Edited - #63 How To Find More Pleasure with Lyvonne Briggs
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Michelle Fox:
Michelle Fox: Welcome to Nourish with Michelle Fox, your guide to a vibrant life after 40! If consistency has been a challenge for you and you occasionally forget self-care, you, my friend are in the right place. Tune in for weekly inspiration to nourish your mind. I know your plate's full and I want to help you support a life and a body that you adore. Let's dig in.
Michelle Fox: Today, I have the absolute pleasure of talking to Lyvonne Briggs. She is here to talk to us about [00:03:00] something you, my friend, I am very aware of, probably have not been looking at lately, because you've told me in our real life conversations, in my DMs and a few texts, that pleasure is something that's probably not even in the top five items on your list of things to do or things to think about.
Michelle Fox: And so when I heard this powerhouse on her own podcast, I'm like, please. Lord, let me be connected because I know her gifts can bless and heal some of the women in my community. So let me read her bio, so you know who we're talking to today. Lyvonne Briggs, MDiv, THM. An Emmy Award winner is a spiritual teacher, transformational speaker, and holistic wellness educator.
Michelle Fox: You already know where I'm going with this, right? You know [00:04:00] why we have her here today. She is the host of a Sensual Faith podcast and the author of Sensual Faith, The Art of Coming Home to Your Body. An invitation for women, especially black women and femmes, to live their spirituality from a place of pleasure rather than shame.
Michelle Fox: Briggs is a graduate of the Lawrenceville School, Seton Hall University, Yale Divinity School, and Columbia Theological Seminary. She has been featured in Essence, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, and the Washington Post magazines. A New York City native. Briggs is currently based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and you can find out more about her and her work across the platforms at Lyvonne Briggs.
Michelle Fox: And so, Lyvonne, welcome to the show.
Lyvonne Briggs: Thank you, Michelle. I am so excited
Michelle Fox: to be here. Hmm. It sincerely is [00:05:00] a pleasure. And before we started recording this episode, I told you, you don't... Know me, but I've heard your voice in my ears for so long. I'm like, yeah, we're best friends.
Lyvonne Briggs: Yes, we are. We're BFFs. I'm your big sis in your head.
Lyvonne Briggs: I'm auntie. I'm all the things. Trust me. I love that for me. And it is an honor to be in your, in your mental space.
Michelle Fox: Thank you. I do have quite a few questions for you. before we get to those juicy gems, though, I would love to invite you to play a game of rapid fire. Are you? Okay,
Lyvonne Briggs: I'm in. Let's do it.
Michelle Fox: All right.
Michelle Fox: So question number one, when you think about nine year old LeVon,
Lyvonne Briggs: Oh, she's so cute. Okay, go ahead. See,
Michelle Fox: see, I'm loving this already. Nine year old Lyvonne. What does she want to be when she Grew up.
Lyvonne Briggs: Oh, she was talking about being a lawyer, but child, that was just because her father was a lawyer and she saw how [00:06:00] much money they made right out of law school.
Lyvonne Briggs: I can relate.
Michelle Fox: I absolutely relate
Lyvonne Briggs: to that. I was on my way to law school child and God was like, nope, snatched me right off that path. So.
Michelle Fox: Mm. I think we're gonna might get into that a little bit. Yeah.
Lyvonne Briggs: Okay.
Michelle Fox: Second rapid fire question. Your last meal on earth.
Lyvonne Briggs: Oh, oxtail, rice and peas, extra gravy, plantains, cabbage, fruit punch.
Lyvonne Briggs: Shot of rum. Brown, please.
Michelle Fox: Now that sounds very Caribbean. What I know about my Caribbean sisters and brothers.
Lyvonne Briggs: I am first generation Caribbean American. My mom grew up on the island of Barbados and my dad is from Guyana. So it's in me.
Michelle Fox: Last and final question. Okay. Can you share with us a story from childhood that's surrounded around your kitchen?
Lyvonne Briggs: A story from childhood?[00:07:00] Okay. So they call them latchkey kids. This was just normal life for me growing up in New York City, me and my brother at home by ourselves without our parents because they were still at work.
