SPEAKER_05 0:00

A lot of the guys who say I'm the first person that they've cried in front of, and afterwards they're like, Why do I feel so good? If we can't feel, we also can't feel the good things. People aren't connecting. There's this gap.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

What are some of the things that they can look at themselves and be like, oh, I could use this?

SPEAKER_05 0:20

Do you ever feel lonely?

SPEAKER_02 0:21

That gave me chills.

SPEAKER_05 0:22

There's a loneliness epidemic. You have to slow down, but that's where we heal.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Welcome to another Inner Edge podcast. My name is Sola Mon Balore, and today I have Keely Shoop with me.

SPEAKER_05 0:34

Hi.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

She's a the CEO of Cuddleist and a somatic integration specialist.

SPEAKER_05 0:42

Yeah. Also in other circles, a cuddle therapist as well. We can go with that too if it's easier.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Cuddle therapist, yeah. Love it. Well, welcome. And uh let's dive into what do you do? What's all this?

SPEAKER_05 0:58

So I have a little insight into you to knowing that you know cuddle therapy. Yes. Do you remember the first time you and it's in my interview now? Do you remember the first time you heard about it?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Uh well, well, first time I heard about it was Cuddle Party.

SPEAKER_05 1:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Uh was through yeah, through Monique Darling. Yeah. This was like 2017, 2016.

SPEAKER_05 1:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22

We've come a cool distance in that. But you asked me what I do. And so now, um, from a lot of those core concepts that were originally uh founded by a lot, Betty Martin was a big part of that in Wheel of Consent work and the School of Consent, I recommend. So a lot of those core concepts are taken into an individual modality. So I work one-on-one with clients. I also work with couples, but we're looking at body up. So a lot of traditional talk therapy, I'm not a talk therapist. Um, talk therapy often really does great at examining all the things that are going on in your head. It's a neck up, right? It's you're getting real cerebral with it, and all that is rich. It's a rich world.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:04

My work does something a little different because the brain is one uh organ in your body. It is just one of the interconnected system of your body. And so if we treat it as its own separate distinct thing, we're missing pieces. True. Yeah. So my job is to put the pieces together with the what they're already doing.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Okay. And how do you go about doing that?

SPEAKER_05 2:27

We go about doing that in um the container that I use most often is the Cuddleist container. So Cuddleist is a company that trains their facilitators. And we use uh a couple of things, really three primary things. The first is a code of conduct so that we both know what we're doing, we both know the scope of what we're doing. And so the code of conduct outlines things like this is platonic. And so that's one of those um setting, setting the parameters for what we can, what is possible. It's platonic. Um, we're gonna have a certain amount of clothing, um, those kind of parameters, right? And then the second thing that's involved is this piece uh it's called our opening agreement. But really, what that's getting at is foundationally we're teaching people it's boundaries and consent education, but we're teaching people agency through interoception. I can tease that apart. I can totally tease that apart. But but if I'm saying it as short as possible, we are teaching people agency through interoception. And then through the client-led part, we're also helping them practice those skills, practice embodied skills. So they are able to have a relationship with someone, it's relational, but they're able to experience all of this really great um comfort, reassurance, care. Um, if you think about when it feels really good to hug someone, you're getting all of those really great things. There's all kinds of sociological or uh physiological benefits to it, right? Lowers your heart rate, it boosts your immune system, it lowers your cortisol in your body, so it decreases stress, right? So there's tons of healthy things about it. But then the other piece is that we're teaching communication tools that for the people can use in the rest of their life, not just in our space.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Yes. So uh let's let's talk about, let's tease out the things that so many pieces, right? Yes, yeah. Um I wanna so because this is for specifically guys, yeah, right. Let's the the thing that I want to talk about is the embodied, right? Because I think they're all most of us out there smart, right? Most of us out there are we're smart, we're in the art, but we're not here too much. So how do we how does this work help us get into our body?

SPEAKER_05 4:37

Right. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you in a funny story way. Great. Um, one of the most common things in my space at the very beginning, only for the first like five minutes, yeah, maybe less, is people will get a little bit annoyed, like just mildly, but they're waiting for a lot more to happen. They're waiting for like more things to come out, like let's go. And the first thing about embodiment is you have to slow down.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Totally, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 5:09

That's hard.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 5:11

Also, it can be like I slow down, then I gotta feel shit. I don't want to do that. Like that sounds terrible. No, thank you. If I slow down, I'm actually present. Yeah, and so that's kind of the funny story. I have to like, hey, are you you seem like you're getting a little frustrated? Yeah, yeah, that's good. It is good because you're noticing it. You're noticing, oh shh, uh when's the last time I slowed down? But that's where we heal, that's where we feel really good. That's like when people think about like being super zen or being like achieving these nirvana states, like they're slowed down and able to connect with their body. And if we're just thinking, thinking, thinking, we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

We're not doing that. So you're you're you're highlighting why men men, well, we all do this, but why we run away from ourselves in a sense.

