Intimacy, Conscious Dating, & Epic Sex with Max Trombly

Speaker 1: 0:00

Kelly and I were kind of off, we were missing each other, we were exhausted, we were tired and our intimacy was kind of missing in action for a minute. And so there's the part of me that if I'm closed, I'm going to go. I'm really frustrated, like our sex life isn't happening the way I wanted to and like I don't feel you, and I feel like that's me in a negative expression of my own feminine, the other version, and this is what I brought Baby, I fucking miss you, like I miss you and my heart aches to feel you, like I just want to feel your hands on my body and I want to feel the softness of love.

Speaker 1: 0:32

That's beautiful, it's the same underlying issue, but I'm bringing one from a place of neediness and contraction or I'm bringing it from a place of like my heart breaks to feel your love and if I can bring it from that place that opens her.

Speaker 3: 0:47

Welcome to the Wholeshipang. I'm Jen Briggs, your host. Let me tell you about what we're talking about over here Kind of everything. This podcast was born after seeing these patterns of burnout, disconnection and lost passions, and I think it's because we functioned in part and not in whole and we've sort of championed this linear, mental left brain hustle culture approach to life and downplayed or even ignored intuition, creativity, empathy and playfulness. But here's what excites me I'm seeing signs everywhere that we're entering a new era, that's embracing a new approach. It's vibrant, it's powerful and it's magnetic. So come on with me. We're over here learning new practices for all of life and in the process, I believe that she'll become more and more wholly authentically you. It's what we truly need, the complete package, the whole shebang. So buckle up buttercups. We're diving in.

Speaker 3: 1:42

Hi, it's week two of our love, relationship and sex series and you guys, I'm so excited to share this one with you. I got to sit down with Max Trombly, whom I've been in stuff following for quite some time, and just feel really lucky that we got to have this juicy and lightning fun. At times we even kind of touch on some controversial topics. Let me share just a few goodies of what you're going to get from the episode today how to date more consciously. Max shares even specific questions that you can ask on a first date how to bring up concerns and needs in a relationship that cultivates connection versus a kind of crunchy closure. What we need to do to create an epic sex life, what's a render and intimacy requires from a partner and, of course, you guys. There's so much more, but let me first tell you a little bit about Max. So Max Trombly is a dedicated, embodied life, love and relationship coach from vibrant New Orleans, louisiana. He's committed to guiding individuals towards a brighter, empowered future and, as a devoted husband and proud father of two, his mission is to elevate our potential and empower us to live with purpose, passion and depth.

Speaker 3: 2:48

Max, a catalyst in transformational coaching, helps clients find clarity and self leadership, especially during challenging moments. With a track record of success stories, he aids people in discovering purpose, reigniting intimacy and navigating the complexities of modern dating. His expertise stems from a decade of leading transformational growth organization, uniquely equipping him to facilitate profound self leadership and transformations. Furthermore, max's own journey from divorce to deep, conscious love positions him as a compassionate guide for those navigating similar challenges. His goal is to help individuals cultivate deep love through new beliefs, self responsibility, a new embodied reality and profound awareness. All right, guys and gals, turn it up, tune in. You're going to take things from today that I believe will change your love life, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did. Max, welcome to the whole shebang. I am excited to be here.

Speaker 3: 3:46

We are so excited to have you tell you what.

Speaker 1: 3:49

I've been waiting.

Speaker 3: 3:50

I've been chomping at the bit to just dive in. Are you ready to just dive in? Yeah, let's just go. Like, whatever you want to do, we can get right into it. All right, right on so.

Speaker 3: 4:00

I'm having a lot of conversations with a lot of women and dating some of them are in relationships and kind of like is this the direction I want to go and I'm going to go, and I'm going to go and I'm going to go. They're tired, they're exhausted, they're experiencing and I might put myself into that category to some degree, although I don't want to like put that out into the universe but just like waffly men that don't feel, like that have its spine and we're like where are the men? Like, where are they? So what do you have to say about that?

