63: Muriel Haas on Somatic Practices, Sexual Embodiment & Empowering Women

Website

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Gabor Maté – Authenticity vs. Attachment
Energy Orgasm
Vipassana
Tantra
BDSM
Conscious Sexuality
Impact Play
Difuso
Novogamy – Jorge Ferrer

Giancarlo: [00:00:00] Hello, hi, welcome to this new episode of the Bango TV podcast. Today, I’m very proud and happy and excited to have Muriel Haas. Muriel is a trauma informed somatic practitioner and sexuality coach. She empowers individuals, couples, and groups to reclaim and own their pleasure, peace, and power by supporting them to connect with their sexual energy and the wisdom of their body.

Through somatic tools, bodywork, nervous [00:01:00] system work, tantric practices, hypnosis, and various methods to cultivate self awareness and erotic aliveness. Muriel supports her client on their journey from contraction to expansion. And into their fullest expression. Sounds like a program. So yes, I always say that, you know, Mango TV always explore this a little bit esoteric topic about, you know, conscious and expansion and psychedelics and altered state.

But for the podcast, we keep a very traditional format. We like the you know, past, present, future format, very chronological. So let’s start from the beginning. So tell me a little bit, where did you grow up and how did you get into this line of work? 

Muriel: Yes. Well, hello. Thank you for having me. How did I get into this?

So I grew up in Germany, in a small town in Germany. And I was very far from, from the world that I’m in right [00:02:00] now. Very different reality. And at some point I Moved to New Zealand at, in 2018, I moved there with my then partner and how old were you? Sorry? I was 23. Okay. I was 23 and I was not in a good place.

I had been struggling with depression and anxiety and anorexia and insomnia and substance abuse for a good 10 years of my life. From the age of 13 until 23 was. A rather challenging time in my life. Of course, there were also good moments, but these mental health issues, right, as we call them, were a very, very big part of my life.

Giancarlo: And how, if you don’t mind me asking, how your parents were dealing with that in a small town in Germany at that time? 

Muriel: They were very supportive. They, I went to therapy. And they were, they were always there. And I think they were also, of course, struggling with the fact that their daughter [00:03:00] was moving through these things.

And their daughter stopped eating and went into these really dark places. 

Giancarlo: But so 15 years ago, therapy was talk therapy. 

Muriel: Oh, yeah. It was very much cognitive behavioral therapy. It was talking. It was a lot of talking. And obviously also this aspect, this idea of changing behavior, but it was very much Let’s talk about things.

Giancarlo: What do you think was the root of those, of that condition, this behavior? 

Muriel: What I’ve experienced? Yes. I mean, there’s a lot of different components to that. There was definitely an element of my, my parents. separated when I was 13. And I was always the mediator between my parents, you know, so I had a very specific role in our family.

And so when they separated, I felt like I was losing all control 

Giancarlo: because they were like, you know, asking you to make the other person reason and 

Muriel: to communicate, right. To like support in their relationship that just became [00:04:00] my dynamic. I was the older child, the oldest child as well. And So when they sort of ended, separated their relationship my world fell apart.

And and so I needed a way to control. Do 

Giancarlo: you think your world fell apart because you lost your identity, your purpose as a communicator? No. Or you felt you failed? 

Muriel: I think there was an element of I failed, but I think it was mostly because the stability of home, of family, the way I knew it, changed drastically, right?

And so this was, this was a big thing for me. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. Yeah. But so this is the dynamic which I also had where, you know, when we’re like seven, eight, We need love, unconditional love of our parents, rather than feel. You know, giving a an assignment that we are not one able to do, supposed to do, [00:05:00] should do. And, and, and so we, you know, we, the Gabor Matej says that at that moment, you know, we lose authenticity to get the attachment, but anyhow, we’ll, we’ll get to that later.

Muriel: Yes. So that was basically, that was my journey and I, I really felt a big theme of my life has, has been this theme of like, Having to take things on, you know, having grown up in Germany, having been in the German system, especially the school system, I think that was a big thing for me that really created a lot of harm in my system, to be honest.

Having all of these rules, having the shoulds, the ways that things need to be. You were in West Germany 

Giancarlo: or East Germany? 

Muriel: Well, it was 

Giancarlo: At that time it was together. Together, yeah, yeah. But before the war, before 89? 

Muriel: So I was in Hanover. Huh. Yeah. So West Germany. Yeah. So yeah, it was very interesting.

I really obviously much later realized that a lot of my issues had been with [00:06:00] authority and having to follow rules that actually don’t, with what my soul is here to do and what my body wants. And, you know, having all of these system in place where they put you in boxes and they give you numbers or grades, right.

And they put you into hierarchies and competition with each other. And there were so many things about the system that I grew up in. That was just not good for me. Political and medical 

Giancarlo: probably. 

Muriel: Totally, all of that, yeah. Because obviously the medical system, I think the medical system in Germany is great and it’s probably better than in most countries.

And the approach to therapy in particular, in my opinion, is not the best for most people in most conditions. 

Giancarlo: Especially psychology and psychiatry. Exactly. It’s an obsolete model. But so just to keep on the chronology. So you arrive in New Zealand with your then boyfriend at 23. 

Muriel: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: How [00:07:00] was your symptoms of depression and?

Muriel: I was, I was really depressed. I just had a sort of How do you call it? I just had a, like, flare up of anorexia, where I was really struggling with anorexia. And I started to have panic attacks, which I had never had in my life at that point, until then. And I started to have panic attacks, and at first we thought it was a seizure.

And the ambulance came. It was a really, you know, a scary thing. And then I did the whole journey of, like, having my heart rate checked, you know, over long periods of time to see other medical reasons until eventually I was made aware of the fact that, oh, this could be your nervous system. And for me, suddenly, things started to make sense.

And suddenly, I was able to Understand the symptoms that I had been experiencing over so many years. And I was like, okay, wow, this is actually in my [00:08:00] nervous system. This is not just in my head, you know, but this is real. But this is also not a physical Sort of problem in that sense, you know, that’s coming from my heart that I’m having palpitations and stuff.

So it was very eye opening 

Giancarlo: But there was a there was a cathartic moment. There was something that caused this realization or it was just 

Muriel: I think I went to a therapist, I started therapy in New Zealand and somehow the topic of breath work came up and I had never heard of breath work, right? And so I went to a specialist that taught me how to breathe.

So we weren’t doing the like rebirthing breath work or anything that would get me into my sympathetic. We would actually I would actually learn how to breathe into my belly, into my diaphragm, which that was eye opening, because I was like, wow, I’d constantly all of my life been breathing into my chest, this very shallow breathing, right, that activates your sympathetic.

And, and I became aware of the nervous system [00:09:00] and that for me was like, okay, this is really interesting. 

Giancarlo: So now we are, you are 24, 25. And so how’s the relationship going at the moment with the boyfriend? 

Muriel: So it was, honestly, it was really challenging. He is a beautiful man and there was so much love. And then I was obviously in such a difficult state, right?

Because I felt hopeless. I felt powerless. I felt helpless. I had all of these symptoms and I didn’t really know how to get rid of them. And that had a huge impact on our relationship. And in addition to that I was in a monogamous heterosexual relationship and I had been bisexual for as long as I can remember, really.

And so I was suppressing a part of my sexuality. 

