Katie Henricks: He has his left leg over your abdomen. So he's actually putting his attention on your pussy and on your clitoris.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Katie Henricks: And we stroke the clitoris because it's the point of the highest sensation of the human body. The clitoris has over 8000 nerve endings so that's the best place to go and feel. Does that make sense?
Jennifer Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Katie Henricks: So take sex out of it, take the word clit out of it, take all the connotations of shame or sexual identity or whatever it is. Woman just happen to be the lucky owners of the clit right? Thank you god.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is MILF podcast, the show were we talk about motherhood entrepreneurship sexuality and everything in between. I'm your host Jennifer Tracy. Welcome to December you guys. Here we are. Last little bit of 2019. 2020 is coming at you like a freight train. Woo, here we go.
Jennifer Tracy: So today's an exciting episode. I'm really, really excited to bring you this guest but before we do I want to just go over our two beautiful sponsors and thank them so much. The first sponsor is a company called Gifts for Good and Gifts for Good is a beautiful company that does these really luxurious gift baskets, all price ranges though, from $25 and under to $250. They also do gift cards and what they do is every gift basket the you give a portion of that goes to a cause.
Jennifer Tracy: What I think is really neat is that it's not just a dollar amount, sometimes it is, but they give like for example, if you give a certain gift basket, they will give an organization that provides training for women in other countries where they would not provide training and not be able to procure work for themselves, they will give 25 minutes of training to a woman or a group of women. Stuff like that that is just mind blowing. There's more stuff on their website at giftsforgood.com. Please check it out. That have customizable gifts.
Jennifer Tracy: They work with corporate companies, so if you have a company, large or small and you want to just get all the gifts for your company taken care of, this is such a great option and even their less expensive gifts are absolutely beautiful, they're really finely curated. A lot of the items that are in there are made by women and people in other countries that they are then return that service back to them. So they're not only providing employment, but then returning a portion of the proceeds from these gifts back to that organization.
Jennifer Tracy: So they have provided us with a discount code, MILFforgood, M-I-L-F-F-O-R-G-O-O-D. If you use that at the checkout you can get a little discount. So check them out. It's perfect for holiday shopping or anytime shopping and it's a beautiful company, they're based here in LA and I'm just so grateful for their generosity with the listeners and with the podcast.
Jennifer Tracy: So this month's give I'm going to announce, came to me through this incredible woman named Laura McGregor. Laura is a cancer survivor and now she has terminal cancer. She survived cancer, got into remission and then found out that she had cancer again. She is a mom. She reached out to me to be on the show and sent me this video of her and what she's doing and I cried and I called her immediately and I said, "A, I want you on the show right now and B, I want to support this beautiful organization that you have created."
Jennifer Tracy: So Laura created this organization called Hopescarves.org that is the highlighted give for the month of December for MILF podcast because what happened was someone that had been close to her who had just gone through cancer treatment gave her these beautiful head scarves because she lost her hair and so she wore these scarves and when she was done with them, she went back to that friend and said, "I'm done with the scarves," and the friend said, "Well, instead of giving them back to me, why don't you pass them onto to someone else who's going through cancer treatment," and Laura said, "Oh my gosh, that's such... of course I'll do that," and she did and it inspired her to start this organization.
Jennifer Tracy: So if you go on there you'll see all these stories. Part of what she has created is this chain of stories. So when you give the scarves to the next patient you write out your survival story and you enclose it in the box. It's so beautiful you guys and she's just an incredible human being and I really, really want you to go on this website and check out what is happening here. So you can buy a scarf, you can become a scarf sponsor, you can add to the stories, you can add your story. It's really beautiful. So thank you, Laura, and team and I'm excited to continue to learn about what you guys are doing and support you in any way that I can.
Jennifer Tracy: Our other sponsor for today is the Growing Candle, which I talked a little bit about last week as well. They have these candles called Hooga candles and they are these gorgeous candles with all these different scents that are natural, they're not perfumey. They're like sandalwood and vanilla and lavender and eucalyptus, that's my favorite. They come in these beautiful ceramic jars and when the candle burns down what it's wrapped in is this paper that has seeds in the paper, it's biodegradable paper, and you put it in the candle jar and you water it and it grows into wildflowers. It's so cool, you guys. It's so beautiful. Also a beautiful gift. They have also given us a discount code of MILF10 for 10% off at checkout. So check them out thegrowingcandle.com... make sure it's the growing candle. Yep, thegrowingcandle.com. So those are our sponsors and our give for December. I'm so proud of all of them and to share them with you.
Jennifer Tracy: Without further ado I'm going to introduce today's guest, Katie Henricks. Katie came to me through the world of pole dancing and she is a relationship and intimacy coach and she's fascinating and we talked a lot about sex, we talked a lot about female orgasms, we talked a lot about the clitoris, we talked a lot about a lot of things and it's such a great interview and please enjoy my conversation with Katie.
Jennifer Tracy: Hi Katie.
Katie Henricks: Hi Jennifer.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god, I'm so excited to be here with you.
Katie Henricks: Thanks. Thank you for having me.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god, it's such a joy. So just before we hit record we did a fun impromptu Instagram live and you started talking about all this amazing stuff and I said, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, we got to stop the live and start recording the podcast," because it was so amazing.
Jennifer Tracy: So we're talking about how you are a sex, intimacy and relationship coach and you also work with certifying... you're a certified orgasmic meditation teacher.
Katie Henricks: I am.
Jennifer Tracy: Just all on those monikers are so exciting and amazing and then I gestured to the pole behind your coach here in your home because that's how we know each other, is through our pole dancing community.
