Interview with Lorna Gale
In this episode, we will uncover 3 keys:
- The Lost Art of Human Connection
- Unlearning the Conditioning That Holds Us Back
- Reclaiming Pleasure as a Birthright
Podcast Transcription
Episode 50: Awaken Your Sensual Power: Embrace the Divine Feminine Within | Lorna Gale
Intro
Odiva Vasell (0:32):
Welcome, my fabulous fempreneurs! I am here, and I am super excited for myself as well as all of you listening because I am bringing a woman who has dedicated her life to creating awareness around the divine feminine. Not only that, but she is a somatic sexologist, and she teaches us how spirit and body can combine together to give us a higher level of pleasure and self-love. So, without further ado, welcome Lorna Gale! Thank you for joining us.
Lorna Gale (01:22):
It’s wonderful to be here, Odiva. Thank you so much for the joy and pleasure of being here with you and our listening audience today.
Odiva Vasell (01:29):
And I just want to ask you to go a little deeper for us that might or might not know—what does it mean, somatic?
Lorna Gale (01:41):
That’s a great question, and certainly, it’s a word that’s being more commonly heard. Soma means “of the body,” and so it’s about the wisdom that’s in the body—learning through the body, the experience of and through the body.
So, in my work as a somatic sexologist, it’s looking at: how do we learn and experience our sexuality directly through our body? Now, for some people, that means, “Well, of course, what else would I do?” And that’s, you know, anytime there’s a sexuality piece, it does involve the body.
In my work, I take it much further than just the act of sex. It’s really about our whole essence, about sexuality. It’s looking at—I’m gonna back up just a little bit—15 years ago, when I had my midlife sexual awakening, there was a quote that I became aware of very soon after that has really been pivotal for my own journey as well as what I teach.
That’s the quote by Audre Lorde. She says, “We tend to think of the erotic as a quick, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as that deepest life force energy that moves us in a fundamental way.”
So, when I speak about sexuality, it’s encompassing that whole aspect of our erotic life force energy. Sometimes, it is expressed in a sexual way that might involve genitals, it might involve another person. But even more so, it is an expanded way where our bodies—that soma, the somatic aspect of our lived experience—is where wisdom comes through.
We have our sensory experiences, our senses that allow us to interact with and take in data from the world. It is also this aspect where there might be some traumas—the energy of those that are held and experienced. Every time we hold our breath, there’s some energy that’s held. When there’s something we’re afraid of, you know, even something startles us in the middle of the night—there’s energy there.
And if there’s not this sense of release, of just kind of like, “I can just relax into that,” then different pieces start to get held by the energy. So, from a somatic sexologist perspective, it’s about how we allow the wholeness of who we are as sexual, erotic beings—and everything that we have experienced—to be tapped into through the body.
It might be through breath. It might be through sound. It might be through movement. Sometimes, it’s through touch—of another, or of ourselves. But the goal is to tune into the body and to feel what’s there.
Odiva Vasell (04:36):
I love this—tune into the body and feel what’s there. Thank you, thank you for a very detailed and helpful definition of what somatic sexology is. And I think it’s such a beautiful thing that we are moving into awareness of it not just being this act—this, you know, timed act where there is one goal of possibly orgasm—but rather, this sensual experience of life.
Lorna Gale (05:19):
Exactly! It’s beautiful, yes.
Odiva Vasell (05:24):
Yeah, yeah! So, it’s like—
And you talked about breath. It’s like we have this life force within us, and for some reason, we’ve been taught to deny it or shut it down. And then we wonder why the other things in life that make us happy are being blocked. Tell us, how did you get started in this work?
The Lost Art of Human Connection
Lorna Gale: (05:57)
Through my own lived experience, as I mentioned earlier, this aspect of my midlife sexual awakening—going back a bit—I was raised in a Christian home, and, you know, this aspect of “save yourself for marriage” and, you know, sex belongs in a certain container, and, you know, a one-on-one experience. And at that time, I just took that to be the way it was.
