Day 219: Miyoko Fujimori

May 7, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“I think we all have a human need to feel connected and to feel love and to experience a deep connection with our partner.  So that is where my inspiration comes from, I guess, is just being in this relationship and in this marriage where I want to be with my partner.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Miyoko, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Miyoko Fujimori: Absolutely.  My name is Miyoko, and I have become America’s toy educator and intimacy expert by default.

Toni: I love that — there by default.  Can you tell us just a little bit about what that is?

Miyoko: Yes.  I actually present products in a television format, on the radio, through workshops, and basically I am educating people about what intimate products do and which ones they might like to enhance their relationships.

Toni: Fantastic.  Well, when you think about inspiration, and this is a great topic around this, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?

Miyoko: You know, I feel very blessed, because I get a lot of people who will send me messages on Facebook or email me and track me down and tell me how much whatever it is that I talked about has helped them in their relationship.  In fact, just yesterday I got an email from somebody saying, you know, “I really appreciate how nonjudgmental you are when talking about products,” and I had even Facebooked something out the other day saying “Wow, I sent out a pair of molded feet and some butt plugs – I guess my life is interesting.” And you know, somebody commented on that and was like “Wow, you know, you really made me feel okay with whatever it is that floats their boat,” you know, and I think that’s something that’s really important and lacking in society today.

Like we have doctors, Dr. Drew and Dr. Laura Berman … we’ve got all these people who talk about sexuality, but nobody really talks about it from a place that says it’s okay if you have a foot fetish.  It’s okay if you have, you know,  some needs that are outside of the norm.  As long as you’re having healthy, safe, and consensual sex with other adults, you know, it should be okay, and you shouldn’t feel like a horrible person or that you were abused, or that this, or that that just because you have a specific need to what gets you off sexually.

Toni: And so the inspiration, as far as you’re concerned and how you inspire others, is by being in that space with them that is nonjudgmental, but also helping through this particular issue with what you’ve learned.

Miyoko: Yeah, I think just hearing that they appreciate whatever it is that I’m contributing.  That’s tremendously inspiring to continue doing what I do, and it’s definitely not normal, I guess, according to other people.  I mean, my life is not normal, my kids have grown up around what I do, and in my family we’re very comfortable with our bodies and things that are used for enhancing relationships.  You know, I don’t shun them from seeing things on TV or whatever, because I think in my mind love and sex and everything else is very natural, you know.  But I forget that it’s not … it’s not necessarily acceptable to other people.

Toni: Well, how do you then help other people explore their potential?

Miyoko: Well, you know, it’s a very fine line, because while people have their specific turn-ons, other people may have grown up with a very religious education or, you know, let’s face it, we all kind of grow up with this idea that we’re not supposed to be sexual, especially as women.  And so taking somebody through that journey can be a very fine line, and so it’s just really about listening, and I guess also coming from that place of nonjudgement, you know?

What is it that you want to achieve, what is it that you like?  And for a lot of women, just being able to share, hey, “You know what?  I’m just really not into my husband right now” and saying “Okay” – not saying “Oh my God, I feel so bad for you.”  Just saying “Okay, so what is it that you want?  What would you like?  Do you want to feel more close?  Do you want to just have more physical satisfaction?  What is it?”  And to be able to talk to them very frankly.  I think people appreciate that.

Toni: Well, I think the potential also that you are exploring in others is one that “I can trust you enough to talk to you about these types of things,” so that opens up the lines of communication, but also then to know that there are options that are available to me.  So the potential then becomes greater in a relationship, in that satisfaction and everything that comes with that, so I see the potential being enormous with what you do.

Miyoko: Well, it is huge, and it’s not just the intimate products that I do.

Toni: Right.

Miyoko: I also teach pole dancing and striptease workshops, and that’s a really fun place to get to share with other people and inspire other people.  I’ve met very many women on the road when I’m speaking at women’s shows and conventions and things like that where they’ll say … I’ll share my story of where I kind of embraced striptease, and that was in my early 20s when I was actually going through my own depression and had been clinically diagnosed and was in a psychiatric hospital and on Paxil and kind of went through the process thinking “What is left for me here?  You know, I’m going to be medicated and going to meetings and hearing that my life would never be better, but that I would learn to deal with it one day at a time,” and I thought “You’ve got to be kidding me – this is what you tell people who are depressed,” you know?

And so from there I took it upon myself to kind of cheer myself, I guess, and find a place where I found happiness and I found peaceful within myself, and I could look at myself in the mirror and love myself, and I didn’t have that prior to my experience as a dancer and actually stripping.  And as cliché or whatever it may sound, stripping off the layers of clothing and standing there naked in front of a room full of strangers is very cathartic.  I mean, you really have to become okay with yourself in that sense.

Toni: How did you do that?

Miyoko: How did I do it?

Toni: Yes, how did you get to that point where you were able to be that vulnerable?

Miyoko: You know, I think I already was.  I mean, being depressed and feeling that alone, there’s really nowhere left to go except for up, you know?  And so for me, it was kind of a strange dynamic that my first husband and his friends had always gone to this particular strip club and spoken about the women like they were just these goddesses, and I wanted … I wanted that.  I wanted to be that beautiful.  I wanted to feel like that.  I wanted … even if it was false adoration, I wanted it, because I didn’t have it in my life, and I didn’t grow up with a father, so I was kind of awkward around men anyway.

I was selling real estate at the time, and I remember some of the older men kind of flirting with me and it just felt really inappropriate and strange, and you know, I didn’t know how to react in that situation.  Deciding to go and just dance … I wanted to experience it.  And telling my mother and telling my husband at the time this is something I really want to do, and they were both supportive, although reluctant, but supportive, and I fell in love with it the moment I got onstage.  I just felt a huge relief and such a tremendous safe place to kind of explore my own … just my own needs, my own emotional needs, my own sensuality and to kind of figure it out.  And it took a few months to really get into my own and appreciate myself and feel comfortable in my own skin, but it felt so good.  It just felt so freeing to do that.

Toni: So there’s quite a story that you do share with others about where … the courage … it really took a lot of courage for you to come from where you were to where you are, and then be that example to others.  I would think that would be very inspiring.

Miyoko: Well, I’ve heard from some women … you know, one woman was a 40-year-old new mom and she said “You know, I just haven’t felt sexy, and I really appreciated what you were saying about getting back in touch with your body.”  You know, we tend to detach from ourselves so quickly and so easily and, oh my gosh, it’s so easy to detach from other people these days because all we can … we just have to send them a text or Facebook them or, you know, we don’t even have to talk to them to communicate.  We can do all these things that have no shared energy and no shared breath and time, and we can communicate with people in such a shallow level that we detach so much.

So to kind of come back to yourself and say “Okay, I’m present in the moment and I’m present in my body, and this is what my physical body feels like” is huge.  I had a woman who had an eating disorder — she would overeat — and she did a workshop of mine.  And she sent me a note saying “I went home that night and I opened the refrigerator, and I could not put food in my body.  I could not abuse my body, because just being present and touching my body for that moment … like I had to acknowledge it, and I didn’t want to abuse myself anymore.”  And I thought “Oh my God.”  It’s not that I was the cure for her, but for that moment she knew what it felt like, and hopefully it made enough of a difference.

Toni: Well, I believe that this is a natural fit into this third question, which is what do you need to be inspired?

Miyoko: Gosh, you know, it doesn’t take much for me.  I feel like if we can be open to everything, then we’ll find inspiration everywhere.  Look around your home.  Look around outside.  You know, my kids and I … it’s tough being a mom with little kids.  I can totally relate to other moms out there, that it is so difficult to reconnect with your body because you’re so busy doing, doing, doing for everybody else.  But just one little thing that we’ve been doing lately is going outside and riding bikes in the afternoon, and we have kind of a circular area in our driveway where we ride bikes around this tree and, you know, from a physiological standpoint, kinesthetic energy and exercise is very important, but it’s so soothing just to ride around in circles.

Here I am … and the other day I was feeling kind of, you know, that afternoon witching hour kind of doldrums, you know, when you grab for the coffee or you grab for this or whatever.  And I’m like “I’m just going to go ride around in circles; and it felt so good.  And from that, you find the inspiration and the motivation so that your creative juices kind of go and regenerate and rejuvenate yourself.

Taking a bath.  I find inspiration from listening to other people’s stories.  I find inspiration from music.  Sometimes just taking a hike and smelling the air and feeling the wind on your face is enough to inspire you to do something, and it doesn’t matter what it is, but just to feel something.

Toni: Absolutely, to feel something is so true.  When you might have a day that you are not as inspired as another day, do you find yourself reaching for certain tools or, I don’t know, items that you reach for on a consistent basis that help to fill you back up on that inspiration?