Katie Henricks: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Then I talked about how, this is all out of order, so I apologize guys, but I'm just trying to hit the high notes of what we just talked about to recapture it. I talked about how horny I was during my pregnancy and you started to talk about how you found sensual movement and how your sex life had shifted and changed when you were pregnant. Am I...
Katie Henricks: Let's go into it.
Jennifer Tracy: Let's go into it.
Katie Henricks: Okay. Well, Oklahoma girl here.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Katie Henricks: I stuck out like a sore thumb in that state. Like the whole state was like, "She needs to be relocated." So off to Los Angeles I went.
Jennifer Tracy: How old were you?
Katie Henricks: I had just graduated college at ASU. I went to Arizona State. It was 2005. I think 2005 I came out here. I followed my boyfriend who became my husband, who became my ex-husband.
Jennifer Tracy: Full circle.
Katie Henricks: Full circle. Full circle. Yeah, and by the time I got to Los Angeles... it was actually right after we got married in 2008 that I wanted to soke up Los Angeles culture and pole dancing had just become sort of mainstream or fitness-y and I think Crunch was doing something.
Katie Henricks: So I looked up pole dancing studios near me. There just happened to be S Factor, Sheila Kelley's S Factor right around the corner and I thought that I was going to be walking into a Crunch style fitness. What I got was something very different and I did it to sort of spice up my sex life and we'd been together for seven-and-a-half years, I think probably eight by then. We were newlyweds, but our sex was very utilitarian, very vanilla. There's nothing wrong with vanilla, but I'm on the more kinky side, so I wasn't being energetically satisfied, my body wasn't turned on by it. It was very robotic. I think by general standards our sex life was just fine.
Katie Henricks: Let's see. I want to say so much.
Jennifer Tracy: What's stopping you? Anonymity, like protecting your ex-husband?
Katie Henricks: Now, I don't want to protect him. No, I actually want to sing his-
Jennifer Tracy: Your face! She's like, "No."
Katie Henricks: I actually want to sing his praises from it. Like he knew how to get me off. So he knew my body, but it was very utilitarian. We always knew it was going to be step 1, 2, 3, boom, climax and done. I like the spontaneity, I like the element of surprise, I like curiosity and play and exploration and challenge in the bedroom, and I love the psychological element of it. That's really... I'm so-
Jennifer Tracy: That's 90% of it, isn't it?
Katie Henricks: I think for women. I think for she-her, if you identify as that I think that the psychology is really where the turn-on starts.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, but what was stopping you from... with was there so much you wanted to say because you can say anything on this show. We have an E explicit rating for that reason. So you can talk about all that you can say clitoris, you can say pussy, you can say all these things.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, so I don't have a problem saying any of those things.
Jennifer Tracy: Maybe that's not where you were going, I just wanted to open it wide open for you, so you can...
Katie Henricks: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, I don't want to focus on him. That's the only thing that I kind of wanted to refocus it back on me.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, copy that.
Katie Henricks: Let's see. So I walk into an S Factor studio and the delicious Jenny Weaver is my teacher.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, love Jenny Weaver.
Katie Henricks: Who's now a country star. She totally is and she loves Dolly Parton and she had everything was tassels and she could dance in boots. I will never forget what she danced to the first time I saw it. Something changed that day and I was like, "Oh, fuck. This is the rest of my life."
Jennifer Tracy: How old were you?
Katie Henricks: 27.
Jennifer Tracy: Young.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, and then...
Jennifer Tracy: Can I ask what you were doing for work at the time?
Katie Henricks: I was consulting and scheduling for a tutoring company and I had just gotten certified as a teacher for single subject English and I hated it. Hated it, 30,000 teachers got laid off at LAUSD. I was kind of swimming upstream at that point. I start tutoring. I was so new, I was so young and then I started working in their business, not tutoring but doing the other side, like the business portion of it.
Katie Henricks: I hated it. I hated every minute of it and I kind of was in a space where I didn't even know that I hated it.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, how can we when we're 27?
Katie Henricks: You don't any-
Jennifer Tracy: I didn't even know who I was really.
Katie Henricks: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: But you were introduced to this part of yourself when you discovered the movement.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, it's almost like my conscious self didn't realize what was happening, but something subconscious or unconscious was like, "Oh, shit. Buckle your seat belts because something opened, something is happening." And it did. It blew my world apart. Like if I were to warn myself or if I were to know then what I know now it would terrify me, but it woke me up. That was like my moment of wake-up. Don't you have a moment of wake-up?
Jennifer Tracy: Several, but for me too S Factor was one of them and I've shared this too. I watched Kristina Grant's... Well actually before that. Yeah, I know.
Katie Henricks: Oh my god. She gets me pregnant just watching her.
Jennifer Tracy: Literally, but before that I watched my friend Tara dance who brought me to my first class and I was so aroused and turned on and I was confused at first and I thought, "Am I gay?" Like genuinely, not be flippant about it-
Katie Henricks: Absolutely.
Jennifer Tracy: But because I was so aroused and I didn't realize that it wasn't that I was... Well, I was attracted to her. I don't know, I guess it's all mixed up because it is-
Katie Henricks: It is. It's fluid.
Jennifer Tracy: It's fluid. It's not like-
Katie Henricks: Sexuality is so fluid and I love the phrase sexuality is about what is, it's not what isn't. So if it's there for you it's there for you and anything it is is right.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, and the first six months of my journey at S Factor Kristina was my teacher and I was in love with her and I told her that. I was like, "I'm in love with you, but I know you have a boyfriend and I'm married, but I'm just telling you," and she's like, "I get it. I was in love with my first teacher, and I got private lessons with her," and I was like, "I'm not going to put the moves on you or anything, but I think about it."
Katie Henricks: I think it's healthy.
Jennifer Tracy: It woke me up to myself and my own sexuality.
