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Making Decisions Somatically… According to What Feels Good in My Body
Morning of the Soul Commitment Ceremonies, Turned-On Living 2023
I am increasingly making decisions by connecting with my body, and its many sensations. And I love that.
I want to share something quite personal with you today about this trend. It’s not new for me (I’ve been living with an ear toward my body for about fifteen years) but it’s growing in steam and power. It’s not as if I never share personal things, but this one requires me to slow down and think about how to tell you. Here’s what I want to tell you. This somatic-decision making thing.
In early November, I hosted this year’s Turned-On Living group in Providence for our in-person retreat. The women came from Charlotte, North Carolina; Toronto, Hoboken, New Jersey; Austin, Texas; and Seattle, Washington. When I told people at home in Rhode Island that the women were coming from such diverse places, they acted impressed as if I had hit the big time. Well, that’s just how it was. This year we came together as a group of women from these places, and this was our moment to meet in person. As two of them said at our first dinner, it would have been unfathomable not to come.
We have been getting to know each other on Zoom since January, so we would be in person after ten months of meeting online in those little squares. We were three-dimensional people in the flesh. We’ve talked about such intimate things, in months with topics ranging from prioritizing pleasure to anti-people-pleasing to visioning and getting clear about what we want for our lives. What we really, really want, not what we are supposed to want!
We danced in the woods on Saturday and then co-created the soul commitment ceremonies at a farm the next day, choosing songs for their pussywalks down the aisle, talking about the adornments they would wear as symbols of self-commitment. The ceremonies themselves were gorgeous and uplifting like I have never quite experienced. At the lunch to celebrate the soul-commitment ceremonies, I surprised them with a Death by Chocolate Gluten-Free cake, made for them, decorated “Happy Soul Commitment!”on the frosting with their initials. That was fun!
I was sitting with myself a day after the retreat, feeling into the spaciousness and calm that was generated in my body because we got to be in person. So much love, so much support, so much acceptance in those days with these vibrant, fun, surprising women. There’s something different and special about being physically together with the foundation of trust, ease and camaraderie that had been built virtually over time. It’s different than a retreat where you don’t know the people beforehand, and might not see them after. We were a group that that been together ten months and had two months to go.
I was working on some questions about my business, planning next year, what comes next. This year has been a great experience, so I have wanted to do a second Year of Turned-On Living but have been struggling with timing and energy because it’s not easy for me to teach and market at the same time.
As I played with answers and dates and made lists, I realized that I wanted to slow down. I wanted to push the start date of Turned-On Living back from February to June, for a variety of reasons, that would make me feel more rested, and ready, giving me enough time to digest the lessons of this year.
Now this would seem like a small thing, but it was not a small thing. Changing this plan was revolutionary to me! Gosh darn it, I could choose a pace that would feel good in my body when I imagined the path forward, not send me into a spiral of clenched fear that I was going to be exhausted for the next year.
Am I not the boss of my own life and business? Even though I have reinvented myself and my life many times, living in different countries too, and I have specifically chosen to be a self-employed entrepreneur, I sometimes forget that I am in charge, that I have more agency and freedom than I realize. We all get to choose many times, more than we realize.
I felt really good making this decision. And how did it come to me? The idea to push timing back came to me through my body, through a warmth and spaciousness in my belly. When I imagined June, I could sink into the couch and feel relaxed through my middle and even my thighs and down to my toes. I was choosing a future that would feel good to me. Here is a big value of being a sensitive person who is quite in touch with my body; the body can be an excellent rudder for decision-making.
The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, a book we read during the Embodied Confidence Month of the Year of Turned-On Living, provides evidence that the best decisions come from a variety of inputs. Not just from our brains but from all points in our bodies. The chapter “Thinking with Sensation” dives into research showing that Wall Street traders who were most successful in making money were not the most educated; they made them based on gut hunches and whispers they could feel in their bodies. They could make decisions quickly, almost like animals.
The book is utterly fascinating. I am a bit animal-like in my decisions too, though I don’t make them quickly, necessarily. I do listen to whispers in my body, pulses, and their opposite, deadness. This deep, ongoing listening to my body is not something that came to me naturally. It’s the result of many years of practice; my mind is very active too and can keep me stuck with analysis paralysis.
Listening to my body’s impulses has taken me to many places far away from home, to California, to Argentina, to Bali, back to my native Rhode Island, to tango, to the people who have been influential for me. Listening to my body is also how I healed my body from the aftermath of a secret kept of a single incident of childhood sexual abuse when I was six, because that took me to tango and South America, but I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time. I was just following instincts. Body-based instincts are important. This is what I am writing about in Wet. All about how I got so connected with my body.
My advice about decisions? Think things through, do your research, make your lists, and also make sure you pay attention to your body. Feel into how future ideas, yesses or nos, or schedules, land in your viscera, your organs, your cavitiies.
We talk about body intuition quite a lot in Turned-On Living. How to make decisions by being in touch with your body, speak up, say no, set a boundary, do something different, because you feel it as a truth in your sensations.
Listening to your body can get complicated. Because sometimes the body does lie. Here’s one example. Your heart is pounding. You are feeling like you are going to die; but you are not. You are having a panic attack. It can be a journey to get into a long-term relationship with your body and learn how to read yourself, repeatedly inquiring to find patterns of wisdom.
It makes me happy to have this clear example of listening to my body to make an important decision that improves my quality of life, or I think it will. I adore the clear decisions that feel good in my body, expansive, enlarging. They can be rare jewels. Not that I can predict exactly what will happen–who can ever predict what will happen?
In general, decisions that feel physically spacious have a way of panning out in magical ways, giving me not necessarily what I said I wanted but what I most need. And there are always surprises.
We can’t control everything but we may be able to control more than we think.
So I sent out this essay/email to share with you this story….
And also to tell you the new liftoff dates for the 2024-2025 cohort of Turned-On Living.
We are now kicking off in June.
The interviews to form the group will happen in January. The group will be closed by February 1.
This gives you a lot of time to get yourself settled between February and June.
If this group is any indication, all groups of TOL women will be FIRE, as Gen Zers say.
Want to learn more? Go to the new web page for Turned-On Living with photos from our recent retreat, dancing in the woods and the soul commitment ceremonies at a lovely farm outside Providence.
If you feel inspired to be part of the next cohort read this page and then …click here to tell me about you.
The True Story of My (Ill-Advised?) Appearance on the Dr. Phil Show…
outside the dressing room
Over the last year, many people have asked me, “How did that happen?” In other words, “How did you wind up as a guest expert on the Dr. Phil Show?”
Yeah, how did that happen? It’s a good question, and a story that apparently must be told. There is nothing quite like having a televised discussion about self-love turn into a political debate about “animal marriage” with a Trumper on Dr. Phil, who is not officially a licensed psychologist. And you heard that from Dr. Sasha…
Here’s where the story begins. Picture this: a dreary, dark January late afternoon. I was resting at home in Providence, Rhode Island, with slight flurries of snow outside and a cup of tea on the bedside table. My laptop perched on my thighs, and I was lying on my bed, staring at the screen. I try to avoid working in bed, but the end of the day brings low willpower. I had just opened up my email for the 37th time; a more exciting-than-usual message sat at the top of my inbox.
The subject line read, “Dr. Phi Inquiry.” What? My heartbeat sped up.
Kalley, an assistant producer, had written. “1 hope you are well! I am currently working on an upcoming episode that will discuss the empowerment of sologamy.”
Sologamy? I hate the word “sologamy.” Sologamy sounds like a sausage. But I know the word, because many other people have reached out to me over the years to get my “subject matter expertise” on it. “Sologamy” is a media-created word that has become associated with the practice of self-marriage, the ritual of creating a ceremony of self-love, self-acceptance, and self-compassion in adulthood. Some people call it a “soul commitment.” The producers wanted me as a guest expert. “You were referred to me by Amen Jafri. After looking at your website, I feel like you would be an incredible asset to the conversation.”
Everything Kalley wrote made sense. I helped Amen on her documentary about self-marriage. Over the last five years, I have become a go-to expert on the growing worldwide trend in Vice, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, ABC News/Nightline, 20/20, and more. I wrote about self-marriage in my 2004 book Quirkyalone, and have guided single and partnered women on the process of marrying themselves or making a soul commitment. In Argentina, I became something of a minor celebrity as the first woman to marry herself in the country when a TV interview about my 2014 ceremony in Buenos Aires’ Japanese Gardens went viral.
Kalley shared the film date in Los Angeles, February 7, and asked for a call. I thought about it, then texted news of the inquiry to my best friend and the man I was dating at the time. “One step closer to Oprah?”
A giddy feeling came over me, a flush on my cheeks. Getting interviewed by Oprah has always been my dream. When Quirkyalone was released way back in 2004, I got a ton of attention: CNN, NPR, New York Times, etc., but not the ultimate quirkyalone (Oprah). (Quirkyalones are people who don’t settle for less than what they really want in a romantic relationship.) Dr. Phil was discovered and promoted by Oprah. Maybe Dr. Phil would lead me to my inevitable interview with the woman herself!
In retrospect, this line of thinking doesn’t make sense. But hey, that is how my thoughts went at that moment.
Over the next day, I tried to forget about the inquiry. I was about to leave for my first trip to Argentina since the pandemic, where I lived for six years until March 2020. The dates would conflict. I had already purchased plane tickets and rented an apartment in Buenos Aires. But I am a curious person. I couldn’t control my curiosity.
++
Kalley and I talked two days later. Kalley told me that when Miley Cyrus’ song “Flowers,” about celebrating self-love after her divorce, became Spotify’s most streamed song in a single week, the Dr. Phil staff decided to devote the Valentine’s Day show to an unconventional topic. She told me they were doing more issue-oriented shows now. OK, I had no idea what Dr. Phil did previously. I had never watched the show. But it all sounded good.
Kalley asked me to make a video telling Dr. Phil why he should have me on the show. Speaking to Dr. Phil in a video seemed like a hokey thing to do, but I agreed and made the video in one take the next morning. I spoke about how women lose themselves in relationships or the search for love, and how the ceremony of self-marriage becomes a way of taking responsibility for one’s own happiness. I hit send.
Really, I didn’t know why I was even trying to get the producers to want me. Kalley told me the show had a rule against paying for international travel; I wasn’t going to pay to reroute my trip. I sent a proposal that would have them paying for a ticket from LAX to EZE (Buenos Aires) but I didn’t expect them to accept it.
++
Fast forward 36 hours. I was out for drinks with my new friend Sheri in frigid Providence. My phone rang! Kalley told me the producers wanted me on the show, and they approved the travel to Argentina! I pumped my arm in the air, nearly knocking over my Prosecco. I would lose a week of rent in Buenos Aires, but I wouldn’t lose money on the travel (and even gain some miles). I continued to pump my arm up and down like a trucker honking a horn. Oh yeah, I was a badass, asking for what I wanted, and actually getting it!
Feelings of triumph gave way to more complex feelings minutes later.
My phone lit up with messages from Sheryl, a friend in Buenos Aires who spent many years as an investigative journalist. First came a February 2022 link from the New York Post: “Dr. Phil show staffers decry workplace as ‘traumatizing’ and a ‘war zone’”; next a story came from a Buzzfeed News (RIP) investigation: “Current and Former ‘Dr. Phil’ Employees Say The Set Is A Toxic Workplace. The Show Says Everything’s Fine.”
Sheryl is the kind of friend who tells me things I don’t want to hear.
