Blog
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Pleasure when things fall apart

I don’t often post about my personal life, but some aspects of life we all experience. I’m facing the death of my mother in the coming weeks. And it’s complicated.

What does this mean for you and what I offer to you? I will have more limited availability. I may have to postpone something at the last minute. Max Pearl and I have postponed our Wheel of Consent workshop in Chicago, moving it from August to sometime in the spring of 2024.

I’m taking my own pleasure practices seriously. That means prioritizing care amidst responsibilities. I’m allowing myself rest amidst intensity and being called on for instantaneous needs in my family relationships. It also means making space for grief. And joy. And the absurdity of human experiences when things fall apart. Really, for all the feelings, associations, memories this kind of time brings. To keep in contact with my body and the sensations that are present, and for my needs for solitary time and for connection with loved ones and friends. To seek the support I need, that my web of connections and beloveds need.

I worked in hospice settings for ten years. Years ago, I fostered my grandmothers both through their deaths, sharing jokes and breathing, presence and wonder at the process. I’m exceptionally lucky to have those experiences and the skills from them to guide me through.

All of you who have been clients or students have given me gifts for this experience. I carry with me all your tenderness and vulnerability as I enter this journey. The joys and tears and transformation of your experiences are part of my guidepost for this time in my life. Thank you for those gifts.

But death and pleasure? Isn’t this work supposed to be all sexy and everything? Can these two things be considered together? Yes. I feel the anchor of pleasure to help me remain present in this hard time. As I foster my parent through the end of her life, I intend to bring the gifts of being with my own grief, my own relief, and the reminder of how nourishing and essential pleasure is in the midst of it all. To be with connection, relationship and community amidst it all. As generations of my ancestors teach me, life is for the living.

Did I mention that there are so many lessons on choice and choosing, on consent in times like this? With a hefty dose of tenderness towards our bodies as they change. More on that some other time.

Thank you for reading this vulnerable post. Wishing you sweet joys and pleasure. For their own sake and/or to comfort you from the hard times when things fall apart.

If you are seeking support for grief about the death of a loved one, I recommend checking out Agrace’s grief support services, found here. If you’d like my support in connecting to pleasure amidst it all, please be in touch.

 

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Wheel of Consent class in person, Chicago! August 18-20

We have POSTPONED this event until the spring of 2024 due to family medical emergencies for both facilitators. STAY TUNED!

We invite you to join us for a Wheel of Consent practice laboratory in a six week online course! Register Here

Why is it so hard to ask for what we want? What gets in our way? How can we learn to know what we want, trust in our own desires, and communicate that to others? 

I keep exploring these questions as I delve deeper into working with the https://www.schoolofconsent.org/ as a Wheel of Consent Certified Facilitator. The model of the Wheel and the exercises that help us learn about it help us with questions about ‘who is it for’? Who is the gift of our actions for? Is it for me or is it for them? These practices help us discern and tease apart who is doing an action and who is it for. It anchors it in practices that help us notice our wants, trust ourselves that what we want is real, value that we are allowed to want what we want, and to communicate it with clarity.

Where do we practice these skills? I’ll be co-teaching a weekend workshop with my friend and colleague, Max Pearl August 18-20, 2023. Join us!

In this workshop, we will take time to explore how to notice what we want. We will practice naming our desires, honing our senses for feeling ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in our bodies. We’ll practice listening and being listened to. We will wake up our senses together to build trust in ourselves first, and in each other as we communicate. Asking for what we want can feel daunting, and it gets easier with practice. Max and I set a spacious, compassionate container to explore and practice in a low-stakes environment.

Register Here

or see more about the event on my events page.

Because of who we are as teachers, we offer a space that raises up marginalized voices instead of mostly the default white, western, cis/het voice. We are offering a coalition space (hat-tip to Bernice Johnson Reagon) for practicing and learning the Wheel of Consent. It is a learning space for us to practice together, even when it is uncomfortable, with a vision towards and supporting our shared growth. For this workshop, we will reserve 50% of the participant list for BIPOC registrants in order to fully inhabit that coalition space. (Why are we doing this?)

 

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Wheel of Consent online practice laboratory offered again!

We invite you to join us for a Wheel of Consent practice laboratory in a six week online course! Register Here

Why is it so hard to ask for what we want? What gets in our way? How can we learn to know what we want, trust in our own desires, and communicate that to others? 

I keep exploring these questions as I delve deeper into my training with the https://www.schoolofconsent.org/ as a Wheel of Consent Certified Facilitator. The model of the Wheel and the exercises that help us learn about it help us with questions about ‘who is it for’? Who is the gift of our actions for? Is it for me or is it for them? These practices help us discern and tease apart who is doing an action and who is it for. It anchors it in practices that help us notice our wants, trust ourselves that what we want is real, value that we are allowed to want what we want, and to communicate it with clarity.

Where do we practice these skills? I’ll be co-teaching a 6-week online workshop with my friend and colleague, Max Pearl starting in March 2022. Join us!

