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Stripped Naked: A Tantric Journey of Self-Love
Author Sherry Tuegel's journey from Quaker meetings to tantric healing offers a roadmap for anyone seeking deeper connection with their whole being. Her new book, Stripped Naked and Other Songs of Love, takes you along this tantric healing journey.
Details
In this soul-stirring episode, author and energy worker Sherry Tuegel shares how her Quaker childhood taught her to "sit down and wait for God to talk to you" – creating a foundation for the profound spiritual experiences that would shape her life. With disarming honesty, she describes moments of divine guidance, including hearing clear messages during personal crises: "Sherry, you don't learn with your mind."
What sets Tuegel’s perspective apart is her refreshing take on spiritual duality. Rather than viewing our separateness as something to transcend, she celebrates it: "We come here for this dance of duality... I get to know you as something different from me and that, to me, is exquisite." This philosophy creates space for both spiritual unity and human individuality.
Tuegel describes her encounters with Sekhem (All Love) energy – an ancient Egyptian transmission that Patrick Ziegler received during an overnight stay in the Great Pyramid of Giza. During All Love sessions, this energy goes "wherever you're blocking love or wherever you need healing," triggering profound physical sensations, emotional releases, and spiritual openings. The hosts share their firsthand experiences with this powerful modality, describing light visions and feelings of safety that transcended typical social experiences.
Perhaps most courageously, Tuegel discusses her integration of sexuality and spirituality through tantric practices. Challenging Western reductions of tantra to merely sexual techniques, she explains that "red tantra is the little fingernail on the body of tantra" – with meditation forming the majority of the tradition. Her journey into tantric healing merged spiritual awakening with embodied pleasure, where practitioners "turned to light bodies" during a session.
Throughout our conversation, Tuegel returns to simple yet profound guidance: "Love yourself and feel deeply into your heart and let it be the leader." By grounding in bodily sensation and heart-centered awareness, we access the present moment where transformation occurs.
Ready to experience deeper self-acceptance and spiritual connection? Listen now and discover how honoring your whole being—body, heart, and spirit—creates the foundation for authentic awakening.
Contact and References
Email: sherrytuegel@verizon.net
Website: www.body-beloved.com
Phone: 410-598-1010
Book: Stripped Naked and Other Songs of Love, Author, Sherry Tuegel (Available on Amazon under Books)
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Welcome to the Mystical Mermaid Lounge podcast, a space where all spiritual seekers are honored and celebrated. This podcast was born from the journeys of your hosts, who have each faced her own dark night of the soul, but they've emerged with an unshakable belief in divine connection, cosmic inspiration and her true life's calling. Join us on a journey of personal growth, transformation and magical self-discovery. Your first co-host is Chloe Brown, a gifted intuitive empath and shadow work life coach. Your second co-host is Keoni Starr, an intuitive energy worker and acclaimed past life regressionist. The Mystical Mermaid Lounge podcast starts now. Hello and welcome to the Mystical Mermaid Lounge podcast. This is Keone, and I have Chloe on this episode with me. We are both there she is. We are both extremely excited to introduce to you today a new friend of mine, but someone who has definitely been a very influential and instrumental person in the Mid-Atlantic spiritual community for quite a while and has just been someone that I have enjoyed learning about, and she's also a new author and released a book that I have thoroughly enjoyed that we will also discuss here today as well.
Speaker 1:Sherry's bio starts out with a beautiful quote find a freedom so complete all searching ends. Taste a love so deep you disappear inside its depths. With that, you can probably already tell that Sherry Teagle is a captivating speaker, teacher, energy worker and recent author of her memoir Stripped Naked and Other Songs of Love. Her work and her writings are focused on sharing unconditional love, infused with her rich background in psychology, reiki, sakhem, all Love, psyche, k Matrix, energetics and Tantra. Her wicked wit, which I hope we hear today, and transparent vulnerability speak directly to the hearts of her readers and students. Sherry has helped hundreds remove limiting beliefs, ignite their hearts and become embodied in the raw sweetness of the present moment. She offers easy ways to let go of misery and live more authentically, encouraging everyone to embrace and explore all of life in its secret mystery. The next piece of information will be posted on our show notes. For anyone who's interested To learn more about her work, see her website at wwwbody-belovedcom. Her memoir Stripped Naked and Other Songs of Love can be found under books on amazoncom. If you would like a signed copy of her book or buy one from me at an inflated price or would like to make an appointment, please contact Sherry at SherryTegel at Verizonnet.
Speaker 1:To see Sherry in person. She is awesome in presentations and teaching all different types of modalities. She's just so exciting to just engage with in person. She is going to be coming out to Karma Fest on June 28th and giving a talk at 515 in the Carriage House at Stepping Stone Museum in Haver, to Grace, maryland. Her talk is titled Songs of Love a Tantric Journey, and she will be signing books afterward. Her final quote, which is beautiful just as beautiful as the first one, is love, has a message for you. It speaks through our heart and body. Hearing this message will change your life, heal the past and open to possibilities you cannot imagine. Happiness awaits. Beautiful. Thank you. Do you have any time to sleep?
