 Happy International Women's Day my beautiful lovers whether you are female or male or identify as woman or man. Today is really a beautiful day to celebrate all that is feminine and there are so many of you guys out there who I am deeply indebted towards and I wanted to do a video first and foremost to say thank you. You are a dream come true like literally you are a dream come true sitting here today and I want to say thank you. I was able to give some of you guys some pins but nearly not enough that and first of all pin is even enough to say thank you for all you've done for me and so I thought today I wanted to give you something else. I wanted to give you an epiphany that I had that I hope will spark a massive change in you and women's day will be an anniversary of the day that you return back to your true self. I want to encourage you to go backwards. A lot of times we think of progress we think of moving forward new ideas new friends new people just knew today I want you to go back. The biggest progressions I've made in my life are when I returned back to something that I had abandoned an idea and a goal a friendship a relationship something when I went back for something that I knew was right for me in the moment but I allowed other people's ideals or my own self doubt to distract me or detour me from that. That is when I've like gone most off course. I want to share something super fascinating with you guys. I went to this class called MindLab and MindLab essentially is like a blueprint for what your brain does all day long and they were saying that the average person has over 50,000 thoughts per day. I mean everything from like this fabric making my skin itchy to the sky is blue to that girl over there is stupid all the thoughts in the world and they were saying that 70% of those 50,000 thoughts are negative that they are something to criticize someone else or criticize yourself or make a negative assessment about your surroundings. Now this is actually an intrinsic part of survival. So for example, if you go out there in the wild every single time you walk by a squirrel that squirrel is going to run away. It doesn't matter if you're bringing food or you mean malice don't mean malice every time that you walk by that squirrel it's going to immediately think danger and run away. Now that is a part of it protecting itself and in order for it to protect itself it has to think about the worst case scenario. A lot of the times whether we realize this or not we are out there thinking about the worst case scenario when we look in the mirror. We think 80% more negative things about ourselves than the average person does. We stared ourselves for 90% more of the time than the average person does when they glanced at us. So we notice these negative things and that is our brain hard wire trying to protect us from the outside world to protect us from outside opinions that doesn't help anymore. Now that may have been a positive way of thinking and a helpful tool you know 40 generations ago maybe four generations ago but in today's day and age we're pretty safe we're pretty protected and so we don't need the negativity and I say that to say you have to start monitoring yourself. You have to start muting your own brain telling yourself no I know this is positive I know at the heart of this thing it is a good thing and I'm not going to let you ruin this for me and while you're doing that for yourself you have to start doing that for people around you as well too. They're going to be negative opinions they're going to be naysayers your parents for example aren't trying to discourage you from your dreams or trying to protect you from failure but you have to know that the risk is worth it for yourself and once you've made the decision that that thing that you love is positive you cannot allow outside negative opinions because there will be a lot of them to detour you that is a thing that has freed me so much and the more that I get to know myself and the more that I trust myself the less other people's opinions really matter to me going back is the reason why I'm talking about sex to you guys today people often ask me like how did you get involved in talking about sex as a career and I say like you I've been doing this basically since I was born more or less like you know some kids like have an affinity for the piano they just like get that shit when they sit down they know all the keys and chords like naturally I feel like I was that way towards physicality like when I was growing up my Barbies were banned from being naked like they never had clothes on and I remember being called like lewd by my mom because I was always very like physically touchy and that discouragement I also went to a Catholic school where again like physical touch and the desire to connect with people physically was shunned and it was a lot of shame associated with that and so I grew up trying to suppress this part of me and as a result it leaked out in not so healthy ways in my teenage years I was trying to be a good person and I was trying to deny this part of myself while still acting out and I had a super shitty teen sex life and when I turned 19 I thought it's time for me to go back you know there is a part of me that had something right and as a result of the shame I went about it in the wrong way but doesn't mean the activity itself was the problem you know my attraction towards physical touch is not the issue it's the information that I had on top of that that put me in the wrong positions and so I went back and I redid something pure in a better way and that wasn't the end of that story you know I wrote my book Laid it came out I was talking about sex pretty frequently and then something inside of me said no stop doing this there was a shame or guilt I didn't really want to be known as the sex girl people were approaching me on the street to ask me questions I wasn't prepared to answer at that time now maybe I was too young or immature and so I gave up on my dream I gave up on that and I became a wedding photographer I became a feminist writer I became a music journalist I became a background performer in movies I just sort of lost my way trying to run away from that intrinsic truth that I pretty much know my entire life and then when I was 27 28 years old someone said to me why don't you go back and do that thing and I was like yeah you know it just like one of those things that someone suggested it and then it became like an actual ideal in my mind and then here we are years later like I'm able to say like I got myself certified as a sexologist I was able to create a massive YouTube following I've been a part of amazing things this month I am working with women's health to talk about women and girls and HIV prevention like dreams that I didn't think you know would be possible for someone like me are because I was had the courage or I was encouraged to go back to something that I had abandoned and I sit here today because this epiphany sort of reawoke in my mind I was trying to think of where I wanted to go with my YouTube channel and what it is that I saw for the future of this space and originally when I started doing sex education the thing for me was I was obsessed with books and reading I love the TV show gossip girl I love the books gossip girl I read every Eric drum-dicky book I read fly girl I read coldest winter ever two or three times and I loved stories I thought they were juicy interesting riveting but then I found that the sex education within those stories led me down a very misleading path you know we didn't talk about female sexual anatomy and pleasure in a powerful way it didn't talk about the true attachment that you experience you know when you were intimate with someone not just sexually but also emotionally and