Giancarlo: So you know since you were a teenager that you were attracted to both genders? Yeah, 

Muriel: I didn’t put it into words and I didn’t call myself bisexual until I really connected with my first girlfriend. But I [00:10:00] knew, yeah. 

Giancarlo: And that’s something you couldn’t share with him?

Muriel: No, he knew that. He knew that. But he was not open for an open container where I would be able to explore that. And so I started to feel we were together for about two years and about Even less than one year in, I could feel this topic becoming bigger and bigger for me, right? Cause everything you suppress, it just, no, it doesn’t go away.

Exactly. So that became a big part. And that puts a toll on our relationship because I realized I’m suppressing something here and it’s coming out in the wrong ways and I would never act on it. But it was present and it was, dimming my light and my happiness and the, and the power of our relationship.

Right. 

Giancarlo: And then what happened then, if I remember correctly for another interview, there was a famous embodiment workshop. 

Muriel: Exactly. So [00:11:00] for some, I was an atheist, right? I didn’t believe in anything. I was sure that there was no God. And I was very Very in my masculine, very in my German, like, you know, very organized, very structured.

Like, it was, I was a very different person back then. And anyway, I found myself. You’re still 

Giancarlo: organized and structured. 

Muriel: Exactly. Like in a healthy, integrated way, you know, and there’s more femininity in it. And so I found myself in, at this yoga day and at this yoga day, I met this tantric facilitator and she invited me to her women’s retreat.

And I was like, ooh, this sounds really interesting. I’d never done anything like it. And my partner was like, I think you should go. 

Giancarlo: Nice. 

Muriel: And I went, and I got in touch with words like energy. I was like, what the fuck is energy? And was introduced to tantra. I was like, this is really interesting. And then, I heard about her festival, her Sober Conscious New Year’s Festival.

[00:12:00] And my partner and I were like, okay, let’s go. And we went. And I went to this workshop. And I found myself in a room full of 200 women. And there was a woman on stage. And she guided us into our bodies. And I had my first energy orgasm. In a room full of 200 women. It was the most orgasmic experience ever.

And I felt a level of sovereignty and empowerment that I had never felt in my life. 

Giancarlo: But so can you elaborate a little bit? How does it work? If you could even maybe mention some neurobiological explanation or just the detail on how it started, how it developed, how he ended, what is it an energy orgasm?

Muriel: Yes, totally. I mean, in energy orgasm, right, we know that That our sexual energy is our life force energy is our creative energy and that flows through us. You can call it prana, you can call it chi, you could call it life force. That is flowing through us, right? And For most people, there’s [00:13:00] actually a lot of stuck energy in the body.

There’s a lot of trauma or the residue of trauma stuck in the body. Stress, unrepressed emotions, leaving this energetic residue in the body. And for a lot of people, there’s a lot of stuckness, which means the energy actually can’t flow freely, which is why a lot of people feel numb. They feel disconnected from their errors, from themselves, where there’s just a lack of aliveness.

And so, When we start to connect to this life force energy, you can feel that as like tingles in your body. You can feel sensations in your body. It feels different for most people, but a lot of people can feel it as electricity, as tingles, as simply sensations that are very present in the body. And there’s different ways that we can activate this energy.

And the idea with energy orgasms Is that we want to move this energy through the body. We want to circulate that energy through the body. And [00:14:00] there’s a lot of beautiful tantric practices and actually breath work practices that support us in cultivating and breathing that energy through the body. And so as we are circulating that energy, usually from the base of our spine up to the crown to the third eye and down the front body back to her perineum.

Giancarlo: That was the exercise she was guiding you. 

Muriel: That was not the exercise. This is what I work with the microcosmic orbit, because it’s a really powerful practice to move the energy and to activate eros. When you start moving that through your body, you start to feel expansion in your body. You start to create spaciousness in your body as you first release the trauma and the stuck energy.

You start to circulate that energy through your body. And you’re starting to feel these orgasmic ways of pleasure moving through you. If you’re open for that and if you’re capable of that, which I think, I believe we all are just requires sometimes a bit of practice because 

Giancarlo: you didn’t have any practice.

Muriel: [00:15:00] No, I didn’t have any practice. I was, I’d always been a very sexual person. So I feel like I was very much connected to pleasure and I was connected to orgasm, but it was all very physical until then. And the whole idea of this energy moving through me wasn’t really in my field. So when that happened, it was such a mind blowing experience.

Because I was like, wow, there is something else out there. 

Giancarlo: Do you remember the exercise that this lady How did she gather through your body? 

Muriel: So we were breathing, we were visualizing energy moving through us. I remember the session was called seven gates to bliss and I don’t remember the gates that she was talking about.

Probably the chakra. Yeah. Could be. I mean, it’s all very blurry at this point. Cause really what stood out to me was the, the, the [00:16:00] orgasmic experience. 

Giancarlo: Interesting. Do you think that the collective field that was created with 200 women going there have contributed to the experience? 

Muriel: Yes, I do believe so.

Because if you have these women around, first of all, as a woman, It makes you feel safe, right, in a space that is just women. This is why I like to create these spaces as well. There’s so much safety, so much nourishment already in the field. And then when everyone is journeying to the same thing and into their bodies, I think there’s, there’s magic that is being created in that field.

Giancarlo: Yes. And so you had the first energy orgasm and you felt, Oh, wow. But what can you this can you elaborate on the quality of this pleasure because you said you were always a sexual person you were You had a good relationship with your physical orgasm Can you just if you can draw a parallel between a physical orgasm and an energetic orgasm?

How do they? What’s the texture of the flavor? 

Muriel: Yes. So for me, [00:17:00] energetic orgasm, the big difference is that energetic orgasms for me mostly full body orgasm, right? So the, the sexual energy really penetrates every cell of your being. which is what I believe makes it so incredible and so powerful and so beautiful.

The energetic orgasm for me is also very expansive, right? It’s, it’s creating spaciousness in your entire being. The, the physical orgasms, and they’re not all different, not all the same, obviously, but for a lot of people, they experience mostly clitoral orgasms, right? So that’s a, that’s a intense buildup, and then there’s a peak, and then And then there’s a drop.

A fast release. A very fast release. And that can be very short lived. 

Giancarlo: Yeah, which is typical of a man orgasm. Exactly. 

Muriel: It’s more like, similar to the interdeclaratory orgasm. And so, this energetic orgasm It feels like expansion. It feels like melting. It feels bigger. It is [00:18:00] longer. It’s more extensive. 

Giancarlo: Less peak, more plateau.

Muriel: Yes. Nice. Yeah. And and for me, when that world opened, I was like, wow, this is really crazy. This is really crazy also because I’m not touching myself and there’s no one else there. And I can experience that in my body. By myself being out of my mind, 

Giancarlo: no drugs, 

Muriel: no drugs. Exactly. That was wild. Right? And this I think is because I’ve, this is the reason why I felt this level of sovereignty and empowerment.

Cause I was like, I don’t need anything else, but to be in my body. 

Giancarlo: But do you feel that the sense of expansion can go to a place of almost divinity? 

Muriel: Yes. And I’ve had that. I’m having that more and more now and it’s incredible. It’s it’s, it’s being one with the universe. And as much as that might sound cringe to some that have never experienced that, it would have sounded that to [00:19:00] me a few years ago.