Speaker 3:Me.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, you fit that in there somewhere. That is, I mean, that is an amazing. Much as possible, as much as possible. I love a person who prioritizes their own sleep. I can totally dig that and you know what, not to be facetious, but I think one of the problems in Western culture in general is that and I've heard this said so many times there's time enough to sleep when you're dead, and the problem is, I'm not sure you're sleeping while you're dead. Secondarily, I'm hoping like hell that I don't have this body when I'm dead, right and need sleep Right Exactly. And thirdly, I'm hoping not to facilitate an early death by failure to sleep, and I think that a lot of our anxieties and just general wellness and mental health in general is really suffering for lack of sleep.
Speaker 3:Just my personal opinion I agree.
Speaker 1:Everything was fascinating in Sherry's book, but one of the things I found so fascinating was your spiritual upbringing, because you came from a Quaker household and I know super little. As I told Sherry, I know two things about Quakers. One, it was the guy on the oatmeal box and he looked kind, needed a little bit of a haircut, but all good. The second thing is I always read when I was reading about any sort of slavery, oppression, african diaspora, those types of things in our history, was that I know the Quakers were very staunch abolitionists, but that is all I know. So I would love to hear more from you and how Quakerism shaped you spiritually.
Speaker 3:I am so grateful for being raised Quaker. I truly am. I was taught as a child to go in they called it meeting, not church. You go into meeting, you sit down and you wait for God to talk to you. You're silent before the meeting, but they actually apparently had a half an hour. I never even knew that until I was much older, which was funny. But to be able to sit down and be told, to listen to the still small voice within and to know that God would talk to you.
Speaker 3:I remember telling someone years ago that I was sitting in meeting and I was mad because my mother's death and the loss of her conscious ability. I always thought that we got wiser as we got older. Here I watched this complete crash and I was terribly depressed about it. And I was sitting in meeting angry. How do you learn? How do you learn? Well, how could she learn? And I heard word for word as I am speaking to you now Sherry, you don't learn with your mind. And I was still mad and I went trick answer. I didn't want to believe it, but I heard it out loud and I was telling this story to someone and they were going.
Speaker 3:Did you get scared? Because they had no concept that you could actually hear the voice of God in your head. God, aliens, angels or guides, whatever it was, it was clear it was speaking to me and ever since I was little I knew you could actually hear the voice of God In Quaker meeting. The people in the meeting are the people that preach, so to speak. You get led to say something and you stand up and say it and then you sit back down and in some meetings they're called popcorn meetings because everybody gets up and starts talking, sometimes has a little argument back and forth, and then they start apologizing back and forth. It's really funny. I am deeply grateful to be taught basically meditation from infancy, for as early as I got taken in and had to be quiet. I might not have been very quiet in the beginning, but I took a friend of mine who was Lutheran.
Speaker 3:We've been friends since I was 14 years old. She was 14 and a half, yeah, he's older than me. Anyway, I took her to Quaker meeting and she says well, my only problem is there's not enough liturgy. And I didn't even know what she was talking about, liturgy being the process the stand up, sit down, pray at this time, do this, do that. And I didn't even know what that was.
Speaker 3:And the first time I actually went to a standard church in my early teens, I was sitting in the pews and all of a sudden they got up and started running around the church doing stations of the cross. I was sitting in the pews and all of a sudden they got up and started running around the church doing Stations of the Cross and I was actually shaking. I was so afraid I thought they only stayed up there with the choir. How could they come out and start walking around the pews? I just freaked out. So I was not raised with that and lots of people and I'd say the majority of folks in this country probably have been raised with some kind of ritual.
Speaker 3:I wasn't raised with rituals and I'm really grateful for that. And I have learned to get past my fear of ritual and understand the beauty of ritual and how it can deepen the experience that you're having. It's not that I'm opposed to ritual. It took me a while to get over it but I realized no, this is good stuff. Some of this really will deepen your experience and connect you with the divine. I like being open. I call myself eclectic spiritually. My same friend that was wanting liturgy in the Quaker meeting. She was upset for me for years for becoming Hindu, and I went what do you mean? I'm not Hindu. And then she says look at all this in the house. And I'm looking around, going oh yeah, there are lots of pictures of gods and things, because I love it all. And then I say but there's Buddha, look, there's Buddha. I have a couple of statues of Buddha. I've been very eclectic.
Speaker 2:I love that. Do you believe that that lesson of sitting in the moment and listening to the stillness within taught you to take a moment and listen to the silence and you'll get clarity? I think that's what so many of us are missing.
Speaker 3:I agree it's like dropping out of the ego a little bit. Anyway, I have a big ego. I'm very good at having a big ego, yay. And I don't beat myself up because I feel like we come here for this dance of duality. We come here for the experience of I'm separate from you and it creates the beloved other. To me, the beloved other is our separation. I get to know you as something different from me and that, to me, is exquisite. I love that so much. Thank you. I really do enjoy that we are separate beings, that we have our separateness and our egos.