Speaker 1: 4:32

Well, that's a great question. It's a common question I get, and it's a question that is rooted in If I just label it that anguish desire, heartbreak. You know, we're living in a time where it's just like we wanna have a fulfilling life. We wanna have a life in partnership that lights us up, like in love and excitement and joy and pleasure, like everything. That's great, right, and what we're finding is there's two things. One we can't find people that light us up, and so we end up settling and we settle for things that just feel like, oh, like, why can't he just be present?

Speaker 1: 5:08

Or from the masculine side, like why is she always in resentment? Like why can't we just be like doing life together, positively happy? And you know, here's what I'll say. There are good people everywhere, there are good men everywhere, there are good women everywhere, and we live in a time and we are living among a culture that is so self-obsessed obsessed with our wounds, with our mental illnesses, with things that are not going right that we end up affirming everything we obsess over. So if we obsess over what's not working in our life, then it's not gonna work, life's not gonna work right. And the thing is, if we live in that kind of way, well then we're digging a hole. Now think about it this way.

Speaker 1: 5:55

I'll just go to a real-world example. My wife and I have a real relationship. We have two young kids. I have a nine-year-old son. I have a three-year-old daughter. We live in a tough city. It's not an easy place to live. It's dicey, it's got violence, it's wild. There are two versions of me. I could be one who's like man. My wife and I don't feel connected. My kids are driving me crazy. The city is on fire again, with violence and the construction and the holes in the streets, and I could just hold that in my embodiment, and if I brought that into my relationship, all she would feel is a guy that's just frustrated and collapsed and that's not someplace to make love like to create love from, or to make love from.

Speaker 1: 6:30

However, there's another version of me, which is I can go. Well, they are repairing my street and I get that there's an uptick in violence, but you know, the city's great, monty Graus, is about to kick off. I live in New Orleans, by the way, for your listeners, I just put two and two together.

Speaker 1: 6:43

we got it yeah yeah, but you know, and so I can also say, like you know, there's a lot of beauty and there's a dichotomy to this city and it's just you get one and the other and that's life. And if I can be in that place, you know my wife gets home, we're tired, we've had a hard day. I can go baby. You know what. I love you. What do you want tonight to look like, rather than baby? I'm so stressed and fatigued. Everything's wrong the street, the city, you know.

Speaker 1: 7:08

And so the first thing I just wanna say and why I just drew this all out is because you will not find goodness in the world if you can't hold goodness within your heart, if you're not ready and willing to show up from a place of resilience, optimism, the potential of love. If that's not streaming forth from within you, then it won't be created externally in the world around you. And I hate to say it comes down to self-responsibility. But you can create an incredible relationship with most people that are. There's a couple things, we'll get into this in a minute, but as long as you have a solid person in front of you man or woman you can bring that relationship into the higher potential love, deep intimacy, juicy love life.

Speaker 1: 7:47

You know conscious relating and I think the thing is. The first step is recognizing there are good people out there and I wanna create with somebody. So let's create together. You know, that's the first thing.

Speaker 1: 8:01

But there's a second piece that's really important what I find in my relationship coaching and in the work that I do I do a lot of work and I work with a lot of people 150 people a year, you know men's work containers, couples, men and women that I coach what I find is that often, if we're not willing to confront the part of ourself that is ultimately manifesting darkness in the world right.

Speaker 1: 8:23

So, like if we're depressed chronically, we eat like shit, we don't take care of our bodies and we're sitting there going where's the good man? Well, it's just not gonna magnetize appropriately. Yeah, it's the same thing. If I, as a man, don't take care of myself, I don't take myself. You know, seriously, I'm not living for a purpose and I go out dating. Let's say, I find this amazing woman who just wants to love someone beautifully. We're not gonna align because she's gonna be like oh, that guy doesn't have his life together. You know what? I mean.

Speaker 3: 8:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:51

And so it's really in like. This is the number one thing that I learned If I wanted to create a powerful relationship with someone that was really capable and resilient in love, I had to clean up my house, I had to clean up my life. I had to become he who is capable of just crushing it in life and relationship.