Oh no. I had only looked at the website’s home page and saw they had just done a show about older women feeling invisible, called “Aging Out Loud. I had given the producers the benefit of the doubt and assumed the producers were genuinely interested in women’s empowerment. Was I going to spread a message of self-love or get used and abused?
Right there in the restaurant booth, I called my friend Clyde Ford, who has been a publishing mentor over the last few years. Clyde has published twelve books, on topics as varied as race and healing through touch. Clyde enjoys appearing on right-wing radio shows and arguing it out with the other side. More than ten years ago, he appeared on Oprah to talk about his book on racial equality; the producers also booked white supremacists. He’s been in the trenches.
“So do you think I should do Dr. Phil?” I asked.
“Definitely,” he said. “That’s what you do as an author. You take opportunities, you take risks.”
I nodded. I tended to agree with Clyde.
But I still wasn’t sure. To go on Dr. Phil or not? The question turned over in my stomach over the next day. I liked the idea of bringing a radical idea like self-marriage to people who might not have heard of it, and maybe it would help me in my coaching business and to sell my next book to a publisher.
I wrote my literary agent Jill Grinberg asking her thoughts.
Jill wrote back, “Hi Sasha! Dr Phil is the #2 Talk Show in the US which is pretty major exposure. It could be good to be able to say in the book proposal you were recently on national TV. Did you talk to the producer today? Do you know what the bent of the show will be? I know the topic is self-marriage, but what is his agenda?”
In the end, I said yes. Was it the right decision?
++
My plane arrived in LA on the night of the Grammies. Traffic was terrible on the freeways, the driver who met me at the airport told me. He sent me a text when I was still on the tarmac. “Your chauffeur is waiting.” That text alone might have been worth the price of admission.
Something about this surprise trip to LA signified things going in a good direction in my life, but was that true? If I had stayed in my job in Silicon Valley fifteen years ago instead of becoming a life and executive coach, perks like a paid driver at the airport might be part of my life, but when you choose to be self-employed, no one else pays for a driver at the airport. The driver also told me, “Welcome home.” He thought I was a Los Angeleno. I spent nearly twenty years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and still feel like a Californian at heart. So that felt sweet too.
I spent the first night with my friend Ali in Echo Park at her home because I wanted to be on the West Coast earlier to lead a group coaching call, and Dr. Phil only paid for one night of hotel. In reality, the treatment was not so luxe.
My friend Jenny flew down from San Francisco. Ali and Jenny, two of my oldest California friends, would both attend the studio audience the next morning. There was something incredible about that. We met for dinner at my hotel the night before; by 9 p.m. I told them I needed to go to bed. I woke up at 3 a.m. to go over the questions the producers sent: You have been studying self-marriage for over 20 years. Has this become more popular in recent times? Why is self-marriage important? What is the main message about? What are some misconceptions of self-marriage? Can you be married to yourself and someone else? Are women’s standards rising? How is self-love being preached today to the younger generation?
A driver picked me up from the hotel lobby at 7:30, and brought me to the CBS studio lot. After a Covid test, the production assistant took me to a small dressing room, where I would spend the next few hours alone.
Many people have asked about hair, makeup, and wardrobe for the Dr. Phil Show, so I am going to tell you the truth: the hair and makeup was pretty fucking awesome, and were among the best parts of the whole experience. When I appeared on CNN, I got zero help with hair or makeup. They plopped me down in front of a camera to talk with Anderson Cooper. I don’t think I understood the power of makeup before the Dr. Phil Make-Up Artist sculpted my cheekbones. I took about 5,000 selfies in the dressing room.
before hair and makeup
The hairdresser did an excellent job. Of course we had a good chat too.
Never had a make-over like this before!
one of five million selfies I snapped in the dressing room
Next, the wardrobe came. Those two women steamed my dress, and gave me a narrow belt, nude stilletos, and pantyhose. They took photos to send to the Executive Producer for her approval. Clearly, guests’ appearances were very important to the producers.
What they sent to the producers for approval!
Finally, the most important knock came. It was time to go down to the stage.
In the hallway, I met two other women who had married themselves and would be guests on the show. One of the women wore a bright blue pantsuit and a necklace that said, “amapoundcake,” which turned out to be Danni’s social media handle for her work as a body image coach. Sonya wore a peach pantsuit with a brighter orange blouse below it. Sonya was a business owner in Colorado. They were both Black. I asked one of them if they knew each other; she said no. We were all new to each other. I learned later that the producers put us in different hotels.
The handlers then led us down to the stage. At that moment I felt on top of the world, buoyed by a camaraderie with these two women. Even if some people judged us as insane, narcissistic, pathetic, unmarriageable, or whatever insults people wanted to throw at us, we were strong and knew self-marriage as a beautiful path to take. At that time, the show felt like a culmination of the last 20 years of my work on women’s empowerment.
National attention for self-marriage! Whoo-hoo, I was feeling good!
The production assistant sat me and Sonya in the front. While we were waiting for the show to start, Sonya and I chit-chatted about dating as self-married women (there are some things you can only talk about with another woman who has married herself).
I looked across the way and noticed a white, tan, blue-eyed preppy thirtysomething guy with a sweep of neat hair to his left seated also in the front row. He had a kind of pastel look to him, like he lived in Miami, or appeared on the 1980s show Miami Vice? The producers were looking for a man who married himself to be on the show. Was he the man they found? I tried to make friendly eye contact, but Mr. Miami Vice looked away.
When the show began, Danni sat up on stage first with Dr. Phil. Danni invited dozens of friends and family to her recent outdoor self-wedding, so different from my ceremony, which I did in a much more private way. The producers played a clip of her vows, “Will you commit to never giving up until your dying day? Do you promise to value yourself?” Danni also left small bags with rings in them on each person’s seat, inviting people to marry themselves.
Danni explained, “I overcame a lot of trauma, and it inspired me to marry myself. I realized I wasn’t living for myself and this wedding was my chance to start over.”
I loved Danni’s story, specifically, how she invited others to pledge love to themselves and that she brought healing past trauma in the conversation. Trauma rarely gets talked about in media stories on self-marriage, but finding wholeness is often a part of the journey. Many of us would not be drawn to self-marriage if we had not felt damaged or broken.
By this point, I was thinking, FANTASTIC. But when Dr. Phil introduced the man sitting on my left on stage, the mood rapidly shifted. Mr. Miami Vice actually founded The Right Stuff, a dating app for conservatives. Huh? Dr. Phil next dropped this bomb, “John also served as the Director of the White House Presidential Personnel office during the Trump administration.”
Wait? What? Are we on Sunday morning Fox News or Dr. Phil?
My mask has always served me. People always tell me that I look calm when I don’t feel that way. At that moment my ability to look confident when I was anything but inside was being utilized to the nth degree. I started to disassociate, to have an out-of-body experience mixed with confusion.
“You’ve got a problem with this,” Dr. Phil asked Mr. Miami Vice. “What’s your problem with it?”
“My problem is that it’s making a mockery of a very sacred thing. I think if you want to celebrate yourself, that’s great, I just think there are other ways to do it.”
Mr. Miami Vice started to rant about conservatives being called crazy when they worried about people marrying multiple people, marrying themselves, marrying animals, marrying objects.
What? What are we talking about? Are you really worried about animal marriage? Don’t you think it would be a better use of your time to worry about … I don’t know…climate change?
The producers emailed me questions to prepare for the show, but they never mentioned this was going to turn into a political debate.
I didn’t know where to start, but I had to get myself out of a freeze. Over the past year, I had been training with Katie and Gay Hendricks, two therapists-turned-coaches who teach courses in Body Intelligence. The Hendricks speak about the importance of telling the microscopic truth when in conflict. “Telling the miscoscopic truth” means revealing the sensations you are feeling in your body. It’s a way of inviting someone else into your reality.
What came out of my mouth came naturally as a result of those trainings.
I said, “When I listen to you, I just feel really tense and kind of afraid.”
The audience laughed. Mr Miami Vice said nothing. Later people told me I demolished him but I wasn’t looking to destroy anyone. I was just looking to say something after these men who knew nothing about self-marriage hijacked the conversation. The editors wound up using that high-sensation line as part of their promo for the show. (See below clip!)
Dr Phil next brought up Brad Wilcox, sociology professor and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, who also knew nothing about self-marriage and talked about the importance of people tying the knot in their twenties.
The conversation turned into Dr. Phil fretting about self-marriage spreading, people getting married less, and having fewer children, which could spell a declining birth rate and economic disaster for the country. The show had become ridiculous. Apparently now getting married is our patriotic duty.
By this point, I forced myself to intervene again, telling Dr. Phil during the commercial break that I had something to say in response to Brad Wilcox. Here’s what I said.
I did as well as I could, considering the madness coming out of their mouths, but I wish I could go back and be even more clear. I would say, “Brad, we are here today to talk about self-marriage, which is a ceremony that allows a woman or a man to celebrate their lives and honor their priorities and values. It sounds like you are advocating something else: forced marriage to another person. What do you propose? Should we marry anyone that we can find on Tinder during our twenties?”
Also: “Dr. Phil, why are you drumming up controversy by talking about immigration and the declining birth rate? Do you prefer that women don’t love themselves, and stay in whatever relationship they can get? Would you prefer that women don’t have power?”
“And wait, did anyone ever say that people here on stage who have married themselves are against marriage? I am willing to bet that all three of us on stage would marry another person if we found someone we wanted to marry.”
The “other side” kept going on and on about the “sacrament” of marriage. Marriage is a “sacrament” because God’s love then becomes expressed through a couple’s union. OK, but didn’t Jesus actually say the most important thing to do is to love your neighbor like you love yourself? To love your neighbor, you need to learn how to love yourself. The people who are causing the most havoc in the world surely do not love themselves.
There were sweet moments in the show, like when Dr. Phil asked if anyone in the audience would marry themselves; hands shot up. A young guy said said he would. He clarified that he wouldn’t be cheating if he married someone else. He would forgive himself. That guy was great. Generation Z is primed for the concept of self-marriage like no generation that has come before them.
I got to officiate a ceremony that ran during the credits. Kalley and her sister Camryn wanted to marry themselves on television and they wanted me to guide them. The producers set up a beautiful backstage green room with flowers. Camryn said moving things: she wanted to give herself full credit for her trauma healing. Again, trauma was present. Perhaps that was the high point of the show for me.
++
After Ali and I got in the car and started looking for a place for lunch, I started putting the pieces together. I banged my feet against the dashboard of her car in rage. I could not believe the producers mainstreamed Mr. Miami Vice, who helped to orchestrate a violent coup against the government of the US on January 6 that resulted in five deaths, as the “other side” on a daytime TV show. Mr. Miami Vice (and I am not using his name here for a reason) should not have been on stage next to us. The producers had no business giving someone like that a platform, and certainly not about a topic he knew nothing about.
The producers took good care of me with the make-up, travel, and hotel, but I didn’t like their “surprises.” I called Kalley from lunch and asked her if she knew they had also booked Mr. Miami Vice. She said that she didn’t and that she thought his craziness made us look better. That’s probably true (we did sound sane in comparison), but still, it was unfair to throw me into a political debate with a Trumper and a conservative sociologist without giving me notice so I could prepare.
A week later I shared what happened on a coaches’ community page with Katie Hendricks. Katie wrote back, “Oooh, you survived an encounter with crazy, congrats! Media, especially Dr. Phil, has veered off into conflict porn. I experience TV as an opportunity to get skilled at encountering the unexpected. Enjoy the ripple!”