Lyvonne Briggs: So one night my mom was working extra late and she said, I left a can of soup for y'all on the counter, heat it up for you and your brother and that will be your dinner. So, okay, cool. So I've seen mom do it so many times. I had to be like seven or eight, right? So I put on the stove. I'm like so proud because the flame is on.
Lyvonne Briggs: And I'm like not burning the house down. And I take out the sauce pan and I pour the can of soup into the pot. I start to see the bubbles. I'm like, it's warm. So I get bowls for me and my brother and I distribute the soup. We go to sit down and we both take a taste and we look at each other.
Lyvonne Briggs: Like what the hell is this? I didn't realize that the Campbell's soup was condensed and that it needed to be the can of soup and one can of water. So I just. Did what I saw, what [00:08:00] I thought I saw my mom doing without reading the instructions. Although I probably wouldn't have known what that meant anyway, but yeah, I remember that.
Lyvonne Briggs: And from that point on, I was like, you got to read the labels reading as a part of cooking. Lyvonne's. Yeah, I did. We were like, this does not taste like the soup mom makes. Like we were just so displeased, but we live to tell the story. Praise God.
Michelle Fox: That is too cute. Ah, well, now my friends who are listening and watching on YouTube, you will see over Lyvonne's right shoulder, this beautiful cover of her amazing book called Sensual Faith, The Art of Coming Home to Your Body.
Michelle Fox: Yes. Ready to jump into that one. So a lot of the women in my community who are listening to us right now, we are going through quite a bit of transition, whether it's [00:09:00] transition with our bodies themselves, whether it's perimenopause, menopause, there's that hormonal transition, but there's also the transitions of the changing of the seasons.
Michelle Fox: There's a transition of a lot of our children are growing up and leaving the house. There's a transition of. A few of us are saying, wait a minute, I, this corporate thing isn't working anymore. I'm starting my own thing. And then of course, there's the transition of, oh, I know more of who I am. And so I no longer want to be in this relationship or I'm leaving this marriage.
Michelle Fox: And so I feel like your title of this book covers it all. And just to begin, when I say the word transition, How does that relate to you and the work that you are doing in the world right now?
Lyvonne Briggs: Listen, there's an old hymn of the church that says time is filled with swift transition. Transition is always around us, right?
Lyvonne Briggs: That phrase that if you're not growing, you're dying. Change is the only [00:10:00] constant. Like, those are not just cute memes for social media. Those are... guiding principles for living your fullest, most authentic, most abundant life now. Because if you are a person who does not learn how to allow the change to take place, so much of your time and energy is going to be spent refusing and resisting and caught up in friction.
Lyvonne Briggs: And we're at the age now where we, we need as much ease as possible. So transition teaches me that we're never in one state. It's not, you know, when I was in graduate school, we were learned to think, not in either or terms, but in both. And, but life has taught me that both and is insufficient. That is all in all, right?
Lyvonne Briggs: You may be having a wonderful relationship with your children, but your relationship with your parents is tragic. You might be feeling. So proud of your [00:11:00] financial freedom, but your mental health is not where it needs to be. Like we're always navigating and dancing among these checks and balances and these harmonies and seeing how do I feel in my body?
Lyvonne Briggs: How do I feel in my spirit? So for me, once I turned 40, I was like, look, what, what, what do we want? And let's go get that. And what's transitioning me to that. I need that in my life, .
Michelle Fox: And I am so glad you said that. 'cause it was around the time when I turned 40, about 10 years ago, I was going through a divorce.
Michelle Fox: Mm-Hmm. . And I remember this feeling of one freedom. I, I will, yeah happily admit to that. I'm like, yeah, I've got this, I've got my independence. I, you know, I know what I. At the time I thought I knew what I wanted to be doing with my career. I had my daughter. I'm like, I've got this. And with that, it came with some loneliness, but it also came with some hard lessons about my body because when I like I'm telling you the moment or [00:12:00] the morning.
Michelle Fox: After I turned 40, something just clicked. I'm like, wait a minute. Like, where did this little, you know,
Lyvonne Briggs: listen here. And why am
Michelle Fox: I so tired all of a sudden? Like things start shifting when you turn.
Lyvonne Briggs: These 40 year old hips do not lie. Okay. The weight is just sitting differently. I love it. Don't my, my hips, my FUPA, my stretch marks, my cellulite, like.
