The Somatics of Existential Kink | Penetrate Radio, Episode 6
In Episode 6 of Penetrate Radio, Lucy Baldwin is joined by Leila Matthews, Dani Granaroli, and Holly Kiefer for a deep conversation on the somatics of Existential Kink.
This episode explores what it actually means to “be in the body” during shadow work. That phrase can sound vague or spiritualized, but the practice is very concrete: noticing sensation, allowing charge, tracking waves of energy, and learning how to stay with the raw material of experience before the mind rushes in to explain it.
Existential Kink is not only a mindset. It is not only a clever reframe. It is a practice of meeting experience at the level of the body, where the story becomes sensation and the sensation can begin to move.
Watch or listen to Episode 6 of Penetrate Radio here:
Key Takeaways
In this episode, Lucy, Leila, Dani, and Holly explore:
what somatics means in the context of Existential Kink
why the nervous system shapes the way we experience reality
how sensation becomes story
why some people struggle to feel anything in the body at first
how Holly demonstrates an embodied EK practice in real time
the difference between naming sensation and collapsing into story
why waves of sensation can be allowed instead of interpreted immediately
how meaning-making can trap us in negative stories
why the body is not separate from magic, spirit, or transformation
how EK works at the somatic and spiritual levels
why accepting what is can make experience more fluid
how pleasure can become available even inside charged sensation
What Does Somatics Mean in Existential Kink?
Somatics simply means working with the body as a site of perception, sensation, memory, feeling, and transformation. In Existential Kink, this matters because the work is not only about what you think about your life. It is about what your body is doing with the experience.
You may have a story like, “I am embarrassed,” “I failed,” “I am unwanted,” or “This always happens to me.” Those stories matter, but before they become stories, they often begin as sensation. Heat in the face. Tightness in the throat. Pressure in the chest. A sinking in the belly. A buzz in the skin. A wave of nausea. A pulse of energy.
Somatic Existential Kink asks you to slow down enough to notice the sensation before you immediately turn it into a fixed interpretation.
Your Nervous System Shapes Your Experience of Reality
Leila begins the conversation through the nervous system. She describes the nervous system as the limit and extent of your experience of your environment. Everything you know about the world comes through sensation, perception, and bodily reception.
That means the body is not incidental to spiritual work. It is the doorway through which the world arrives.
Sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch are only the beginning. Each sense has submodalities, textures, differences, and nuances. We do not experience “the world” in some pure abstract form. We experience the world as it is filtered through the body, the nervous system, the senses, memory, and meaning.
This makes somatics essential to shadow work. If you want to transform your relationship to reality, you eventually have to work with the body that is receiving reality.
Why “Mentally I Get It” Is Not Enough
Many people understand Existential Kink mentally before they can practice it somatically.
They can grasp the idea that there may be a hidden pleasure in unwanted patterns. They can understand radical approval. They can even explain the theory to someone else. But when they try to do the practice, they may have trouble locating anything in the body.
This is normal.
Some people are naturally more attuned to sensation. Others are more visual, auditory, intellectual, or story-oriented. Some people have spent years living mostly from the neck up because the body felt confusing, overwhelming, unsafe, or inconvenient.
The somatic doorway may take practice. That does not mean you are doing it wrong. It means you are learning a new language.
The Story Is Not the Enemy
This episode does not dismiss story. Story is part of how human beings make meaning. The mind takes sensory information and tries to organize it into something coherent.
That is not bad. It is part of how we function.
The problem arises when we forget that the story is a story. We start treating the interpretation as the raw truth. A sensation in the body becomes “I am embarrassed.” Then “I am embarrassed” becomes “I always humiliate myself.” Then that becomes “I should hide.” The body offered sensation, and the mind built a world around it.
Somatic Existential Kink invites us to pause between sensation and conclusion. Before deciding what the sensation means, can we feel it?
Holly’s Real-Time Somatic Demonstration
One of the most powerful parts of the episode is Holly’s live demonstration of somatic tracking.
Rather than talking abstractly about being in the body, Holly describes what is happening inside her as she speaks. She notices heat rising in her chest and face. She feels the sensation move to the skin. She notices sweat, cool air, activation, stretching, waves, a rising self-consciousness, and then more sensation as she realizes she is being seen.
This is such a useful example because she does not immediately collapse the sensation into a story like, “I am embarrassed,” “I am scared,” or “I messed up.” Instead, she stays close to the material reality of the experience.
There is heat. There is movement. There is cold fire. There are waves. There is a body having an experience.
That is somatic practice.
Naming Sensation Without Collapsing Into Story
Leila points out that Holly’s demonstration shows the difference between sensation and story.
Most people quickly name a sensation by associating it with an old emotional category. Heat in the face becomes embarrassment. Tightness becomes fear. Nausea becomes shame. Trembling becomes danger. These labels may sometimes be accurate, but they can also become shortcuts that prevent deeper contact.
Holly stays with the sensation itself. She meets each wave with curiosity, equanimity, and even delight. She does not need to decide too quickly what it means.
This is a very different relationship to the body. Instead of treating sensation as evidence that something is wrong, she treats it as living material. Something to notice. Something to meet. Something that can even be pleasurable to track.
The Cheeky Joy of Noticing
There is a quality of playfulness in Holly’s demonstration that matters.