Katie Henricks: 100%. If I can be real, open and honest, I'm not 100% straight.
Jennifer Tracy: I don't think any of us are.
Katie Henricks: I don't think anybody is 100%.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, I really don't.
Katie Henricks: It's just how open you are to that prospect, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Katie Henricks: Where I take that is my choice or how I want to identify myself with that is my choice, but my attraction level and my turn-on is really 365, or 366 [crosstalk 00:15:55].
Jennifer Tracy: Those are days of the year.
Katie Henricks: All the days of the year, all the directions all the days of the year.
Jennifer Tracy: Let's cover all of it.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, I think when you're truly sexually woke spiritually woke, heart opened woman, you can find turn-on in anything. Even like the deep dark, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yep, just not teaching English, whatever your certification was for.
Katie Henricks: Just not in high school LAUSD school system, maybe not there.
Jennifer Tracy: Not there. Okay. So wait a minute. I want to ask you. So you were on this journey, your world exploded, this was 2009, before you got pregnant. What happened when you got pregnant?
Katie Henricks: Interesting. I think Jenny Weaver was one of the first people I told that I was pregnant because I hadn't been to the doctor yet, but I went to my class and we were doing inversions that week and I was like, "I don't know if I can invert," and she was like, "Why?" and I was like, "I'm pregnant." My pregnancy was planned. I was fertile Myrtle, we tried once, he knocked me up with the most perfect human being that's ever been created and I had a beautiful pregnancy. I danced throughout my pregnancy, and my son's father got exponentially weirder and weirder, protective, paranoid, his addiction flared up again, lots of layers of that.
Katie Henricks: So as I'm becoming more alive and more woken and more lit up and turn on not just sexually turned on, but heart turned on. I was finding so lit up and looking forward to this class that I was taking once a week and fully sketching out who I was in that department and simultaneously finding my purpose. I was like, "I got to do this for a living. I have to. There's no other choice. It's going to happen in some capacity. I'm going to work in the world of eroticism, sexuality, movement communication, all of that."
Katie Henricks: Then my world, there was such a stark contrast. When I got home it was like everything was shut down.
Jennifer Tracy: This was during your pregnancy or during your pregnancy and after your son was born, both?
Katie Henricks: It really took off, the wheels really came off the moment I brought my son home.
Jennifer Tracy: Can I ask was your ex-husband ever diagnosed with anything officially, if you feel comfortable talking about that?
Katie Henricks: He won't expose himself and stays very hidden in his addiction and his... I don't know, we don't know because he won't go get help.
Jennifer Tracy: I see.
Katie Henricks: And he tends to... he hides behind closed doors, so on one can help him and he won't allow help in. So the prospect of him changing or getting better or even admitting he has a problem I'm in full radical acceptance that that will never happen. I fully detached from that prospect, and also wish that my son had a different father show up for him. That's the hardest part.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, for sure.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, so you're watching your spouse change or dissolve before your eyes, you have this infant. Was there a catalyst for you to choose, "Hey, I got to get out of here?"
Katie Henricks: Yeah. So I am a domestic violence survivor, domestic abuse. I like saying abuse instead of violence because I think people conflate the word violence with hitting, being physical, but the day that I moved out I had eight cameras on me in our 1200 square foot house. It was a very small little craftsman fixer upper and-
Jennifer Tracy: Eight cameras?
Katie Henricks: Eight cameras on me. I had a tracker on my car. He had a tracker and a keystroke, I think keystroke and I haven't ever had that proven because it's so hard, on my computer and he shut down my computer and my phone when I moved out and put the message, "LOL." He deemed my devices lost and stolen and so I had to get a whole new computer and phone. I had no access to anything. He shut down our joint bank account, so I had no money.
Jennifer Tracy: And you had a baby. How old was the baby?
Katie Henricks: He was two.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god.
Katie Henricks: The day I moved out it was October 15th of 2014, it was a Wednesday, and I had just gotten back from my therapist appointment and I will never forget that appointment. I sat on her couch and I don't even think we said very much. We didn't say a whole lot. I think I was in such a state of conscious realization that this was the next step and that there was no other choice in order to keep my son safe because at that point my ex-husband was driving with an axe under his seat in the car, the road rage was inexplicable. He was layering alcohol with marijuana with Norco. He was not sleeping, there were fits of psychosis in the middle of the night where he would scream and yell, kind of wake up my baby, wake up the dogs, throw them outside. It was a very chaotic traumatic environment.
Katie Henricks: I didn't tell my family about it for a very long time and I protected him and protected him and protected him and when I put my son to sleep, when I started to really see I got to get out of here, started saying a prayer over him, like, "God open doors. Give me opportunity to get out of here safely," and that's what happened. I found a safe haven. My mom opened up her home to us and I took my son out of preschool. He changed the locks on our home, we co-owned it, I bought the home for us and I didn't have a home with my son.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Katie Henricks: So I packed up my bags and my son and my two dogs in our Suburban, which was being tracked and I did it in the middle of the day because I knew that he was watching me and I wanted to do it quickly enough so he couldn't come home and catch me and stop it. I did the best that I could. I gathered as much as I could to get out and I never went back to the house.
Jennifer Tracy: So you went home to Oklahoma with your mom?
Katie Henricks: No, my mom lives in Orange County.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, she lives in Orange County. Okay.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, and for three months we spent over $100,000 in attorneys fees.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god.
Katie Henricks: How easy it could have been, right? So that's just sort of to map out how difficult he made it on us. Meanwhile I'm homeless, I don't have a home.
Jennifer Tracy: And what were you doing for work at the time?
Katie Henricks: Nothing. I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, you had a baby.
Katie Henricks: I had a baby.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Actually that's not true. I became an S Factor instructor.
Jennifer Tracy: You did?
