Episode 35 Unlocking the Power of Pleasure and Resilience with Penelope Neckowitz: A Journey of Transformation and Embracing Life’s Challenges

The Scrumptious Woman EP35

Sat, Nov 04, 2023 9:43AM • 31:27

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

women, scrumptious, body, thought, pleasure, feel, love, absolutely, life, age, learn, sexuality, give, podcast, call, started, orgasm, beautiful, blueprints, realise

SPEAKERS

Penelope Neckowitz, Juliette Karaman

Juliette Karaman  00:01

Hello my love’s we are back for another episode of this scrumptious woman. And I’ve got another incredible scrumptious woman here, who is Penelope Neckowitz she is an erotic blueprint coach. But she is so much more than that she has been a therapist for over 40 years, I believe. Yes. Tell us more.

Penelope Neckowitz  00:27

So, yes, so I’ve been a therapist I psychologist for 40 years. And

Penelope Neckowitz  00:37

I about maybe 10 years ago, I started to feel like I wanted to move into a different direction or add to what I was doing. I’d always worked with and with a lot of women and with individuals and with couples, but and sexuality, but then I started opening up to this world of eroticism and sexuality. And I’d love to share with you a little bit about how that came about. Because I think it’s, you know, it’s really informed the bulk of who I am and my work.

Juliette Karaman  01:10

I love your story. And I was gonna ask you all about it, because it’s so inspiring, and it can help so many others. I know, we’ve had some guests on here that have talked about spirituality, about sexuality, about your body. And now you are actually linking it to two other things. I mean, you being in a little bit more advanced age, and then being so alive in this and then having overcome some massive health issues. Tell us more my love.

Penelope Neckowitz  01:42

Thank you, Juliet. First off, I want to say I love being here with you. And I love the name so pleased podcast scrumptious woman, because that is that speaks. So like, I can feel that through my whole body. It just ripples through. And it’s really what has been happening for me in my life. But let me go back a little bit because this will give you an idea. So I had breast cancer 15 years ago. And I, I dealt with it the way I deal with every challenge, which is I am a bit of a warrior. And so I didn’t skip a beat. None of my clients knew that I had cancer. I was very fortunate. I didn’t have to go through chemo. But I went through seven weeks of radiation. And I didn’t skip a beat. I just changed my schedule. And at that time, I thought that was strength. I thought that was what it meant to be resilient. And I remember back to you there. I mean, that’s what

Juliette Karaman  02:48

I so hear you there. My mother got breast cancer, my sister died of ovarian cancer. And I remember thinking like, what would I do if I got this now? Because I had to be tested and all of this for my kids as well. And yeah, the results were like, No, get everything you know, double mastectomy hysterectomy take everything out. And I was like, You know what? My body’s saying? No, I’m gonna trust myself. But I remember before that I was thinking like, wow, what would I do what I tell my kids, would I tell my partner, or what I just kind of like Go on, do it, and then just tell them afterwards. So I completely understand you.

Penelope Neckowitz  03:26

Absolutely. And one of the things that happens when you have something like cancer, and particularly with breast cancer, you you’re I mean, you basically your body body just shuts down, you go into this warrior mode, you can strict you, you do what you need to do, at that time, what I thought I needed to do in order to be a warrior with this. But the other thing was that my sexuality went through the toilet, you know, it’s like, I’m taking these drugs that are wiping out my oestrogen. And you know, so fast forward about 10 years ago, a very, very dear. But let me just say that I got through this. I’m fine. And so fast forward. Thank God for that. Exactly. So 10 years ago, one of my very dear friends that I went to graduate school with, got diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer. And his coming to term he basically passed away six years ago. But his coming to terms with it was transformative for me. And it was a wake up call. And I would I went to graduate school in California. I go out and spent a week with him and his wife every summer and we taught he and I would talk about life and juiciness and love and passion. And I said, well, like he, he wrote five books of poetry before he’s beautiful. And I thought, wow, oh, my, I mean, this is it like this isn’t I don’t have the ability to bend time as much as I used to. And my runway has shortened. And I thought, I want to step up and think about what do I want to how do I want to live the rest of my life? And that was, that is what catapulted me on this journey that I’ve been on.

