April Podcast 065- Unpacking Our Hearts and Our Whys

Apr 7

Written By

We each carry around a lot of “stuff” in our spirit, but in this podcast, Join Lee Harrington as we look at our physical “stuff” and its memories as well. What does that piece of rope mean to you? Why are you holding onto that letter? From run pins to supporting our essence, tribal memory to asking why we do a specific type of play, we’ll dive into a series of stories and reflections to help you do some story-examining and reflecting of your own.

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BDSM and Non-Standard Relationships, Power Exchange And Polyamory, Sacred Sexuality And Fetishes, as well as Simply Fun Kink.

You're listening to The Erotic Awakening Podcast Network.

Welcome to The Passion And Soul Podcast, an exploration of personal and interpersonal desire, faith and connection.

Your host, international sexuality and spirituality author and educator, Lee Harrington of passionandsoul.com, will take you on a sultry and intellectual journey through the soul of intimate experience.

Take a moment and breathe deep, and get ready for an adventure.

This podcast is a chance to glimpse into the ever increasing diverse world of alternative life.

The Passion And Soul Podcast is intended for mature audiences.

If you are offended by adult topics or prohibited by law, we recommend you stop listening right now.

Lee:
Hello, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to The Passion And Soul Podcast with Lee Harrington of passionandsoul.com.

I am talking to you right now from my home office space in beautiful Anchorage, Alaska, where I'm a little concerned right now about the amount of snowpack we have up on the mountains.

It's about probably a third of what it's supposed to be.

We ended up actually having a lot more sun up here than everywhere else down below in the lower 48.

But in my office space right now, it was doubling as a guest bedroom.

And it's really strange to feel a space as it transforms into its next chapter.

We've taken out the large bed that was in here and are building it into a kind of library, craft, office, reading space.

Because as we are people, individual people, we redesign our physical spaces much the same way we redesign our connections and our relationships, including our relationship to ourself.

When I want to kind of remake my head, one of the things I will do, I admit, is reorganize my space.

I'll move bookshelves around.

I'll put up a new piece of artwork.

I'll organize my shirts.

At one point, I decided to put all of my memories in two boxes, and then it became three boxes, and I just reorganized them again back down into two large ones.

That's not counting some of my art project pieces that I've been working on for a long time that have rich pieces of my memories embedded in them.

When I say memories, I mean artifacts, those things that our hands can touch and evoke and invoke something powerful in our memory, that thing that when you pick up that stuffed animal, you go, oh, I remember when I got that for my kid, or when you pick up that love letter, you open it up and you can smell their scent still, even if it was an ex who you broke up with 20 years ago.

Those artifacts, those things that I love holding onto because my memory really is aided by those things, those sculptures, those words, those postcards, that strange paper fan I picked up from a drag show, those memories, those tangible items.

We are more than the artifacts of our lives, and we are more than the spaces that we live in.

But there's something really powerful and really profound about those items, those artifacts.

At times, I've bought items for my relationships.

I've bought a specific dildo or a strap-on harness for one.

I've owned rope that was for another.

And it's fascinating when those breakups happen, what you do with those items.

Do you pass them forward to someone else?

Do you let them go?

Do you send those items home with that person after the breakup?

Or is it meant to be yours, and you get to reclaim it and claim it anew?

Claim it as yours.

Make it your thing.

Because things have stories and personalities, and they were there too.

My very first girlfriend, we decided we wanted to have a strap-on harness.

And she lived in Portland, Oregon.

And so we went to a sex shop there.

And I was underage, but I didn't look it.

So we came in together, and we looked around at all of the strap-on harnesses and all of the dildos.

And we giggled and we picked things up and we looked at them.

And we found this one black, sort of thin one that wasn't too overtly phallic shape.

And because she didn't want one that looked like a penis, per se.

And we built up our gumption.

We went up to the counter and we asked the lovely woman behind the desk, So do we like this?

Do you have this one?

Can we have this one?

And she looked at me and looked at her and said, Well, I don't know.

Let me look in back.

And she came out with the harness.

But she said, I'm sorry, the floor model is the last one we have.

And we paused and we looked at each other and said, we'll take it.

Because there was this object, this artifact, this thing, that when you picked it up, it had been held and lusted over by how many lesbians who had came before.

And so we asked if we could take it home.

And that strap on harness was amazing.

But when we broke up, she decided to destroy it.

And I was heard about it originally because that was my cock.

That was my phallus.

That was what I used to fuck her, and then over the years I realized that it was the right answer.

That she had done me a favor in some way because otherwise I would have thought of her every time I used it.

Some of the things we pick up that we have memories over in kink and sexuality and our spiritual exploration are a positive thing.