Katie Henricks: Yes I did. So I was teaching S actually. I forgot that part. That's kind of a big part. I got certified.
Jennifer Tracy: Were you teaching in Costa Mesa?
Katie Henricks: A little bit, very small bit and the majority I was teaching in Encino.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, oh, Encino, I forgot about Encino.
Katie Henricks: I know, right? Sweet little Encino.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow, but you weren't able to live on that obviously because it's just very part-time.
Katie Henricks: No.
Jennifer Tracy: You're doing it for the pleasure of it.
Katie Henricks: 100%.
Jennifer Tracy: So, from there how did you rise out of those ashes? That is... First of all, what a samurai warrior you are. Honestly, that's really intense story of abuse, I mean just very severe abuse, and I applaud you for escaping and taking your child out of that situation.
Katie Henricks: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: But wow, thank you goodness your mom opened her doors to you and I'm sure that must have just been terrifying for all of you. What was the process from there of you deciding what the next move was for you from that space?
Katie Henricks: Jennifer, I armed myself with as many people as possible to support me. I joined a group called DBT, it's Dialectic Behavioral Therapy and it was a group that met once a month and it helps in four key areas and I suggest this for anyone who's going through a hard time or just if you're human go to this group.
Katie Henricks: It was created by a woman named Marsha Linehan and it was created for people with borderline personality disorder. I don't have borderline and the group that I was in they didn't have borderline, but the four key concepts were mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal skills and emotion regulation. So it teaches you skills around all of those things and who doesn't have challenges or experience, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, totally. We need to teach that in school.
Katie Henricks: We do.
Jennifer Tracy: Like in elementary school.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, so that was one of the things that really helped give me... I thought about it like, "I have a tool belt and every time I go to this group I'm going to put one or two little tools in it, so that I have tools to move around the world more skillfully." I consistently went to my therapist, I continued dancing at S to kind of move that through me and little by little I found a home to live back in Los Angeles, I love Los Angeles. I want to live here for the rest of my life.
Katie Henricks: So I found a place and I muddled through a good solid year-and-a-half and then I started writing and I got hired with an amazing company called Round Table Companies based in Pennsylvania and I'm a ghostwriter for them. Then I got certified as a relationship and intimacy coach and started practicing orgasmic meditation and fell in love with it while being a single mom, while dating, while they to get my rocks off. My life is a balancing act for sure, but I'm finally in a spot where I'm 110% sure that this my purpose, this is my life.
Jennifer Tracy: And getting certified as the relationship and intimacy coach. Can you talk about that process? How do you find the place where you got certified? How did you find a mentor. How did you-
Katie Henricks: This is a great story.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, okay, great.
Katie Henricks: Okay. I was dating. I enjoy dating. I've always enjoyed dating. It's challenge but it's probably the one thing that's taught me the most about myself.
Jennifer Tracy: Amen, totally.
Katie Henricks: Like what do I like to wear, where do I like to go, what do I like to do? What's my communication style? How do I carry myself, what messages am I sending? What people am I attracting and why, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Katie Henricks: And I went on a date one time with this man, very Italian man, very romantical, very went in hard from the very beginning.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm like picturing Sopranos. Like I'm like just, "Yes, Tony Soprano in a black Lincoln picking you up."
Katie Henricks: Oh my god, "No," just like, "No." He's one of those guys that wears a nice striped shirt with paisley on the under cuff and then rolls it up, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, hmm. Similar like Joe Pesci we're talking.
Jennifer Tracy: A little bit?
Katie Henricks: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Less Tony Soprano, more Joe Pesci, got it. I'm with you.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, so I remember-
Jennifer Tracy: Paisley cuffs.
Katie Henricks: Oh lord. As it turns out, not my style.
Jennifer Tracy: Good to know. Check that off.
Katie Henricks: No turn-on there with the paisley.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. How did you meet this person?
Katie Henricks: OkCupid or Bumble or something.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, one of the things.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, swiping. Oh, swiping, that's another... swiping.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, we could go there, girl. Maybe we will if we have time. Okay, go on.
Katie Henricks: So I remember sitting across the table from him and he said something to me, he said, "You know that the world..." I can't remember the exact thing that he said, but he said, "You know that the world exists from desire, right?" and I was like, "What?" It was like he suddenly started speaking Italian to me, I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he was like, "That's the language of the universe is desire," and I was like, "What in the hell is this guy talking about?" and I couldn't get it out of my head.
Katie Henricks: The second part of our date was that he took me to something called a Turn On, which was like... there's a company called OneTaste and they did these turn-ons and it was really to simulate the orgasmic process and one person sits in something called the hot seat and the other people around them ask questions and the sensations in the body that start to arise, fear, sadness, joy, truth-
Jennifer Tracy: What are some of the questions?
Katie Henricks: What made you want to get in the chair tonight? Do you like attention?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, interesting.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, Why did you choose to wear this outfit? What do you like about that? So like deeper layers, layers.
Jennifer Tracy: Got it, got it.
Katie Henricks: So he took me to a turn-on and I was obsessed. I got in the hot seat, I saw his gaze on me, you know that male gaze that's so powerful and potent and we had the experience of him asking me questions and other people asking me questions and afterwards we went up and they were like, "So would you like to come to a live demo?" and I'm like, "What's a live demo?" and they're like, "Well, so you see the strokee get her clit stroked," and I was like, "Whaaat," I was like slow motion like my body language, I just, "Wwwaa," like recoiled as I looked at him and he was like, "Would you like to go?" and looked at me and I just was like, "Nope, definitely not ready for that."
Katie Henricks: Then I couldn't get it out of my head for about a solid year, "What is this thing? What are they talking about? Why would somebody do that? Sounds like one of those crazy weird sexual things that I am attracted to again. It took me about a year to build up the courage to go and I went and it was like another one of those S Factor moments.
