being and then judged. And we can put some more words in each of those categories, but those are the essence. I like to describe it as we try to twist ourselves into a pretzel trying to be the one that will be liked, loved, and that we can keep that love and we can keep that attention, and it’s painful, painful, painful to live in that world, and eventually we get dimmer. We have less energy. We have what I would say is more depression because we don’t feel like we can actually express and be ourselves. 

                    [17:48] So one, it’s looking at the pain that it actually causes us to not be authentic. How many women that I work with go, oh, my god. It would be so nice if I knew somebody had my back. Oh, god. If I could just trust that he would show up. Oh. That day when I can just relax and not feel like I have to be the one on top of everything. I know so many women that crave that. And so we have to go, this isn’t working, and really get that honest because now to step into our authenticity and begin to say well, who am I truly. How have I been hiding? How have I been pretending? 

                    I was an electrical engineer and an MBA working in oil and gas in high tech in Houston, Texas, with the good ole boys in the ’90s, and that’s who I thought I was. But it was this projected identity of how I thought I’d be successful and safe in the world, and how I thought I’d be attractive, but that so didn’t work. I never attracted the ones that I was attracted to. And so the next step is to go okay, who am I authentically. And a lot of people go oh, my god. Just like me. Wait. There’s this feminine woman in there. I don’t want her. I tried to hide her. I denied she existed. So now we have to come back in a more of a self-relationship to say oh, but if I could be her, life would be so flipping good. Oh, just like all those stories that I’ve, you know, oh, I could relax. Oh, I could rest. Oh, somebody would take care of me. Oh, I could just receive. Like that’s another thing that the feminine does is she receives. And I’m using the pronoun “she” because there is a consistency between female, but if that doesn’t apply, just switch the pronouns. But she receives. And what often I’ll say is the mantra of the modern-day women is, No, no. I got it; while the mantra of the happy, energized, loved woman is, Thank you, as she receives. 

                    So we have to go on a journey of clearing out everything that says it’s not okay to be me, and let me tell you when we can actually let go of everybody else’s stories and expectations and come back here, the power of connection, enjoy, and vibrancy, and attractiveness, and miracles actually. Miracles abound. Things we would never expect. 

TERRY:    How does one start getting in touch with their authenticity?

JOANNA:  Well, let’s do this if you think this is a good idea. You know that I ask some questions to help people get to is that am I authentically core masculine or core feminine. There’s lots more questions that I do when I’m with somebody in a full program, but there are four questions that really help somebody begin to identify that truth. Shall we put them out there?

TERRY:    Sure.

JOANNA:  Okay. So what I want to invite everybody that’s listening to do before you answer these questions is to decide that you can answer them from a place of knowing that you are absolutely safe; you cannot be rejected; you’re going to be loved completely; you won’t be judged; everything’s going to go beautifully and perfectly because that gets us beyond all of those fears. So answer the questions as if everything is going to go better than your wildest dreams. So from there, the four questions are:  

                    The first one is:  If you are going to pick your ideal lover, would you pick a lover that is physically larger than you, or would you pick a lover that is physically smaller than you?

                    And then the second question is: Again, if you were to pick your ideal lover, would you pick a partner who is physically stronger than you, i.e., they can pick you up and move you across the bed, or would you pick a lover who you are stronger, i.e., you pick them up and move them across the bed?

                    Third question is: In a dating and courting situation, and this doesn’t matter if you’re single or partnered. If you’re partnered, I still recommend that you be dating on a regular basis. But in that dating situation, would you prefer to be asked out, picked up, and taken to dinner, or would you prefer to ask out, pick up, and take someone to dinner? And it’s always fun to switch spots, but which one really turns you on?

                    And then the fourth question:  Similarly, we can always switch roles or switch spots in this scenario, but in this case you’re in a hot, steamy kiss up against a wall, and are you, in that imagination, the best kiss in the world, are you against the wall being kissed or are you facing the wall giving the kiss?

                    So now what do we do with the answers? If you picked someone, if your ideal lover is physically larger than you, that’s an indicator of feminine. If your ideal lover is physically stronger than you, that’s also an indicator of feminine. If you prefer to be courted, asked out, picked up, taken to dinner, that’s an indicator of feminine, and if you prefer to be the one against the wall being kissed, that’s an indicator of feminine. And then the reverse would be the indicators of masculine. 

                    So what was true for me the first time somebody gave me a set of questions like that, I went whoa. I just answered every question feminine, and I would have sworn as that engineer in oil and gas, I was masculine. So that’s the first wake-up call of whoa. There’s something in me that I didn’t even realize, or I’d gone to sleep too. 

                    And then the next step is to begin noticing the difference between that authentic expression and how we’re actually showing up in the world. In our job then, should we choose to step onto the journey of this divine feminine/divine masculine, is to close the gap between how we’re showing up in the world and who we truly are, and then that gives us a power to connect and love and the power of miracles that I was talking about earlier. That truly brings us into divine alignment with our own soul, our own divine expression. 

TERRY:    This is fascinating stuff and that, you know, I see some of this in my patients as well when they come into the office, and I think women seem to be much more, I guess, mutable when it comes to how they interact with these energies. It almost feels like women can kind of flip the switch from masculine to feminine fairly easily. I don’t know if that’s quite the case with men, but I haven’t had that much experience working with men, honestly. So what are your feelings on that?

JOANNA:  You know, it’s interesting that the transition space between the two energies, and, oh, I could talk on this topic forever. I’m like what’s the most important point to say here. So I’ll say two things with this is that always I’m inviting people to that [inaudible 26:03] to live predominantly in that authentic energy, and then are there moments that we may move into. So if I’m predominantly feminine, which I am, there may be moments where I move into the masculine. The more I get authentic, the less and less that’s going to happen. 

                    But in the meantime, let’s say that we have a career that at this point we haven’t figured out how to really not show up in the masculine, but we want to come back into our romantic and playful and relaxed world and be in that feminine. I call it a transition ritual. And what is it that allows us to transition into that feminine energy? Now, here’s what’s interesting. I would say that the feminine, and that men and women, let’s put it this way, whether you’re predominantly masculine or feminine, that the switch from feminine to masculine can happen much faster. It’s like whoo (phonetic). It’s especially we can use like crisis, which is a time where we have to focus our energy and it comes in that there is a way that that can happen in a split second. However, moving from pure focus to an open expansive energy for both genders can actually be more challenging and that’s where the transition ritual comes in. Well, actually, that’s where the transition ritual comes in for feminine beings, and the core essence of the transition ritual for feminine beings is to connect with how we feel; our sensuality; our senses: smelling something beautiful, tasting, touching, feeling, noticing sensations in our body, even moving in a way that creates sensation. Those are some of the gateways when I teach transition ritual that we begin to move. We can teach someone to do it, you know, quickly if there’s a phone call from a beloved, and to really create that transition, we often need more time. So it’s not so fast going into the feminine. 

                    Now, the interesting part, just for helping women out who love masculine men, is that that focus — let’s say the focus is on reading a book in the masculine — the masculine also needs transition time. That’s really the key is masculine needs transition time. So going from masculine to feminine, that’s what I just described for feminine being, but masculine beings, from whatever the object of the focus is to the next object of the focus, needs transition time. So if your beloved or your date is focused on the book or the menu or the driving, before that masculine being can be focused on you, he needs transition time, and that can just be a minute. It might be 30 seconds. But to stop and say hey, can I talk to you for moment, and then pause; not keep bombarding your masculine love with what — and I’m loving your response with what you’re wanting to say. Give him a moment to show up and bring his presence to you. Your experience, Terry?

TERRY:    Yes. Of course, I’m thinking of the relationship between my wife and I, and yes, I’ve been in those situations where yes, I’m focused on something here and she’s saying yes, I need your attention here now, please. And yep. Just give me —

JOANNA:  Give me a few breaths.

TERRY:    A couple moments.

JOANNA:  Yes. Yes. Like you can totally do it. And this is another way I actually want to bring this back to divine masculine and feminine is so often we make each other raw. We forget that it is our divine essence. That that focus, when that focus is purely on your wife, when a masculine being is purely focused on us, oh, my god, it’s amazing. That presence is one of the things that feminine women crave the most from masculine men is pure presence — that complete riveted attention. But that very thing that is so hot and desirable can also be that source of frustration, but we have to love the blessing and the challenge of it and honor it in the moment where it is a transition from and focused on writing or reading or tv, or whatever, to him focused on you and your question and your need, and I’ll be happy to be there, but I need a few moments to get there and give you that presence. So we have to honor each other. 

TERRY:    This is such big stuff, especially in this Me Too sort of era. I would think, you know when it comes to that masculine focus, it can be somewhat intimidating in some ways. So —

JOANNA:  Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.

TERRY:    How do we go about remedying that?

JOANNA:  Well, and it’s interesting when you ask that question. I am brought to how this was a dear friend of mine that came to my programs for a long time, and she’s since passed, but she was such a sacred being, and she one day was at one of the events and I was describing masculine and feminine and that attention and she said from a dating perspective, here’s what we really want. I thought this was such a beautiful description. She said, We want you, she was feminine being saying to masculine beings, We want you to pray on us — P-R-A-Y — to see how extraordinary we are, to see our light, to see our beauty. To see us in a way that you want to honor us. And is opposed to seeing us as prey, P-R-E-Y, where you got to have us. And then all we want to do, anybody that’s the target, where we feel like that target is on us, we’re going the other direction. We’re going the other direction. So, yes, there is this oh, my gosh, I want to be seen; I want to be desired, but as pray, P-R-A-Y, not prey, P-R-E-Y, can you conquer me. It’s not about conquering a woman. 

                    And so this is such an important invitation for men and women alike in this Me Too era. In this era where we’re being invited to come back to authenticity and embrace the need of both masculine and feminine for the survival in our world is to recognize and honor exactly who we are and to begin to feel within your own body your own beliefs about afraid you’re going to prey, P-R-E-Y, on someone and knowing that you as a masculine being actually have the capacity for the opposite devotion, we’ll call it P-R-A-Y, and also for the feminine where we’ve had judgments of the masculine. Because if we have a belief system about how the masculine shows up, guaranteed those are the masculine beings we’re going to find. Whatever we believe is our experience. And there’s many opportunities and invitations for us in this, but one of the core ones is for the feminine to clear out the beliefs that we’ve held that the masculine is the alpha asshole, or the masculine doesn’t show up, or all the masculine wants is sex, ’cause it’s not the truth. It’s not the truth. I get the privilege of watching women and men come together and women going oh, my god. I had no idea how amazing men were. I had no idea they were as sensitive, or as loving, or as passionate, or as pure and divine, because I had all these stories about what I thought men were and what I thought men wanted, and then they get the opportunity to see the truth, and it’s extraordinary. 

TERRY:    Can you tell my listeners a little bit about some of the programs that you offer, because you have some very powerful offerings.

JOANNA:  Thank you. Yeah. So before I say anything about the programs, the essence of the journey that I walk people down is this path of soul love. This is deep love that is a combination of love of self, romantic love, and divine love; that our fullest expression is a combination of all three of those expressions of love. 

                    And so this path of soul love, if we break it down into three phases, if you will, the first phase of that journey is that self-love. And that whole idea, believe me, it scared me. I hated it. I’m like don’t tell me about self-love, whatever. I am so full of love. I have so much love to give. The challenge is that the biggest destroyer of romantic love, which we’re going to talk about in the second part of the journey, the biggest destroyer of romantic love is actually self-abandonment. Not abandonment by the other, but self-abandonment because self-abandonment is the breeding ground for resentment, and resentment is the killer of love. I didn’t really understand resentment because I was such a self-sacrificer in the beginning that I’m like I (inaudible 35:59) know. Of course, I’m just going to give, and I’m going to give, and I’m going to give, and I’m going to do, and then I’m pissed ’cause I’m not getting anything back. And the only way I can ever receive is when I have to believe that I’m worthy to receive. 

                    Two, I actually have to know what I need, want, desire. I also have to be able to set boundaries, which means I need to know what doesn’t work for me and what my boundaries are and what my turn-offs are, and then I have to be confident enough in myself to actually express them. And when I stop pretzel-twisting, when someone stops trying to be or do the thing that they think will get or keep love; when they stop settling or selling themselves out in the name of love and connection, they come into a place of such a deep self-relationship that we completely can be ourselves in the good, and the bad, and the ugly, ’cause we all got ugly. Like none of us are perfect. We all got habits; we all got things we do that we wish we didn’t do; things that we try to hide. But when we can actually let ourselves be seen in the beauty in the mask, so to speak, that’s the moment where we actually begin to trust love. That’s the moment where we are actually available for loving and being loved. 

                    And so the first phase in the journey is a phase of ecstatic authenticity or activating the soul love within. When we get into the second phase, it’s an experience of ecstatic intimacy — into me you see. Letting you see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Me seeing your good, and the bad, and the ugly, and loving each other more deeply because of it. The place where we navigate conflict in a way that the challenges and the conflicts in our relationships actually become communion. They deepen the connection; they strengthen the bond of the relationship. And oh, by the way, the masculine and the feminine dance deeper. So we now have our ecstatic intimacy married with our ecstatic authenticity, and that gives us ecstatic ecstasy. This is where life and love and lovemaking become the richest, most fulfilling, most juicy experiences. And we all want to jump to oh, yeah, I want it to be so good, and you can get there, but we’ve got to take those first steps. 

                    And so the way that my programs work is to take men and women, singles and couples, through each of those phases so that you can get to the ecstasy, the greatest fulfillment of the living. I like to say it as so that we can experience the deepest of connections, pleasures, intimacies, and joys available to us on this human journey, but it takes the authenticity and the intimacy — the being and the relating — to get to the union and the ecstasy. So that’s the type of work, and I bring men and women together on this journey so that we can really become aware of the possibility and the power of our loving. 

TERRY:    This is life-changing stuff, and I say that from personal experience. So anybody that’s listening to this show right now, I want you to listen to Joanna. She’s going to tell you how you can find out more information about her programs. 

JOANNA:  The best place to start is well, first, the website ecstaticintimacy.com, and there’s actually going to be a link here that I know Terry’s going to provide, and that link is going to take you to something called the “Ecstatic Intimacy Jumpstart Kit.”  And within that Jumpstart Kit, there’s going to be four different pieces. One of them is going to invite you to look more deeply at masculine and feminine expression within you. Another one is going to look at this roadmap, if you will, this path of soul love that we just talked about. And another one is going to take you through the experiences of how to make things even better in the bedroom, whether you happen to be single or partnered right now. So those are some of the things that you’ll get in that Jumpstart Kit. And as you go through that you’ll actually find a savings code that if you are deeply called, if this something that speaks to your soul, and even if it scares you, which believe me it scared me, is that then that code will allow you to save 50 percent on a session with me privately where we can hone in on what needs to happen for you. Exactly how you get to live into that authenticity, intimacy, and ecstatic ecstasy. 

TERRY:    Aah. Such good stuff. 

JOANNA:  Oh, you’re awesome, Terry. 

TERRY:    Joanna, I wish we had more time, but our time has actually come to an end. There’s so much depth to the work that you do, so, man, I think we’ll have to have you on again in the future to talk a little bit more about more of this stuff in depth. But for now, thank you so much for taking the time. I so appreciate you. You’re doing amazing things in this world. Thank you so much.

JOANNA:  Thank you, Terry. Thank you. Blessings to all.