Showy Ovaries with Penny Ashton.
Comedian Penny Ashton is on a voyage of discovery into the hormonal hocus pocus of menopause. So what better way to learn about her moisture moving from inside her body to perspiring out her face, than by talking to a series of wondrous women and owners of ovaries about their own lives and their menopause journeys. A series of frank and funny interviews all about what to expect, when expecting the change. Warning: salty language, and not just from the night sweats. Season Three and beyond is opening up wider to include women and trans individuals of all ages and bodily functionings.
Showy Ovaries with Penny Ashton.
Unapologetic Sonya Renee Taylor
Global juggernaut for body positivity, US Slam Poet champ poet and zen mistress repping for the Scorpio Dragons, Sonya Renee Taylor invited Penny into her West Auckland Air BnB to chat all thing Body. Friends for 20 years they initially reminisced about the UK Poetry tour that brought them together, complete with Penny's diary comments from 2006 on Sonya's "delight" at sharing a room with three poetesses and three wigs.
From there, they dive into Sonya’s groundbreaking book and global movement The Body Is Not an Apology, her early struggles accepting baldness and Penny’s ongoing difficulty loving her own fleshy bone bag.
Then also chatted about who and what Sonya got up to in college, about her 12 step journey, what it's like performing for Barack Obama at the Whitehouse and Penny’s firm disbelief in astrology — which, frankly, is exactly what you’d expect from an Aquarius.
Finally Sonya blew Penny's levels and ear drums away with a delightful hidden talent to rival Pavarotti.
CW: Drug addiction, sex addiction
Yoto Koto, no my hearty my and welcome back to another deeply sporadic episode of Shoey Ovaries Season 3. Penny Ashton here, your sweetie hostess with not the most chest for a change. That honour goes to my guest, but we'll get to that soon. I know the festive season is gearing up for full swing, it'll be madness out there, not least of which, because New Zealand's first ever IKEA has opened an Auckland City just 50 years after Australia. People will be going mad for meatballs out there, I am sure. But my guest today could never be assembled from a manual using one Alan Key. She is a complicated woman with so many moving parts, but like some others of us assembled in the 1970s, she's tenacious, vivacious, audacious, loquacious, and built to last. We met on the Four Continents Poetry Slam Tour of the UK in 2006, where I was repping the continent of Australasia and her North America. In my diary, which I scrunched up to have a look at, I described her thus. Sonia Renee, what can I say? An infuriatingly wonderful ball of talent and energy bound up in 36 Jacobs with a whole lot of attitude. An incredible performer who is used to being pampered a lot more than this trip was willing to do.
SPEAKER_04:This is all of my diary.
SPEAKER_02:And it took her a while to deal with that because I don't think sleeping with triples with the three, the only three women that were on that whole, all of us sleeping in a room together was not in your fantasy. However, this is this is still my diary. When she was on stage in her element, giving it everything to a crowd that loved her, she was awesome to watch and totally inspiring because I loved what she had to say. Her abortion poem was intense and wonderful, as was her one about tag. We got on very well and had a nice day of shopping together in Brighton. I was pleased to introduce her to Bravissimo.
SPEAKER_00:Changed my life.
SPEAKER_02:You were a whole new woman after visiting there and said that you had a waste. You were happy that you had a waste. She is the founder of a global movement based off a line she said at the Southern Fried Poetry Slam in Knoxville in 2010, which was, My body is not an apology. Soon this moment of radical vulnerability with a friend became a poem, a Facebook page, a New York Times best-selling book, and an international movement, touching tens of millions with the idea of radical self-love. She's a USA poetry slam winner, was invited by Obama to perform at the White House, a powerhouse performer, wearer of gigantic earrings, with a laugh you can hear from outer space. And my mate of nearly 20 years, please slap your fallopians together and welcome Sonia Renee Taylor to Shelly Earl.
SPEAKER_05:What a fantastic introduction.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. There's more. There's more coming. I always like to break it up because with you, there's so much. There's just so much online. Do you like do you Google Ego Surf yourself?
SPEAKER_05:Every once and again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, me too. Absolutely. That's how you find out where you're in. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_05:I have found out times where I was supposed to be doing a gig because I Googled myself. That was not a gig that anybody ever contracted me for. Literally, someone just using my image to sell tickets for a thing that I was not involved in. Like all kinds of wild things. It pays sometimes to Google yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, I mean, I'm not so famous that anyone's I'm like struggling getting people to come to my shows with my own name. Then no one's gonna be co-opting myself. So right. I mean, that's the thing that happens too when you become such a big name in such a movement is the radical self-love and stuff like that that people are gonna try and hitch on.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I mean, I guess so. It's yeah, I thought that was very strange.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, and now you're back here because you've been doing a play.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I'm back here in the capacity of my theater self, which is very throwback. Uh I haven't done a theater production in 20 years.
SPEAKER_02:Oh wow, and this is what I was sick and I couldn't come, and I'm so bombed because I wanted to see this.
SPEAKER_05:I was particularly funny, I must say. You missed that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I can't imagine. I can't imagine.
SPEAKER_02:We recorded it, so we will get to see it. And we can buy tickets to watch it online. Is that what's gonna happen? I think that's what's gonna happen. Right. So everybody listening can also do that. Hooray.
SPEAKER_05:It was part of the Altero Festival of Black Arts, a Phoba, put on by Dione Joseph Kotoras. Uh, and it's all of no basically it opened November 22nd when the show Paul Boys and Oysters opened. And then it runs clean up until December 22nd, I think. Right. It's full of all kinds of amazing arts exhibits and conversations. I'm also in another portion of the festival called Future Tense, which is a astrology and Afro-futurism creative writing workshop.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. That's a lot of words put together.
SPEAKER_05:It is a whole lot of words.
SPEAKER_02:Right, okay. I've got I allude to this a bit later on as well, but it's like, I think with us, it is really interesting that we both have very fundamental different belief systems.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_02:We so we do. And and that, you know, and I think we're we're an example for the whole world to take this. Absolutely. That we both just don't believe what the other believes, but yet we still get on really well.
SPEAKER_05:Quite well.
SPEAKER_02:And respect each other for it.
SPEAKER_05:100%. And think that this is.
SPEAKER_02:This is possible, people. It totally is.
SPEAKER_05:It's totally possible.
SPEAKER_02:It totally is. And when I say I don't believe in astrology, everyone says, but you would say that because you're an Aquarius.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And the same with tigers, apparently. Chinese tigers are also disbelieving. And I'm one of the I'm very disbelieving. There you go. But I'm glad that you are finding people that are your tribe.
SPEAKER_05:I totally.
SPEAKER_02:All over the world.
SPEAKER_05:All over the world. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right, okay. Okay, I'm gonna do my longer introduction. Oh no, but first of all, I'm gonna say that. I also found this in my diary. I forgot about that. Do you remember that I copped off with a dude? I see you remember that. I don't remember that. I love that. And that Glasgow gig. We did this, we're doing poetry slams everywhere, but in Glasgow they didn't sell enough tickets. And it was also on in the corner of a bar where they hadn't closed down the rest of the bar, which is always our dream gig.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's exactly what you want to do. That's how you want to perform.