so I found that the information they gave me was very misleading even though the packaging was super interesting and of course porn applies to this all day long and so laid was really like a brain child out of that thought process how can I make sex education as interesting as fictional sex and I always say this that like sex sells but sex ed does not because sex ed is essentially bad sex like it's dry it's slow it's boring it's predictable and it's filled with fear and shame you know all the things that make a shitty sexual experience that is what sex ed is and I was like yo there's a space for someone to come in and to reform this and that was what laid was it was real stories but also like really juicy stories it was really juicy information and real people and real bodies and I think that body of work to this day is one of the proudest things I've ever done before and so today I sit here and say I'm planning on going back my next step forward is going to include me going back almost 10 years to an idea or truth that I knew would work and reabsorbing that and a big part of that too is addressing a major fear I've had around my writing and writing for me I think has been my earliest passion I wrote my first book when I was probably you know grade three years old on unicorns and I won essay writing competitions and I've always felt very protective of that space so my book came out and it was a major accomplishment that didn't really do major things in my life I was really disappointed and hurt by that and I think I felt a bit discouraged and then a couple years ago actually I rewrote my same publishing company to say hey you know I'd like to try again with you guys and they were like nah we think we're good over here and that was extremely hurtful and discouraging for me and I feel like for many in many ways I've put a lot of protective space between me and writing and a part of me going back is embracing that but now with the same energy I had with late so what I want to do this channel is I want to start writing fictional pieces that are loosely based on reality or based around some of the things that you guys have shared with me of course not using names or faces or places but taking the ideals of certain relationships that I know a lot of us have gone through and doing what I did in this video so you guys haven't watched it please go watch it I feel like this is the direction that I want to go in my channel and a part of going backwards also is thinking about ways that I can get back there because sometimes the journey to returning somewhere else is just as hard as moving forward and so for me you guys will notice that in the next little while I'm probably going to be doing a couple brand deals maybe more than you're accustomed to especially in this month because I want to save up enough money to really invest and do this thing the right way and I'm excited about it it'll be one of the first time for many of you guys and I'm sharing my writing in a very like overt way and I'm letting you know that like yes I'm a sexual educator and yes I'm all for female empowerment but I'm also a writer and that I feel that feels beautiful to say and so I say a lot to say that's just my story I want to hear what yours is it's women's day and I have the saying you know I always have on me at all times in my chest is I own it they love it I want you to go back to something that you left behind and I want you to re-embrace that thing that thing that you thought to yourself that wasn't going to happen or that didn't make sense or wouldn't make your parents proud go and find that thing once again and own it and then just know in your heart that when you do that thing even though in the beginning people may not really quite understand it they're going to eventually love it even though you have to make some sacrifices you know to go back and get that thing and there may be people who are confused disappointed left behind or feel like they're not inside of that picture you still have to do it for yourself and in the long run everybody will benefit when you go back to your true self I often talk about in counseling sessions ants and ants are just a small example of the many things in this planet that are born into a very particular role you know ants are born nurturing ants hunter ants they're born leaf cutting ants they just know intrinsically what they are meant to do on this planet and there are a lot of animals who are just like that they don't have to like go through school and figure it out and go to guidance counselor like they're born with certain skill sets that align them with a very important role within their community I think for a lot of us we have that same thing inside of us whether you believe in God and God's purpose for you or you just believe in your natural biological purpose I do think that that exists within all of us and we get distracted along the way and we get discouraged from our original path because of fear of failure and nothing is scarier and I'll say this from experience nothing is scarier than trying your hardest and failing at that thing that you want the most when we try really hard something that we know is like not really our main shit and we fail it's not that personal and I've had that experience happened to me a lot you know even in my pursuit of TV when I wasn't chosen or rejected I've always kind of known the back of my head that like this isn't my main strength you know my main strength is in storytelling my main strength is in writing and so those rejections while they hurt they don't hurt as bad as being told from a publishing company like no bitch so it is the scariest thing that you will do when you truly embrace and go back to what your original purpose is and decide that you are good enough to try that you were good enough to put your all into that thing and I promise you it's going to hurt but I promise you it's also going to be so freeing and give you the greatest the greatest leaps you've ever had before and like I said the biggest successes I've had in my life have not been when I looked forward it's been when I've looked backwards and that is the lesson that today I want every woman to look to the center every feminine don't get me wrong I don't want to say woman because I believe every man exists with a feminine inside of them and a feminine is the creator so I want every creator to look that special spark within them that spark that is like protected that's the center of that womb that symbol that I have that nothing can penetrate or get to that space it's still pure you know there's layers of things on top of it trying to distract it trying to weigh it down but at the center of it all that lays perfectly intact look to that space and ask that space what am I meant to do ask that space what have I left behind and go and I hope that that advice does something beautiful for you and I'm really glad to share my next chapter of YouTube being with you guys it may not come for another month I have a lot of work to do and like I said you may see some things in this channel and the biggest thing you can do actually guys I always hear you guys say like how can we support you more when I put out a branded video even though you were like oh it's kind of annoying just watch it watch it on mute like just that that little act itself you know makes a massive difference in terms of what I can do to reinvest back into the kind of content I know you guys will love and I'll do my best to make sure that this space you know is a place that you guys love coming because I love love love having you here and I want to wish you guys nothing but love and prosperity Jared yeah happy international woman's day Jared got me those flowers for women's day did you get me those flowers for women's day