Juliette Karaman  05:46

So, so beautiful. And that’s what it is, right? Oftentimes, it might be ourselves, we go through some disease, we go through some hardship, there’s a moment where we’re like, No, we cannot go on this way. Or it’s someone else close to you. Away. Whatever, there’s, there’s so often a catalyst, it doesn’t have to, yeah, because some people just like, oh, I woke up and I want to change my life. It happens. But so often, we we do need some kind of like Wake Up Call and like, well, what are we doing? How, how are we being? Is this actually what we want?

Penelope Neckowitz  06:28

Exactly, exactly. And, you know, then I lost two other close friends, and then my brother passed away, three and a half years. You know, thank you. And so I realised, okay, like, I want to think about I really not think I want to know who I am. And what is the rest of my life? What’s my legacy? What am I leaving? What am I? What is my mission? What is my intention for this next part? And you know, Juliet, it’s really amazing, because we are all ageing, we are all dying, every single moment. From the moment we got on this call, we’re dying. And yet, I felt like I chose to say yes to life. And that’s what I work with women around is to say yes. And I’d love to share with you a little bit about that.

Juliette Karaman  07:25

Completely saying yes to live saying yes to ageing, saying less yes to being right, because the only thing that we do know is that we’re born. And when we die, and everything in between, is the bit where we can actually have fun, have pleasure. And say yes to knife.

Penelope Neckowitz  07:43

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I was thinking about I listened to one of your most recent podcasts about flirting and play. And I thought so

Juliette Karaman  07:56

much fun. I love that podcast.

Penelope Neckowitz  07:59

It was so fun. And what I thought about was that when women and I see this not, so I work, I’ve worked with women as they journey through cancer. And I also am doing a programme called women coming of age, which is from postmenopausal women. But what I know what I know is that in both situations, women constrict. They feel like their choices become really, really limited. And they shut down on themselves.

Juliette Karaman  08:36

Now, what’s one of the most common things that you see when people shut one woman shut down on themselves? What what are some of the complaints? What are some of the things that they come to you with?

Penelope Neckowitz  08:47

So I started three and a half years ago, a group called let’s talk about sex, and for women,

Juliette Karaman  08:56

about six.

Penelope Neckowitz  09:00

But it was more than just sex. It was about connecting to your eroticism your lifeforce energy is Oh my god. So here are women

Juliette Karaman  09:12

always think it’s about sex, but it’s not. There’s so much more. And we what do we want sex for? Yeah, why are we having sex? Is it me? I just have kids. I mean, some people Yes, but most of it is like we actually want that connection. We want that eroticism. We want that connection to self want the connection to Source to our partner?

Penelope Neckowitz  09:34

Absolutely. Connection to self. And so that’s really, so it was so funny because I started this group and you know, these women came in some of them with double mastectomies and a lot of shame around their bodies, a lot of feeling like a victim. And so, you know, basically I said to them, this is really about your relationship to yourself, not your partners right now. but really to have to fall back in love with yourself

Juliette Karaman  10:04

and love it.

Penelope Neckowitz  10:07

So and I know, you know, we’ve talked about mirror work, so much of what I have done with them, has been for them to get into it, to find places in their body that are sources of pleasure for them. I mean, it could be the inside of their, with their elbow, like with I mean, there are all these places on our body where we can experience pleasure. And yet we live with such a narrow idea of what pleasure is.

Juliette Karaman  10:41

Right. And I would love you to go deeper into that a bit. I mean, I do that most of the podcasts when we talk about pleasure, but I love hearing, what does pleasure mean for you, because a lot of people have been conditioned that pleasure is something has to be sexual. So it’s taboo. We can’t talk about it. We can’t think about it too much pleasure as bad.

Penelope Neckowitz  11:02

Absolutely. It’s actually funny that you said that. So I’ve started telling, you know, when I started telling women, I would say probably 60 Plus that about the work that I’m doing. And I got to the word pleasure. They would look at me with these blank stares, like what? Like, what do you mean? Like, why would I like, well, you know, I’ve got a good life, you know, I am happy. And I would, one of the things that I have begun to talk with them about is pleasure is so much larger, it has to do with how you embody how you are in your body, how you connect to yourself in a deeper, deeper way to all of it, not just all that, you know the juiciness but to the juiciness comes from going through all of it. Both the pain and the challenges, and the joy.

Juliette Karaman  12:03

Right, it’s very sensation full. And people are not used to actually slowing down enough to feel sensations. And oftentimes they get labelled like, oh, yeah, that’s uncomfortable. I don’t want to get shoved under the carpet under the rug. And it’s like, okay, and then all of a sudden, we realise it’s like, oh, our body’s not functioning as well, we have disease where we’re, you know, we’re creating a life that we don’t actually enjoy being in.

Penelope Neckowitz  12:35

Absolutely, absolutely. So, and one of the things that so I’m also certified as embodied female pleasure facilitator. And so wondering, what does that mean? Or so it’s about how to be in your body in a very grounded kind of way, how to move through a motion, how to find how to find like, how to experience and explore sensation throughout your body, as well, as you know, I do a lot of training in different kinds of orgasms. And, you know, and in the erotic blueprints, one of the things that I love is how we’re wired for pleasure in different ways. And how to play with that and how to expand that

Juliette Karaman  13:30

completely right, and that there is no right and wrong way to do it. Because that’s what I oftentimes feel that women one when we work with them, or a couples that I work with, they’re like, why can’t you just give me a sequence that will work every time, like, it doesn’t have to be able to do that, but it doesn’t, because, you know, you yourself might be thinking about some kind of contract that you’re right in the middle of or your business is not doing so well. So you might not be in pleasure. So your partner’s gonna feel that she or they or whatever gender they are, might also be thinking of something else, or there might be finances, or one of your kids might be having something. So it’s like, so there are all these other variables that come in that we can give you a certain sequence that you can try, but try it five days in a row and see how different the results are every time.

Penelope Neckowitz  14:28

Absolutely every time. And you know, there’s another aspect to this. Absolutely. Here’s another aspect I think is really important. So I’m older. And so one of the things I see with women who are somewhat roughly in my age range, is that, you know, and my daughter’s 29 It’s very different like this, being able to say no, and consent. She’ll say, Mom, of course I know about that. But women my age Don’t really have not been brought up that way we’ve been brought up to be people pleasers, we’ve been brought up to be caretakers and, and caregivers. And so the idea that you can claim your pleasure for yourself, that’s radical. It’s really rough. And then you can say no. And that you can tailor it to, like, each time, it can be a little bit different based on what your body is saying to you. That’s pretty, that’s pretty radical. For women. Absolutely.

Juliette Karaman  15:37

Bye, that we can say yes or no to something and either is good. We don’t need to make any excuses. We don’t need to give justification for why we say yes or no. But these are all things that you know, I’m 55. So I’ve been taught or so you know, I’ve got four kids, and I was taught, you’re there for them. You got to give up your life to be a mother. Not mine so much. But you know, it’s like your kids come first. That’s so to kind of like, unlearn that. Because we have to earn learn a lot. And we we were born and we were perfect as babies and we knew exactly that we could receive and we could just ask for for things. And it was was easy until all these conditions came in. Right. And we we learned stuff but from from around us. So we need to just kind of like are we do unlearn things. And oftentimes, I’ve noticed it does take a community and it does help when there are other woman when there are other people that are having those kinds of experiences, it just goes so much quicker exponential jumps we have

Penelope Neckowitz  16:48

absolutely I’ll tell you, for me what was has been transformative is being in groups of women, and a sense of sisterhood, and community. Women supporting each other around that you don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to look a particular way our bodies are, we are perfect whole and complete exactly as we are, we don’t have to fit some societal image of what women should look like. It’s pretty remarkable when you really allow yourself to step into that.

Juliette Karaman  17:21

What are some of the things what are some of the changes that you’ve seen in woman that have worked with you?

Penelope Neckowitz  17:29

Ah, um, I think the big Well, you know, what, what is really important is, um, so I believe, like one of the things that being trained the way I have been, I mean, life is filled with uncertainty. And we live in a place of where there’s so much we just don’t know. And we have to be willing, and brave and courageous to step into the unknown. And it’s, one of the things that I work with is how people’s nervous systems are regulated, and to really help them to learn about that, and to honour that. But instead of shutting down and constricting when, because things as we age, or if you have a challenge or just being alive, is unknown, or uncertain, instead of shutting down, to move through it, to hold it, to feel it in your body to learn how to do that. So one of the things I’ve know I’ve watched with people I’ve worked with is they learn that and they are sort of amazed like that they have they really have some delight, like wow, like this is life is filled with these surprises. And that’s where that’s where our eroticism comes from. That’s where our lifeforce energy comes from, is life is filled with surprise, and we embrace that. And I love that.

Juliette Karaman  19:10

Wonderful and that go ahead.

Penelope Neckowitz  19:12

No, I was gonna say what are you? What is your thought about that?

Juliette Karaman  19:17

Well, this is the whole thing. This is why I called my this this podcast is scrumptious woman because you know, I was talking, oh, I made a real this morning or earlier on today about we don’t often see what people go through. I am all about embodiment and moving it the only way out is through so you have to move it through your body. You have to move the emotions of thought the body sensations, whatever comes up some images, you know, give it give it a certain characteristic and really just start getting into touch a bit. We often times don’t even have language for that. It’s like oh, you I’m feeling a constriction in my chest and they’re like, how do you know that I’m like, because it feels tight, where the edges are a little bit jagged, and maybe it feels like heavy and it kind of feels like density and it’s got grey colour and they’re like, whoa, okay, but I can’t feel about but now that you say what you’re feeling in your chest, I can feel that. Oh, okay, so now I have an embodied sense of what’s going on in your body. So now you and I are intimately connected. We’ve just spent a moment that I’ve actually explained what’s going on and inside me, too. It’s like, oh, my husband doesn’t even know this. My children down now this is like, because we haven’t been taught. That’s right. That’s right. So yeah, we don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s life here we might see that they’re super successful on they’re very visible, etc. But we have this poor little nervous system that just goes oh, I’m not sure I can be this visible. Like, like when I got like, over 20,000 downloads on my podcast. I was like, oh, oh my goodness, not quite sure. Oh, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah. I wanted to be successful, but I’m not sure what to be that successful. A lot from my law law nervous system. So I do the practices every day, and I move it through my body. And it’s like camp, we actually learn how to build our capacity and how to get in touch with the scrumptious pneus with this life force of the Chi with the prana whatever you want to call it, orgasm. I mean, I’ve been doing sacred sexuality for over 15 years. So this is really my gig. Once you can connect to that.

Penelope Neckowitz  21:50

I love it. And that is so a minute scrumptious and it’s sort of like in Harry Met Sally I want some of what she’s having.

Juliette Karaman  22:02

And we turn each other on right we turn each other’s lights on when we’re when we’re together and community and one actually already on online because energy travels so when we can be with other people and praise them for who they are and actually just see that vivacious knows that that scrumptious knows that lifeforce that orgasm, that chi. It’s like, oh my god, I’m feeling this in my body. Now I now in turn, I am turning on all the people around me. And before we know, there’s a ripple effects all over the world.

Penelope Neckowitz  22:36

So and what I love about it, and what, what is scrumptious to me is that it you know, we don’t, we may have an idea of what that looks like. But it’s it, it’s different for each person, there’s definitely an energy out there, absolutely an energy out there. But, you know, to be able to touch even a little bit of that is so precious. It is so yummy. It is so wonderful. And, you know, I that’s part of what I do with the women. It’s like, you know, they have a really hard time envisioning, you know, I have these I don’t have breasts, I don’t know what I don’t like, I have no feeling in my chest. I you know, I haven’t had any luck or women who are postmenopausal. You know, I don’t have any sex drive. Like, I feel invisible. I wear you know, what is possible for me. And so we start really slow. I mean, it’s really interesting, because in the terms of the erotic blueprints, and I know you’ve interviewed a lot of people, I use all I mean, I’m, I’m a shapeshifter, and I use all of the different blueprints to help women to connect to those tiny little parts in themselves. Because that’s what I’ve done for myself. You know, it’s totally what I’ve done for myself.

Juliette Karaman  24:00

And it’s interesting, right, and another community that I was part of, and that I brought their coaching community to London, we call it following, so where people actually start to thaw so the ice, the bracing that we’ve put in place that just starts to loosen a little bit, and it’s kind of like the ice starts to fall and all of a sudden, things become sensation for and they might not always be pleasurable, that’s very sensation for and even numb, I’m numb, it means that you can feel that you have very little feelings in a certain part. So that is a beautiful start to it. It’s like if you start feeling numb, it’s like okay, where do those edges of the numbness start? Where do you start to actually feeling a little bit of sensation is there a temperature there? Is there a vibration is there Pressure give? Can you just describe it a little bit more? Does it even feel like there might be a colour or a sound? Or is it feel buttery, velvety, ragged, thorny. When you start giving people language and communication tools like this, or like, oh, right, I didn’t realise I could actually feel

Penelope Neckowitz  25:23

that’s right. And you learn, you teach them to titrate. And to titrate, because it’s not all or nothing, we learn to take small steps, and we titrate some people are able to take huge steps. But each step can be celebrated and can be felt in the body. And, you know, the other part of this is, in addition to all of this wonderful, juicy stuff, of like really beginning to feel in our bodies. I mean, some of what I also work with people around is the really hard questions around what’s, you know, what does this mean that I’m ageing? What does this mean that I may die? Or that not that I made that I’ve worked, you know, that I’m gonna die at some point? What does it mean that life as I know, it, is shifting. And those are really huge, huge, but so rewarding those questions. That’s where we how we, those are. I was just gonna say, that’s how we have transformation.

Juliette Karaman  26:35

That is, I’ve had the honour of actually helping people pass over and there’s been a few clients, and there have been a few family members. And that period of time is so beautiful, because there is nothing to get to. And it is you can put all your attention on that person so that they feel ready to go. And of course, yes, it means you know, creating a safe enough space for that and also helping with, with bringing their legacy to life with, okay, you’ve got six months to live, what can we do in those six months that you feel the most scrumptious that you feel the healthiest that you’ve said your goodbyes that you’ve done your thing that maybe you’ve, you’ve started a charity, it’s started, whatever it is, but it’s so rewarding. It’s so beautiful to help people with this.

Penelope Neckowitz  27:35

It is that for me, that’s really that’s been a main part of the reason I moved into this was because I had gone through it myself. And I had dealt with a lot of loss in my life. And I’ve had I mean, to me, it’s a gift to be with someone when they who allows you to be with them as they’re dying. And we had a person in our circle, who we created a healing circle for one of the women in our group, who since has passed over. And it was, it was such a moving experience it she hurt. Her son was there. Her sister was there. And she was able to receive from everyone in the group. It was quite a beautiful, beautiful and a gift to me to be able to witness and be with people in that way.

Juliette Karaman  28:35

Completely. It has been incredible. I have loved our talk and I’m sure a lot of listeners are like, oh my goodness, this lady is this woman is massively deep. I want to learn about her. I have someone that is going through breast cancer. I have someone who is postmenopausal and actually wants to work with someone like you how can people find you?

Penelope Neckowitz  29:07

So I have a website which is in my name. It’s Penelope Necco. It’s it’s P E N e L O P E, N E CKOWITZ. I know that’s a mouthful.com. I’m on Facebook under my name and in LinkedIn and I have a new website that will be coming out within probably the next six months called women coming of age.com

Juliette Karaman  29:38

beautiful everything will go on the show notes. So please have a look at the show notes to see where you can find Penelope will how he can start following her so please, all of you follow all of us follow me Juliet Karaman on instagram or facebook follow Panetta Pay on Facebook and really play. pay this forward if you know someone that will love this episode, send it to them saying hey, there were these two women on there that I think you should just listen to. You might enjoy it, you might get some pleasure into your life.

Penelope Neckowitz  30:16

I love it. Me What

Juliette Karaman  30:22

are gonna ask you for one last thing? What are two things that you can give our listeners to take away? What can they do to bring in more scrumptious pneus more pleasure.

Penelope Neckowitz  30:34

So embrace life’s challenges as a gift as a way of becoming larger. And because I’m really becoming living a bigger life and connect to your lifeforce and embrace your sexuality. This is not a privilege. This is your birthright. And there is no age in which you are too old to be a set hot, sexy being embrace it with all of you.

Juliette Karaman  31:10

I have loved having you this has been absolutely scrunches. Thank you so much for coming on.

Penelope Neckowitz  31:16

Thank you, Julia. It’s been a real pleasure. It’s been wonderful. Thank you for having me.

Juliette Karaman  31:23

Bye bye.