SPEAKER_02:Please put us in the back of a loud pub. So but we we did a gig and then I picked a dude up, and his name was David. And this is what I say in my diary. I had a brief shag in Glasgow on the way with a lovely wee man called David. He was really quite a sexy young thing. And when I complimented on his expert finger work in the morning, he replied, Yes, I'm a musician. These hands are insured. I love it. So that's my diary. Uh it's always good go back to look at your eye. I've I've got something like 27 diaries.
SPEAKER_05:That's amazing. Uh life doesn't let me keep those things. Like I have diaries and then they disappear.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you move so much. Yeah, you're a nomad.
SPEAKER_05:I kind of have a life built on impermanence. Like stuff is like, yes, I'm glad you enjoyed that. It's gone now.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Yeah, okay. Whereas I have a lot I have a lot of props and stuff. But anyway, back to you because you're the most important thing. Even though I'm now gonna talk for a long time, but it's all about you, so here we go. Okay. Sonia Renee Taylor was born on the 12th of November 1976. She's always had a passion for the arts and graduated from Pittsburgh High School for Creative and Performing Arts as a musical theatre major in 1995. And I did not know that, which made it more annoying that I didn't see you on stage. She then gained a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's of science in administration and organizational management. Again, this is all on your website, but I was like, what? I didn't know. This education informed Sonia's non-profit advocacy and activism career, which included work as a sexuality health educator, a therapeutic wilderness counsellor, what? A mental health caseworker, an advocate for sex workers and those living with HIV AIDS. For over a decade, she then built an award-winning international performance poetry and poetry slam career, which is how we met, uh, which led her to the conversation in Tennessee to now, where she is the radical executive officer of The Body Is Not an Apology, which is described as a movement that's about exploring bodies, understanding identities, and connecting radical self-love with global issues of intersectional social justice. Basically, how the personal transformation can fuel social transformation. From 2017 to 2020, she lived in Aotearoa as an inaugural Edmund Hillary Fellow. And I think maybe saw firsthand that New Zealand, though progressive-ish, is not quite as egalitarian as we like to think we are, particularly borne out by our current coalition of chaos. But since then has become a resident of the globe, nomadically roaming all over and focusing on racial justice, mental health, reproductive rights and justice, spiritual healing, and much more. She published Celebrate Your Body, a Puberty Guide for Girls, which my niece very much enjoyed. She was the right age when I gave it to her, worked with Planned Parenthood, co-authored A Journal of Radical Permission, a daily guide to following your soul's calling. And together, as I said before, we are living proof that two people of radically different belief systems can still respect each other and be good mates. So I could go, there's so much on the internet about you, but I feel like it's enough time for me to talking and for you to start talking and say, Yay, it's hot, study ready. Do you how often do you sit back and take stock of all the shit that you have done in your nearly 50 years?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so close. Um often, I think particularly because, like I said, I I live a life of impermanence. So things happen and then they close. So, for example, I am the body is not an apology as an entity, is closed, it's completed. Um I didn't realize it was closed.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, sorry.
SPEAKER_05:We finished in December of 2023.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I'm very late to the party. And you just felt like it was time to focus?
SPEAKER_05:It was time to change, it was time to transition. I had said what I needed to say about that. Has anybody else taken it up, or is it just no, no, not to not in that shape or form. I mean, I think it would be kind of it it still exists, right? The books are still out in the world, it was a whole digital media and education company. So like you would be pretty brazen just to be like, I've decided now, I'm the I mean somebody could do it, but that has not happened.
SPEAKER_02:Is that because there's an enormous website of I didn't go through and have a look and is there's still thousands of documents and things like that?
SPEAKER_05:I think there's an archive that we've created, so there's access to all of the content that was ever created so that people can still look at that and find resources as they desire. All the books are still out in the world. And I think that's really what happened was like, oh, everything that's needed for people to take this journey exists. They don't need me anymore for that. Okay, and so it was time to transition into something new.
SPEAKER_02:And I feel like, man, it's just and this this is gonna sound trite. It's so easy to say, but it is so easy, but it's so hard to just accept yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I mean, I know that's your whole that was the whole point. That's like 10 years of your life.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, Penny, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It's very hard. Fuck, you know, like I know that I shouldn't care about like, you know, that minipals are weight gain that it still hasn't happened, but I'm like, is it gonna be you know, and I and I because I I struggled so long because of my epilepsy mids that made me overweight, etc. And I know I'm not supposed to care, but I just do, and I find it really hard to shake off.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I mean, it is incredibly difficult. We live in a world that says you're supposed to care, yeah, and says that your value and your worth and your access to resource and your access to love are all dependent on these things, right? Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, it's very difficult to be like, no, it's not, no, it's not, and there are 15,000 voices glaring back at you every day that are the antithesis of that. And wanting you to spend the money to make it exactly, and profiting from you that deep belief. And so it's been really interesting since I've closed the body is not an apology. You know, I've watched a very significant shift back toward body hatred and thin is better and all, you know, like after which I'm not surprised by. Right, then they're gonna sell you some things from it. And so the truth of it gets eroded, and then the commercial version of it gets exploited. Uh, which means ultimately you'll just go back to whatever the thing underneath was.
SPEAKER_02:And I mean, I guess this is like that's a kind of a historically cyclical thing, too, isn't it? Because the 60s, yeah, radical self-love. But in the 70s and then the 80s, it was all glossy commercialism in the 90s, and then yeah, yeah, and just you know, and every night when I think we might be a little bit less sexually um repressed, that changes as well. Yeah, it's like you know, the Regency was a lot more permissive than the Victorian era, yeah. You know, so it just feels like we're swimming back to really high necks and conservative trad wives and shit like that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I wonder, you know, the way I I think about it in a way that keeps me from being depressed about it. Uh how to do that. Right, expansion requires contraction, right? And then once something expands and then it contracts, it has the ability to expand further the next time it expands. Yeah, it contracts and then expands further. And that's the process of growth and development. And so, right, it what it looks like in my little blink of an existence is in no way, shape, or form the truth about what is unfolding. And when I can remember that, that like girl, you are looking at a granule of sand in the hourglass of time. Love bug, don't worry about it, do your part and keep on going. It takes a lot of stress off.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right. Yeah, totally. Totally. As as as you were saying before we started recording, it's like, what the personal is political, focus on yourself first, etc., and then see that you can make your way through the world and then try and bring others with you. Yeah, it is, it is. I I am a little bit, it's funny, right? Because with my shows, it's all about laughter, and I can call myself a joy monger, and I am a joy monger. Like Austin Found, we're about to take on tour. It's so funny, and it's so stupid. It's just stupid and uplifting and fun. And I love doing that and giving that to other people. And that's the thing that does lift me up as well. But then sometimes this modern world with our governments and you know, it just can pull you down. So you're gonna remember that, and it is connection, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05:It is like it's it's I believe that all the juice of life, the joy of life, the power of life is relational. And anything that takes me out of actually being able to be relational with someone else is actually in service of these systems of domination and oppression. You know, like I think what you just said that like we have very differing views, and we have figured out how to be loving, kind, connected human beings for 20 years, yeah, right? Yeah, like that is because the relationship is more important than all of those things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And like what happens, how do we move through life holding that principle as the foremost thing in our minds?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, yeah, and and just respect and kindness.
SPEAKER_05:At the end of the day, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, respect, empathy, kindness. They're like, then sometimes I feel that they're just so missing, but yeah, as long as you can practice that as well and and just try and find the joy. Try and find the joy. That's why I I found it difficult with COVID as well, was the not being able to meet up with people. Yeah, yeah, you know, but the I mean I can't imagine what it would have like in those Middle Ages plague times, um, when you couldn't Skype.
