Living Existential Kink With Tina Estrella | Penetrate Radio, Episode 7
In Episode 7 of Penetrate Radio, Lucy Baldwin speaks with Tina Estrella, a certified Existential Kink coach, former dominatrix, energetic bodyworker, and deeply embodied practitioner of shadow work.
This conversation moves through BDSM, rope work, ayahuasca, shamanic practice, coaching, addiction, spiritual seeking, parts work, discernment, embodiment, and the difference between collecting more tools and actually living the work you already know.
Tina brings a fierce, grounded, no-bullshit presence to Existential Kink. She is not interested in shadow work as an aesthetic or an intellectual game. For her, the question is much more direct: can you actually sit with yourself, feel what is there, stop escaping into the next tool or coping mechanism, and let the truth emerge from the body?
Watch or listen to Episode 7 of Penetrate Radio here:
Key Takeaways
In this episode, Lucy and Tina explore:
Tina’s background as a dominatrix, bodyworker, and certified Existential Kink coach
why Existential Kink made immediate sense through the lens of BDSM
the difference between erotic kink, spiritualized kink, and embodied shadow work
Tina’s experience with ayahuasca and the importance of discernment
why true medicine work requires containment, humility, and ethical space-holding
how a coach or facilitator must be willing to let people be uncomfortable
the role of intuition, transmission, and embodied knowing in coaching
how parts work, Internal Family Systems, somatics, and EK can support each other
why spiritual tool-seeking can become another addiction cycle
the importance of sitting with “I don’t know what is going on”
phone checking, binge eating, and coping patterns as portals into deeper need
why shadow work should not become permission for self-destruction
From Dominatrix to Existential Kink Coach
Tina’s path into Existential Kink makes immediate sense when you hear her background. Before becoming an EK coach, she worked as a dominatrix and later moved into energetic bodywork, still using ropes but in a very different context.
Coming from BDSM, the language of Existential Kink landed quickly for her. The idea that there could be hidden pleasure, power, charge, and unconscious participation inside unwanted patterns was not abstract. She already understood that pain, power, surrender, intensity, and sensation can have complex meanings in the body.
What had not worked for her were the usual affirmations and “love and light” approaches. Those tools could not reach the deeper charge. Existential Kink gave her a more honest and embodied way to work with the material that had been running underneath.
BDSM, Spirituality, and the Shadow
Lucy and Tina talk about the relationship between BDSM and shadow work. In some circles, kink is increasingly spiritualized. In others, people push back and say BDSM can simply be erotic pleasure without needing to become a healing modality.
This conversation does not flatten that tension. Tina’s path moved from intense professional dominatrix work into shamanic and energetic practice, but she does not present that as the only correct evolution. She is clear that kink can be many things.
What matters for Shadow Alchemy is that BDSM reveals how complicated human desire can be. Power, surrender, pain, pleasure, domination, devotion, taboo, and embodiment are not cleanly separated in the psyche. For someone willing to work honestly, those territories can become doorways into shadow, charge, and truth.
Knowing When an Edge Is Complete
Tina describes herself as someone who tends to go fully into an experience, milk it for everything it has to offer, and then know when she is complete.
That was true with BDSM. At a certain point, the path seemed to split. One direction would have taken her further into more extreme territory. Another direction opened toward spirituality, shamanic work, and deeper embodiment. Tina recognized that she did not want to keep escalating intensity for its own sake.
This is an important shadow work lesson. Sometimes an edge is alive because it is calling you forward. Other times, the next escalation is not growth. It is repetition, compulsion, or self-destruction wearing the costume of depth.
Discernment is knowing the difference.
Ayahuasca, Medicine Work, and Discernment
A significant part of the conversation touches on Tina’s experience with ayahuasca and shamanic medicine work. She was drawn to the medicine after reading someone’s account of working with an Indigenous lineage, and she felt a deep knowing that she needed to go.
Both Lucy and Tina are clear that powerful medicine work requires discernment. It matters who holds the space. It matters whether the lineage is ethical. It matters whether the container is strong. You would not let a random person do surgery on you in a garage simply because they claimed to be a doctor, and Tina points out that people should bring at least that much discernment to powerful psychedelic and spiritual work.
This is not fearmongering. It is respect. When something can open the psyche so deeply, the container matters.
The Medicine Person Must Allow Discomfort
Lucy names an important truth: to be a real medicine person, you have to be willing to let people be uncomfortable.
Tina agrees. Holding space is not the same as soothing people out of every hard sensation. A facilitator must be attuned to the person, the nervous system, and the field. They must sense what is being said and what is not being said. They must know when comfort would actually interrupt the work.
This is why ethical facilitation requires more than good intentions. Sometimes the next right move is not the nice move. Sometimes the work asks for truth, pressure, challenge, or the willingness to stay steady while someone meets the sensation they usually flee.
That kind of coaching is not harsh for the sake of being harsh. It is devoted to the deeper process.
Intuition and Embodied Knowing
Tina describes moments in coaching when she simply knows what to ask or do next. It is not a frantic urgency or a mental debate. It is a calm instruction that arrives through the whole system.
She hesitates around the word “transmission” because it has been inflated in spiritual spaces, but the thing she points to is real: a kind of embodied knowing that comes through when the facilitator is deeply present with the person and the field.
This kind of knowing cannot be forced. It requires practice, self-trust, and humility. It also requires the facilitator to be clear enough not to confuse personal projection with intuition.
In Shadow Alchemy, the body is not separate from insight. The body can know before the mind can explain.
Bringing the Skeptic Into the Work
Tina did not grow up in a spiritual worldview. She describes her upbringing as atheistic and nihilistic: if something could not be found in a petri dish, it was not real.
So when she found herself with altars, planetary practices, and deep magical work, part of her resisted. That skeptical part did not simply disappear. She had to bring it into the work too.
This is one of the strongest parts of Tina’s approach. She did not exile the scientific, skeptical, rational part of herself in order to become spiritual. She gave that part what it needed. She explored Internal Family Systems and more psychologically grounded parts work, not as a rejection of EK, but as part of integrating herself more honestly.
A mature spiritual path does not require every part of you to agree instantly. It makes room for the parts that need different language.
Parts Work, Somatics, and EK Belong Together
Tina’s toolkit includes Existential Kink, parts work, Internal Family Systems, somatics, and spiritual practice. She does not treat these as competing systems. They can support each other beautifully.
Parts work helps identify the inner figures, protectors, exiles, managers, rebels, addicts, skeptics, and wounded ones who are involved in a pattern. Somatics helps locate the pattern in the body. Existential Kink brings radical approval, hidden pleasure, and the possibility of alchemical transformation.
Together, these tools help the practitioner become more honest. Not just conceptually honest, but bodily honest. Who is here? What does this part want? What is it protecting? What sensation is present? What hidden enjoyment or payoff might be operating inside the pattern?
This is where shadow work becomes lived, not merely understood.