Lyvonne Briggs: It's giving divine feminine energy, honey. but it did take some getting used to, and I also chose myself and left a marriage that wasn't serving me. And it was so. Not funny, haha, but funny, hmm, it's for my tick
Michelle Fox: tockers, I know that one. I'm like, remix on that one
Lyvonne Briggs: where I started to tell people, oh yeah, we're, we're separated.
Lyvonne Briggs: We're going to get divorced. And people were like, you know, they would take a big breath in and their eyes would bug out of their heads and they'd say, oh, we've been close several times and I'm like, Hmm, [00:13:00] that's funny. Cause you never post about how close you are to divorce on Instagram. So I didn't even know that people were struggling with this.
Lyvonne Briggs: But then you look at the divorce rates in America and you're like, okay, well, 53 percent of people who get married end up divorced. So it's like the statistics and the stories are in the lining. Somebody's lying or lying by omission. But we got to be more forthcoming. So if you too are part of the divorcee crew, shout out to you.
Lyvonne Briggs: Congratulations. Like we do our best to declutter our lives so that we have space to call in the things that we deeply desire and that are going to serve us well.
Michelle Fox: Yes. And when I look at the work that you are doing and the work that you have in your beautiful book, where I see the intersection of our work is that one, you and I are very passionate about building community, and two, also very passionate about supporting women's health in [00:14:00] all of the ways, spiritual, physical, mental, and so, Thank you.
Michelle Fox: I want to talk about the second part of the title. And then I absolutely want to come back to the first part of the title, but The Art of Coming Home to Your Body. where did this wisdom come
Michelle Fox: from?
Lyvonne Briggs: It came from living child, but also wanting to share my stories. You know, I grew up going to church and when I was in college, I was.
Lyvonne Briggs: It's really like a radical evangelical. So I was deep in conservative, repressive, you know, colonized Christianity. And it's, is, and that's the story for many women, particularly black women and other women of color, but folk, you know, women in general and the colonized Christianity that many of us are familiar with or religion period is typically very patriarchal.
Lyvonne Briggs: We learn very sexist teachings. We don't learn how to have autonomy and agency over our bodies. we're taught at very young ages from [00:15:00] family and religion and society that our bodies are bad and shameful and something that, you know, needs to be beaten into submission, which is just like very violent language.
Lyvonne Briggs: Like women, we're such beautiful, soft, gentle creatures. Don't get it twisted. We could be fierce and ferocious too, right? But like the idea that Something about the feminine form is inherently evil or bad, or something that needs to be controlled tells me that we are simply powerful beings that the patriarchy is afraid of.
Lyvonne Briggs: And so what am I going to do to put women at war with themselves? I'm going to make them think that their bodies are inherently evil. Even though our bodies have divine design and intelligence within us. I'm going to make them think that, you know, aging is a bad thing. I'm going to make them think that rolls and cellulite and stretch marks are bad.
Lyvonne Briggs: These are all natural, beautiful parts of being a woman. Right. Right. If I can get you at war with yourself. You're going to [00:16:00] be too tired to engage the bullshit that's going around that's keeping us oppressed and repressed. So once you release the shame around your body, the religious and cultural and social conditioning, and you love yourself completely, that is counter cultural and that is what is going to change the world and create a more just, whole, equitable world, is women, particularly Black women and femmes, loving themselves unapologetically.
Lyvonne Briggs: And when you do that, I believe that's the definition of coming home to your body.
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Michelle Fox: I'm just giving that a moment to
Lyvonne Briggs: let it breathe, honey.
Michelle Fox: Yes, [00:18:00] I will say at the beginning of my career as a culinary nutritionist, of course, coming out of school as a nutritionist, I'm like, this is how you should eat. This is what you should do. This is how you can heal your body. And it was like nutrition, nutrition, but.
Michelle Fox: As I've matured, you know, five years later, what I'm crystal clear about, and which is why I started this podcast is I could talk about nutrition all day long, but women are not going to take care of their body until it's the mindset change and the mindset of knowing that you are worthy. And I know that your book speaks to that as well.