In this practice laboratory, we will take time to explore how to notice what we want. We will practice naming our desires, honing our senses for feeling ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in our bodies. We’ll practice listening and being listened to. We will wake up our senses together to build trust in ourselves first, and in each other as we communicate. Asking for what we want can feel daunting, and it gets easier with practice. Each week will build on the last.

Register Here

or see more about the event on my events page.

Because of who we are as teachers, we offer a space that raises up marginalized voices instead of mostly the default white, western, cis/het voice. We are offering a coalition space (hat-tip to Bernice Johnson Reagon) for practicing and learning the Wheel of Consent. It is a learning space for us to practice together, even when it is uncomfortable, with a vision towards and supporting our shared growth.

 

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Current COVID precautions for in person office visits

Current COVID precautions:

As variants of the virus emerge and sweep through, here are some of the protocols I’m following and requirements I have for meeting clients in my office. I will see you in person if you are vaccinated and boosted only. I am vaccinated and boosted, and will continue to update that as needed. I will wear an n95 or a kn95 mask when we meet in person. As long as mask mandates are in place for Dane County, you are required to wear them in the building. I have increased the ventilation in my office with a medical grade air filter (MedifyAir) and have an additional filter running in the waiting room. We can open windows as well. My office is spacious enough for us to be at a distance. We can absolutely discuss any other accommodations.

Online sessions for coaching work are always an option. If you have had an exposure or find yourself having symptoms (or simply not feeling like getting out of the house), please do not come in. This request is true for any communicable illness you may have. We can either work online or reschedule.

This pandemic has been and might continue to be a long haul. Let’s nourish community care through our precautions and find calm and pleasure along the way.

Want to learn more about setting limits and communicating desires? Want to talk about how these COVID precautions are part of embodied consent? Please be in touch!

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Wheel of Consent online learning laboratory

We invite you to join us for a Wheel of Consent online learning laboratory!

Why is it so hard to ask for what we want? What gets in our way? How can we learn to know what we want, trust in our own desires, and communicate that to others? 

I keep exploring these questions as I delve deeper into my training with the https://www.schoolofconsent.org/ as a Wheel of Consent Certified Facilitator. The model of the Wheel and the exercises that help us learn about it help us with questions about ‘who is it for’? Who is the gift of our actions for? Is it for me or is it for them? But even before that, how can we notice, trust, value, and communicate what we want?

Where do we practice these skills? I’ll be co-teaching a 6-week online workshop with my friend and colleague, Max Pearl starting in March 2022. Join us!

In this practice laboratory, we will take time to explore how to notice what we want. We will practice naming our desires, honing our senses for feeling ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in our bodies. We’ll practice listening and being listened to. We will wake up our senses together to build trust in ourselves first, and in each other as we communicate. Asking for what we want can feel daunting, and it gets easier with practice. Each week will build on the last.

To register: https://bit.ly/MarchWheelCourse

or see more about the event on my events page

Because of who we are as teachers, we offer a space that raises up marginalized voices instead of mostly the default white, western, cis/het voice. We are offering a coalition space (hat-tip to Bernice Johnson Reagon) for practicing and learning the Wheel of Consent. It is a learning space for us to practice together, even when it is uncomfortable, with a vision towards and supporting our shared growth.

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Pricing changes

You may have noticed that I shifted my pricing to include a sliding scale. After many years of charging a flat rate for my work, I wanted to find a way to acknowledge the additional trainings and certifications I’ve gained since starting out. I’m bringing you a greater depth of skills and resources. The cost of living due to inflation has also increased. So while the pricing you are used to will still be available, I’ve included an upper range. As a practice in making choices (a key of the consent skills I teach), I invite you to choose, from the heart, where within this range you are able and willing to pay. I still offer a reduced rate for those in need by request.

If you find yourself facing challenges in choosing, here is one way to consider it:

For coaching sessions, $150 for a 90 minute session is a sustainable amount for my work. $135 is a discounted amount (if you are only just meeting your own basic financial needs of rent/food/transportation). If you are comfortable in your life and able to have extra above your basic financial needs, I suggest paying higher than the sustainable amount. You help make my work accessible to others! (If you are unable to meet your basic financial needs, please contact me about my limited number of reduced rate slots. Especially for BIPOC, trans/gnc/queer people, people with disabilities).

For bodywork sessions, $200 for a 90 minute session is a sustainable amount for my work. $185 is a discounted amount. If you are in a comfortable place financially, I invite you to pay at a higher rate (beyond $200) to support this scale.

Have questions? Want to talk about embodied ways to wrangle with money? I offer sessions on this, too! Working with money can be hard in similar ways to working with sex/sexuality/pleasure. Many of the skills I can share with you apply and can make your life better. Please be in touch! I love sharing this work with you.

For more on sliding scale and ways and whys of considering it, see this blog post.

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An event: Creating home in our bodies: gender contentment through mindfulness and movement

I will be co-facilitating this offering on Nov. 6, 2021 with my colleague and friend, Max Pearl. It is specifically for trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people.