Speaker 3:I don't beat the ego up as much as lots of folks who are in the spiritual tradition can, much as lots of folks who are in the spiritual tradition can. It's not that I don't understand that it can be a rascally problem. Here's my little evil side. I was watching a Buddhist thing where they were doing a ritual to build the energy for their sacred work and they were doing the mandala and all of a sudden the head guy has this knife that looks kind of like a snake and he's stabbing the ground to kill the poltergeist. So they don't upset the ritual and I knew immediately that I was one of the poltergeist trying to screw up their ritual. I laughed like hell. I thought it was hysterical. So there's part of me that's Wile E Coyote, or the trickster. A friend of mine said yes, well, the thing about the trickster is usually the trick is on them. And I went oh crap, I like the ego, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me.
Speaker 1:There's so many things that you said that we could unpack. There's so many things that you said that we could unpack. So, number one I love the fact that your perspective on duality is so healthy. I do believe that we're all one. I do believe, like drops in the ocean, we're all water droplets that then create the oneness. I believe that with all my heart, but we're still each individual water droplets that are larger or smaller, or faster or slower, or come in at a slant. So oftentimes we focus so much in the spiritual community on unity that we forget to look at the beauty of duality.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, and you're saying that you enjoy getting to know the duality is really amazing.
Speaker 3:Oh, I definitely do, and not always. There are times when I'd rather not get to know certain parts of the duality because they have a lot of darkness with them. But I think that challenges me to love unconditionally. However good or bad I am at it, I don't want to reflect back the ugly that's coming at me. There's a wonderful story the mirrored palace that a king built and left it open that anyone could come in.
Speaker 3:Popeye the dog, the scruffy little dog, is walking by this palace. He sees the open door and he walks in and he looks around and he sees all these uncertain looking scruffy dogs looking back at him and he starts to get upset. So he growls and they all growl back, and then he gets more upset and then he starts barking at them and they all growl back. And then he gets more upset and then he starts barking at them and they all bark back and he finally runs out in terror.
Speaker 3:A little bit later, this ecstatic Sufi comes walking by. He sees the open door, he decides to go into the palace and all of a sudden he looks up and sees all these smiling Sufis looking at him and he just smiles even bigger and then he waves back and they all wave at him and he just feels wonderful and he leaves. I want to be the smiling Sufi, not Popeye, the dog, and we're always reflecting back the energy that comes at us. That's just natural. It's animal instinct fight or flight but I'm working very hard at reflecting back that loving, waving Sufi.
Speaker 1:That's important to me tangibly how what we call out to the world is what we call back in. And I think often when we think of energy, it seems so intangible to us because we can't necessarily see it or feel it 24, seven that we don't necessarily understand. If you're going to be an angry, hateful individual, that's the kind of reaction you tend to get in life as you walk through life.
Speaker 3:And even if you're not putting it out there, if you're doing it inside, you're making yourself. That's the kind of reaction you tend to get in life as you walk through life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and even if you're not putting it out there, if you're doing it inside, you're making yourself extremely miserable. Yep, absolutely Choose not to do that. Yes, I saw something on Instagram threads the other day about happiness being a choice is one of the most useless mantras they've ever heard and I thought actually it was one of the most powerful, positive things I'd ever heard. People are feeling badly and they're thinking how am I supposed to be happy in this moment? I get that, but then they come see you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was definitely just going to add to that your statement about exploring and enjoying the dance of duality, understanding so darn hard on myself. Embrace that, support it and grow from it, versus it always being a good or bad. This is wonderful, that was awful. That's just powerful.
Speaker 3:Beautiful In Tantra. I've got to tell you I know of enough tantra to be dangerous. I haven't studied years and years of the tantras. There's something called the tantras out of India and there's enormous amounts of study that you can do. I have friends who have studied it and they always amaze me at their depth.
Speaker 3:There's a saying there is no right or wrong, it just is. And the Dalai Lama, who is the head of one Tantra tradition in the world not everybody understands that. Most people in this country think Tantra is all about sex because there's something called red Tantra, the sexual practices, and they think that's all tantra. My tantrika said to me on the body of tantra red tantra is the little fingernail on the body of tantra. It's that small. The lion's share of tantra is the meditation. So the Dalai Lama says there is no right or wrong. Now, when we're making things right or wrong, we are imprisoning ourselves. And then there are times when you just know this is the right action. In Buddhism, right action is one of their mainstays, right? I have not studied Buddhism enough. I'm getting very drawn because my mind has been crazy recently and I'm like what is this mindfulness? Will it stop me from being crazy? I think that's a good idea.
Speaker 1:I have to admit that I know as much about Buddhism as you do about the tantras in general, but it is Buddhism and that statement of there is no good or bad, right or wrong, it just is, is what saved me when my son was spiraling out into mental illness and drug use and homelessness and I just kept thinking the existential crisis why am I having to deal with this much pain? I don't want to live anymore with this much pain and for whatever reason, it was those Buddhists, the Eightfold Path, the Four Roots, and how to accept and allow. As my mentor, Megan Plummer, tells me, you have this in your book. I will read a segment of it and I think Osha was the one that spoke to society, denouncing sex as corruption and suppression, In the societal terms, of what we accept as being good or bad.