Jennifer Tracy: So just to be clear, this was a live demo of the orgasmic meditation?
Katie Henricks: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: It's called orgasmic meditation?
Katie Henricks: It is, OM-ing.
Jennifer Tracy: OM-ing. And it's a women who started it right? I forget her name.
Katie Henricks: Her name is Nicole. She actually learned from someone else, but she's the one who made it a thing.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, and can you describe...
Katie Henricks: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, do it, do it.
Katie Henricks: Yeah. So the practice of OM is a stroker, who's a male and a strokee who's the female and the stroker strokes the strokee's clitoris for 15 a minute practice. It happens in something called a nest, which is a basically a blanket and three pillows. It's done with the intention of being present, connecting and being vulnerable, feeling the sensation arise in your body. It is practiced in the field of sexuality, but it is not sex, it's not intended to be foreplay, you don't add candles and Barry White and high heels-
Jennifer Tracy: Barry White? Barry White.
Katie Henricks: Right, "Oh yeah, girl."
Jennifer Tracy: I love you so much more right now. Oh my god, that's just so good.
Katie Henricks: Or pick your choice, like Lil Wayne, okay, fine.
Jennifer Tracy: No, we're sticking with Barry White, girl.
Katie Henricks: Can you imagine?
Jennifer Tracy: Oh gee. Okay, go on, I'm sorry.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, it is a meditative practice. It's something you do when you don't feel like, it's something you do when you do feel like it. What's surprised me most about the practice is that it's not all pleasurable and it is not intended with a goal to climax. So there's a difference between orgasm and climax and the difference is that... So orgasm is any sensation or any buildup or aftermath before or after climax. It's the sensation that we hold in our body. Like right now I'm buzzing. My legs are tingling, I have chills on my arms, feeling a little tightness in my chest, but it happens when I speak. I'm feeling kind of like a warm like zinging feeling out my legs and pussy right now, just like being with another turned-on female in the room, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: So that's orgasm, is feeling the sensation and having the capacity to feel it in your body and being present with it. What's interesting is that we're not taught this language around the sensations in our body. So when won't says, "What are you feeling in your body right now?" People will just kind of glaze over and say, "Hmm, god." The practice of OM is really to develop a language in which to express what's going on inside of you.
Katie Henricks: Going back to what I said before, it's not all pleasurable. Sometimes it feels like numbness, sometimes it feels sharp and irritating. Sometimes it feels silky and smooth and buttery and wet and other times it feels awkward, too quiet. So you're sitting with a slew of different emotions, thoughts, sensations in the body that you are confronted with in that 15 minutes.
Jennifer Tracy: With a stranger who's facing away from you?
Katie Henricks: So not necessarily a stranger, you can pick whoever you'd like. Some monogamous couples will choose to do it, they're married or they're boyfriend-girlfriend and then there's people who do it... I don't know everyone has their own practice.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Katie Henricks: And he's not facing away from you.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh he's not, okay.
Katie Henricks: No, he has his left leg over your abdomen. So he's actually putting his attention on your pussy and on your clitoris.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Katie Henricks: And we stroke the clitoris because it's the point of the highest sensation of the human body. The clitoris has over 8000 nerve endings so that's the best place to go and feel. Does that make sense?
Jennifer Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Katie Henricks: So take sex out of it, take the word clit out of it, take all the connotations of shame or sexual identity or whatever it is. Woman just happen to be the lucky owners of the clit right? Thank you god.
Jennifer Tracy: Now is there ever women stroking women?
Katie Henricks: Not the way that I teach it.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. Why is that?
Katie Henricks: It's complicated to explain. The practice of OM is to... it's not intended for, but it is a practice that serves the feminine. The feminine has been so underrepresented and so underdeveloped and so undernourished, especially in American culture, that when we practice OM we're really nurturing that feminine energy to come out. So we're teaching men to feel too because men have had their... as the feminine has been repressed, women have been repressed, the collective feminine has been repressed in men specifically. So their feminine energy of creativity, emotion, nurture, unpredictability, fluidity, flow, surrender has all been everything but dissolved completely.
Katie Henricks: So when we practice OM the stroker has an opportunity to feel. We're opening up to him and saying, "Hey, put your attention on this thing and I want you to feel what I'm feeling," and he gets that by feeling what's happening in his body and then by us vocalizing what we're feeling. So the strokee can offer something called adjustments, "More to the left, please. More to the right. Softer, lighter, faster strokes. Higher, lower," right? Not only does that teach him an intuitive process, maybe he was feeling, "Oh, I knew I should have gone to the right," or "I knew I was feeling a zinging there and she was feeling it too." So not only does it teach him intuition and emotional capacity and emotional intelligence, but it also helps translate into the other parts of our lives.
Katie Henricks: So as I found my voice while I was OM-ing, saying, "Less pressure, please. More to the right, please. Stop stroking, please. Can I take a deep breath," I was also learning to find my voice in my career, with my son, in my relationships, with an actual partner if I was sexual intimate with them. How many times have you been in bed with a man or been with a man and you want to say what you want but you can't.
Jennifer Tracy: It's so tragic.
Katie Henricks: It's so tragic.
Jennifer Tracy: And it's most of us.
Katie Henricks: And they want to know is the even more tragic part.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course.
Katie Henricks: They have to know.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Men want to succeed with us. So if we're not in tune with our desire, what we want, where, when, why, what to do, they're lost without us and that's the power of orgasm.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Wow, this is so amazing. So you got into this world of OM-ing after you met Joe Pesci. It's not actually Joe Pesci, guys, I'm joking.
