Empress Wu: On Self-Care (Part Two)

This is the second in a two-part series. Part one of this conversation is available on Empress Wu’s blog here

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EW: Wouldn’t it be so amazing if we just had a network of dommes that, between us, we could call into and say, “hey, this is what I’m experiencing right now. Here’s the emotional breakdown. And here’s what’s actually happening.” And then having that person just hear you. Because sometimes all you need is to get that out of your body, and you don’t even need the other person to say anything back. Just knowing that you’re not experiencing it alone is radically different.

AV: Absolutely. And I feel like sometimes when you come to people with a strong or “bad” feeling, they go into fix-it mode. They want to find a solution. And that’s not always helpful. Sometimes it just needs to exist.

EW: It’s the same experience of just wanting to shut down the pain; it’s another person reinforcing that this pain needs to get out of here.

AV: It’s like no, it’s ok. And I love that you mentioned the “What would you name your headache?’ practice. I have known people who say, “I have named my perfectionist self. So when she starts raggin’ on me real hard, I can say get out of here, KAREN.” And it’s not just “Get out of here.” It’s more of, “I see you, I acknowledge you exist, but I’m still in charge. You can sit in the back.”

EW: Exactly. It’s so funny because that version can be so loud sometimes. Have you named yours? I call it the voice in your head.

AV: I haven’t actually. I definitely feel them as a separate presence though.

EW: Me too. And it’s nice, acknowledging them as a separate presence.

AV: It helps in that stepping back, and just looking at the experience. And again, just not building up the story. And I think that’s the cause of not only pain or chaos in ourselves, but it leaks out into our relationships as well. If we’re taking things personally or putting meaning on something that someone did that maybe they didn’t intend it to mean. We can really psych ourselves out.

EW: It’s nice acknowledging that voice in your head as just a child version of you. It’s probably the 3-year-old version that’s being really loud and really just wants some milk.

AV: Right! And so sometimes, you can say “yes, I’ll give you your milk.” Or sometimes you have to be the parent and say, “No, you can’t have candy for dinner.” Even though I want it so bad!

EW: Allowing that version of yourself to be seen and acknowledged by you and also not giving it any power.

AV: That’s very powerful in itself.

EW: And that’s the struggle, right? Between how do you hold space for a feeling or emotion versus wallowing in that feeling or emotion—it is so hard, making the delineation between those two.

AV: Exactly. I think that’s a really good form of self-care too. Take what you need and leave the rest. You can just find that one thing and shift it to work for you. Just bringing that into my life has been a huge game-changer.

EW: Like you don’t have to prescriptively do whatever it is that someone is telling you. That is really lovely.

On the topic of wallowing and self-care, something that I’ve also realized is that it’s really important for me to not be on my phone for the first x number of hours. I usually don’t allow myself to be on my phone from 10:30 pm to 8 am. If I’m waking up at 7, then that means that the first hour of being awake and being conscious is a space in which I dedicate it to myself and not to what I consider external distractions from the outside world. And it’s also nice because in that time I get to do all the things that I might be otherwise putting off. This is an hour dedicated to whatever I want. So I’ve started using it to clean my room, or wash specific things that I’ve been meaning to wash, or journaling and writing my daily affirmations. Having the luxury of that time is really amazing. And not only having the luxury of that time but also setting yourself up to succeed within that time.

AV: Yes. I was going to say, giving yourself that, coming home at the end of the day to a room that’s that much cleaner can make so much of a difference.

EW: It’s amazing. Same with making your bed. Some people ask, “What’s the point of making your bed?” When you get up in the morning and you’re out of bed, making your bed is a first act of taking care of yourself. So you know yourself for the rest of the day at least as somebody who has made their bed. All of it is “who do you know yourself as”? All of it is just feeding into this psychological mindfuck, the ULTIMATE psychological mindfuck of who do you know yourself to be. And once you know yourself to be somebody as someone who can accomplish x, y, and z,  then you can start to handle things like, “I’m somebody who’s in control of my finances” or “I’m somebody who’s in control of my living space.”

AV: It all starts with that little thing. You’ve just made your bed, and now you’re empowered to do whatever else.

EW: So. I wanted to ask you what are some things that you are grateful for? And then, what are some things that you are interested in calling into being, loud and proud in this interview? Because once you call it into being, once you say it out loud, then it’s going to happen.

AV: I am definitely grateful for the resilience that I have, and learning to empower that. It’s gotten me through a lot of really crazy things. And sometimes it’s hard to give yourself credit for that. I’m glad that I think of myself as a strong person.  