She is not grimly monitoring herself. She is not trying to perform somatic awareness correctly. She is noticing what arises with a kind of cheeky joy. The sensations are intense, but they are not enemies. They are allowed to arrive, build, shift, and pass.
This is one of the central gifts of Existential Kink. It does not merely teach you to tolerate difficult sensation. It asks whether there may be aliveness, pleasure, humor, eros, or beauty inside the experience itself.
The wave is not necessarily something to fix. The wave can be ridden.
Waves of Sensation
Sensation often moves in waves.
It rises, peaks, softens, returns, changes form, and moves again. You may feel something settle, then a new layer appears. You may think the activation is complete, then realize another wave is rising because you have become more visible, more vulnerable, or more aware of being witnessed.
This matters because many people panic when sensation returns. They assume they failed to process it or that something has gone wrong. But waves are normal.
Somatic Existential Kink teaches a different posture. You do not need to force the wave to end. You can let it move, notice what happens, and remain curious about the body’s unfolding experience.
Meaning-Making and the Negative Story
Dani and Leila explore how the mind turns sensation into meaning.
Human beings do not like the absence of story. When something happens, the mind wants to know what it means, where it fits, and what conclusion should be drawn. In the absence of a clear story, we often prefer a negative story to no story at all.
This explains a lot about why self-defeating beliefs become so sticky. The mind would rather say, “This means I am bad,” “This means I am unsafe,” or “This means I will never have what I want” than sit in open-ended sensation.
Existential Kink gives us another option. It says that experience can be met as sensation first. The story may still matter, but it does not have to dominate the field.
Sensation, Story, and Choice
The story is not useless. It can point to something important. It may reveal a pattern, memory, belief, longing, wound, or desire. But when we can distinguish sensation from story, we gain more freedom.
Instead of being trapped inside “this means I am doomed,” we might notice, “There is tightness in my chest, heat in my face, and a story that I am doomed.” That small shift matters. It creates space.
From that space, new choices become possible. You can feel the body, question the story, approve of the sensation, and choose a different relationship to what is happening.
This is not about denying meaning. It is about no longer being unconsciously ruled by the first meaning that appears.
EK Works at the Somatic and Spiritual Levels
Lucy and Leila discuss where transformation happens in Existential Kink. Lucy names the body as the level where the work occurs. Leila expands the frame by suggesting that EK happens at both the somatic and spiritual levels.
This is a useful distinction. Existential Kink may not primarily work by debating thoughts or rearranging concepts. It works by holding the most material pole and the most refined pole at the same time: the raw sensation of the body and the loving awareness that can meet it.
That combination is part of the magic.
The body provides the material. Loving awareness provides the spiritual field. Together, they allow transformation without needing the mind to control every step.
Healing Beyond the Mental Level
A lot of therapeutic work happens through the mind: telling the story, understanding the pattern, identifying the belief, changing the interpretation. That can be valuable.
But many people are also healed somatically and spiritually. A person may suddenly feel rage move through the body and find that something has shifted. Another person may feel grief fully for the first time and realize a long-held contraction is gone. Someone else may experience a moment of unconditional love or divine awareness, and the old story loses its grip.
Existential Kink makes room for these non-linear forms of transformation. It does not require every change to pass through explanation first.
Sometimes the body knows how to metabolize what the mind cannot solve.
Community, Wounding, and Healing
Leila also names the importance of community. We are impacted by the people around us, and that impact can wound or heal.
As children, we are especially open to what we absorb. Leila reflects on the idea that children live in a kind of hypnotic state in early life, taking in meanings before they have the conscious ability to choose what to accept or reject. This is a deeply compassionate frame. It invites forgiveness for the things we took on before we knew how to protect ourselves.
But healing also happens in relationship. When a person is witnessed with loving attention, something changes. The body learns that sensation can be seen without shame. The exiled experience can return to the field of belonging.
Community can become part of the somatic medicine.
Loving Attention as Medicine
One of the beautiful threads in the episode is the idea of turning loving attention toward everything that arises.
This does not have to be sentimental. It can be simple. A sensation appears, and instead of attacking it, you say hello. A wave of activation arrives, and you notice it. A contraction moves through, and you let it exist.
This is not passive. It is a disciplined form of intimacy with your own experience.
Most of us learned to meet certain sensations with judgment, panic, shame, or urgency. Somatic Existential Kink trains another response: loving attention, curiosity, and a willingness to discover whether even this can be included.
Pleasure in Every Stroke
Leila brings the conversation back to a central promise of Existential Kink: it is possible to experience everything as pleasure. It is possible to get off on every stroke.
This is a provocative statement, and it can easily be misunderstood. It does not mean that harm is good, that boundaries do not matter, or that painful things should be passively endured. It means that experience itself can become more fluid when we stop resisting what is already here.
When we accept something as it is, that does not mean it will always stay that way. In fact, the more we accept what is, the more easily the story can unfold into the next thing.
Resistance freezes experience. Approval lets it move.
A Simple Somatic EK Practice
To begin practicing somatic Existential Kink, choose a mild-to-moderate charged experience. Do not start with the most overwhelming thing in your life.
Find a quiet moment, take a breath, and ask: where does this live in my body?
Then notice the actual sensations. Is there heat? Pressure? Tightness? Buzzing? Nausea? Expansion? Fluttering? A hollow place? A pulse? A wave?
Try to describe the sensation without turning it immediately into a story. Instead of “I am humiliated,” you might notice, “There is heat in my face, a clench in my stomach, and a desire to hide.”