Speaker 1: 9:07

And when I did that, here's what happened. I dated for a year from this place of I wanna create a beautiful, deep, loving relationship. I want a partner who's capable of love. I want a partner who has a spiritual depth to her, that you know she believes in a higher potential of life and love and relationship. And so from that place I dated and it was really easy for me to go yeah, you're great, but you're enough. Moving on, moving on, moving on, moving on. Dated 20 people over a year, a couple people, more than one date. I was able to see clearly this doesn't align. Moving on, and when my wife popped up, it was immediate. It was immediate. And so I just knew I was like, oh my God, I think this is her. And then I met her and I met her and that night I was like I found her, I found the woman of my dreams and I was ready that day to just call on the rest of my life with her.

Speaker 3: 9:52

Did she know that? Did she have an inkling?

Speaker 1: 9:54

Yeah, she knew. Yeah, we both knew. We've talked about this actually. You know, I've been with her for six years.

Speaker 1: 9:59

And this has come up in conversation a lot and she really felt the same thing. And you know, here's the thing I'll say it wasn't by mistake that this happened. I got really clear what is the stuff I need to clean up, you know, in my life so that I can be free. And I did some healing around old grief I did. I cleared out any feelings that I had around Xs that were resentments toward Xs, unhealed wounds with X relationships. So I was pretty much, how can I become the cleanest vessel of potential?

Speaker 1: 10:25

And I dated from that place, you know, and that's the thing that I think really helped and it really helped me call in the correct partnership. But the other thing is I didn't abandon myself, and this is something that happens in dating. Is we self abandon and we go, oh he's I good enough, but deep down, what we know is, I don't know there's something wrong here, but we ignore it because, you know, maybe he's attractive and he's exciting and blah, blah, and so being able to steward ourselves forward from a place of deep knowing and awareness and discernment when dating is the critical piece that allows us to find right relationship.

Speaker 3: 10:58

There's so much goodness in everything you've just said there.

Speaker 1: 11:02

I said a lot.

Speaker 3: 11:03

You would saw it's all good. The self awareness piece and self responsibility. I mean you said it. It's not necessarily the sexiest advice of like we'll get self responsible and get self aware, and I also think maybe this is just my perception I'm curious. Obviously you're doing a lot, a lot of work in this. So how does a person know what they need to clean up? I think we have these blind spots or we don't even know, or magnetizing stuff and we're like, why do I keep attracting this and still can't see it in ourselves? So how do we uncover what needs to be cleaned up?

Speaker 1: 11:37

Yeah, well, the easiest thing I would say here, I mean, there's when I work with clients, there's, it's sort of like it's an exploration in a cave where there's no lights, right, so you really don't know until you know. But what I usually start to look at is you know what is a person's relationship to their parents? You know what are the withhelds that are resting as resentments or anger regarding the parental relationships, cause that's a big one. That one is a big one that affects how we show up in relationship. You know, if I have a huge problem with my father or my mother, that's going to come out in how I perceive and attract and magnetize relationship.

Speaker 3: 12:08

Can you give me an example of that? Sorry to interrupt you. Yeah, it's okay. So what does that look like?

Speaker 1: 12:13

Well for men.

Speaker 1: 12:13

I work with a lot of men right, and so when men have a father wound, that's really big.

Speaker 1: 12:19

The thing is, we are our parents, we learn everything from our parents and even if we only knew them for a short period of time or barely at all, there's still a genetic patterning that's within us. And so let's say that we have a wound around. Let's say I have a wound with my father and I don't love who he is. Then I'm in denial of myself and I'm actually blind to my own ways that are similar to his and resisting those parts of me. Once I can come into a place of forgiving and relaxing into like my dad was who he was and he did his best, I can have tenderness for him and tenderness for me and I can be a little more responsible in how I go about life and the world. It's the same thing with women and their mothers. I find that it was actually one of the number one things I was looking for when I was looking for a relationship. I wanted to find a woman that had a healthy relationship with her mother because, this is really interesting.

Speaker 1: 13:08

But basically, if a mother did a good job raising her children from a place of love, her children will love her Right. And so if a woman was capable of raising her children with love, her daughter's gonna be capable of raising her children with love. I was looking for someone.