Michelle Fox: And so I mentioned, you know, the discomfort. As a 40 year old in my body. And I will admit it's been a process even as a 50 year old, you know, body's changing even more with, with more. However, it's lightbears like you that I believe God has brought to the forefront to remind us that yes, our bodies are beautiful in all shapes and forms.
Lyvonne Briggs: Exactly. And that food is not the enemy, right? Food is not a [00:19:00] reward. Food is not something that you should feel like you have to be. You know, grinding against, when I think about in my theological imagination, how God designed earth, we have seasons and we have water and sun and seeds and roots and things grow and crawl to get pollinated, like the whole process behind how we get our food right to farmers and truck drivers and grocery store stockers and cashiers, farmers markets, it's like.
Lyvonne Briggs: How everything works together so that we can have nourishment, right? When you start to look at food as a sensual, spiritual practice, you don't look at it like calories and macros. No shade to the people who are counting because you have goals, I get it. But also, And this is a content warning for eating disorders as someone who lived with bulimia, because first of all, I wasn't not [00:20:00] eating child.
Lyvonne Briggs: I was going to have a beef patty with cocoa bread. Okay. I was going to eat. I just, you know, it was going to regurgitate, but what was the root of my feeling like I could not keep my food down? Like I could not gain weight. I could not get bigger. I could, I need to take up as less space as possible. Like, who told me that I need to shrink myself?
Lyvonne Briggs: Who told me that my bigness was a problem? And so, what Sensual Faith, the platform does, is it invites women to take up space. And the way that you do that is by loving all parts of yourself, mind, body, and soul. And so if you have experienced a religion or spiritual belief system that has caused you shame around your body, shame around your relationship to food, shame around your relationship to sex, we, we good and grown now, honey.
Lyvonne Briggs: Okay, there's a little girl living on the inside of you, but right now we good and grown and you get [00:21:00] to reclaim your birthright of pleasure.
Michelle Fox: And that's the perfect walk into the first part of your title, Sensual Spade. So my friends who are, again, 50s, 50 plus, sensuality is not something that often comes up in our conversation.
Michelle Fox: No, not at all. No.
Michelle Fox: If you'd be willing, I would love to even just brainstorm quite a few ways that women today can get that back on their list. I can tell you as I was preparing to talk to you, I, again, Kept hearing your voice in my head because I love listening to you on on your podcast and we'll link that in the show notes as well, but I was like, well, what, how do I see pleasure?
Michelle Fox: And so I wrote down a little sticky note and it's just a few because it took me maybe like Maybe 30 seconds, but okay, you know, incense brings me pleasure. And so I've burned some to help me stay grounded during this [00:22:00] conversation. Yes. speaking of smells, my husband, Steve, the way his skin smells, I'm like, That just feels sensual. And it's not even a thing. It's just like, yeah, it's like, it brings me back home. Yes. Period.
Michelle Fox: Chloe dog when I'm rubbing her belly, like that feels sensual to me. I think just the touch of, you know, the fur on my hand and my skin, taking hot baths. I love hot baths. Oh, and then of course, dancing. I talk about that a lot on the podcast and pretty much anything I'm doing on Instagram. You're probably going to find me dancing like that feels pleasurable and sensual.
Michelle Fox: So yes. How can women start making that more of a priority? And what do you counsel women or how do you counsel them to get that back on their list?
Lyvonne Briggs: Yeah. First of all, I want to point out how big your smile got and how bright your face shown when you were talking about each of those things, right? Because there's [00:23:00] something about incense that is intimacy with spirit, right? Your husband, that's intimacy with your mate. Rubbing your dog's belly, intimacy with your pet. Like I have fur allergies, but I fell in love with dogs this summer. Like French Bulldogs and Toy Poodles. Oh my goodness. Adorable, right?
Lyvonne Briggs: Intimacy with siblings, intimacy with yourself through dance, like sensuality has been defined by the dictionary as lewdness or lasciviousness. That's insufficient, right? That's some colonized patriarchal BS. I define sensuality as a womanist spiritual practice. Womanism means that I center the perspectives, lived experiences, and vantage points of Black women. And I define sensuality as the ultimate practice in mindfulness, right? When we think about our bodies, if everything is functioning well, our senses are working. We can see, we can taste, we can touch. Like, God designed our bodies to live these lives in very textured ways. That's why the first time I [00:24:00] got COVID, I was like, dear God, please don't let me lose my sense of taste.