It’s it’s mind blowing. Yeah. Consciousness expanding. 

Giancarlo: Amazing. Okay. And so what happened then? 

Muriel: So I had this moment and in that moment I knew instantly that this is what I need to do with my life. I knew that I needed to support other women and feeling the same sense of empowerment and sovereignty.

And so I also realized I can’t continue suppressing my sexuality. I can’t stay with this beautiful man. When I have to Push down a part of my sexuality that is really important to me Which is being with women and just being in my full sexual expression 

Giancarlo: Yeah, true to myself. 

Muriel: Yeah, and so I I sat with that and I ended our relationship It was very, very hard because there was a lot of love and it felt right, it felt necessary.

And I left New Zealand and I started traveling through Asia. 

Giancarlo: But it’s so funny, but do you [00:20:00] think that if that breakup happened today where there’s so much more in the culture, this idea of open container, of you know, ethical non monogamy, which is so much more. You know loud and there’s less stigma.

Do you think that if that breakup happened today, maybe this gentleman would have been open to let you also explore? Maybe instead of breakup, it would have been an opening, do you think? 

Muriel: I mean, there’s a possibility. I don’t know in his particular case if he would have been open for that, especially now.

Cause yeah, always depends on country culture as well. Yeah. And our upbringing and we were brought up in different countries in different ways. And I don’t know. 

Giancarlo: Yeah, it was a bit difficult speculation. 

Muriel: Okay, so you left, you left the boyfriend, you left New Zealand. And I traveled through Asia and I was like, this is going to be my, the beginning of my spiritual journey.

And I did Vipassana, which changed my life [00:21:00] completely. Because for the first time in my life, I felt inner peace. The world stopped going. Yeah. And I felt inner peace. And, and from that moment onwards, it’s as if my depression was gone. 

Giancarlo: Amazing. 

Muriel: Yeah. And then after Vipassana, I had a very beautiful route, I did Vipassana and then I journeyed into Tantra and then I journeyed into BDSM and King in Asia.

And and that journey just continued. 

Giancarlo: But so after Goenka, what was the chosen path? Tantra path, because there are so many, right? It was Neo Tantra or it was a Classic Tantra? 

Muriel: I did not have any idea of where I was going with that. I, because I didn’t know this world, I started reading books and I started to just see more and more Tantra around.

And I was like, I want to journey into this conscious sexuality, whatever you want to call it. I wasn’t really attached to Becoming a tantra facilitator. This is not what I call myself because there’s so [00:22:00] much to learn that I haven’t learned yet but I knew conscious sexuality was where I wanted to go And so for me going to spaces that they called tantric and Conscious kink was, was my journey.

Yeah. 

Giancarlo: But before going, going to kink, do you remember which, which country, which center you, you, you explore after your Vipassana? 

Muriel: I, so I went to Copenhagen, I went to Bali, went to other places in Thailand and Vietnam and I went to different workshops and just, you know, whatever came my way that resonated.

Giancarlo: But so do you mind, what do you think is This idea of conscious sexuality. Why did you feel this strong resonance with this idea of being present? I mean or even before how do you define conscious sexuality and why you were so attracted to it? 

Muriel: Conscious sexuality for me It’s quite literally it brings the [00:23:00] consciousness to sexuality, right?

So until that moment I had always been very sexual and I was not aware of my sexual energy and of how powerful and sacred that energy is. And I was connecting and having sex with people without tuning into their energy or like really feeling who they are and if I want that inside of my body. It was very unconscious in that way.

I had fun. I explored a lot of things. It was great. And what was missing was Awareness for self, awareness for the other, presence, slowness, the, the awareness for sex being a sacred energy exchange. And so my interest then, Became very clear. It was about, [00:24:00] okay, this is a sacred energy exchange. So what does that mean?

And what does that entail? And what does lovemaking look and feel like when it’s approached with more awareness and presence and love and heart opening and conscious communication? And so all of these things were very new to me. And they were very intriguing. 

Giancarlo: But so I, I imagine, you know, listener would, would look at this distinction, conscious and unconscious sexuality as with or without love, but it’s not exactly that because you can have a beautiful conscious sexual interaction with the person that you necessarily don’t necessarily qualify being in love with.

Muriel: Yes. 

Giancarlo: So can you maybe explore that a little bit? How can you be conscious without love? 

Muriel: Beautiful question. I feel [00:25:00] like when when you’re on this journey, you are connected to love. 

Giancarlo: Mm. Love at large. 

Muriel: Love at large. Exactly. It doesn’t have to be love for that person, but in the very best case, I feel a lot of love for myself and I’m only engaging with people that I want to share this love with, and this love is not.

I am in love with you. But I can make love with someone that I don’t love, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. You know? 

Giancarlo: As far as there is authenticity, respect, 

Muriel: presence, care. Boundary, 

Giancarlo: yeah. 

Muriel: Exactly. And when there is an understanding of we are uniting, you know, and we’re letting our bodies melt and merge with each other.

Yeah. 

Giancarlo: Beautiful. Yeah, this is something that I think the young generation should really learn. This idea that, you know, it’s not either sleeping around or the monogamist. There is like other type of flavor of sexual [00:26:00] interaction that can be very ethical and beautiful and nourishing, but doesn’t require the monogamous relationship, which is what our culture is really telling us.

Okay. So just to continue on the chronology. So now we are in Asia. You did the Tantra. And so how did the, so before practicing or teaching, you went. Yeah. exploring kink also. We’re still on a phase of learning. We’re not yet developing a program of teaching. Yes. And so what, what was the bridge between conscious sexuality and kink?

And what’s the difference between kink and BDSM? Why do you call it kink? 

Muriel: Mm hmm. I mean, so for me there was, I was always a kinky person. I always had this sort of, you know, the erotic blueprint. Mine had always been, well actually I thought back in the day it was probably sexual because I didn’t know anything else.

But the, the kinky aspect was always, was always there, but [00:27:00] it wasn’t approached from this very conscious aspect where I create scenes with my partner and we speak about boundaries and desires and we have a, well we did have a safe word, but you know it was less spoken about and it was less in the light, it was just part of, of sex.

Giancarlo: Like role playing. 

Muriel: Like role playing, like impact play, like dom sub dynamics. Sorry, what’s the 

Giancarlo: difference between role and impact playing? 

Muriel: So role play is when I go, we go into different roles, right? We could be student and teacher, we could be Nurse, whatever. Babysitter and, you know, father, whatever you want to do.

And impact play is when, when there’s pain involved, for example. So flogging, whipping, whatever you want to do. Spanking. 

Giancarlo: But so, I don’t want to go too deep on that because it would take out a little bit of the conversation, but you had mentioned, maybe not now, but in a different interview, that part of your, you know, mental, I don’t want to call it disorder, [00:28:00] but some of the symptoms was a little bit of self harming, but so where do you draw the line between conscious pleasure of giving and receiving pain?

Beautiful. 

Muriel: Yeah. Beautiful question. To be honest, in the past, I think my desire for pain came from this place of wanting to feel or wanting to tag myself out of numbness, right? Because I was in freeze a lot. And so in freeze, there’s an absence of sensation. There’s often numbness, And a great way to take yourself out of freeze is to bring sensation to the body.