SPEAKER_05 6:09

Yeah, that's effectively what's happening. I don't think that's ever the intention.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Correct. It's not conscious. No, yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:16

It's also really conditioned, right? And it feels good to to be successful, and it feels good to get things done, and it feels good to check things off a list, and it feels good to figure stuff out. All those things feel great.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:29

Um, but we can get so wrapped up in the I figured it out, I did it, I did it, I did it. And we stop feeling the good things. If we can't feel, yeah, we also can't feel the good things.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Or we cannot.

SPEAKER_05 6:44

And that's what people are missing. That's that's the big like, I don't get why there's this gap. It's because, yeah, you're not feeling all of the tough stuff, but you're also not feeling any of the good things.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

It's uh equal. You gotta have both.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You gotta both feel more good, you gotta go down the rabbit hole. A little bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:04

Yeah, we can go slowly. Like, we can there we don't have to like dive down to the bottom of the you know barrel at the beginning. That's not necessary, but but I will say this much. I have a little I'm gonna confess something to you right now.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Yeah, confession time. Confession time.

SPEAKER_05 7:21

No one tells this, okay? All of the people are now shh it's between just you and I. Um the delight that I get in a lot of the guys who say I'm the first person that they've cried in front of, like, felt comfortable and felt like that was normal and felt like it wasn't like no one's gonna judge them. And like, actually, that felt wow, I felt really good after it. It's like there's a catharsis, there's a good feeling that comes after a really deep cry. And if you haven't had that in a long time, your body's been holding on to that. And if I they can do that in my space, and afterwards they're like, why do I feel so good? That was that was uh rough, but I feel really good right now. I'm like, yeah, that's the other side. You gotta get through the thing to get to the other side. Yes. So I get a little bit the the secret is I get a little bit of delight knowing that that that like dam got broken open.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

This is good. Let's talk a little bit more about this so they can be like, hey, there is something on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

So before we go into the other side, what are some of the things that they can look at themselves and be like, oh, I could use this?

SPEAKER_05 8:35

It's a lot. Um one really quick litmus that is really effective. Do you ever feel lonely?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

I gave me chills.

SPEAKER_05 8:44

Yeah. There's a loneliness epidemic. How weird does your culture have to be for the Surgeon General? Uh, weird is not a great word for this, but the surgeon general says, hey, there's a loneliness epidemic. It's not a virus, it's not some toxin in the water. It's like people aren't connecting, like just a behavior that uh or a lack of behavior, really. Yes, that is an epidemic. What? What is what are you even what?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Right.

SPEAKER_05 9:10

Um, so yeah, it's if you are lonely, this is the thing that's on the other side of it, the connection.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

And what would you say they would like? I want to just use the word courage. Oh, yeah. What else is there for them to be like, I'm gonna read, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go cut a list website and I'm gonna find someone.

SPEAKER_05 9:30

Yeah, the how do I say this? Um it does take a lot of courage and bravery to do something that's new outside of the norm, that's like a little bit, but like for some people to be like, it's kind of weird. I don't know. But you also have to, it's twofold. That's it's I'm gonna push envelopes here, my apologies. Um, you have to value yourself enough.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Ooh, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_05 9:58

Yeah. People will invest money in a lot of really cool things.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

People have a bit of a harder time investing money in something just for themselves. So they're like, okay, well, I'm gonna buy this, and then this thing is for work, and then this thing is for the family, or this thing is for the, you know. But just doing something that's like really good for you is uh for some people harder to invest in, harder to spend your time to spend your money in, because you don't see it as productive. And that's tragic. Tragic. It's horrible to not see taking really good care of yourself or putting like focus on yourself as not productive.

unknown 10:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

How how comf how like down with cursing are you on this podcast?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Totally down.

SPEAKER_05 10:42

Great. Fuck all that. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely not. That's some bullshit. Yeah, so um that's the first thing, like valuing yourself. And then the other piece is that when you don't understandably don't know the scope of what is happening in a cuddle session, yeah, right? It sounds like, okay, I'm gonna go somewhere and we're gonna cuddle for a little bit and then I'm gonna leave and like why would I pay for that, right? Correct. Why would you pay for that image that is coming into people's minds right now? Don't do that. That sounds weird, right? But what actually is happening is different than that picture. Yes. What's happening is really deep connections. So, like someone actually giving a fuck about you and what you're doing, and they're not asking how your day was because they're exchanging social niceties. They're saying, no, but like, how's your heart? But like, actually, I think that you're pretty great, even if I don't know you fully, and I would like to know you. And that kind of slowed down invested connection is not available always.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Definitely not.