Speaker 1: 13:28

I was looking for someone to become the mother of my children and the number one thing was I need to find a woman who has a good relationship with her mom, who has an open and I mean it's not that she has to accept everything about her mom or you know. It's not that it doesn't have to be perfect, but the potential of experiencing love regardless of whatever there is on the field. And there's more to this. But look just around the parent thing. So the one thing to look at is what are your relationships to your parents? Do you feel healed in those relationships? It's ancestral lineage healing. It's a real important piece. The second piece is what are your stories that you make up and beliefs you have around your exes?

Speaker 1: 14:02

If I met a person who said you know all of her ex-boyfriends were the problem, then I'd be like okay, this is a person that doesn't take responsibility around, right, and maybe that's true, but also she was responsible for choosing those men, right? So what does that say? And that's something I really do, I do a lot of work and I've done this work on myself. I really looked at I mean, I had a really difficult first marriage and I had a lot to unpack around what happened in that marriage and there was a big mental illness proponent. It was just very difficult.

Speaker 1: 14:29

And when I first left that marriage, there was the there was.

Speaker 1: 14:31

You know, I did the selfish thing and I went, oh, it's her fault, it's her fault. But what I the real work I did is, even though I can say that there was some emotional behaviors in the relationship that she's responsible for that ultimately caused me to decide to divorce, where did I not show up in my leadership? Where did I? Where did I deny her my love? Where did I not show up as a man who was able to hold her in her emotional expression? By doing that deep work and not just blaming somebody else for the end of a relationship, I was able to get really clear like where have I withheld my gifts and love? And by doing that now I get to say, okay, I'm not going to do that again, let me try better next time. And I came into this relationship really having a strong awareness of what am I here to create and where are my tender or weak spots, where I need to pay attention so that I don't get into old habits and patterns in a relationship.

Speaker 1: 15:24

Does that make sense?

Speaker 3: 15:25

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I'm curious what are you here to create? And we're like what is what's your? And is that like a common overarching, like a lot of men want to create this thing and women want to create that thing, but what's what's your answer to that?

Speaker 1: 15:39

I can't speak for anyone else. I'm here to create an incredible love life with my wife.

Speaker 1: 15:43

I just want to have love and I want her to feel loved, and I want to do that for us and for our experience. But I also want to do that for my kids. I want them to be raised in a healthy home where there's beautiful love. And you know, my wife and I get into it. At times we get into conflicts like anyone else. So you know, not only for ourselves, but modeling for our children, and what repair looks like like if we get into some sort of energetic tussle or a conflict. You know, repairing consciously, compassionately, from a place of wanting to understand the other, that's something that we really do. And so I think you know what am I here to create? I'm here to create a beautiful life with my wife, a beautiful life for my children. I'm also here to just create a fucking badass life, like I'm here to do awesome stuff and I'm really excited about my life and what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 16:29

And you know, since I was a kid, I sort of had these visions of the kind of life I wanted to live. And when I was younger I was a musician. So I played on stage a lot for a decade and then I created art for a decade after that, and so I've always been a man who expresses through art in the world, and these days I'm really. My art is really geared to, you know, leadership and leading people in groups and helping people heal and people. You know how I think that the way that I ultimately phrase it is I try to help people come into a sense of a liberated spirit. So how can we live authentically as ourselves and receive the lives that we're desiring to receive? Does?

Speaker 3: 17:06

that make sense. Yes, that just lit me up. That like that liberated spirit, like helping, that's powerful, beautiful.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:15

Thank you for sharing I've heard you talk about. I'm going to take a little bit of a left turn here, but I've heard you talk about some of the generational things with men and hearing that perspective, hearing you speak on that really was helpful for me and understanding the larger scope of generational things with men. Can you speak to that?

Speaker 1: 17:33

Yeah, absolutely All right. So there's sort of a crisis in masculinity right now and one of the reasons is because men are living at the effect of a multi-generational trauma cycle and it's really big and it's really a lot bigger than people realize. So World War I and World War II many of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers went through these horrendous conflicts with extreme violence and there was no psychology at the time that knew how to work with it. No one knew what it was. We called it shell shock. Now we know that's PTSD, but we didn't know what to do with it. So men were coming back from these conflicts immediately getting thrown into welcome to America, you're back, you're home, here's your house, like go get a job and serve your life, and what we had is we had a massive, massive population of men who were basically just closed down and shut out and shut off. A lot of them had alcohol problems or drug problems, but whatever, without getting into it, imagine turning off masculine leadership for an entire generation or two, right.