Katie nailed it. Conflict Porn. That’s what Dr. Phil and most American TV talk shows want for ratings. The show didn’t want real dialogue; they wanted shock, gotcha moments, and stupidity. A client told me in a session a few weeks later that she was proud to see me up on stage speaking up for self-marriage, but she didn’t understand why Dr. Phil flew me out to LA if he wasn’t going to give me more airtime. Yeah, you and me both sister.
Another client from the 2023 Turned-On Living group wondered if the producers didn’t tell the women about the political people coming on the show so we would look dumb. I wouldn’t go that far. I believe the producers genuinely wanted to have a conversation about self-marriage, but they were operating within such a sick workplace that the “other side” became a Trumper. They certainly didn’t operate with integrity.
Drama was the star of the show with Dr. Phil in the judge position. He is not a judge I would trust. When the cameras went off, his jaw went slack. He seemed to be quite the phony.
Was it worth it to disrupt my life to be on the Dr. Phil show? I can’t say I regret the decision, but then again, I have a hard time regretting any choice because I learn from whatever happens. Would I go on the Dr. Phil Show again if the producers invited me back (which is not going to happen because the show is now off the air)? No! Certainly not! As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
When I think back to Clyde’s advice, “Authors take risks,” I think yes, that’s true. Authors do take risks. Simply by writing our books we take risks. To experience the fullness of life, and get one’s ideas out into the world, we have to take chances. If I get the opportunity to talk about something I sincerely believe in or want to promote, like my next book Wet, my coaching program Turned-On Living, or pussywalking, the sexual-energy mindfulness practice I created, on a large platform, I check out the opportunity. But I would also follow Jill’s advice and ask hard-hitting questions. Hindsight is 20/20, but now knowing what I know, I would have quizzed the producers about the “opposing” side.
Did going on Dr. Phil change my life or help me in my business? Not really. Let’s face it. My clients are not watching much daytime TV. I got a few weird emails, the most memorable from a man who somehow seemed to think I was going to meet him in a motel in Texas (???), a fantastic makeover, and a free trip to California where I got to spend time with two of my oldest friends. I met two trailblazing women who also married themselves. I built my confidence in my ability to speak up in any situation. If I can talk to Dr. Phil about self-marriage, well, shoot, I can do anything. At the very least, I got a story.
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Want to explore making your own soul commitment (or marrying yourself) within a group context of a yearlong exploration of pleasure, joy, and self-worth? Check out my small group coaching program Turned-On Living and enter your email to start a conversation with me about being part of the 2024 cohort.
Coming soon: Pussywalking Down the Aisle to a Soul Commitment Ceremony
Inside the Rosemary’s Fig “tunnel” at Gather Farm, where the self-marriage/soul commitment ceremonies will take place
In a week, the intrepid women who make up my Turned-On Living 2023 group are coming to our weekend retreat in Providence, Rhode Island, where I now call home. This is a momentous moment! We will be together in the flesh! We have been together in a yearlong adventure of Turned-On Living through months like Anti-People-Pleasing, Embodied Self-Compassion, Visioning (Getting Clear About What You Really Want) .Rest/Digital Detox, and Prioritizing Pleasure. Now is the time when we get to know each other as living bodies, outside of the little Hollywood Squares boxes we have all come to know on Zoom.
We dance at the start of all our weekly meetings as a ritual to get present. Now we will be able to rock out with each other in person! On the agenda: dancing in the woods in the riotous New England fall foliage.
On the last day of our retreat, we will be doing self-marriage, or soul commitment, ceremonies at Gather Farm, a beautiful spot near Providence where magical yoga, dance, and meditation classes happen in nature. I am so excited that we are going to be doing the ceremonies in such a gorgeous natural spot!
the land at Gather Farm, where the soul commitment ceremonies will take place during the Turned-On Living retreat!
The self-marriage, or soul commitment, ceremonies are a chance to pledge inner love in simple vows witnessed by the other women and me, kindred spirits on the path of Turned-On Living. We have talked about how they will pussywalk down the aisle. Pussywalking is a big theme in Turned-On Living, a practice we return to again and again as a mindful embodiment of self-appreciation and confidence in the way we walk through the world as women.
Now here is something interesting. I am not sure how many of these women would be doing a soul commitment, or self-marriage, ceremony this year if they were not part of the Turned-On Living group.
Most of them came into the program with other desires at the forefront, like wanting to learn how to have fun again, or to get clear about what they really want for their lives. They wanted to have meaningful conversations in a consistent community of personal growth among kindred spirits. Self-marriage was not at the top of the agenda. In fact, most of them are calling it “soul commitment” rather than self-marriage because that language resonates more. Maybe soul commitment is the eating broccoli of personal growth – something you know could be good for you but it’s a bit scary and maybe even too healthy to consider!
Here’s why I bring this up. There is a power of being in a group to take you to places that you might not get to on your own.
There is a particular power in being part of a small group in particular, that meets consistently and really gets to know each other, not in a performative way to sound smart or special, but in a real way where you can let your guard down and show up as yourself, in all your real glory.
When we are in a group, we can learn from each other, witness each other, and get lifted up by the support of knowing that we are not the only ones trying something new. This was definitely true during the Anti-People Pleasing month of Turned-On Living, perhaps the most confrontational month that had us looking at people-pleasing patterns of being “too nice.” There is nothing like ignoring your own truth that will drain your turn-on for life.
I am excited about meeting these special women!
In the meantime, I am starting to talk with women to form the cohort of special women who will make up Turned–On Living 2024. If reading about these adventures tugs at your soul, reach out and set up a time to talk. I talk with each person in the cohort to form the group, because it’s a small group and we are together for a whole year. We will get to know each other and discover if Turned-On Living is right for you. I take a lot of care with the group because it’s all about creating a feeling of safety and belonging, where everyone feels comfortable being real. That’s where the good stuff happens, in realness. Take a look at this page, and book a call or enter your email to start the conversation.
Filling My Cup with Pleasure… in a Flower Bath in Bali
Relishing a flower bath at Karsa Spa, in Ubud, Bali
Receiving a traditional Balinese healing massage and then soaking in a flower bath in Bali at the extremely special Karsa Spa was one of the highlights of my (first) three weeks on this magical island.
If you are headed to Bali anytime soon, I definitely recommend you bookmark the Karsa link — and reserve in advance. Massage and flower bath places abound all over Bali (what a place after my own heart!) but Karsa is special and it can take time to get a reservation. (If you check out the other pictures on my Instagram feed you will see more.)
The flower bath was part of the 10-day retreat led by my business coach of the last two years, Megan Taylor Morrison. Meg had heard Karsa was amazing from a longtime Bali visitor and it is!
I was last to emerge from the flower bath in the group because I could not tear myself away from the lush flower petals surrounding my body. I truly felt like I had been dropped in a peaceful heaven. Let’s call it a peak sensual moment! Over the last fifteen years, I have developed quite the capacity to savor physical bliss in all my trainings and explorations of sensuality (you’ll read more about that in WET when it’s finally ready for you). I can safely say this Karsa flower bath in Bali was maybe one of the most blissed-out times in my life that did not involve sex, drugs, tango, or Paris. Ha! I could have stayed in another hour. I plan to go back.
Savoring pleasure – and prioritizing and discovering it – is a big theme in my yearlong group coaching program Turned-On Living. During the year, we have monthlong themes, involving experiential “playwork” and reading. One of the early months is “Prioritizing Pleasure.” Why? Isn’t pleasure trivial? Isn’t sensuality hedonistic? Not really.
What if I tell you that your ability to slow down and savor pleasure is critical for your ability to develop self-worth… and even boundaries? Having been working with women and sensuality and sexuality in life coaching for more than a decade now, I can tell you that many women clients suffer from a pleasure deficit, not exactly what is technically called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure, but something close to it.
We are not working in the realm of diagnosis, we are working in the realm of real life. Most of the women I have coached feel some degree of resistance to feeling pleasure. They often feel like we have to be doing something to help others or improve themselves. Or what if we try to engage in pleasure or self-pleasure, and it doesn’t work? Performance anxiety creeps up around pleasure! The modern world has us avoiding rest and focusing on the next thing on the to-do list.
Just think: how often are you without your phone, simply savoring being in the moment? Pleasure is a kind of breathing meditation.
It can be hard to change your habits in isolation, which is why it’s so useful and helpful to be in a small group of women who have a shared goal of living a turned-on life.
This is a big reason I created Turned-On Living. There are ways we can learn together from each other in small groups that we can’t do alone.
Through Turned-On Living, I guide you in a yearlong adventure of exploring pleasure, boundaries, antipeople-pleasing, getting clear on what you really want for your life, pussywalking your way to your full empowerment, and more. This is a self-development program with a focus on embodiment. We talk, dance, and get into our bodies. We form a curated group of women to explore what it looks like and takes to live a #turnedonlife.
This is the time of year when I start talking with women to create the group for next year. 2024, we are looking at you.
If you are curious about being part of the group, what we do, and how Turned-On Living could change your life, take a look at this page, and enter your email address here to start the conversation.
I will send you the curriculum and costs so you have all the information, and if it feels like a potential fit, we will do an interview. I talk with each person in-depth to create a supportive, uplifting supergroup.
Another way to learn more about the vibe of Turned-On Living is to attend an Online Dance Party on October 25, at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT. In 2023, I am all about doing Online Dance Parties on Zoom to connect with readers and clients.
In between songs, I will be talk about Turned-On Living for Tough Times, and you will learn more about the program of Turned-On Living.
So here you go, important links…
GO HERE to sign up for the Wednesday, October 25, Zoom Dance Party on Turned-On Living for Tough Times, and to learn more about TOL 2024. Feeling tense? Stiff? Curious? Excited? Sad? Nervous? Let’s dance it all out!
GO HERE to learn about Turned-On Living and what we will do over a year together in a small, curated group. Enter your email and you will get the full curriculum with all the monthly themes and cost information. If it feels like a potential fit, we will do a personal interview.
See ya there!
Online Dance Party: Turned-On Living for Tough Times
Tough times call for Turned-On Living.
When life gets hard, it’s time to come back to ourselves.
I’m hosting an Online Dance Party on Wednesday, October 25 at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT to bring together my readers and clients.
In between songs, I’ll talk about the topic of cultivating Turned-On Living in tough times. What do you do to come back to yourself during times of overwhelm and discombobulation? Why is it important to keep focused on joy and pleasure even, or especially, when the world is in disarray?
Turned-On Living is a philosophy about returning to rituals of joys and pleasure to fuel ourselves for life, and connecting with our bodies to know what we feel and what we want.
Turned-On Living is also a yearlong small group coaching program that I lead with a curated group of women. The 2023 cohort has been absolutely wonderful. Those women are soon coming to Providence to be together in a retreat. And it’s time to start creating the 2024 cohort.
Are you interested in learning the practices that support living a Turned-On Life, whatever that looks like for you?
We can learn so much from each other. We are all much more similar than we realize.
To learn more about Turned-On Living, check out this page and get in touch to let me know if you want to be considered to be part of the 2024 cohort. We can talk and discover whether it’s a fit.
To sign up for the online dance party, please enter your email in the box below. See you soon, to dance and chat!
Helping two young women marry themselves on the Dr. Phil show – a life highlight!
Going on the Dr. Phil show on self-marriage as a guest expert earlier this year in February was what I would call a VERY mixed experience–you’ll get to read all the juicy details in an essay to be published soon in this space. If you are not on my newsletter list already, be sure to sign up to get that post!
But there were some wonderful moments that need to be remembered for the history (herstory?) books.
One of the best parts, for sure, was getting the chance to officiate a self-marriage ceremony on national TV, on a show that reaches two million people per episode. After all the other shenanigans happened on stage (again, stay tuned for the essay), the producers led me backstage where they had actually created quite a sweet space with flowers for a self-wedding.
Who was getting married? After I got to LA, the producer called me and told me that Kalley Sullivan, the assistant producer, wanted to marry herself on the show, and her sister Camryn, a mental health influencer (and survivor) who runs this YouTube account focused on suicide prevention, also wanted to commit to love herself in a ceremony. They had been so inspired by the conversations with me and the other two women featured on the show, Danni Adams (@amapoundcake) and Sonya Police, that they too wanted to take this bold step, in their early twenties. Way to go Generation Z!
They asked me to officiate the ceremony since I have been helping women to marry themselves for years.
Take a look at the video above to sneak a peak. I love what Camryn says about giving no one else credit for her own growth. The journey of self-care and learning to love oneself is a social one. People help us along the way–friends, therapists, coaches, authors, parents, and so on. We can’t do this life thing on our own. But ultimately we choose to care for ourselves, and we need to give ourselves credit. Especially if life has thrown tough obstacles in our way, such as trauma or severe depression.
I’m sharing this video clip now because I’m especially inspired by the vibes of self-marriage by the Zoom call we just had yesterday afternoon in this year’s Turned-On Living program, the yearlong small group coaching program that I am running that brings together women who have the shared goal of living a turned-on life.
In November, the women who are part of this year’s 2023 Turned-On Living cohort will come to Providence and we will do their own unique self-marriage ceremonies in the woods as part of our weekend retreat to bond in person. Each woman is designing her own ceremony, and we will all witness each other’s vows. I absolutely love it. It’s so fun because everyone gets to be creative together.
If you are curious about marrying (or committing to) yourself but you don’t know who would get you or support you in this journey, check out being part of the 2024 cohort for Turned-On Living.
Self-marriage is an individual journey but it flourishes with group support, being seen, being known, and being witnessed by others who get it.
Reading Rest Is Resistance on the Week of Juneteenth
It’s the week of Juneteenth, and I wanted to send out a message in recognition.
Juneteenth may be something you have always known about, or, like me, you might have only learned about it in the last five years.
This page from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture breaks down “The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth.”
“Juneteenth marks our country’s (the U.S.’s) second independence day. Although it has long been celebrated in the African American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans.”
Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom for Black Americans…a goal we are clearly we are still working to achieve. “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” said Freedom Summer activist Fannie Lou Hamer.
Over the last week, I have been savoring Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, by Tricia Hersey, an artist, theologian, community organizer, and the creator of the Nap Ministry, which uplifts the liberatory power of rest through collective napping experiences.
Rest is Resistance reads like a sermon–and it centers the experience of Black people, for whom rest can be seen as reparations for their ancestors, enslaved people whose labor, bodies, and sleep were stolen. The manifesto makes a case for the revolution that is resting. Hersey makes it clear that the call to rest is for everyone.
Many of my clients struggle to rest. I do too.
I have been getting better at pacing myself, taking more breaks in the middle of the day for yoga nidra (or non-sleep deep rest). Dance breaks to a song from our Turned-On Living 2023 playlist are the best–they keep my life force going! Of course, there are always middle-of-the-day fifteen-minute pussywalks to tap into the core sexual energy that is always available for us when we turn it on!
It took me longer than I wanted to write this newsletter. The desire to work tempts me–to be productive, to do more, express and connect more often. But there is always so much to do, and as I get older, I don’t want to work in the evenings or on weekends. I want to rest!
If taking breaks and turning off your mind is a struggle for you too, I heartily recommend Rest Is Resistance. Opening up a page at random helps me to rest more with a feeling of solidarity about its importance.
Here is a passage I found at random just now: “All of culture is working in collaboration for us not to rest, and when we do listen to our bodies and take rest, many feel extreme guilt and shame. Embrace knowing that you have been manipulated and scammed by a violent system as powerful evidence. Now with this knowledge you can grieve, repair, rest, and heal.”
And…”Resting is ancient, slow, and connected work that will take hold of you in ways that may be surprising. Let your entire being slowly begin to shift. Get lost in rest. Pull up the blankets, search for softness and be open to the ways rest will surprise and calm you.”
Yours in honoring Juneteenth, and valuing rest and freedom,
Sasha
P.S. I am reading Rest as Resistance in preparation for August, our month dedicated to the theme of rest in Turned-On Living. I’ll let you know how we expand our capacity to turn off from work and tune into doing nothing, wandering, and daydreaming after we live the experience!
P.P.S. This blog post went out in my newsletter the Sasha Cagen Weeklyish. It’s not social media or even a Substack. It’s simple. If you want to get the newsletter and never miss news from me, please go ahead and enter your email address here!
Are you “too nice”?
This month in my yearlong small group coaching program Turned-On Living we are looking at patterns of being “nice” and perhaps “too nice.” We are looking at whether ”nice” is honest.
May is the Anti-People Pleasing month in Turned-On Living. Every month has a theme in service of creating a turned-on life.
For sure learning how to say no is necessary to say yes to life and what you really want. And speaking up is required to live a healthy life.
And yet it is not easy to change these patterns. I have struggled with elements of people-pleasing my whole life. I’m getting better every year at being real and am so enjoying being with a group of women on this yearlong journey.
How about you? Are you sometimes “too nice”? And does becoming less nice mean “toughening up” or just loving yourself more?
If you want to look at your own people-pleasing patterns, and what it takes to change them, I highly recommend these resources:
- The book Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty… and Start Speaking Up, Staying No, Asking Boldly, and Unapologetically Being Yourself by Aziz Gazipura. You can find Not Nice and all the other great books we are using during our yearlong journey on the Turned-On Living 2023 Bookshop.org list. (Shout out to Bookshop.org, a socially conscious way to buy books online and support indie bookstores!)
- This piece on Chief.com, which has hit home for a few of my coaching clients: Respect Me, Maybe? How ‘Soft’ Language Could Be Hurting Your Career. I work as a Guide for Chief, so I get a lot of their great content in my email inbox, and like to pass along the best wisdom.
- From Kara Loewentheil of Unfuck Your Brain, this podcast episode on people-pleasing.
All of these resources will provoke you. Books and podcasts are great, and…
If you want one-on-one support to work through your people-pleasing patterns in service of your turned-on life, you can reach out to see if I have space for a new client in my coaching practice.
If you would like to do this work with a group of awesome women dedicated to their own personal growth, you can put yourself on the waiting list for the next cohort of Turned-On Living. I will start talking with folks in September to form another special group to kick off in 2024.
Thoughts? Leave them in the comments!
Dear Dr. Phil: Why you should have me on your show about self-marriage
As I’m preparing to write my behind-the-scenes blog post about being on Dr. Phil (not using Chat GPT, which I am still resisting!), I uploaded this video to YouTube.
After our initial phone call, the producers asked me to make a video telling Dr. Phil why they should have me on the show as a guest expert. This four-minute chat into the camera is what I sent.
I got to say many more substantial things in my “audition” video than on the actual show!
The story of how the producers found me and what it was like to be flown out to LA to be on Dr. Phil will be coming soon.
I’ve been busy with my move into a new home, but now there are only three more boxes to unpack.
I am excited to get back into my writerly creative flow and share the backstory with you. Stay tuned. It’s my intention for my own Turned-On Life to do a lot more authentic, personal essayish writing this year.
P.S. This month in Turned-On Living, my group coaching program based on everything I have learned for coaching women for the last twelve years, we are moving into the topic of ANTI-PEOPLE-PLEASING.
It’s time to learn how to live from desire rather than obligation.
If you too are one of those “too nice” women who is ready to learn how to be kind to others while also being true to yourself, and you are curious to be considered for the next cohort of Turned-On Living, leave your email here to begin the conversation.
A podcast about listening to the body to make big life decisions, overcoming New England Puritanism, and more
It was a massive pleasure to talk with fellow Rhode Islander Dave Ursillo for his podcast the New Story.
In Dave’s former life, he was, according to his LinkedIn profile, “a political insider, policy nerd and aspiring Presidential speechwriter at governmental offices on state and Federal levels, including the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 2008 and for a gubernatorial candidate in 2009.”
Now, like me, he has channeled his energy and concern for a better world into helping others tap into their truest callings. Dave is s a storytelling coach with a thoughtful podcast The New Story about the narratives that shape our time, and a therapist-in-training.
In this provocative conversation (Dave provoked me!), we dug deep into personal stories I haven’t shared in other interviews.
Dave titled the episode “What stigmas and stereotypes cost women” and it’s about that and much more.
We talked about:
–The kind of clients I find myself working with in my coaching practice: I’ve always attracted thoughtful women who don’t want to settle in life or relationships. More generally, I attract women who are asking the question, “What do I really want?” and want to get out of their heads and into their bodies to move beyond the social conditioning that often cuts us short from answering that big question.
–The personal story of how I got sucked into Silicon Valley during my thirties when I cofounded a street fashion startup and then got disillusioned and left the U.S. for Brazil, where I hoped that a more sensual culture would help me reconnect with my authentic self. We also talk about why my time in Silicon Valley was so alienating. I could see the writing on the wall about how social media was going to f#$@ all of us, in particular our ability to connect with ourselves.
–How feeling the drum of samba music in the streets and reconnecting with wildness in culture and nature helped me to cleanse my mind for a minute and feel present and alive
–Going with my body’s instincts vs. ticking off the box of what a professional woman in her thirties was supposed to do next (buy a condo, find a husband, etc., etc.)
–The treasured experience of quirkyalone solitude, and developing a mindful way of being in connection with yourself and others
–Making sense of the word “embodiment”
–How growing up in the Puritanical environment of Rhode Island shaped me and how I have been liberating myself from those influences ever since (and helping others to do the same).
–Coming back to New England as an adult and discovering the pockets of subcultural communities of resistance and aliveness formed in reaction to the dominant repressive culture. Whatever is violence-inducing will produce pockets of safety and community.
–The Scarlet Lettering that persists in our society when a woman seeks to embrace her sexuality and sensuality, and what this kind of rebellion and resistance feels like. I talk about how I help my clients to do that in a safe environment. Safety is a prerequisite to feel pleasure.
–Linguistic interventions of reclamation: How saying the word “pussy” out loud is a big deal for most women and can be a transformative path in and of itself. We talk about my new Turned-On Living group coaching program and how speaking that word has been a challenge for everyone in the group. We also talk about the joy and liberation that awaits us on the other side!
–Pussywalking, of course! And the difficult challenge of inserting the word “pussywalking” when I appeared on the Dr. Phil show on self-marriage in February (what a lost opportunity!). LOL. LOL. LOL.
–The need for a new word to connote strength in women. Don’t say we have balls when we are brave! What’s so strong about “balls” anyway? Ovaries is not going to work either, so what is it?
–Learning how to ask for what you want is about learning how to generate magic in the world
–Learning how to be your own best friend, and how this is a universal journey for all of us: men, women, and non-binary folks.
This was such a fun and lively conversation.
We both enjoyed it, and we hope you do too.
Let us know what you think in the comments!
And if you have a new word to suggest to connote female strength that comes from our sexual anatomy, we are all ears!
Blog Fulllwidth
Making Decisions Somatically… According to What Feels Good in My Body
Morning of the Soul Commitment Ceremonies, Turned-On Living 2023
I am increasingly making decisions by connecting with my body, and its many sensations. And I love that.
