THE ART OF SELF LOVE WITH DESIREE PAIS
image by Carolyne Loreé Teston
I first stumbled upon Desirée and the world of Benshen in 2020, during the first lockdown—a time of uncertainty, but also an unexpected opportunity for introspection. With nowhere to go and plenty of time on my hands, I found myself soul-searching. I don’t remember exactly how I came across what was then called the Benshen Course—maybe it was Desirée’s eye for design or the magnetic energy of her work that first pulled me in. Either way, I signed up, not knowing that the next four weeks would be so transformative.
Benshen is more than just a course—it’s a powerful container that helps you clarify your vision, take aligned action, and holds you accountable to actually bring those visions to life. I found my first month so profound that I immediately continued for another three months. The personal growth I experienced during that time completely shifted my sense of self-worth, and i continue to follow desiree’s teaching eagerly.
What I love most about Desirée is how multi-dimensional her approach is. She blends spiritual wisdom with grounded, practical tools, creating a space that feels both expansive and exciting, Her energy is real, and refreshingly down-to-earth.
I’m excited to share just a taste of this magic as Desirée reflects on the theme of self love and taking ownership to embodying it. Listen to her voice note or read the transcription (at the bottom of this post) —and if you’re feeling called to explore more, take a look at the Benshen Membership. February’s theme is all about intimacy, love, and self-worth.
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enjoyed that? listen to desiree’s podcast below
transcription:
hello everybody, my name is desiree and i am the founder of benshen, which is a platform for empowerment. we do monthly memberships, workshops, courses, retreats & immersions and we have a podcast.
i am so excited to be here, to share with you some downloads for february. so, february is one of my favourite months - it’s a very beautiful, ethereal, mystical and magical month as the astrological sign of february is both aquarius and pisces. so for february and our membership we typically focus on a very venetian venus month. one of the reasons that i love doing a month on beauty, love, dating, sensuality and personal power during february is because most often, february celebrates only romantic love through partnership. while i love romantic love through partnership, i often find that it feels a little bit like this is the only one time during the year that we celebrate love. versus having a mindset that everyday we celebrate love, whether thats with partnership or within ourselves. one of my favourite quotes on love is that ‘love is a mirror’, love is relay, it is the relationship, the art of relay - what are you relaying? what are you having an experience of? i really always struggled iwth love for many years, i was single for 8 years befor ei met my now fiance, it took me a really long time to get love, not to literllay get it, but to get it - to understand it. to understand it within myself, to understand it in a way that i could really embrace and love myself instead of really shaming and feeling guilty about every single thing about me. that’s really the context of the patriarchy, right? the patriarchy has this deisgn that is set out for us to not like ourselves, in every way shape or form. so over the years i have done this sort of tomb raider, lara croft search on what is love? what is beauty? what is sexuality? what is sensuality? what is intimacy? what is healing? because ultimately vitality, and sensuality, and beauty and having balanced hormones all comes form the same juicy-ness from within. so when i look at february it’s a really nice opportunity after january where there is usually that new year hustle, very capricorn, very lets get things organised, very lets get things strategic, lets go, lets hit the ground running. yet, change doesnt really happen over night and i think a lot of us put pressure on ourselves to change our lives so fast in january that it can feel a bit draining, so by the time we get to february we’re tired! thats why i always love to use february as a venetian month, inspired by the goddess venus who is all about beauty, sensuality, love, vitality. I always love to imagine the energy of venus as honey dripping down the side of a pot, and the golden summer sun - it’s slow, it’s juicy, it’s yin, it’s restorative, it’s balanced, it’s sensual.
so, i wanted to start with just sharing a quote form one of my favourite books which is called seductress by betsy prioleau. this is an incredible book, i really feel like everyone should read this book because ‘seductress’ is not what we think it is. this book is a portrait if you will, a history book if you will, of women that embraced their femininity, that embraced sensuality, that embraced being ‘too much’. women were historically told you’re ‘too much’ - don’t say too much, don’t do too much don’t be too much, don’t reveal too much - and what i love about betsy’s book is that she suggests that it’s never too late for us to start tapping into this aspect of ourselves. it is very venetian because it’s about coming back to ourselves, coming back to the original love, the self love. i want to share this quote form the book - ‘women today are better positioned for erotic sovereignty than at any time in memory denied to previous generations. we are educated and sexually liberated, and have an array of advantages that previous generations did not have. we don’t have to seduce for supper anymore, now it’s about the perks of choice and romantic success.’ i love that quote because it’s true, we are at a time when we can celebrate being beautiful. we can celebrate being ourselves, we can celebrate being ‘too much’, we can celebrate speaking out, we can celebrate really getting to know ourselves in a way that maybe we didn’t have an opportunity to do before and to be able to reclaim the full power of our beauty and sensuality. really what all of this means is 1 - loving ourselves, but 2 - learning how to take up space, which is something that we have denied ourselves for so long because somewhere back in the day, someone told us that we should be ashamed of that, and that is individual to each and everyone of us. this shame and guilt that is imbedded within beauty, sensuality and personal power, it goes so far back to the story of adam and eve. i was just in rome, which was so fun to be able to go through all of these churches and see these paintings and frescos of the story of adam and eve, there was a very interesting painting that i stumbled across in a church dedicated to mother mary. for those who dont know the feminine version, not the patriarchal but the matriarchal version of mother mary and mary magdalene is that they were actually high priestesses in ancient egypt, but that is another story for another day… so this fresco inside of the church dedicated to mother mary, that pictures adam and eve - eve has just eaten the apple, and adam is in distress on the ground, pointing at eve and looking towards seems to be god, though not depicted in the painting, he’s pointing to eve like ‘she’s the problem, she’s at fault, she did it, she’s wrong’. this picture is so beautiful because eve is just sitting there, and she actually looks quite smitten and happy wiht herself. the snake is in the bottom of the picture, and the snake is represented throughout history as the kundalini, divine feminine, the shakti, the great feminine energy, the serpent rising, the shedding of the skin and the rebirth. so, the snake is sitting there, looking at adam angrily that he is blaming eve. i did a bit of research to figure out what did the serpent actually say to eve prior to her eating the apple? it was right there before my eyes, not hidden under the patriarchal lens, and it says that the serpent told eve ‘if you eat the apple, you shall see the unseen and know the unknown and you shall be like god’. so that bitch ate the apple, and we are happy that she ate the apple. it’s so interesting that once she gained power, or insight - maybe that even represents the serpent rising, the kundalini rising, the potential opening up - she gained the insight and the knowledge which is metaphorical for opening herself up to her full potential, her fullness, her ‘too much-ness’ and someone then shamed her for it - and that is called the orginal sin.
it’s interesting to go through history and see how we have been shamed for taking up space, shamed for owning our beauty, and really use this very beautiful, mystical, sensual, soft, magical month to tap into something different. to tap into sensuality and plaeasure, to look at love form a new lens, to really loook at love form a space of starting first with the self. how can i love myself better? how can i take care of myself better? what do i need? what are my boundaries? what do i need to take care of in myself? what do i need to love myself? what do i need to feel safe, seen, heard, valued, respected? what are all of those things that i need?…
i want to finish this conversation, this little chat about sensuality and beauty with an inviation, maybe sit with yourself for a few moments and ask yourself - what do i need in this moment in time? to tap into my sensuality, to tap into my pleasure to tap into this venetian architype, this venetian energy that is available to me at any moment, as long as i just sit down and aknowledge it and receive the downloads of what she wants to talk to me about. i have one friend that told me that when she goes into the akashic records, venus comes and talks to her. so maybe you can develop your own relationship with the goddess of venus, maybe in meditation or through journalling and allow her to be a muse to you, and see what it is that you need to tap into your vitality, and how can you use that to infuse it into every aspect of your life.
i hope you enjoyed this, i will see you someplace soon - happy february.