SPEAKER_05 11:48

That's really kind of rare. So that's one thing that's happening. Yeah, we also have a lot of tools that we're thinking in the background. Like the, you know how sometimes the sign of as an and if an expert is you never knew they were there.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Yep.

SPEAKER_05 12:02

That's the other piece of it. Because, like, in my mind, while I'm in session, I'm thinking, okay, I just noted this about this person's body. I noticed that their breath was shallow, and I noticed that this is going on in this. And okay, they answered this question like this. And so I know that what I want to bring up is like I am this is the this is what's going on.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:21

I'm like, okay, I'm assessing all of these things. I'm assessing one of the things I'm assessing is how, like, do they'll give an example. It's easier to give an example. When we start my sessions, I say, Great, welcome. How's your body today? And that answer to that question tells me so much, just that question. Because some people will say, Oh, you know, I'm fine. Great. So when they hear this, I and I the specific question was, how's your body today? Also, because like if we're like movement, did you sleep wrong and have a crick in your neck? You know, like if we're gonna cuddle, well, you might have to shift, or like, did is your arm sore from your workout, you know, whatever it is. I'm asking about their body, but if they answer with the I'm fine, right? We're not dropped in yet, and they didn't hear either they didn't hear the question or they're not used to answering that question, yeah. That's not that's not familiar for them. And so then I might say, like, okay, yeah, great. So it seems like you're on a normal thing, but is there anything you're noticing about your body? Is there anything like off or different or is or very the same? Like is something really like like regular for you? Not that way. Um, and then they might say, like, um, no, I don't, it seems fine. What that double down tells me is that they're probably not connected to their body yet. Correct. That's okay. If someone says, Well, actually, yeah, my back's been killing me. I think I'm just hunched at my like desk job all day long, right? And like, okay, they could feel their body. Some people literally I will go down this room and I'll be like, hey, do you feel your feet on the floor right now? Like, can you like nah? Do you feel like can you feel yourself in a chair? No, I can't feel like okay, we know where we're starting. This is fine. Um, and so it's all of that background stuff that's going on, which of course you wouldn't get from just thinking about going and cuddling with someone. You don't know that I'm doing all that stuff. And the people in my my space don't always know I'm doing that stuff, right? If I'm doing it well, they never will know that I'm doing that.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Wow, you're like uh Jedi, cuddler, magician. I love that.

SPEAKER_05 14:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:32

I was gonna make a joke about like, yes, uh, it comes from trauma. Hypertoom. Hyper awareness. Right. Totally, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Yeah, which which is in some ways it's fascinating. Our trauma is our gold.

SPEAKER_05 14:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

It it sucks that we had you had to and I had to, we had to go through that. And now you get to serve others.

SPEAKER_05 14:54

I have a friend who wrote a book called Treasure Hunting in the Underworld.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Oh, cool title. Right, that's a super cool title.

SPEAKER_05 14:59

But it's kind of exactly about that. It's like you can find these incredible treasures in like the in hell.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:07

Right? In the hellacious experiences of your world. It's brilliant. Yeah. Lillian Moore. Great. Great stuff. Cool. Little plug. I'm not getting kid. It was just apropos of the moment. It was. But yeah, so that's some of the things that are going on. We're also um definitely assessing like relational skills. So uh one of the big scary pieces about this is like I'm not I'm not a service that you can like order pizza from.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:39

Right? So it's not like, okay, well, I want this cuddle position and I want to do this. We're creating an experience together.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:46

So you might be like, I want this. I'm like, that sounds delightful. I'm not gonna do that. Um, but I love that you had that desire. That was really cool. Like, oh man, that sounds amazing. That would hurt my body. We're not doing that because that would hurt my body. But I love that idea. Okay, so if we're getting something close to that that my body can do, yeah, let's what about this thing, right? So we're creating the experience together, but you're gonna hear no from me because I'm not gonna do anything that I don't want to do. I'm not gonna do anything that I'm not comfortable doing, which means they can relax. You know that like age-old thing in relationships where it's like, oh, I just want him to mind read.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Right.

SPEAKER_05 16:24

Or like, oh, she wants me to be a mind reader. That's obnoxious. It's a trope for a reason, right? You never have to mind read in like shit. Absolutely, not you need to tell, you need to communicate. Communication is the thing. Yeah, um, and so the cool thing about that is that we're we're practicing that kind of communication so that they can take them with it, like with them to their relationships. Okay, and then their relationships can improve that way because we're model I'm modeling that behavior, and I'm saying, hey, yeah, actually, I'm never gonna do that thing. And this is what it feels like when someone never does that thing. And you may never never have felt that before. The and so how do you know what to go for? How do you know what to look for if you've never felt it?

