Maggie's Story

In this episode of The Pleasure Files, I sit down with Maggie, a former client who began her healing journey with me earlier this year. 

We start with where she started, what called her into this work, and how her relationship with herself, her body, and her pleasure has transformed since. 

Maggie shares with such honesty and warmth about the challenges of facing herself, the unexpected turns of growth, and what it really feels like to reclaim your aliveness from the inside out.

This is a tender, real conversation about courage, change, and the beauty that unfolds when we choose to do the work of healing.

Transcript

Hello, pleasure seekers. Welcome back to another episode of The Pleasure Files. I am beyond delighted and excited about this episode. I've been looking forward to recording it. I am so delighted that we're having this conversation. I actually have a guest today.

I have a special guest, we're gonna call her Maggie. Maggie is a past client of mine who first came, so that we could work together in February of this year, February of 2025.

And I invited Maggie to come back and share her story, because

I think it gives so many flavors and levels to the healing possibility and what healing can bring into our lives when we do the hard work of turning around and looking at ourselves and putting in the effort and the time and facing ourselves. But we're going to go deep into that, I think, today.

So, first of all, welcome, Maggie. It's so, like I said, I'm so delighted to have you here.

Maggie: Yeah, me too. It's been… it feels like ages, like years, but I think time speeds up when you start doing this work.

Yeah.

Maggie: It happens so quickly that you just have to run to keep up with it.

Yeah.

Maggie: Feels like forever.

Maggie: Funded.

The other… the other absolute treat about this is because I used to see you, your face on the screen, like, every two weeks, and then at the end of that, it was like, oh, so we still checked in over the apps, but I didn't get to see your face, so it's such a treat to see you again. So that's a special treat for me.

Maggie, you first came, like I said, in February of this year.

Could you share a little bit about what brought you here? What were you… what was life like, or what were you experiencing back then?

Maggie: Oh… Well, I remember that I had followed you, on your summits.

Maggie: And there were, and trying to fit everything into that… my hectic Life, situation and lifestyle and schedule,

Maggie: I… I use those as, the different episodes as breathing breaks, just to try to get back to…

Maggie: to what I think of as real life, which is silence and quietness and presence, and…

Maggie: And paying attention, and being calm, and feeling alive.

Maggie: And… A lot of your guests spoke of this.

Maggie: embodiment, and there was this one guest that you had. She spoke of kissing.

Maggie: and just this… it was a whole episode about kissing, and her way of speaking was… it was so poetic, and she felt so alive to me, and I listened to it, and I got so moved by it. I even tear up now, because…

Maggie: There was, sweetness to it.

Maggie: I've just fell so in love with this being.

And.

Maggie: And the contrast was so rough when I turned it off, and then whoosh, I got ripped away into this hectic,

Maggie: classroom environment, having… I am a teacher at an upper secondary or a high school, and, also, I'm very busy.

Maggie: And… I could feel that there was something there with the sensuality that I needed, or I…

Maggie: I was supposed to say wanted, but I'm not sure I even wanted it, because that would be just another thing to put in my busy schedule.

Right? Add to the tradition.

It's become sensual.

Maggie: Yeah, yeah, like, today is like, yes, doing this thing with these kids at 9, and then 10, becoming sensual for 10 minutes, and then back to lunch, and yeah,

Maggie: And also, I was in, so my, I felt overwhelmed, and overworked, and very close to burnout. I felt very…

Maggie: misaligned, uncomfortable in my body. I felt very, very tense all the time, and I started getting…

Maggie: these solutions popping up in my head that I've used many times in the past, which is I need to control my food, I need to just up my training regime, if I just lose

Maggie: 10 kilos, or 20, like, that's the solution to everything, that's the go-to.

Maggie: yeah, problem solver. It's like, just lose 10 kilos, and then that's the ticket, and then everything would be fine. But I… this time, I just couldn't stand the hunger anymore, just starving, because I felt like I was starving, in life as well, and…

Maggie: I think perhaps the biggest… reason for me seeking you out, was that I was in…

Maggie: Or I just… I… I was in a very turbulent relationship.

Maggie: That lasted… it wasn't very long, it wasn't even 2 years, but it… it was so dramatic and so stressful.

Mmm.

Maggie: And…

Maggie: my nervous system was so triggered all the time that I think I just had burned out all of my adrenal glands, and I didn't really know what to do, and you were my… you were my last hope. I felt like I was in the Star Wars movie going, like, help me, Obi-Wan, you're my only hope.

Maggie: But, it was very close to me not even doing it, because I, I live alone, I am a single… I have a single financial

Maggie: Oh, economy, and it costs… it costs money.