And now I use, or I recommend my clients, cause I’m rarely in freeze anymore, I recommend my clients ways, healthy ways to get into their bodies, which can be a cold shower, right? It’s bringing sensation back into the, into the body. Now with kink and with things like impact play [00:29:00] and using pain back in the day, it was unconsciously.

Me desiring to feel sensation, to feel this rush of adrenaline bringing aliveness into my body, waking my body up again and coming into activation. Back in the day, unconscious, until I learned about the nervous system and about all of these different tools and techniques. And now, you can play with it.

And this is why I believe kink is so powerful. Because you can reclaim your power as you play with kink. You can recreate scenarios that once made you feel incredibly powerless, and now you create them in a consensual space and you take your power back. So I really believe that there is a lot of magic and power in bringing conscious kink into conscious sexuality, into healing and transformation.

Giancarlo: It’s about exploring trust and surrender. [00:30:00] 

Muriel: And safety. And safety. 

Giancarlo: Mhm. Okay. So we finished the kink in Asia and now we’re back in Germany. 

Muriel: Yes. I moved to Berlin because I was like, I need to get a job, right? I need to Back to real life. Back into the matrix. Yeah. But so 

Giancarlo: how old are you now? 

Muriel: I’m like at 24. 

Giancarlo: 24.

Muriel: I believe. So it 

Giancarlo: was a couple of years in Asia. 

Muriel: No, I was just in Asia for three, four months. Ah, yeah. 

Giancarlo: But between New Zealand and Yeah. 

Muriel: Yeah. And so I moved to Berlin. I had studied media management back in Germany before moving to New Zealand and having lived in England, I studied media management. So I was like, okay, I need to get a job in this.

So I moved to Berlin and I got a job as a digital strategist in a creative agency. And I started my job there. And in the third week of working there, I cried in my lunch break. I was like, I cannot do this. This is sucking my soul out already. [00:31:00] Too 

Giancarlo: much authority. 

Muriel: No, it was, I was working for really big companies and writing strategies for really big companies to sell really shitty products to children.

You know, and selling sweets to little kids. And I was the one writing the strategy for it. And I was like, this is terrible. This is not how I want to, you know, spend my time, spend my time, live my life. However, you know, I was like, I need to make a living. And so I worked in this job for a year and actually more than a year.

And sort of gained experience and was figuring out, cause I didn’t know at that point that I could become what I am now and what I’m doing now. Right. That wasn’t really my field of awareness. So I did my job. I lived in Berlin. I was still very high on Vipassana and very love and light, very love and light, and had never heard of shadow work.

And then there came a moment where during COVID, the beginning of COVID, and I was in another relationship and there was a situation and I, [00:32:00] and I fainted and I, I fell on the floor and I hit my head and I got a concussion. And it was pretty bad and I had to go to the hospital and I was in the hospital and, and I sat there and I realized there’s a lot of stuff that is ruling my life right now that is not love and light.

And so I became aware of the shadow and I became aware of another Tantra teacher. 

Giancarlo: But this accident happened in a dark situation? 

Muriel: This accident happened because I had a situation with my partner where things escalated and And the dynamics weren’t great. And and my nervous system freaked out. And I had this tendency of fainting because my nervous system went into freeze and into shutdown.

But until that point I always fell in ways that, you know, I didn’t harm myself too much. But that time, 

Giancarlo: it was a wake up call. 

Muriel: Yeah. And so I was like, okay, there is not just love and light. [00:33:00] There’s actually a lot of darkness there as well that wants to be seen. And so my shadow work journey started, right?

And so I moved from love and light to integrating darkness. And that was a pivotal moment in my life, because I was like, okay, there’s, there’s something more. And and that’s how my journey continued. And I quit my job, mostly because I was like, I can’t do this anymore. And and I continued my own journey, deepening my own practice.

Giancarlo: Alone or with the help of some therapist? 

Muriel: I was still in therapy. I at that point did psychoanalysis, right? Where you lay on the couch, the Freudian sort of modality, which I felt like I got a bit closer to entering my subconscious. I was still not working with the body and was still a lot of talking, but it was supportive with the dream work.

Yeah. And, but it was still like a lot of just talking and and so it was an interesting journey of going, going deeper and deeper within myself [00:34:00] and finding all of these things that wanted to come up and that wanted to be seen and wanted to be processed. And that was the beautiful part of all of this.

I have this very embodied experience of what my clients journey through, because I’ve been to the darkest places and journeyed through all of those things and found my way out. Into a more integrated place. 

Giancarlo: So that was a journey. Tell me more about this how did you, because it takes a lifetime I feel sometimes to integrate your shadow.

So you did a little bit with the psychoanalysis, but you felt it only scratched the surface. And so who helped you with this shadow exploration? 

Muriel: Yeah, so this is where I connected with a Tantra practitioner from Australia that I did a few courses with. Because again, I was like, I, this shadow work, I need guidance.

And so I did tantric work on that, which was very embodied. And this is what got me closer and closer to this embodiment journey, where I was like, okay, I need to [00:35:00] feel all of this stuff in my body, and I need to learn to feel my emotions. Because never, no one ever taught me how to feel my emotions, right?

And a lot of us struggle to feel and process and move energy and motion. Yeah. 

Giancarlo: And what people don’t understand is that, These shadows, you know, they are rooted in, in wounds and those wounds, you know, people make the mistake in believing that the trauma is the wound. The wound is the react, your emotional reaction to the trauma.

So the wound, it’s an emotional consequence and can only be healed through the emotion, not through the intellect. 

Muriel: Exactly. 

Giancarlo: And but so, so the Tantra teacher from Australia, do you remember what kind of exercise Explore the body. I 

Muriel: remember that it was very much about embodying the emotion. So as soon as things come up and as soon as the shadow comes up and you’re noticing, okay, there’s something happening here.

You create [00:36:00] space for that, you know, and it’s as simple and I still do that as getting onto the mat or getting onto your yoga mat, closing your eyes, going into self inquiry, noticing what’s actually present right now. Where am I taking action from? What are my hidden motives? What are my intentions here and which part of my body is that coming from?

And then really allowing yourself and your body to express what is present, right? Because a lot of the time it’s, it’s shame, it’s fear, it’s judgment, it’s guilt, it’s all of these very dense emotions that are present that want to be expressed, that want to be felt. And so really allowing yourself to feel.

Feel that as opposed to think about that, but really, or, or try 

Giancarlo: to escape that. 

Muriel: Exactly. Really sitting with yourself and not numbing yourself, not doing all of the coping mechanisms and unhealthy, using the unhealthy tools to get it over with and move on with your day, but no, creating the space to sit with yourself.

Giancarlo: Yeah. That’s the, that’s [00:37:00] the, that’s the secret, right? But. Can you tell a little bit more because it’s still something that you know, it’s still not super intuitive because People say what do you mean you feel this pain you feel the shame you feel the guilt and feeling more feeling is more pain But no, it’s not that no feeling is more awareness and it’s more healing 

Muriel: Yeah, 

Giancarlo: but can you try to explain that 

Muriel: so I believe when we get on the map right and we bring our awareness to our body And we become aware of, okay, what am I feeling in my body?

And it’s not necessarily about identifying the emotion, but it is becoming aware of sensations in the body. So when I am feeling anxiety, for example, most people would find that this is feeling like contraction in the body. It’s tension, it’s getting smaller. And so you start to feel the sensations in the body.