EW: I think you are a really strong person. Also when you said “my resilience,” I was like “shit. YES” Yea, just thinking about the entirety of your life and being like, “holy fuck. Every time I’ve come through for myself.”

AV: Right? And I’m still here.  And I still feel good about who I am in general, which can also be quite the struggle. So being gentle with yourself.

In terms of setting something up, I think I do want to focus more on giving to myself. Not only giving myself the care in the way we’ve talked about, but also giving myself credit, and giving myself empathy, and just treating myself like I would a friend. I think it’s definitely easy to hold ourselves to different standards. If your friend messes up or something happens, you wouldn’t blame them, and you wouldn’t say gross things about them. But it can be so easy to have negative self-talk. So discarding that and taking care of myself so that I can better take care of others. For a long while, it was “I can make it. I’m just going to trudge through whatever’s happening, and it’ll be ok!” And that’s not always the case. Sometimes maybe something needs to change. Maybe I need to reframe.

EW: Sit down, reassess, move forward.

AV: Exactly. What about you?

EW: Oh! I am really grateful for all the time that I have right now. I think that that has allowed me a lot of ability and opportunity to spend time and hold space for other people. I really love being able to care for other people in a way that feels really luxurious. And I’m also really proud of my honing of that for myself. If I was serving something to somebody else, if I was offering somebody else a meal, how would I make that meal for them? Is this a meal that I would be proud to offer to somebody else? Well I should make that for me too. Can you tell that I’m obsessed with food.

AV: Not a bad thing. Foodies forever

EW: Or having a space, and having a space that I feel proud of bringing people home to. That’s something that I wanted to manifest several months ago. I thought that the space that I was living in at the time was really nightmarish and I didn’t have any power or any control in the situation. So something that I did was I affirmed it every day that I was going to have a living space that really works for me and now I do.

AV: I was going to say, I walked in here and gasped. It’s amazing

EW: Yea and I’m so happy with how big it is, how much light there is. I love my roommate. I always want people to come over, but they always fucking live in Bushwick.

AV: That’s such great positive reinforcement too, to see that coming into fruition for you, and validating, “yes I made these affirmations and it happened.”

EW: And also, along the same lines, setting myself up for success so that’s something that I can maintain. So making sure that my rent is paid in advance, and putting in the work to make sure we have a nice kitchen table, and nice kitchen chairs and nice kitchen appliances, and nice bathroom things. Or this morning, while you were sleeping, I was in my closet, shining my latex. And it was so funny because I was shining my latex and then I put it away and I thought, “wow, this actually fits in this bag really well.” But I’ve never noticed that before because every other time I’ve tried to put this away, it’s after I’ve done a session and I’m stuffing it into this Ziploc bag screaming, “Why won’t this fit?!?!?” So time is something that I’m hugely and immensely grateful for. Which I know is going to be a huge struggle for me in the next 4 months or so; I know that everything is going to be condensing. But I’m also excited to break down who I know myself to be in terms of those abilities. Basically recreating myself in the next 4 months as somebody who’s able to operate within perceived limitations of time or resources.

AV: That’s great, and I love how you put that, because that feels exciting: “I get to discover those things about myself.”

EW: Exactly. That’s the challenge; I get to break down my own barriers around time.

AV: Good for you!

EW: Oh god, it’s going to be a nightmare. [both laugh] but it’s also going to be really nice.

AV: Yea, we need a challenge now and then

EW: And I’m also putting in the work to prep myself in that way, so I adopted a new house girl that I’m really excited about. Something else that I’m calling into being, for both of us, is a lot of career abundance.

AV [snapping]: hear, hear. [both laugh] Putting energy towards that.

EW: Lots of clear communication from and to clients. Lots of strong, fortified boundaries and agreements. Lots of clients that don’t necessarily come the way you expected them to, but are willing to be trained to come correct.

AV: I like that. Absolutely. Like we were talking about expectations.

EW: They can’t read your mind before they’ve ever met you. That’s what training’s for!

AV: There we go, we came full circle

EW: Yup, and, IF YOU ARE EVER INTERESTED IN BOOKING ME AND ADAH VONN FOR A DOUBLE…

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Empress Wu is a Professional Dominatrix in NYC that has a healthy obsession with fear; how it can be constructed, how it can be destroyed, and how it can be used as a tool for healing both environmental and inherited trauma. She is also an organizer, primarily engaged in the spheres of sex labor activism and creative production.