Maggie: And I was like, well, if I have to spend this amount of money, then I might as well buy myself something else that I really need. And I put this on the side, like, this… I don't really need to feel my body, or befriend my body, or feel at home in my body, because it's just this annoying tool that I need to…

Maggie: have… And…

Maggie: pretty much good function so that I can deplete it more and use the body fuel to, manage my hectic life that I

Maggie: feel…

Maggie: not at home in, even. So it was a chaos. That was a long answer to a short question, like.

It was…

Maggie: pretty much chaos, and I was depleted, and…

Maggie: pretty… I was very sad as well. I was heartbroken. I was in this relationship that didn't work, and I couldn't… I tried everything, and…

Maggie: Yeah.

Maggie: It was futile and hopeless.

Maggie: So I think that was where it was, and I can remember… I haven't read those,

Maggie: intake notes, or that form you have to fill out in the beginning. I haven't read it since I wrote it a while that…

Maggie: So long ago, and… but I think…

Maggie: it was more of a, do you think it's even possible to change? It was more like this wild dream, like, could it be? Please just tell me that maybe in the future, things can change, and it doesn't have to be this dark. And then we had,

Maggie: Then we talked a little bit, you and I.

This is huge.

Maggie: were a fit, and I can remember I took my laptop from work, then I hid down in the basement.

I remember at school, yeah.

Maggie: Yeah, it was a storage room, and I was sitting down there, having to speak very quietly in case someone used the bathroom next to her.

Maggie: And then after I did that, something sparked inside. I was like, well, that might be hope, because I could…

Maggie: see you, your face, and I could hear your voice, and there was this same quality, this embodiment, this aliveness that was there, and I'm like, hmm, if you can do it…

Maggie: and you know other people that can do it, it might… it might actually be possible. I don't think it's possible for me, but just theoretically, it would be nice to just have the knowledge of

Maggie: Oh.

Maggie: different existence.

Possibly. Yeah. Beautiful.

Thank you for that, Maggie. You just sparked something in me. I think I have to probably do a podcast episode at some point of my story as well, because I am, of course, doing this work because of my own

stuff, you know? My childhood stuff, my sexual stuff, all of that that I brought with me, so I'll park that in the back of my mind for the weeks to come.

I also wanted to mention, I still remember that conversation when you were whispering and trying to talk about sex without getting interrupted at work. That was quite entertaining for me. And you mentioned that, you had bought, like, a feminine empowerment online group program.

Or something along those lines. And I don't want to disrespect any other… I mean, you know, we're all… we've all got our own flavor and our own approach.

But I actually think it's worth mentioning this, because…

you bought it and it didn't work for you. Like, the way that it was taught and the content that was given actually fried your nervous system more than, you know, opening you up and softening you, which I suspect was probably the intention of the course, but

the delivery and the content didn't work for you. And there was very much a sense from you of, well, I've done it and it didn't work, so then there's nothing possible.

And I wanted to mention that because

Just because we've done things and they haven't worked.

Please don't give up, because it may just be that the flavor isn't the right flavor for your being, for your system, for you in this moment.

And it can be very much like, well, it's this amazing course, and there's hundreds of women doing it, and the teacher's extraordinary, and everybody else seems to be having these results, and I'm not, and so therefore there's something wrong with me. And I think we do that a lot with these things.

And I just wanted to mention that, like, if anybody out there has had that experience, and they're living there, there must be something wrong with me, because it works for everybody else.

It might actually just be that it wasn't the right flavor for you. The same as it was for you, that it wasn't the right flavor.

Maggie: Hmm.

Yeah. Well, it's actually good that you mentioned that.

Maggie: Because, me having done that course, left me…

Maggie: Feeling like the ideal woman is a multi-argasmic,

Maggie: constantly turned on, extremely powerful, flawless, divine creature that is just this goddess walking around with her sexual energy all the time, and… and I desperately wanted that…

Maggie: to happen to me, and I wanted somebody to just give me a really strict regime of do this, and this, and this, and do these many exercises, and push and pull, and work out your muscles, and… and… and have this…

Maggie: almost military exercise, thing, so that I could become that, because I needed to toughen up, or strengthen up, or make my nervous system more robust.

Maggie: And when you and I started working, I… I can remember I struggled a lot, and I haven't told you this, but I struggled a lot because I felt like you were doing it wrong, because you didn't really give me any loss. It was just, we just… it was all…

Maggie: feely, like, you just have to listen to your body and feel into it, and take it slow, and I'm like, no, I don't want it to be soft and slow and

Maggie: mushy and all of that, because I'm trained into this, I need to work really hard.

to achieve something.

Maggie: And I didn't trust my body at all to show me what it liked or needed, and even what showed up was… I instantly judged it as wrong, especially since I didn't…

Maggie: get turned on by the same things that other people seem to get turned on by, and my sexual flavor was…

Maggie: and still is so different from everything else that I've seen.

Maggie: that I couldn't relate to anything, and I felt like I was walking around blindfolded, in a way, trying to…

Maggie: ask permission, like, is this okay to be turned on by this? Is this sexual energy? Can I feel sexual… or not sexual… can I feel sexually alive when I'm outside feeling…

Maggie: moss under my feet. It's like, this is deeply sensual.