Then ask whether you can meet that sensation with a little more curiosity. Can you say hello to it? Can you allow it to move? Can you notice whether there is any strange aliveness, beauty, pleasure, or energy inside it?
That is a doorway into the somatics of EK.
The Body Is Where the Magic Lands
The real teaching of this episode is that the body is not a side issue in shadow work. The body is where experience arrives. It is where resistance lives. It is where pleasure becomes possible. It is where old meanings are encoded, and where new relationships to life can begin.
Existential Kink becomes much more powerful when it stops being a concept and becomes a felt encounter with sensation.
You do not have to be good at it immediately. You do not have to know the perfect somatic vocabulary. You do not even have to know what you are feeling at first.
You can begin with the simplest question:
What is happening in my body right now?
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Lucy Baldwin (00:01.744)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Penetrate Radio. I'm your host, Lucy Baldwin. And today I have with me, Laila Matthews, Dani Granaroli and Holly Kiefer. And we are gonna talk about existential kink and shadow alchemy, shadow work and somatics, being in the body. And what does that mean? What are we talking about? How do we do it? And how does that help us with specifically existential kink?
Who wants to start?
Holly, okay, great.
Laila Matthews (00:35.869)
Well, I'll start. I mean, I could just start out and share what my inspiration was for this and just what got me inspired in thinking. So I was reading an anatomy and physiology textbook, learning about the nervous system. And I guess I kind of like this because it makes it unwoo, but like also anyway, the woo and the material are deeply intertwined. But anyway, I was reading my anatomy and physiology textbook, learning about the nervous system. And it was talking about how,
You know, really your nervous system is the limit and the extent of your experience of your environment. And so all of your sensory information is made up of information that's coming to you from receptors in your body. And, you know, we're familiar with the general names for the senses like taste, touch, sight, sound, and feeling. I guess feeling is touch. What's the one I'm missing? Smell. Smell, taste, sight, sound, and touch.
I'm familiar with those, but those all have submodalities of types of reception that can be experienced by those. So just an easy example is that in vision, you can have color or not color or intensity of color. So it can be very saturated all the way down to black and white. That's a submodality of vision. And you can also have intensity and brightness. So it can be bright or dim.
And then I think there's other stuff that goes on with processing, like how far is it from you? Is it in a frame? But those are kind of beyond this conversation. The point is that all of your senses have submodalities, like temperature and pressure and texture and pain and humidity even. You can feel humidity. So the point is that our somatic experience is actually very rich. And what that really got me thinking about and what I'm so excited to talk
in more in depth with, with Dianne and Holly here today, because this is really their, I think, scope of genius, is, you know, knowing more about what the somatic input is can help us contact that somatic place more because I, know, existential kink is really primarily a somatic practice. And I've, I've heard a lot of people be like, mentally, I get it, but
Laila Matthews (03:04.711)
doing the somatic part is actually hard. And there are many people, and perhaps you listening might be able to relate to this, have even a hard time knowing if they're feeling anything somatically at all. So anyway, that's what got me thinking today.
Dani (03:26.712)
Yeah, that's awesome, Laila. so we were talking, Holly, actually, in the Dominion community that we have has a specific monthly offering called, actually, what is it called? It's Somatics of EK where you enter through the lens of the actual sensation that you're feeling instead of the story. So Holly, you want to talk a little bit more about
Lucy Baldwin (03:40.112)
Somatics of EK.
Dani (03:55.625)
what that is like.
Holly (03:58.818)
Well, it's the great thing about EK is that you can come in through a multiple like a multitude of lenses. There's no right or wrong way to come into the practice. And I think what will happen is like sometimes we'll get so wrapped up in this story. And like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Like I'm supposed to be getting off and I'm not. And like just getting wrapped up in this part, like
And I gesture to your head, but as we all know, like your mind isn't necessarily in here. It may occupy this space, but this isn't where it lives. Your mind is something that interacts with your body. like, just got all, I love it because getting into story and instead being able to drop into like, what is, what is happening in my body and not necessarily having to like be like,
this is really like being able to name a sensation specifically and precisely it can be like a really like I'm feeling something in my chest or there is something in my chest. Like you can, it doesn't have to be like.
When people hear other people talk about sensation or feeling, they hear these really specific things. And sometimes that can be an inroad. Like that can be, that's what that feeling is. Or it can be really like distancing. Like, I never feel that I'm clearly doing this wrong. And instead, we can look at it as...
Like I'm having a tough time wrapping words around it because like I'm having this big heat in my chest right now. Yeah.
Dani (05:51.054)
Holly, would you just like take us through that experience of having the in your chest right now? I think maybe because somatics is so experiential, because it is something we are engaging within the body. Yeah, words are hard. Do you feel comfortable doing that right now? Just kind of like showing us your process a little.
Holly (06:09.099)
Yeah, yeah, of course. So it's like right now it's like, I'm getting to talk about the thing that is the thing for me, the thing that I love. And so there's this, there's this heat that rises in my chest and into my face. And I'm starting to like feel like I'm not just feeling it internally. Like I'm feeling it on my skin. Like I'm feeling the cool air because I'm starting to sweat a little bit and feeling that like activation.
happening. Can you guys hear me?
Dani (06:42.03)
did Holly freeze for everyone? Okay.