SPEAKER_05:Right, you couldn't Skype anyone couldn't zoom in them.
SPEAKER_02:I know, and you couldn't watch Netflix. It must have been tedious, uh, so tedious. At least we had to.
SPEAKER_05:That's why they just all died at like 45, because like who could just go on for 80 decades?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly, with all of that sort of bullshit around you. And now I've got some questions here.
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, my first question: what did you want to be when you grew up?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I wanted to be an actress, uh-huh, an author. Oh, wow. And of course I said the president at the time.
SPEAKER_02:And the president.
SPEAKER_05:And the president. I feel like you could do that. I'm good now. I'm I two out of two out of three is fine. Right. Okay, you don't be the president. But you performed for a president, so that's cool. Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_02:What was it like performing for Obama?
SPEAKER_05:I mean, it was amazing. It was an awesome back then. I really valued the presentation of that. Like that that mattered to me in a way that it just doesn't anymore. Right, okay. Um, but um, it was cool at the time.
SPEAKER_02:Fully. You did was it planned parenthood stuff that you know?
SPEAKER_05:This was I was invited to the White House Forum on Disabilities through my work with The Body's Nine Apology.
SPEAKER_02:Ah, right, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, I know. I was like, that's my friend. That's very cool. So not my as in what has changed with what you want to be when you grow up is just not president. Just not president. I think that one off the list. I mean, I can get that. Like I watched, I watched Prime Minister.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I watched it too. It was wild.
SPEAKER_02:It was so good, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was really wild to watch her journey through that time like coinciding with my journey to moving to New Zealand. It was like, oh, this is some strange sort of overlapping experiences that we were having at the micro and the macro level.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and yeah, I wouldn't wish that job on anybody.
SPEAKER_02:No, and if you if you're not aware, if you're somebody overseas, etc., Jacinda Adern was uh wonderful, I thought, Prime Minister, through so much chaos, and this is a documentary about her, and it just shows she's just such a human, you know, and people that saying she's put it on, all this sort of stuff. I just it was just so moving. And then that bit at the end when she says there's no place like home, and you know that she can't really come back here at this point in time because she gets so much abuse. Wow. It's heartbreaking.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's sad. I was I was surprised when I learned that she was in, I was like, You went to the US, uh, and got much more respect.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, but not not from the whole populace, obviously, but yeah, like she's just played the Royal Albert Hall. Yeah, you know, uh, sort of stuff whereas it would be problematic for a while. I mean, you know, Boris Johnson isn't hated as much in the UK as she is here.
SPEAKER_05:Really? That's wild. Well, I mean, she was a perfect sort of screen for people to project all of their shit on. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, every angst you have about COVID, all of your fear. Like, it was just like, oh, here's all of the sort of global anxiety that we're holding. And then that's what the prime minister or the president is is the location for all of our stuff, all of our societal stuff to get projected onto. Um, and she was that version for that time, the same way Trump is the version for the US right now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's just that anyway, we're not gonna talk about that. Uh no, instead I'm gonna ask you about now. So, this is a big, big question. Uh, how's your relationship been with your body and what journey has that been on through your life?
SPEAKER_05:Ah, that is. I guess we'll just sit here for this is now like 30 episodes showing ovaries.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:It has, you know, I think my relationship with my body has been foundational to most of my existence. It has created the conditions for so many things that have come through me. Like as a child, I didn't, you know, I didn't really think about my body until puberty. Yeah. And then all of a sudden I had big boobs.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You know, and I had big boobs, and I've had uh, you know, a booty and hips. And you know, I come from a family that is very curvy, very, we're very ample. Uh and there was, and at the same time, like my grandmother was heavier and you know, always engaged, like diet culture just sort of ran in the background, like a television in the background.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, my mom and diet culture, yeah. There's your grandma, right?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, but absolutely sort of run in the background, and I think you're yeah. And so all of the messages that you get from that, I got from that. And I also learned concurrently that my body was currency, yeah, you know. It was like, oh, this is attention, this is popularity, this is access. And and so I was getting these messages around don't get too big, but this particular shape is valuable in the world. And so figure out how you stay there. And so yeah, I think I learned really early on about the body as commodity. And I really tried to lean into that for many, many, many years. I've told this story before, and I don't even eventually I think it it doesn't have the potency that it used to have, but it still says something about that time. My cousin who passed away many, many years ago, once said to me when we were teenagers, he said, You're not cute. Guys just like you because of your body. And which was very mean.
SPEAKER_02:It was a very assholish thing to say. And also your body makes up being cute, regardless of the absolutely appalling thing to say.
SPEAKER_05:You know, I think there was something that I really internalized around that at the time. The beauty standards for a young black girl in the 90s, I was definitely the antithesis of whatever those stories, you know. I was dark skin and that wasn't valuable. I had short hair and that wasn't valuable. And so what I had was tits and that was valuable.
SPEAKER_01:36 Jacobs. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_05:And so there was some part of me that was like, oh, the exchange for attention and affection is this body and the sexual way in which people see it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And as soon as you get tits, you're you're apparently sexual. Yeah, immediately. Yeah, like you know, my nickname and form too when I was 12 was Big Tit. You know, and then and a friend of mine just recently, another friend got a breast job, and I was going, I just didn't quite understand why they wanted to do that. Because as someone who's had massive knockers, I'm like, I don't feel that, but you know, again, it's that whole thing about personal, you know, if it makes you happy. But I was talking to another friend about it, and he said, Are you slut shaming her?
SPEAKER_05:And you're like, Where is the connection between slut and and breasts? Right? But that's what's in our psyche.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. That one re I was like, what is a gay guy going saying that? And I just went, and there there's my form, yeah. Anyway, sorry, yeah, so you had tits?
SPEAKER_05:Totally. And so I learned that it was access to connection, to attention, to care.
SPEAKER_02:Um did you uh get a bit promiscuous?
SPEAKER_05:I wasn't, I was a tease in my high school year. Good. I was a tease. I was like, because I also really valued being able to say no. Like I valued, I wanted, I mean, I know this won't matter to you as someone who doesn't care about astrology, but you just say what you mean to say. I am a sixth placement Scorpio, and if you are into astrology, you will understand what that means. Uh, but Scorpio is the sign that governs sexuality. Oh. And sexuality, but seduction very specifically.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_05:And I have always loved being seductive. Always. And even as a teenager, I was like, oh, I want you to want me.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I don't, I don't necessarily plan to meet that want, but I do want you to want me. Right.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Uh so that was sort of my game. And I got very lucky. Like, you know, I could have been harmed in a multitude of ways given how I was moving at the time. But, you know, God takes care of babies and fools. Uh I've heard that before. Uh and so I got out relatively unscathed from my teen years. But the promiscuity came much later. Like, that was my twenties. It wasn't even actually at that point about my body so much as it was I realized that sex was a better feeling than all the other shitty feelings.
SPEAKER_02:Right, okay.
SPEAKER_05:And I was like, oh well, why would I have a shitty feeling when I could have sex?