SPEAKER_02 17:05

Correct. The feeling of when someone says no. Yeah. Oh, that's so powerful.

SPEAKER_05 17:09

Yeah, it's so cool. The transformation people get from no is rejection, and like their body, they might not feel their body, but I can see what their body is doing. They tense up everything in like this section, clamps down, yes, right? Like rejection. Totally. And it's like and I can see their whole body change. I love going and seeing someone, it takes a couple sessions to get there often, but going from that to when I say no, they know it's an invitation for better, something better, right, than what they originally thought. And so they like they like lean forward. They're like, what? What? Let's do it. Okay. What do you have in your back pocket now? Um, and so it makes hearing no or like rejection actually. It's gonna sound weird. It's kind of something you look forward to. Okay, because you know for certain that that person trusts you, and that they're actually participating in making your experience good. If they're just like, yeah, sure, whatever, okay, yeah, whatever. Okay, yeah, sure. Yeah, I guess. Like, that's not fulfilling to no, absolutely not. They're like, no, not that because something better.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:34

Yeah, and you can get goofy, right? It's uh it doesn't have to feel like rejection, but that's then a translatable skill to everywhere. God, that what the doors that not being afraid of rejection can open, holy cow.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Holy cow. Business, relationships, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 18:52

All over the place.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Great. This is phenomenal. Let's switch to the other side. Sure. Now they've worked with you. What are the results in their life that they besides we obviously you can see that we went through like they're gonna learn how to you know get rejected, say receive no's and be okay with it. What other things have you seen that the people that you work with after they've worked with you for, I don't know, let's say a few sessions, what are those sort of results that they see?

SPEAKER_05 19:25

It depends on what we're working on, and it's really pretty profound. So my my practice um involves a lot of relationship transition. So um a spouse, a partner, a loved one has passed, there's been a breakup, there's been a divorce, there's a big swath of what I work with, right? And very frequently the time that they stop working with me is because they're in a new relationship. Okay, right. And that's going really well. And so that's definitely a marker. Um different jobs. I've had lots of people um change entire careers. Here's here's a story. Um, in addition to like they got a promotion where they went and like were at Amazon and now they're um at this really nice company. That's that's uh a true story. Um, or I what's we were doing a tool that I'll I'll teach you later actually. Um, but it's interoceptive skill building. Interoception is our ability to feel inside of our bodies, right? And so we were doing a an exercise and I ask a bunch of questions, and then that person says yes or no to the questions. We're not gonna do any of it, but then they also notice if there was a sensation. So, like if I were to say we pick up dog poop and like they kind of recoil, then it's like, okay, here's what we're noticing in that. Your body did a thing without you thinking about it, right? Like you actually moved away, right? And so we're noticing all those things. And we do a couple of easy questions at first just to get a baseline. Okay, do you like ice cream? Like we like things that are really obvious yeses and no's, so that they can notice those feelings and sensations and be like, okay, I got it, okay, I got it, okay, I got it. Actually, my brain takes a lot longer than my body to answer these questions. There's information that my body is giving me that I don't even realize is coming on, and it's well, it's my body is processing the information faster than my brain. It's faster than my brain. That's really important. And we were doing a bunch of, and this person been in law school, was in their final four years of all of their entire like law school has been their thing their entire life. That's what like they they were in, they were a toddler walking around with a gavel, right? Like that's that was part of their world and part of their life path, uh, partially, you know, parentally um supported and and um influenced. And I was doing these things, and I thought I was asking a baseline question, like an Establishing question, and this was like maybe the fourth or fifth question. And I go, Are you excited and ready to start law school? The next phase. And they stopped. And they said, Oh no. Because everything in their body did the same thing that the nose were doing. And he like we had to pause, we stopped the game. He's like, my existential process. Oh god.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

My life.

SPEAKER_05 22:30

I've just had to rethink my identity. It was a whole thing. Um, and and we were able to support him through it, and he's doing really cool things now. Yeah, pivoted. He in all of that, because like, you know, there's some cost fallacy. There's this whole thing of like, I've done this my entire life. How is it even remotely possible for me to do something else? But he was able to pivot. And he I don't I don't know if he would like his life was on rails.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:58

I don't think he would have changed without that moment without a slowdown.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

What a powerful story. What a good story. I love that story. So powerful.

SPEAKER_05 23:07

So, like those kinds of things can be possible in this. You know, just include your entire life or trajectory. Hell yeah. That is rare. Please understand. But it's not in an everyday thing.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Yeah. I mean, that yes no game that you're referring to is such a powerful, it's so powerful. And it's so simple. Just can you tune in, receive a few no's, receive a few yeses, see what your body does. And it could be a practice you do constantly.