Lucy Baldwin (06:44.259)
Yes.
Dani (06:54.658)
Come back to us, Holly.
Dani (07:04.671)
If I sidebar, will it be easy to edit these two things for you? Or should we just wait?
Lucy Baldwin (07:15.041)
Not totally sure, because it should be uploading her. Sorry, Holly.
Dani (07:17.71)
Hold it back. Okay.
so even if we didn't see it, it should be recording what she said. Okay. Great.
Lucy Baldwin (07:25.899)
It should be still recording her. Yeah.
So we might not have lost any of that, but we don't really know.
Holly (07:35.885)
Can you guys hear me again?
Lucy Baldwin (07:39.076)
Yeah.
Dani (07:39.254)
Yes, we lost you as you were, we, the three of us, couldn't see you when you were talking about it expanding into sensation in your face.
Holly (07:45.388)
Yeah.
Holly (07:50.879)
Yeah, yeah, I need to get the internet here sorted out. I think there's something happening with my VPN.
Lucy Baldwin (07:56.368)
I really love what you were doing though, Holly. Yeah, I really love what you were doing because when people are, I think a lot of people when holding space disconnect from their bodies. And so, and there's something so nourishing about you even just in this podcast talking about the physical experience that you're having. And I mean, I like actively when I'm like teaching or holding space, try to...
stay in like tuned in to my own body for the people that I'm serving. Like it's actually something that I'm doing in order to be able to like hold the space. And so I love this direction that we're going in and I really want to make this work if you're willing to try again, Holly.
Holly (08:46.665)
Yeah, because there's definitely a lot of sensation happening right now.
Lucy Baldwin (08:50.197)
Yeah.
Holly (08:53.921)
Yeah, there's, it's also really interesting, like what happens in the body can expand out and potentially affect recordings. Or at least break my internet.
Lucy Baldwin (09:05.593)
Break the internet.
Holly (09:13.549)
yeah. So the, the, let me tap into it again. Let me take a beat.
Holly (09:24.471)
because yeah, it's really important to stay in tune with the body when you're holding space. I definitely had a tendency for a long time to entirely disassociate and focus on the other as opposed to using my body to understand what was happening in the container. Yeah, so my whole body is really hot right now.
before it was in my face and now it's in all of me.
I'm noticing that that actually feels strangely really nice because there's a story about I've been cold all morning and now I get to feel warm. And I get to, like this is being seen the way things actually are, what's actually happening.
Holly (10:27.702)
And yeah, so noticing like the heat, it's starting to dissipate, but there's like.
Holly (10:37.089)
this almost desire for like shifting side to side and wanting to move, like this little, for lack of better words, like this dance that my body is wanting to do to move with this energy. And...
Holly (10:55.7)
It's...
Holly (11:02.059)
Yeah, there's desire to stretch and...
Holly (11:12.833)
Yeah. see, and now, that's so funny. There's so sensation often, especially in, in big sensation moments when you're moving through a lot, it can come in waves, like it'll settle and then it'll come back just like, you know, and this is the sensation of yes, right? This is the, the, the current that we're working with an EK, right? Like this, and it moves in waves. And I was starting to settle.
And then it was like, my gosh, you're letting people see this. my gosh. And the activation rises up again. And now it's this, this like.
cold fire in my chest. I can feel this coldness, this pressure, at the same time that it's radiating outward.
And so instead of like trying to make it go away, because I'm worried that people are going to see me acting weird on the internet, I'm letting it be. I'm letting it, well, and then some nausea comes up like, how sweet. My body's trying to protect me by vomiting this up. Like, how it's, it's really something.
Dani (12:20.512)
Ha ha!
Laila Matthews (12:38.503)
Well, can I say what I really love about what's happening right now, Holly? Because first of all, you're actually quite turning me on. I'm feeling rather warm and aroused in my own body just seeing you be so kind and attentive to your own body. First of all. And second of all, what I'm just noticing you do as an expert EK practitioner that I know you are is like, you never once said like, my God, I'm so embarrassed.
Holly (12:42.559)
huh.
Lucy Baldwin (12:46.944)
Yeah
Laila Matthews (13:07.917)
my gosh, like I'm scared right now. my gosh, I messed up. Because those are like the quick shorthands for those sensations because you've probably experienced similar sensations in those circumstances. So you just name them the experience that you were having when you originally felt those experiences. And I think that's how a lot of us get stuck in story.
in a very subtle way that's hard to untangle unless you watch somebody like Holly do what Holly just did and she was just talking about, ooh, there's like waves of sensation, there's warmth, ooh, cold fire.
And, and your, but your like attitude towards those was just like, hello, cold fire. There you are. now vomiting has arrived. And just like, just an equanimous hello to all of the sensations as they passed through your body. And it was arousing. You seemed like also you were having a nice time.
noticing all of those things happen in your body. I was having a nice time watching you. It looked so good. You know, so I just like to me that was just a really amazing example of the somatic power coupled with the EK perspective of really just focusing on what's actually here without skipping to conclusion and just, yeah, noticing and allowing and
finding, you know, even a little bit of cheeky joy in it as it came and went. So thank you, Holly.