Katie Henricks: It's not Joe Pesci. He got remarried very quickly.
Jennifer Tracy: Joe Pesci?
Katie Henricks: The guy.
Jennifer Tracy: The guy. This is like who's on first. Wait a minute. The guy who introduced to this world, he's gone, it doesn't even matter.
Katie Henricks: He's gone. He was just a conduit.
Jennifer Tracy: He was a catalyst, yeah.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, he was like, "OM, meet Katie. Katie, meet OM."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, "I'm out of here." So you got into this world and then that led you to... So this was first and then you became a certified relationship intimacy coach?
Katie Henricks: Yeah, I OM-ed for a solid year before I went and did a coaching program based all around desire, communication. Lord, there's so many other ones, emotion... I'm drawing a blank right now on all the different modules, but-
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, of course.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, it was a six month process and we had full three day emersions once a month and they were righteously challenging.
Jennifer Tracy: What does that look like, an emersion?
Katie Henricks: There was a space where we all went and took class basically like eight hours a day.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Katie Henricks: And then we had all these exercises we did throughout, together, solo. We did a lot of relationship exploration, lots of core belief work, inner child work.
Jennifer Tracy: Again, I feel like this should be in curriculum.
Katie Henricks: It should be.
Jennifer Tracy: Maybe in high school, but I just-
Katie Henricks: Jennifer, that's why I do what I do, because eventually I'm going to pass this down to my son. How important is it for kids to learn to power of communication?
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god. A quick aside. So my son, and most people know this who listen to the show, but he suffers from ADHD, he has severe separation anxiety, he's a Cancer, he's very, very sensitive and last night he had another... it was Sunday night, today is Monday, he did not want to go to school. We'd had the most blissful weekend together, we went to see a movie. He's like, "I just miss you so much when I'm in school," and he's 10. The psychologist has said, "He's going to grow out of this. It's just partly because of the divorce happening and all these things." It's really intense for him. So I've learned to sit with him through it and reflect back and honor whatever it is he's feeling.
Jennifer Tracy: Anyway, then we did a wrestle and he got hurt because we always tickle tackle on the bed, that's part of our nighttime ritual.
Katie Henricks: So cute.
Jennifer Tracy: And he got hurt. I was like, "Let's take some Advil and get ready to go to bed." And he said, "It's too early," and I was like, "I know, but we need to rest our body and," I said, and I didn't think before I said it, I said, "I'm emotionally exhausted," and he goes, "Are you emotionally exhausted because of my emotions?" and I was like, "Ahhhh," and I took a moment and I said, "No, I'm emotionally exhausted."
Jennifer Tracy: What he doesn't know or remember is that this last weekend was also the one year anniversary of my friend committing suicide. So that was just this added layer on top of it, but I said, "Not at all," I said, "I'm just tired. We've had a beautiful day together," I said, "Your emotions are perfect. I love you just the way you are and I can handle all of your emotions. I can be here to hold them regardless and I'm also tired and I need to take care of my body," but oh, it's just... That's stuff that, god bless my parents, they didn't know, they didn't have any of these tools.
Katie Henricks: Absolutely.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm not saying I'm a perfect parent by a long stretch or long shot, whatever the phrase is, but it all surrounds intimacy and desire and yet if we don't work through these things that you were just talking about, core beliefs, core wounds.
Katie Henricks: And you don't have to go back to your core wounds and core beliefs and inner child work in order to be vulnerable. You just have to have the willingness to open up a little.
Jennifer Tracy: But most people are terrified of that.
Katie Henricks: Terrified because we haven't created a safe space for us to open up. So that's one of the things that I teach men when I'm coaching men is I teach them that it's safe to open up. So I'll let them give it to me, tell me, give me your withholds, tell me everything you've withheld and then I just hold it for them, and say "You're allowed. Give me more, I can hold it."
Jennifer Tracy: This is in your clients?
Katie Henricks: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jennifer Tracy: Uh-huh.
Katie Henricks: "You can sob in front of me. You want to sob? You want to scream? You want to throw a fit? Do you want to tell me how much you hate women? Go. This is a safe space for that," and then I teach women, "Hold that space for him," and vice versa. We have to have a safe space to go in and be like, "I fucking hated you last night. I wanted to smash your face in with a rod." So dramatic.
Jennifer Tracy: I couldn't tell if you were laughing at yourself for just saying that or my face going, "yeah, uh-huh, yeah, I'm totally... yep."
Katie Henricks: Both.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, fucking smash it in, girl, hit it.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, smash it. Or to be like. "There are moments when I don't love you."
Jennifer Tracy: And I'm looking right behind you and I'm sorry listeners, you can't see this, but there is a bull with horns, this beautiful photo behind her.
Katie Henricks: It's a cow actually.
Jennifer Tracy: It's a cow, I'm sorry, that's got these huge horns and it's just like not fucking around.
Katie Henricks: Shag over its eyes.
Jennifer Tracy: Not fucking around.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, to be able to hold that space for someone when they say, "There are moments in our relationship where I don't have love for you, sometimes I think about leaving," and "I have desire for that woman who just walked by. I'd like to fuck her. I want to know what that feels like." Really charged triggering things to say and to hear and if we go back to the spot that really what we want from the other person is truth.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: And it is so hard to express. So that's one of the things why I continue to practice and teach and coach in OM is because it helps you develop a capacity for holding truth. So instead of being like, "Oh," easily riled by that kind of truth... I'm not saying you should say that to your partner.
Jennifer Tracy: No, there's a buildup to that. There's a context to it, yeah.
Katie Henricks: There's a build up, yeah, of course, but is to be able to handle truth. That's what we truly want. That's what we're always trying to get to because we can feel it. So when someone's not expressing a truth or when someone's withholding you can still feel the tension, it's like the air has been sucked out of the room and you just want the other person to give it to you and you want to be able to hold it.