SPEAKER_02:I don't understand. Okay. For me, it was like when I got to a point at university when people wanted to have sex with me, then I was really into it just because I'd wanted that for so long. And I because I lost a little bit of weight, and then got to university, and then just found found my tribe, but like I was I didn't have a really satisfying sexual experience for quite a long time. Yeah. And then once that happened, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And you were like, Yeah, yeah, this is fun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and then you get to a point where you can and you do that and you find what's good. And then I I was like, I'm never faking an orgasm.
SPEAKER_05:Ever again.
SPEAKER_02:I am well I don't think I ever really did. I must have just been like, Yeah. Me too. I never understood it.
SPEAKER_05:I was like, why would I why would I pretend to like something I don't like? I am not gonna reward bad behavior. Stop up your game. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:You need to ensure those fingers exactly.
SPEAKER_05:A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, and then once I discovered it and the joy of it, then I did it quite a lot. But I was somebody that was very good at compartmentalizing, and I don't mean that like, oh no, but I I didn't, I still don't care about or even though I do have a husband and been together for 16 years, but I was always like, I can fuck someone and it doesn't have to be, you know, it's a character. It just needs to feel good and and consensual, and we both had a nice time and then go on. Sort of I'm I'm still on board with that.
SPEAKER_05:I think it took me, I could certainly do that, but it wasn't coming from a healthy place. It was coming from yeah, I I didn't want to feel things that I actually needed to feel.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and that was that was my work, like that was part of my journey. And so, you know, I identified for many years, went through 12-step programs, worked around sexual addiction. Oh wow. I think I knew that. Yeah, okay. Um, because it felt yeah, it was definitely addict behavior um for a long time. And then I realized that it was just like, oh, there is something underneath all of these stories that actually wants to be dealt with.
SPEAKER_02:Right, okay. So did you get some therapy?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I mean, I've been I have been in therapy with the same therapist for 14 years. Wow. It's my longest-standing relationship. Yeah, wow.
SPEAKER_02:Mine was with a hairdresser before Matt Cameron. Five years with a hairdresser, which is like therapy. Yeah. It was a very beautiful hairdresser. Anyway, 14 years. That is like, I mean, how do you break up with a therapist?
SPEAKER_05:That must be I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Like I don't want to know.
SPEAKER_05:I don't want to know. However, I do feel like we may be approaching a completion season. I it feels that way. We went like a month and a half without a session uh since I left, and I was like, am I going to not talk to my therapist ever again? And then, you know, I think we both know that we may be approaching that time.
SPEAKER_01:Right, okay.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and there's a yeah, I feel I trust it. I trust it. I trust it'll happen when it's time. Um and in the meantime, she's just been one of the greatest guides I've ever had in my life.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing. Yeah. Wonderful. It's been a gift. So that was when you were in your 20s. That and and when did you start the 12-step with the city?
SPEAKER_05:So I started my I went to my first 12-step meeting in 2003.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_05:So, and then yeah, and then I went out and just acted crazy for several years, and then went back and I went out and I went back and I went out. So I did that for many years. I would say that I I really stood in the practice of recovery probably 2000, 2011, I started really trying. Okay, but it wasn't until 2013 after my mother passed where it really became like, oh no, I would like to heal.
SPEAKER_02:And you had a very complicated relationship with your mother. Yes. And did that manifest through you your being? Because your mother had some challenges.
SPEAKER_05:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Can you speak to how that might have affected you with your own with your body and your addictions?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, totally. So my mother was an addict. She had a very severe drug addiction for most of my life. We stopped living together when I was 10 years old. And then she came back into my life when I was 24, right after I graduated college.
SPEAKER_02:So you didn't see her for the 14 years?
SPEAKER_05:Very sporadically.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, right, okay.
SPEAKER_05:Um and then she came back into my life. Uh she got sober, she recovered, she started a whole new life. It was this beautiful reconciliation. And then that lasted for about seven years. Um, and then she slipped into alcoholism. Oh, and then she died in 2012. Uh so yeah, it was a we had quite a wild ride, my mother and I. And I think that my addiction, like I said, I was like, oh, sex feels good, and these memories don't. And so, yay, sex. And in addition to the fact that like I come from a lot of addiction in my family. Um, and so there's some part of that that I'm certain is just genetic. And I, you know, in some ways, I feel like I lucked up. I got maybe one of the easier addictions to kick, I think. It's better than crack. I'll take sex over crack. Definitely better than crack. You know, sex over meth, I'll take, you know. So less wrinkles. Yeah, right. I was like, it looks less hard on me, that's for sure. But yeah, I think that the stories of abandonment, the all of those things were just, yeah, very deeply embedded in me.
SPEAKER_02:From zero to ten. Yeah. It's quite formative.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so you were often by yourself and yeah, there was a, you know, there was a lot of neglect. There was just, yeah, it was addiction. Now, one of the things that I think is very fascinating, I've been thinking about this a lot, is like the imprint of what I think most people would define as neglect being very much a hallmark of children of the 80s in one way or another. Right. Whether it's addiction, whether you're whether you were a latchkey kid because your parent had to work all the time, whether they were zoned out. I was like, oh, we were all, as a generation, just kind of on our own.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I think I will just go from four. No, maybe four, like six or something. I don't know. Think about that now, and you just go, did I? Yes, I did.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, I did. There was a real, like, you know, laissez-faire kind of parenting happening back then.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, you just think about our monkey bars, were just all the things that were ground into concrete.
SPEAKER_05:Concrete, just round metal edges, just may God keep your teeth in place. Like, this is what it is. The amount of broken bones on trampolines. We were really just sort of feral as a collective, as a generation. Right. And so, yeah, I think all of those stories of abandonment, the stories of if I were good enough, she would stay.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, honey, that's so heartbreaking.
SPEAKER_05:All of those things definitely were sort of deeply embedded in me. And so, of course, I've, you know, I was like, I don't know. I could be exaggerating. This, I would actually not true of sex, but certainly true of romantic partnerships. I don't know if I've had a romantic partnership that wasn't me trying to fix my relationship with my mother.
SPEAKER_02:Oof, right, okay.
SPEAKER_05:You know, and I think that I don't think I'm uh an anomaly inside of that. We often are trying to fix our parental relationships inside of our romantic relationships. Or seek the confrontation. Or seek the opposite, right? Which is still trying to fix that relationship, right? True. So there's a way in which I'm confronted now. Sorry. Okay. Okay, hi Matt. Yeah, anyway. Right. And I think that part of my journey has been, right? What happens if I just face that thing, right? If I'm not, can I fix it through you? Can I fix it through you? Can I and instead I just turn toward the stories that were inside of those circumstances? If I turn toward my mother, right? Like even in her not physical self, right? But can I turn toward her and actually go back and try to resolve that thing there? And that's really what I feel like my my journey of recovery and healing has been about.
SPEAKER_02:And do you think you're well, you can you're never done that, are you? I mean, you know, I think it's the assignment of human. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. But you know, and that and it's amazing how long it takes, eh?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, you know, I think it's the thing that makes me the most cranky. I'm just like, I'm not done yet. Like 14 years of non-stop therapy, and I'm not done. Um, but what I have arrived at uh is a really powerful pivotal moment in this last year where I was faced with a moment where it was very clear to me that I had reached the end of the things I could fix. Right. And it was incredibly confronting because I think that I had started my healing journey being like, great, I will just fix myself until I'm fixed. I will fix myself until I'm fixed. Right. Uh and then I hit the like, oh, there are aspects of me that are unfixable.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_05:And what does that mean? Because at the bottom, if if the story is I will finally be lovable when I'm fixed, and I reach the location of unfixability, yeah, right, then you're confronted with what, at least in my construction, was my ultimate unlovability. And I love you. Thank you, darling. But that's what I got. Like what I actually received in that moment was there was never anything to fix. The endeavor of healing, right, is is exactly that. Like, is the wound still open? Is it still pussy and oozing all over your life? Right. Right? And no, it's not. Thank God. I have a beautiful life, and so much healing has happened. And there are ways that I have been carved that are just the way that I am carved.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That isn't going away, but it's reminding you of what's happened.