Here’s the description:
As trans and NB/gnc people, we may experience our bodies as a place of conflict, dysphoria or unease. Do you wonder how to attend to and change that? Do you want to find a place of contentment with your body and your gender? Do you want greater access to joy and gender euphoria?

Join us for a day long retreat where we will introduce you to embodied mindfulness, self-compassion, and attending to pleasure. Practicing these can lead us to acceptance of ourselves, making rootedness and pleasure an ordinary experience in our daily lives. We will nourish gender contentment by supporting the movement of our baselines from dysphoria and discomfort towards gender euphoria.

Find out more (including registration link) on the Events page! We would love to have you join us!

 

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News and new offerings: Wheel of Consent

The pandemic has changed so much for all of us and we continue to live through a lot. Some changes are in the making for me and Integrated Eros. One is that I am completing my Facilitator Certification with the School of Consent (I am currently a Facilitator in Training). I’ve worked for many years with Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent, sharing this transformative model with clients, in dance classes and in workshops. I’m thrilled to be on course to teach this work at a deeper level and to collaborate with colleagues from all over the world.

There are two questions that the Wheel of Consent helps us clarify, in any given interaction: who is it for? and who is doing the action?

These two questions help us untangle the often confusing notions we have around giving and receiving. In that untangling, we can come closer to noticing why we don’t ask for what we want. We can come closer to knowing how to feel in our bodies the tenderness and vulnerability of receiving fully. We can tap into our generosity, our integrity, our gratitude, and our surrender. We can learn to notice our desires and limits. We can learn to trust that our senses are real. We can learn to value ourselves, that it’s ok to want what we want and to be willing or not to do something. We can build skills in communicating those wants and limits. These are gifts of working with the Wheel of Consent.

Some of these practices can be learned with touch, and many can be learned on your own or with non-touch practices.

I will be offering workshops, both online and in-person. As always, I incorporate practices from the Wheel of Consent into coaching and bodywork that I offer to you in sessions. You can take and apply these practices to many places in your life, as you wish.

Want to know more? Interested in bringing some of this practice into your life? I would love to share it with you! Please be in touch.

The Wheel of Consent

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Pleasure during a time of social distancing

As many of us are experiencing the changes required by precautions for COVID-19, it can be easy to forget pleasure, or to use it as an easy distraction or escape. I’d like to offer some ideas for other strategies.

First, I encourage all of us to take universal precautions. Social distancing, washing hands with soap and water, avoiding touching our faces, using the crook of our elbows for coughing or sneezing. Also, keep yourself informed, offsetting panic or fear by gaining knowledge to take into reasonable action. Even if we as individuals feel healthy, there are those of us with compromised bodies or in high risk populations. Check in on those in your circles. We are all in this together and none of us is invincible. Let’s hold each other, all of us, in regard and care. It’s a great starting point for justice in the world.

With these precautions, what else can we do? I love making lists. Here are a few ideas to stoke your imagination.

Find pleasure in the alone time! (I’m challenged by this action in my ambivert ways, needing social interaction as a thread of my happiness. I say these to myself as reminders). Find time outside if you can. Lakes, trees, landscape and animal companions, wild or not, make wonderful companions. Dance in your home. Touch your own body in enjoyable ways. Explore new practices. Set a timer or alarm as reminders to breathe deeply. Sing. Whisper stories to your own body about desire. Paint your body in the light through the windows. Have a skype/whatsapp/zoom/signal date with a beloved playfriend or partner. Make a pleasure activity with a partner that includes anything but kissing or faces touching. Limitations can be hot. Write erotic stories, which can be as simple as lists of what you want to do or have done to you. In a moment of bravery, share it with another who says yes. Feel into your body, asking it to reveal desire to you. Feel your tongue on the inside of your mouth, letting it roll around your teeth. Pat and stroke and scritch and scrub your body in satisfying ways. Do a striptease in the mirror for yourself with an applause sound track. Keep going.

Spend some time in activity and some in reflection or contemplation. Touch into as much playfulness as you can. Use these ideas as an incantation, a map, a starting point.

If you would like support in stepping into these kinds of practices, please be in contact. I am offering coaching sessions online via Zoom. I am happy to hear from you.

all my best, Sasha

 

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Website update!

Welcome to the updated version of Integrated Eros (integratederos.com)! I’m updating content, adding easier ways to register for events and classes and telling you more about what I do.

A few recent events I’ve participated in this past month:

Please see the events page for some upcoming offerings, including new workshops on the Wheel of Consent and my regular classes at A Woman’s Touch.

Curious to know more? Please get in touch with me with questions about sessions and how my work can benefit you. I’d love to hear from you!

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integrated eros

Sasha Lasdon
Somatic Sex Educator and Intimacy Coach
Certified Sexological Bodyworker

Contact Sasha
integrated eros logo

contact us

integratederos@gmail.com
608.520.0146

313 Price Place, Suite 110
Madison, WI 53705