All of the scenes we've had.

All of the beauty we've embedded in this thing.

All of the lusciousness, all of the joy.

But other times we're not supposed to hold on to them.

Other times we're meant to gift them forward.

And I love doing that nowadays.

When I have a set of rope that has been used to a point that I've had to cut more than two pieces in half, because I do, since I do do suspension, bondage and some speed stuff, I look at my rope and investigate it on a semi-regular basis.

Not every single time, but on a fairly regular basis to see if there's any wear spots, tear spots, spots that would make me uncomfortable trying to lift that person up in the air.

And if those things are broken or are happening, I get a pair of scissors, I cut it, I whip new ends for it, and I've got two shorter pieces.

But I like having what I call a complete set of rope.

A set of five or six ropes of the same exact type that I can use to be able to create a tied-in visual experience, because I think that's really fun and sexy.

I don't need it all the time, in fact, I often enjoy combining materials or colors.

But for me, when I have a smaller set that wasn't intended to be a smaller set, I'll get down to, say, three out of a six and everything else is cut up, and I'll decide that I'm going to give it away.

I'll find some person who's newer in the community or newer to bondage, and they've showed up to a class and I go, you know what, you only have a piece or two?

Would you like this set?

And it's so amazing to see them light up because, of course, they want this set.

It's only a couple of years old.

It's not that much of a, they're clean, they've been washed.

There's not a problem with them, and they feel amazing in the hand.

They've been loved, but they've either been too worn down for me to use them for what I'm going to use them for, and I tell them that.

Don't use these for suspension bondage.

Don't use these for things that would involve too much straining.

Don't use them for that, but enjoy them however else you can.

I love the idea of what is mine going out and living another life because it's important.

I talked about that recently in a podcast, that idea of saving our relationships because they're not, because we should treat them more than we treat our current toasters in our life.

I'll link to that in the show notes.

But for me, it's about the physical objects themselves, too.

That what do I do with a piece of artwork that was made for me by a former lover?

They don't want it back, and I don't necessarily want to hold on to it.

I'll hold on to it for a while and eventually I let it go, sometimes to another person.

But once in a while, I also put it in those boxes of memories.

Because whether you have physical boxes of memories or not, you have emotional boxes of memories.

What emotions are you carried around, boxed up?

We talk about sometimes in various forms of psychological theory that idea of what emotions are you boxing up?

What are you keeping in your closet?

What's going to fall out of the closet if you open it up too fast?

What else is in there?

What shadows of your heart are embedded in that space?

And we're all carrying those around.

And we're carrying around not just the shadows and our pains, but our joys as well.

When's the last time you unboxed a happy memory?

I know for myself it was pretty amazing.

I didn't actually go through everything as I was re-boxing back into two larger boxes that were more sturdy.

One of the boxes that I had bought back, gosh, 20 years ago now, I think, I had, it was starting to fall apart finally, that's some quality workmanship for a cardboard box.

But it was finally falling apart, so I went to a craft store and I bought two new ones that felt right, that say inspirational words on the outside, and that have a latch so that they don't fall down when I get them down off the shelf.

But as I was moving things from one box to the other and moving my postcard collection, separating it out from these boxes of memories, because there are postcards I have that are memories and other ones that I just thought were a cool postcard when I was at International Mr.

Leather or when I was in Australia.

They're not firm personal memories, they're just what they are, they're just objects that make me smile for my collection.

Because I collect that and I collect hankies, because they're both things that even when I'm moving around are a collection I can afford.

Back when I lived in Oregon, I started to collect trunks.

That's not really an option when you move around a lot.

And I'm trying not to move around as much right now, but I'm aware of my history of being a nomadic.

And so as I was separating these things out, on occasion I'd come across a card signed by my grandmother, or the medallion that my mom's best friend got me when I graduated.

I came across my bag of collars that I'd made for other people.

Some of them were cut off, folks, some of which just have the locks locked there and no key, because the key was gotten rid of, because that collar could never be used again.

And I know that and I acknowledge that because each relationship is different for me.

And do I respect dominants who have collars that they can use on anyone?

Absolutely.

And in my professional dominance work, I've definitely had those and used them and enjoyed them.

But for me, when I've handmade collars, that collar belongs to that person.

And whether they keep it after we're done or whether I lock the lock on it and never open it again, that is what it is.

Those aren't supposed to be used again.

So I put them all in a ziplock bag and I came across all of these artifacts, these movie tickets, these patches, my bags full of event pins.

I've been collecting event pins since 2000.