Maggie: presence that… that just becomes alive in the body when I'm out in nature, and… I felt…

stupid for being that way, because I wasn't…

Maggie: norm… normal, and that.

Yeah.

Maggie: Because I… But that, I think that if you hadn't had that slow, soft approach.

And…

Maggie: very, almost like this hidden magic going on.

Maggie: That I couldn't see with my very…

Maggie: Military mind, looking for… looking for patterns, looking for… for systems.

Maggie: But it was more, like, under the ground, something was stirring and being… becoming alive.

Maggie: And you slowed it down, or you helped me slow it down and discover it?

Yep.

Maggie: I think also, as you said, like, being in a group setting.

Maggie: I really enjoy that, too, if I know the curriculum in advance, and that I have some sort of mastery in it, or at least I know how to do it, and I know that I… well, I have tried this, and I know what it is, but feeling…

Maggie: Totally inexperienced and stupid, being in a group, trying to learn with others that are much, much, much further advanced than you are.

Maggie: Makes it even worse, and I really needed someone to sit with me and hold my hand, and I had to learn how to trust that you wouldn't let go of my hand, and also I could trust you to not judge me.

No, that's very true.

Maggie: So I re-listened to our first session,

Maggie: And I'm so grateful that we get the opportunity to have the recordings, because I listen to it now, and you said already in the first session that you wouldn't judge anything.

Maggie: that I said.

Maggie: And I heard you say that, and I believed you.

Maggie: But it wasn't until now that I looked back and I could see that that was absolutely authentic.

Nice.

Maggie: I never felt judged, and the less judged I felt, the more…

Maggie: I dared to open, so it was kind of… maybe you were just helping me

Maggie: Find that there is some courage in that.

Maggie: human being, and we… but we need safety, especially as women. We need to feel safe.

Maggie: And… that's probably…

Maggie: You mentioned nervous system. I think that was the main reason why I needed to work on this, was my nervous system was fried, and kept frying every single day, and with every single encounter with

Maggie: the relationship I was in, it was, it was a code red nervous system constantly, and that just didn't… didn't work. And it took a long time, and lots of work.

Maggie: to… Learn how to operate in that soft, restorative Nervous system mode instead.

Yeah.

Maggie: Hmm.

Maggie, you said… I mean, you said so many things. I want to comment on…

A couple, and the first is,

I think we're taught as women to be sexually aggressive.

I think, like, I… because I think a lot about, like, society's messages about us as women, and about sexuality and sex, and…

You know, kind of like the not-so-overt ones, just the images that we see of…

the ways that women portray themselves as sexual creatures, and I put that in, like, quotation marks, because I'm not sure they are portraying themselves as sexual creatures. I think they're portraying themselves as something that's expected, but I don't know that there's any, like, deep sexual connection or sensuality in it.

But we're shown this Aggressiveness. Like, sexuality is something that…

We kind of need to put out there, and act on, and be, and…

there's no, like you said, there's no softness or subtlety or gentleness to the way that sexuality is kind of sold to us, or explained to us, and if…

We have a quiet sexuality, which I would argue that the majority of us do, it's just that we haven't had the opportunity to slow down enough to start paying attention to how quiet and slow our bodies are, and our sexuality and our sensuality is.

And that doesn't mean that we're not having quickies and amazing screaming sexes, you know, like, it's like the underlying…

the underlying flavor, I think, of a lot of us is quiet and slow, and then we come up against this kind of aggressive, overt sexuality.

Even in these group programs sometimes, and it doesn't kind of mesh, and then we make ourselves wrong.

Or we make ourselves boring, because surely if my sexuality, or my sensuality, or my sensing is…

quiet and slow, and I actually like to feel the moss under my feet, and that arouses me. That's gotta be boring, right? Because we're supposed to be being pushed up against the wall and fucked to God in that way.

And so that's the first thing I just wanted to say, is that if you're listening to this and your sexuality or your sense of self, you just have this suspicion that you're not that aggressive, overt, out there, loud, taking what you want, you know, leaving the trail of bodies behind you.

controlling the relationship through sex, you know, all of those kind of things, if that doesn't feel true for you, then yeah, it possibly isn't. There's maybe something else, waiting there. And then you said safety, and you said, and the thing that you didn't say that I really like, that I put in there, is

there's something about hope, I think, especially in that first conversation, right? That…

I think hope is probably one of our most powerful emotions as a human, the hope that things will still get better, so we don't feel stuck.

And then, having the safety that we can move towards the thing that might be slightly better.