I want to share something quite personal with you today about this trend. It’s not new for me (I’ve been living with an ear toward my body for about fifteen years) but it’s growing in steam and power. It’s not as if I never share personal things, but this one requires me to slow down and think about how to tell you. Here’s what I want to tell you. This somatic-decision making thing.
In early November, I hosted this year’s Turned-On Living group in Providence for our in-person retreat. The women came from Charlotte, North Carolina; Toronto, Hoboken, New Jersey; Austin, Texas; and Seattle, Washington. When I told people at home in Rhode Island that the women were coming from such diverse places, they acted impressed as if I had hit the big time. Well, that’s just how it was. This year we came together as a group of women from these places, and this was our moment to meet in person. As two of them said at our first dinner, it would have been unfathomable not to come.
We have been getting to know each other on Zoom since January, so we would be in person after ten months of meeting online in those little squares. We were three-dimensional people in the flesh. We’ve talked about such intimate things, in months with topics ranging from prioritizing pleasure to anti-people-pleasing to visioning and getting clear about what we want for our lives. What we really, really want, not what we are supposed to want!
We danced in the woods on Saturday and then co-created the soul commitment ceremonies at a farm the next day, choosing songs for their pussywalks down the aisle, talking about the adornments they would wear as symbols of self-commitment. The ceremonies themselves were gorgeous and uplifting like I have never quite experienced. At the lunch to celebrate the soul-commitment ceremonies, I surprised them with a Death by Chocolate Gluten-Free cake, made for them, decorated “Happy Soul Commitment!”on the frosting with their initials. That was fun!
I was sitting with myself a day after the retreat, feeling into the spaciousness and calm that was generated in my body because we got to be in person. So much love, so much support, so much acceptance in those days with these vibrant, fun, surprising women. There’s something different and special about being physically together with the foundation of trust, ease and camaraderie that had been built virtually over time. It’s different than a retreat where you don’t know the people beforehand, and might not see them after. We were a group that that been together ten months and had two months to go.
I was working on some questions about my business, planning next year, what comes next. This year has been a great experience, so I have wanted to do a second Year of Turned-On Living but have been struggling with timing and energy because it’s not easy for me to teach and market at the same time.
As I played with answers and dates and made lists, I realized that I wanted to slow down. I wanted to push the start date of Turned-On Living back from February to June, for a variety of reasons, that would make me feel more rested, and ready, giving me enough time to digest the lessons of this year.
Now this would seem like a small thing, but it was not a small thing. Changing this plan was revolutionary to me! Gosh darn it, I could choose a pace that would feel good in my body when I imagined the path forward, not send me into a spiral of clenched fear that I was going to be exhausted for the next year.
Am I not the boss of my own life and business? Even though I have reinvented myself and my life many times, living in different countries too, and I have specifically chosen to be a self-employed entrepreneur, I sometimes forget that I am in charge, that I have more agency and freedom than I realize. We all get to choose many times, more than we realize.
I felt really good making this decision. And how did it come to me? The idea to push timing back came to me through my body, through a warmth and spaciousness in my belly. When I imagined June, I could sink into the couch and feel relaxed through my middle and even my thighs and down to my toes. I was choosing a future that would feel good to me. Here is a big value of being a sensitive person who is quite in touch with my body; the body can be an excellent rudder for decision-making.
The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, a book we read during the Embodied Confidence Month of the Year of Turned-On Living, provides evidence that the best decisions come from a variety of inputs. Not just from our brains but from all points in our bodies. The chapter “Thinking with Sensation” dives into research showing that Wall Street traders who were most successful in making money were not the most educated; they made them based on gut hunches and whispers they could feel in their bodies. They could make decisions quickly, almost like animals.
The book is utterly fascinating. I am a bit animal-like in my decisions too, though I don’t make them quickly, necessarily. I do listen to whispers in my body, pulses, and their opposite, deadness. This deep, ongoing listening to my body is not something that came to me naturally. It’s the result of many years of practice; my mind is very active too and can keep me stuck with analysis paralysis.
Listening to my body’s impulses has taken me to many places far away from home, to California, to Argentina, to Bali, back to my native Rhode Island, to tango, to the people who have been influential for me. Listening to my body is also how I healed my body from the aftermath of a secret kept of a single incident of childhood sexual abuse when I was six, because that took me to tango and South America, but I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time. I was just following instincts. Body-based instincts are important. This is what I am writing about in Wet. All about how I got so connected with my body.
My advice about decisions? Think things through, do your research, make your lists, and also make sure you pay attention to your body. Feel into how future ideas, yesses or nos, or schedules, land in your viscera, your organs, your cavitiies.
We talk about body intuition quite a lot in Turned-On Living. How to make decisions by being in touch with your body, speak up, say no, set a boundary, do something different, because you feel it as a truth in your sensations.
Listening to your body can get complicated. Because sometimes the body does lie. Here’s one example. Your heart is pounding. You are feeling like you are going to die; but you are not. You are having a panic attack. It can be a journey to get into a long-term relationship with your body and learn how to read yourself, repeatedly inquiring to find patterns of wisdom.
It makes me happy to have this clear example of listening to my body to make an important decision that improves my quality of life, or I think it will. I adore the clear decisions that feel good in my body, expansive, enlarging. They can be rare jewels. Not that I can predict exactly what will happen–who can ever predict what will happen?
In general, decisions that feel physically spacious have a way of panning out in magical ways, giving me not necessarily what I said I wanted but what I most need. And there are always surprises.
We can’t control everything but we may be able to control more than we think.
So I sent out this essay/email to share with you this story….
And also to tell you the new liftoff dates for the 2024-2025 cohort of Turned-On Living.
We are now kicking off in June.
The interviews to form the group will happen in January. The group will be closed by February 1.
This gives you a lot of time to get yourself settled between February and June.
If this group is any indication, all groups of TOL women will be FIRE, as Gen Zers say.
Want to learn more? Go to the new web page for Turned-On Living with photos from our recent retreat, dancing in the woods and the soul commitment ceremonies at a lovely farm outside Providence.
If you feel inspired to be part of the next cohort read this page and then …click here to tell me about you.
The True Story of My (Ill-Advised?) Appearance on the Dr. Phil Show…
outside the dressing room
Over the last year, many people have asked me, “How did that happen?” In other words, “How did you wind up as a guest expert on the Dr. Phil Show?”
Yeah, how did that happen? It’s a good question, and a story that apparently must be told. There is nothing quite like having a televised discussion about self-love turn into a political debate about “animal marriage” with a Trumper on Dr. Phil, who is not officially a licensed psychologist. And you heard that from Dr. Sasha…
Here’s where the story begins. Picture this: a dreary, dark January late afternoon. I was resting at home in Providence, Rhode Island, with slight flurries of snow outside and a cup of tea on the bedside table. My laptop perched on my thighs, and I was lying on my bed, staring at the screen. I try to avoid working in bed, but the end of the day brings low willpower. I had just opened up my email for the 37th time; a more exciting-than-usual message sat at the top of my inbox.
The subject line read, “Dr. Phi Inquiry.” What? My heartbeat sped up.
Kalley, an assistant producer, had written. “1 hope you are well! I am currently working on an upcoming episode that will discuss the empowerment of sologamy.”
Sologamy? I hate the word “sologamy.” Sologamy sounds like a sausage. But I know the word, because many other people have reached out to me over the years to get my “subject matter expertise” on it. “Sologamy” is a media-created word that has become associated with the practice of self-marriage, the ritual of creating a ceremony of self-love, self-acceptance, and self-compassion in adulthood. Some people call it a “soul commitment.” The producers wanted me as a guest expert. “You were referred to me by Amen Jafri. After looking at your website, I feel like you would be an incredible asset to the conversation.”
Everything Kalley wrote made sense. I helped Amen on her documentary about self-marriage. Over the last five years, I have become a go-to expert on the growing worldwide trend in Vice, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, ABC News/Nightline, 20/20, and more. I wrote about self-marriage in my 2004 book Quirkyalone, and have guided single and partnered women on the process of marrying themselves or making a soul commitment. In Argentina, I became something of a minor celebrity as the first woman to marry herself in the country when a TV interview about my 2014 ceremony in Buenos Aires’ Japanese Gardens went viral.
Kalley shared the film date in Los Angeles, February 7, and asked for a call. I thought about it, then texted news of the inquiry to my best friend and the man I was dating at the time. “One step closer to Oprah?”
A giddy feeling came over me, a flush on my cheeks. Getting interviewed by Oprah has always been my dream. When Quirkyalone was released way back in 2004, I got a ton of attention: CNN, NPR, New York Times, etc., but not the ultimate quirkyalone (Oprah). (Quirkyalones are people who don’t settle for less than what they really want in a romantic relationship.) Dr. Phil was discovered and promoted by Oprah. Maybe Dr. Phil would lead me to my inevitable interview with the woman herself!
In retrospect, this line of thinking doesn’t make sense. But hey, that is how my thoughts went at that moment.
Over the next day, I tried to forget about the inquiry. I was about to leave for my first trip to Argentina since the pandemic, where I lived for six years until March 2020. The dates would conflict. I had already purchased plane tickets and rented an apartment in Buenos Aires. But I am a curious person. I couldn’t control my curiosity.
++
Kalley and I talked two days later. Kalley told me that when Miley Cyrus’ song “Flowers,” about celebrating self-love after her divorce, became Spotify’s most streamed song in a single week, the Dr. Phil staff decided to devote the Valentine’s Day show to an unconventional topic. She told me they were doing more issue-oriented shows now. OK, I had no idea what Dr. Phil did previously. I had never watched the show. But it all sounded good.
Kalley asked me to make a video telling Dr. Phil why he should have me on the show. Speaking to Dr. Phil in a video seemed like a hokey thing to do, but I agreed and made the video in one take the next morning. I spoke about how women lose themselves in relationships or the search for love, and how the ceremony of self-marriage becomes a way of taking responsibility for one’s own happiness. I hit send.
Really, I didn’t know why I was even trying to get the producers to want me. Kalley told me the show had a rule against paying for international travel; I wasn’t going to pay to reroute my trip. I sent a proposal that would have them paying for a ticket from LAX to EZE (Buenos Aires) but I didn’t expect them to accept it.
++
Fast forward 36 hours. I was out for drinks with my new friend Sheri in frigid Providence. My phone rang! Kalley told me the producers wanted me on the show, and they approved the travel to Argentina! I pumped my arm in the air, nearly knocking over my Prosecco. I would lose a week of rent in Buenos Aires, but I wouldn’t lose money on the travel (and even gain some miles). I continued to pump my arm up and down like a trucker honking a horn. Oh yeah, I was a badass, asking for what I wanted, and actually getting it!
Feelings of triumph gave way to more complex feelings minutes later.
My phone lit up with messages from Sheryl, a friend in Buenos Aires who spent many years as an investigative journalist. First came a February 2022 link from the New York Post: “Dr. Phil show staffers decry workplace as ‘traumatizing’ and a ‘war zone’”; next a story came from a Buzzfeed News (RIP) investigation: “Current and Former ‘Dr. Phil’ Employees Say The Set Is A Toxic Workplace. The Show Says Everything’s Fine.”
Sheryl is the kind of friend who tells me things I don’t want to hear.
Oh no. I had only looked at the website’s home page and saw they had just done a show about older women feeling invisible, called “Aging Out Loud. I had given the producers the benefit of the doubt and assumed the producers were genuinely interested in women’s empowerment. Was I going to spread a message of self-love or get used and abused?