If you're ever at a BDSM event, you'll see leathermen and leatherwomen who have on their leather vest all of these pins from the events and the runs they've been to because each of those pins is a piece of cultural memory.

It's not just their memories of what took place at that event.

It is an opportunity for everyone they encounter to go, oh my gosh, you were at Living In Leather in 2000?

I was there too.

Do you remember?

Do you remember that outfit?

Do you remember that scene?

Do you remember that person who's no longer with us?

We carry these memories, these artifacts, these things, because they are powerful and palpable.

For a long time, I thought about wearing all my pins on my vest.

And I realized even back then, this was like eight years ago, seven, eight years ago when I decided this, that I decided I didn't want to be that person who had 4000 pins on their vest and it leaned lopsided and more than that hurt their shoulders.

I value and appreciate those who do such things, because it gives me an opportunity to tap into them.

I can see them at an event and be like, Oh, wow, I was there too.

Or tell me what's it like to go to Self?

I've never been to Southeast Leather Festival and I'd love to sometime.

Or to say, Wow, where was that event?

I've never heard of it, because what I'm saying is, tell me your story.

Tell me your past.

Tell me your truth.

Give me an insight into your stories.

Let your thing that is on your body that clearly means something to you.

Let it tell me something.

Let me learn from your things.

And so for me, as I re-boxed these artifacts, these items, I had an opportunity to reflect a little bit, but not dive in too deep, because I knew emotionally I wasn't ready at that moment to unbox everything.

My partner has asked if sometime I could take her on a tour of all the things in my memory box.

And I'll happily do so, with an awareness for both of us that every object has a story.

Some are easier.

This is the card that my grandmother got me for Christmas when I was 16 years old.

And those are easier stories than say the one that is, this is a card from my friend when he was in prison.

And I remember how he ended up there.

And I'd like to tell you a story, because the art of their artifacts involved with that story aren't with us anymore.

May I tell you a story?

And telling stories is important, which I've talked about before, because we should each tell our stories.

But gosh, that was a long time ago on the podcast.

I talked about that, so maybe it's a good reminder for all of us to tell our stories, not to everyone, not to those who aren't ready to hear them, but with April 8th, haven't been national or international, whatever we declared it, Honesty And Vulnerability Day, then it's important for those who are ready to hear our honesty and our vulnerability to get to hear it, because they get to learn too.

On the desk in front of me are a number of different artifacts and things, that are mine, but that are butterflies as well, my sweetie, and a few are ours.

Her piggy bank and my piggy bank, my piggy bank, which I acquired at the airport in Las Vegas, because I thought it was cute.

It's not a big deal, but it still makes me happy.

A sculpture of a painted wolf from a friend of mine.

A stuffed ram that I got at Wujimaia's, back when I used to live in Bellevue, Washington.

It's the Japanese grocery store that I used to take cooking classes from when both my parents were working full-time.

They did an amazing con job, I've got to say, by being like, oh, you want to learn how to cook.

I got all excited as a little kid, of course I want to learn how to cook.

That's so much fun.

I would make them meals, and they appreciated them, because they had both been working full-time.

And it meant that neither of them had to cook.

But at the end of the day, it wasn't a con job.

It was a win-win situation.

We all won.

But there are some of the artifacts, as I said, that are mutual memories, shared memories.

The one in front of me that makes me smile is a butterfly made out of strips of foam wrapped around in little shapes that look like lollipops with big wings and of other pieces of thin bendable foam and two pins in the head meant to be antennae.

It's on a long stick.

We bought it from a pair of street kids, street artists that were in Cochabamba in Bolivia.

And I look at it and it reminds me of our times there.

And it reminds me of the people that I met there.

And it reminds me of the laughter and the adventures and it takes me, transports me through time into being in, hanging out with her brother.

It transports me in time to a different place, a different thing, a different moment.

Because this thing is more than a thing.

Just like as people, we are more than people.

We are something powerful and beautiful and amazing.

And as I am sitting in this office space that no longer has a bed in it, it is in a place of transformation.

It reminds me that all the time we can be in places of transformation, that every moment of every day we are in places of transformation, places of beauty and power, and that we can unpack these boxes and repack them, that I can take out a piece of furniture and put it back in and make myself anew, that I'm not taking out the support walls in my own psyche.

I am simply moving the furniture around in my own heart.

Is it going to be the right time every day to do it?

No, not for physically moving your furniture around, or for moving that of your heart around.

Because it's important that you build up and buttress up all of those supporting walls before you try to knock anything down.

Or more importantly, know what is a supporting wall and what isn't.

Know what is fragile before you toss it around.

I was blessed by that concept by Midori years ago.

I think it was either in a class or a conversation, probably 15 years ago.