Holly (14:59.328)
Thank you, Laila. And I think what's also really helpful to remember is that this is not always my experience. Sometimes I'm like, I'm just in it and I'm just in it. there's no, the watcher is absent. But I find sometimes it's easier to access the watcher when there are watchers that are so deeply and radically approving of what's happening. We don't, I mean, yes, we heal alone, but we also heal in connection with other people. In fact,
Like being witnessed, being held, and being seen is a huge part of it because shame only thrives in loneliness. Like shame can only thrive in secret. And in community, it becomes much, much harder for shame to keep its claws in you.
Lucy Baldwin (15:50.651)
That is so, so true, Holly. That is such a good point. I've been really feeling that lately because I have this secret podcast where I share all my like dark and dirty secrets and feelings. And it is really hard when you know that other people are witnessing, like it sort of gives you, even without trying to present things in a certain way, just through the art of like opening up to being seen, it's like, it's...
it invites that ability to witness yourself, especially when you know that the people witnessing you are holding you with that radical approval.
Dani (16:29.87)
Totally. Can I, I want to say one thing to this. It feels like we're melding a little bit of this concept of the physiological nervous system and kind of the way that actually our nervous systems don't just exist within this like physical body with all the synapses because, you know, what would just happened and Holly spoke to is that not just one nervous system was present in that experience, but four nervous systems were.
And so we lended some of our capacity to Holly so that Holly could be present in flowing with the experience of whatever the story around being seen is for Holly right now in this moment. And like Laila was saying, you know, these more conventional words of like embarrassment or whatever that might come up for the majority of us that surface us into our brain of, this is actually lack of capacity. This is how I need to shut down, pull in.
contract. Holly didn't have Holly what it's I'm I'm in. I'm assuming Holly can correct me if I'm wrong. Holly's experience of that was a little different, you know, nausea. Okay, cool. Maybe this is a sense of contraction, but I can stay present with this because first of all, Holly is a badass and has been doing this somatic work for many years and has a deep relationship with her body.
And also there were other nervous systems right now to help support in that.
Laila Matthews (18:01.811)
Yeah, I mean, I want to be a little bit obstinate and just quote my late departed mentor, Dr. Robert, and say, we are wounded in community and so we heal in community. Because I certainly know that a lot of the shame that I, I personally think that shame comes from the outside. I think none of us are born with the inner sense of there's something wrong with me.
Holly (18:02.508)
Absolutely.
Laila Matthews (18:29.329)
I think all of us are born with just the innocent, pure love of self and love of life, and then we do something and other people are like, why did you do that, you idiot? And then you feel wrong, you know? really, to your point, Holly, whether we are wounded or heal in community, I certainly think community supports healing as much as it supports wounding. And that's why it can heal, and that's why it can wound, because we are impacted by our community.
But also we heal ourselves, you know, and also we take on wounds ourselves. And when we're children, you know, we don't, we're not aware of our ability to take on or not take on. We're in a hypnotic state. I also recently learned that, learning about neurology, that children are in a purely hypnotic state for the first seven years of their life. So just, I guess I just was like, wow, we all need to completely forgive ourselves for the things that we took on when we were little.
We were completely powerless against that. But anyway, really appreciate that it is something that we have to do and we have to be willing to look at ourselves lovingly with that innate, the innate true perspective that we have on ourselves that we come in as children with that I love me. I'm like, I'm wonderful. Isn't this wonderful? You know, I'm here to love.
and turn that attention on yourself. know? Like I just watched you do that. Turn that loving attention onto everything that came up for you.
Dani (20:08.494)
Yeah, thank you. It was so gorgeous.
Can I shift the topic a little bit? Or I guess we're gonna stay on topic, but kind of create a new frame. So Holly did like an amazing job showing us like what it's like to go straight to the semantics of it. And I've been thinking about this for those of us that are more visual auditory and maybe you don't have that language for it, but you...
Laila Matthews (20:22.205)
Yes.
Dani (20:40.93)
Or maybe you don't have any relationship to how you experience the world, but as Laila has said and neurology has said and Dr. Robert has said and many people have said that actually the only way we experience the world is through our senses, right? So even if it's out of your awareness, that is the only way that you are experiencing the world.
is through some combination of our senses. So I was thinking about this, like, what about those of us who it's kind of out of our awareness of this? I'm thinking about it as like watching a movie, right? We all have watched TV or a movie, some sort of media outside of ourselves. And it may not be fully aware to you, but you are having an experience of it.
Right, there is, you're not only like taking in the information visually, but it's creating responses. You respond to it within your body, right? So maybe you are laughing, but there are actual sensations and textures to what that laughter is, which you might use the words of like happiness, know, joy.
comedy, whatever, or you are moved in such a way that tears come out of your eyes, right? Which may be, again, there's so many different textures that actually create tears, your tear ducts producing water. Some of them are actually sensations we deem positive.
like joy, happiness, awe, and some are sensations that we deem very negative, like sadness, grief. Yeah, there you go, betrayal. And so where am I going with this?
Laila Matthews (22:27.347)
trail.
Dani (22:36.59)
I think that can also be an inroad is recognizing that we all know how to watch a movie outside of ourselves and feel a response or acknowledge there are emotions happening, which is some texture of response within our body and our system. And then how do we start to notice that that is very similar to
the experience that we're creating in our lives, the story. We use the word story a lot here. And I want to recognize that that's not to diminish our experiences. It's just a word that we use to relate to the way that we construct images, texture, sound, smell, taste into a narrative of art.
Laila Matthews (23:29.683)
into something that means something. That's how we make it all make sense.