SPEAKER_05:What's happened. You know, and I thought to myself, I said, when the river carves its way through a mountainside to make its way to the ocean, we don't say someone needs to fix the river. We say the river has carved its way through the mountainside to make its way to the ocean.
SPEAKER_02:Right, okay. You know. Right. So back a little bit in in your journey, etc. Because then I when we met, you were still wearing wigs. Yes. You had, and I hadn't actually realized it first. I don't know if you kept it I don't know. Like I I or maybe it I'd met you and then we went to bed in the same room. Yeah, I think I took the wig off to go to sleep.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you had like how many did you have with you? I remember you'd like I probably had three. Yeah, like today's gonna be an updo.
SPEAKER_02:Uh like this. And I was so bi because I just never experienced this in my life. So then you came to the point where you didn't need the many. So what tell us about the journey with your hair?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so I mean, hair was definitely one of my um core wounds. My mother was very heavy-handed, and she would braid my hair as a child, and she damaged the follicles on the sides of my hair. Oh wow. So I had permanent bald spots from third grade.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, honey. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05:You must have told me that, but I've done that's um and so yeah, I got teased. That's a lot. You know, I got teased unmercifully as a kid, and I had a tremendous amount of hair shame, like a massive amount of hair shame. And that's just my particular version of what is a sort of oftentimes very standard issue for black women. Yeah. Black woman's hair is a thing. Um, because we live in a society that has westernized beauty standards, and so if your hair doesn't grow like white woman's hair grows, then there's an inherent story that you have bad hair.
SPEAKER_01:Is it like because good hair is that docker?
SPEAKER_05:Good hair is straight and fine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and but Chris Rock did a docker.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, he did a good hair is the name of the docker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and so I had my general cultural hair shame plus my very specific hair shame.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And I did all kinds, you know, I just did all kinds of things. Hair, wigs, weaves, all the things. I was very creative in my dealing with my hair shame. And it was, yeah, in my 20s I started wearing wigs, and I enjoyed the ability to be something else. Yeah. You know, to just make up a character and and then decide I was gonna make up a different character the next day.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I could sort of see that when you were deciding which ones to put on. Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_05:It was a persona, yeah. Um and underneath that persona was a lot of insecurity and a lot of fear and a lot of shame. And basically, when The Body is not an apology came through me in February of um 2011, it was within if it came through in February, by June, I had been convicted. Confronted. Confronted. I was confronted. It was like, you can't start a movement telling people to radically love themselves. Wow. And underneath this wig is nothing but shame, Sonia. Wow. Like you can't do that. That's that thing you're talking about. You have to be uncomfortable with. Yeah. And so I knew that the first thing I was gonna have to tackle was my hair shame.
SPEAKER_04:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_05:And so I started the very first project that ever came through the body is not an apology, was called a ruckus project, a radically unapologetic healing challenge for us. And it was a 30-day transformational healing challenge to help us move beyond pain, shame, trauma, and fear. And my 30-day ruckus was to shave my head bald and be bald in the world for 30 days. And I think I remember this. Yeah, and confront this experience of all of the stories that we're living underneath the wigs. And so, yeah, that was July 4th of 2011. You shaved your head. I shaved my head, and I've been bald ever since.
SPEAKER_02:And it and and because it looks fabulous. Thank you. It does. I mean, like, you know, your glam shots. I mean, you look beautiful right now, obviously. But those glam shots with the earrings and the makeup on the edge of like, you know, my eye title. No, it's like Pitl's Beach or something. You're looking like a freaking goddess. I mean, it looks amazing. It looks statuesque. I don't know if you want that title, but like, I don't know. It it it sort of it is regal.
SPEAKER_05:It feels authentic.
SPEAKER_02:Regal might be a colonizing word.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, it is royalty and all that. Exactly. I'm like, however, I feel like um what feels true, and I this feels true about my journey to to this moment we are sitting here now, which is that everything that I've gone through has been like, can you be more authentically you, Sonia? How do we get to the most authentic expression of who you are in the world? And what are all the layers that want to be peeled away so that that most authentic expression can be here? And you know, I still love wigs, I love watching people wig. I often think like, dang, I go back, but now it's too hot and I still have my head. I don't have time for all of that. Exactly. Oh, it's hot flat. Yeah, no, we're not doing that. But I feel like when I took the wigs away, what happened was some truer aspect of myself was able to be seen again.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and I think that's actually what is what people experience me as bald, what they're experiencing is oh, there's a deeper authenticity here than the wigs could have ever given me. That was sort of distracting. Distracting, a persona. Like I said, there was there was Sonia playing a character for many years in many different ways, and each iteration was like, can we put the character down and be you?
SPEAKER_02:And when did you discover Queenus?
SPEAKER_05:Um, that's a good question. I think college is probably when I started sort of leaning into the colour. Yeah, that's been experimenting in college. Right, okay. But that was true. Like it was like, oh, this is when that makes sense. I always I was someone who always had crushes on girls, I think. Um, but it was never anything I it never even occurred to me that I could explore it. Like there was just not there was nothing in my realm. There really weren't queer people in my world, or there was just nothing that was like, oh, you could explore that. Okay. Um and then I went to college and I was like, I can explore whatever the fuck I want to. You can do whatever.
SPEAKER_00:And what was it like?
SPEAKER_05:You know. So I have always had a very uh dramatic, might be the right word.
SPEAKER_02:You said dramatic. Dramatic. I wasn't sure you said dramatic.
SPEAKER_05:Dramatic, a very dramatic loving nidity. Very dramatic way in which energies come to me. And so I think my first experience was with a girl was actually the experience of a threesome with her and her boyfriend, you know, who who knew my exact thing because they were like, oh, my boyfriend and I talk about you when we have sex. And I was like, ooh, do you know? Do you know? So that was like the first, that was the first sort of same-sex experience I had was in that context. And she went on to be my roommate, and maybe we like fooled around a couple of times, but it's it still felt very experimental. And then there was a woman who was a good friend of mine in college and my co-worker, and like she we were just we get we continually got closer and closer. And then one night we decided we were going to make like apple martinis at her house and watch movies. Yeah, um, which turned into a whole different kind of evening.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_05:Um, but she's the first woman I felt like I had feelings for. She was the first woman I was like fully sexual with, and also the first woman I was like, like, I should leave my boyfriend and be with you. But we both have boyfriends and nobody was doing that, and we were like, What year was that? This would have been uh 99.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. Because I feel like that was something that you were talking about in 2006 as well. I mean, there have been many of those after that. Woman-chilly boyfriend.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, there was a pattern there for a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then we broke out of that pattern. But um, but yeah, she was sort of like the first where I was like, ooh, and then I went through this entire phase that was just like, I can never have a girlfriend. I could just but like I like women sexually, but I would never have a girlfriend. And then I left that phase and went on to like, I never have a girlfriend, but they can only be femme. Because who how would you date a masculine-looking person if you're gonna be, and then I left that phase to my current very pansexual.