Speaker 1:I realized was really what I was holding on to. Of course I want my son to be healthy. Of course I want him to flourish, but what I mostly wanted was for him to be like everybody else, my perception of what everyone else seemed to have a good job, a good education, a great family support system, friends. It really wasn't only the pain of seeing him in so much turmoil and lack of wellness. It was also my attachment to how I thought he would be living. The dream which I've come to realize was my reality of the dream, Maybe not his, maybe not for this lifetime.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm with you. That peeled back a whole lot of layers that made me very uncomfortable, but I couldn't have grown from it if I hadn't. Yes, yeah, wow, I sat in a session of all love with you and you told us a little bit about your mentor, patrick Ziegler, and how that relationship changed a lot of your spiritual perspective, and I was wondering if you could give us a summary on how that unfolded, especially his being in the pyramid, and then how much it changed your perspective, because from that moment on, your path shifted.
Speaker 3:Definitely, definitely did. I was introduced to all love from one of my Reiki masters and I talk about him, I call him Jack in the book. I ended up having a few experiences with an all love class with Jack. They were so powerful In one class I didn't want to breathe because it interrupted the stillness that I was in and I knew that this was something important and I'd heard that actually often the classes were like very intense and lots of emotional release and things like this. It wasn't my experience in the classes with Jack, but I wanted to meet the person who founded it, which was Patrick Ziegler, and apparently in, I think, 1980, he spent the night in the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Speaker 3:He was an architect, he was always drawn to the pyramids. He was on vacation or break from doing service work and he actually snuck in. He found this little hole in the wall with a grate over it that was unlocked and he snuck into that and after everyone had left, he comes out and he goes up to the sarcophagus in the big room and he says gets inside and to cross-legged meditate. So this is the big experience. And then it bit him. The place was full of mosquitoes and he hates mosquitoes. So he had brought toilet paper with him just in case, even though he'd fasted days before, and he wrapped everything that was exposed with toilet paper.
Speaker 3:So he looked like a mummy apparently, and this is terrible. But at some point he hears this. I don't know how to describe it, but he heard this noise coming up the steps into the pyramid. He thought he was going to get discovered, so he became very still, but it just continued to come up towards that area. The story I originally heard was there was a blue light that came into the room. I don't know if he's still telling that story, but in the old days it was a blue light that came into the room and it had this infinity.
Speaker 1:Sounds beautiful Like that infinity symbol. Beautiful like that infinity symbol.
Speaker 3:And it came right over where he was and he recognized that that was why he came. So he accepted it Okay, I'm ready. And it went right into his heart and he went into this ecstatic experience. What that energy was is Sakem. Sakem is out of Egypt. It's been there since ancient times. It's the energy of a lot of the sacred sites, if not all of the sacred sites in Egypt. And just stayed with that energy until he knew it was time to hide again and wait for people to come in and then come out of the pyramid. And he did. And they started chasing him because he was covered in white dust. I don't know if you've heard that, but sacred ash, he knew what they were saying but he pretended he didn't. He got on a bus and got away. So hopefully this doesn't put him in jail the next time he goes to Egypt. I hope so anyway. Now he takes folks to Egypt to have these amazing experiences.
Speaker 3:I have one of my friends who went I'm too claustrophobic to ever do the Great Pyramid. Thank you very much. But that Sakem energy has changed my life. It's very, very evocative. You had mentioned the heart opening. It's so heart opening. Do you want to tell me a little bit about your experience with the class that day at Winterfest.
Speaker 1:The way that the Winterfest was set up. It was in a hotel and I was sitting in front of one of the breakout rooms. I could see when the facilitators would go in there and people didn't really know where to go because it would kind of like blend it into the wall. It was so busy and there was so much noise. So Sherry brilliantly announces hers because she had been in the room for a few minutes and was noticing people weren't really sure where to go. So she announced where the session was being held. And when she called it heart opening or all love, well, I have to do that. Who would say, nah, that's not me.
Speaker 1:So you had to sit in a circle and we introduced ourselves briefly. I felt immediately that it was a safe space and Sherry gives a visceral feeling of safety and security, like, come as you are. We had some non-binary folks there. We had people of different cultures, people of color, people of different cultures, people of color, people of all different ages. Then you start singing and I thought what is going on here? You ever stand in front of a marching band for the first time and you hear that fullness, or a pipe organ, and you feel that fullness of just being overwhelmed with beautiful vibration.
Speaker 1:So when you started to do this meditation song, it sounded like there were words. I did not know, but it didn't even matter. I'm sitting here holding hands with people I don't know. Have they washed their hands? These are the things that normally go through my mind and I didn't even care Right and I did not disinfect as soon as I walked back out of there. These are the things that normally go through my mind and I didn't even care Right and I did not disinfect as soon as I walked back out of there, because it just felt so good and it was heart opening.
Speaker 1:It can take me a little while to get still, so I don't expect that much from myself in a public type of setting where I don't know people, and it's the first time there was a lot of noise. But what I did see was a lot of beautiful blue light and very visual types of energy going on in my mind's eye, and that is always a good feeling for me. Then you had one individual that you knew quite well. They were in this session and they were very vibratory, very somatically energetic, and I loved seeing that, because I wasn't raised that way where we cared too much.