Katie Henricks: So there's different exercises that I use with my clients in order to gain that emotional capacity for the other person's truth and your own, by the way, because it's so hard to look at.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, that's the first thing, isn't it?
Katie Henricks: That's the first thing.
Jennifer Tracy: If you can't know your own truth, how the hell are you going to hold somebody else's?
Katie Henricks: Yeah, and it doesn't happen like first this, then that. I've learned so much about like getting to the root of what's going on inside of me by taking on someone else's truth and I'm like, "Oh god, I can do it for them, okay, now I can do it for me." Sometimes.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, that makes sense. It's not a linear situation.
Katie Henricks: No, and that's emotion is it's feminine, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yep.
Katie Henricks: It's upsey-daisy tips and twirls and loop-do-loos and it'll take you on a major ride.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, it has 8000 nerve endings, emotion.
Katie Henricks: It does, and they're always moving. Did you know the clitoris is always moving around the point of sensation?
Jennifer Tracy: I did because I watched this amazing YouTube video and I can't remember the woman's name, but she did this art installation. Do you know who I'm talking about?
Katie Henricks: Mm-mm (negative).
Jennifer Tracy: I'll think of it and I'll add it in the show notes you guys, but she did this art installations of the clitoris and they were like 20 feet tall clits and she did a Ted Talk on it and it was just a beautiful education around the clitoris and I remember sending it to my boyfriend at the time and he was like, he said... because the word clitoris, I think I might butcher, but she said it means... or vagina means sword holder. That's what it was, and he was like, "Babe, you're a sword holder." I remember I was like, "Fuck yeah."
Katie Henricks: So hot. I love that. Like, "Yeah, I am."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, so I do know more than I did two years ago and the most fascinating thing of that Ted Talk was that it's not just this little button on the base of your vagina... or not base, I can't think of what... the top I guess, it's deep-
Katie Henricks: The mons pubis.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, it's beep, it's deep, it's beep.
Katie Henricks: It's beep.
Jennifer Tracy: It's beep.
Katie Henricks: Beeeep.
Jennifer Tracy: It's beeping, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Like a radar or something.
Katie Henricks: Blinking.
Jennifer Tracy: But yeah, it has this tentacles and it goes so deep.
Katie Henricks: Deep.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Deep and down.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Yeah. So that's one of the things that I found most fascinating in how it changed my life, is that the importance of a woman getting to know her body and then learning how to funnel that sensation out through her mouth, through her want, her desire, and then express it in a way that the other person can hear, is life changing. So that's why I like to say it's our responsibility as women to always have a practice of getting in touch with our desire, what do I want, what do I want, what do I want? The feminine is the what. What is that thing? What is it? Is it a car, is it a piece of cheesecake, is it more sleep, is it a snuggle, is peace and quiet? What is it? Is it traveling, is it another color on your toenails? What is the thing you want?
Katie Henricks: Then a man's responsibility is to put his attention on us. So woman's power is her desire and expression of and men's power is their attention and honing their attention on us.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god, I've been just thinking of all the... like how many thousands of dollars I would have paid to hear [inaudible 00:50:35] teach.
Katie Henricks: Pretty much every man that's been in my life, starting with my dad. I mean let's be real. It always starts with a dad, doesn't it?
Jennifer Tracy: Gosh, it's the attention.
Katie Henricks: Attention.
Jennifer Tracy: It's so funny and think too, at least I was taught, I don't want to generalize, but it's like, "Oh, be self-sufficient without the attention. Don't be an attention whore." Anyway, my point is there's some negative connotation to attention and it's like why?
Katie Henricks: It's so funny. Okay, so the feminine energy... So masculine and feminine need certain things. There's a lesson in each and then have different needs. So feminine needs attention and not like, "Oh honey, you're so pretty." That's validation. Attention is like, "Let me see what's going on with her right now. How is she holding her body? What is her body language saying? Oh, I'm seeing like... is that fear on her face? Ooh, it's sadness. Okay."
Jennifer Tracy: Look at how she's breathing.
Katie Henricks: Look how she's breathing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, all those things.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, or look what kind of car she drives, where she lives, "Oh, these are the things that light her up and turn her on." So just paying attention, noticing is really the step in attention, is noticing. Not validation but noticing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Katie Henricks: And then the masculine needs celebration. It's just like Pavlov's dog, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Totally.
Katie Henricks: Ring the bell, great, you get food. Good boy, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: But you're doing it right. They want to know they're doing it right. So when they put attention on you they notice something about you, "Yah, we clap, we cheer lead. You did it so fucking good. You're such a good man. You make me so happy." And then they get a, "Whtt."
Jennifer Tracy: You can say it.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, they get a massive boner over it. We get a heart boner and they get a dick boner.
Jennifer Tracy: I think that needs to be on a T-shirt.
Katie Henricks: Yeah, it does. I have so many names.
Jennifer Tracy: Heart boner equals dick boner.
Katie Henricks: Dick boner. So eloquent.
Jennifer Tracy: FYI.
Katie Henricks: So sophisticated.
Jennifer Tracy: Why not, man, are you kidding. Katie, I could talk to you forever, but I'm going to segue into our questions.
Katie Henricks: Let's do it.
Jennifer Tracy: This has been so amazing.
Katie Henricks: I am in love with you.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm in love with you. This is so awesome. To be continued for sure.
Katie Henricks: 100%.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, so what do you think about, Katie, when you hear the word love.