SPEAKER_02:I was about to say that. Yeah, but now it's anything, anything you ever call call me, let me know. Bathing the delightful. I mean, yes. I mean, I it makes sense that you wouldn't close yourself off to opportunities if you I don't know, to me it seems like that's the most enlightened space to be in. You know what I mean? All of the world can come and offer you the things.
SPEAKER_05:Who am I to be turning away love?
SPEAKER_02:So what is how do you feel now about wanting a relationship?
SPEAKER_05:You know, I have a my dating life has been a fascinating journey. Um, I was in a relationship for a year and a half that formally ended last September. And then, you know, then we spent a year in ambiguous land. Okay. Uh we sort of rebroke up again, but in like from the highest place you can end a relationship, like deep love, complete and total, just like deep care. She is um someone I adore. We are in each other's lives as sacred companions, I'm certain, for the rest of our lives. Correct. And just not in the shape of romantic partners. I have felt and do feel that someone is on their way. Okay. And it doesn't even feel I'm not looking. I'm I'm done looking for things. I trust that something will arrive when it's ripe and ready for me. You're not on the apps I'm not, no.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, like I haven't, I I was happy to find Matt just before all that kicked off. Yeah, really. I mean, I've married a lot of people that admit on the apps.
SPEAKER_05:I I love that for some people. I'm just very clear that it is not for me. Like part of my practice has been, and part of the work of my own healing has been to trust that I don't have to go seeking things.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay, right. Right?
SPEAKER_05:That they actually will come to me in their most divine timing. And my job is to be open and receptive and have cleared enough my own bullshit to be able to receive it when life is ready to deliver it.
SPEAKER_00:Right, okay.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and there it's just been sign after sign after sign that there is what I think is probably like the sacred relationship. Feels like it is. I smell it, it's in the vicinity.
SPEAKER_02:You smell in West Auckland. It might be marijuana.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, this is true.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, well, I I I hope that that is true for you.
SPEAKER_05:Hey, I trust that I trust that it's coming in its most divine timing. And in the meantime, my life is filled with so much love. I mean, I'm just surrounded by so much love, so much care, so much support. I am happier than I have ever been in my entire life.
SPEAKER_02:That's fucking great.
SPEAKER_05:Uh and I'm, thank you. Snaps to that.
SPEAKER_02:Snaps to that. That's great.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and I have a joyful, abundant, outrageously amazing life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I was reading other than that you constantly feel lucky, that you've always felt lucky.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, you know, it's interesting. I have felt both like the luckiest girl in the world and the most cursed girl in the world at the same time, most of my life.
SPEAKER_04:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_05:And what I realized is that I I have oriented most of my life preparing for calamity to occur.
SPEAKER_02:Is that because of that formative team? Yeah, I can say that, right?
SPEAKER_05:So I think I've spent most of my life just waiting for the bad thing to happen. What I've realized, and I think there was a part of my the first half of my life was that I needed to learn my lessons in really difficult, intense, challenging ways.
SPEAKER_01:And young.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And I think the second half of my life is I get to learn my lessons through joy and ease and peace and connection. Oh, that's fucking delightful. I'm so delightful. I'm so excited. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm so excited. And so, yeah, I I do feel, you know, what I would call sometimes I call lucky, what oftentimes I call blessed.
SPEAKER_02:Also, I there's some self-actualizing because, for example, I know that financial security adds a hugely amount to this, and that you've got your Patreon that you that gives you a lot of this financial security. And those people are people that genuinely love you and all the work that you have done, hard work. Like, you know, you are lucky, but you've created that through your energy, through your education, through your brain, that you are fortunate to have a fabulous brain. Because you know, I I feel like that's luck, right?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I didn't ask for this brain, I didn't do shit to get this brain. It just gave me a big one.
SPEAKER_02:But you got a good one, so well done. Yeah, and that you do, and then then you've created this life for yourself that other people have shown that they appreciate with actual you know, and it shouldn't just be about cash, but it just it gives you that, you know, your life is so much easier, right?
SPEAKER_05:And so, yeah, I am so grateful that, and I do feel like you're speaking to something that I absolutely feels like my felt experience, which is that a lot of the hard work in the front end is I'm in the location of reward now.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_05:And that part of that reward is my intentional, like I have always been someone who has cared and been oriented toward community, who is like, how do we help the least of those? What do we need to do as a collective to heal? What do I learn and how do I pass it on to others? That has been my orientation my whole life. And I think that what I have gotten to at this phase is the people who have felt benefited from my willingness to share the lessons of my own journey have said, Oh, we would like to support you. Yeah, we would like to pour back into you. And there have been, you know, Patreon is one example of that, but there have been endless examples of that. Like people show up for me financially, emotionally, like certainly at the level of community, that has been true for a very long time. And it does create the spaciousness. Like, I'm so grateful that I don't I don't have to wake up and be like, right, what do I need to do today to earn money? Because earning money does keep you from being able to heal and focus on all of this other stuff. Yeah. And so there's this been this delicate balance of doing the hard work, like deciding to just do the hard work because it's mine to do, and recognizing that I'm not in it by myself, that if I'm going through it, someone else is going through it. So there must be something in this journey that's beyond just me, and offering that, and the very tangible ways in which people have said thank you over the years.
SPEAKER_02:And it's so interesting, isn't it? Because the internet has brought so much pain and suffering and social media and bullshit. However, at the same time, it's what's allowed us to meet people, meet our fans, etc. with outside of the gatekeepers.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:You know, and particularly, you know, with you, your Facebook page initially, and then Instagram and stuff like that, and Patreon has given you this world of love.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, those people wouldn't have found me. I wouldn't have found them without uh those digital platforms. And so I, you know, I don't believe that anything is all good or all bad. I think that everything is filled with like gifts and curses.
SPEAKER_02:And the engineer is 100%, like yeah, it's been amazing.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, there are so many gifts in it. Yeah, and how do we want to cultivate that, right? I could cultivate the curse part or I could cultivate the gift part, and I've been so blessed to get to cultivate the gift part.
SPEAKER_02:Don't look at Reddit too much.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I don't even know.
SPEAKER_02:Don't go to Fortune Fortune.
SPEAKER_00:Don't go to Fortune. I don't go to those places. Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:100%. So well done, yeah. And now, um, I we actually talked about doing this podcast when I first started, and and we were both not really menopausal then, perimenopausal, but so how is how is the wondrousness of menopause? Well, I'm still perimenopausal. Yeah. I'm bleeding as we speak. Oh, how exciting. Excellent, good. Yes, myself also. It's been a few weeks now. Every time I get a period now, I'm like, ugh, okay, okay. And as soon as it's gotten hot, I've gotten hot again. But like, yeah, so how is it manifesting in that?
SPEAKER_05:Um, it's definitely starting to, um the symptoms are definitely becoming more pronounced. Disrupted temperature and sleep is a very big one for me. Like, I'm I'm burning up in the middle of the night. I'm like, what the hell? Who changed it? Who turned on the heat? Yeah. And it's like no one signed them at the inside. Do you have a fan? Um I'm I need to start like probably traveling with like a little portable fan.