The Next Edge Is Practice
Lucy asks whether Tina thinks she will eventually move past Existential Kink into the next tool or edge. Tina says she feels landed with EK, and that her next edge is not necessarily finding something new.
Her next edge is doing the practices she already knows.
This is an essential teaching. Many people in spiritual and personal development spaces are addicted to the next tool, the next ceremony, the next framework, the next modality, the next teacher, the next breakthrough. At a certain point, seeking becomes another way to avoid practicing.
Tina’s point is simple and sharp: sometimes the medicine is not more information. Sometimes the medicine is to do the thing you already know works.
Shadow Work Addiction
Tina names something many people in this world will recognize: shadow work addiction.
It is possible to become addicted to processing, ceremonies, tools, sessions, insights, and breakthroughs. The pattern looks spiritual, but underneath it may be the same craving cycle that appears in other addictions.
More.
Newer.
Deeper.
More intense.
Another tool.
Another revelation.
Another edge.
But if the person is not actually integrating, practicing, choosing differently, or living differently, the spiritual work becomes part of the loop. It may even prevent the very transformation it promises.
This is a necessary warning. Shadow work is powerful, but it can become another avoidance strategy if it is used to chase sensation instead of embody truth.
Sitting With “I Don’t Know”
One of Tina’s most practical teachings is the importance of sitting with “I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”
That state is uncomfortable. Many people immediately reach for the phone, food, work, analysis, a conversation, a practice, a new tool, or a distraction. But Tina describes the power of letting the not-knowing be there.
When she gives radical approval to the not-knowing, something slowly begins to shift. The first layer dissipates. Then the next thing emerges. Eventually, clarity comes, but it comes because she was willing to stop running.
This is a deeply embodied practice. It is not glamorous. It may look like sitting at the table, cooking food, leaving the phone elsewhere, and letting the internal noise rise. But that simple act can become a profound portal into self-contact.
Phones, Dopamine, and Avoidance
Lucy and Tina talk about modern distraction, especially phone checking. Tina mentions the practice of turning the phone display black and white, which can make scrolling less stimulating. Lucy talks about leaving the phone in another part of the house or putting it on airplane mode.
These are practical details, but they point to something deeper. The phone often becomes a coping mechanism for the discomfort of being with ourselves. We reach for messages we are not waiting for, videos we do not care about, or stimulation we do not actually enjoy because it gives a quick dopamine hit.
Shadow work asks: who is the part that feels like it is missing out? Who is the part that needs the hit? What are we avoiding feeling in the pause?
The phone is not the enemy. It is a doorway into the pattern.
Coping Mechanisms as Clues
The same principle applies to binge eating, over-exercising, shopping, substances, or any other coping mechanism.
Tina and Lucy talk about asking: what do I actually need right now? Is it food? Is it rest? Is it fresh air? Is it connection? Is it movement? Is it five minutes with my eyes closed?
Sometimes the answer is surprisingly simple. Open the window. Take a shower. Sit with your husband. Close your eyes. Move your body. Step outside.
The point is not to shame the coping mechanism. The point is to interrupt the automatic loop long enough to become curious. What is the craving really asking for?
Keeping Promises to Parts
Tina offers a beautiful example from parts work. If a part of her wants bread, butter, and Swiss cheese even after lunch, she may negotiate with that part: first we will take a shower, and if you still want the food afterward, you can have it.
The important thing is that she keeps the promise.
That changes the entire shame loop. Instead of saying, “I failed and ate the thing,” she can say, “I kept a promise to a part of me that was willing to try something different first.”
This is subtle and powerful. It builds inner trust. The point is not to dominate the part or trick it out of what it wants. The point is to create relationship. When the parts begin to trust you, they become more willing to experiment.
Shadow Work Is Not Permission for Self-Destruction
Lucy raises an important concern around what she calls vice signaling: the way some people use shadow work language to excuse dysfunction or glamorize self-destructive behavior.
This is a real risk. Loving yourself in your dysfunction does not mean refusing to grow. Radical approval does not mean endorsing every coping mechanism forever. Shadow work should not become a spiritualized permission slip to stay unconscious.
Tina agrees that discernment matters. Sometimes the next step is not another EK session. Sometimes it is a different action. A shower. A meal. A nap. A walk. A boundary. A practical interruption of the loop.
Shadow work is not about shame, but it is also not about romanticizing dysfunction. It is about meeting the pattern with enough love and honesty that change becomes possible.
Living Existential Kink
The title of this episode matters. Tina is not only discussing Existential Kink. She is living it.
Living EK means bringing radical approval into ordinary moments: phone checking, food cravings, uncertainty, coaching, skepticism, addiction, spiritual practice, and the bodily discomfort of not knowing. It means noticing where the same pattern reappears in a new costume. It means refusing to turn the work into another identity or addiction.
It also means knowing when to stop seeking and start practicing.
This is not the most glamorous part of shadow work, but it may be the most important. The real transformation happens when the tools become part of how you meet life.
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speaker-1 (00:06.648)
you
speaker-1 (00:16.398)
Hello, welcome to another episode of Penetrate Radio. Today I have the lovely Tina Estrella. Well, Tina, would you mind giving us your introduction, like telling us a little bit about yourself?
speaker-0 (00:29.782)
Yeah, sure. Hi Lucy. Thank you. So yeah, my name is Tina Estrella. I am a certified EK coach and I have been a dominatrix before in my past, one of my past jobs. Like I've been doing a lot of stuff in this lifetime.
And that's when I had stopped doing the dominatrix and had shifted into more energetic body work and still working with ropes, which was funny. People would always ask like, are you still beating people? I'm like, no, it's similar, but on the other end of the spectrum. And that's when EK came into my life, Existential King.
Found the book. It found me. I don't even know exactly. Like it was one of those random comments that someone made on a platform. And I was like the word itself, like instantly like, my God, what is that? So I looked it up and me coming from BDSM, just made so much sense why some things that I had been working on for a very long time with affirmations and the whole light and love stuff just would not work out.
And then Existential King made a massive difference. And then I've been in the community around Carolyn Elliot and Existential King for a few years actually, like where you have been coaching as well. And then you guys started doing the training programs for becoming an Existential King coach. And at the time I was already wanting to coach myself.
And also I realized the limitations of just because you have been coached very often doesn't automatically make you a great coach yourself. It's like, if you like drinking beer a lot, doesn't mean you become a good bartender or you would know how to brew beer. It's, it's just a different, different thing. And so, yeah, that was the time where it's like, okay, let's do that coaching training.
speaker-0 (02:39.278)
And here we are.
speaker-1 (02:40.662)
And here we are. And so I know you a little bit and I know that you've had a lot of sort of like ups and downs in your life. And I'm curious, like, on the full sort of course of your spiritual journey, I'm curious where you started and where Existential Kink came in.
speaker-0 (03:02.424)
Yeah, yeah, good question. So my spiritual journey really started kind of in the dungeon while I was working first as a submissive in BDSM space and then slowly transitioned to being switch and then more towards the end of my BDSM service professional time I was doing just the dominatrix side.