And, yeah.

what you said about me being slow, and you being like, oh my god, what are we doing? You didn't say that, but that's what, you know, that's what I heard. What is actually happening? She's not actually giving me much, and what… I get that a lot, but it does work. I mean, I don't know if I promised you in the first session, I don't usually promise that it works, but I usually say…

go along with it. I will explain my method if you need an explanation for your brain to quieten it down, but…

Slowing down and feeling the moss under your feet, or whatever it is that you're… Particular flavor might be.

It does work.

If we give it the space, and we can relax our nervous systems enough.

So what did you start to notice, Maggie? Like, what was your first sign that something might be changing? Do you remember? I didn't warn you of this question, so I don't know if you remember.

Maggie: Oh, well, I think in the beginning, I noticed two things. One was slightly terrifying, and the other was slightly fun.

Maggie: Okay, good. What was slightly terrifying was, you gave me this horrible homework, that I had to, like, slowly just,

Maggie: explore the body, just touch the body, touch, like, ankles, or hands, or stomach, or thighs, and that just made me want to vomit. It really… it revulsed me. And I… for, several months, just touching the stomach.

Maggie: was…

so difficult, and…

Maggie: I'm not… well, it still is,

Maggie: To a much lesser degree.

Yeah.

Maggie: But, I think what terrified me was that I didn't know that all of this

Maggie: revulsion, I think is the right word. Hatred is a really aggressive,

Maggie: Almost wanting to hurt and damage the body, because it's so… impossibly…

Maggie: not cooperating. It doesn't want to become this Skinny, muscular, perfect.

Yeah.

Maggie: cover front model that nobody ever can achieve, but still, We need to.

Maggie: heard it, so it becomes something that we picture it to be. So that violence.

Maggie: inside of me towards this body was, frightening, and it still is, and I can see that that's probably a theme that will follow me for the rest of my life, and that…

Maggie: I can't slack up on. I just.

Maggie: continuously. If I want my nervous system to remain.

Maggie: balanced and calm, then I need to,

Maggie: stop that violence, that war, because it is a war. But every time we turn on the TV or look at our screens, we are reminded that we should be soldiers in that war for perfection.

Right.

Maggie: Hmm.

And the big issue of it is, is that we can't fight our way free of it.

You know, like, touching the body and feeling like, oh, I think I might actually hate myself.

We can't, like, fight our way free of that hatred. The only way free of the hatred is actually to learn love and acceptance, and that, like you said, like, the hardest thing. I mean, I've been…

working on my body hatred, I think, for the last 15 years, and I'm catching myself, possibly daily, of going, wow, really? Are we going there? Okay, alright.

Or, we could maybe try some kindness and some compassion and some love here and see

what the opposite of, like, this inner voice of this critical inner voice is actually saying. So, and yes, it is so difficult. So I really feel you on that one, I was feeling you the whole time.

Maggie: Hmm.

Maggie: Yeah.

Yeah, so that was the terrifying thing, and the slightly fun thing. In the beginning, it was…

Maggie: where, like, there's a slight hope, and then deliver off something that could be fun in the future, but it's not really fun now, but it's better than worst. So, and that was, touching the body. I can remember the first sessions, it was,

Maggie: Well, I'll just have a slight… a small parentheses here, like, I…

Maggie: I have always felt very at home in my body, and I use my body a lot, I'm very active, I'm a farmer, so I… it's a very…

Maggie: good tool, and I, I enjoy sensation, I love massages and being touched, and that… all that's fine, as long as I stay away from the problematic areas, which is a quite large part of this body is a problematic area. But,

Maggie: Touching my body for homework?

Maggie: I could… I just…

Maggie: put myself in the, I'm just going to notice now, I'm not gonna judge anything, I'm just gonna go, like, ping, okay, that's a no-go zone, ping, okay, that's a no-go zone, too. So it was ankles? Oh, fine, feet.

Maggie: Sure, except for the one toe, because I don't like that one. And then thighs, nope, I don't even want to go there. And then the stomach area. There's this one part of the stomach, the one that

Maggie: Is, like, under the belly button.

Yep.

Maggie: pouch.

Yeah.

Maggie: It's not really, but there's this pouch thing, and also on the sides with the love handles there. Just the… that's where the fat feeling lives.

Maggie: So, these areas, they were just like, I don't even… I can't even go there. It's just like, I have… I have to just stay away from these. And then you suggested, well, if I just focus on my hand, I'm like, okay, well…

Maggie: I feel like I'm in kindergarten, but fine. So, it was just touching my hand very slowly, so everything is so slow with you. So, okay, slowly. And then…

Maggie: This was the slightly fun part, is that it started to awaken a different body sense, or a different…

Hmm.

Maggie: A sensory organ that.

That is…

Maggie: Very quiet. It's so quiet, you almost can't hear it inside of your skin.

Yeah. But…

Maggie: It needs almost Almost still standing, at, like, almost no movement at all.

Yeah.