SPEAKER_02:One of those ones, even though I'm not quite sure about them, they go around your neck. So it looks like it looks like, oh, you don't know about them. It looks like headphones that are down. Oh, but it just blows up. I've seen these. Yeah. Okay. I'm like Keddy Perry at night. I'm hot and I'm cold. I'm in and I'm out. I'm like just like constant.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, that's excellent. I've never heard of that, but yes, that's going on the uh wish.
SPEAKER_02:Fans like I've got one, a remote control fan by my maid. Beep, that's sweet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I need to start managing in that way because I'm like really waking up. Like my pillowcase is soaked. I'm like, oh girl, what are we doing? Right, okay. Um, and brain fog. Isn't it fucking terrible? I mean, it's been really interesting. It's a wonderful practice of surrender for me. As a person.
SPEAKER_04:You're so mature.
SPEAKER_05:You're so mature.
SPEAKER_02:As opposed to me that just got the fuck is that fucking fuck's name? Fuck. Oh, wait, I I forgot Judy Garland's name. I'm like, you know, she was in the wizard movie. In the wizard movie. It's tough. No, it's already back to acceptance.
SPEAKER_05:Back to acceptance. But it really has been a beautiful practice of just like, that's gone. And, you know, but you know, I've also had a lot of life of practice of that's gone. Okay, yeah. So to be fair, I've been practicing that's gone for a very long time.
SPEAKER_02:Uh one thing that I didn't get angry at is like, I'll walk into a room, you know, that whole thing you've forgotten what you went in there for. Yeah, yeah. I find that genuinely hilarious. Yeah. I walk into a room and go, I have no clue what I'm gonna find here.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna back the other one.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, exactly. Um that's not irritating me. And apparently that's science. Your brain resets when you walk into a different room. There you go. Science. There you go. Anyway, right, right, so brain fog, good.
SPEAKER_05:So, yeah, letting myself just be like, okay, I don't know that information right now.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:It's annoying when you're touring. I keep like I left my my billboard in the taxi after the Winnipeg fringe that I had just gotten printed special. And then you're like, fuck, just stuff like that. Yeah, that's annoying. It is annoying. But um, right, okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_05:I don't have a lot of themes with me, so it makes it much easier. Like, I yeah, I'm not traveling with bits and pieces.
SPEAKER_02:Like shit and costume.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and costumes and yeah, no. Bless your heart. I couldn't keep up with any of those things. That would be a very bad idea for me. It's a lot. So it is a lot, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this anyway, right, okay, cool, cool.
SPEAKER_05:So those are the two, probably the two most prominent um And you feel you're like because now we know, right?
SPEAKER_02:Like you've done your research, I've done my research, we know what's potentially coming. Yeah, yeah. And you were you were at a menopause symposium or something?
SPEAKER_05:I was. I you know, the menopause world is calling me lately. I was knocking on the door.
SPEAKER_02:Speaking of making money out of things, yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_05:So a dear friend of mine in North Carolina held the first uh menopause conference for the global majority. It was so beautiful. And I think for me, it's one of the things that feels like how I move through these moments that feel like threshold moments in my life. Is like, how do you make it sacred? How can this become not some annoying mundane thing? But actually, this is a sacred threshold that I am moving through. Because historically that's what it was.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and and there's this thing like, and I don't know, maybe I've catastrophized it at pass in some of my podcasts, but it isn't always bad.
unknown:Not at all.
SPEAKER_02:It isn't always bad. It's not to be feared, it's just to be understood and to have knowledge about what is gonna come, and then you can deal with it however you can.
SPEAKER_05:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:With full um arsenal available to you.
SPEAKER_05:Information, right? Exactly. Knowledge is patent, and from that information to just be like, right, here are the physiological things that are happening. But also one of the things they posited in the conference that I thought was this beautiful, powerful thing to think about is what if like the prominence of menopause as a conversation is coming up in the world right now because actually on the Earth's timeline, she is menopausal. And and and like I was like, wow, like what a what a fascinating thing to think about. Uh and from that location, then right, what how do we want to be with this time? How do we want to be with Earth? How do we want to like for me when I make that conversation a conversation that moves from the individual I I I experience to a what is the collective thing that is trying to show itself to us right now? And how does that deepen our relationship with each other, deepen our relationship with the land, deepen our relationship with power and connection and all of those things? Everything gets easier. So for me, I'm just like as a strategy, as a strategy for moving through difficult times. What if I approach this from a different perspective?
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Um and I have found it to be just that question makes me want to be with the world differently.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. You know, see for me, I've seen it as Generation X has been so used to knowing, having having the knowledge, like you know, we weren't digital natives, but we were early adopters. Seeing things, uh the knowledge that we found on the internet and knowing about stuff, and that just this just came out of nowhere, and no one had talked about it because of the shame.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's because of that just perpetual putting shame in women's bodies for their reproductive system.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And this generation, this GNX has gone there and gone, no, no, no, no. No, no more shame. I feel like we're not gonna have we're throwing away shame more. Yes. Uh still not completely. Uh but definitely, you know, and we we went through periods was or pregnancy was first, it feels like, you know, we used to have the cover and literally confined. Um, they could was called their confinement. You know, to me more getting naked was like, you know, and then periods have become much more normalized, and we have tampons in schools and all this, and then this was the last one, it feels like to me. So that that's from my perspective. Did you ever want kids?
SPEAKER_05:No, never mind. When I was 10, I said I'm never getting married and I'm never having children.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, right. I don't think I was quite clear that early, but yeah. Yeah, and so and it is really interesting, you know. I just feel like because some I know some women have gotten annoyed with me trying to I'm not making people talk about their menopause. You don't have to if you don't want to.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But like you just force people to come on the podcast, like, yeah, exactly. Come here. But you know, I'll talk about it in public, and then this one woman, particularly at the university I was at recently, was just like, oh well, it should be private and we shouldn't, you know, and and it was just kind of kind of weird about, you know, and it's like, okay, you can be silent about it if you want, but women need to. And she said, I got through it fine.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, that's so sad. That's one of those, like, I suffered in silence, so so should you.
SPEAKER_02:Or I didn't have a problem with it, so no one else. No one else should. Yeah, exactly. But also, like, I have got quite an objective view of the reproductive system, just because I only see it as what it's done to me in my life, not that what it has given me as a child, etc. I can see that it's given me people to pay tax or they'll pay my pension. No. I'm very happy that people have children and I have lots of lovely children in my life, and nieces and nephews and things, but like I wonder if that gives me more of an objectivity around it.
SPEAKER_05:Perhaps, definitely. I mean, I think that humans and only one other mammal species go through menopause. Whales. Whales. And the idea that something lives. I heard a talk around this, and the professor who was talking about it was like, right, because they're actually the only two species that live long enough to pass on wisdom.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and it's about they said that actually it's sort of the foundation of civilization.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_02:The fact that grandmothers took over and helped with the nurturing, which meant that people got older. Yes. And it's like why human beings have evolved to being so it's fascinating, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05:And so I'm like, right, why would I have shame about this evolutionary function that has made it possible for us to be here? Yeah, you know, I was like, this is massive. So again, for me, it's always like, what is the perspective that leads to the most empowered, embodied expression that I can have? Yeah, and so I'm like, yeah, I am happy to talk. And also, I'm just happy to talk about anything that people tell me I'm not supposed to talk about.