And what I like to feel is, usually with these dense emotions, you feel it’s almost like a ball of [00:38:00] energy somewhere sitting in your body, like something is stuck, right? And so you bring your awareness and your breath to that part in your body and you breathe in it. And I, I, you like to work with visuals and for a lot of people there’s symbols, there’s colors, but let’s say you have this ball of energy and it feels like a black, dense, heavy ball of energy that sits like in a pit in your stomach.

As you bring your attention to that part of your body, to that black, dense, space, that ball, whatever it is, could be a rock. You breathe into that. You breathe into that. You bring your awareness to that and you can envision breathing light into it. And you start to feel the more you bring your energy and your attention to that space, the less dense this space gets.

And the more loving awareness you bring to that, which is the emotion that sits there. Which is [00:39:00] emotion is energy in motion, right? But this is stuck and the stuckness is what’s feel what is feeling so constrictive and so uncomfortable because it’s so concentrated in one part of your body. So the more attention you bring to that, the more you allow that to take space.

Right? If you imagine you have a really rock solid, tight ball in your stomach, but the more you breathe into it, the bigger it gets, the more spaciousness is in between these particles of energy. The more you breathe into it, the more you let it take up space, the more it sits in this one part and it starts to soften.

And you start to feel release, and you start to feel that this energy can move. And as this energy is moving, you feel a relief in your body. You feel like, ooh, okay, this energy is, actually I can, like, let go of this contraction. I can create more spaciousness in my body. And spaciousness in the body is usually pleasure.

[00:40:00] It’s, it’s a beautiful sensation. So, we sit with that, we do that, we allow ourselves to be there, and we allow this emotion to be there, because this emotion is a signpost for pain, right? We allow this to be there, we signal our body, I am safe, and it is safe to feel, and this emotion can take space, and I can hold myself in it, and then we’re almost out the other end already.

Giancarlo: Amazing. You explain it very well. Yeah. And, and if I may add one metaphor that helped me in the past with my old black ball and rocky stuff is this idea of, of, of call it an armor. And I remember one of the example that I created is this idea that imagine you are four or five years old. And you hear this dog barking, barking, barking, and then it bites your mullet and you’re like five, you go to the hospital, you have like 10 stitches, all your little legs and [00:41:00] you’re in pain for weeks.

So what happened in that moment, people think, okay, now you’re having in your brain the memory of barking dog equal pain. But we now know from this new generation of author like, you know, Van der Koos and Peter Levine, this idea that trauma is emotional, it’s, it’s a physical, it’s a biological wounds.

So the little baby kid of four or five years old is like, It’s developed like a wounds on his nervous system that every time that he hear a dog barking he gets into fight or flight mode. Even if not every dog that barks bite. And so you, in that moment you, it’s like your nervous system develop an armor around this neurocircuitry of your nervous system.

Like in the same way that, you know, I fell with the motorbike and I pull my Achilles tendon and immediately the body creates a cartilage to protect the Achilles tendon. So I feel that something similar [00:42:00] happened on the wounded nervous system. And so that’s why the somatic therapy is so important because you need to identify this armor.

That maybe the armor protects you for the first 34 years of your life, but then in the second part of your life it becomes a burden and it limits your potential. And so What you explained so well fits completely this image of dissolving the ball, dissolving the armor and allow the, the, the energy to circulate again and, and, and, and giving you that feel, that feeling of connectivity.

Muriel: Yes, totally. 

Giancarlo: So amazing. So how now we are, we are out of the media digital company. You did the shadow work with the Australian tantra teacher. I will now ready to talk about this new career. 

Muriel: Yes, totally. I mean, I, so I had always then been sort of very aware that this is what I want to do, but I didn’t really know how to approach it.

[00:43:00] And I don’t really, I don’t really remember how I actually started it, but I, I think I started to coach my friend for free, right? Cause, cause she was struggling with her sexuality and I was like, I think I have a lot that I can share with you that I can support you in. So I started coaching her for a good half a year and it was a really, really powerful journey for her.

And I started to feel like, okay, this is what I want to do. This is really great. And I started to facilitate. women’s circles, you know, places that were very, very calm, very innocent, very sweet, very feminine. And I was like, okay, if I am Wanting to do that for my career I want to make sure I have a really solid base because obviously everything that I had learned was kind of self study and doing trainings and courses and Experiences, but I was like if I want to guide women into what I had experienced I knew [00:44:00] that I needed to do something.

I needed to learn something. That was really substantial because I knew that There is a lot of depth to this work, and I knew that I wanted to be able to hold women through their darkness, so that they can hold themselves eventually through their darkness. And so I found a training which was trauma informed somatics.

Which was very focused on the nervous system. In Germany? No, in, again, a school in Australia. 

Giancarlo: But you were doing online from Berlin? 

Muriel: I was doing online and I then moved to Ibiza. Huh. In the process. And I was doing that. And I got trained in that. And that training was amazing in developing my medical intuition, in developing my own gifts in learning.

About trauma and the nervous system and I Started to feel okay. Well, I’m really equipped now to hold [00:45:00] people in their journey because I can Invite them into Nervous system work right which for me became the foundation of everything Because if your nervous system is dysregulated, you can’t be in your power.

You can’t be in your pleasure. You can’t be in your peace So this became like my, my, my focus. And I knew that this was the foundation for all of the sexuality work. And that was also included in the training, the sexuality part. And I knew that that was the foundation. Cause you can’t be in your full erotic aliveness and sexual expression when your body is full of trauma and the residue of traumatic events.

Giancarlo: Yeah. Tell me again the title of the online the Australian Somatic. 

Muriel: It was trauma informed somatics. Trauma 

Giancarlo: informed somatics. 

Muriel: That’s what I call it. I don’t, don’t remember what they called it because it was a combination of all sorts of different modalities. There were Chinese medicine [00:46:00] elements and we’re working with meridians to release dark energy.

We’re working with sexuality. We’re working with all sorts of different modalities that were in there. 

Giancarlo: Do you recommend this course? You’re still, still out there, you think? 

Muriel: I do. I’m not sure in which capacity is out there right now. It was one year long? No, it was four months every day. It was very in depth.

Yeah. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. Yeah. No, I like this idea of empowering listener that, you know, have this calling to learn and possibly they can make a living out of it. You know, they don’t have to be stuck in this digital job. So you felt, okay, now I’m equipped and you start. Exactly. 

Muriel: I started I started working with people.

I started supporting people. And It 

Giancarlo: started in Berlin first? 

Muriel: It started in Berlin with this, with this friend, but I had never actually coached anyone in Berlin because I already knew that I was going to work in English. Right. That would have been possible in Berlin anyway. But it started really [00:47:00] from, from here, from Ibiza.

Giancarlo: When did you 

Muriel: arrive here? In April 2022, 21, I’m not quite sure. Yeah. 

Giancarlo: And so tell us a little bit these three years. 

Muriel: In Ibiza. Yeah. I mean, it was a wild ride, right? Ibiza is a, is a, is a very unique place. So it’s been a very powerful ride. I mean, Tell a little bit more. I mean, I got into a relationship as soon as I Landed.