So from there, it didn’t even enter my mind to explore my own sexuality. And so when I got married at the age of 18 to this beautiful man, there was sort of this sense of, “Okay, it’s gonna be all magically—oh, there it is—everything fit into, you know, fit into place, you know, literally and figuratively, and I’m gonna—it’s gonna be this—oh, of course, this is just this natural thing.”
When that’s not the case, and I have a feeling that it’s probably that way for a lot of women. And it wasn’t until—I would say decades later—but even then, I recognized that statement of “save yourself for marriage.” It wasn’t just a matter of, “Oh, wait till I’m married,” but yet, I took it in at a level that meant, “If that’s the case, then my body isn’t mine. My sexuality isn’t mine. It’s for the husband. It’s for the marriage.”
So that’s where exploring myself was not even—not only not exploring my own body, but, you know, I was a good girl. And, you know, that’s an energy that a lot of us carry. I didn’t, you know, I wasn’t with anybody else. I was a virgin when I was married at the age of 18, and, you know, I was strictly into that piece.
And even, I remember one time going to a movie with my husband, and I got quite aroused seeing, you know, a couple on the movie screen kissing—a natural response. And yet, because of my teachings and how I had taken that in, I thought, “Oh, I got turned on by something that wasn’t between my husband and I.” So I remember telling my husband, “We’re not gonna have sex tonight. And if ever I get turned on with something that didn’t happen just between you and I, we’re not having sex.”
And I didn’t realize at the time, of course, how much—like you mentioned, Odiva—how much we get shut down and things are repressed. And it wasn’t until, I remember, you know, as we would make love, there was this—and I have a feeling that there are so many people, so many women that can really relate to this in a sexual experience—you know, there’s this trajectory, right, that we’re familiar with in the male trajectory: build, build, build, build, and release.
And for me, it was build, build, build, build—nothing. You know? And each time, build, build, build, build, build—nothing. So the sense of like, “Yeah, lost it along the way.” My husband, you know, he went and researched, and he said, “It seems like you, like the majority of women—and this was, again, 40 years ago—you, like the majority of women, are non-orgasmic. Can you be happy with what you have? What you can experience?”
And I kind of guessed that’s my lot in life. But night after night, you know, as he would fall asleep, there would be this sense of like—I would just, I would feel the energy building in my body, and I had—I didn’t have this sense of, “Oh, I will, you know, I’ll fake orgasm so that he feels good.” It was just kind of like, no. He was pleased and satisfied and in a refractory period, and for me, it was just these tears running down my face because I knew there was so much more, but I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t know how to access it.
So I just thought that was my lot in life. And each time, I wondered, I wondered, I wondered. And five years into our marriage, he said, “Why don’t you—” and these are words that have become so important in how I, in my practice with people, as I work with them, and I’m gonna share a little bit more about that as we go. But he said,
“Why don’t you find out what makes you feel good so you can tell me?”
Odiva Vasell: (10:02)
“Wow.”
Lorna Gale: (10:03)
And I thought, “Wow, that’s amazing.”
But I didn’t—I didn’t know. And I—I had no idea where to start. So I just put things on the shelf until my girls were out of the home. And then that’s where I started my journey exploring. I took some courses, I took some trainings. I went to a retreat, sat in a circle of women, talking about our sexual stories—about what brings us to this time, our relationship to our genitals, to that womb space.
And for the first time ever, to be able to acknowledge, “I am a sexual, erotic being.” And then from there—yeah. And from there, I took…
Odiva Vasell: (10:37)
I find it interesting that you said you waited until your daughters left the house. You—you had, it sounds like, so much fear around it. It had to be between you. It had to be between your husband. It had to be almost about him.
You did not realize that there was a part of you. But in a way, you did. At night, when you were crying, you realized there was a part of you that was missing, and you weren’t connecting with it.
And—and it’s—it’s hard to hear that because, I guess, the way that women have been kind of trained as “good girls,” you don’t get to realize that there’s more to you. There’s a connection to be made.