Right there in the restaurant booth, I called my friend Clyde Ford, who has been a publishing mentor over the last few years. Clyde has published twelve books, on topics as varied as race and healing through touch. Clyde enjoys appearing on right-wing radio shows and arguing it out with the other side. More than ten years ago, he appeared on Oprah to talk about his book on racial equality; the producers also booked white supremacists. He’s been in the trenches.
“So do you think I should do Dr. Phil?” I asked.
“Definitely,” he said. “That’s what you do as an author. You take opportunities, you take risks.”
I nodded. I tended to agree with Clyde.
But I still wasn’t sure. To go on Dr. Phil or not? The question turned over in my stomach over the next day. I liked the idea of bringing a radical idea like self-marriage to people who might not have heard of it, and maybe it would help me in my coaching business and to sell my next book to a publisher.
I wrote my literary agent Jill Grinberg asking her thoughts.
Jill wrote back, “Hi Sasha! Dr Phil is the #2 Talk Show in the US which is pretty major exposure. It could be good to be able to say in the book proposal you were recently on national TV. Did you talk to the producer today? Do you know what the bent of the show will be? I know the topic is self-marriage, but what is his agenda?”
In the end, I said yes. Was it the right decision?
++
My plane arrived in LA on the night of the Grammies. Traffic was terrible on the freeways, the driver who met me at the airport told me. He sent me a text when I was still on the tarmac. “Your chauffeur is waiting.” That text alone might have been worth the price of admission.
Something about this surprise trip to LA signified things going in a good direction in my life, but was that true? If I had stayed in my job in Silicon Valley fifteen years ago instead of becoming a life and executive coach, perks like a paid driver at the airport might be part of my life, but when you choose to be self-employed, no one else pays for a driver at the airport. The driver also told me, “Welcome home.” He thought I was a Los Angeleno. I spent nearly twenty years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and still feel like a Californian at heart. So that felt sweet too.
I spent the first night with my friend Ali in Echo Park at her home because I wanted to be on the West Coast earlier to lead a group coaching call, and Dr. Phil only paid for one night of hotel. In reality, the treatment was not so luxe.
My friend Jenny flew down from San Francisco. Ali and Jenny, two of my oldest California friends, would both attend the studio audience the next morning. There was something incredible about that. We met for dinner at my hotel the night before; by 9 p.m. I told them I needed to go to bed. I woke up at 3 a.m. to go over the questions the producers sent: You have been studying self-marriage for over 20 years. Has this become more popular in recent times? Why is self-marriage important? What is the main message about? What are some misconceptions of self-marriage? Can you be married to yourself and someone else? Are women’s standards rising? How is self-love being preached today to the younger generation?
A driver picked me up from the hotel lobby at 7:30, and brought me to the CBS studio lot. After a Covid test, the production assistant took me to a small dressing room, where I would spend the next few hours alone.
Many people have asked about hair, makeup, and wardrobe for the Dr. Phil Show, so I am going to tell you the truth: the hair and makeup was pretty fucking awesome, and were among the best parts of the whole experience. When I appeared on CNN, I got zero help with hair or makeup. They plopped me down in front of a camera to talk with Anderson Cooper. I don’t think I understood the power of makeup before the Dr. Phil Make-Up Artist sculpted my cheekbones. I took about 5,000 selfies in the dressing room.
before hair and makeup
The hairdresser did an excellent job. Of course we had a good chat too.
Never had a make-over like this before!
one of five million selfies I snapped in the dressing room
Next, the wardrobe came. Those two women steamed my dress, and gave me a narrow belt, nude stilletos, and pantyhose. They took photos to send to the Executive Producer for her approval. Clearly, guests’ appearances were very important to the producers.
What they sent to the producers for approval!
Finally, the most important knock came. It was time to go down to the stage.
In the hallway, I met two other women who had married themselves and would be guests on the show. One of the women wore a bright blue pantsuit and a necklace that said, “amapoundcake,” which turned out to be Danni’s social media handle for her work as a body image coach. Sonya wore a peach pantsuit with a brighter orange blouse below it. Sonya was a business owner in Colorado. They were both Black. I asked one of them if they knew each other; she said no. We were all new to each other. I learned later that the producers put us in different hotels.
The handlers then led us down to the stage. At that moment I felt on top of the world, buoyed by a camaraderie with these two women. Even if some people judged us as insane, narcissistic, pathetic, unmarriageable, or whatever insults people wanted to throw at us, we were strong and knew self-marriage as a beautiful path to take. At that time, the show felt like a culmination of the last 20 years of my work on women’s empowerment.
National attention for self-marriage! Whoo-hoo, I was feeling good!
The production assistant sat me and Sonya in the front. While we were waiting for the show to start, Sonya and I chit-chatted about dating as self-married women (there are some things you can only talk about with another woman who has married herself).
I looked across the way and noticed a white, tan, blue-eyed preppy thirtysomething guy with a sweep of neat hair to his left seated also in the front row. He had a kind of pastel look to him, like he lived in Miami, or appeared on the 1980s show Miami Vice? The producers were looking for a man who married himself to be on the show. Was he the man they found? I tried to make friendly eye contact, but Mr. Miami Vice looked away.
When the show began, Danni sat up on stage first with Dr. Phil. Danni invited dozens of friends and family to her recent outdoor self-wedding, so different from my ceremony, which I did in a much more private way. The producers played a clip of her vows, “Will you commit to never giving up until your dying day? Do you promise to value yourself?” Danni also left small bags with rings in them on each person’s seat, inviting people to marry themselves.
Danni explained, “I overcame a lot of trauma, and it inspired me to marry myself. I realized I wasn’t living for myself and this wedding was my chance to start over.”
I loved Danni’s story, specifically, how she invited others to pledge love to themselves and that she brought healing past trauma in the conversation. Trauma rarely gets talked about in media stories on self-marriage, but finding wholeness is often a part of the journey. Many of us would not be drawn to self-marriage if we had not felt damaged or broken.
By this point, I was thinking, FANTASTIC. But when Dr. Phil introduced the man sitting on my left on stage, the mood rapidly shifted. Mr. Miami Vice actually founded The Right Stuff, a dating app for conservatives. Huh? Dr. Phil next dropped this bomb, “John also served as the Director of the White House Presidential Personnel office during the Trump administration.”
Wait? What? Are we on Sunday morning Fox News or Dr. Phil?
My mask has always served me. People always tell me that I look calm when I don’t feel that way. At that moment my ability to look confident when I was anything but inside was being utilized to the nth degree. I started to disassociate, to have an out-of-body experience mixed with confusion.
“You’ve got a problem with this,” Dr. Phil asked Mr. Miami Vice. “What’s your problem with it?”
“My problem is that it’s making a mockery of a very sacred thing. I think if you want to celebrate yourself, that’s great, I just think there are other ways to do it.”
Mr. Miami Vice started to rant about conservatives being called crazy when they worried about people marrying multiple people, marrying themselves, marrying animals, marrying objects.
What? What are we talking about? Are you really worried about animal marriage? Don’t you think it would be a better use of your time to worry about … I don’t know…climate change?
The producers emailed me questions to prepare for the show, but they never mentioned this was going to turn into a political debate.
I didn’t know where to start, but I had to get myself out of a freeze. Over the past year, I had been training with Katie and Gay Hendricks, two therapists-turned-coaches who teach courses in Body Intelligence. The Hendricks speak about the importance of telling the microscopic truth when in conflict. “Telling the miscoscopic truth” means revealing the sensations you are feeling in your body. It’s a way of inviting someone else into your reality.
What came out of my mouth came naturally as a result of those trainings.
I said, “When I listen to you, I just feel really tense and kind of afraid.”
The audience laughed. Mr Miami Vice said nothing. Later people told me I demolished him but I wasn’t looking to destroy anyone. I was just looking to say something after these men who knew nothing about self-marriage hijacked the conversation. The editors wound up using that high-sensation line as part of their promo for the show. (See below clip!)
Dr Phil next brought up Brad Wilcox, sociology professor and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, who also knew nothing about self-marriage and talked about the importance of people tying the knot in their twenties.
The conversation turned into Dr. Phil fretting about self-marriage spreading, people getting married less, and having fewer children, which could spell a declining birth rate and economic disaster for the country. The show had become ridiculous. Apparently now getting married is our patriotic duty.
By this point, I forced myself to intervene again, telling Dr. Phil during the commercial break that I had something to say in response to Brad Wilcox. Here’s what I said.
I did as well as I could, considering the madness coming out of their mouths, but I wish I could go back and be even more clear. I would say, “Brad, we are here today to talk about self-marriage, which is a ceremony that allows a woman or a man to celebrate their lives and honor their priorities and values. It sounds like you are advocating something else: forced marriage to another person. What do you propose? Should we marry anyone that we can find on Tinder during our twenties?”
Also: “Dr. Phil, why are you drumming up controversy by talking about immigration and the declining birth rate? Do you prefer that women don’t love themselves, and stay in whatever relationship they can get? Would you prefer that women don’t have power?”
“And wait, did anyone ever say that people here on stage who have married themselves are against marriage? I am willing to bet that all three of us on stage would marry another person if we found someone we wanted to marry.”
The “other side” kept going on and on about the “sacrament” of marriage. Marriage is a “sacrament” because God’s love then becomes expressed through a couple’s union. OK, but didn’t Jesus actually say the most important thing to do is to love your neighbor like you love yourself? To love your neighbor, you need to learn how to love yourself. The people who are causing the most havoc in the world surely do not love themselves.
There were sweet moments in the show, like when Dr. Phil asked if anyone in the audience would marry themselves; hands shot up. A young guy said said he would. He clarified that he wouldn’t be cheating if he married someone else. He would forgive himself. That guy was great. Generation Z is primed for the concept of self-marriage like no generation that has come before them.
I got to officiate a ceremony that ran during the credits. Kalley and her sister Camryn wanted to marry themselves on television and they wanted me to guide them. The producers set up a beautiful backstage green room with flowers. Camryn said moving things: she wanted to give herself full credit for her trauma healing. Again, trauma was present. Perhaps that was the high point of the show for me.
++
After Ali and I got in the car and started looking for a place for lunch, I started putting the pieces together. I banged my feet against the dashboard of her car in rage. I could not believe the producers mainstreamed Mr. Miami Vice, who helped to orchestrate a violent coup against the government of the US on January 6 that resulted in five deaths, as the “other side” on a daytime TV show. Mr. Miami Vice (and I am not using his name here for a reason) should not have been on stage next to us. The producers had no business giving someone like that a platform, and certainly not about a topic he knew nothing about.
The producers took good care of me with the make-up, travel, and hotel, but I didn’t like their “surprises.” I called Kalley from lunch and asked her if she knew they had also booked Mr. Miami Vice. She said that she didn’t and that she thought his craziness made us look better. That’s probably true (we did sound sane in comparison), but still, it was unfair to throw me into a political debate with a Trumper and a conservative sociologist without giving me notice so I could prepare.
A week later I shared what happened on a coaches’ community page with Katie Hendricks. Katie wrote back, “Oooh, you survived an encounter with crazy, congrats! Media, especially Dr. Phil, has veered off into conflict porn. I experience TV as an opportunity to get skilled at encountering the unexpected. Enjoy the ripple!”