Dani (23:32.874)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's how we create meaning. you know, meaning is a neutral thing. Sometimes we... Yeah. Tell me more about that.
Laila Matthews (23:43.035)
Meaning is, I think, important.
Well, yeah.
Lucy Baldwin (23:48.933)
Well, I think what Dani's saying is that meaning doesn't necessarily have valence in and of itself. Like, could be we could be creating positive meanings, we could be creating negative meanings.
Dani (23:53.836)
Yes.
Laila Matthews (23:58.416)
And we prefer a negative meaning to meaninglessness. That's how important meaning is, is that we would rather make something make sense and it means horrible things than to say, wow, that just didn't mean anything at all.
Dani (24:13.24)
Well, yeah, because that goes to our primitive mammalian brain of creating safety. We have a negative bias. There's much science that has been. There's a great book called The Buddha's Brain that talks about how we have a...
inherent instinctual bias towards negativity because that creates a sense of safety for us. I feel like I'm getting a little off topic.
Laila Matthews (24:44.199)
Well, to bring it back to EK, and sorry, I was just riffing on you. You were inspiring me so much with what you were saying, Dani that I couldn't keep my mouth closed. But to bring it back to EK, to bring it back to EK, the thing about meaning is really important and the story is really important. I'm really glad that you spoke up in defense of word of story because it's, you know, we're not trying to say that you shouldn't believe in stories, but there is, there is an inherent motivation to make a story.
Dani (24:51.767)
No, I love it.
Laila Matthews (25:12.445)
to make our experiences make sense. We get all this sensory information and our brains are just like, all right, how do we fit this into the jigsaw puzzle of all the other information so that it all comes together as a sensible picture? What conclusion do I need to draw here? That's great. And in the absence of a story, we prefer a negative story to nothing at all. And I think that explains a lot of how so many of us just have ended up with
baseline negative or, you know, self-defeating or less than productive, less than optimistic beliefs and meanings about ourselves and lives and what that happened to us. And we also have the power and this, think where EK really comes in, EK comes in with the perspective of it is possible to experience everything as pleasure. It's possible to get off on every stroke.
Dani (26:10.414)
you
Laila Matthews (26:11.315)
and it's possible to accept experience as it is. And the promise that just because we accept something as it is does not mean that it will always be that way. In fact, the more we accept things the way that they are, the easier things flow from one thing to the next. The story unfolds.
Dani (26:32.654)
Yeah. And going off of that, it allows us to recognize that we actually have, I guess, I don't know, this word doesn't feel quite right, but some sort of power within the story of how we perceive and relate the story. I think that's the huge piece of EK.
Laila Matthews (26:53.647)
Right. Exactly. To even expand on what we were saying that like our experience is entirely made up of our sensory information, our sensory input, our experiences and the extent and limit of our experience is entirely made up of our sensory neurological input and what we interpret that to mean.
Dani (27:18.508)
Yes.
Lucy Baldwin (27:18.523)
Mm-hmm.
Laila Matthews (27:20.243)
That is the limited extent. And many of us are simply limited by we won't allow ourselves to make things mean something lovely and wonderful and peaceful and good enough. And that's the simple change that needs to happen for everything to be good and fine and lovely and good enough.
Dani (27:42.008)
Hell yeah.
Laila Matthews (27:44.52)
That's my Pollyanna soapbox for this episode. I'll try and, I'll try and be a little bit darker. and I guess to your point, also to, to reiterate what you're saying, Dani, to reiterate what you're saying, Dani, that is our dominion. have dominion and power and authority and agency over that part. We, we may or may not have dominion and agency over the sensory inputs. You know, but we definitely absolutely have.
Dani (27:50.678)
I'm...
Lucy Baldwin (27:52.453)
you
Dani (28:10.476)
Mm-hmm.
Laila Matthews (28:15.36)
unquestionable dominion over the part that makes sense of it all.
Dani (28:21.902)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Lucy Baldwin (28:25.433)
Holly, you look like you want to say something.
Holly (28:25.694)
Well, well, I was just thinking like, to say it like really, like just really succinctly, like EK makes it possible to enjoy the story. Like, that's what the Dominion is. Like we get to enjoy the story and we don't have to pay attention to any story that we can't find pleasure in. Like as we move through the practice. Yeah, it's, it's,
Laila Matthews (28:25.819)
So, join Dominion.
Holly (28:54.162)
It's executing choice, executing our dominion, right? Like we get to choose what our stories are and how we feel about them. And not saying like that, it's a practice, but it is possible.
Lucy Baldwin (29:07.717)
Yeah, and I think that's something that I just want to point out that we're kind of getting at here that we're pointing to is that there's actually two ways that we can enter EK. We can come in from a story, you know, that's sort of the traditional way that's described in the book is like coming at having a don't like situation that you've sort of like pre-chosen and then you go into that story and then you evoke the sensations and work with it from there. But what we're also suggesting is that you can just
you can just work directly with the sensations. And as you're doing that, notice if stories are trying to pop up and instead of going along with those stories, doing exactly what Holly demonstrated for us earlier and just being with the sensation and just sort of following the sensation without having to assign meaning to it.
Dani (29:58.188)
Yeah, and I think I want to say something like it's within the body that that's the domain that we actually get to relate to the story and engage and go through some sort of like potential transformation change relationship with.
Lucy Baldwin (30:08.017)
Mm-hmm.