How did you find that connection?
Lorna Gale (11:34):
Great experience! It ended up being this total 180-degree shift, and here’s how it happened.
As I took those courses and trainings and was able to acknowledge this, a couple of different things happened. I was teaching, and after teaching in the school system for almost a decade, I went on to teach energy work. In one of the courses I was facilitating, I was a roommate with one of my students. She had her doctorate in human sexuality, and I always say everything is always in perfect time and place.
I shared with her about my disconnection from my sexuality, and I didn’t know at the time how prevalent this was. It was only after I started my practice that I realized how much this is the story of so many of us women. So, I told her how disconnected I was. She actually helped me to connect to my body by saying, “While we’re in the hotel room this week, why don’t we just be naked?”
I was like, “Oh my goodness! How do I do that?” You know, you’re in this little hotel room—here’s her bed, here’s my bed—and just trying not to look. Little by little, I started turning my head a bit and started to converse. Within a few hours, I could walk around the room and talk, and it became a little bit more natural, a little bit more comfortable.
By the fourth day, I had my hand on the doorknob to go teach my class and realized, “Oh! I have to put clothes on.” So, that became a rule. And then, I actually hired her as a masturbation coach.
Odiva Vasell (13:23):
Okay.
Lorna Gale (13:24):
A masturbation coach! And at the age of 42, I had my first orgasm.
To be able to say, “This is what my body can feel!”—from there, my journey began. It was time to really start exploring. In my explorations, I encountered a program called Sex Logical Bodywork. Its first training was to do a meditation for at least seven days—up to a month, but at least seven days—for half an hour each day.
I chose the mirror meditation. Mirrors have played a really important role in my journey. Somehow, that reflection seems to make you question: What is real, and what is the reflection? So, I chose the mirror meditation.
I took off my clothes, sat on my bed, and propped up a full-length mirror against a chair in front of me. Here I was, supposed to be in this orgasmic state, but my experience was so far from that. What came up instead was, “This is gross. This is disgusting.” The shame and the self-loathing surfaced.
Odiva Vasell (14:44):
Yeah.
Lorna Gale (14:45):
All of those layers started to come up—even existential shame, the shame that I even existed. As tears streamed down my face, I realized I had no idea that was within me.
But as I let it all come up, as it could be seen and acknowledged, it was like it washed away. Then, it became clear—this is so pure. This isn’t wrong or bad or dirty or shameful, like we’ve been taught. This is so pure, so good, so right.
That’s when I experienced an instantaneous 180-degree change. I went from being grossed out by seeing a young couple kissing at Dairy Queen to freely talking about sexuality. I started to see life as erotic. It became natural for me to take my teachings into the sexual and erotic realm, to take the training, and then go on to teach others how to support themselves in being connected to their bodies and their sexuality.
To tap into, to feel, to feel alive—to allow that erotic energy to build! How can it fuel everything in life? How can it be recognized as part of all of life? That is the gift I get to bring forward into the world.
To be able to say to women, “It’s all here within our bodies! We don’t have to look outside for permission, for pleasure, for a partner. It’s all here within us.”
Now, to be able to take our hands and let them touch and feel—to be a part of our own bodies, connected to our own sexuality—what can we feel? What wisdom flows through us?
Unlearning the Conditioning That Holds Us Back
Odiva Vasell (16:30):
Okay, okay. And you—you bring such great energy. And when you talked about this existential experience, where you allowed yourself not to suppress but to really look at yourself, you brought yourself to a place of—first—a lot of pain, a lot of self-loathing. And then that washed over to where you came to a place of peace.
That is something I’ve never heard anyone talk about before. Because when we start talking about self-love, that’s another way we sometimes suppress. ‘Cause we don’t always have positive thoughts about ourselves. And we’ve—we’ve been kicked on, layered by layer of society, telling us that our bodies are not good enough.
“This needs hair on it.”
“This needs less hair on it.”
You’re—you’re trying to change every part of your body.
I counted one day, and I was like, “Okay, so I’m trying to take the oil off my face but put oil on my legs, and take it off the legs but try to grow the hair—the hair—with—” And then it’s just…
Lorna Gale (17:56):
Oh my goodness.
Odiva Vasell (17:57):
It’s such a consumer world. But just to get the message and awareness out there to young women—and also women—that our bodies are changing as we go through midlife.
I would say “midlife crisis,” but—midlife awakening. That it’s okay to go through that journey and come out on the other side of true, authentic self-love. That’s amazing.
And I also wanna go back to what your husband said, which is a very great piece of wisdom. He said, “Find out what makes you feel good.” Is that the right wording?
Lorna Gale (18:48):
Yeah. And there was—there was actually two parts to that. Those exact words you just said. And the second piece was, “So you can tell me.”
And that’s where each—each piece of those has its own power in it. And put together, it’s even more powerful. ‘Cause, number one, it’s “Find out what makes you feel good.” That means—yeah—tap into myself, explore, instead of this idea of, “Oh, somebody’s supposed to give me pleasure.” They’re like, “No, explore. Touch my own body. If I’m with somebody else, you know, include them in this exploration.”
And then the second—And again, when I talk about the wisdom of the body, it’s sometimes… So, I have one of my programs that I take women through. It’s called PEP—Personal Erotic Practice. And it’s much more than this sense of, you know, masturbation, where it’s genitals and, you know, to build erotic energy and go to an orgasm.
It’s kind of like, “No.” In fact, sometimes I say, “No. If you feel an orgasm start to come on, breathe, expand the energy, and do it. See what happens next.” So it’s not about, “Oh, how fast can you have an orgasm?” and “How many is gonna—?” What else is—what else is possible?
This is us—yeah. So the Personal Erotic Practice is where I take women through this piece of—And, you know, through breast, sound, and movement that I talked about earlier, and various other pieces—including consent. Coming back to reclaiming, “What does consent feel like in our bodies?”
And then taking them through this so that they can tap into their own bodies.
“So, find out what makes you feel good—so that you can tell me.”
And I think that’s a big part of this spiritual awakening that’s happening—this women’s empowerment, the arising of the feminine. It also recognizes that the males, or the masculine, play a really important part in this.
When I spoke earlier about the mirror—not only my mirror experience—but I’ve come to experience life as a mirror. So, right? As we’ve lived, it’s as if, you know, the feminine—or women—are down here, and masculine—or males—are up here when we look in a mirror.
And I think, you know, how many of us this morning looked in a mirror? Today—looked in a mirror? Right? For our hair, our clothes, our teeth, our makeup—whatever it is. You know, just to admire, you know, those various pieces that come up. And you know—all the thoughts that come up as we look in the mirror.
When we look in a mirror, what we’re seeing is not what is—it’s the opposite.
So when we look at what we’ve experienced, it’s kind of—”Ah, so let’s look at this.”
And it’s actually the feminine in its place—not in a hierarchy—but bringing it into a place of initiation. And that leadership, if you will—that.
Odiva Vasell (21:53):
Oh, we just cut out a little bit.
Lorna Gale (21:57):
Sorry, an alarm just came in. So, it’s arising—this, the feminine energy here in the masculine. And in my work, what women come to me primarily for is to be connected with their bodies and their sexuality. Men arrive to me because they want to be the best that they can be for their girlfriend, their wife, their partner.
Odiva Vasell (22:18):
Yeah.
Lorna Gale (22:20):
So, this aspect of “find out what makes you feel good,” so they can—so you can tell them. And it’s not even— even if you don’t have a partner, it’s finding out what makes you feel good physically, emotionally, energetically. Find that pleasure because that’s where the masculine comes into place in support of that.
And we’ve experienced the opposite, where it’s this—you know, this trying to protect and trying to defend—as if there’s danger and stuff like that. And that’s been a lived experience for so many, on so many levels.
Odiva Vasell (22:54):
So much to figure, yeah.
Lorna Gale (22:28):
So, we can start to bring it this way. We realize that this feminine empowerment is actually a spiritual awakening. It’s an awakening to the true power of women, to the true potency of feminine sexuality, and to the spiritual level, if you will, of their leadership in the human experience as well— in this human experience.
Odiva Vasell (23:28):
I wanna get that word that you just said—the spiritual, the awakening of the spiritual potency of their own sexuality—so that they are fully represented and fully part of the human experience. Like, that’s so powerful, and you pretty much covered my next question. You work with men and women and couples, I assume, as well?
Lorna Gale (24:00):
Yes.
Reclaiming Pleasure as a Birthright
Odiva Vasell (24:01):
How does it work with the couple that have been doing the same routine for so long? They know they need help getting past that, getting to the next level, but maybe there’s a little bit of fear, or blame, or shame that could happen. How do they approach you?
Lorna Gale (24:27):
Well, you know, it varies. There have been some couples—and I’m thinking of just the most recent ones. There was a couple that I worked with; they were in… They’ve been married for over 35 years, and they were just—they were wanting to explore some different aspects of, in fact, the BDSM and the restraint piece. They wanted to explore some of the rope work, that feeling of being restrained and held in that place of loving support.
And with all of my people, I always start with a place of consent. No. 1, not only that we’re having consent between when I invite them to, okay, touch one another or to explore things—that they are feeling empowered in what they’re choosing to do—but more than that, it goes back into reclaiming their voices and their choices and finding out: what does consent feel like in their bodies?
So, I start with what I call the “touch of consent,” and it’s really looking at taking apart… And I’m thinking also—I’m working, I have another session tomorrow night with another couple. They also have been married for over 30 years, and they were actually really struggling because, for the last eight years, due to different personal situations, their intimacy was not there. And it felt like it was going to be—they didn’t want to be continuing on that path.
And so, where do we start? And I started them both at the same place—both couples in the same place. And one of the couples said, “Wow, just with this very simple experience that I led them through over a few hours—a couple of hours that they had—it totally revolutionized, if you will, their level of intimacy.”
We were able to really take apart: why do they touch? Who are they touching for? Can they give pleasure? Can they take pleasure? Can they touch for someone’s pleasure? Can they touch for their own pleasure? And these were all in non-sexual ways—literally using the hands only.
And so, it’s this idea of taking them back to this place—energetically—where communication, resentment, anger have been. How can we talk about it? It simply opens the door for them now to spark, to speak—did it freeze a little bit?
Odiva Vasell (26:56):
It freeze a little bit, and— but I will say, one of the keywords that I’m glad you mentioned is communication. Now, I’ve— I’ve seen some programs, and we all read about it— couples having what they call sexual dysfunction. And so they go to a therapist, and then there’s all these recommendations of toys and outside gadgets or stimulation that they should use. And I think, like so much in the world of AI, we’re getting more, more, more robotic and more plastic and losing the— the human touch and the power of just a simple hand, which you talk— you took them through, and they experience something completely new.
Lorna Gale (27:52):
Yeah, very true. And emotion— sometimes that they weren’t even aware of— that were down very deep within, you know, from their own experience. But often, it’s carried over from, you know, years and decades and other experiences before, but it’s now ready to— to come to light. And— I’m sorry, I got a little hair there— and so, it’s really a matter of letting those things be felt. And that’s a key piece, is that there are so many things that we have been taught that it’s not okay to feel.
So, for example, women have been taught, you know, “You’re emotional, so feel the— feel your emotions, but don’t feel sexual.” So, you know, we get things shut down. Men, on the other hand, are taught, “Well, you’re sexual. You’re a man, you know, so you’re gonna feel sexual, but don’t feel emotional.” So, in many ways, we’ve each been taught there are certain things you shouldn’t feel. And again, I always say— how do we know when something is really powerful and valuable and important? It’s when it’s locked away, where it’s suppressed, where it’s hidden, where it’s, “Oh no, don’t go there.”
And so we kind of like— “Oh, that means…” So using that model— the fact that women’s sexuality is— has been suppressed and repressed and— and shunned and shamed and demonized. And men’s emotions have been— “Oh, it’s, you know, don’t be a wussy,” and you know, “Oh, don’t you throw like a girl,” and you know, “What are you, a little girl?” type thing. And so the— the map— the— the part of us that is the best sexual part. And yes, you said, Odiva, you know, we come from sex, so why would we demonize that very expression of us?
Odiva Vasell (29:47):
Okay, if I wanna just give…
Lorna Gale (29:49):
One of the gifts of being human is to feel. Then why would it be not okay for the males to feel?
Odiva Vasell (29:55):
I wanna repeat that, cause you were— you were fading in a little bit, but it’s so important to repeat. Why would you demonize that gift of feeling— what you feel and being who you are? And it’s just open to my eyes as well— so much awareness around how men suffer by being shut down. And they’re supposed to— they’re putting this role of the taker. So, the good sex for them means that they get more than they give. And it’s a lie because giving gives back, and feel like they’ve been— they’ve been taken from. That’s a hard burn to carry.
Lorna Gale (30:55):
It is. As we start to really bring this into what I call “riding the ship,” if you will, you know, in this changing of the tides, we’re rising— bringing it up this way. And it is the— if we look at the Yin of Yin and Yang, we often think, you know, Yin is feminine, Yang is masculine. There’s actually Yin and Yang in the feminine, and Yin and Yang in the masculine.
Odiva Vasell (31:21):
That’s right.
Lorna Gale (31:21):
So, to be able to allow, you know, that Yin— creative, flow, nurturing part of the feminine. And the— the Yang— Yang feminine is that destroyer— Callie the destroyer, you know, destructiveness. And to be able to allow that— no, there’s— it’s time for change, or no, we’re looking for justice, no more of this. So that’s allowing for that part of us is— as the feminine. And then, in the masculine— and then we think of, you know, the masculine— Yang is to, you know, to act, to do, that whole piece. We forget, or not even aware of, that the Yin masculine is like the— and my former husband— and again, I know that he played…
Odiva Vasell (32:14):
You cut out a little bit there. Okay, but I think we— we use— you drop some really good gold nuggets. And— and one of the things I wanna emphasize is that the Yin cannot exist without the Yang, and the Yang cannot exist without the Yin. And I— one of the things, if you’ve ever seen the Korean flag, it’s that circle with that dot in the white and the white dot in the black. And they just continue on and on to balance each other.
So, I’m gonna have to bring you back again when the internet is not exploding, because we’re just giving it so much energy, it’s like, “I can’t handle this!” And I’m excited to bring you back and probably even have you show us a technique or two.
Lorna Gale (33:11):
I’d love to! I would love that, Odiva, yes, thank you. And I hope that things that we’ve shared and talked about today will be enough to— for women to know that No. 1 is— there is another way. And anything that they’ve experienced that is this sense of playing small, staying quiet, shutting any part of them down is— is actually an invitation to say, “Come on home. Come and reclaim the power that’s there so that you can rise into your glory and your wholeness.”
Odiva Vasell (33:46):
I love that hand gesture you just did— “rise!” And I know that you have on your— your homepage, Reclaiming Eden. So I am already excited to welcome you back again, so we can talk about this more in the future and go deeper. Thank you so much, Lorna.
Lorna Gale (34:13):
You’re welcome, and thank you so much for— Odiva, for the— for the privilege of joy of being here.
Odiva Vasell (34:18):
Thank you.
[music]
Conclusion
Give yourself permission to feel, to connect, and to reclaim what was lost. True pleasure and deep connection start with embracing all parts of yourself—your emotions, your desires, and your inner balance. Let go of outdated beliefs that tell you what you should or shouldn’t feel. Instead, honor your own experience, trust your intuition, and step into the fullness of who you are. The more you embrace your true self, the more fulfilling and authentic your relationships—and your life—will become.