And at that time I started to like, I had a shamanic awakening. Like I always think of like two types of awakenings. Some people have the yogic awakening and they start to meditate and do yoga and come from the love and light side. And at some point, ideally realize that there is more. And I came like the entry point was the other side. I went like dark into the mud.
dark into like, yeah, experiencing extreme challenges, extreme pain. so the BDSM was already part of that healing journey of challenging or channeling that pain into a more healthy kind of expression, more conscious expression.
And that's when like, like the woman who was doing our hair for the makeup shootings, for the shootings, for example, and our makeup, she was training as, in shamanic bodywork. And that instantly sparked my interest. And so that's what I started to do over time when I transitioned out of the dungeon.
And then I did a bunch of retreats and started practicing yoga and went off on a bunch of ayahuasca retreats and planned medicine and that kind of stuff. always like that has been my life story. Every time I hit like a threshold, like a wall where I was like, I could feel internally, there's more. This is not the end of the journey. There's still things that I feel inside could be better or work.
speaker-0 (05:17.474)
differently and why aren't they like, where am I stuck? Why am I stuck? What's keeping me stuck? So there was always this curiosity of going beyond, going further, finding the next Alliance step, finding the next route in a different direction. And that's when existential kink came in and it just made so much sense to me. Like what I had experienced in the dungeon, if like physically and sexually you can't experience
pain as pleasure and I did a lot and I saw other people and facilitated for other people to go there as well. Like going where the logical mind says, what the heck are you doing? It does make no sense at all. Like zero, but the body and the nervous system and like the rest that is not the logical mind goes like, God, yes. So, then it made sense to me. Like, of course in.
regular life under other contexts, why shouldn't it be there differently? And it had never been offered to me. That was a kind of spirituality that had never came across my path. It was always just this love and light and affirmations and think yourself positive and just do enough plant medicine or whatever it is. It never came full circle. There was always like pieces missing and
Therefore it was also not like giving me this full, yeah, landing in the body. Yeah. And like existential King did that. It, for me, it really allowed a lot of the concepts that were like, understood mentally, but they could not land physically in my system. When I started to practice a K that was the missing link that like allowed it to really, like really.
get anchored in my body, in my emotions, in my whole being and not just looping in it.
speaker-1 (07:20.33)
Yeah. Just even for me, like what an interesting and helpful perspective, this idea. Because I could feel how for you, it was like you know the truth of the power of getting pleasure from pain. Yeah. Much more deeply than I think, than obviously the average person. And I think that's why there are a lot of people who are attracted to EK who come from the BDSM world.
But I have noticed there does seem to be now this sort of subculture within kink and BDSM that is very like spiritualized. And I've actually, I've seen people even sort of arguing against that saying that we can also do BDSM just for the sake of erotic pleasure and it shouldn't have to be spiritualized. And I think we were talking yesterday on a call about like even merging those and the possibility of merging those. I think that is becoming more popular.
But to you, or to me, seems like for you, it is more discreet. Like you were doing that and now you're sort of in this world and taking it a more like psychological, spiritual angle.
speaker-0 (08:21.366)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I had like, like always with everything, apparently in this lifetime, I go like full into the extremes of like, what is possible? What juice can I squeeze out of this? And when I'm done, I'm kind of done. I mean, I still like in my private erotic life, I'm still not a full vanilla person, but I'm not also any longer like this.
It was very intense, in the dungeon, in the sessions, I would go to like really extremes. And, at some point it was just like, okay, there's like, I don't know this, the sensations, you know, the sensation started to like, maybe it's time to calm down. Like you don't want to start cutting off fingers or something. So calm down girl.
And that's when that was exactly one of those paths started to separate. And I could see myself either you go even further, even deeper into areas where people go. mean, there's stuff happening that is unimaginable in that, in the territory. And I was very clear, I don't want to go there. And then the new thing emerged and that's when spirituality came and when the shamanic work and whatever not entered into my life just as an option. Like you want to explore that or you want to there?
And then like for me, the answer was like, that feels a lot more what I came here for in this lifetime.
speaker-1 (09:48.526)
Yeah, I can totally relate to that. I also take things really extreme. I'm curious because you mentioned doing psychedelic medicine work and like ayahuasca ceremony. That was one that I took really far. And I'm curious like what that whole experience was like for you.
speaker-0 (10:06.706)
that was another where I had got, again, walked against the wall. I had come to a threshold of, my growth, of my evolution where I was like, there's things that I still keep doing patterns. keep running into.
EK wasn't there yet. I was more like in the love and light, meditational, yogic, had my white face, you know, like just wearing white and being mantra and singing and all that stuff. And it was beautiful. I don't, don't dismiss that time, but it was just also one part of the whole cake, you know? And like randomly someone in my, of my friends or people I knew went to very deep Ayahuasca retreat in Peru.
not in someone else's living room. was not Shaman, Jay, but it was the original traditional ship people, people on their own earth. That was like very important to me to like really go there with, the people who have this in their ancestor line forever. And, he chose to create a public like, or for friends kind of, Facebook,
page where he would like, describe his experience and what he got out of it and what was happening. And like the first things that he wrote, I had never heard about Ayaska before. was total like never heard, read what he was sharing and be like, I got to do that. Like I got to do it. And like, I think two weeks later I booked, I had not the funds to even pay for it. And I was just like, it's going to happen. It's going to come true. And it did.
Magically, like always when, like, when I have something that I really, really want and I know deep in my bones, this is it. I got to do this thing. It just always works out magically. And so when I went there, the reason was very much, I was still very deep in substance addiction and, already in this transition phase of knowing like this whole BDSM thing, it's getting so extreme and so intense. Like.
speaker-0 (12:19.598)
This cannot be the path further. Like it's getting very weird. That was the moment when I was like, oh, maybe there's some stuff that my logical mind cannot grasp and that planned medicine will allow me to like, um, look into. And when I went there, it was very funny. Like everybody around me in the ceremonies was always puking. They were always like throwing up like crazy. And I was just like, Oh my God, I'm in.
Everything is so beautiful! never threw up, not in one of those ceremonies!
speaker-1 (12:50.19)
I hate you.
speaker-1 (12:56.046)
So rude of you.
speaker-0 (12:58.149)
I know.
speaker-0 (13:03.09)
And it really, but like I connected to this. At that time I was also very, I was feeling a very heavy weight of the world. was like, why, why am I even still alive? I was very close to once again, to like being like severely suicidal. And like the plan like allowed me to see different timelines and different.
realities and who we are truly as humans and what is actually going on. And that gave me that faith in humanity again. I could say it kind of probably saved my life.
speaker-1 (13:45.302)
Wow. Yeah. I feel like it does have so many beautiful things to say about that kind of work. And I think for a lot of people, doing it in a sort of contained way can be incredibly beneficial for the right people. It can also be a trap like anything else. I discovered, like anything that you just take too far can just become.
speaker-0 (14:06.688)
Like every powerful medicine, like every powerful anything that has a lot of possibility and a lot of power. comes like, like, Spider-Man said, like a lot of power comes with a lot of responsibility. I love that. It's, it's just so true. And it really calls people to the self-dissertment and self-responsibility. If you want to like save money and still want to do the thing and get the, like the, the cheap tourism.
Yeah. To where you don't even know where they're going to send you. And you know, you would not allow some random dude who says he's like a doctor or a virgin. You would not walk into the garage and let him do an open heart surgery. You just wouldn't like that's clear discernment. Why do people not have that clear discernment with like medicine and
stuff that is known for being like so powerful with your psyche. Same discernment. Don't go into a dude's garage for for doing iOS com.
speaker-1 (15:16.75)
You
speaker-0 (15:17.8)
Unless you know the dude. Like for real.
speaker-1 (15:21.838)
Yeah, it's true. It's totally true. mean, I remember hearing some of the statistics of like how many ayahuasca ceremonies were happening in New York City like on any given night and just being like horrified. I mean, I was working within a lineage that was very integrous and I have no complaints about and I never
Did I was go with anyone outside of the like same lineage that I was in? and It was a well-held well contained and so I have no complaints in that regard for the experiences that I had but my gosh Have I heard some horror stories? And even within that lineage I do feel like there is this culture that I don't think it's intentional But it is very much a culture of like this is the work. This is the work
And you should be doing it forever.
speaker-0 (16:22.2)
Yeah, only that, only that. That's the only thing. Anything else is bullshit. And every time like that, that was what I experienced there also, especially from the shamans themselves. I mean, I speak Spanish, so I could like communicate with them and they were so humble. There were these tiny bodies, like these insane capacities of holding space and like
I mean, seeing the Ikaros, like the Shupibu are the ones who really sing these weird medicine songs that like when you're in it, like it, it's really aura, like surgery and going into Lara. I know one ceremony I would be like, can you please stop? I didn't throw up, but I was like, it was very uncomfortable. I please stop the singing. I cannot. I cannot take it. And she like, stand like that was the moment. You know, I want to sit by your side for another hour.
speaker-1 (17:16.566)
And sing the same thing on repeat like
speaker-0 (17:18.892)
Hing Hing and out and spraying this whole Agua Florida with their mouth out and out like a wing
But it was something that my psyche needed. were parts that like the next morning and the flower bath that they give you. And I felt like a fresh baby. Just I was reborn that night. And also they were still like very humble. They would never talk about like me, big shaman, ha ha ha ha. Totally not.
Like they were so modest and also interested in other things. In that retreat, we would also do yoga and do chanting or whatever, not like a health container and sharing circles and all that kind of stuff. And they were like always super curious and open. They were very happy that there was someone who would speak Spanish. So they kind of asked me like, what do you guys do? And that's interesting. So that gave me really this, security of like, yeah, they're in service to.
the medicine and the people. And it's not about ego inflation there. It's just not.
speaker-1 (18:28.63)
Yeah, it sounds like you found a really beautiful place to do that. And I think that is really, important with this because as I've gone through life, this is sort of maybe a side tangent, but you know, how things are held, I realize, like, just deeper and deeper and deeper, it comes through for me how the holding of a thing, just the energetics,
the presence, the care, the love, the integrity, the leadership, the organization, also the caring, the ability to be with people's discomfort, just all of that. That is like 80 % of it. The actual medicine, the actual approach, the technique that's being used or whatever is like 20 % and the holding is 80.
speaker-0 (19:20.928)
It always is. It always is. It's like, I'm a massage therapist now. It's the same thing. Like the intention of the touch and the energy you put into it is 80 % and the technique itself and how much pressure, whatever, not that's, that's 20%. It's, it's just really like, how present are you with that person? With that group.
It's like, how much of your attention are you like really putting on them and like noticing and reading signals and being with the energy and just like navigating, being the one who's steering the ship for the group or the person. You're just there sitting and holding the ship stable, you know? It's like the direction at the end is what the group gives, is what the person gives like where it is, like a coaching session. I don't know where we're going in the coaching session. I have no plan.
of like, this is where we go, I hear this from you and I already have the whole thing in my head and this is where we need to go and this is the results we need to get. No, like I'm here, I'm holding the ship stable and the person is like, okay, let's go there. I see a beautiful island there, let's go there.
speaker-1 (20:32.686)
Yeah. Yeah, I think that and it is like comes back to actually the power dynamic. And this is something we talk about a lot and penetrate, which you probably know way more intimately having been in BDSM world. But it's like being in the dom position and understanding that your role is to serve. And so
receiving feedback and adjusting accordingly and keeping your focus and attention on what is the right thing for the people that I'm holding or the person that I'm holding rather than making it about what you want to do. And I think that this is just so key because it's
And sometimes that means not making them comfortable. Sometimes that means like letting someone be uncomfortable, like singing the song that's making you uncomfortable because that's the medicine that you need rather than just making it easy for you. And that's actually a hard thing to do because it's easier to be liked. It's easier to make people comfortable. We want to make people comfortable. That's our natural inclination, but to be a true medicine person.
you have to be willing to let people be uncomfortable.
speaker-0 (21:50.464)
Yeah, yeah. It's always two different point of focus at the same time. It's like the attention on the person, on where they are, what are they navigating through? What is their nervous system saying? What are they saying that they're not saying? And what is the field saying? How is the field responding? For me, it's always, I get just like these intense knowings that this is what I got to ask now, or this is what I got to do now.
There's no logic to it. It's just, I don't like the word transmission because it has been used for such like, you inflated context, let's say that, but that's like the original truth thing is what it is. It's just this knowing or this voice that is not in your head is just this whole system being like, do this now. It's very calm. There's no like urgency suit. Nothing is like, now you do this.
Boom, that's it. And there's also no inner discussion. There's like zero, really? Should I? Shouldn't I? No, no. When that instruction gets delivered of what to do next with the person, there's zero inner discussions. Yeah, that's what we do now. And it is not always like comforting and doing the thing that you know, over time you already know. This is okay. Yeah. That's like, let's get ready for a bit more.
stormy weather now on the ship it's okay. I got you.
speaker-1 (23:20.846)
Yeah, I'm feeling how, you know, getting the sense like you as a coach, I feel like you are the kind of coach like if somebody wants to be challenged, like I just feel like you are so no bullshit, like not going to take a bullshit.
speaker-0 (23:35.854)
And it's not fun always. It's not, I swear to God, it's not fun. It's something that I had to learn for myself to be like, yeah, this is, this is my path. This is my job. This is like the assignment that apparently in this lifetime, I'm kind of like into human design as well. And at some point it just made so much sense when I like got to the point where was like, I'm the cross of reincarnation of
in friction or tension, but my job is really to give people something where they can rub themselves against and get annoyed. Maybe even like the best coaching sessions I probably have had is when we started out like really bumpy and people were like, she won. Like, this is different. Like what's this happening here? Being with that, being in the coaching session where you notice,
We like touched a point of like deep resistance, like, you know, when you ask evade that resistance of people and then you're like, and we're still going there. I really had to learn that it was in the program itself and in penetrate, it was became very clear to me that that is my gift, my gift to people.
speaker-1 (24:55.736)
Definitely is. I have a totally random question. How many languages do you speak, Tina?
speaker-0 (25:01.368)
Six.
speaker-1 (25:02.904)
six languages.
speaker-0 (25:04.14)
Yeah. I mean, they're not perfect. My Spanish is more like Portugno because I grew up in Brazil. So my Portuguese is like my native language and kind of like a bit rusty maybe right now. But when I get into it, I really grew up with it. And so Spanish is very close. I get along. It's not perfectly articulated, but wherever I go, it's enough for traveling. My French is also a bit out of practice. don't know. Languages to me is like music.
I'm a dancer, I'm very musical, musicality is very my thing. And languages are the same thing. When I go to Britain, when I stay in London for a couple of times, my accent completely switched. It's not something I do consciously to adapt or whatever. I hear the music and it gets in sync with people there. My mom always says when we talk on the phone, I know where you are.
speaker-1 (25:59.214)
Based on how you're talking. Okay, wait. So you said Portuguese, Spanish, obviously English, French.
speaker-0 (26:00.948)
Yeah, he's always
speaker-0 (26:08.622)
French, Italian. had an Italian boyfriend for two years, like back in the day. So, and he spoke very little German. So I learned Italian and German, which is my native language.
speaker-1 (26:22.592)
Wow. That is a lot of languages. That is really impressive.
speaker-0 (26:28.908)
Yeah, it can also be like confusing because on the festivals, when I was working with the shamanic bodywork, when you offer people their native language for their session, because you notice they are Italian or they're French or whatever or not, and you keep working a day and you speak like five or six languages at the end, sometimes I could not talk anymore. I was like...
Uh-uh. Mm-mm-mm-mm. Because it gets like really confused sometimes.
speaker-1 (27:03.672)
Wow. So do you do coaching? I feel like I've heard you say that you prefer to do this kind of EKA coaching sort of work in English. But would you work with people in different languages if they wanted to?
speaker-0 (27:16.462)
I think German, sure. Portuguese, probably if I spend like some time in Brazil or somewhere, like it's when I speak continuously over a few days, like it kind of, it's all stored somewhere, but when you do not use it frequently, the bandwidth just chops it somewhere else.
speaker-1 (27:36.462)
Yeah, I know what you mean. I used to be fluent in French and I never use it. But then I went to Paris like last year or something. And even just being there, it just came back like all the vocabulary and the words and the conjugate. It just kind of like comes back. It just re-emerges in your mind and you're like, oh yeah.
speaker-0 (27:57.934)
It's like riding bicycle. You never unlearn. You'd like the first like 50 meters probably get like really, until your body remembers or like, you know, your whole muscle body memory remembers, this is how it's riding a bike. And language is the same thing. At some point you just, it comes back and you're like, yeah, yeah.
speaker-1 (28:19.702)
Interesting. So I guess I'm curious if you feel like there's a next edge. Like you were saying how you kind of, get really into something and then you sort of milk it for all it's worth and then move on to the next thing. And I'm curious, like, do you think that there's new edges that need to be met and there's going to be new tools that you're going to find? Do you think that EK is something that you'll sort of move past? Do you think it's something that you'll always carry with you?
speaker-0 (28:51.574)
Yeah, that's an interesting question. I feel very landed with EK for a long time now, and that feels really good. There was a time, like, especially when I was still in Carolyn's field more intimately and we were doing her wild explorations on magical stuff and whatever. There was a part of me who was like, what the fuck are you even doing?
Girl, I grew up like purely like atheistic nihilistic. That was my upbringing was like very, if you cannot find it in a petri dish, it's not real. So at some point I left that community for I think a year or something. I went to a different community that also was doing parts work, but more in the traditional inner family system style. So more like, psychologically based and, less.
spiritual, weirdo style. I got like seven altars in my home for like every planet. That is weirdo shit for most of people. And I love it because it's so good. It's just like giving me so much fun and really also helping me so much. And so, but like that like very scientific part of me was like, no.
Like we're not going there. That is, that makes totally no sense. So bringing her in and giving her what she needed, which was a more, a different approach. It's just, it's the same kind of thing, but less kink and less spiritual woo-woo. And then she was like, this is what we're doing.
Okay, got it. And then she wasn't bored. Since then, I also blended those, those two approaches because it's really helpful to have like, sometimes you have people who struggle a bit with the word kink itself with like the going directly on the dark side of things. For some people, the traditional family, internal family system, it's just easier to like find the entry point. In the end, they're talking about the same things, but it's a different entry vibe.
speaker-0 (31:03.97)
That's how I see it. And so those combined feel really like very much what has been working consistently and giving me the results that I'm looking for. That's always my measurement of when I would move on was always when I was like, okay, I know this is the result that I want, but the things that I'm doing is not giving me the results. So I started to look for something else that other people who had already the results that I wanted, what do they have to offer?
to explore if that will work for me. But it's happening, it's evolving, it's still work. At some point, I just also released that expectation or integrated that part of me that was like, we have it done. Yeah, love you too. It's okay. And no, we're not. And that's okay too.
speaker-1 (31:50.734)
you
speaker-0 (32:01.354)
And so, yeah, I really like this kind of work. Is there something, I'm not currently feeling like I need something new. There's no inner, I need something different. The search is not there, so I'm not looking at something new. I'm exploring a bunch of things in my private life and in like building a different kind of business and doing this and learning how to kitesurf and now going back on the dating market after.
some break because God is the dating pool intense, especially when you are doing this kind of work. It gets like really narrow. So that is currently my growth edge is not giving up on the deep knowing inside my body that there is someone out there who was just waiting for me to show up. But if I stay like in my little cocoon and being like, but it's going to hurt again. How are they going to find me? So.
Yeah.
speaker-1 (33:03.086)
Yeah, it feels like there's a switch that I made and I feel like you're sort of expressing something similar and maybe I'm wrong, but what I'm interpreting it is like, it was that so much of my life was in service to my spiritual journey. And now I feel like I've landed in a place where I have the tools, I know the practices, I have so many things that I can use depending on a situation and with magic and...
inquiry and EK and just doing somatic work and just so many options. And so then it's a matter of my like spiritual work is supporting my life. And so my life becomes, you know, it's like raising my family building my business, like taking care of my body becomes more the central thing and the spirituality stuff that these all these tools, the like personal development is in service to that.
speaker-0 (33:58.124)
Yeah, totally. That's exactly what I experienced too. And that was always something that I felt very drawn to. I mean, it is this left-hand tantra path, you know, everything is divine. Find your way on your tools and your things and your practices that allow you to see that at any given moment and to experience that and come back to that inner deep knowing that everything is divine and we're okay. And...
Also, we get to evolve and grow that thing that the mind cannot follow along and then go out into the world, be a human, do the human things, find the pleasure and the joy in doing this awkward human existence of all the things that we do with all the beauties and all the shit shows and everything that is part of being a real human. I never felt that's, that's what.
in the whole yogic experience and the whole mantra. And I never felt called to move into a cave for 40 years and sit there and meditate forever. That was just like, that's not what I came here for. If that is your thing and that is what you want. And that if that is enlightenment for me, for you, great. It does not work for me. Like I want to enjoy this human being, this, this vessel as much as I can.
What are the practices that allow me to like enjoy this human life to the utmost, even when shit hits the fan, even when things get like really hard. That combination of internal family system and EK and somatics, like you said, and all those tools. I think my tool case now is so full. It is important to practice, to do the things also. know, so many people get stuck in this
Need a new tool, need a new thing, need another ceremony. It's like, no, at some point you get like, do the things, not just like acquire more, do them regularly. Even when resistance comes up to doing them regularly. That's the next growth edge is. Yeah. It's not the new thing. It's not the new shiny bling bling tool. It's like doing the things you know, work and keep doing.
speaker-1 (36:11.214)
Yes, yes, yes, exactly. 100%. Because at some point that becomes a compulsion.
speaker-0 (36:18.508)
Yeah. I always said like, I'm very prone to addiction, like very much. And I like, at some point I was at that stage at some point when I realized like, dude, I think I'm suffering from shadow work addiction. Like it has to be always something new, something new, something need more, need more, you know, this craving for more, for something newer. And then I realized like,
You're still doing the same thing, just with spiritual practices and tools. Like you're still like going on Derby and that's why your life is still does feel so shitty and not getting the results that you want because it's just another addiction cycle.
speaker-1 (37:02.295)
Yep.
speaker-0 (37:04.034)
And then sitting with that, like, who's the part who's like constantly, who's the part, who's addiction, who is addiction inside of you? Who is that? And what does she need? And what is her gift? And what like, can I do to support her to give me what she's trying to give me without this constant craving, seeking, searching, wanting more more more and more. Like, how can we like come together and...
live in supporting each other.
speaker-1 (37:37.462)
Yeah. I think this is really, really important, Tina, because it's like, there's the novelty of learning new tools ends up being just for me, it's a distraction from actually deeply applying the work in the moments that it's actually hard and that I actually need it. Like those moments where you're just like, why is life so hard? Like, and you don't want to do anything. I mean, this happens to me, I don't want to do anything to help myself because I'm just
so in it. And those are the moments when it is the hardest and the most necessary to do the work. And that's where the integration and refinement actually happens is when we can overcome our resistance to helping ourselves in the times that it is most crucial that we stay with the sensation. yeah, we'll use anything to escape that.
you know, like just anything that's available, we will use like, you know, our culture is just full of mechanisms for distraction.
speaker-0 (38:44.942)
like everywhere disguised as like those people who use going to the gym as an addiction. There's things that look like discipline and doing the work to the untrained eye. But when you go deeper, you're like, dude, you're escaping your discomfort of the relationship not working out. And therefore you go like seven days to the gym every week to escape that sensation of shit. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. And I love to go to the gym, but for me, like the question is always like, am I really being present with myself and what is and what my body wants right now and what my nervous system wants right now? Or am I deflecting and pushing away and escaping and is
Like sometimes pushing through and going to the gym, like the same outward expression can be different backgrounds internally. It can be the moment where I'm like, I don't want to go to the gym. I'm like, no, we're going to the gym. The body needs it. I can feel it in my body. It wants to move it. And other times it can be this, no.
You're going to sit with your sensations right now and like feel into the thing that feels uncomfortable instead of putting loud ba ba ba music on your ears and going to the gym and then you feel so good, but you didn't process what was actually happening. Yeah. And that is really a skill that is, it requires a lot of going really inward and being so honest with ourselves.
Deep, deep, deep down that the info is always, it's always somewhere there. It's not a complete mystery to ourselves. What is it? Is it this kind or this kind right now? But it feels very uncomfortable sometimes to listen to that deep inner knowing that this, that is the growth edge of discomfort of being like, shit, yeah, it is that it is sitting and listening right now, or no, it is that discomfort of
speaker-0 (41:06.228)
still grabbing your stuff and going there. And you know, when you do it, what it was meant to, then you feel really good. Not this, ha ha, good, but they like this, mmm. It feels so grounded and so peaceful. This inner peace thing just really lands.
speaker-1 (41:27.19)
Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I definitely find for myself, and I don't know if other people can relate to this, and sometimes I think it might have to do with my human design, because I have so many open centers where sometimes I feel like I don't actually know what I'm feeling until, like, it can take me days to figure out what I'm feeling. And I have to be alone to know what I'm feeling. It's so weird. It's like, and I do think it might be a human design thing. I'm just acknowledging that because I feel like
just hearing you, I really feel the truth of what you're saying. And for me sometimes, I can't even tell. Like it can take me a while to figure out what is even going on in myself. And so I just want to say that for our listeners, if you can relate to that, that's totally normal and okay. We sometimes, we just have to be open to like listening to ourselves and open to the reality that sometimes
It takes us a minute to of like catch up with feeling ourselves.
speaker-0 (42:30.016)
Exactly. And that's the practice. That's the thing. That's what I meant. Sometimes it's required to just sit with yourself, no distractions, no phone, no whatever not. And our world currently just does not promote that. It's always productivity, do this, do that, distract, scrolling. No, it's
cooking food and sitting at the table and allowing that loudness of, don't know what the fuck is going on to be present and allow it to rise. That for me is always the entry point is like, I don't know what the fuck is going on. I have no fucking idea. And that feels very uncomfortable. But when I let...
that be there when I give this approval, this radical approval, then I can slowly, slowly, that can dissipate and that got approval. And then from there emerges the next thing until I finally know. I do have like half centers open, half centers defined. And for me, like emotions, for example, my emotional center or head center ideas, I don't have a fully completely open half center. Was that my idea or is it just from the general idea soup that my psyche is like?
swimming in, do I really want to do this thing or not? So it's really just like you said, being with yourself and allowing it to first be there that is okay to not know right.
speaker-1 (43:50.93)
Yeah. And I love what you're saying about being just with ourselves. feel I have actually figured out like tricks to get myself to do that. Like, for example, I do sauna a few days a week, mostly because if I don't, it's working to make me not get sick all winter because having five kids, three of them are in three different schools. The past few years, we just get sick.
all winter just back to back to back sickness. And this winter we were like, we have to try something new. I mean, we say that every winter, but we went we tried the sauna and it's been so much less sickness. So it has been working. But so I feel very committed to going in the sauna. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I don't bring anything with me in the sauna.
I just go in the sauna for 20 minutes and I have a very clear boundary, no phones, no headphones, no distractions. And so it forces me because something I've noticed in my life is I take long showers, not super long. I just love a good long shower. And I always have big realizations, big epiphanies, big ideas. That's what's going on with me in the shower. And it's because it's the only place that I don't have some other distraction.
Yeah. And so now I've set up the sauna as sort of an alternate, another place where I'm doing that. And I feel we can kind of give ourselves these different ways where we're sort of putting ourselves in positions where we're regularly getting that time for ourselves.
speaker-0 (45:10.666)
Whatever it is, just low stimulus. Just really, we live in a world that is so overstimulated constantly all the time. I mean, I have like zero sounds, notification sounds on my phone, for example.
And like I said, as I'm prone very much to addiction, like phone, definitely big, big addiction topic for me. And I can really feel like, ah, doom scrolling again. Okay. And then when I know it's like, okay, what it is that, that you don't want to feel. I already got this. So I have no colors. I use my phone 90 % of the time in black and white to not have this dopamine shock because it really also for the ADHD.
speaker-1 (45:48.94)
used to do that and I stopped doing that and I need to do that, put that back on. That's a really cool thing.
speaker-0 (45:53.614)
It's Just taking the colors away is like, makes it less like, I'm going to watch it. I can't stop. know I should stop, but I can't. know, there's like, really like alien thing in your face. This is how I always see myself with the phone. It's like thing that jumped into my face and I know I should take it away, but I can't. And for me, it's in being in nature, like really going for walks in nature. When I go, I leave.
phone in the car, I leave it at home wherever I, you know, just be, allow that nervous system to connect with, with the bigger thing that is, that we are part of. We forget, we become so isolated in our own skin that we forget how it feels to be part or remember that we are part of this, of this bigger thing and just self care and doing stuff without constant.
speaker-1 (46:47.502)
Nature is a big one. I can't do nature in the winter right now. It's just so cold and my winter jacket doesn't fit me because I'm still of my baby weight. I literally can't even put it on. So I'm not trying to be outside in 15 days.
speaker-0 (47:06.158)
I'm a sunny, or at least a dry, weathered nature person as well. I used to have dogs and every time it would rain like shit, I was like, my god, I wish someone would go and take them.
speaker-1 (47:17.258)
Don't mind the rain. just I'm not doing cold right now. Yeah Yeah, but I think that I leave my phone purposely in the other part of my house I'll just put it in my office and leave it there and try to forget about it or I'll sometimes I'll just put it on airplane and keep it away from me and that does help a lot Yeah, but I'm gonna do that black and white thing. That's a good idea
speaker-0 (47:39.854)
Because then it starts to get boring. You kind of also realize what am I even watching? Why am I watching this video? It's not an epic piece of art. It's just someone rambling into the camera with zero content. And still, if it wasn't color, I would still be watching. For me, that black and white thing was a huge. And then also going, okay, who's the part of me who feels they're missing out? If I don't check.
speaker-1 (47:59.63)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (48:06.88)
my WhatsApp for the 15th time a day. What sometimes I literally, I pick up the phone, I'm about to look at it and I hear my inner voice being like, Tina, it's not in there. What you're looking for is not going to come from here. It's something different. Feel into it. What is it that you actually need right now? And of course addiction, a few breaths. What do I actually need right now? It's like binge eating or anything that is coping mechanism.
Okay. It's not food right now. What do I actually need? I'm tired. Close your eyes for five minutes. I kind of take a nap every time I feel tired, but close your eyes for a couple of minutes. That's amazing. That helps. What is it? fresh air. Okay. Open the window. I don't have to go out in, you know, open the window. Just really those coping addiction mechanisms so often are just the thing that we're used to because it gives us this quick dopamine release and that
gives this quick moment of like, I'm feeling better now, but then we don't. And then on top of you feel guilty because we knew it was like the 27th time we checked for messages that we're not even actually waiting for.
speaker-1 (49:19.806)
Yeah, and this is actually reminding me sometimes I feel like with the whole Shadow work world some people get into the vice signaling and I feel like this is where the discernment is so important with this work because We don't want to shame ourselves, right? We don't want to just feel bad about ourselves. So we need to Love ourselves in our dysfunction, right? Yeah, but then we also want to
use that to help us to the degrees that we can, little by little, start to overcome our dysfunction. I think that some people take a whole shadow work, the whole premise of it as permission to just be really self-destructive. yeah, I think that that kind of misses the point sometimes.
speaker-0 (50:12.502)
Yeah, that's why I call this also shadow work addiction. It's at some point, it's not another ceremony. It's not another tool. It's not another EK session sometimes even. Sometimes it's not that. Sometimes it's just really noticing. Here is the pattern, the behavior that I want to stop. There's this pulling to still do it and then pause right here. Who is it? What like...
Who are you? Who's talking? Who believes inside of me that this is, I, we need to do this now. Sometimes I still even, I very often have these days conversations with those parts when I notice like, oh, there comes this impulse to do this thing. I have the conversation along the lines of, hey, I feel you. hear you. Let's try an experiment. We're going to do something different for half an hour.
Go for a walk, take a shower, cook some food, some fresh air, whatever it is. And if after half an hour, you still have the same urge to do that thing, we're going to do that thing. Like consciously, just do the thing. And I did, and I still do. It really gives like this, this permission to like, you're not wrong. We are just slowly trying new behaviors.
But installing new behaviors is like not switch on, switch off. It's gradually and celebrating every time I even just get myself to do like 30 minutes of something different and then still go to the fridge and still have this mouthful of cheese. But I went for the shower. I'm munching on this cheese now, but I went for the shower and celebrating every tiny difference, you know, every tiny step that I'm doing different than I was.
going about things before, like that allowed celebrating. Celebrating is so important when we do not celebrate our victories, even if they're tiny, we forget even that way, that we did something different. The mind is so problem oriented. It's so focused on what we did wrong instead of what we did right. Now, if we do not celebrate default is going to go back to who cares.
speaker-1 (52:26.158)
It's so true. And I think that the conundrum that I face is like...
I think for most people, when we make ourselves feel bad about the decisions that we're making, it doesn't help anything, right? So we don't want to feel bad about the decisions that we're making. And we want to just accept, just accept that this is what's happening, just love ourselves anyway, because not doing that certainly is facilitating the continuation of the cycle. There's this great book, it's called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. He talks about this cycle, the habit cycle.
which is also kind of the addiction cycle. He talks about addiction a little bit in the book, but he talks about a lot of different research and it's actually really cool. So he talks about how there's a queue, which is like something makes us sets off a craving for.
you know, nicotine, sugar, connection, dopamine response. And then that leads to a sort of automatic routine that we don't even realize we're doing it. It just sort of happens automatically. Like there's a cue which triggers the craving and just sets this routine in motion. And then that's us. We're scrolling our phone or we're cooking, heating up a lava cake or whatever it is. And then, and then the reward is whatever we get, how we feel after the sugar high or the,
you know, the dopamine response from scrolling. And then sometimes, and these can, of course, be positive too, right? But the whole sort of theory behind this is that you can, and it's exactly what you're describing, actually, is you can interrupt this whole cycle by recognizing, first of all, that the routine, the actual thing that you're doing is not what you're craving.
speaker-1 (54:01.4)
you're craving something else, whether that it could be high, it could be that you're tired, it could be that you're craving sensation, maybe you're bored and you're craving stimulation, maybe you're craving connection. So there's usually something else you could put in there in the routine that will
give you the thing that you actually want. And so you can work it. And it's exactly what you're saying, Tina. I see that I'm having this impulse. I'm going to go try something else. And then maybe that's going to give me the thing that I want. And maybe it's not. And he even suggests in the book that you try different things because
You don't necessarily know what the craving is for. It's when I always like start scrolling at three in the afternoon. Is it because I'm tired? Is it because I want connection? Is it because I'm bored? What is the trigger? Like what is the actual craving? So maybe one time I'll try taking a shower. Did that help give me the thing? Maybe I'll try going and like sitting talking to my husband. Does that sort of
resolve it, you know, and that can help me help us understand what is triggering this cycle and help us figure out how to kind of interrupt it.
speaker-0 (55:04.184)
Yeah. And that primary different action doesn't even have to be the one that is fulfilling the original craving. For me, very often it just takes me out of this, like you said, this routine, this loop. It's just like, do something different, whatever it is that like...
Ideally, does something with your nervous system because very often it's also part of a nervous system dysregulation that triggers craving stuff. Then see how you feel then. Is the craving still there? Are you still like craving this thing? And when you join parts work into it, is this part still longing for that whatever it is?
And at the beginning, it was really for me to keep that promise to that part that if after the shower, you still feel that huge piece of Swiss cheese and bread and butter, even though you just had lunch, then you'll get that. And keeping that promise, that for me was a huge shift. Like a couple of times really just still did it and without guilt because...
It was, made the promise, I'm keeping up a promise. It also uncouples from this feeling guilty. I know I don't want it, but some part of it wanted and now I'm feeling guilty. It's this whole shame loop just got interrupted because the frame changed. It was like, I'm keeping a promise to a part of me and I'm rewarding that courage of the part to try something different. And we did the shower and now we have a new cheese. And from there, very often.
That part becomes, became so much more cooperative and being like, I can trust you. Actually, I can trust you. You said we would and we did, and now we feel better. And the next time after the shower, the part was open for more conversation and being like, okay, so what is it that we actually want? Is it really the cheese? Before that part was, no.
speaker-0 (56:57.504)
It's cheese and bread. don't care. They're so fixated sometimes on, this is it. Nothing else will do. So really being in this, like you would tweet a
speaker-1 (57:04.942)
I love that. And then you can kind of communicate. You can talk to the part you can communicate with it. Is there anything you'd like instead?
speaker-0 (57:12.748)
Yeah. And they're so tender, those parts, especially those that are really intensely, in my experience, resistant to change and very firm in their, this is the craving, this is what we need. This is so very tender and so very grateful when get to express themselves and not be shoved away as something wrong and not be shoved away as the mean part doing something so
bad. I started losing weight out of like nowhere when I stopped wanting to lose weight, when I found approval for these food emotional eating cycles and did this slowly stepping out of them and not shaming myself for them anymore. It just stopped.
that craving just stopped because the part got hurt and it actually found it kind of needed that confirmation of me, that process that I just described of allowing them to, okay, we take a shower, you still want the food, we go for the food, no shame, no blame. And then that built baseline of trust for them to even express what was underneath their food craving. It was very tender things. It was very human, very soft, very emotionally sweet stuff.
speaker-1 (58:23.326)
Yeah, what a wonderful little nugget in here that we've stuck in here at the end. Tina, is there anything else that you want to share?
speaker-0 (58:33.42)
just to anyone who's listening and is like, but I'm not there yet. Keep going. Just it's very often I have experienced and I still experience these days is this impatience of why is it moving so slow? I've done all the things. Why am I not there yet? That's okay. That's part of the journey. seek support, find communities that give you the feeling of.
You're so welcome with all your weird shit. Just keep going. Don't give up on yourself. Like you're the one you have for the rest of your life.
speaker-1 (59:08.55)
Well, I would love to share that Tina creates the best Instagram. Well, you're also on TikTok, but I'm just on Instagram. YouTube shorts, just Tina creates the best short videos. And so if you are on any of those platforms, I definitely recommend following Tina. You're like flow state manager. Is that what it is?
speaker-0 (59:29.066)
It's close to managed Tina on TikTok. It's or that's TikTok and Instagram and on YouTube it's Tina Estrella, which is my name as a coaching platform. And I do have also a free membership where I share longer YouTube videos where I go in depth in conversations we are having right now, but with myself where I have these, my God, revelation moments and I dissect them and I share what I got out of it. So it's very like.
This is happening right now in my own life. This is my growth edge moments and they are in my webpage, there's a link or in any bio of any of this.
speaker-1 (01:00:08.716)
I'll put the link. I'll put it. Yeah, whatever link you give me, I'll put it in the description of this podcast.
speaker-0 (01:00:14.862)
It's the link tree. is, there is all the stuff is there. Then people get directly to it's called the inner vault. And that's where I share my longer that just don't fit into a short on YouTube.
speaker-1 (01:00:25.826)
And if you liked this podcast episode, would say you would definitely like that. Awesome. Well, it's been such a pleasure, Tina.
speaker-0 (01:00:32.91)
Thank you, Lucy. It's been so much fun. Absolutely. Thank you. talking to you.
speaker-1 (01:00:38.104)
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Penetrate Radio. I have a free guided existential king practice if you are somebody who is new to this work, if you're new to EK.
New to Lucy’s work?
Start with Lucy Baldwin’s complete overview of Shadow Alchemy here:
Lucy Baldwin’s Shadow Alchemy Hub
Penetrate Radio explores shadow work, desire, magic, embodiment, self-honesty, radical approval, Existential Kink, and the hidden patterns that shape our lives from underneath.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to live Existential Kink?
Living Existential Kink means bringing radical approval, embodiment, parts work, and shadow inquiry into everyday life, not only formal practice sessions. It means working with real patterns as they arise.
How does BDSM relate to Existential Kink?
BDSM can reveal the complexity of power, pain, pleasure, surrender, taboo, and sensation. For some practitioners, that makes Existential Kink immediately recognizable as a shadow work practice.
What is shadow work addiction?
Shadow work addiction is the compulsive search for new tools, ceremonies, practices, sessions, or breakthroughs without actually integrating or living the work. It can become another avoidance pattern.
How can parts work support Existential Kink?
Parts work helps identify the inner figures involved in a pattern, such as the addict, skeptic, protector, exile, or rebel. Existential Kink then brings radical approval and embodied inquiry to those parts.
Is radical approval permission to stay dysfunctional?
No. Radical approval means loving and approving of what is present, but that does not mean refusing growth. Honest approval can make change easier because it reduces shame and increases self-contact.
Next Steps
If this episode resonated with you, the next step is DOMINION: A Field of Radical Approval.
DOMINION is Lucy Baldwin’s space for practicing radical approval, shadow integration, desire work, and the deeper transformation at the heart of Shadow Alchemy.
You can also continue exploring Lucy’s current offerings, free practices, podcast links, and other work here: