On doing a TEDx talk, caretakers of language, and speaking anonymously
This month in Hit Pause, Then Play, I share what it was like doing a TEDx talk, bridging divides with people we may disagree with, and speaking our unspeakable desires - anonymously.
🤔 3 things I’m thinking
1. On doing a TEDx talk (Pause, Play, Passion, Pleasure and Purpose)
So … I did it. The Thing. The thing I’ve wanted years to do. The thing I never imagined I’d do.
I know some of you think TED is dying, dead. Or that it is too formulaic. TED needs to evolve into something else, you say. And yes, all things evolve. I’ve heard some of you be dismissive of the whole TED format - you never want to do a TED talk. You’d even turn down the opportunity because, well, TED is a meme now. (On this point, enjoy the below, which a friend sent me when jesting about TED - I love it!)
But all of this has not effaced my wish to speak about an idea that I feel changes lives, an idea I have spent hundreds of hours developing, researching and writing about. I wish I could be more dismissive, like you, my intellectual and sceptical friends, but I still believe in talking about our ideas - and inviting discourse.
And so I did it. Despite having pneumonia, in the face of the doubt that arises right before you do The Thing, despite the fact that my rehearsals still were not perfect and that I still needed to speed it up or delete content to get it down to 18 minutes from 20, 24 hours before show time, I walked onto a stage in front of hundreds of people in Muenster, Germany on 16 November …
It’s just been announced that I’m talking about desire. I’ve taken a strong Domme pose with my back turned to the audience. An audio recording of my voice reading a personal letter has just pulsed through the darkened space.
I turn around to speak. The lights come on. I say my first line.
My mic is not on.
Two seconds. Tech and I realise. I smile. Raise an eyebrow.
I stride to the side of the stage. Full sight, once again, of hundreds of people. Bright lights. Knee-high leather boots. Audrey Hepburn dress. No pockets.
The mic is inside my dress.
I announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, I will now be undressed.”
A lovely techie - my lovely techie - unzips my dress from behind (I am turned sideways, so everyone can see whatever they’d like to see). He fiddles to find the ON button on the mic box attached to the back of my bra.
I instruct the audience to cover their eyes if they’re uncomfortable. Otherwise, let’s enjoy this.
The room bursts into laughter.
My techie turns me on and zips me up, and off I go. 🔥
What an incredible moment. I could not have scripted that better - the universe handed me the perfect opening for a talk on desire, an excuse to strip in front of hundreds. 😉
My heart rate dropped to normal range instantly (I know, because I’m a health data nerd and checked my data later) and stayed there for the duration of the talk (and escalated again at the end for the next 24 hours). I dropped down into my body, laughed, made my audience laugh, and with the laughing, we all took a breath.
Turns out talking about desire can make a lot of people in a public place stop breathing. 🤔
So humour, as we all know, did its thing, and saved the day - and that poor, nervous (?) audience.
But how was it afterwards? I tried to capture the experience of actually giving a TEDx talk in a note to a mentor a couple of days later:
To be honest, it's been a destabilising and humbling experience.
I guess I would compare it to jumping out of a plane. You train and prepare for months for the jump. You run simulations. You make yourself practice while you’re doing something else so your brain knows what to do when you’re stressed out of your mind. You practice in full gear. You read up on all the things that can go wrong. You run simulations around the clock. And you tell yourself to breathe. You’ll get out of this alive.
The moment before, you check your equipment. Is your parachute functioning? You double-check and triple-check everything you know you are about to do. Water. You need water. Where’s the water?
Then the lights come on, and the Earth - or hundreds of bodies - is/are leaning in. There is no turning back. You jump. You fall through the air for a full 18 minutes. You have no idea how this is happening, but your body is doing everything it needs to do to keep you alive. Your brain knows what buttons to push. Your mouth seems to be working of its own accord. And you’re still breathing. A miracle.
You land. And you don't know how you landed, how you got here, what the meaning of that whole jump was.
I was in shock for 48 solid hours. A deer in the headlights. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't celebrate. People were telling me it was awesome. People thanked me for validating them. Others thanked me for introducing them to a world they didn’t know existed. Others said I was brave.
But you don't know. You don't know how this concept you've been living with for months - years - has landed. People came to my desire workshops. They opened up. They shared their stories with me privately. Some went home and talked to their partners.
I was surrounded by amazing speakers talking about deep and powerful things. A couple had standing ovations. My talk saw laughter, people taking notes, people on the edge of their seats. People quoted back my lines to me later or on social media. "It's never too late …" "The cost of silence and the power of dialogue …" "If it scares you, get curious …" So I suppose some of it landed.
The next day was my birthday. I spent most of it travelling. I have been unable to celebrate as I have felt a blow to who I thought I was.
This other person just did something.
Do I know her?
All of the talks from that day will be on line in 8-10 weeks. I will share them with you as soon as they are. They were absolutely outstanding. I do hope you will watch all of them - as this particular collection of talks was mind-blowing.
There are many courageous pioneers out there. That Saturday, I was one among nine (who spoke). I am 100% convinced there are many others. Many leading from the "back" or the "side".
You, my dear reader, are most likely one of them. When will you dare to speak?
2. Bridging divides: The power of deep listening (Purpose)
In other news, I find myself in a space both familiar and strange these days, deep in conversation with a theologian about Conscious Relationship Design. Yes, you read right.
Our dialogue unfolds like an intricate dance – two minds circling complex ideas about love, ethics and human connection. While our fundamental views often diverge, there's something beautiful in how we've created a space for genuine exchange.
It reminds me of what happens when we truly listen – not just to respond, but to understand. The kind of listening that requires us to set aside our reflexive reactions, our urgent need to correct or convince. The kind that opens doors we didn't know existed.
Just last week, an Uber driver shared his discomfort about a gay couple kissing in his car. As he spoke about asking them to either stop or leave his "safe space," I noticed something shift. In the silence between his words, in the space where judgment might have rushed in, he began to question his own reaction. "I think I need to work on this," he mused, his voice softening. Had I interrupted with well-intentioned correction, that tender moment of self-reflection might have withered before it could bloom.
I'm reminded of Jonathan Haidt's insight that moral beliefs are like taste buds – we all have them, but they're calibrated differently. His work in The Righteous Mind illuminates why we often talk past each other across ideological divides. When we're anchored in our own moral framework, other perspectives can seem not just wrong, but incomprehensible.
Yet, as Arlie Russell Hochschild discovered in her journey into America's deep South (beautifully chronicled in Strangers in Their Own Land), bridging these divides requires more than tolerance. It demands what she calls "scaling the empathy wall" – making the brave climb to understand perspectives that feel foreign to our own experience.
In my ongoing correspondence with the theologian, we're doing this delicate work. Each letter is an attempt to scale that wall, to see the landscape from the other's vantage point. Sometimes we disagree profoundly, yet there's profound respect in how we hold space for those differences.
I'm learning that true dialogue isn't about winning or converting. It's about creating a shared space where understanding can emerge naturally, like morning fog lifting to reveal a landscape we couldn't quite make out before. Sometimes, in these exchanges, I catch glimpses of what might be possible if we all listened a little more deeply, waited a little more patiently for understanding to unfold.
These conversations remind me that bridging divides isn't just about finding common ground – it's about honouring the dignity of different perspectives while remaining true to our own values. It's complex, messy work. But in a world increasingly fractured by ideological chasms, perhaps it's some of the most important work we can do.
3. Want and desire (Pleasure, Passion and Play)
As I prepared for my TEDx talk in Germany last weekend, I continued to immerse myself in research about topics we often sidestep in polite conversation. One of these is Gillian Anderson's remarkable book, Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous.
Think about it: when was the last time you had a truly open conversation about desire? Not the sanitised version we present at dinner parties, but the raw, honest dialogue that makes us shift uncomfortably in our seats? Anderson has created something extraordinary here – a safe harbour for hundreds of women to share their most intimate thoughts about sex, pleasure and longing, all under the protective cloak of anonymity.
What emerges is far more than a collection of fantasies. It's a mirror reflecting how we view womanhood, motherhood, fidelity, consent and the delicate dance between pleasure and pain. Each anonymous letter feels like a confession whispered in the dark, carrying the weight of years of silence.
The brilliance lies in its simplicity: when we remove judgment, shame and the fear of consequences, what truths emerge? What do women really want when they believe no one is listening? Even Anderson herself contributes her own anonymous letter, leaving readers to wonder which voice is hers – a delicious mystery that adds another layer to this already fascinating exploration.
I wonder, for those of you who might read it (and I invite you to, as part of my ongoing research into conscious relationship design - I’d love to hear your thoughts!), if you think you could identify which fantasy belongs to Gillian? More intriguingly perhaps – could you identify which one might be my preferred fantasy? (A jest, dear readers – though the thought experiment itself reveals how we project our assumptions onto others' desires.)
This isn't just about sex – it's about the stories we tell ourselves about sex, about power, about connection. It's about the spaces between what we say we want and what we truly desire. And perhaps most importantly, it's about the profound liberation that comes from finally speaking our truths aloud.
🔥1 spark for you
What would you say if you knew no one would ever know it was you?
💡 2 things that are inspiring me
📚 Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words, by Anne Curzan - Now that I’m back home, I've been savouring Anne Curzan's Says Who?, and oh my friends, what a delightful exploration of language it is. As someone fascinated by how we connect and communicate, I find myself nodding along as Curzan bridges the gap between grammandos and wordies, helping us understand where our cherished rules come from and why some words make it into the dictionary while others don't. What resonates most deeply is her emphasis on becoming "caretakers of language rather than gatekeepers". After all, isn't language about finding that sweet spot between formality and authenticity? If you're curious about exploring how language shapes our connections and reflects who we are (while having a surprisingly good time doing it), this book might be your next perfect read.
📺 Nobody Wants This (Netflix series): Okay, it made me laugh. Does that technically count as inspiring me? Maybe not. But what with all the cold and grey in a forest outside Paris where it is dark at 5:25 pm (!) some weeks back, it hit the spot. And I’m someone who doesn’t watch a lot of TV (I know, as my son once said, I’m a dinosaur.) It might hit the spot for you, too.
Anything else?
💌You might like one of my recent posts
🖐Work with me!
Check out all the possibilities available to you in the field of Conscious Relationship Design! You can sign up for CRD sessions, retreats, coaching and even do self-paced (complimentary) learning. Find out more here:
Support my book - If you’d like to be in the exclusive group of “first readers”, speak with me about your own conscious relationship design practices or have a conversation on some of my book’s more controversial topics, level up to a paid subscription.🎚️ I’d love to pick your brain!
Are you curious about how to unlock collective genius? My good friend and mastermind, Alwin Put, and I worked on a fabulous project which has just come to fruition - and is yet but the beginning of something amazing! We will be releasing more soon - but if you’d like to level up the genius in your team, group, company or community, we’d love to chat with you. Connect with me or Alwin on LinkedIn. Even better, let’s talk.
Also, please subscribe to this newsletter if you haven’t already and follow me on Medium. Big thanks in advance for your support … and if you have friends who might be curious about Conscious Relationship Design and/or anything else in this newsletter, spread the joy: share this newsletter!🫶
🙏Thank you
Thanks for reading. You can get more actionable ideas and links in this free newsletter by clicking “Subscribe now” below. Each month, I share:
3 things I’m thinking
2 things that are inspiring me
1 question to spark you
Join me by entering your email. See you next month! 👋