SPEAKER_05 23:38

I've been doing that practice for 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yeah. Still do it.

SPEAKER_05 23:41

Still do it and still find new information every time I do it, still evaluate. I'm like, yeah, hell yeah. It's like, no, I'm not gonna get um over like breathing. Like box breathing, right? Like that's always gonna be a tool and that's always going to be useful. And so this is one of those things. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

All right. Let's let's go into a little bit about how did you get here? Like what was sort of your journey to discovering, yeah, how you it led you to be a CEO of Cuddle list.

SPEAKER_05 24:13

Mm-hmm. Um I am gonna start when I was little. This is not, but like I was born on a tube. No, like it's a good one.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

It's been a four-hour podcast. Get ready, let's go.

SPEAKER_05 24:26

Welcome to my autobiography TED Talk. Um, so growing up from the time I was born until like middle school, my mom was a NICU nurse. Okay. And so we would go in as a family and hold the babies because it helped them survive, right? That's pretty formidable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

And you're like really formidable.

SPEAKER_05 24:46

I there I didn't spend so every New Year's was spent watching the first baby born in the new year. It was like it was a really cool kind of girl until I was old enough to know that I wanted to go to a party. Like that was what we did, right? Um, then my mom switched in uh late middle school to hospice care. And my family tradition was going and volunteering where my mom worked. And so I would go, and I went from seeing how holding a baby was key to its survival, the touch was what made it survive, to when people are terrified and maybe the hardest thing that they have of their entire life. How touch made it peaceful, made it connected, made it a I'm getting some a really beautiful transition instead of the scariest, loneliness, most horrible thing that you could ever go through. So, like that was formidable. How formidable shaped a lot of uh of me. Um, and then I went to school for film and television and did other things and for Japanese and French. And I was on this like, um, I gotta be practical, I gotta figure out what I want to do. But in my spare time, when I was like doing my hobbies or when I had free time, I was spending it giving my friends massages. I was spending it taking AP psychology courses in high school, getting college graduates in psychology that I had no intention of graduating with. I was just like, but no, that like they're not teaching me enough, and I want to know more autistic, hi. Yeah, special interest. And so I was like, I need more of this, I need to know more. Um, that was my hobby time. And so I still didn't click that something along these lines was was I didn't want to go into traditional therapy because I knew it was gonna feel cold and I didn't know how else to describe that, right? Um so then I like worked in insurance and in mortgages and did a bunch of jobs, and then I randomly happened on this event called Cuddle Party. It's kind of your origin too, in that of this world. Um, and that event changed the rest of the trajectory of my life. That event was my was my version of that lawyer's event. That was like the oh, now everything is pivoting to a whole different space. It was like, oh, this is the thing that puts all of the pieces together. That was all I could figure out at the time. And I will say in that first one, I like cried for like three hours. Not again, not like the catharsis of crying is good. I was just so there's so many things happening. I was learning about consent, I was kind of in a bad space in my life anyway. Um, and I was lonely, and I was in a career that I hated, and like this place was so comfortable. And so they're part of it was just like stress exiting my body, right? Um, part of it was I was uh learning about consent, and like people actually gave a fuck if I said yes or no to things, right? Like they're like, actually, I'm invested in you. Can you please just not say the answer you think I want to hear? Woof. I hated that. Can you please not say the answer I want to hear? But no, you want to hear it, I must say it. I cannot disappoint. That's a good Midwestern girl. Um, and then I learned more about the techniques behind it, and it continued to fall into place, it continued to be the thing that made the most sense. And before that moment, people would talk about like they would use these words, and these words seemed real flowery. Okay, we're not Ray Bradbury here. Um, they the words were like purpose and your your purpose and like your mission in life, the fulfillment in life. I was like, okay, let's be calm. Like, we work so that we have money to go on vacations and live a decent life, but that's just the ratways that we're in. Um, can we stop being silly? Um, and then this was what made those words make sense. Oh wow. And now I understand why people use those words and they're not actually just blowing smoke. Oh weird. Who knew?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Wow. Yeah. And when did you so cuddle party? Then when what led you to cuddle list?