Speaker 1: 18:34

And so our parents I'm 42, my dad was born in the 1940s, so my parents were raised by fathers who were post-war, post-trauma, like kind of shut down and shut off, and so my dad was basically raised without a dad. And even though there was a dad in the field, like that dad was a real toxic, broken man. And so my dad was raised without really good masculine leadership, right. And so as my dad grew up, he didn't know how to be a man. He didn't know what that meant. He did really well, he was good at business, he was good at, you know, unconsciously providing for a family, but he didn't teach me a lot, you know, in terms of what does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to serve the world from my depth and width?

Speaker 1: 19:18

And so when I was a teenager, I didn't have any leadership. I didn't know what, like who am I? What am I becoming? I'd ask him questions about, like how do you figure out life? And he'd be like, oh, you just figured it out. It's like, well, that's meaningless and so. But anyway, I think you know it's not even about his wisdom, it's about his embodiment. Like he didn't have masculine leadership, or like good conscious masculinity modeled for him. You know, and I'm not the only one, there's millions of me.

Speaker 3: 19:45

Right, yeah, so where do we go? I mean, that's why you're doing this work. I'm presuming you're seeing this gap and so you're doing the work of helping men become understand what masculine even just you saying that phrase, I feel like there's going to be a lot of men listening that are like, well, what does masculine leadership mean? And, honestly, a lot of women listening that are like offended by that phrase.

Speaker 1: 20:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:05

Well, I'm not surprised. Yeah, I mean, I'll just call it out.

Speaker 1: 20:07

I'll call it out for what it is. You know, one of the things that feminism did is it had it has women hating men. You know, has women hating what men have done, right, the patriarchy and I have mixed feelings on this whole, like you know. It depends on how controversial you want to go with it. But here's the thing at the end of the day, if we're in relationship with men, we've got to look at what do I believe about men and is that serving my relationship and the men that I'm loving? You know?

Speaker 3: 20:29

what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's huge, I would say like just me. Speaking personally, I would say it's been an interesting journey and part of why I've been drawn into any of this work is that I would call myself a feminist because I am for equal opportunity. And I would say stay home full time if you want. You know, and I would say 99% of my female friends would put themselves in that category, but they're also exhausted and just like oops we swung the pendulum so far in the name of independence and autonomy.

Speaker 3: 21:04

And we like, don't. We don't want to play that role in our partnerships, with our romantic relationships anymore. But we've so overdeveloped that muscle that it's taken me years and I haven't, I'll never have arrived but to like to to your point, to magnetize and call in the kind of partner that I want. I'm like there's a lot of softening that has to happen for women that have swung the pendulum for the in the name of freedom.

Speaker 1: 21:28

You know? Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. I saw a beautiful quote from somebody recently and she said I will reclaim the title feminist when feminism supports the feminine. And I was like man does that hit? Because a lot of what feminism was doing is we can do what you can do, we can be what you can be, and I have often said yeah. So it's like we're talking about toxic masculinity and patriarchy and it's like you want to be equal in that. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3: 21:56

Well, that's a good point. I don't think we've seen great examples hardly. That's a really big statement, but I don't. I can't point to a lot of really great samples of what healthy masculinity looks like, especially leadership or leadership that we can see, so it's no wonder that it's off kilter and from so many different angles.

Speaker 1: 22:17

Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the problems with leadership, especially the way we do it in politics and socio like sociological, sociological groupings, is that we want the loudest, most like vital fighter to lead our cause right. And people that are on that fringe edge usually aren't grounded and conscious. You know, super soft I don't want to say soft, but like I actually don't want to be like a profoundly famous leader in the world, because then I have to hold a lot and I'd rather just hold my wife and my kids. But there is something that I'm doing in my life that I know I'm going to have to kind of move into this space of holding a bigger space. The thing is conscious men. Well, how do I want to frame this? You said, you know we don't have a lot of good examples of conscious men.

