archives
connect
Tags
Art Forms Birthdays | Celebration Books | Literature Collected Words Creative Artists dancer Dating | Relationships Death DIY | Homemade Empowerment | Encouragement Epiphanies | Enlightenment Events | Happenings every day life ex step father Family Friendship healing process Health | Wellness Homosexuality Introspection | Reflection James Franklin Pyles Love FULL | Gratitude Mr. Series natural hair nature Organic | Natural personal growth poetry Politics | Culture religious zealots Rituals | Traditions sexual abuse sexual assault awareness month Sexuality | Sensuality S Factor Shiva's Muse SLY Creates Spirituality Stage Manager sustainability Sustainable-Eating Theater | Performance Tinuola Olateju Wanderlust | Travel Word of the Month
Date
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
Tags
Comments
1
Blogs | The North Pole
SIREN SPOTLIGHT ~ Theresa Schlee Valenzuela, Part 2
Theresa Schlee Valenzuela is the author of Penelope in the Divine. She’s also a pole dancer, a speaker and a coach certified as a NLP Trainer, hypnotherapist and Time Line Therapy™ Practitioner among many other things. I discovered her website while searching for more research and resources on sexuality, sensuality and spirituality and what I found was an incredible goddess that inspires me, makes me laugh and is so freaking awesome! Theresa graciously agreed to allow me to interview her and I am happy to share what she has to offer in a two part series. Please enjoy. If you haven’t already done so, please CLICK HERE, to read part one.
Everyone meet T.S. Valenzuela.
SLY: How would you describe your pole dancing style? What kind of music do you tend to lean towards?
TSV: Oooohhh, good question. I’m a bit of a hard rock, nasty rap girl. I don’t like the long drawn out, angry, depressing stuff; so angry rap doesn’t do it for me either. I guess I need that hard-driving masculinity when I dance. I’m a rip-the-clothes-off, extort my body kind of girl. I guess I want to bust out of my skin.
TSV: I was just thinking this morning that after 2 ½ years of pole dance I can either rock it on the floor and walls or do pole tricks but I can’t seem to put it all together. My mission for 2012 is to pull it all together so my Erotic Creature can do tricks and inversions on the pole, so if you have some advice there, let me know!
SLY: How would you describe your sexual/sensual self? (Not just as it relates to pole dancing but to the entirety of your being.) I reference it as my Inner Siren. Claire Griffin Sterrett calls it her Inner Vixen. What do you call her? Who is she and what is she like?
TSV: By the way, I love Claire, she is an amazing woman and anyone who hasn’t read “The Pole Story” needs to. If you’re already read it, give it to your significant other to read!
My sexual self doesn’t have a name, but I guess if she did, it would be Penelope! In any event, I just love her. She glides. She is centered into the core of her body, in other words, my pelvis is loose when I walk and I cultivate this to make up for four decades of being a tight-ass.
She is also very openhearted and she honors and celebrates men. This is an important aspect that many women miss when they liberate their sexuality. I don’t use my sexuality as a weapon. I’m all about the love and connection, Baby.
SLY: Why do you believe sensual movement, especially pole dance is important?
TSV: What a loaded question. I could write a doctoral dissertation on this one. Briefly, the innate, wild, electric force inside of women has been repressed for eons and somehow I feel that repression/oppression is stuck in our DNA. When women are given a safe space to release this force, it opens them up to much higher levels of joy and life experience. The modern Western woman was raised to be a man, which is making us sick, literally. Ultimately, sensual movement heals illness by bringing us back to homeostasis. I’m convinced of this.
SLY: When it comes to innovation, progress and change, it seems we as a country and world, move forward at a wonderful speed as it relates to technology, ideas and entertainment, to name a few. However there seems to be an extremely slow progression in almost all areas of sexuality, especially as it relates to women. Why do you think this is?
TSV: Once again, fear and religious dogma. Let’s face it; women aren’t naturally as physically strong as men. Let’s not underestimate this issue. We’re looking at countless generations of placing the woman in the “less-than” position. I do not like to belabor this point because it’s a waste of time to beat a dead horse. Let’s just move forward in strength, power and consciousness.
However, in answer to your question, the Feminine Creation Vortex is a powerful force. Somewhere along the line, historically, the gender balance shifted and men, society, who knows – began to fear that force. Tribal decrees become cultural norm within a generation or two and that leads to women teaching their own daughters to suppress their power and so the cycle of repression continues…
Where and when it started, I don’t know. All I can do is make it my mission to heal it in my corner. Also, there is an interesting aspect that many people do not realize. Women become chemically bonded to men through sex. According to the psychologist and relationship guru Dr. Pat Allen, it can take up to two years for a woman to “detox” from a sexual encounter. Men do not bond after sex. So, if you go way back, people inherently knew about this physiology. So what did they do? They locked up their virgins!
We’re still doing it today, only we’re not telling our virgins why, so that gets translated into “there’s something wrong with you.” If we turned the tables and taught all young girls about the spiritual forces of nature and creation they really are, they would be armed with that knowledge and they could better manage their own sexuality. Instead of simply locking them up, we need to educate them to be selective about whom they give their bodies to. When we empower women we empower the world.
Also, men have been taught by their forefathers to suppress a woman’s radiant sexual/sensual light because it’s easier to do that that give her space to radiate and shine. Once he allows her that space, he’s got to worry about the other guys. We all have a lot of work to do in this area, men and women.
SLY: From what I’ve gathered about you, you appear to be a very confident, secure woman who dwells in her body so fully and presently. It’s something that many women strive for. What can they do to begin the steps towards self-love?
TSV: Ah yes, the self-love question. They need to get my Feminine Creation Vortex video series because I talk about this extensively. It’s interesting to be asked this question because I spent thirty years as a compulsive overeater loathing my body and spending my days and nights in self-abuse. I have come a long way and it hasn’t been easy, but I’m still here and still learning.
I’ll give you the 4 Aspects of the FCV:
1.     Be YOU. Understand that you are so much more than your physical body. You are a vast multi-dimensional force.
2.     Be Expansive. This vast, multi-dimensional force, i.e., YOU, is tapped into the quantum field of possibility. In other words, you have control over your thoughts, and therefore your life.
3.     Be Pleasured. Never underestimate the power of pleasure. Start by caressing yourself and learning to love the skin you’re in. All of it.
4.     Be Feminine. Understand that the modern Western woman was raised to be a man and take whatever steps you can to consistently dive back into your feminine body.
If all else fails, do not pass go, get thee to an S Factor class or watch an S Factor DVD. At S Factor I learned to have a torrid love affair with myself and I recommend that for all women.
SLY: One of the things I love about you is how expressive you are when it comes to sensuality and sexuality. We’ve been taught that the proper thing to do would be silent or mum on those things. You are not silent. What fuels your fire? Have you always been this expressive and full of life?
TSV: God no! If my mother were still here I’d have you ask her. Maybe she’d tell a different story.
When all the other little girls were playing with Barbies and planning their weddings, I was fantasizing about talking to large groups of people, reaching them with my message. I’ve always been a rebel and I generally do not shy away from controversy. Still a punk rocker after all these years…
However, the reason I am so vocal now is because conforming, doing what I thought I was supposed to do and being the good little wife and mother, almost killed me. It was pleasure in life and liberating my sexuality and sensuality that brought me back to life. The fact that we are not taught how important these things are is frankly, shocking to me. If I can help one woman avoid the hideous, life-crushing experience I had, my purpose on this planet will be complete. I will not stop communicating this message.
SLY: In Ode to the Lap Dance, you wrote of how we have a tendency to give more credit to our crown and heart chakras at the dismissal of our lower ones. I’m guilty of this too. What do you think this stems from?
TSV: This stems from fear and religious dogma. Let’s face it; working with the other chakras is complicated. Sexual chemistry can be messy and it’s difficult to teach people how to manage their power and express themselves. Also, when no one teaches us how to use our innate intuition, then it turns into a god-like quality, available only to the “chosen ones.”
If you wanted to control a population it’s easy when you teach people to stay small. Generations of schooling that the body is bad and unattainable spirituality is good, leaves a population always looking outside of itself for the answers. If I wanted to control the minds of large groups of people over time, I’d make sure they didn’t comprehend their true power and divinity. I’d make sure they didn’t understand the vast consciousness inside of their entire Human Energy System. This is what we have been subjected to for thousands of years now. It’s time we wake up and stop being led like cattle.
SLY: In Insomnia, you wrote how you were on the verge of changing your life by changing your mind. I wholeheartedly agree with this. What are three practical steps people can use to learn to “change their minds” or transmute their thoughts?
TSV: Good question, Sheena. First people need to realize what their mind actually is. Your mind is your body and your body is your mind and so much more. We are not just the physical form we see in the mirror. We are a vast interlocking web of consciousness and energy vortexes affected by many factors. We have direct access to the quantum field of possibility, which means we CAN change our lives by changing our thoughts.
1. Accept you have the power.
2. Know what you want. Where do want to go, how do you want to change? Who do you want to be?
3. Stay focused on the positive. If you know what you want but spend your day listening to the Itty Bitty Shitty Committee in your head and doing what they tell you to do, you won’t get anywhere.
All of this is simple, but not always easy. Understand that it’s a process. Be a persistent bulldog about your focus on the positive, but be gentle on yourself. We are not nouns. We are verbs – action words in flow.
SLY:Â What brings you the greatest joy?
TSV: Today my answer is dance, having beautiful moments with my son, seeing art, cloud watching, being in nature, connecting deeply with others and a good, expressive session with my Erotic Creature.
SLY: What legacy do you want to leave?
TSV: I guess my legacy is the same as my divine mission: to help people see that they have ultimate power over their lives. They can live with pleasure and they really don’t need to suffer. They can craft the juicy lives of their wildest dreams.
Theresa, I love your mind! I really do. Again, thank you so much for taking time to answer my questions so thoroughly. Thank you for everything that you do and everything you write and put out into the world. It really makes a huge differnce. You inspire, motivate and encourage me and I am so glad you are here right now. You are so amazing!
Connect with Theresa
I also wrote a book response about Penelope In The Divine
One Trackback
[...] Valenzuela, Author of Penelope In The Divine. You can read her interviews here (part one) and here (part two). She spoke of sensuality, Source Energy and even the Feminine Creation Vortex. She happens to be [...]