SPEAKER_05 29:08

Uh well, weirdly enough, the the founders of Cuddleist met in my living room.

unknown 29:12

Cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:14

Um, because I was like plugged into that. One of the founders was um doing cuddle parties in my area in Chicago and met. Um, I was I was the host of a workshop facilitated by the incredible Marsha Pacinski. Awesome. Asking for what you want, check it out. Um, not being paid. And and um it was a workshop and they both attended, and then they linked up. And Madeline had already been doing this work um with individuals through some super shady sites. And like, do y'all remember backpage through through stuff like that? Um, like full full props to sex workers, but this was just uh a very roundabout way of trying to do something different than that, and so it was very like um cloak and dagger and whatnot. And I'm I'm very much a person who's like, no, let's just be honest and straightforward with people and like let's give people the choice that they need so that they can actually like figure out their decisions um in an accurate way. And then um they they found it, they got together. Madeline's like, I people need training for this, people need like actually comprehensive training for this because it's not a regulated industry to this day. It's not a regulated industry. So vet your professionals, but you should do that for everyone. You should do that for your psychiatrist, you should vet the people that you're gonna work with to make sure they are a match for you. Yes, because they might be a match for somebody else that's not you. Um, anyway, so that's my little soapbox about vetting your professionals. Um, but she wanted people to be safer, she wanted people to understand how to do this really well and not be that like kind of heated body pillow moment because that's not actually fulfilling for anybody in that.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

There's no transformation in that. It's like no. All right.

SPEAKER_05 30:50

So yeah, so I was like, You're doing a cool thing, I want to support you. And then uh a couple years ago, the founders were kind of in a phase of moving on to other projects and they'd been working really hard for like years um building this thing, and it was like it was a really great passing of the torch, right? They were they were retiring, they were going on to their things, and so myself um and another person in the community are like, we got you. We love this, and we've loved it since days one, and we'll we'll take the torch.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Love it. Congrats. That's a big one, yeah. Uh tell them a little bit about, let's hear a little bit about. So, what is the cuddle list? What's the process if someone wants to become a cuddleist?

SPEAKER_05 31:30

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um the training is um online and Zoom calls, and it's two-week intensive, and the process is um online material that's a mix of written and video, and we try to make it multimedia and entertaining and and um engaging. I like with my ADHD, I can't if you just gave me a book, I'd be like, Deuces, thanks so much. Bye. Um, and so we do that, and then each at the end of each of the weeks um and at the beginning, we do um a two-hour Zoom call that is taking all of the things that you've learned through the courses and then putting them in your body. So, like, what are the activities that we're doing in this session? How are we deepening these concepts? And then there's act like paired activities that they're required to do outside of class so that they can actually do and practice this. And then through all that, if they get um finished and they get certified, then they can list on the site.

unknown 32:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. For oh, this is a cool curious question. What are the stats men to women?

SPEAKER_05 32:35

Oh, for being trained, like uh students that are becoming Cuddleists. I need I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head. And I appreciate you asking that because that's a good that's a good back pocket number to have. Um, if I were to guesstimate, yeah, let's guesstimate. Yeah, I would say 80%. It's changing. It's genuinely changing. I think for the first couple years, it was like there was 0.1% male votes.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:05

But that was that was like the you know, 2015 and uh to 2019. Now we have our cohorts are about 10 people, 10 to 14. 14's our max. Actually, yeah, so most of most of the time 14 people, and then one or two guys each time, pretty much each each cohort. So yeah. All right. That math. Yeah, I didn't go to school for math.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

10 10 to yeah, 10 to 20 percent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:28

10 to 20 percent. Yeah, I think that's true.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, yeah, great.

SPEAKER_05 33:32

We're expanding stuff too. We just got um lovely gentleman asking about um the different kinds of accommodations he can do. He's legally blind, and he's like, you know, I'd I this is really speaking to me and I would love to do this. How are we gonna? And so we're we're um at a stage of like, yeah, let's figure that out. Let's see what we can do. Yes, because there's an interesting piece to that, right? Because a lot of what I am doing, a lot of what I am doing is looking at uh physical cues.

SPEAKER_04 34:01

Correct.

SPEAKER_05 34:02

And so it's gonna be interesting if it and like it's gonna be a lot of a process for both sides. So we might not he might not have capacity for it, and we might not have capacity because we'd have to collaborate on how to do the thing. Um, we don't have a standard set thing already built, but it'd be interesting. I bet there'd be ways. I mean there's gotta be ways. There's gotta be ways. Oh, yeah. But so there's there's cool like little ways it's growing each day.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Oh yeah, great. Let's dive into the exercise.

SPEAKER_05 34:29

Yeah, into it.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

So uh explain it before you do it, and then when you can do it.

SPEAKER_05 34:37

Okay. So this exercise, the biggest thing I want people to remember as we're doing this exercise is to focus on the sensations in your body. Your mind is probably going to come up with answers or stories or thoughts that are really concrete about why. Great, all wonderful information. That information we're just gonna put slightly to the side and focus a bit more on the sensations that are happening in your body. Um, that's that's the purpose of this particular exercise. I'm gonna ask a series of questions. I will pause after each question. And so, you, and I highly recommend, even if you're uh, you know, at home alone, saying the thing out loud. There is there is science behind thinking it versus physically saying it. We're trying to do the things in the body, right? And your body will react differently to you saying something versus you thinking something. So I do recommend saying the yes or no out loud. And then I'll take a pause and you'll be able to notice what's in your body, and then I'll move on to the next question and pause and you'll notice what's in your body. And we'll do this for a few rounds. Um, I also highly recommend, if you're willing, standing. Standing as a posture or for this is going to make you more acutely aware when you have more points of contact to a chair, that is stabilizing what your body is doing. Um, whereas if you are standing, the only point of contact is the floor, right? And so you will be able to notice if you sway a little bit more, or like there's a bit more access you have to your natural movement. So I highly recommend you stand and notice your body in this. So that's the preface or the the setup for it.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 36:19

You're adding?