Speaker 3: 23:00

Yeah or maybe just visible, like you know I and I'm I'm seeking them out now like conscious capitalist. You know organizations and just like looking for leadership. There are men out there that are that way. I just don't think it's been. When we chatted last, you said they're just not on Instagram. I'm like yeah, yeah, it's it's partially where we are, that maybe we're not seeing them.

Speaker 1: 23:21

Well, that's really true and something that my so I'm. I'm in the American South, for your listeners, I'm in New Orleans, louisiana. My wife was born here. I was born in Boston, massachusetts, actually. So I come from that kind of world. But, you know, something that my wife always reminds me is because this conversation comes up a lot and she's like you should really let people know Like in the South there's a lot of Christian men and it's easy to judge them for their religion or their spiritual beliefs, but there's a lot of men that are just doing good work in the world. They're serving their families.

Speaker 1: 23:46

They've got their jobs, they're providing for their families in beautiful ways and they're just doing simple things you know, like and that actually matters. That's actually really important to recognize, because a good man isn't a loud man, boisterous man, man who's fighting every cause. A good man is someone who just says baby, I just want to serve us and I want to do good for us, like in our home, you know, for the sake of us, like that's good. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:07

That's a good vibration. And so a lot of men that are like that, but I know really don't spend a lot of time on the internet and they're not interested in being, you know, out in the world, because their work is. I'm here to serve my home.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Yeah that's God serve. You know my people, and so I really respect that and I think there's a lot of people that are like that. There's also another thing that's just worth noting, which is that there's quite a few people who, you know, got out of college, got married, had kids and that's like half the population and they're doing okay. And so we're actually talking about the half of the population that, like, pursued careers, did other things, and it's sort of this later stage in life where we're trying to come into like conscious relationships and love, and so one of the things is good people are all around you. You're just not seeing it because it's not the texture that you're used to seeing. But it's like think about your friends that have their life together in a beautiful way and they have a beautiful relationship, and you know they have kids and things are going okay. Like those are good people, they're everywhere. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3: 24:58

Yeah what's the phrase, you know it's called when you you're like, oh, I'm going to buy this kind of car, and then you see the car everywhere, and it's just that. The truth is that once we start, once we change the way we see things, we start seeing things differently, and that's I think, a form of what you're saying like, okay, and that is so true, I was. So I was on a dating app for three weeks and was like, oh boy, I'm in over my head.

Speaker 3: 25:22

I got off for a week and I just was like I got to reset. I got to like hit the reset reframe. I also now have some insight. I'm going to set my profile up differently and this week I'm like okay, there's some great men on here. There really are yeah and I, so I don't want to like leave listeners with the conversation, whether it's me or other women in general. Certainly there are women and men out there that have this perspective that, like, all men suck or all women suck. That is not. That is not where I think.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Most people do believe that there's good people out there.

Speaker 1: 25:52

Yeah, here's the thing that's being able to discern Right. Being able to discern first of all, like, what is a good person? What is? What does that mean? And I had to change that completely. You know, for most of my life I was attracted to shiny objects. So I was attracted to women who were more sensual and had this certain energetic texture, maybe a darker energy, you know things that kind of made me feel like excited to be around and I realized at some point, wow, that's actually dangerous and that's an unhealthy attraction habit, and so I shifted it completely. When my wife popped up, she was this like petite blonde woman. She's like I'm a vegan mother of a three year old, like here to love life and laugh. And I was like, wow, that's the most healthy thing I've ever seen. And then when I met her, I was like, wow, this is actually exactly what I need. I need to, I need to surrender all this weird stuff that I think I want and move toward a healthy relationship and I that was the smartest thing I've ever done.

Speaker 3: 26:44

Did you know that, like before you got, before you met her, was that in your work of cleaning things up and kind of getting clear on what you wanted? Did you know you were looking for a lighter texture of a woman, or?

Speaker 1: 26:57

did you just?

Speaker 3: 26:58

recognize it when you saw her.

Speaker 1: 27:00

Yeah, yeah, as I was dating, I was able to really recognize like, wow, I'm looking for just a good woman, a good woman who's rooted in it, like who's rooted in her purpose in life and, and you know, I was looking for someone to be the mother of my kids, so someone that was kind of attuned to motherhood and what that looks like. And yeah, I really did have to, you know, shift my awareness and I did do that. I did it before I started dating. So when I was dating, it actually really helped me become a no to most people pretty quickly, you know. And I asked the important questions when I was dating, you know, I was like, what do you want out of a relationship? What are you doing with your life? Where do you want to live in 10 years? Like, what do you? What do you? What can you contribute to a relationship that you think is of value? You know.