Miyoko: Well, I think when I am really down and really lost – which happens – that’s when I find myself reaching for either my journal and my pen and just letting stuff flow out of me, because I think sometimes we hold so much in that it does stop us from being open to receiving other things.  So I have to sometimes just get it out of my head and out of my body so that I can exist and not feel so cluttered inside.

And then I also find that when I dance – because even though I teach striptease and I do workshops, I don’t always get to dance.  I get to teach, but I don’t always get to really express myself.  And so for me, sometimes I just need to turn on some music, be alone in my studio, and dance and really express physically what my feelings are and get some things out.

Toni: What do you do to explore your own potential?

Miyoko: Gosh, I don’t even think I have fully explored my potential.  I’ve never been the person who said “I can’t do this,” or “I could never do that.”  I’ve always been the person – and I have to thank my mother for that, I guess – that has said “Oh I can do that or I could figure that out,” you know?  I’ve always been that person, so to me I have no idea what my potential even is.  When people say “Wow, it’s so great, you wrote a book, you published, you’ve done this” … and I think “Well, but anybody could do that,” you know?

Sometimes I don’t stop and appreciate what I’ve accomplished, because I don’t feel like anything is outside of my reach.  So to say my potential, you know … I’ve achieved motherhood and my family, and I’ve come to this point in my life, and I’m still sane and healthy, so I think that’s huge.  But my potential – gosh, I don’t even know what that looks like.  But I’m open.

Toni: Well, absolutely; and some people feel that as I’m exploring my own potential, that that directly correlates to what  I do for others to help them explore their potential.

Miyoko: I could see how people would think that, but I think not being able just to define what my potential is … I can’t fully appreciate that sentence, because I honestly, you know … in life, I feel like the next stage in life is still unknown.  So if that’s potential, then I’m just kind of walking to the next place.  You know, I think as long as I keep walking, I’ll get there.

Toni: Well, what do you do to help you … with what you’re doing in teaching and you said that you also … you test products out, right?

Miyoko: Of course.

Toni: Okay – so how do you know what’s good?  I mean, what do you do as far as exploring that and learning new things so that you can continue to help people in that area?

Miyoko: You know, finding education is not hard, especially in the internet age.  There’s so much information out there that’s available, and so I am constantly reading and learning myself.  I love learning something new, and I love being able to share something new with my clients.  New products come out all the time, so it’s so easy.  In fact, vendors actually send me their products to review them, so it’s a constant stream of being able to try new things.

In fact, it was funny, I was thinking “Gosh, we should start some sort of, you know, Toy-of-the-Month club,” you know, because it’s really nice to get something in the mail or just have this spontaneous gift of like “Oh honey, we’ve got something new to try.”  And it keeps the relationship fun and exciting.  But all of these things kind of are part of my work, and so it doesn’t take much to inspire me to do them.  It’s just kind of a natural thing that I’m interested in, that I really enjoy helping other people.  And so if I see a product and I go “Huh, this seems like it would be really fun” and then I’ll share it on my blog or with my fan page on Facebook, whatever it might be.

I don’t feel like it takes much to inspire me in that way.  I think we all have a human need to feel connected and to feel love and to experience a deep connection with our partner.  So that is where my inspiration comes from, I guess, is just being in this relationship and in this marriage where I want to be with my partner.  And I have needs, and so does he.

Toni: Absolutely, and again, I think that it is … I think it’s fantastic that you were inspired to do this based up on really a crisis that you went through in order to feel better about yourself, and now you are helping others to do the same.  And so really at the essence of all this, it sounds what you’re doing is a great service, but it’s also so much more than that as well on a really … on a personal level.  That’s what I’m hearing from you.

Miyoko: Oh, well I appreciate that.  I think that’s true.  I think the work that I do for other people only makes my life that much more rich.  Not because of what I’m giving them, but because of what it creates for myself.

Toni: Sure, sure.  Well, Miyoko, thank you so very much  for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.  We can’t thank you enough, and I know we will have a place where people can see your book and learn about you at the bottom of the interview, and for showing up today, thank you.

Miyoko: Thank you so much, to invite me into this Project.  I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing.

Toni: Thank you, and take care of yourself.

Miyoko: I will.

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For more information about Miyoko Fujimori:  www.practicalstriptease.com

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