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:21

You're gonna stand. All right, I'm gonna do a series of requests or invitations, and again, we're not gonna do any of these, obviously, but and anyone at home can participate. Would you like a hug? Would you like to would you be willing to take out my trash for a week? What kinds of things are you noticing? It might be worthwhile for people to have a curious experience.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Cool. So in the the first two took me a minute to sort of like feel my nervous system. Um it's interesting when you said ghost pepper, I was like, ooh, like I got curious. I'm like, I know it's gonna be hot, but I am curious for it. When you said, can I give you 300,000? My stomach actually tightened.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Like I would I would have thought I would have said yes to it, but I'm saying no because I'm like, what are the expectations? What's involved? Like, what do you want from me? Um giving you my car was no question. I was like, I already thought about like here's the keys. Uh what else was there? Trash had like, I don't mind, but I don't know about a week. Uh report was hell no. Go write your own report. When you found that hell no, yeah, was that the only one that was like hell no, like grounded in your the the 300,000 was also like a whoo.

SPEAKER_05 39:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:10

Yeah. So I noticed you holding your stomach. So it happens really low. Yes. In your stomach. And it's not like in chest, it's not in diaphragm, it's low.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:20

Nose are low for you.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 39:22

Or at least in this in this example. Yeah. When you were a was there one that you were a big yes to?

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Oh, yeah, the car.

SPEAKER_05 39:29

The car? Where do you notice that? What happened?

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Oh, um, my whole actually, oh, that's so cool. My whole body was just like uh like the image, my body was just like, here are the keys. Like I wasn't, I was literally throwing the keys at you.

SPEAKER_05 39:42

You're opening your arms. Yeah. I'm noticing you opening your arms and you're kind of lifting a little bit while you do it. So as opposed to the in the bottom of your stomach, this like it to exaggerate that movement. Yeah. But those are the kind of things that like when we start to have that communication with our body, it is giving us really good information and it's a bigger and more complete picture of us than just examining our thoughts and brain alone. Because you even had one of these really cool realizations in that of you would have thought, oh, someone's asking to give me money.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:21

Right?

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Um take, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:23

But your body told you more about your history, your feelings, your associations, right? Like maybe there's money stuff for you around. You said, like, what else do you expect? There's expectation stuff, right? Like there it can really dig up some cool things that we do not have access to in our thinking minds and our frontal cortex. Like, some of this stuff is subconscious, some of this stuff lives pretty buried, pretty deep. And this is a quick access to it. It could take you, like some therapists are entirely brilliant at their job, most are entirely brilliant at the job, and they'll get there. And I also find that this kind of expedites that a little bit. The more, or at least there is a very clear correlation to the more access you have to your body, the more access you have to the important information about you, which means the faster you can navigate and figure out, and the things aren't like being held from you that you can then process or deal with or figure out or use. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

And yeah, so it's like one of those things where now I think I'm gonna go and do some journaling on okay, so what was it about 300,000 that I was saying no to and uncover that instead of it just being like something in my subconscious?

SPEAKER_05 41:37

Also, even teeny things, like you're like the trash, I thought it'd be fine, but how long? Like, there's another piece of like duration, time, setting containers, like setting limits on things might be really reassuring for you.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:53

Yeah, there's something about the time bound. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. If anyone has seen the uh unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, there's a like line that she goes to over and over again of uh you can do anything for 10 seconds, and she's like in a bunker cranking. Uh and it's really funny to always think of that. It's like I can do anything for 10 seconds, I can do anything for 10 seconds. Um, but duration makes a huge difference on what, and that's kind of a cool realization that can come up in that.

unknown 42:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:19

That's so yeah, powerful. Take it with you. This is good.

