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awareness Embodied Beings Retreats somatic movement wellbeing

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Holding space for sacred transitions & moving through thresholds

Clunky intimacy isn't failure. It's practice. So Clunky intimacy isn't failure. It's practice.

So many of us were never taught how to speak honestly about pleasure, desire, boundaries, or what helps us feel safe.

We were taught to guess.
To perform.
To know already.
To be smooth, confident, effortless, clear.

But in Pleasure Is An Act of Resistance, Tanya Koens offers something much kinder.

We are allowed to not know what we want.
We are allowed to change our minds.
We are allowed to try something and realise we don't like it.
We are allowed to ask again.
We are allowed to say, “not yet.”
We are allowed to say, “not ready.”

And yes, we are allowed to be a little awkward while we learn.

Maybe even gloriously awkward.

Because learning how to communicate with more honesty, care, and presence can feel clunky at first. New language often does. New trust often does. New ways of listening to the body often ask us to slow down, laugh gently, try again, and make room for the messiness of being human.

Pleasure doesn't need perfection.
Intimacy doesn't need performance.
Communication doesn't need us to arrive fully fluent.

It needs safety.
It needs relaxation.
It needs enough kindness for people to tell the truth and stay connected.

Tanya reminds us that there can be tenderness in the stumble. There can be relief in saying, “I don't know yet.” There can be freedom in discovering that changing your mind doesn't make you difficult. It makes you honest.

This conversation is a permission slip for the parts of us still learning how to ask, listen, receive, pause, laugh, soften, and begin again.

Listen to Pleasure Is An Act of Resistance with Tanya Koens wherever you find the podcast.

As you listen, you might ask yourself: where could I give myself more permission to be clunky, curious, and kind while I learn?
A clear no is not rejection. Sometimes it is the A clear no is not rejection.

Sometimes it is the beginning of safety.

In Pleasure Is An Act of Resistance, Tanya Koens speaks about one of the tenderest practices in intimacy:

asking for what we want,

and learning how to hear what comes back.

Yes.

No.

Not yet.

Not like that.

Maybe, but slower.

I don't know.

For many of us, asking can feel exposing.

What if I’m too much?

What if they think I’m strange?

What if they laugh?

What if they say yes, and then I don’t know what to do with being received?

And hearing no can touch old places too.

Tanya offers couples a practice.

Listen to episode 11 "Pleasure Is An Act of Resistance" with Tanya Koens (She/Her) wherever you find the podcast to find out more about it.

Save this for the part of you learning that no can create safety, and reflect with us:

Where might a clearer yes or a kinder no make more pleasure possible?

#DreamingOurselvesAlive #PleasureActivism #ConsentCulture #EmbodiedHealing #Aliveness
Tanya Koens says her job is to give people permiss Tanya Koens says her job is to give people permission to have pleasure.

Not permission from outside yourself.
Not permission from a system that taught you to earn rest, hide desire, and apologise for having a body.

A softer permission.
A deeper one.

Permission to want.
Permission to feel.
Permission to receive.
Permission to be curious about what your body has been trying to tell you.

So many of us learned to treat pleasure as selfish.
As shameful.
As too much.
As something we can have only after the work is done, the needs are met, the body is fixed, the crisis has passed.

But pleasure does not have to be a grand event.
It does not have to be sexual.
It does not have to look like anyone else’s version of aliveness.

It can be small.
Sensory.
Ordinary.
Nourishing.

A breeze on your face.
A song that loosens something in your chest.
A ripe piece of fruit.
The warmth of a cup in your hands.
A long exhale.
A conversation where you feel met.
A colour that makes you pause.
A moment where your body remembers it is allowed to feel good.

Pleasure is not a distraction from healing.
It can be part of how we return.

To the body.
To desire.
To tenderness.
To the quiet knowing that we were not born only to endure.

This clip from Pleasure Is An Act of Resistance is a permission slip for the parts of us still learning that wanting is not wrong.

That receiving is not selfish.
That feeling good does not make us less serious about the world.

It may be one way we stay alive enough to love it.

What pleasure are you ready to give yourself permission for?

#DreamingOurselvesAlive #PleasureActivism #EmbodiedHealing #BodyWisdom #Aliveness
What if pleasure is one way we remember we’re aliv What if pleasure is one way we remember we’re alive?

In this episode of Dreaming Ourselves Alive, Amel is joined by Tanya Koens, a sexologist and pleasure activist, for a warm, honest, and deeply permission-giving conversation about sex, pleasure, desire, consent, shame, rest, and the wisdom of the body.

Tanya brings such a rare combination of non-judgment, humour, tenderness, and clarity to places many of us have been taught to avoid.

Together, Amel and Tanya explore why pleasure is not selfish or frivolous. It can be part of our wellbeing. Part of our healing. Part of how we return to the body after shame, exhaustion, and disconnection.

And pleasure is not only sexual.

It can be the ocean breeze on your face.
A beautiful ice cream, slowly savoured.
Looking at art.
Creating art.
A long laugh with friends.
A conversation that wakes something up in you.
A gentle touch.
A moment of rest.
A small opening where the body remembers it is allowed to feel good.

They also speak about the courage it takes to ask for what we want, to hear yes, to hear no, to say “not yet,” to be clunky while learning, and to create enough safety for pleasure to have somewhere to land.

This episode is not about having all the answers.

It is an invitation into curiosity.
Into kindness.
Into generosity.
Into the possibility that pleasure, in a world that so often asks us to numb, shrink, rush, produce, and apologise for our bodies, can be an act of resistance.

Listen to Pleasure Is An Act of Resistance with Tanya Koens wherever you find the podcast, and share it with someone who may need permission to return to pleasure.

#pleasureactivism #embodiment #intimicywithlife #Aliveness #wellbeing
Tanya Koens names a quiet truth: your body was nev Tanya Koens names a quiet truth: your body was never the problem.

Not its shape.
Not its size.
Not its skin.
Not its gender.
Not its softness, scars, limits, longings, changes, or needs.

All bodies are capable of pleasure.

And still, so many of us have been taught to leave our bodies behind.

Shame can do that.
Capitalism can do that.
Patriarchy can do that.
Colonisation can do that.
Racism can do that.
Body norms, gender norms, and stigma can do that.

They can teach us that pleasure is selfish.
That rest must be earned.
That desire is dangerous.
That some bodies are worthy of delight and others are not.

Tanya reminds us that this separation is not natural.
It is learned.
And what has been learned can be gently, slowly, lovingly interrupted.

Pleasure does not have to arrive as performance.
It does not have to look a certain way.
It does not have to be sexual.
It does not have to be impressive enough to explain.

Pleasure may come through sight.
A colour that makes you soften.
A face you love.
A horizon that lets your breath return.

Through sound.
A song.
A laugh.
The hush of water.
The voice of someone who makes you feel safe.

Through smell.
Rain on warm earth.
Coffee.
Salt air.
A familiar sweater.

Through taste.
Fruit.
Ice cream.
Something warm, slow, and savoured.

Through touch.
A hand held with care.
Sun on skin.
A blanket.
Your own palm resting on your heart.

There is no one right way back.
There is only the honest invitation to listen.

To ask the body what feels kind.
What feels possible.
What feels like one small doorway into aliveness.

May this episode be a soft permission slip.
Not to force pleasure.
Not to judge what is absent.
But to remember that your body belongs inside the circle of delight.

What does pleasure look like for your body right now?

Listen to Pleasure Is An Act of Resistance with Tanya Koens wherever you find the podcast.

#DreamingOurselvesAlive #PleasureActivism #EmbodiedHealing #BodyLiberation #Aliveness
Tanya’s friends say she’s curing the world one org Tanya’s friends say she’s curing the world one orgasm at a time.

It makes her laugh.
And it also says something true.

Because Tanya Koens didn’t come to this work through theory alone. She came through people. Through bodies. Through the tender, complicated places where shame, desire, silence, longing, and aliveness all meet.

As a sexologist and pleasure activist, Tanya’s work is not about being sensational.

It is about helping people return to themselves.

To the body that has carried so much.
To the desire that may have been hidden, judged, or made unsafe.

To the pleasure that may feel distant, awkward, forbidden, or forgotten.

To the quiet wisdom beneath all the stories that say our bodies are too much, not enough, or not allowed.

In this clip, Tanya introduces herself with humour and warmth, then opens the doorway into a much deeper conversation:

What does it mean to feel pleasure in a world that often teaches us to disconnect?
What does it mean to want without shame?
What does it mean to come back to the body gently, honestly, and in our own time?

Pleasure, here, is not performance.
It is not perfection.
It is not something we have to force.

It can be a return.
A remembering.
A small act of resistance against everything that has taught us to numb, shrink, rush, produce, and apologise for being embodied.

Watch this moment from Pleasure Is An Act of Resistance episode with Tanya Koens, and listen to the full conversation wherever you find the podcast.

Save this for the part of you that is learning pleasure can be tender, human, and deeply healing.

#DreamingOurselvesAlive #PleasureActivism #EmbodiedHealing #BodyWisdom #Aliveness
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