Speaker 3: 27:41

And what are your love languages? Were these first? Were these first dates? Sorry to interrupt you. Were these first date questions? Oh?

Speaker 1: 27:46

yeah, yeah, I mean I'm, I'm listening.

Speaker 3: 27:48

You're firing them off. Slow down a second here.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Okay.

Speaker 3: 27:52

You asked what? What else did you ask?

Speaker 1: 27:54

So first date questions I would always just go. You know what are you looking to do in a relationship? And most people fritz, they just lose it, they go, I don't. They have no idea how to answer that and that. Right, there is the answer, the one side, once I got that?

Speaker 3: 28:03

Did you get up and leave at that point where you like I've done most of the job?

Speaker 1: 28:06

No, no no, no, no, no, look, no, no. I mean to be frank. This is what treat every, every person I dated I treated with honor and dignity, of course, and so if, if, by the end of the first date, I was a no, I just said, yeah, I've really enjoyed this time. That's not what I'm looking for, you know. I wish you well on your path and good luck. And then I just moved on.

Speaker 1: 28:24

With some people I dated more than more than one day. It was either one date or it was up to four weeks, and so for the people I dated for four weeks, that's where I got into the kind of weeds of, like, how does this person live? What's their relationship to food and health and what's their relationship to spirituality? Like, what does their house look like? Like, how do they take care of themselves? Those are the kinds of things I went into in the secondary space when I was dating someone further. And, yeah, on the first date since you asked it was what are you looking to do with a relationship? What do you imagine your life looks like over the next decade? What do you want to do with your life? What are your priorities in the world? Do you have a spiritual practice. And the last thing I asked six years ago it's interesting to go back to this moment what's your relationship to self growth and healing? Those are the kinds of questions I asked.

Speaker 3: 29:16

Sir, so good yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:18

Yeah, I mean those are. Look, I don't mess around. My dad was an engineer and he's a really good engineer, so I'm a kind of systems guy and I really get it. And so I was like, how do I date to find deep love efficiently? And I developed a process, I did it and I succeeded at the absolute. I like I actually am shocked at how, how well it worked.

Speaker 3: 29:35

That's great Would you add anything to that Like how to date consciously. Would you add any like?

Speaker 1: 29:41

Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of how to date consciously, the one thing that I was really cognizant to. I talked to a psychologist about this and I asked how long does it take in the dating process before emotions really start to kick up and, like, become the like, the confusing factor that affects conscious awareness? And basically what I learned is around four weeks, and so if you're dating somebody, whether you're involved intimately or not, around four weeks in that's when things start to get really confusing and we start projecting beliefs on the other person. So like oh yeah, this person totally could be my husband, like, and you can imagine this future version of them. But we got it. You can't do that. What you have to do is who's the person in front of me and does it register as truthful, honest, authentic and possible to create love with? You know what I?

Speaker 1: 30:21

mean. And so you know that's. That's really the thing. So know what you're after on that first date. See if that's a possible yes or maybe. If it's a yes, or maybe, go on a second date and you're really looking for a hell yes, and if it's not a hell yes, if it's a maybe, that's a no. You know what I mean. So, having that discerned ship and being able to be really sharp with it, like when I'm, when I'm working with people that are dating, it's the same thing with every person. They're like, yeah, I mean he's almost there, and I'm like, great, that's all you need to know, he's almost there. So next time there will be someone.

Speaker 3: 30:49

That's a little more there and you just move on. This is so good, you know this is so good. Okay, when do you recommend to bring in sex or not bring in sex? Is that like?

Speaker 1: 30:59

Yeah, I actually, I actually don't care. I I don't look. When I was dating, I didn't sleep with anyone on the first date, but sexual intimacy is incredibly important to me and.