SPEAKER_05 42:23

It is a gold mine. You can dig and dig and dig and find stuff all the time in that exercise, and you can do it to yourself. You can you don't have to have someone else asking you the yes and no questions. What can be helpful when you're doing this activity just by yourself with no one else um giving prompts? Start off with your litmus, right? The yeses and no's that are no-brainers. Don't try to throw yourself a curveball for the first five questions. Just get your baseline so that your body can you can adjust to noticing your body. And you have a really solid, like, what's my hell yes right now? Okay, that's what that is. Um, and then you can start asking yourself some questions about your life, and you might have interesting insights. It's kind of like I'm gonna relate it to something in a little bit in the woo-woo world. Um, you know how sometimes people will go to like get a tarot reading about a question that they don't really know, but really they they know what they want the answer to be. Or we'll we'll get out of the woo-woo world. I have a friend who says, How I make decisions is I flip a coin. I don't care what where the coin lands. When the coin is in the air, I know what it's hoping it will land, what I'm hoping it will land on. And that's how I make my decision.

unknown 43:36

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 43:37

But he always flips that coin because he's like, all right, heads yes, tails no, flips the coin while it's in the air, he has an immediate impulse of what he wants it to fall on. And that's how he finds his answers. It's that thing you're tapping into that interoceptive thing.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Interoceptive.

SPEAKER_05 43:55

Interoception. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:56

Yeah, I like it.

SPEAKER_05 43:57

Hack your body.

SPEAKER_04 43:58

Totally. So you're uh you're you're we should also call you hack hack body. Body hacker. Body hacker.

SPEAKER_05 44:06

Okay, I'm a 90s kid. This is taking me right back to like, oh yeah, like hackers from the Hollywood. Oh my god, that's hack the planet! Hack the body.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

Oh so good.

SPEAKER_05 44:17

Angeline Jolie killed it.

SPEAKER_03 44:19

Oh my god, killed it. That was such a good movie. So good.

SPEAKER_05 44:23

We digress.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

We do. What's your current offer? Working on the case.

SPEAKER_05 44:30

Yeah, so if I'm working with folks individually, so they can reach out to me. I'm in Chicago and in Los Angeles every month. Um and I travel quite a bit. And so I can either um set someone up on my notification list for when I'm in a new city and then I send out notifications to those people because I will often like I was just in um Baltimore and in DC for a big psychotherapy conference. And so while I was in town, I can see clients um at the spaces that I'm in. So um feel free, reach out uh Keely Shoop at gmail or my website's Keely Shoop. But so that's for individual work. I also do couples work. We didn't talk about a lot today, it's a big world. But the cool thing with the couples work is I am teaching couples how to do this stuff for each other, right? Like I'm teaching how do you have a shared language around touch so that you too are meeting, and so that's really cool. Um, and then if someone is more looking into like doing this work, because you're like, okay, all that stuff that that chick just said seems really interesting and I want to know more, and uh then you could go to cuddle list.com and there's information there. You can also email like Keely at Cuddleist, wherever you email it. Yeah, I'll get it to the right spot, it's snowbig. Um, but you can email me there and or reach out, and there's really great trainings. We're training every month.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yes. Cut, I mean, I used to be a cuddleist.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

And it was amazing while I was doing it, it was phenomenal, actually. Like lots of fun, like amazing experiences seeing transformations in people. So highly recommend it. Whether you become a practitioner or a client, it's it's amazing work, it's a lot of healing, amazing work.

SPEAKER_05 46:07

You were a great cuddleist. Yeah, and I and I'm gonna tell on you a little bit. I think you use a lot of those tools today.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Oh, absolutely. All the time. Oh, yeah, all the time, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 46:15

Yeah, that's the other cool thing. I'm gonna plug this last little piece. The training is great for people wanting to do this work, but we have people all the time, we have therapists taking it because they want to know more about this. We've got people who've been a client a lot and they want more. They don't want to do this work, but they want more of this and they want to be able to do it in their life even more expertly. And so they do it as personal growth and development. They do it as like I want the key to what the like what they're doing. I don't want to have to, you know, keep learning. I want to be a participant in it and recreate it in my life.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Yeah. Yeah. If you want to learn more about yourself and your body, definitely a good program. It's really, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:56

I like it.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Well, thanks for joining us. And well, we're gonna see her in the Interedge community for something a little bit more. Um, final thoughts, final remarks.

SPEAKER_05 47:08

My final remark is um, I in the world today, I spend my days like trying not to continue to lose my faith in humanity all every moment, right? I go to work and it restores my faith in humanity every time. That's what I want to leave it with. That's what this work does. That's what every client I I will like walk through file or go to back for every single one of my clients. I will, yeah, like, yeah. The people, and that, and what that tells me, there's nothing besides the fact that they were courageous enough to seek this out. There's nothing in them that is particularly unique. They are people of the world, they are from all walks. There is not a unifying thing. They are humans. And what that tells me is that at the core, all humans are what I get to experience in the small hour, 90-minute sessions that I experience, and the rest of the bullshit in the world is what's obscuring the thing that I get to experience. And it's the biggest honor of my life to get to experience it all the time.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

Thanks for joining me. That was a beautiful final remark. Bye for now.