Lyvonne Briggs: Okay. I know that sense of smell is a part of the eating process, but I need to taste this food and I never did. So I was like, don't take that away. But to say that's how we experience the world. Similarly in the spiritual realm, we also have spiritual gifts. There's a spiritual gift of sight. Maybe you're a seer or a dreamer. There's a spiritual gift of hearing, right? If you decolonize your understanding of Western psychology, you'll realize that if you hear voices, it's not because you're bananas, right? Or cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. You might be hearing an ancestor. You might be getting a spiritual download that our whole culture needs to shift, right?
Lyvonne Briggs: If you are. In a space that is temperate, but you feel a chill or all of a sudden you have goosebumps or your hair stands up on the back of your neck. Like women are very powerful spiritual creatures and the way that we channel our [00:25:00] spiritual power and energy, that has been demonized. That's why if you're a black woman, you were probably raised in the black church. That's why if you're a white woman, you know, you probably know stories of some of your foremothers being burned at the stake. Call witches, right? Because we are healers first. That's what the etymology of the word, witch is it's healer preach. But if I know that you can heal yourself, I got to stop you from knowing how powerful you are.
Lyvonne Briggs: Right? So this is why sensual faith is so important because I don't want women to turn away from their spirituality, right? Because. toxic religion. There's a difference between religion and spirituality. And so I understand if you still go to church every Sunday, if you never want to step foot in a church, a temple, an imam,I understand that, but know that you are your first sacred site.
Lyvonne Briggs: You are a holy being and your body is holy just as it is. [00:26:00] And so that's why I talk about sensual faith and I preach the good gospel according to pleasure.
Michelle Fox: Mmhmm. And a couple of times now you've said. You know, when you're talking about the positivity of women, and then you switch to, well, we've got to turn that off. Basically, I'm paraphrasing here. When you're talking about they and them, are you talking about the patriarchy?
Lyvonne Briggs: Yes, I am talking about the patriarchy. I am talking about other women who are Living with internalized oppression who believe the narrative that women are lesser or not as powerful. I'm talking about systems and institutions. it could be a 4 billion beauty industry that makes money off of your self hatred. It could mean the Catholic church that makes billions of dollars and doesn't ordain women. Like I. Do not believe in supporting spaces that do not [00:27:00] support women. So that's what I mean by they.
Michelle Fox: Beautiful. Thank you. And so speaking of the women that we're loving on and supporting in this conversation, can you give us three ways to tap into our sensuality?
Lyvonne Briggs: Yes, absolutely. So because we are talking with Michelle Fox, we have to talk about food. Food is a very sensual experience. The sight of it, the colors, the texture, the taste as you go, the fresh herbs, the fragrance of rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, I mean, you can burn fresh herbs in your home and that can act as a cleansing agent to the energetic space. And so don't cook to eat right. Cook to lavish yourself with love, cook to indulge in lavish self care. The next time you can cook for yourself if you have the kitchen, the home to [00:28:00] yourself, I want you to, if you drink, pour some champagne or it could be some sparkling apple cider, whatever floats your boat.
Lyvonne Briggs: And I want you to turn on your favorite playlist. And from the time you are chopping up those veggies to you are taking the last thing out of the oven, I want you to dance and prance and give gratitude for every step. of the way that that food traveled to get to you and see it as an act of nourishment and celebration, right? There's a difference between being hangry and just grabbing what's available and actually centering yourself in your well being. So make cooking an experience once a week, twice a week.
Lyvonne Briggs: Naked mirror dancing is one of my favorite rituals.
Say more.
Lyvonne Briggs: Now, I have this huge 7 foot tall gold frame mirror in my living space. [00:29:00] And, When I'm feeling like I want to get in touch with my sensuality and my sexuality, I will turn off all the lights, light some candles, put on a sexy playlist, and I will dance naked in my mirror and I will look at my body and I will take in the new rolls and folds and I will caress my breasts and I'll, you know, poke out my booty and I just affirm myself in the mirror.
Lyvonne Briggs: And some people might say, well, I don't know if I want to dance naked. That's okay. Wear your favorite dress, your favorite pair of jeans that hug your booty just right. You can do it in a swimsuit. You can do it in a robe or lingerie, anything that makes you feel sexy and beautiful and powerful. Right? You can do that until you work your way up to looking at yourself naked because many of us don't typically look at [00:30:00] ourselves naked in the mirror and love what we see and celebrate what we see. So this is, you know, a way that you can get there.
Lyvonne Briggs:And the third ritual that I really. I'm excited to talk about is masturbation. Now I know some of your listeners are clutching their pearls at the very mention. What? Masturbation at my age? Yes, why not? There's KY jelly, there's coconut oil, there's shea butter. You know, if dryness is a bit of a thing, I'm sure Michelle can help us with some healing foods and teas and herbs to get the juices flowing literally and figuratively. Absolutely. Literally.
Michelle Fox: Insert Brazil nuts and lots and lots of water. Yes. Eating the Brazil nuts. Right. And hydrating yourself as much as possible. It keeps things up. Eating the Brazil nuts, friends. Not those other nuts. I want to be clear.
Lyvonne Briggs: I love [00:31:00] masturbation for a few reasons. So, you know, if you can start by taking a really delectable bath, or if you don't have a bathtub, taking a really sumptuous shower, using a scrub, manually exfoliating your body so you're safe. Super soft sealing it in with your favorite oil, you know, splashing on a fragrance.
Lyvonne Briggs: The same way you would get ready for a hot date with another person, get ready for a hot sexy solo date with yourself. Put on some sexy tunes, a sexy playlist or your favorite song, you know, something that turns you on and that lights you up. And the thing is, if you're not certain what turns you on masturbation is a great way to learn your body because even if you don't climax, you have nipples, you have an anus, you have kneecaps. I don't know what your thing is, you probably don't know all your spots, right?
Lyvonne Briggs: But it's a great mode of exploration of [00:32:00] self. if you have suffered some sort of body related trauma, first of all, I see you and I'm so sorry that happened to you and I believe you. Masturbation is a great way to reclaim a sense of agency and power and control over your own body, right? When you may have felt out of control in another part of your life.
Lyvonne Briggs: And lastly. Masturbating to climax. It has numerous benefits. Okay, we're talking about boosting your immunity. All right, we're talking about relieving stress. Okay, we're talking about clearing your skin. Orgasms are great and you just feel good. The endorphins are endorphining.
Michelle Fox: And you get some clarity, the feel good hormone, the feel good hormones out all the other hormonal issues you may be going through in menopause.
Michelle Fox: Okay.
Lyvonne Briggs: Keep preaching. Yes. If there is any residual shame about pleasuring yourself, I want To interrupt that, I want you to know that there is no biblical or [00:33:00] scriptural evidence that says you are not allowed to masturbate. There is no theological condemnation. It was all made up to control women's sexuality and know that it is your birthright to experience pleasure.
Lyvonne Briggs: And the last thing that I'll say is at your age, honey, When in your 50, 60 plus years, have you ever urinated out of your clitoris? When have you ever defecated out of your clitoris? When did you ever birth a child out of your clitoris? What's that you say? Never. That's because the clitoris has one job, sister, and it is your pleasure. So that tells me that God made our bodies to experience pleasure.
Michelle Fox: That was beautiful. I feel completely before I, you know, get all the way comfortable. Are you complete with that?
Lyvonne Briggs: So you mentioned perimenopause and menopause. So I feel like there's something there because I'm 41. So it's, it's so interesting [00:34:00] at my age, 41. I, if you had told me 20 years ago that I was going to be 41, divorced, and Not a biological mother yet. I would've been like, what are you talking about? That doesn't even sound right.
Lyvonne Briggs: Right? And I haven't birthed a baby out of my body, but I do mother. Right? and it's not that I haven't wanted to be a biological mother. I have, and this is a content warning for reproductive stuff. I terminated multiple pregnancies when I was a teenager and at 30 because my then partner didn't want kids and I didn't want to be a single mom.
Lyvonne Briggs:And once I got, you know, my mid 30s after my divorce, I was dating, but I didn't remarry. There were two times that I got pregnant and I didn't carry to term. And so When I think about my reproductive journey, I didn't always understand what was happening. To and in my body until I had to go to the ER until I had to have somebody at my bedside say [00:35:00] well You know at least 25 percent of all pregnancies. No, I didn't know that and it's not something that I would know because Women's issues in our bodies and what happens to our bodies hasn't been centered in most spaces.