Katie nailed it. Conflict Porn. That’s what Dr. Phil and most American TV talk shows want for ratings. The show didn’t want real dialogue; they wanted shock, gotcha moments, and stupidity. A client told me in a session a few weeks later that she was proud to see me up on stage speaking up for self-marriage, but she didn’t understand why Dr. Phil flew me out to LA if he wasn’t going to give me more airtime. Yeah, you and me both sister.
Another client from the 2023 Turned-On Living group wondered if the producers didn’t tell the women about the political people coming on the show so we would look dumb. I wouldn’t go that far. I believe the producers genuinely wanted to have a conversation about self-marriage, but they were operating within such a sick workplace that the “other side” became a Trumper. They certainly didn’t operate with integrity.
Drama was the star of the show with Dr. Phil in the judge position. He is not a judge I would trust. When the cameras went off, his jaw went slack. He seemed to be quite the phony.
Was it worth it to disrupt my life to be on the Dr. Phil show? I can’t say I regret the decision, but then again, I have a hard time regretting any choice because I learn from whatever happens. Would I go on the Dr. Phil Show again if the producers invited me back (which is not going to happen because the show is now off the air)? No! Certainly not! As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
When I think back to Clyde’s advice, “Authors take risks,” I think yes, that’s true. Authors do take risks. Simply by writing our books we take risks. To experience the fullness of life, and get one’s ideas out into the world, we have to take chances. If I get the opportunity to talk about something I sincerely believe in or want to promote, like my next book Wet, my coaching program Turned-On Living, or pussywalking, the sexual-energy mindfulness practice I created, on a large platform, I check out the opportunity. But I would also follow Jill’s advice and ask hard-hitting questions. Hindsight is 20/20, but now knowing what I know, I would have quizzed the producers about the “opposing” side.
Did going on Dr. Phil change my life or help me in my business? Not really. Let’s face it. My clients are not watching much daytime TV. I got a few weird emails, the most memorable from a man who somehow seemed to think I was going to meet him in a motel in Texas (???), a fantastic makeover, and a free trip to California where I got to spend time with two of my oldest friends. I met two trailblazing women who also married themselves. I built my confidence in my ability to speak up in any situation. If I can talk to Dr. Phil about self-marriage, well, shoot, I can do anything. At the very least, I got a story.
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Want to explore making your own soul commitment (or marrying yourself) within a group context of a yearlong exploration of pleasure, joy, and self-worth? Check out my small group coaching program Turned-On Living and enter your email to start a conversation with me about being part of the 2024 cohort.
Coming soon: Pussywalking Down the Aisle to a Soul Commitment Ceremony
Inside the Rosemary’s Fig “tunnel” at Gather Farm, where the self-marriage/soul commitment ceremonies will take place
In a week, the intrepid women who make up my Turned-On Living 2023 group are coming to our weekend retreat in Providence, Rhode Island, where I now call home. This is a momentous moment! We will be together in the flesh! We have been together in a yearlong adventure of Turned-On Living through months like Anti-People-Pleasing, Embodied Self-Compassion, Visioning (Getting Clear About What You Really Want) .Rest/Digital Detox, and Prioritizing Pleasure. Now is the time when we get to know each other as living bodies, outside of the little Hollywood Squares boxes we have all come to know on Zoom.
We dance at the start of all our weekly meetings as a ritual to get present. Now we will be able to rock out with each other in person! On the agenda: dancing in the woods in the riotous New England fall foliage.
On the last day of our retreat, we will be doing self-marriage, or soul commitment, ceremonies at Gather Farm, a beautiful spot near Providence where magical yoga, dance, and meditation classes happen in nature. I am so excited that we are going to be doing the ceremonies in such a gorgeous natural spot!
the land at Gather Farm, where the soul commitment ceremonies will take place during the Turned-On Living retreat!
The self-marriage, or soul commitment, ceremonies are a chance to pledge inner love in simple vows witnessed by the other women and me, kindred spirits on the path of Turned-On Living. We have talked about how they will pussywalk down the aisle. Pussywalking is a big theme in Turned-On Living, a practice we return to again and again as a mindful embodiment of self-appreciation and confidence in the way we walk through the world as women.
Now here is something interesting. I am not sure how many of these women would be doing a soul commitment, or self-marriage, ceremony this year if they were not part of the Turned-On Living group.
Most of them came into the program with other desires at the forefront, like wanting to learn how to have fun again, or to get clear about what they really want for their lives. They wanted to have meaningful conversations in a consistent community of personal growth among kindred spirits. Self-marriage was not at the top of the agenda. In fact, most of them are calling it “soul commitment” rather than self-marriage because that language resonates more. Maybe soul commitment is the eating broccoli of personal growth – something you know could be good for you but it’s a bit scary and maybe even too healthy to consider!
Here’s why I bring this up. There is a power of being in a group to take you to places that you might not get to on your own.
There is a particular power in being part of a small group in particular, that meets consistently and really gets to know each other, not in a performative way to sound smart or special, but in a real way where you can let your guard down and show up as yourself, in all your real glory.
When we are in a group, we can learn from each other, witness each other, and get lifted up by the support of knowing that we are not the only ones trying something new. This was definitely true during the Anti-People Pleasing month of Turned-On Living, perhaps the most confrontational month that had us looking at people-pleasing patterns of being “too nice.” There is nothing like ignoring your own truth that will drain your turn-on for life.
I am excited about meeting these special women!
In the meantime, I am starting to talk with women to form the cohort of special women who will make up Turned–On Living 2024. If reading about these adventures tugs at your soul, reach out and set up a time to talk. I talk with each person in the cohort to form the group, because it’s a small group and we are together for a whole year. We will get to know each other and discover if Turned-On Living is right for you. I take a lot of care with the group because it’s all about creating a feeling of safety and belonging, where everyone feels comfortable being real. That’s where the good stuff happens, in realness. Take a look at this page, and book a call or enter your email to start the conversation.
Filling My Cup with Pleasure… in a Flower Bath in Bali
Relishing a flower bath at Karsa Spa, in Ubud, Bali
Receiving a traditional Balinese healing massage and then soaking in a flower bath in Bali at the extremely special Karsa Spa was one of the highlights of my (first) three weeks on this magical island.
If you are headed to Bali anytime soon, I definitely recommend you bookmark the Karsa link — and reserve in advance. Massage and flower bath places abound all over Bali (what a place after my own heart!) but Karsa is special and it can take time to get a reservation. (If you check out the other pictures on my Instagram feed you will see more.)
The flower bath was part of the 10-day retreat led by my business coach of the last two years, Megan Taylor Morrison. Meg had heard Karsa was amazing from a longtime Bali visitor and it is!
I was last to emerge from the flower bath in the group because I could not tear myself away from the lush flower petals surrounding my body. I truly felt like I had been dropped in a peaceful heaven. Let’s call it a peak sensual moment! Over the last fifteen years, I have developed quite the capacity to savor physical bliss in all my trainings and explorations of sensuality (you’ll read more about that in WET when it’s finally ready for you). I can safely say this Karsa flower bath in Bali was maybe one of the most blissed-out times in my life that did not involve sex, drugs, tango, or Paris. Ha! I could have stayed in another hour. I plan to go back.
Savoring pleasure – and prioritizing and discovering it – is a big theme in my yearlong group coaching program Turned-On Living. During the year, we have monthlong themes, involving experiential “playwork” and reading. One of the early months is “Prioritizing Pleasure.” Why? Isn’t pleasure trivial? Isn’t sensuality hedonistic? Not really.
What if I tell you that your ability to slow down and savor pleasure is critical for your ability to develop self-worth… and even boundaries? Having been working with women and sensuality and sexuality in life coaching for more than a decade now, I can tell you that many women clients suffer from a pleasure deficit, not exactly what is technically called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure, but something close to it.
We are not working in the realm of diagnosis, we are working in the realm of real life. Most of the women I have coached feel some degree of resistance to feeling pleasure. They often feel like we have to be doing something to help others or improve themselves. Or what if we try to engage in pleasure or self-pleasure, and it doesn’t work? Performance anxiety creeps up around pleasure! The modern world has us avoiding rest and focusing on the next thing on the to-do list.
Just think: how often are you without your phone, simply savoring being in the moment? Pleasure is a kind of breathing meditation.
It can be hard to change your habits in isolation, which is why it’s so useful and helpful to be in a small group of women who have a shared goal of living a turned-on life.
This is a big reason I created Turned-On Living. There are ways we can learn together from each other in small groups that we can’t do alone.
Through Turned-On Living, I guide you in a yearlong adventure of exploring pleasure, boundaries, antipeople-pleasing, getting clear on what you really want for your life, pussywalking your way to your full empowerment, and more. This is a self-development program with a focus on embodiment. We talk, dance, and get into our bodies. We form a curated group of women to explore what it looks like and takes to live a #turnedonlife.
This is the time of year when I start talking with women to create the group for next year. 2024, we are looking at you.
If you are curious about being part of the group, what we do, and how Turned-On Living could change your life, take a look at this page, and enter your email address here to start the conversation.
I will send you the curriculum and costs so you have all the information, and if it feels like a potential fit, we will do an interview. I talk with each person in-depth to create a supportive, uplifting supergroup.
Another way to learn more about the vibe of Turned-On Living is to attend an Online Dance Party on October 25, at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT. In 2023, I am all about doing Online Dance Parties on Zoom to connect with readers and clients.
In between songs, I will be talk about Turned-On Living for Tough Times, and you will learn more about the program of Turned-On Living.
So here you go, important links…
GO HERE to sign up for the Wednesday, October 25, Zoom Dance Party on Turned-On Living for Tough Times, and to learn more about TOL 2024. Feeling tense? Stiff? Curious? Excited? Sad? Nervous? Let’s dance it all out!
GO HERE to learn about Turned-On Living and what we will do over a year together in a small, curated group. Enter your email and you will get the full curriculum with all the monthly themes and cost information. If it feels like a potential fit, we will do a personal interview.
See ya there!
Online Dance Party: Turned-On Living for Tough Times
Tough times call for Turned-On Living.
When life gets hard, it’s time to come back to ourselves.
I’m hosting an Online Dance Party on Wednesday, October 25 at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT to bring together my readers and clients.
In between songs, I’ll talk about the topic of cultivating Turned-On Living in tough times. What do you do to come back to yourself during times of overwhelm and discombobulation? Why is it important to keep focused on joy and pleasure even, or especially, when the world is in disarray?
Turned-On Living is a philosophy about returning to rituals of joys and pleasure to fuel ourselves for life, and connecting with our bodies to know what we feel and what we want.
Turned-On Living is also a yearlong small group coaching program that I lead with a curated group of women. The 2023 cohort has been absolutely wonderful. Those women are soon coming to Providence to be together in a retreat. And it’s time to start creating the 2024 cohort.
Are you interested in learning the practices that support living a Turned-On Life, whatever that looks like for you?
We can learn so much from each other. We are all much more similar than we realize.
To learn more about Turned-On Living, check out this page and get in touch to let me know if you want to be considered to be part of the 2024 cohort. We can talk and discover whether it’s a fit.
To sign up for the online dance party, please enter your email in the box below. See you soon, to dance and chat!
Helping two young women marry themselves on the Dr. Phil show – a life highlight!
Going on the Dr. Phil show on self-marriage as a guest expert earlier this year in February was what I would call a VERY mixed experience–you’ll get to read all the juicy details in an essay to be published soon in this space. If you are not on my newsletter list already, be sure to sign up to get that post!
But there were some wonderful moments that need to be remembered for the history (herstory?) books.
