Meet Brianne Patrice | Sensuality Doula

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brianne Patrice and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brianne, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Twenty Nine Thirty is rooted from a place of love, devotion and awareness to myself, first and then to my community. As a Southern woman raised in a Christian household conversations around sex and sensuality were not had. My parents, in particular my mom, had no full understanding of the two other than what was passed down to her. Other than was taught to her through societal and religious value. As a black woman, as a black being and as someone who possesses as black body pleasure isn’t something that we are given luxury to prioritize. And usually when we do speak of or seek out pleasure, we think of it in a very linear way or we tend to access it in a very limited way. It’s viewed as something that it’s attainable or achievable through the male gaze or with external tools like porn or toys. And pleasure, or the erotic in other words, doesn’t always have to be sexual. And pleasure is also healing. There are a lot of conversations being had about mental, emotional and physical wellness; spiritual wellness and how we can achieve these things through yoga, meditation, journaling and the like. And while I am an advocate for all of these things, I also want you to understand what it means to learn your body. What it means to heal through your senses, the power that comes from accessing your erotic and how prioritizing pleasure carries over into all of life’s areas and is not limited to just matters of the bedroom. Your body has a voice that you might not know yet and sensuality gives you space to listen; to explore it’s desires and to exercise mind-body modality.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I often say that ”I did not choose this work but that the work chose me” and it is as true today as it was the first time I said it some years ago. It started as a personal journey; like a lot of black art Twenty Nine Thirty derived from a place of pain. I just found myself in an unfamiliar place. I was sad, depressed and a bit suicidal if I’m being honest. There was so much going on in my life and it just been years of one traumatic event on top of another. I felt like God/Spirit (the language is interchangeable for me) had forgotten about me and that all I would come to know for the rest of my days would be pain, sorrow and struggle. And I know that might sound a bit dramatic given that I was in my late 20s at the time and am now 34; but when trauma is all you have come to know for the last decade almost you have no reason to believe that things will get better. I had no reason to believe that things would get better. Of course I remained hopeful and prayerful; and I kept pushing as black women often do but it also felt like the more I pushed the more I became entangled cutting off my own air leaving me with none to breathe. I had to confront every single thing I THOUGHT I knew about myself, about my body and my womanhood, sex and pleasure, about my experiences within motherhood, about relationships and partnership, money and finances, religion and etc. Literally everything was called into question. And I had to be honest about what resonated and what no longer made sense to me. What had my toxic traits become? Learning about boundary work and being able to identify what was and was not my responsibility. As black women, black beings, black bodies if we take time to listen we’ll notice that the luggage we are carrying has someone else’s name on it and all we have to do is put it down and tend to our own closet.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Twenty Nine Thirty has been ideating for years. Last year we slowly began to introduce her to the world but this year, thanks to the guidance of my team and council members— Elyse Fox of Sad Girls Club, Meghan Jones, PR Specialist, and Muna Ikedionwu of M.Kedi— this year we are expanding it’s reach and I would not feel as prepared or as aligned as I do if it was not for them.

Website: twentyninethirty.co

Instagram: @twentyninethirty

Image Credits
Taylor Hunter (brand images) Jocko Graves (headshot)