Lyvonne Briggs: And so when I think about how I've never heard a sermon about a miscarriage, I, I've never, been told how common. It is and how it affects women across race and socioeconomic lines. I mean, when I started telling folks about my loss on social media, literally hundreds of messages from people that I know, personally text messages, we just had one in April.
Lyvonne Briggs:We had one last fall. We didn't say anything. We didn't tell anybody. And that's the thing about the more we age, the more wisdom we have, like we, we get to share our stories because it's going to help someone else. Because you think you've gone through this thing and you're the only one in the world who has [00:36:00] experienced it. Honey, baby, you were not the first and you will not be the last, but it's that sense of isolation and aloneness that causes us deep anxiety and to be quiet. Like there's a difference between isolation and solitude. Right? If you are feeling like you're all alone and no one's going to understand you, that's isolation.
Lyvonne Briggs: Solitude is, I need a moment, I gotta retreat for a second, I'll be back. Right? And so I just think about how helpful it would have been for me to have women of all ages in my family, in my space, in my social circle sharing more about their life journeys and their bodies and what was happening to them. What did it feel like? Like, I see you sweating. Is that a hot flash? Like, what, what are you feeling? Right? How does menopause make you feel spiritually and emotionally? Like, these are all things that at 41, even though my eggs are still egging and I do desire biological motherhood, I'm also not interested in freezing my eggs or [00:37:00] in IVF or things like that.
Lyvonne Briggs: So now I need stories from older women about what choices they made, what choices they couldn't make, what choices they wanted to make but didn't, right? So that I know what all my options are. And a man can't do that for me, honey, so.
Michelle Fox: That is so powerful. And what is it, do you believe, keeps these stories in the
Michelle Fox: shadows?
Lyvonne Briggs: I think it's a conditioned sense of shame around women's bodies. Like, if you think about just being a person who menstruates, right, who has a moon cycle, like we were told, don't tell anybody you have your cycle. Don't nobody want to know all that eww. That's gross. I'm like. I didn't do anything to start bleeding like my body is functioning healthily and my uterine wall and lining is shedding. I'm not serving it to you on a silver platter [00:38:00] Saying eat this like that's how people act when you say, oh, I'm bleeding right now And so if from our youngest ages we're taught to believe that what our body does naturally and God givenly is wrong or grotesque or even that our genitalia our vagina Not vajayjay, not hoo ha.
Lyvonne Briggs: Our vaginas are ugly, right? Or, or they smell, like... Your vulva is not supposed to smell like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, it's just not. Correct. So, I feel like the more we share, the more we open up, the more we release the shame and the toxicity of what we've been mistaught, right, about our bodies, the more we can amplify the beauty of our being just as we are.
Michelle Fox: Now that was incredible.
Lyvonne Briggs: Okay, the other thing for some of your listeners, [00:39:00] they may have wanted to be biological mothers, but that was a dream that wasn't realized.
Lyvonne Briggs: And I just want you to know that it's not anything that you did. It wasn't that you weren't deserving of it. It was just your body was telling you something is off. And even if you don't birth a baby out of your body. You have still mothered, you are still mothering, right? You still deserve flowers and breakfast in bed on Mother's Day, if that's what you so desire.
Lyvonne Briggs: and so don't allow society's narrative of motherhood being the end all be all in terms of value for a woman, right? Make you feel like you're any less of a woman. You're not less of a woman because you no longer menstruate. You're not less of a woman because you're unpartnered. Like, you are a woman because you say you are, right?
Lyvonne Briggs: And you're a powerful, beautiful being. You are a spiritual creature [00:40:00] having a physical experience and you chose the form of a divine woman. And that is a sacred gift.
Michelle Fox: Just so you know, this conversation was aimed at women in their fifties, but I truly am going to have my daughters listen to this. I have a 16 year old daughter who's mine. And my husband also has a 16 year old daughter and a 13 year old son. And my daughter actually was adopted and she's been very open with her story. And I've already for permission. And she said, of course you can talk about it publicly because she loves that that's part of her identity.