Katie Henricks: I'm just going to riff.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Okay, expansion, giving, a fluid cycle of giving and receiving, radical acceptance of the other person. I don't care who you are, how close you are to me, what cologne you wear, what your issues are, I feel like love equals acceptance. That's really love is when you say like, "You can be anything you want to be and you can be anywhere you want to be and you can be whatever it is. You don't have to love me back, you don't have to be close to me, you don't have to validate me. I can love you from afar. I allow. I allow." I think that's the word, that's the phrase, "I allow."
Jennifer Tracy: I love it. Beautiful. If you could live anywhere in the world other than where you're living now, where would you live?
Katie Henricks: Bali, duh.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh god.
Katie Henricks: Right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Probably. It is so far away, but if everyone that I loved lived there, [inaudible 00:54:21]
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. How do you define serenity?
Katie Henricks: Can we come back to that one?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, of course. We're going to go to the lightening round.
Katie Henricks: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: Fireside or ocean side?
Katie Henricks: Oceanside.
Jennifer Tracy: Favorite junk food?
Katie Henricks: Sour cream and onion Ruffles.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh-
Katie Henricks: Not Ruffles, Lay's.
Jennifer Tracy: Lay's.
Katie Henricks: Not the Ruffles, the Lay's.
Jennifer Tracy: Please, oh my god.
Katie Henricks: Like stack them up, like three or four.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh they're so good.
Katie Henricks: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I love those too. Do you like theme parks?
Katie Henricks: Absolutely not.
Jennifer Tracy: Me neither. Daytime sex or nighttime sex?
Katie Henricks: Ooh, I'm a nighttime gal.
Jennifer Tracy: Shower or bathtub?
Katie Henricks: What's the activity?
Jennifer Tracy: Just whatever you want I guess, but just bathing your body?
Katie Henricks: Bath.
Jennifer Tracy: That is such a great... no one's ever come back with that. That is the first time.
Katie Henricks: What are we doing after, babe?
Jennifer Tracy: "What's the activity?" You are adorable. On a scale of 1-10 how good are you at making lasagna?
Katie Henricks: Oh, I love to make lasagna. I'm pretty darn good.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god.
Katie Henricks: I think I've perfected it.
Jennifer Tracy: I will be here tomorrow night.
Katie Henricks: I do a white cheese... I do a white lasagna with four different types of white cheeses, spinach and sausage.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yeah.
Katie Henricks: So good.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yum.
Katie Henricks: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: God, I love a good lasagna.
Katie Henricks: I do that.
Jennifer Tracy: What's your biggest pet peeve?
Katie Henricks: Cowards. Cowards, people who don't speak up, people who don't face confrontation, people who... ghosters, ugh.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Ugh, ghosters. Say the hard thing. It's so hot.
Jennifer Tracy: It's so hot and you can say the hard thing and be kind.
Katie Henricks: You can totally soften the edges.
Jennifer Tracy: I've had to learn... this is even before my husband, that I had an older women tell me. I was like, "How do I do this?" because I was dating, and she was like, "Just say, 'You know you're lovely, but I don't feel like we're a match,'" and it's such a simple thing.
Katie Henricks: It's such a simple thing. Get very used to saying that because-
Jennifer Tracy: You're going to go on a lot of dates.
Katie Henricks: And not everybody is going to like me.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course.
Katie Henricks: Not only am I not going to like everyone, but I am not everybody's cup of tea.
Jennifer Tracy: Exactly.
Katie Henricks: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, superpower choice, invisibility, ability to fly or super strength.
Katie Henricks: Flying creeps me out. Remember the theme parks? We do not... I like my feet on the ground. I'm going to go invisible.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Would you rather have a cat tail or cat ears? Your face.
Katie Henricks: Tail because there's so much teasing with that thing, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yes. Yeah.
Katie Henricks: Taunting.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of your first pet?
Katie Henricks: Maggie.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of the street you grew up on?
Katie Henricks: Kennelworth.
Jennifer Tracy: So your porn name is... Gosh is it all of it? Is it Maggie Kennelworth?
Katie Henricks: Kennelworth, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Maggie Kennelworth. That is hot.
Katie Henricks: It's so not me. If you've ever seen me dance I'm like deep, dark, confronting, like chop your head off vindicator.
Jennifer Tracy: And Maggie Kennelworth sounds like she's from Downton Abbey.
Katie Henricks: She's in the library.
Jennifer Tracy: That's right. Little bit of tea. Do you want to come back to the how do you define serenity? You can skip it if it feels elusive.
Katie Henricks: I got to be totally honest. I don't identify with the word serenity.
Jennifer Tracy: Great, say more about that. Does it turn you off, because your face when I first mentioned it, you looked like you were just going to vomit. You're like, "Ugh, serenity?"
Katie Henricks: Yeah, it kind of disgusts me.
Jennifer Tracy: It grosses you out.
Katie Henricks: It does. Like I'm too good to be serene. Yeah, I feel like I carry so much fire in me that the word serene I just can't register.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, it feels boring.
Katie Henricks: Unachievable, boring, and very far away.
Jennifer Tracy: Like why would you want that?
Katie Henricks: Yeah. Peace I do. Peace or... yeah, peace, but serenity I just can't process.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Katie Henricks: My own inner demons issues.
Jennifer Tracy: I get it. Katie, thank you so much for being on the show.
Katie Henricks: I adore you. Thank you for asking me.
Jennifer Tracy: This was really fun.
Katie Henricks: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Thanks so much for listening, guys. I really hope you enjoyed my conversation with Katie. Remember to check out giftsforgood.com and use your code MILFforgood at checkout for a discount and also thegrowingcandle.com with a discount code of MILF10. Join me next week for my first anonymous guest. Very excited to bring this to you. I have a woman coming on the show who is a sex cam worker and she wanted to remain anonymous and I said, "Of course," and we had very, very saucy conversation. So please join me next week for that. I love you guys. Keep growing.