Speaker 1:You had to be dead before you called out of work. I realized over the past year how much I've been ignoring my body and when I saw that young person just allow it, I thought, damn, I just gave you the Cliff's Notes version of all of the different things that I was thinking in a short period of time. That really opened me up to the voice, that vibration, the energy of even holding hands of people, I don't know getting past that initial slight anxiety. Just, I mean, it's that closeness and we're used to keeping a distance and then allowing your voice in and just going with it. It was beautiful.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, it is an amazing experience and I usually start with the meditation after a little bit of introduction to tell people. You'll feel this energy both physically it may be a slight vibration in the body. It could get very strong and if you pay attention to it it gets stronger. Then emotionally it seems to trigger people emotionally quite a bit. And in a big class or with a class with folks who have done the all love experience, before you'll start the meditation, somebody will start laughing usually me laughing out loud, because we suppress our laughter as we push it back, start screaming in rage. It triggers people fast. When you've been in a big group it's really amazing. So to me, the Sakem energy, the all love energy, goes wherever you're blocking love or wherever you need healing and it has a tendency to knock on that door and say you want to deal with this and you can say no. Not a good idea to say no, it's best to say yes. Over the years people have gone to an all love class and resolve things that they've been in therapy for years. They resolve it in a class or two and it's pretty amazing to watch that evolution. Or they take quantum leaps into what needs to be done.
Speaker 3:The singing is toning. I always call it toning and also I fought it. I was raised Quaker. It's the Society of Friends is the actual name. Quakers are called Quakers because they would quake in the sight of God, so they would shake. They don't shake anymore, at least I haven't seen them shake. I shake but they don't shake. I should go back to meeting and see what happens when I start shaking during the that's interesting, because you came full circle.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely. I came back into the shaking part. I don't know whether I even knew why Quakers were called Quakers in the old days, but I certainly know it now. Language you start basically speaking in tongues and I kept feeling like I wanted to let this out and I wouldn't and I wouldn't and I finally just let it go. So part of the toning and the words you don't understand are that, so to speak, light language or speaking in tongues, coming through and I always thought I don't know what it's doing. I don't know what it's doing. I don't know what it's doing. And I had a class. A woman came up to me in the class that I was holding and she said you said to me exactly what I needed to hear in my own native tongue.
Speaker 3:I don't speak Spanish and I was speaking Spanish. She told me you said I forgive you, I didn't know that. I said that I had no idea. The energy of these classes can bring in amazing experiences of meshing together what needs to happen for the folks that are there. So chem energy is just incredible and it's very powerful. Oh, I talked about physical and I talked about emotional. There's also the mental level it hits and if it hits you in the mental level and you start to feel dizzy, you better lie down, because you're just going to fall down. It turns the mind off. I've watched people drop boom like a rock. So we tell everybody if you start to feel dizzy, please lie down. Even sitting in a chair you can fall out of it, so better to be on the floor. And then, of course, the last is it affects the spiritual energy in the sense of people will see auras or see angels or their favorite sacred images. It's amazing. Yes, I'm a big fan. Thank you, Patrick Ziegler.
Speaker 1:Thanks, pat, for me too, ditto.
Speaker 2:Ditto from Chloe. So, sherry, do you think that it could be you channeling?
Speaker 3:Well, that's interesting, that's almost the word I started to use. It just comes through me and it's nothing that I am creating. So, yes, I would say that the speaking in tongues is kind of a channeled experience. Years ago, when I was in my retreat with Patrick in New Zealand, which I write about in the book, he actually told me at some point that he saw me channeling and I went well, that's interesting. And I've had moments when it happens through and sometimes I'll write it down. I've always found it amazing that some of the stuff that's happening with the channeling of many people, that some of the stuff that's happening with the channeling of many people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it sounds to me like that's what you're doing and that each one of those sessions, anytime you have that platform opportunity, that they're all a little bit different, they're structurally similar. It's about the people and the energies that are involved in that particular one, and then something in you just flows.
Speaker 3:One of the things that Patrick told me years ago when I was starting to teach was trust the energy. So it's in charge. I'm not. There are a number of practices that Patrick has come up through the years that help open people up more and they can be very powerful, and so I would honor the fact that he's done this and has so many practices.
Speaker 3:But my favorite part of the classes is when the music is playing usually some beautiful, beautiful music. People just get swept up into whatever needs to come out of them. People just get swept up into whatever needs to come out of them and they're invoking and people start speaking in tongues. There's this one wonderful woman that we were howling like coyotes together. It was hysterical and laughing. I love the flow. That's my favorite part. So my classes often have a lot of flow or just a lot of music to take you where you need to go, and every once in a while I'll throw in why don't you talk to the person that you're the most angry at and say it out loud as if they're in front of you, and then let them speak back to you whatever they want to say, but use your voice what they're saying back? It's like stay present moment. I think that is fabulous and I love sharing that.