Michelle Fox: Wow. So as I'm listening to you speak, I'm like, I wonder if you're channeling my story right now. Okay.
Lyvonne Briggs: I could be tafted with you child. Right? I love that.
Michelle Fox: Okay. I will say there was some of that. Shame, like when I was trying, cause I really was like trying so hard. Like we did everything short of IVF at the time, but restricting my [00:41:00] diet, taking certain hormones, acupuncture, like all of it. I never got pregnant and I did carry some shame for some years that I wasn't able to carry.
Michelle Fox: And I will say, I know this is not everybody's story, but for me, when Angel came into my world, I'm like, that's it. Like, why was I working so hard on this body part? Because she is my everything. She is my North star.
Lyvonne Briggs: Yes. I love that for you because you were meant for each other, you know, and I'm thinking of Gabrielle Union who had nine miscarriages.
Lyvonne Briggs: God, I can't even imagine, right? And they decided to use a surrogate. And so, you know, when the baby's first born, the gown photo and the baby on the chest and all that, she took those. And do you know that there were some people cruel enough to say, why are you taking those? You didn't birth that baby.[00:42:00]
Lyvonne Briggs: Ridiculous. Horrifying, right? The path to motherhood is not monolithic. Right. The paths to motherhood and the fact of the matter is you can be not be a non woman and still mother because it's about an energy source. It's about a particular type of nurturing and so I just am really hopeful for us to have conversations about womanhood that
Lyvonne Briggs:see and celebrate and affirm marriage and motherhood, and also see and affirm travel and business and whatever it looks like, feels like, sounds like to you, right? I think at the end of the day, when people hear sensual faith, they might hear faith and think, Oh, this is faith based. This is for Christians.
Lyvonne Briggs: No, faith is what you believe. And how you live that belief out. So do [00:43:00] you believe that your body is good? Do you believe that you are worthy of the best of everything? Do you believe that you are worthy of joy and abundance and pleasure and play? Because if you believe that, you're going to live a particular way.
Lyvonne Briggs: You're not going to accept any old thing, right? And so that is my hope for women's expansion.
Michelle Fox: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. And that. It's a mic drop, my friends. Ah, so we are all today going to run out and grab Lyvonne's book, Sensual Faith, The Art of Coming Home to Your Body. And Lyvonne, after we buy the book, how else can we plug into your beautiful community?
Lyvonne Briggs: Yeah, so by the book, if you like paperbacks, which I love because I get to travel with them, and you can highlight and write in the margins and all that, there's also the audio book, which I read. So if you're more of an audio person, then you can do that. No matter where you get your copy, go [00:44:00] to the behemoth website.com and leave a five star review because that's the best way to do it.
Lyvonne Briggs: So important for authors to get seen by the algorithm. You can also learn in community with me at central faith academy, which is my Patrion. It's where you get all the supplemental materials for my central faith podcast. And there are ways to support me that you can learn more about across platforms.
Lyvonne Briggs: I'm at Lyvonne Briggs everywhere, including LinkedIn. And so meet me there. And listen, child, you can always give me money and invite me to come speak, cut me a check, send me a donation, Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, all the things, child.
Michelle Fox: We will absolutely make it plain and simple and easy to come find you in show notes.
Michelle Fox: So thank you for sharing that. And thank you for sharing your voice with my community and more important, just thank you for saying yes to this work. Thank you for saying yes to being a lightbearer.
Michelle Fox: I sincerely I [00:45:00] thank you so much.
Lyvonne Briggs: Thank you for having me. This has been a complete joy.
Michelle Fox:My pleasure. thanks so much for listening to Nourish. Have you been driving, doing laundry or walking around the neighborhood? Sweet. I've got show notes for you. Hop on over to michellefox.com/podcast. When you are ready. I will let you know that on the page, you will find resources to support what you just learned on today's show. And then of course you can grab some health supportive freebies as well.
Michelle Fox: If you enjoyed this episode, I would be honored. If you would leave a review on whichever podcast platform you are listening on. It will help me with my mission to build healthier communities. One person at a time and it will help you because you will be part of that mission.
Michelle Fox: I'll be back next week and I [00:46:00] encourage you to keep showing up for yourself and know that you and your health matter. Big love!