One of the best parts, for sure, was getting the chance to officiate a self-marriage ceremony on national TV, on a show that reaches two million people per episode. After all the other shenanigans happened on stage (again, stay tuned for the essay), the producers led me backstage where they had actually created quite a sweet space with flowers for a self-wedding.
Who was getting married? After I got to LA, the producer called me and told me that Kalley Sullivan, the assistant producer, wanted to marry herself on the show, and her sister Camryn, a mental health influencer (and survivor) who runs this YouTube account focused on suicide prevention, also wanted to commit to love herself in a ceremony. They had been so inspired by the conversations with me and the other two women featured on the show, Danni Adams (@amapoundcake) and Sonya Police, that they too wanted to take this bold step, in their early twenties. Way to go Generation Z!
They asked me to officiate the ceremony since I have been helping women to marry themselves for years.
Take a look at the video above to sneak a peak. I love what Camryn says about giving no one else credit for her own growth. The journey of self-care and learning to love oneself is a social one. People help us along the way–friends, therapists, coaches, authors, parents, and so on. We can’t do this life thing on our own. But ultimately we choose to care for ourselves, and we need to give ourselves credit. Especially if life has thrown tough obstacles in our way, such as trauma or severe depression.
I’m sharing this video clip now because I’m especially inspired by the vibes of self-marriage by the Zoom call we just had yesterday afternoon in this year’s Turned-On Living program, the yearlong small group coaching program that I am running that brings together women who have the shared goal of living a turned-on life.
In November, the women who are part of this year’s 2023 Turned-On Living cohort will come to Providence and we will do their own unique self-marriage ceremonies in the woods as part of our weekend retreat to bond in person. Each woman is designing her own ceremony, and we will all witness each other’s vows. I absolutely love it. It’s so fun because everyone gets to be creative together.
If you are curious about marrying (or committing to) yourself but you don’t know who would get you or support you in this journey, check out being part of the 2024 cohort for Turned-On Living.
Self-marriage is an individual journey but it flourishes with group support, being seen, being known, and being witnessed by others who get it.
Reading Rest Is Resistance on the Week of Juneteenth
It’s the week of Juneteenth, and I wanted to send out a message in recognition.
Juneteenth may be something you have always known about, or, like me, you might have only learned about it in the last five years.
This page from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture breaks down “The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth.”
“Juneteenth marks our country’s (the U.S.’s) second independence day. Although it has long been celebrated in the African American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans.”
Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom for Black Americans…a goal we are clearly we are still working to achieve. “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” said Freedom Summer activist Fannie Lou Hamer.
Over the last week, I have been savoring Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, by Tricia Hersey, an artist, theologian, community organizer, and the creator of the Nap Ministry, which uplifts the liberatory power of rest through collective napping experiences.
Rest is Resistance reads like a sermon–and it centers the experience of Black people, for whom rest can be seen as reparations for their ancestors, enslaved people whose labor, bodies, and sleep were stolen. The manifesto makes a case for the revolution that is resting. Hersey makes it clear that the call to rest is for everyone.
Many of my clients struggle to rest. I do too.
I have been getting better at pacing myself, taking more breaks in the middle of the day for yoga nidra (or non-sleep deep rest). Dance breaks to a song from our Turned-On Living 2023 playlist are the best–they keep my life force going! Of course, there are always middle-of-the-day fifteen-minute pussywalks to tap into the core sexual energy that is always available for us when we turn it on!
It took me longer than I wanted to write this newsletter. The desire to work tempts me–to be productive, to do more, express and connect more often. But there is always so much to do, and as I get older, I don’t want to work in the evenings or on weekends. I want to rest!
If taking breaks and turning off your mind is a struggle for you too, I heartily recommend Rest Is Resistance. Opening up a page at random helps me to rest more with a feeling of solidarity about its importance.
Here is a passage I found at random just now: “All of culture is working in collaboration for us not to rest, and when we do listen to our bodies and take rest, many feel extreme guilt and shame. Embrace knowing that you have been manipulated and scammed by a violent system as powerful evidence. Now with this knowledge you can grieve, repair, rest, and heal.”
And…”Resting is ancient, slow, and connected work that will take hold of you in ways that may be surprising. Let your entire being slowly begin to shift. Get lost in rest. Pull up the blankets, search for softness and be open to the ways rest will surprise and calm you.”
Yours in honoring Juneteenth, and valuing rest and freedom,
Sasha
P.S. I am reading Rest as Resistance in preparation for August, our month dedicated to the theme of rest in Turned-On Living. I’ll let you know how we expand our capacity to turn off from work and tune into doing nothing, wandering, and daydreaming after we live the experience!
P.P.S. This blog post went out in my newsletter the Sasha Cagen Weeklyish. It’s not social media or even a Substack. It’s simple. If you want to get the newsletter and never miss news from me, please go ahead and enter your email address here!
Are you “too nice”?
This month in my yearlong small group coaching program Turned-On Living we are looking at patterns of being “nice” and perhaps “too nice.” We are looking at whether ”nice” is honest.
May is the Anti-People Pleasing month in Turned-On Living. Every month has a theme in service of creating a turned-on life.
For sure learning how to say no is necessary to say yes to life and what you really want. And speaking up is required to live a healthy life.
And yet it is not easy to change these patterns. I have struggled with elements of people-pleasing my whole life. I’m getting better every year at being real and am so enjoying being with a group of women on this yearlong journey.
How about you? Are you sometimes “too nice”? And does becoming less nice mean “toughening up” or just loving yourself more?
If you want to look at your own people-pleasing patterns, and what it takes to change them, I highly recommend these resources:
- The book Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty… and Start Speaking Up, Staying No, Asking Boldly, and Unapologetically Being Yourself by Aziz Gazipura. You can find Not Nice and all the other great books we are using during our yearlong journey on the Turned-On Living 2023 Bookshop.org list. (Shout out to Bookshop.org, a socially conscious way to buy books online and support indie bookstores!)
- This piece on Chief.com, which has hit home for a few of my coaching clients: Respect Me, Maybe? How ‘Soft’ Language Could Be Hurting Your Career. I work as a Guide for Chief, so I get a lot of their great content in my email inbox, and like to pass along the best wisdom.
- From Kara Loewentheil of Unfuck Your Brain, this podcast episode on people-pleasing.
All of these resources will provoke you. Books and podcasts are great, and…
If you want one-on-one support to work through your people-pleasing patterns in service of your turned-on life, you can reach out to see if I have space for a new client in my coaching practice.
If you would like to do this work with a group of awesome women dedicated to their own personal growth, you can put yourself on the waiting list for the next cohort of Turned-On Living. I will start talking with folks in September to form another special group to kick off in 2024.
Thoughts? Leave them in the comments!
Dear Dr. Phil: Why you should have me on your show about self-marriage
As I’m preparing to write my behind-the-scenes blog post about being on Dr. Phil (not using Chat GPT, which I am still resisting!), I uploaded this video to YouTube.
After our initial phone call, the producers asked me to make a video telling Dr. Phil why they should have me on the show as a guest expert. This four-minute chat into the camera is what I sent.
I got to say many more substantial things in my “audition” video than on the actual show!
The story of how the producers found me and what it was like to be flown out to LA to be on Dr. Phil will be coming soon.
I’ve been busy with my move into a new home, but now there are only three more boxes to unpack.
I am excited to get back into my writerly creative flow and share the backstory with you. Stay tuned. It’s my intention for my own Turned-On Life to do a lot more authentic, personal essayish writing this year.
P.S. This month in Turned-On Living, my group coaching program based on everything I have learned for coaching women for the last twelve years, we are moving into the topic of ANTI-PEOPLE-PLEASING.
It’s time to learn how to live from desire rather than obligation.
If you too are one of those “too nice” women who is ready to learn how to be kind to others while also being true to yourself, and you are curious to be considered for the next cohort of Turned-On Living, leave your email here to begin the conversation.
A podcast about listening to the body to make big life decisions, overcoming New England Puritanism, and more
It was a massive pleasure to talk with fellow Rhode Islander Dave Ursillo for his podcast the New Story.
In Dave’s former life, he was, according to his LinkedIn profile, “a political insider, policy nerd and aspiring Presidential speechwriter at governmental offices on state and Federal levels, including the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 2008 and for a gubernatorial candidate in 2009.”
Now, like me, he has channeled his energy and concern for a better world into helping others tap into their truest callings. Dave is s a storytelling coach with a thoughtful podcast The New Story about the narratives that shape our time, and a therapist-in-training.
In this provocative conversation (Dave provoked me!), we dug deep into personal stories I haven’t shared in other interviews.
Dave titled the episode “What stigmas and stereotypes cost women” and it’s about that and much more.
We talked about:
–The kind of clients I find myself working with in my coaching practice: I’ve always attracted thoughtful women who don’t want to settle in life or relationships. More generally, I attract women who are asking the question, “What do I really want?” and want to get out of their heads and into their bodies to move beyond the social conditioning that often cuts us short from answering that big question.
–The personal story of how I got sucked into Silicon Valley during my thirties when I cofounded a street fashion startup and then got disillusioned and left the U.S. for Brazil, where I hoped that a more sensual culture would help me reconnect with my authentic self. We also talk about why my time in Silicon Valley was so alienating. I could see the writing on the wall about how social media was going to f#$@ all of us, in particular our ability to connect with ourselves.
–How feeling the drum of samba music in the streets and reconnecting with wildness in culture and nature helped me to cleanse my mind for a minute and feel present and alive
–Going with my body’s instincts vs. ticking off the box of what a professional woman in her thirties was supposed to do next (buy a condo, find a husband, etc., etc.)
–The treasured experience of quirkyalone solitude, and developing a mindful way of being in connection with yourself and others
–Making sense of the word “embodiment”
–How growing up in the Puritanical environment of Rhode Island shaped me and how I have been liberating myself from those influences ever since (and helping others to do the same).
–Coming back to New England as an adult and discovering the pockets of subcultural communities of resistance and aliveness formed in reaction to the dominant repressive culture. Whatever is violence-inducing will produce pockets of safety and community.
–The Scarlet Lettering that persists in our society when a woman seeks to embrace her sexuality and sensuality, and what this kind of rebellion and resistance feels like. I talk about how I help my clients to do that in a safe environment. Safety is a prerequisite to feel pleasure.
–Linguistic interventions of reclamation: How saying the word “pussy” out loud is a big deal for most women and can be a transformative path in and of itself. We talk about my new Turned-On Living group coaching program and how speaking that word has been a challenge for everyone in the group. We also talk about the joy and liberation that awaits us on the other side!
–Pussywalking, of course! And the difficult challenge of inserting the word “pussywalking” when I appeared on the Dr. Phil show on self-marriage in February (what a lost opportunity!). LOL. LOL. LOL.
–The need for a new word to connote strength in women. Don’t say we have balls when we are brave! What’s so strong about “balls” anyway? Ovaries is not going to work either, so what is it?
–Learning how to ask for what you want is about learning how to generate magic in the world
–Learning how to be your own best friend, and how this is a universal journey for all of us: men, women, and non-binary folks.
This was such a fun and lively conversation.
We both enjoyed it, and we hope you do too.
Let us know what you think in the comments!
And if you have a new word to suggest to connote female strength that comes from our sexual anatomy, we are all ears!
Hi! I’m Sasha
Executive and Life Coach on a mission to help women connect with their bodies to pursue their truest desires in the bedroom and the world.
Author of Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics (HarperCollins) + To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us (Simon & Schuster).
At work on a memoir called Wet, about adventures in healing through sensuality.
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