Lucy Baldwin (30:17.081)
Yes, yes. I think that that's really key because the stories are coming from the physical experience of it. The sensory experience is what is sort of, we're translating that into the story. So with EK, I do think there are ways like with hypnosis and I do think there are methods where you can go in with the mind and change a story, definitely.
But with EK, do, the transformation is happening at the level of the body.
Dani (30:53.375)
I'm going to challenge that further.
Laila Matthews (30:53.949)
think it's happening. I feel like EK is happening at, I feel like EK is happening at like the spiritual level and the somatic level and kind of like leaving some of the mental level out if one is doing it. I think you're really holding the like the most material pole with the most like refined, just loving awareness pole. And that is.
that is doing the magic. there are certainly, you I think that therapy and certainly some of the destination method, neuro-linguistic programming and Dr. Robert's work is working more on different layers of mind. And certainly Dr. Robert's methods touch on the spiritual. But the mind is more what we're like, people are used to talking to therapists and that is, much of that is happening in mind. And I think many people are healed spiritually.
And many people are healed somatically. Like how many people, I think a lot of people can relate to the experience of like, you know, suddenly experiencing rage and disliking their partner or hating their children or resenting their job and then go to the doctor and find out that was my hormones. And then they, their hormones get changed and then their mental state gets changed. That's like a purely physical solution to that problem. And that person could have gone to therapy, but
what was the most effective and like root cause of that problem was like a hormonal imbalance. anyway, healings can happen all along the spectrum, but I think existential kink is happening with when the spiritual and the material are mating with one another.
Dani (32:37.23)
Thank you.
I don't know, is there even more to say after that? That just...
Laila Matthews (32:54.567)
I don't know, I'm not sure. Join us in Dominion.
Lucy Baldwin (32:56.047)
Yeah, it's... Well, I will say just going off of what you're saying, Laila, you know, I was talking earlier to you guys about having some thyroid stuff coming up and it is very humbling to have physical and, you know, I've been through a lot of pregnancies and postpartums and all of that and we're all women here and, you know, we feel we go through real hormonal cycles and it is incredibly humbling.
to realize how much the physical can create psychological changes where, cause I've been feeling like a lot of, I don't feel like myself and what is myself, you know, like I have some attachment to having this sort of like equanimity. I have this sort of attached, this story about myself as having
Dani (33:46.455)
equanimity.
Lucy Baldwin (33:53.564)
being a happy, well-adjusted, you know? And then I go through these hormonal changes and I'm like, holy shit, like I'm, you know, it can have really profound effects on the stories that I start telling. And isn't that fascinating? Just sort of to Laila's point. And then you can feel how that wave, that hormonal wave sort of shifts and then the stories change and...
I think that as much as we're seeking a kind of, I'm often seeking like a psychological state to me, I think of it as a psychological state of like happiness and joy and telling stories that make me feel happy and how much that is also not an identity. It's really just actually about, this is what I've been experiencing.
being with yourself wherever you are in that spectrum and whatever stories you're hearing are coming up, just being like, okay, that's not me either. And it's easy to want to identify with ourselves and those stories when it's the stories that we wanna be telling, when it makes us feel good. And then it's easy to try to shut ourselves down.
and be like, no, that's not me. And this is wrong and bad when we don't like the stories. so true equanimity is really being able to witness the full spectrum and be present in the full spectrum and just accepting it and being okay with what is.
Lucy Baldwin (35:40.743)
Because we're all on a ride. we're just, these meat suits take us on incredible rides. mean, my hormones have been taking me on a ride, okay?
Dani (35:52.307)
Hahaha!
Laila Matthews (35:54.322)
Yep. We're all tripping, tripping through time and space on neurotransmitters and hormones and perception.
Dani (36:05.422)
man. I, we've had so many mic drops in this, stroke our own, you know, egos on this, but whoo. It was a great episode.
Holly (36:14.409)
you
Laila Matthews (36:24.209)
Yeah.
Laila Matthews (36:28.423)
Are you happy with it, Luzier? Do want us to keep going? Do you want it to be an hour long?
Lucy Baldwin (36:32.325)
I don't care. don't care. I'm just like I don't care at all. Hello
Laila Matthews (36:36.595)
Do we want to do a more formal ending or do we want to keep riffing and edit some of our weird stuff here out?
Lucy Baldwin (36:44.967)
I was gonna kind of just like see what I was gonna kind of let it ride for another minute and see what happens. And yeah, I can always just edit it to any point. I have a pre-recorded outro that tells them about Freeguided EK, Dominion, Penetrate, so.
Dani (36:45.749)
god.
Dani (36:58.55)
It's so good.
Laila Matthews (37:01.085)
Amazing. good. You're so awesome.
Lucy Baldwin (37:07.611)
Yeah, I'm wondering if Holly wants to talk any more about somatics. I feel like you never actually got to... I felt like what you did was so good and I was just like, this is such good fucking medicine for these people just to witness this. And I was like, I don't know if you ever actually said what you wanted to say.
Holly (37:28.467)
I didn't have any attachment to saying anything. I was just letting it ride. And I think Layla is so good at synthesizing some of these things that I don't know if I can say it any better.
Lucy Baldwin (37:30.919)
Okay, great.
Lucy Baldwin (37:40.849)
I loved what you said, Laila, after Holly spoke. I just, I loved it so much. I can't wait to clip that shit up.
