Ep. 49: Releasing Shame Around Menstruation and Embracing Our Sexuality with Danellia Arechiga
Dr. Renee and Dr. Cristina welcome returning guest Danellia Arechiga to the show! Known as “The Multidimensional Mami”, Danellia is a birth worker, singer, songwriter, musician, speaker, and healer, She uses this medicine to heal her generation as well as past and future generations in her lineage. Through her offerings in birth work, childbirth education, traditional postpartum care, support group facilitation, and public speaking, Danellia helps families and individuals return home to their highest selves through vocal liberation, birth education, and intergenerational healing.
- Ten years of Danellia’s professional life was focused on birth work. However, a couple of years ago, she decided to dedicate the majority of her time to liberation activism. “I help people libertate the parts of themselves that have been locked away for fear of whatever: abandonment, judgment, shame—all of the things that hold us back from being who the fuck we’ve always been!”
- As in our very first episode, which incidentally also featured Danellia, today we talk about shame around menstruation and its relation to white supremacy and the patriarchy. For Danellia, that shame began when she chose to become a surrogate and was questioned by many for her decision. Las Doctoras and Danellia agree that we evolve over time in terms of both our understanding of that shame and how we process that shame—how we reclaim those parts of us which shame took away.
- A “sexual being” does equate to somebody who lives only for sex. It can be, but it’s also more than that. Aside from penetrative sex, sexuality also refers to sensuality: the combined use of all of your senses which may result in similar hormonal activity to that of intercourse. Most importantly, being a sexual being means being comfortable in your own skin despite how mainstream society regards your outward appearance.
- Even being a mother is inherently sexual. If we all stop subscribing to the long-standing paradigm that sex is only phallocentric, we break free of the societal boxes that define institutional power.
So much of sexuality in our society is defined, constructed, and performed through the male gaze. A lot of our work comes down to rejecting that exercise of power by refusing to play into those stereotypes. That is the only way we can reclaim and become comfortable in our bodies outside of the male gaze, all while staying true and authentic to who we are!
Connect with Danellia Arechiga:
Visit her website: www.danelliaarechiga.com
Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/themultidimensionalmami
Connect with Las Doctoras:
Visit their website: www.lasdoctoras.com
Follow them on Instagram: www.instagram.com/las.doctoras