Speaker 1:It takes the emotional charge out of it. Once you get it out there and then to allow that voice, that from your guides, from whomever, to allow that voice of the other individual to speak back to you, gives you just instantaneous awareness of maybe how they felt or maybe their perspective, and allows you to own that experience. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:It is amazing, and I have seen people get stuck in. They can't see the person. Usually when they do that, we go back and forth. So what do they say? What do you say? Sometimes somebody just gets stuck in the I hate them, they hate me, and that's the time when I go. I want you to speak to their soul, their enlightened soul. What does their enlightened soul say to you?
Speaker 3:when you speak to that part of who they are so that they can reach out of the ego trap that they're in with the anger and the contest between the two of them. So that's always powerful, because that actually often just happens, but it doesn't always. Now I want you to speak to that enlightened soul of theirs. What do you want to tell their enlightened soul? It's like tell the dumbass ego to cut it out, whatever.
Speaker 1:Right, that guy was a prick. Now I have a problem with him. No, okay, guess what this prick is a child of God, if you want to call it, or a creator manifestation.
Speaker 3:Yes, right.
Speaker 1:Right Now the tables have been turned, because now you're two equals, no longer feeling suppressed or oppressed.
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:And I think that, chloe, the term that you use by channeling is perfect because, while I didn't understand personally what Sherry was saying, I did because I spoke here, so I don't need to know the language, because what's being conveyed it's an energetic transmission of love, acceptance, safety and safety and security. That may sound super boring to some people oh, I'm safe and secure. No, that's really big. If you're going to allow yourself to be vulnerable and connect with other people, to be in a safe and secure environment is huge and you provided it.
Speaker 3:The thing that kept me from teaching at first. I knew the kind of space you have to hold and I wasn't ready for quite a while. But after going to New Zealand and working with Patrick and his now ex-wife for 10 days, I really felt enmeshed and deepened by that experience and so I was ready to begin to hold the space for folks and it's been incredible. It's been incredible. I'm really grateful for Sakem Olam is what Patrick calls it.
Speaker 1:I think I pronounced it with a more Yiddish Sakem, but L'chaim for everyone. In your book and I chose these terms purposely you lay bare many things, including your unrequited feelings for one of your mentors, jack, discomfort with your weight, reflections on parts of you that recognize needed healing, and I wondered what was your motivation behind that to lay your soul and your personal challenges and lay that out there for the public to digest and potentially judge, because I remember you're talking about sending out pictures and getting some pushback.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. My book isn't for everyone. It is very explicit sexually and I am pretty damn honest. There's very, very, very little that I held back, and my first intention for the book was to promote Patrick. Actually, I had such an incredible experience and he made me keep a diary while I was in the retreat of each day, so that became the beginning of the book.
Speaker 3:I felt like we all have this part of ourselves where we hope nobody else sees it, hope nobody else sees it. You know that we feel a sense of shame or fear, and I just was kind of over it. I didn't want to hold back anything. I wanted to show how dark I had to go to get to the light. There's a Rumi quote the wound is the place where the light enters you. I love that. Wound is the place where the light enters you. I love that. And then there's also the I think it's Kintsugi Japanese join with gold, where they take broken pottery and they put it together with gold and it makes something more beautiful. So that is actually what came to me when I first saw that you wanted to ask this question why did you do this? And my first response was why, indeed, did I do this?
Speaker 1:What was I thinking?
Speaker 3:What the hell was I thinking putting this out there? But I think a lot of people will identify with it and folks would ask me well, who are you writing this book for? And I didn't have an answer and didn't have it and I thought I'm writing the book for the people who will love it, period. It's not for everybody. It's for the folks that are going to get something out of the up and down journey that I've been through, and I am speaking out for sex positive stuff, I'm speaking out for body positive stuff and I'm also being honest about times when it just all blew up in my face in one way or another and I'm curious at how the book affected you in some of that.
Speaker 1:I always like to hear those things, what you felt in seeing this raw journey that I've gone on what you felt in seeing this raw journey that I've been on, I want to say it's explicit A lot of it about her love that she had, the attachments that she faced and the loving connections she had to question with some people, the graphic nature of a lot of the sexual experiences that you had. Maybe people might be offended by that or offended by sexuality or those types of things. If that does offend people, okay, I get that, but it is not vulgar, it is not obscene. You do not consider the male or female body in any way disgusting or dirty or refer to any of the experiences you had in a way that wasn't respectful to all people in this situation or their mindset. Those are the things that always put me off was if I felt like I was reading a Harlequin romance that was just so ridiculous or something filthy, when this wasn't intended to be filthy. This was intended to share a journey that you took.
Speaker 1:So, that is the way I took that number one. Number two if it did nothing and I could talk, this could be a whole episode in and of itself. If it did nothing else but increase my respect for you and your honesty, then I think it's a win-win. So therefore, this book was for me.
Speaker 3:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:In the words of Viktor Frankl, the unexamined life is not worth living. So, to that end, anybody has the balls to talk about their own feelings and their own shortcomings and their own challenges, Anybody who has the balls to put that out there and who learned from it. It wasn't just like look at all the shit I did. It was look what I did and look where I've come from and look what I've realized about myself. I think that speaks huge to who you are as a person, and the pictures that you put in that book are so tasteful and beautifully done. If you can appreciate just the beauty of the human body in all shapes and forms, this book isn't for you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Sherry had asked me to just include the back page of her book, so it seems like a good time to do that now. It says travel with Sherry to New Zealand and beyond in this heart-opening, transparent memoir. Arriving in New Zealand shortly after her 57th birthday, sherry explores the depths and heights of her heart, body and soul, embracing all of who she is, the dark and the light. Returning home, she deepens her heart's exploration as she meets challenging tantric partners. Her love for herself and her love of others guides her through the ups and downs of her journey. Sherry hopes, through this memoir, that you too can find the joy and freedom of a deep, loving self embrace, and I did oh beautiful.
Speaker 2:Who doesn't gain from the opportunity to look at themselves in the mirror?
Speaker 3:truly, truly. The whole trick to learn is to allow whatever comes up like oh for God's sakes, I hate that saggy neck of yours. What the hell Right? I have a little thing that I teach folks to do using their own name, but I'll use mine. I love you, sherry. I love you no matter what you say, no matter what you do, no matter what you think. I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you To me. That is a wonderful mantra. To learn to just begin to allow yourself that self-love that opens you up more to love others, and it's like put the mask on first when you're in the plane. You need to learn to take care of you so that you can take care of others, and that is key Self-love.
Speaker 2:I have to say that was life-changing for me as well. I used to be over 400 pounds. Life-changing for me as well. I used to be over 400 pounds and when I took that look in the mirror that I was not prepared for at all. That's what it was. I had spent so much energy in trying to fix and help everybody else that I didn't even know who I was. Much less did I love a droplet of who I was and rebuilding. That was such a beautiful journey. But I had to refocus, like if my focus was super zoomed in on weight loss. I just wasn't getting the picture. I was just seeing like the flower in the background of the picture. But as soon as I was able to kind of zoom out a little bit and just allow the process, whatever form it may take, it was life-changing physically, mentally, spiritually. But more importantly, it gave me the foundation to build on without me building on shit. Unstable foundation, right.
Speaker 3:Right, perfect, beautiful.
Speaker 1:Wow, what about that modality really drew you in and made you feel like you needed a repositioning or reframing around sexual engagement in your own life?
Speaker 3:I didn't want it to be nasty, I didn't want it to be creepy, but I always wanted a safe sexual touch that wasn't like oh, getting married, it was a professional work. Wasn't like oh, getting married, it was a professional work. And when I first heard about the all love retreat, patrick told me you can do all love and I want you to know he doesn't do this anymore. He wants me to make that very clear. He's not combining Tantra with any of his retreats. I need to jump up and say it no, no, no more. I say it in the book 10 times. Well, maybe not that many, but a lot. He said you can do just the all love retreat or you can do the all love with the Tantra. And I went, well, and his now ex-wife was doing the Tantra. I said, well, what, what? I don't know, what do you mean? Should I do that? I don't know. He says well, go talk to so-and-so. He's just finished the retreat. And I thought, oh yeah, sure he did. He's going to choose the tantra, because of course men want that. They're going to want that.
Speaker 3:So I went over and asked him what was your experience? He says we store so much of our pain in the lower chakras that the first experience he had was so painful. He was overwhelmed and I went oh my God, I did not expect to hear that. And I said, what about the second? He got this sheepish little grin on his face and I went I'm in, I'm in. So in New Zealand prostitution is legal. I trusted Patrick. I trusted Natalie, his now ex-wife.
Speaker 3:I felt that this was something that would help me and I was starving for a positive sexual experience and this combined the healing of the all of energy and this tantric experience. I talk about it in the book at one point in one of the sessions, the two or three people that were working on me and I actually had multiple people work on me it was wonderful. They turned to light bodies. All I saw was light. That was just one of the peak experiences for me to have this kind of depth of healing, and I'm so grateful that that was opened up to me. And I'm delighted to see tantra clients and I teach them how to bring the energy up. You teach them about it can kick in kundalini. You have to be careful with kundalini because you don't want to be kundalini madness kind of. I don't want to have to get a butterfly net out, chase you around my house so stay grounded but to learn to pull the energy up through the body so that you can actually blow into that enlightened state and the sexual work.
Speaker 3:Osho said that orgasm is the first little taste of samadhi. Samadhi being enlightened because you stop, you're not thinking about anything else, you're totally in the present moment and what the tantra work does is to teach you to expand it and move from ecstasy into bliss and just kind of live in that for a while. So it's an exquisite. I'm just so deeply grateful for having had that come into my life and I've always been a sexy critter. I talked to one of my girlfriends that I met when I was born I say because you know, she and I have known each other through our parents forever and she's still a friend and I said you know who would have thought? And she says well, actually you were always kind of sexy and I went okay, I'll take that Wasn't a stretch for you, honey.
Speaker 1:It was not a stretch dear, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So we have this dichotomy in our country right now between people being incredibly bare on television and movies, and then we have the white Christian nationalist movement which is trying to suppress every other part of it. And what you've just described is, I think, what was intended for us to embrace our bodies and their sexual experience, which is being in the moment, experiencing what our bodies were meant to experience during those interactions, and then also to expand into the spirituality or it's all occurring at once, but to expand into that spirituality engagement all at the same time. It's a shame that things have been so penalized and exalted in such different ways than the experience that you recount.
Speaker 3:It's been an amazing experience and I'm deeply grateful for the depth that it's brought into my life and I've loved watching some of my clients move from. Some of the clients come in and I say tantra is about blending red, tantra it's about blending your spirituality and your sexuality and they look at me like deer in the headlight what the hell.
Speaker 3:And then they get a taste of it. It's been incredible to see some of the expansion, and I introduce them sometimes for the first time, to meditation and quiet, easy ways to get quiet. My favorite is Pema Chodron's instant meditation. You take three conscious breaths, slowly, deeply, three. They open their eyes like what the hell? They're so relaxed they can't believe it. And I add to it something that came out of the all love work, not just conscious, but feeling. The body always lives in the present moment. You breathe with the feeling, noticing is it warm, is it cool? The breath, just feeling the sensation of it going down your throat. It's expanding your chest and coming back out. The physicality of that and the quiet, really concentrating and feeling it. That opens people up deeply. It's just been. I'm very grateful for the being able to share this. This makes me very happy. I feel like it's a service that I can provide so what's changed for you since you've written your book?
Speaker 1:Was it cathartic writing it? And now that it's been published, talk dirty to me, sherry. I mean what's what's happened for you, and you can, if you want to talk dirty to me.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll keep that in mind to me.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll keep that in mind, but again, that's not how her book is written. I'm making a joke, it's not, it's just not presented that way.
Speaker 3:Right, it's been an interesting journey. I started writing this book in 2010. It got on Amazon November 2024. I self-published it.
Speaker 3:I had so much of my life focused on the writing and the editing and getting it done. When it was done, I kind of went into the what the hell am I doing now, you know? Oh my God. And then, of course, is the promotion. That's part of the job and it's not one of my favorite things to do, although I'm enjoying this. I do this a whole lot. This is wonderful.
Speaker 3:It's been interesting and one of the things I've at Winterfest, the Karma Fest on Solstice. This was the second time she'd actually said it to me. I worked with one reader and she said you're going to write five books. Worked with one reader and she said you're going to write five books and I'm going to live really long if it takes 15 years. You know what I mean Each book. Help me, lord. But that's what I've started to do.
Speaker 3:I've started to work on the next book, which a friend, my friend Andrew Jansen, said what about Beyond Naked? Why don't you call it that? And I went oh, my God, absolutely. So the next book, if it works out, will be Beyond Naked and I don't know exactly what it'll be, but there's some teachings that I want to get across that I think a lot of them are in the book, but they might have gotten lost in the book, possibly may not have gone as deeply into them as I can in another book. So we'll see what it turns out to be. If it turns out so, I had this amazing sense of accomplishment that lasted a day when it came out, a day, I was ecstatic for a day that it was done, it was out, and then it was like, okay, a million people haven't looked at it yet.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and then there's all that yeah really, but we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3:You know I sent it to a couple of people that may help promote it, and we'll see what happens. I'm very excited about what may come from this, and I love the idea of it opening things up more for Patrick as well. You know he is an incredible teacher, and so I highly recommend you get a chance to take a class from him. Take a class from him. Take a class from him. It'll rock your world. I love it when somebody who's never done anything walks in oh yeah, I've never done it and I get this evil little laugh. You know, well, just wait, this is going to be interesting for you.
Speaker 1:I think it would be really important for your voice to guide us and our spiritual seekers that listen to this podcast on any words of guidance or advice you could leave with us as we continue on our spiritual journey.
Speaker 3:Of course we talked about it already Love yourself and feel deeply into your heart and let it be the leader. The mind always wants to go off and make up all sorts of dastardly stories and so forth sometimes fascinating stories but the heart speaks beyond the ego and we all need that. Dropping into that still small space and feeling the sensation of the body too, and letting it give you the present moment Because it lives there. That's very important and the mind seldom visits there. So love to do that and, of course, meditate. Let your orgasms take you into samadhi.
Speaker 2:Let yourself enjoy those moments and really open you up to the bliss of being.
Speaker 3:I am so excited to get your book and read it and then reach out to you again. All right, I'm looking forward to it. I'd love to hear what you think. Oh beautiful.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Sherry. I knew this was going to be an amazing conversation. I just didn't know it would be this amazing.
Speaker 3:This has been delightful. You both are wonderful, and I hope you have much success with Mystical Mermaid Lounge. It's just delightful, and I enjoyed listening to Patty's talk, so that's a good one too.
Speaker 1:Thank you, my friend. I will see you, if not sooner, I will see you at Karma Fest.
Speaker 2:Oh, wonderful, wonderful. Thanks for diving into the depths with us today. If you enjoyed this episode, show your support at buymeacoffeecom forward slash mystical mermaid lounge, as every little ripple helps keep the magic flowing. Would you like some more deep soul yearning conversations? We'll then swim on over to our sister podcast, past lives cafe, where Keone deep dives into those past life experiences. Also, we'd love to hear from you. Please don't forget to rate and review and drop your feedback and comments at our website, mysticalmermaideloungebuzzsproutcom. Thank you again so much, and don't forget to catch us at the next high tide. Bye-bye.
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