And when she said that to me, it really struck a chord.

That idea that each of our hearts is a house.

And some of us have lots of winding tiny little rooms of a Victorian manner.

And some of us are a big open floor plan warehouse.

But all of us have support walls.

And all of us have furniture.

And they're different things.

And that many of us also have interior walls that can be broken down.

But what matters is that as we are breaking down these internal walls of the psyche, that we do so having buttressed up and strengthened the walls that actually support us, that hold up the I am, the hold up the who we are at our core that support us.

She was talking about objectification and humiliation play at the time, which I think actually places it in 2003.

Anyway, that's a trip down memory line in and of itself.

And this was a class that she was doing on objectification, humiliation and degradation.

But it was more than that because it struck me that this applies everywhere in our life.

It applies across time and across space that if I am going to break down the things of my spirit, is there something new to hold me up?

Am I strong enough for this?

Can I be out of this bad habit if I have not filled in with something that can hold up not just what we think it does, but what it actually does?

I remember talking to The Marine, who's another sexuality educator out of California.

Actually, in attendance at one of their classes, they said that they used to be a smoker, and that they really had problems quitting smoking, but it's because what they realized is that working their job, smokers got extra breaks, and that when you're a smoker, they got extra breaks and they got social interaction time.

You could go downstairs, bitch about what was happening at work, come, you know, and then go back upstairs, having eaten a piece of gum and, you know, come back calmed and refreshed.

It wasn't just about the tobacco.

It was also about how do you calm down?

How do you soothe?

How do you get the time off to have a break during the middle of a stressful job?

How else do you get to have those social and interpersonal connections?

And if all I'm addressing is taking some Chantix and trying to stop smoke, trying to stop smoking, then I'm not actually looking at the problem because the problem, the challenge, the problem is bigger than that.

There is more that needs addressed.

There is more that needs looking into.

And I look the same way at people who are compulsive with their sexuality or their kink.

At people who are consistently having scenes that crash and burn.

What else is going on there?

I remember talking to one person and being really struck but not knowing quite how to say it.

But I pointed out lovingly later that what they said was, you know, I don't care.

I'll put up with anything.

What I really just want is that nice aftercare afterwards.

And I just froze inside because this was a person who felt they could only get touch if somebody beat them.

That's very different.

That's very different than consensually agreeing fully from a place of open heart to do SM play.

Now, if you and your partner agree for the notion of tit for tat, they really get their rocks off hitting somebody and you really get your rocks off conceptually or physically at being cuddled and that you both agree, you know what?

Neither of us really like that that much, but I'll do it for you, then that is consent.

If everyone is above board and says that's what's going on, but if you're not saying what's going on, that's passive aggressive and or self destructive or destructive to an entire relationship potentially because resentment can build, pain can build stories in our head of why does she want to beat me?

Why do they hurt me so much when what you're looking for is cuddles?

Accepting abusive behavior for the hope of getting something you want isn't okay.

Now, we all get to make choices in life.

And I'm not going to and I refuse to blame the person who is doing that hitting if they thought that everyone had agreed to this because everybody had said out loud, I'm good with this, let's go.

Now, is it possible for someone to revoke that consent in the middle of something?

Absolutely.

But there's a mutual dance that gets to happen at that point.

That safety gets addressed first and then everyone comes back to the conversation later on even if that's with an intermediary.

What happened?

How do we address this?

How do we move forward?

And sometimes it's surprisingly answer that comes up.

Sometimes, it's one person saying, I thought that's what you wanted.

It's what I saw you do with your last partner.

Oh, you really just want to be cuddled?

I am totally down for a forced cuddling scene.

I'll tie you up and curl up around you and tell you how awesome you are.

I'll wrap you up in a blanket like a cocoon and I will feed you truffles.

That's pretty beautiful and sexy and hot and can be still as kinky as anything else.

A hardcore cuddling scene, a forced cuddling scene, a takedown cuddling scene, a sensual cuddling scene, a cuddling scene involving role playing.

If what your needs are are a desire for touch, put that in your negotiations for the why.

That is part of being vulnerable.

Now, do we always feel safe being vulnerable?

No.

Because it's not always the right time.

Sometimes it's not always the right person.

Maybe this is someone who doesn't deserve your vulnerability.

Because they've shown that they don't hold it in trust.

They don't hold it with integrity and they don't hold it with love.

So be it.

In which case, I think it's really worth considering.

Why are you sleeping with them?

Why are you playing with them?

Why are you in a relationship with them?

And if you have answers, fantastic.

But if you don't, I would encourage individuals to sit with those questions.

Sit with the why.

Now, again, this is part of unpacking those boxes and moving the furniture around.

Sometimes it's not the right day to do it.

But sometimes it needs to be.

At some point it needs to be.

Because if all we do is gather up all of our things, we become a pack rat who can't move through our house without tripping and falling and harming ourselves.

Who are you and what are you carrying around?

What needs unboxed and maybe needs recycled into something new?

What could be taken apart and turned into an art project?

What can be gifted forward to someone else?

What can you turn into the next chapter?

I love cleaning other people's houses because it's a lot easier than cleaning mine.

That's not an invite to say, I'm going to come over and clean yours, just saying.

But I had a very dear friend of me who lived in Maryland that as part of an agreement for some stuff that we were doing, I cleaned out their garage.

Now that might not sound like the biggest of deals other than the fact that this person had been collecting all of their receipts and hadn't opened up the bulk of their mail in multiple years.

So I had to open up and go through all of the messages that they'd ever gotten, all of the letters, all of the bills, all of the things of their life and make executive decisions because they didn't want to see all of it.

That was the choice they made.

And so I would collect things and file things and here were recycle boxes and here were broken down stuff.

And then once we got through all of that, I delivered to him one large shoe box.

One of those ones for one of those ones you use for hiking boots, full of the things that I had kept out of this heap of letters with everything else having been recycled and taken away.

And as he went through those things, I went back to it all and continued sorting and organizing and breaking things down.

It got me more than the trade he and I had though.

What I did is I put on Linkin Park at the top volume that I could possibly play without hurting my ears because I headed on headphones and I smashed and I ripped and I rendered because I was in a place of emotional pain.

And here was a place that I could take out this emotion without hurting anyone else, without hurting myself, without harming anything.

It provided a safe outlet for me to unpack some of my own boxes.

That box labeled pain.

That box labeled suffering.

That box labeled what am I going to do?

That box that said sorrow, that was interpreted into anger.

Because anger is a cover emotion.

There's always something underneath it.

Whether it's resentment or abandonment, there's always something underneath it.

Because that is how anger works.

And so he gave me this gift of his things because they were able to coagulate together with my things and make something new.

Or in this case, let me see what was already there and open it up and let a little bit of it go from the pressure cooker.

Because my boxes were overflowing and it hurt.

It hurt my heart.

It hurt my being.

And so the question I have for you is, when's the last time you looked in your boxes?

Is today the right time or is it okay to say, you know what, I should go and do this.

Let's make a date with myself and go to the museum.

And maybe instead of actually watching and looking at all things in the museum, you just sit down.

You sit down and you look at a good painting and you think, when's the last time you looked at the reason why you're doing some of your things?

And when's the last time you looked at your physical stuff too?

Because what does it mean to you?

And are these artifacts that are preserving beautiful stories or are they things that are packing up and filling up the cluttered space of your heart?

Because one day at a time, every day, we have an opportunity to see these things.

Every day, we have an opportunity to make choices around what we carry and what we don't.

And if what you have right now is the best you have for you, don't break down those supporting walls.

Maybe later you'll be able to build up new skill sets, things that serve you better.

But today, if what you have is this thing that other people call slightly maladaptive, at least it's maladaptive and not completely destructive to all that you are.

Step at a time.

Today, you might get a D on your grade score for life, but you have an opportunity to start moving that up to a C and then a B and then maybe a B plus or an A minus.

But I long to have the whole world live at an A or an A plus.

I think that's a beautiful idea for us all to strive for.

And perhaps beyond that, live a life where we don't need grades at all, because we simply live our full life with its fullest potential.

And we acknowledge all of the things in our life and in our hearts.

For those who are interested in staying in touch with me, my website is passionandsoul.com.

And you can find this podcast both there as well as on my RSS feed, which you can see through if you go to passionandsoul.com, do a forward slash on audio and you'll be able to get links to each of the individual show notes as well as the show notes for today.

For iTunes listeners, go ahead and type in Lee Harrington on iTunes and you'll be able to pull it up pretty quickly and easily.

I am all over the internet with the username passionandsoul.

And I travel all over the globe talking about sexuality and spirituality as well as personal authenticity.

And you can find that information out by going over to my website and clicking on Appearances.

I have a lot of places I'm traveling to shortly.

In May, I'm going to be in Ohio as well as Illinois.

And in June, I'll be in Indiana, Illinois as well as Maryland.

And we've got upcoming projects in Washington State, I believe, and Los Angeles down in California.

I've got stuff coming up in Iowa and Atlanta, and a lot more to come because I'm still planning out a tour that's going to be happening in October.

So until next time, stay cool, have fun, look at your whys, and be authentically you.
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