Laila Matthews (37:50.129)
You're welcome. The genius visits me as soon as the record button is on.
Lucy Baldwin (37:56.335)
Yeah.
Laila Matthews (38:00.498)
Yeah
Holly (38:01.833)
That's the conjuration spell. It's a very simple one.
Laila Matthews (38:03.815)
I'm sorry, it just does. I don't know. That's why I get invited to be on podcasts.
Lucy Baldwin (38:08.807)
Don't be sorry. mean, the episode, our Radical Approval episode, were some clips. Gunner pulled the clips from that one, but there were some, I was just like, God damn it, Laila's so fucking good.
Dani (38:11.054)
Hey, why are starting?
Laila Matthews (38:21.149)
just got the gift of gab, okay?
Dani (38:22.018)
mean, yeah, but also Lucy, there were one or two in there that you did that I was like, ugh, yes. Yeah. And in the Renee Rose one, Lucy, some of the shit you said, was like, no, you're not gonna say this. Like, Renee Rose was a little hard to understand. She just kind of like would go off on a lot of different places. there were like two or three points that I was like, this is why this episode works, because of what Lucy said here.
Laila Matthews (38:28.293)
Exactly. Exactly.
Dani (38:50.89)
Not because of what Renee Rose said. No offense to Renee Rose. I'm sure she's a great writer.
Lucy Baldwin (38:52.475)
Well, thank you, Dani.
Thank you, Demi.
Laila Matthews (38:59.123)
You guys are so sweet.
Dani (39:04.044)
I really gotta pee.
Lucy Baldwin (39:05.895)
Okay, well we can end it.
Laila Matthews (39:06.469)
I think we said I feel like we all said what we needed to say. I feel like we I feel like we gave them a good concise episode.
Lucy Baldwin (39:12.283)
I think so too. I think so too. This was so fun. Thank you guys so much.
There's going to be so many great, there were so many great moments on here. So yeah. And you had some good bike drops today too, Dani. Yeah.
Laila Matthews (39:25.319)
For sure, Dani. You drove the conversation forward.
Holly (39:26.322)
for sure.
Lucy Baldwin (39:29.798)
Yeah.
Dani (39:30.074)
I don't know if it felt like it came to some sort of cohesion, what I was saying, but also whatever.
Lucy Baldwin (39:40.785)
I think, yeah, I'm not sure either, but I think it's okay. I think that, with these episodes, the problem that I have is there's too many clips that I could pull. It's like, I have to like, because I can only post so many over the course of a week. Anyway, so.
Laila Matthews (39:45.736)
Hmph.
Dani (39:51.8)
Yeah.
Dani (39:57.774)
Okay.
Laila Matthews (40:02.707)
and embarrassment of riches.
Lucy Baldwin (40:04.441)
Yeah. Well, we got somebody signed up this morning from the emails I've been sending. And then I went on my Instagram today and the first thing I saw was the ad and it looked fucking good. I was like, yes. So we're going to grow.
Laila Matthews (40:10.813)
for Dominion.
Dani (40:18.062)
Fuck yeah. Nice.
Laila Matthews (40:20.721)
Nice. Amazing.
Dani (40:22.648)
Sweet. Lucy, you and I need to figure out how to get me access to Instagram because I have Layla and my intros literally ready to be posted. And the second the two of you give me content, it's literally just a paste and done.
Lucy Baldwin (40:34.705)
Amazing. I think...
Lucy Baldwin (40:42.768)
Okay.
Holly (40:44.476)
Yeah, I'm really on the Shuggle Bus writing a bio. It's... I don't know. It's words.
Dani (40:51.138)
Well, if you want to, if you want to just have a conversation with me, I can just write some shit down and then send it to you. And you can be like, I love that. I hate that. If that's helpful.
Lucy Baldwin (41:01.799)
So Dani, you tried logging in like penetrate.radio and then did like forgot password.
Dani (41:10.508)
I don't know, I really have to pee, can I?
Lucy Baldwin (41:12.165)
Okay, after you pee, maybe just call me.
Dani (41:15.084)
Okay, let me do that. Okay.
Lucy Baldwin (41:17.419)
All right, everybody, let's say bye for the recording. Bye.
Holly (41:21.352)
Bye.
Dani (41:22.414)
Bye.
Laila Matthews (41:24.199)
Bye.
Lucy Baldwin (41:26.054)
Okay.
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 are the somatics of Existential Kink?
The somatics of Existential Kink are the body-based aspects of the practice: noticing sensation, charge, waves, contraction, pleasure, resistance, and aliveness before immediately turning them into story.
Why is the body important in Existential Kink?
The body is where sensation and resistance are actually experienced. Existential Kink becomes transformative when the practitioner can feel the charge in the body rather than only thinking about the pattern.
What if I cannot feel anything in my body?
That is common. Many people are more used to thinking, analyzing, visualizing, or telling stories than sensing the body. Start small by noticing simple sensations like temperature, pressure, breath, tightness, or contact with the chair or floor.
Is story bad in shadow work?
No. Story is part of how humans make meaning. The key is learning to distinguish sensation from story so you are not unconsciously trapped in the first interpretation your mind creates.
How do I start a somatic EK practice?
Choose a mildly charged issue, locate where it lives in the body, describe the sensation without rushing into interpretation, and then meet the sensation with curiosity, approval, and willingness to let it move.
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: