Kamala Leslie is a power house who believes that it’s a woman’s birthright to feel radiant, sensually alive, and in love with the body she’s in and to feel completely safe and free to have the fulfilling sexual experiences she deeply craves.
If you are a woman who knows there is more to your experience of being a sexual being in a female body on this planet, Kamala is the woman you need to know. Kamala is not only confident but she can teach you to create trustable safety in your body so you can enjoy more and more exquisite turn on and pleasure, and well, we all need a little bit more of that.
We spent some time with Kamala to find out more…
Tell us the journey that lead you to becoming a holistic sexuality coach/teacher…
There are so many pieces to my story + I plan to write a book! But, when I first became a health coach in 2012, I had already been exploring my own sexual healing for quite some time, since my early 20s really.
What I found when I started a new business as a health coach, was that while I found diet and lifestyle to be SO important to our thriving as women, I wanted to provide transformation on a different level.
When I would go within, what I found was that my adult life journey was profoundly connected to the awakening and healing and reclaiming of this part of myself~ my body and sex as sacred AND as something that I get to enjoy.
I found that the more I healed my sexual wounding and fears, both inside of relationship and out, that I was more empowered in my life overall. My intuition was clearer + I acted on it way more.
I ended unhealthy relating patterns with men.
I felt more confident and took more risks.
I saw my own beauty both inside and out in a new light ~ like this undeniable magnetism from within had woken up.
I felt things more deeply as I wasn’t numbing out from fear of feeling….
It is as if loving our sexuality and letting ourselves feel good IS a gateway to our destiny and a life fulfilled.
I also realized that I really have a gift in talking about sexuality with others. I’ve often been the one to say the thing in the room that people are thinking and no one wants to say.
An openness, an invitation to share more freely about what are deemed “taboo” topics.
I felt a strong inner calling to honor this gift~ this sort of unrelenting inner nudge that said, “hey this is really important and the way a woman feels when she’s been violated or shut down or taught to criticize herself and doubt herself relentlessly… this needs to change!” (and a secondary agenda to end bad sex on the planet!)
It is even known in the world of traditional psychotherapy that most therapists don’t know how to broach the topic of sex with their clients! So when this extensive training I did showed up in 2017, it was the missing link to give me the missing structure I needed to step more fully and consistently into offering this work to women, to pull together the pieces of many years of study, practice, and experience.
You believe that it’s every woman’s birth right to feel radiant and sensually alive. Why is this important to you?
My experience is when a woman is tapped into her life force, her shameless pleasure, and core vitality, she is a force of generous creative power and transformative beauty.
There has, until more recently, been next to no real or quality research on female sexuality, the orgasmic magic our bodies are capable of, our desire and thus fulfillment in life. What that actually says is: it doesn’t matter, “she” doesn’t matter.
Women have been led to believe that what they see on the menu of life ~ who they can be, what they can express (according to society, religion, etc) is all that’s available to them.
I think this is the reason that so many women don’t feel connected to their desire.
Really, we just need an expanded menu. I help women expand their menu.
Historically, and speaking in general terms in patriarchal cultures, women have been treated by men as a whole, as if they exist simply for what they can give a man: children, household labor, and maintaining his own sense of gratification and power as the one in control.
In agricultural societies and with the advent of the plough, the concept of property was born.
At that time, women, too, came to be treated as property. Women were seen for how they could add value to a man’s life through marriage … (as property!)
So, in a sense, women existed only for men and our value came through *their* eyes, their desire, and their assignment of our worth.
In modern times, I’ll assert that a Western woman most importantly ought to have free choice over the path she chooses (whether it be a domestic calling or something else). AND, I believe all of this subjugation of the female body, of suppressing feminine power, of shaming her sexuality and controlling or ignoring her sexual pleasure (in part by feeding us the lie that women don’t have as much sexual desire as men!!) has come at a great price to the mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health of women, and the health of the planet overall.
It is literally like keeping a woman cut off from her internal creative power source. Our vaginas, when in orgasmic pleasure, literally connect to centers of our brain that turn on creative brilliance, mystical states of consciousness, and JOY.
So when a woman is given the sovereignty, support, and holistic education, to tap into what makes her feel most alive, her own value system, her intrinsic worth and self-approval through her own eyes~ and the freedom to be, do, and have this…..THIS is a lit up woman….
This is a woman who has influence, a voice, a woman who gets to thrive inside her own body, her desire, her lust, her wildness, her love… and in her own life…. Free to pursue the dreams her female ancestors might never have had a chance to… I feel this is so huge! This can LOOK so many ways for any given woman, but what’s happening inside of her is what is KEY.
Women living this way, sourced from their beauty and core, is, I believe what will heal our planet in these stressful, chaotic times. Our bodies carry so much wisdom…our joy heals.. Our wildness liberates…. The times of subjugating women’s brilliance, sexuality, and power MUST come to an end! So this is why I believe it is her, our, birthright to live from this place inside of ourselves.
Who we are is so much more than how we can be a supporting role to someone else’s narrative.
How did you overcome the shame you had around your own personal sexual pleasure?
I’ve had a continuous journey of profound healing + awakening. It really started in my college years when I realized how cut off I was from my body and my sexuality.
I was numb and depressed and literally felt my sex and my body didn’t belong to me.
When I got into yoga and African dance, something started to wake up because I HAD to be in my body to do those things with any skill, and even though facing some of the numbed feelings was really hard at times, it was like a fire of feminine-knowing got lit inside of me…. I felt myself at my core.
My healing of my shame around sexuality and pleasure was intimately tied in to my connection to a higher power or source. So I kept following my knowing towards teachers, positive communities, and sexuality courses/trainings and trusting in my own lived experience to overcome feeling incredibly anxious and disconnected to feeling so comfortably connected, at ease, and powerful inside my own pleasure and body.
This awareness is paramount because our planet has so much fear of a feminine power and pleasure and the criticisms can, will, and do come.
You’ve been in this industry for many years, have you seen things change in that time? If so, how?
Yes, we are in a time where sexual wellness is a burgeoning new industry *and* there is a lot of pussy power content out in the media. Social media has of course changed a lot so there is so much content viewable and accessible.
Simultaneously, the social media platforms enact A LOT of censorship in this field so it is more and more (and more!) difficult to create visibility through the paid advertising mediums on these platforms, which is tricky business-wise.
There is such a massive NEED for holistic education around sexuality, pleasure, and body love on our planet so I see this growth to be very positive. I am also seeing many more educators who are BIPOC and serving BIPOC and this is so so needed so that the female sex coaching space doesn’t end up looking like the white yoga girl movement on IG and excluding large parts of the population.
However, some of the ways that pussy power gets hyped and the ways the jade egg entered the mainstream media can be problematic.
It can end up seeming like a trend, and like another way we must be or feel with a certain image or lifestyle attached, which creates new pressure on women.
Female sexuality and pleasure can once again become this consumable “product” that comes and goes in the marketplace and is still considered frivolous and unimportant. IN that way, true healing and empowerment isn’t actually happening because the systems within and without have not changed.
But with any change, there will always be the pros and cons. I am a stand for safe, non-discriminatory sex-positive pleasure based education + healing to become more widely accepted and I do trust that any potential client or student will know how to sort through the fluff and find the quality, trustable teachers and programs.
Talk us through an average day in your life…
As a highly sensitive and empathic woman, my pleasure embodiment rituals (which can be quite mystical and magical) *really* keep me connected to my inner pulse in these crazy times!
What journey do you take your clients on and how do you want them to feel at the end?
Each woman’s journey will, of course, be unique and one of the trademarks of how I work is really getting each woman to honor + celebrate her uniqueness.
So many women have come to me with some version of body shame, feeling defective, or broken, or locked up around more powerful, free embodied self-expression sexually or sensually… and so bringing her into a place where she powerfully rediscovers her trust and love in herself, connected to her essence and inner power is always a part of it. Helping her to feel good in her own skin.
In our culture, the attention we are often taught as women to give ourselves is negative: self criticism, self doubt, self consciousness, comparison, and editing/censoring ourselves. I teach women how to put the right kind of attention on themselves in a way that heals, awakens, and FREES them. This shift is huge + key.
Both my 1:1 coaching + my Jade Queen jade egg course take women on a beautiful journey where we assess where she is now, and what she most deeply desires to be experiencing. We get very present with what she is actually experiencing in her body around these things~ we do clearing around shame, old relationship hurts, old belief systems, and literally clear these from the body.
I guide women through powerfully expressing emotion in a somatic way~ rage, grief, longing, and there is a way that this activates so much self connection and is revitalizing.
She learns to stay connected to herself, her body, and her feelings regardless of what is going on. To listen to her inner signals, to break free from people-pleasing patterns and to take exciting risks in the direction of her desires, be they intimate or out in the world.
Then there is always a part of the journey towards the end around expansion… around her learning to trust pleasure in her body…. Around learning to trust her own surrender into these ecstatic feelings of love and sensual bliss…..
This journey will unfold in its own way for each woman, but that is often the trajectory it takes.
AND, the literal act of guiding a woman with her breath, her attention, her touch, her gaze, her LOVE into her pu$$y IS in itself profound for so many women.
At the end, I guide a woman to feel this inner trust, this inner agency, and ability to hold herself, to recognize the hooks of self criticism, fear, of cultural ways that make her feel less-than or ashamed, and I teach her to keep loving herself back to trusting her desires and turn-on and her sovereign power…..
I guide her to become full of herself (literally!)…. of her own essence + creative power as a beautiful force of nature that she can empower to boldly lead her in her life, both in the bedroom, and out. And of course, I want her to LOVE her pussy
Since launching your business, what has been your proudest moment?
Any time I get to hear a direct story from a client about her self-reclamation, using her voice where she hadn’t before, her falling in love with herself and not hiding her desire, a vulnerable risk she took that she finally felt the courage to take… her creative or business breakthroughs, I am SO moved.
I’ve had women have very profound ecstatic awakenings through our work that literally is like them coming home to themselves and to their sacred place of belonging on this planet and that brings me tears of joy.
Looking back since you started, is there anything that you would do differently?
If I were to do anything differently, it would of course be to dive into sticking with teaching this work much sooner! I started moon yoga classes for women only in my mid-20s then lost touch with it when I started studying with a male teacher. I wouldn’t have abdicated the inner knowing I already had at age 25 to him, but in the end, I am still here with all my wisdom and passion, and my work is being offered to those who really need it!
What does self care mean to you?
I really think of self care at a couple of different levels. There is, of course, the more obvious level that so many of us women are familiar with now: quality rest, eating well but enjoying a favorite treat, spa-days, luxury vacation, yoga retreats. Treating ourselves well, really in a way that refills our tank and helps us relax.
(I would include my simple daily self pleasure practices in this~ though depending on where a woman is at in her sexuality journey, the practices inside a coaching container with specific intentions may work on the other two levels.)
Then the next level is the self care that inner work asks us to do: letting go of that relationship that is draining us, asking a boss for a raise, surrounding ourselves with people that make us feel good + support our dreams in life, cutting out that habit that’s starting to tax our mental state, building up better saving or investment habits…
…
And the deepest level, I believe, is the self care that is making larger investments in our thriving in life. Be that hiring a coach in a variety of areas such as sexuality or relationships (such as myself), investing in training or education to achieve a career dream, making a significant and risky life change… the things that feed our inner worth + calling are also self-care because these are high return investments on being fulfilled on the deepest levels.
So really, on any level, self-care can be anything from the simple nourishing acts to the more significant choices we make to care for ourselves in ways that allow us to feed our vitality and to be fulfilled, connected, and thriving. I believe for women, self-care also includes doing things in a way that support our bodies, feeling nourished, supported, and loved.
How has your business flowed during the pandemic and have you had to make any pivots?
I really miss in person networking as I am a people person and natural connector, and I would previously host in-person events for women.
So, I’ve been more focused on building up online courses + playing with my social media presence to expand my global reach. And, in 2021, my podcast Sex & Psyche will be released into the world!
Where can people find out more?
My IG will always have free content and links:
And to get a freebie, to learn about my work, and be alerted when my upcoming 7 week Jade Queen : Awakening Your Feminine Majesty jade egg group program is released, go to kamalaleslie.com