Maggie: But that's where a really…

Maggie: tingly, deep, sensory experience comes. And that was… that was fun. I'm like, I had…

Maggie: oh, okay, so I just need to be really slow. I can see where this slowness thing comes from. Okay, well, I might… okay, fine, I'll do this. And then, luckily, I had some other exercises with journaling and stuff, and that was better, because then I could think.

Maggie: It was exhausting to have to feel all of these things, but then I could think.

Yeah.

Maggie: In between. But yeah, so that was what I started noticing, was that I had a huge part of my body was a no-go zone, and I didn't like it. And then there was this other thing I noticed, was that if I actually

Maggie: Slow down and just put my hand somewhere and really felt into the sensation of it.

Maggie: And then the dualistic… Sensation. And by that, I mean…

Maggie: Having your… if you touch your…

Maggie: right hand with your left hand, and then you can feel inside your right hand, you can feel being touched, and how that feels. At the same time, you can feel your left hand touching.

Maggie: And that's a very weird paradox that the mind can't follow, but the body can hold that dualism very easily, and it's a good… ugh, it's just something that grounds me.

That's so beautiful.

Maggie: Mmm…

I love that, I'm doing it right now.

And you're right, I'm… I… you know, I talk about this all the time. Our bodies have got wisdom and capacity that our brains have no idea.

You know, our minds have no idea about possibility, but… and you're right, like, the body's like, yeah, of course I can hold multiple sensations coming in all at once, and the brain's like, wait, what am I supposed to focus on? Yeah.

Maggie: Yeah.

Very cool.

And so…

Maggie, as we went along, because we worked together for 4 months, I'm curious what else you noticed, because…

You came to me with a nervous system, with the stress of the nervous system. You weren't sleeping very well, you were not feeling, like.

deliciousness and juiciness in your own body. Like, my sense of you in those first sessions was someone who was just pushing to get through life. There wasn't much, there wasn't much icing on your cake. The icing had been scraped off a long time ago, and life was just happening.

And then, of course, what you've already shared about your own relationship with your body. So, over the 4 months, I'm curious, because…

I think, from having observed you, and gone, you know, and watched, that

It wasn't just your sense of self that changed, and it wasn't just that, you started to notice your own body, and there was sensation, and possibly pleasure, we haven't talked about that.

Well, that stress management felt more possible, but, like, things changed in your whole world. This stuff rippled, basically, into your real life, and I'm wondering if you're willing to share any of the ripples that you noticed happening, just to…

I guess give context that we don't just do this to feel better, but we do this for a better life, and how that can look.

Maggie: Mmm.

Maggie: Oh, yeah, if you had asked me in the beginning, like, would you be willing to start on this, and it might result in you,

Maggie: Transitioning out of the job you've had for a long time, as well as selling your home, as well as moving up into the woods without, like, being completely off-grid, and also finding a completely new relationship.

Maggie: With a fantastic man. All of this in…

Maggie: under a year, I would be like, oh no, thank you.

I'm tired, I've got things to do.

Maggie: Yeah, all of these things happened.

Maggie: And I can share more about that, but that was, I didn't… I didn't see that coming, and I didn't want it to come either. I just needed to work with you for those 4 months so that I could actually see and understand the situation that I was in.

Maggie: I was so constantly overwhelmed by a life situation, or life situations.

more.

Maggie: That, was… degenerative. It was… but it was destructive.

Maggie: over time.

And…

Maggie: learning to feel pleasure again, and discovering who I really was. It sounds like a cliche, but it was a discovery of, well, who am I really if none of the things that I'm actually in fits me?

Maggie: What actually fits me, then? I have no idea, and I felt so…

Maggie: mute, almost. Like, I didn't have words to express who I really was, because I couldn't see any of that around me. And working with you helped me

Maggie: Develop a language for…

Maggie: Or it helped my body develop a language that I could read and understand, so that I could make choices that would create a more regenerative lifestyle, and a more peaceful, calm way of life.

Maggie: So, I realized that, working full-time

Maggie: in a very stressful environment, at a school, as I did.

Maggie: Probably wouldn't…

Maggie: benefit me at all. There was a lot of things there that stressed me a lot and depleted me. Having a relationship

Maggie: like I have… like I had had at that time, with that constant triggering. And it was a normal, normal, quotation marks, relationship, like, arguments and…

Maggie: Criticism and contempt, and

Maggie: Lots of drama, and on and off, and hot and gold, and it was just constantly, like,

Maggie: Yeah, it was so stressful. I thought that was normal as well, and I just had to learn how to cope with that, and deal with that, and…

Maggie: come to my senses, in a way, so that I could Pull through this?

Maggie: And also, the… I used to have a farm. My home was a farm, very idyllic, very, like, in the countryside, with a river, and… but there was,

Maggie: car road close by, and there was also a lot of neighbors, and I didn't realize until after a few months that this was also a constant nervous trigger. Yeah. Like, hearing the cars and seeing the fake lights.

Yep.

Maggie: so stressful, and I was always in this low-level alertness going on. Also, so I had this low-level alertness and stress at home.

Maggie: I had it… With the previous boyfriend that I had.

Huh?

Maggie: That was a high level of alertness and fear and stress, and in my job was also this need to perform all the time, being judged by 20 students every day for 6 hours a day.

Maggie: It was just, not working, and…

Maggie: And then I was… I also had this life goal, like, I'm gonna figure out and become this sexual goddess.

Maggie: Also on the to-do list.

Yes.

Maggie: And and then discovering that, you know, I…

Maggie: I'm not even sure I'm human. I think I'm supposed to just be this sort of mossy creature living out in the woods. Yeah.

Maggie: Being completely quiet, and just listening, and paying attention, and working with animals.

Hmm…

Maggie: So…

Maggie: I sold my farm, I didn't find a new one, so that was jumping off, that was the jumping off a cliff, or out of an airplane. Felt very frightening, but I just figured that I have to do this now. Like, this is a time

Maggie: Everything is already unraveling, and all the life stories I have about myself is unraveling, so I'll just do that. While I was luckily out of this relationship.

Maggie: But the after effects?

Maggie: was still imprinted in my body, and still is in my mind. I can feel it being re-traumatized and re-triggered a lot.

Maggie: So that was also over, but it didn't feel…

Maggie: good, it just felt empty, and also very full of sadness and sorrow, and the feeling of having failed.

Yep.

Maggie: So I didn't see… I didn't want it to be filled with anything, because I didn't want to meet anyone, I didn't want to have that again. So it was… that was also… I didn't have a farm, or I didn't have a home, and I didn't have a boyfriend, or a relationship, and…

Maggie: work… well, work is work, we have summer vacation, and… but I wasn't… I was like, well, okay, I just… I just show up for work, but I want to do something else.

Maggie: Luckily, I am,

Maggie: Well, Lisa, is it okay I just tell that I'm a dairy farm maid, and we live up… well, I'm… I live in a Scandinavian country, and we have this thousand-year-old tradition that, in the summer,

Maggie: farmers up in the mountainsides used to take their livestock and their milking animals. One or two women would take them and bring them up into a, like, faraway secluded mountain farm, and then they would just stay there and milk the animals all summer, and make cheese, and

Maggie: And butter, and then bring it down again in the winter.

Maggie: And I am one of the carriers of that tradition, so I,

Maggie: I have been doing that every summer for several years, and now was the first year that I did it on my own. So I took my own animals with me for the first time,

Maggie: And that was also very scary, because I'm used to having a security net, or someone helping me with that, but now it was like, okay, I'll just try this, everything else is new, so I'll just try that. And having two months, I think it was close to, like, a month and a half,

Maggie: completely off-grid. I did have my phone, but I didn't have that good reception, and I didn't want to talk to anyone either. And…

Maggie: I didn't have electricity, so I wasn't… my nervous system wasn't triggered by lights or sounds or anything either. It was very, very quiet and slow.

Yeah, very Naomi.

Maggie: Lots of bodily, like, sensations, and I went swimming every single day, didn't have hot water, it was just completely in tune with nature, and that's when I realized that my life is not really worth

Maggie: living.

Maggie: if I don't live how my life wants to live, and my life wants to…

Maggie: be carried by the woods, and it carries the woods in it. And when I… when I am in that.

Maggie: when I can feel that, through and through, I feel so alive and blessed and… in awe. It's,

Maggie: a breathlessness that happens. It's… it's a reverence. And having sensed

Maggie: Reverence in the body is so…

Maggie: positively overwhelming that I keep wanting to come back to that, so that has become Almost like,

Maggie: a melody or a sound that I listen for. When I make choices now, I listen for that, is this…

Maggie: does this carry that tone? And if not, then I don't…

Maggie: I try to not go there.

Yeah.

Maggie: So… So I, I wrote…

Maggie: I wrote, a lot when I was working with you, and I used to have, like, my normal journal, and then I had some special pages in the beginning. I haven't told anyone about this, but…

Maggie: I had some special pages in the beginning where I wrote down…

Maggie: sentences and insights that carried some sort of extra truth to it. You can sense… you can sense when things are.

Yeah.

Maggie: Clear, harmonious, beautiful, and true. And when these things came up, it was like an extra layer of tones that added onto that reverence.

Maggie: tone, and…

Maggie: I can remember writing about the farm that I wanted, like, if I could have any… if I could live anywhere, if this body and this mind and this heart could live anywhere, where would it live? And… and if it could have anyone in its life, what would it have?

Maggie: And I can remember going and closing my eyes, and I have a very vivid imagination, and I could just look for, is there a smell, or a sense, or a sound here? And I wrote, he's got sounds, he's got lots of wildlife and birds, there's an old

Maggie: gravel road with grass in the middle, and there's also this old barn, and it's very secluded and private, and it's close to water, because I need to swim all year round.

Maggie: And I… I am the caretaker of this very old… quiet place.

Maggie: So I wrote that for my farm. I felt… I didn't write it, I… it's more… I felt into it, and then I wrote it down. And then I was…

Maggie: asking the same about a person, like, if I were to have a person in my life, what kind of person would that be?

Maggie: And…

Maggie: it felt… I felt a little bit stupid doing that, because this can never happen, and… but okay, I'll just go with it. This is just pretend. Nobody's gonna know now, everybody's gonna know, but…

Maggie: And then I can remember writing something like, well, he's… He… he's kind.

Maggie: And he cares about animals, and he knows much more about them than I do. He's,

Maggie: And then I just described some more, like, he's tall, and blah blah blah, all of these things. And then I wrote,

Maggie: He absolutely adores me, and he loves my body, and he carries the woods within himself.

Hmm.

That was, like, the one thing. I need him to carry the woods within himself.

Maggie: And, and then… Coincidentally, two days after

Maggie: I moved up to the summer farm.

Maggie: I was supposed to be at a friend's… one of my colleagues' 50th birthdays.

Maggie: And I didn't really want to go, I just wanted to hide up there, and I knew that it was going to be drinking, and I was… it was, well, I was… first of all, I had to…

Maggie: walk, right? Just to come down just to get into a car, and then I didn't have a car, so I had to borrow a farmer's pickup truck, and then I had to drive for another 40 minutes to get to this place, and then…

Maggie: I knew I had to be in bed by 10, because I had to start milking at 5.30 in the morning. But I was like, okay, it's her 50th birthday, so I'll go. And,

Maggie: And then I can remember parking the car, I didn't bring anything, because I didn't have anywhere to buy gifts or stuff, so I can remember parking my car.

Maggie: And then could just hear the sound. They had this black metal band playing. I'm like, oh, this is so not me, because I didn't even bring any sensible clothes. I was like, do I have anything that's clean? That's my criteria.

Maggie: Okay, this is clean, this doesn't smell like goat. Well, fine, I'll do this. And and I had, in my one hand, I had my phone, in the other, I had the keys to the borrowed pickup truck, and then I came down the…

Maggie: the road to the festival, to the party area. I didn't know anybody, everyone was, like, in black clothes, and they were dressed nicely, and makeup and stuff when I came there in my straight-from-the-woods outfit, and didn't know anybody, and

Maggie: And then there was just this guy there. I noticed him straight away. I'm like, oh…

Maggie: Oh, I wish he… I can remember, I wish he would be my… I wish I knew him.

Maggie: So, while I went around, we said hi, and then we, luckily, I got a job. So I felt so awkward, then I asked for a job, and the…

Maggie: birthday girl, she was like, well, you can serve, and you can put out the cakes and stuff. I'm like, yes, I love icing. Like, cake icing is my favorite. I don't like the cake, I just want to eat the icing.

Maggie: And just when you said earlier, like, my life was without cake icing. Yes, it was.

Yeah.

Maggie: Also, my favorite thing.

Maggie: So that, at that party, I got to be the queen of cake icing, so I put out the cakes and stuff, and then this guy,

Maggie: he, he asked me what I did, and I just told him, well, that's kind of weird. Well, I'm this old dairy farm maid, or I have this old tradition of dairy farm-made, work up in the woods, and I don't have any electricity and stuff, but,

Maggie: I just milk goats and make cheese. And he was… he was so, like, awestruck by that. I said, what? You do what? Like, that's so cool. I'm like, oh, is it cool? Well,

Maggie: Yeah, sure, if you think it's cool, I think it's cool, too.

And…

Maggie: And then we, we,

Maggie: We started talking, and he hung out with me when I was, stealing cake icing, and then we just talked and talked and talked, and I really liked him, and

Maggie: And then he came… I got his number, I think, and then I messaged him the day after, and I thanked him, said that, thank you for making that night bearable, and actually

Maggie: It really… it made my day.

Maggie: that it made such a difference to have you there to talk to, and then he came to see me.

Maggie: And, and that's when I realized that this guy is everything on my list?

Maggie: And then some.

Maggie: So…

Maggie: Yeah, it's just… I don't really have any words to describe it. It's such a blessing and a gift, and I still…

Maggie: Struggle to… Understand and receive and… and… just experience it.

Wow.

Maggie: Yeah.

Maggie: Because my nervous system, when I'm around him, my nervous system instantly…

Maggie: slows down and quiets, and rejuvenates itself. It's just so… he's got this presence.

Maggie: Yeah.

Maggie: But it is because he is a forest person. That's his faith. That's where… yeah.

Maggie: that's where he… that's where he's alive, so… I can remember we had some issues in the beginning, or we had… it was difficult in the beginning because of other circumstances, and I didn't get to speak to him for almost a month, and I missed him every single day, and I can remember…

Maggie: Sitting up there.

Maggie: In the morning light, after having melt the goats and… and completely alone up there, and looking out, and just…

Maggie: Wishing so hard that he could just…

Maggie: He could be with me the way that he is when he is out alone in the woods, because he has a sensitivity, and…

Maggie: a presence to him that's… Pure magic.

Maggie: And to see him move when he's… Outside?

Maggie: It's like watching a wild animal just… It's just…

Maggie: Incredible. It's unbelievable, and I just remember wishing so hard, I wish that he could be with my body, with me, like he is with.

Maggie: than… with nature.

Maggie: And he is.

Yeah.

Maggie: Yeah.

Maggie: And…

Maggie: There is… there is a very ironic point to this, is that he has a favorite body part of… on my body.

Tell me it's your stomach.

Maggie: It is the lower part of my stomach, and I just… at first, I was like, can you please… I just think, please stop touching me, that's no ghost on. And then I asked him was, like, what's your favorite part about my body, or something? I said, oh my god, I have to show you. And then he touched my stomach, said, this part here is so soft, and I'm like…

Maggie: That is so difficult, like, my most hated body part, and he… he's just… he just softens up, he's like, goes crazy about it, he's like.

Maggie: how can you hate this? It's so lovely. So now I have to learn… I'm working now on understanding that the hatred that I feel is so conditioned and so culturally imprinted on me, and that it's actually possible for another person to love

Maggie: thought, which I hate.

Maggie: So that's the… that's the exercise that I'm working on now. It's a very… I like my homework these days.

Much more fun. Oh, Maggie, that makes me so happy. I can't tell you how happy that makes me that his favourite body part is your stomach. After all the conversations that we had, and all the work that you did, that just.

Maggie: All right.

So much.

That's perfect. I mean, you called him in. You called him… you called in the man to support you for the next stage of loving yourself, and what more can we ask for than that?

Maggie: Hmm.

So beautiful.

Maggie: Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, Maggie, I'm so happy, I just am so delighted, thank you so much.

For coming and sharing your story. I want to say.

to anybody who's listening who might have that feeling of, well, it's okay for her, I'll never have that. Because I think we get that, right? As women, we can have a lot of scarcity, there's not enough healing to go around, there's not enough sex, pleasure, good men, whatever it is that we're looking for to go around.

And first of all, I want to call bullshit on that, because it's not true. And secondly, I just want to say, you know, if you're sitting there listening and going, oh, it's alright for her, I don't even know where to start.

I would say, and Maggie, you can say if you would suggest something different, but I would suggest

Go and find some stars. You might have to, if you're in the city, you might have to go out of the city, you might have to go away for the lights, go and find some stars, and actually stop and look at them, and, like, really look at them.

And give yourself time… you mentioned awe. Like, give yourself time to feel…

The extraordininess of being a human and looking at stars, even if you just get it for a second, like that flash of something.

Just to, like, give a taste of possibility of there's more to life than

all of this pain and drama and discomfort and shutdown and everything else that I'm carrying in my body, there's more.

And just letting it in. And the other thing that Maggie didn't spell out, but what she's talking about is…

How much can she let it in? Like, how much can she let life in? This gorgeous man, the touch of the moss, the sensation of her body, the, the life she's creating for herself, like, how much can we let it in?

And starting by looking at stars, and going, actually, just…

Come in. Like, touch me, even if it's just for a second, is a good place. It's a safe place, because the stars won't hurt you, and they're not gonna turn on you, they're not complicated, they're just stars.

And you can just, like, give yourself a second and go, yeah, okay.

Here I am.

And then go back to life if you need to.

Maggie: Would you suggest anything else as a starting place, Maggie? Oh, that's beautiful.

Maggie: Oh…

Maggie: The only thing would be to have a reality check, and by that, I mean it in the most literal sense. Like, when you're standing there looking at the stars.

Maggie: take in… the absolute truth of where you are. Like, that moment where you're looking at the stars, You?

Maggie: Your body, the entire planet, even the stars that you're looking on, are in…

Maggie: a completely different, unknown territory in space. None of us has ever been here before. Every single night we look at the stars, we're in a different place. And we have moved so far.

Yeah.

Maggie: From where we were yesterday, just by living on this planet.

Maggie: Everything moves, everything… Yeah.

Maggie: So, staying stuck is… It's our mind being stuck, but our bodies and life and nature, it moves.

Maggie: And it moves us as well.

Maggie: So, yeah.

I love that so much.

Maggie, there's always the opportunity for change. Always.

It may be really difficult, it may be really frustrating. Somebody may give you some really terrible homework to do that just drives you crazy.

But there's always an opportunity for change.

So beautiful.

Maggie: Hmm.

Thank you so much for coming and sharing your story. It really touched me.

Maggie: You're welcome, and thank you.