As soon as I landed. And that relationship. let’s say it taught me a lot and it was very difficult and it was very traumatizing and it taught me a lot. And so I, I learned a lot and it was with a man and it was necessary as painful as it was. And I’m very happy that this is part of my past now. And you know, the, the island gives you exactly what you need.

I really believe that. And she gave me exactly what I [00:48:00] needed. And so this also deepened my own practice, right? Because I was with someone that, how do I put that? That exposed me to a pattern of behavior that a lot of women attract that is very, very dangerous and that that is very, very harmful and that is very, very common and because of that, again, I’m not able to support these women that attract these kind of men that are manipulative and deceptive and, and, Narcissistic.

We could call it that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I believe that also this journey supported me in now supporting my clients because I have clients coming in that have experienced it because it’s a lot of women. Right. And why, why you think? Why, what exactly? Why do you think there’s all these women attracted to abusive and narcissistic?

I, so I believe this is, [00:49:00] this is a lot of trauma bonding, right? It’s what we grow up with, what we’re familiar with is often what we attract later on in relationships. And there’s an interesting dynamic between empathetic women and narcissistic men. And a lot of women are very empathetic, they’re very sensitive, they have this This ability to, to feel and and it’s in a lot of the time it’s trauma bonding and until we heal that part in ourselves that is attracting these kind of relationships and these kind of partners, we continue attracting that, right?

This, this, we know it’s familiar and so it feels safe in our nervous system and I find that incredibly interesting because it’s this idea of like you meet someone and it’s like, You feel butterflies, right? And we always associate butterflies with being in love. What I learned is butterflies is nervous system dysregulation.

It’s like a red flag. It’s such a red flag. It’s your body telling you, like, get the fuck out of here. But that person might at the same time [00:50:00] feel like home, you know, and back in the day I thought, oh, when they feel like home immediately, that’s a good thing. But if your home was a place where you felt unsafe for whatever reasons, then that association to that person feels like home is actually not.

not the right thing for you. And it might be the right thing, it might be the healing sort of journey you need to go on, but these are beautiful warning signs to, to look out for. 

Giancarlo: Were you able to start your offering and your practice while you were dealing with this crisis? 

Muriel: No, it was very hard because I very much lost myself and I very much lost my power and or gave my power away because I don’t want to, it’s not a blame game.

I take responsibility for my actions and my choice of. Who I’m [00:51:00] dating. So I gave my power away, not knowingly, obviously, because what was happening in my nervous system was absolutely wild, and I, even though I had this knowledge, when you’re in it, and you think you’re so in love, and the love bombing takes you into places that feel so amazing you are not aware of what’s going on yourself.

So no, it was really hard for me to, to, to sell my work in that time. 

Giancarlo: And so finally, you broke up with this guy, I imagine. Yeah. That was like, I don’t know, how long ago? 

Muriel: That’s how many years? Well A year and 

Giancarlo: a half? 

Muriel: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah, a year. 

Giancarlo: And you went full force on the murielas.

com? 

Muriel: Yes, I was like, okay, this is the moment and, and I’m ready. And that was the moment I was like, I was, I’m fucking ready and I feel fucking great and I’m free. And that was like, okay, I can breathe [00:52:00] now. And, and my magic is, is coming through again. And with that, my work picked up and with that, you know, there’s a lot of healing that needed to happen.

And that healing happened through another beautiful relationship that I then went into very quickly. And in that a lot of healing and reclamation of my power happened and a lot of becoming aware of who am I really beyond, beyond that and what am I here to offer and what is it that I’m not compromising ever again.

And so it again, it’s like, I feel we all constantly go through phases of reclaiming our power, right? Because there’s moments where we give it away and then it’s moments where we take it back. And it’s like rising from the ashes. It’s this Phoenix image of. Going through the darkness, coming out into the light, but bigger and better and more embodied and more empowered.

Giancarlo: Nice. Okay, great. That was the past. So now describe a little bit your practice. [00:53:00] What do you offer? What you know, good experience with client less good. What is the main obstacle for people to really understand and embrace this practice you offer? Describe a little bit. So 

Muriel: I really support people in reclaiming and reconnecting with the wisdom of their body and their sexual energy, their eros, which means a lot of people are stuck in their minds and their minds are not happy places.

And there’s a lot of trauma and trauma responses that are guiding their experience. Fear of judgment, shame, guilt, sort of. Being the directing force of their reality and a lot of the times Being the victim of their circumstance and conditioning and being very far from being the creator of their reality.

And I sort of support my clients in reclaiming their power, which means reclaiming their connection to their [00:54:00] sexual energy, to their sexual expression, to their body. And taking them out of being guided by their inner critic and back into connection to their soul’s voice and what their body is communicating.

Giancarlo: And how do you do that? So 

Muriel: I do that through somatic therapy. sexuality coaching, tantra massage, hypnosis. I have very different modalities that I work with that are all very beautiful. In, in this journey, I can combine them in beautiful ways, whatever my clients needs, but the idea is to get them into that body, right?

Cause then I do believe the body is a portal to your power. So I guide them into their body, which can look like meditation. It can look like hypnosis. It can look like touching their body. But the idea is really for them to cultivate interoceptive awareness, becoming aware of sensations within.

Because when you start to feel the sensations within, you can start to feel emotions within, right? If I can feel like there’s energy [00:55:00] blocked in my, like, chest, then I’m aware that there’s something stuck. So it starts with that. And then we take it from there, and then it’s very much about Supporting them and reclaiming their sovereignty, meaning they come back into holding themselves, they come back into holding themselves in their human experience, because I do believe that it’s really important that we as coaches, facilitators, space holders, whatever, we give our clients their power by giving them the tools that they need to move from using the field.

Self destructive tools to using tools that actually benefit and help themselves. Because we all use tools to cope with reality, right? And that might be wine or that might be cigarettes or that might be fucking around. Or we could use tools like meditation and embodiment practices and going for a walk.

You know, and [00:56:00] I think this is, this is a really, really big part of, of my practice. 

Giancarlo: So from, you know, for people that are listening, how, I know it’s, it’s a case by case, but from what you’ve seen in the last, you know, 18 months, what kind of level of commitment and what I’m trying to ask is how long does it take?

How long does this process take? And I, and I know that it really depends, but. It does, it does, does it require for a person, you know, for people that are listening, that have kids, that have work, that have a full life, this practice of, you know, reactivating your body. Is it like super time consuming? How can you, can you comment a little bit on the timing of this practice and the level of, of, of, of engagement and it doesn’t have to take.

All your life. You don’t have to live in Ibiza. You can do it everywhere. Oh, yeah. 

Muriel: No, totally. So the thing is what I believe is key is [00:57:00] discipline and devotion. 

Giancarlo: Interesting. Why devotion? To who? To the practice. To yourself. To yourself. 

Muriel: To your journey. So discipline being the the one thing and I think it’s a very beautiful sort of, again, union of, of masculine and feminine, like the masculine being the discipline and the feminine being the, the devotion.

At least that’s how I see it, how I perceive it in my own practice. Discipline being, if you want to change something within your life, you need to show up for yourself and you need to show up for the practice. The practice being, you can literally spend five minutes every morning to get into your body and that is your practice.

That might not take you to, to, the biggest transformation of your life within a month. But when you show up for yourself and you have the discipline to change your habits and you create the new neural pathways within yourself, you create a new reality. I can’t tell you how long that’s going to take, but the consistence in showing up [00:58:00] for yourself and, and doing the practices and using the tools is incredibly important.

And then the part of devotion is like, If you wanna, if you really feel you have this intrinsic motivation of I want to change my reality and I want to change the way that I show up in my life and I want to change the way I feel and I want to change the way I relate and change the way that I engage in my sexual encounters, then you become devoted to that journey because you really fucking want that and you make it happen.

So you will feel that the practices that you do and the way you change your way of being, thinking and feeling makes a real difference. You will do things and you will feel that devotion coming from within because you start to see your reality changing and shifting and that will fuel that process. And so I believe that these tools that we can use, I like to give my clients tools that are short and sweet, to be honest, because it doesn’t take much.

nervous system work, [00:59:00] for example. There’s so many beautiful tools we can use to downregulate the system when we’re stressed. And this tool, for example, that I like to use a lot is called the vu. And it’s literally this sound vu, and it’s V Long V. Yeah. But with this very specific sound, you feel the vibration in your own system.

You engage the vagus nerve. It is so, right? You are having the longer exhale, exactly, which is activating the parasympathetic. You have the vibration, your system. Because you have the biggest 

Giancarlo: nerve in your throat. Exactly. That’s why people Yoga has been chanting for you forever. 

Muriel: Exactly, and this is something that you can do while you’re washing the dishes, when you’re feeling stressed, while you’re driving.

It’s these little tools, and the more you use these little tools, that don’t take a lot of time, the more you start to shift your reality and get into your body, without it being a big thing and a big ritual every time. Because that is impractical, and we [01:00:00] don’t have time for that. Yeah. Most of us at least.

Giancarlo: Yeah. Yeah. Comparison comes to mind. It’s like, you know, with sport and going to the gym and physical exercise, the more you do, it can start with, you know, just go to, you know, like even with just a walk and then you go to the gym and then just, you run for five minutes and then, and then it start that dopamine.

circuit that makes you feel good about yourself and then you stick with it. 

Muriel: Exactly. And then you want to do it again and again and again because it makes you feel good. So you stop doing the things that actually just numb you and you continue doing the things that make you feel good. 

Giancarlo: Yes. But don’t you think that, you know, I always think that and here is a little bit of a promotional thing for for our Diffuso method that we are developing together with other people.

That you know, it’s, it’s, you know, to start this process, it’s sometimes useful to have like an intensive, you know, four days, five days, one week. Over what I, we [01:01:00] call it, you know, like an expanded states where you leave your life behind your wife and kids and work and you take five days or a long weekend or a week if you can, and you go into a different place without the phone and you start exploring these tools in an intensive way.

And that would start. marking your nervous system would, would start the process. 

Muriel: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: Do you agree on that? 

Muriel: I do really believe in what they call peak experiences, right? So with expanded states for me, for me, this, this first energy orgasm was an expanded state. It was one moment that marked a moment in time that changed everything for me.

And that became the sort of The marker for where do I want to go and if I hadn’t experienced that I wouldn’t have been able to know what is possible. So I do really believe that these expanded states, however we reach [01:02:00] them, breathwork, eros, psychedelics, when we have these peak states, this is also a really beautiful way to rewire your mind.

Because you’re exposed to a very heightened emotion and that itself can change the state of your brain. So I do really believe in the power of that. And I do believe in taking yourself out of your normal reality, the reality that you want to move away from, right? Because you do want to create new habits and new routines.

So taking yourself out of that and what we’re doing with Diffuse is exactly that. Getting into an environment where you experience different things and you get a different taste and flavor of life that you then can integrate into your reality. But I think it’s really powerful to start off that way for sure.

Giancarlo: But then, you know, for example, my personal experience with those expanded states, it is that I’ve done so many and I was lacking in them because, you know, of course, who doesn’t like a peak experience? But then I was missing, you know, [01:03:00] the, the therapy after that, you know, I, I was missing, I was keep on doing from peak experience to peak experience and that’s why it took me a long time before I could start this healthy process of, of connecting with self really.

So the idea is that, you know, you have this peak experience, but then you can’t just Abandon them because then, you know, your neurocircuitry will rewire back to normal. It’s like, you know, shaking the snow globe. When you shake it, everything is possible and your neurocircuitry can be rewired, but then, you know, as you put the snow globe down, there’s no go and settle how it was.

So, the idea is after the expanded state, you need to do a regular therapeutical practice, which is once a week, twice a week. Do you work online? 

Muriel: Yes, yes, I do. And I do believe that this is incredibly important because especially with the focus on the nervous system, because the way I see it is the nervous system and the [01:04:00] brain is kind of like the newer pathways that we have is like ski slopes, right?

And so you’re in these slopes for your entire life and you’re going the same slopes all of the time. Your skis are in these tracks and so you have this peak experience and you might jump out of the tracks that you’re used to and you’re skiing on a new slope. which is very unfamiliar to your nervous system, right?

The brain isn’t, isn’t wired that way, that way yet. And so if we don’t have the practices and the therapy and the support for integrating that experience and getting our nervous system acquainted to these new tracks, then we will deviate back to the old tracks. That’s just the way that’s familiar.

That’s the way that it works. We’re going back into routines and this is why I think it’s incredibly important to have this. therapeutic support the coaching, the accountability, the, the, the community, and the, and the awareness for the new reality. 

Giancarlo: Exactly. Now you mentioned, I feel [01:05:00] the third word, which is very important.

I think in this in this regeneration process, you know, the word community for those that are listening to us that might be a little bit advanced in this process. For example, again, for me, I’ve done maybe 20 years of inner work with different modality, but then what really made the difference in my own personal journey was arriving in Ibiza during lockdown and finding a tribe of like minded individuals.

that are interested in the inner work that, you know, the joke is that in Ibiza, everybody’s in a process all the time. And it sounds terrible for some people, right? I know people that says, Oh my God, the mental masturbation about, you know, who do you think you are is so boring. And I respect that. But for people that are into this inner work journey, having been surrounded by people with same interests is very empowering.

So my question is, You know, at the other side of this transformative [01:06:00] tools, what do you see? How can this practice then help people to find their purpose, find their own community? Can you comment a little bit on that? 

Muriel: You know what, I believe a big part of my work is to support people to come back into connection with themselves, right?

It’s the idea of supporting them to liberate themselves from all that they are not. So that they can be all that they are fully expressed. And so when you let go of all the things you’re not, which is your conditioning, the programming, the limiting beliefs, the stories you’ve taken on from others, you naturally start to come back to yourself.

And you naturally start to connect to your essence. And when you then bring in the Eros, and you start to connect to your sexual expression, and you’re in your full embodied expression of who you are, Then, like, how much better does that get, you know, when you are in your full expression? [01:07:00] And and then you will naturally attract people and community that sees that, that values that, that honors that.

And you start to realize I can’t be around people that are not on that journey to, to embodying themselves fully. Like it doesn’t inspire me anymore to be with people that are stuck in their stories. And, you know, it’s you, you start naturally attracting this community. And I think this community then really supports you and your growth.

And then it’s just a beautiful co creation of, of magic and love and support. And 

Giancarlo: So let me ask you a difficult question. So recently I’ve been exposed to a couple of people, one from SACids and Navies in the Caribbean and then one from Rome. And we were having a similar conversation and they were like, you know, they were both in Ibiza and they said, I’m dreading going back home because I don’t have this community of people in the process all the time.

So what advice would you have [01:08:00] for some people like that? 

Muriel: I’ve actually had someone ask me the same question recently. And I, I do believe that this is really difficult and I think the best way is to figure out. The things that you love, that you’re passionate about, that maybe are in connection to the work you’re doing, the self development work.

And find the people that do the same thing in your town, right? Because there’s always groups of people. It’s just a matter of looking for them, being open for them, finding them, engaging with them, and making new friends. I think this is really important because if we don’t have that around us, and this is also this, this is a challenging part of this journey, right?

The more you go into self development and connecting to yourself, anyone that is not on that journey with you, There will become a moment where you [01:09:00] might realize actually we don’t have that much in common anymore or they don’t want to grow. And, but I really want to grow and you start to feel actually this is not nourishing me anymore.

You know, this is the, the difficult part about this journey that you might also have to say no to, to connection that once served you, you know, but you might not be an energetic match anymore. 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Muriel: But you will then create space for new relationships that, that really nourish you and then in which you can flourish together.

Giancarlo: Yeah. 

Muriel: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: Totally. You know, the, what I call the small town mentality in the small town mentality places, which can be a city like Rome, huge city. What happened is that, you know, vulnerability is still not seen as, you know, desirable. But so, you know, if there’s no vulnerability, there’s no growth. And still, in the small town mentality, there is still the idea of, you know, never explain, never complain.

This idea that, [01:10:00] you know, the processing and the questioning and the improving is seen as a sign of weakness. And so it’s just, you know, the culture just need to catch up with, you know, international places like Ibiza or You know, more cosmopolitan where there is, you know, different culture and different background where everybody’s more free Because there’s not this identification with one type of social political demographics But anyhow to our friend from Rome and Sanchis and Nevis, I would say just come to Ibiza 

Muriel: Come to Ibiza and just find your crib where you are 

Giancarlo: So, yeah, we’ve been together now an hour and 15 minutes let’s just So how do you see the future of this practice?

I mean, social media, it’s full of memes around sexual embodiment. It’s not a fad. It’s gonna [01:11:00] stay, you know, this practice is here to stay, like Ayahuasca was 20 years ago. And people were saying, oh, it’s just a fashion, and it’s not. And it’s, now we’ve seen it. And that is being really permeating all.

different level and all side of the, of the, of society. But so if you had to speculate, how do you think So, you know, as, as more and more participants become more proficient in this spiritual embodiment, in the sexual embodiment practices, how do you see your offering evolve in the next 10, 20 years?

And that is a difficult question, I guess. 

Muriel: Yeah. You know what, I think the, the, the topic of sexual embodiment and, and sexual expression is, is becoming more mainstream, right? More and more mainstream. And I do believe that it’s still not reaching the small town in Germany. You know where I’m from is still very, very far away from that.

So I think there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to reach those places and reach the [01:12:00] people that are not in these bubbles. Because I feel like it’s still happening a lot in the bubbles. And so I think the idea is collectively, we just need to 

Giancarlo: Expand 

Muriel: expand the bubble and and spread the word and the way that my work is going to evolve.

I think this is also the ideas of bigger and better and picking up the people that where they’re at and taking them on a ride and working with different modalities to really. Support them in creating sustainable and substantial transformation within so that And I feel that already, each client that I have, when they leave a container with me, they, they share that knowledge with their friends, and they inspire others to get into their body and into their Eros.

And this is just the ripple effect, right? And we all have that with our clients, because we hopefully touch them in ways that [01:13:00] they’re so inspired that they take it out into the world. And so with that, we can all each do our little thing to inspire change. And this is, this is my idea to, to support as many people as I can and for them to support themselves and share the magic with their loved ones.

Giancarlo: Amazing. Amazing. That was great. Thank you very much. So where people can find you if some, someone listening say, okay, I want to start working with Muriel. How did they find you? 

Muriel: Yes. So you can find me on Instagram. My name is Muriel C H A A S. So my name is Muriel Charlotte Haas. So Muriel C H A A S.

You’ll find me on Instagram. 

Giancarlo: And then Muriel and I are collaborating on a project called Diffuso that you can find on diffuso. net. It’s for people that want to commit a longer period of time in Ibiza physically and also online. Anything else we forgot to [01:14:00] mention? For example, I was just thinking that you know, this education should be taught in school, right?

Oh my God, yeah. Teenagers should be aware about this. Yeah. Conscious sexuality. Yeah. 

Muriel: I honestly, I do feel very passionate about at some point in my life wanting to bring that into schools. Yeah. As maybe a separate, you know, I’m, cause I’m obviously not going to be a teacher in this life as a school teacher but actually having.

Practitioners come into schools as separate entities, you know, that bring in this knowledge because I believe that my sexual education in school was terrible and non 

Giancarlo: existent, 

Muriel: non existent and terrible, all about preventing STIs and pregnancies, pleasure I had never heard of. 

Giancarlo: Yeah, it’s a judo Christian morality.

Muriel: It’s no, it’s terrible. So this is something that really needs to change from even younger than school. We need to invite children into becoming comfortable with sexuality, meaning we need to normalize sexuality. We need to [01:15:00] release any taboos and shame around it. And that needs to be. An embodiment and inspiration as opposed to teachings.

We don’t need to teach 3 year olds what they have to do and what sexuality is. But we need to allow them to explore their bodies if this is what’s coming up. Because that is happening anyway. And instead of shaming them, we encourage them to like, be safe and enjoy themselves. And honor their body and their sexual energy.

Giancarlo: And I have one last question about relationship preference. What’s your view on monogamy versus non monogamy? 

Muriel: To be honest, I’m still figuring that out for myself. I do really believe that there’s a lot of power and beauty in creating a secure attachment and deep and beautiful monogamous container with one person.

And I also do believe that Not one person is going to give us everything that we need. And [01:16:00] especially for myself, speaking for myself as a bisexual woman, I think there will always be a part of me that needs both Genders, or bodies, or sexual organs, however you wanna, you know, these energies so I don’t know, I think I’m still figuring out what I want this to look like for myself.

But I do believe in the power of creating a really solid container that is built on safety, and security, and trust, and great communication. And For me, if there were four people involved, that would make it significantly more challenging and time consuming. And for me personally, I don’t think that would be the way, simply because I have too much going on.

Giancarlo: And you know, another advisor, academic of Diffuso, Jorge Ferrer, wrote a book called Novogami. So he says that, you know, we have depolarized gender. And in the same way, he’s [01:17:00] advising to depolarize the term, you know, from monogamy to non monogamy because it’s very polarized, right? The monogamous people, they tell the non monogamous people, you’re only, you’re flaky and horny and the non monogamous people tell them as you’re boring and scared and, whereas Novogamous is someone that can do both according to different cycle of their life.

Muriel: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: So I like this idea of being Novogamous. 

Muriel: Yeah, totally. And just exploring what works for you in exactly that in the moment of life you’re in right now. 

Giancarlo: Thank you very much for having you. We’ll get you back in a year and see how you’re doing. . 

Muriel: Yes. I love that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you so much.[01:18:00] 

Speaker: Coca zonada, it’s zonada and tea. Coca zonada, it’s zonada and tea.