SPEAKER_02:I was about to say, I can I can't really see you having too much time about talking about anything, really.
SPEAKER_05:It's like, oh, yeah, we're not supposed to talk about that. We're definitely gonna talk about that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that's what I gave a talk to like I did this podcast, the first podcast, on the 18th of October 2021. And by like February, or was it even it was even quicker? I don't know. I was doing a talk in Parliament about menopause.
SPEAKER_00:I love it.
SPEAKER_02:And it was like, I'm not gonna have this. I said that's what I said. Menopause is responsible for I didn't say this, but motherfucking civilization. Period! Yeah, period. So I'm not gonna not I'm not gonna have shame around. Yeah, and I and I, and you know, and some other people still will, and that's fine. But yeah, like we're both out here uh not been shameful.
SPEAKER_05:A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have things that I do have shame around, but not not my bodily functions.
SPEAKER_05:I love that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like this is just you know, we have so much shame, and we it it's like it's the thing that carries us through our whole life, everything that we do, and so much hatred thrown at it and felt it's kind it's like you know, you you did a whole thing about it, but it is mind-boggling, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05:It is, it's fascinating, but it makes sense, right? Like, it is the site that if we can tie shame to it, we are manipulable for the entirety of our lives.
SPEAKER_02:Our lives, and we will pay for it.
SPEAKER_05:And we will pay for it, yeah. And so it makes it, you know, from a strategic standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to make you very ashamed of your body. It makes you very profitable to the systems that exist.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that white supremacy thing around like just those products that they sell that bleach your skin. Yeah, they killed me when I saw them. For the first time. Yeah. Um, do you have a favorite part of your body?
SPEAKER_05:Do I have a favorite? I love my nose.
SPEAKER_02:Your nose?
SPEAKER_05:I think I just have the cutest little nose.
SPEAKER_02:You do have a cute nose.
SPEAKER_05:I've always thought, like, oh, that's a very cute nose.
SPEAKER_02:That's a cute nose. I thought it might be your breasts.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. No, I mean, you know, I love my breasts. I I love my body. Uh, I have come to really love my body. And when I am not loving my body, I know that I'm inside of a story that wants me to not love my body. And so I actually have the ability to not personalize those energies when they come up. Well, I don't live in that, like, oh, that's me. I live in that, like, oh, that's that thing I've been indoctrinated into showing itself.
SPEAKER_00:Right, okay.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, great. All right. What do I need to do? What's my practice that returns me back to sovereignty in my relationship with my body?
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Um, but yeah, I really, I, you know, I've been digging on me lately. And you know, it's been sweet and fun and what about aging? You know, it's interesting. Today I um had another call, and however I was sitting in the like the mirror behind me, there were shadows on my face that made me look very old. I was like, oh, but it was literally right after I got news of my friend's cancer diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00:Right, okay.
SPEAKER_05:Um, and I had another friend who died of cancer in July who did not make it to their 50th birthday. And I have another friend right now who's also making it through cancer. And so I looked and I the the first instinct was judgment, and the second instinct was can I be grateful that at least at this point right now, right? That I know that this, whatever these shadows are on my face, I have people in my life who long to get to the place where they can experience that. Yeah. And can I hold gratitude for the fact that at least in this moment it seems like I know yeah, totally, totally.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it's for me, it's waves of those things too. I have a poem that's exactly that. A friend of mine killed themselves. And and and thank you. And I was yeah, and I was just looking at these wrinkles and stuff and just going, you know, like I need to celebrate the fact that I'm here.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:And it's again, it's knowing what you know you should is the wrong term, like what you should do, but what you're aspiring to be able to accept.
SPEAKER_05:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:But it's you have your your your journeys and your roundabouts.
SPEAKER_05:It's a journey, it's a process, it's a road. Yeah, I you know, I am both excited to age. I'm excited for you know, like I I come from a family that's very they they look good in their age. We get better as we get older. So uh you suddenly won't have any gray hair, really. Right, exactly. Although when I let this grow out a little bit, I was like, oh, the grays are here. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, right, okay.
SPEAKER_05:But yeah, I am, you know, the alternative to the alternative to getting old is is not the thing I'm signing up for. Exactly. That's why I was like, people that really freak out.
SPEAKER_02:I love birthdays. I'm like, love birthdays. Let's celebrate here again. I'm like, well, what's worse? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Do you have a fun fact about anything in your life?
SPEAKER_05:Fun fact about me.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it's all been fun, obviously.
SPEAKER_05:I think it's a fun fact about I was I've been thinking the whole podcast, like, what's your fun fact, fine?
SPEAKER_01:We don't have to do one of the other.
SPEAKER_05:But I'm gonna come up with something because there are lots of fun things about me. Oh, I used to, I don't do this so much anymore, but I could if I still wanted to. I used to sing happy birthday operatically to people.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:And that was like, if you people, there are many people around the globe who have received an operatic happy birthday song from me. Uh, and I haven't done it in many years, but I may revive that.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like we need to have a little burst of that one.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Is that a possibility?
SPEAKER_05:Sure. I I'm sure to give I'm happy to give a sample. Okay, let's go. Let's see how my throat is doing today. I haven't done this in ages. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I feel like uh that is a wonderful place to interest. Do you have anything that you want to plug or anything first?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, let's see. Um let's see if you're if you're plugging all the books because they're all still in the world. I totally invite you if you're interested in taking your own radical self-love journey, if you're still working through stuff around your own body and accepting parts of yourself, um, or you're just interested in changing the world through radical self-love, I invite you to buy The Body is not an Apology, The Power of Radical Self-Love. Um, there's also a workbook called Your Body Is Not an Apology. You can do those as a companion. I highly recommend. If you've got young people assigned female at birth who are going through puberty, I invite you to pick up celebrate your body and its changes too. Very cute. Uh it's a very sweet puberty guide. Um, and if you just have any young people in your life between the ages of like 10 and 15 who are asking difficult questions about life and existence and change, um, I invite you to get my most recent book, The Book of Radical Answers Guide to Growing Up, um, which is all just me answering all of the complex questions about life and politics and sex and bodies and all the things you can think of for young people. So consider me like your radical self-love auntie, right? Giving um giving your kids sage radical self-love.
SPEAKER_02:I have to give my niece that one as well. Right, okay. Fabulous. And that's it.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Anything else you want to know, you can find out all of what I'm up to and dig into the archives of any of the stuff that I used to be up to at sonurenaylor.com. You do like astral. Oh, I totally thank you. I totally look at you! Look at me, totally. I'm not an astrology person, bugging my astrology. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I do do natal birth chart readings through a process I call channel your chart. So if you're interested in astrology and understanding more about your particular planets and what they mean on your journey, holler at me. Um and I've also been doing astrology workshops called Intuitive Astrology, and I have one coming up in January called Um Healing the Wound, which is all about Chiron, our wounded healer in our chart. So yeah, come check out astrology stuff. All of this and more available at sonya tailor.com.
SPEAKER_02:It is a very fulsome website where you can get a lot to introduce you from. Perhaps if you felt like you wanted to. Fabulous. Well, thank you for having me in your Farah. And welcome back to Atiroa. Thank you very much. Nice to see you again. My delight to be on Showy Over with you. Yes, finally. Finally. Okay, good. You're the showyest of overheads at uh everybody, thank you very much. Bye.