Speaker 1: 31:07

I want to know where the person's at in terms of, in my case, her capabilities, right, and so I did want to have a sense of like are they embodied? Do they have a sense of their pleasure? So this is one of the things that's really important, right? A woman who's not attached to her pleasure can't self, can't speak on behalf of self within the realm of sensuality.

Speaker 3: 31:24

So if a woman can feel her own. But yeah, break it down.

Speaker 1: 31:27

So if a woman is disembodied and she doesn't have a relationship to her own pleasure, if I'm in intimacy with that person, there's no feedback loop for me to know is this working? Does it feel good, like, how does this work? Right? This is a way for us to be in the realm of that sexual union, that sexual dynamic if I can't get, if there's no feedback, right? So the first thing for me was is she embodied? Like that matters. Does she feel her body? The second thing is does she enjoy being pleasurable at me and on me and on my body Like? Is she giving her gifts at me and on me? You know what I mean Touch, think, like, and this really gets into love languages, but here's the thing. So I I think that this is really important. Like when I was dating, I wanted to know is the person I'm dating capable of loving me physically and intimately in a way that feels good for me? You know what? I mean yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:12

Yeah, and that's important, because sex is really important in my life and having a vibrant and vital and exciting sex life is. Is that non-negotiable for me? Okay. For the way I live, you know, and and so here's the thing. So for men, is he aware of me as an embodied feminine being, or is he just leading from his cock?

Speaker 3: 32:31

Hmm, okay.

Speaker 1: 32:32

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 32:33

Say it again for the people in back Is he aware of me, my pleasure in my body and my eyes and my spirit and my soul when he's fucking me? Or is he just aware of his cock? Does he? Is he dissociated, except for his penetration? That's the thing we have to be aware of with men. Are they actually aware that they are a full human being having an experience with another human being, or are they just gyrating their hips to get pleasure in one particular part of their body? Does that?

Speaker 3: 32:59

make sense. It's just such a wildly different experience and I think how do you? Ooh, it's just probably. I'm like, how do you teach him? How do you teach somebody to not be gyrating with their hips and to be fully connected? I teach people every year. I teach it. Yeah, how do I teach?

Speaker 1: 33:15

it. I teach people to. All right, I'll tell you how you want to know.

Speaker 3: 33:18

You want to know how I teach men.

Speaker 1: 33:20

All right, I have two men sit in front of each other and I have them breathe and I have them breathe deep into their lower body and I have them put their feet on the ground and they look at another man's eyes and they just feel that guy's experience and when he drops presence, call it back to presence and we start to develop the muscleture of awareness, physical awareness.

Speaker 1: 33:36

And so over time in these kinds of practices. These aren't sexual practices. What we're developing is I'm aware of the man in front of me. I'm breathing, I can sense his nervous system, I can sense how he's breathing, we're breathing, we're connected. And then there's this whole other realm, which is the energetic realm. So I teach men how to express energy through their body. So how do you express energy of? You know, there's archetypes that are really basic, like how might you hold the energy of? Like a jaguar, like a masculine jaguar? How would you?

Speaker 1: 34:03

hold that at 10% in your body and your eyes Right, and you can do this with men that are completely heteronormative. You can have one man kind of bring some energy through his body and the other man will respond, he'll light up his eyes, his eyes will go whoa, like that's something, and that's actually that man's feminine responding to that man's masculine penetration. It's really interesting. So when you get into the meta of this stuff and so anyway, you know, as a man, if you can kind of develop these archetypes as energy through your body, you basically want to have like a king archetype where you're present, capable and aware. You want to have sort of a warrior archetype where you have a little bit of fierceness in your body. You know you want to develop sort of this kind of hungry, primal archetype call it a bear, wolf, jaguar where you're kind of like hmm, like I want want want, you know.

Speaker 1: 34:46

And if you can run that energy through your body like that's how I mean ultimately, that's how you awaken a feminine body into complete bliss, you know, and I'm like okay. Yeah, well, you see how I'm just talking about it, but you can see the reaction you're having this is real.

Speaker 1: 35:00

It's, really it's really, and women have the same thing. There's all sorts of feminine energies that women can cultivate that elicit more from their men, like what I mean. There's like there's classic ones, like there's like, you know, all the mystery school teachers that are like, come learn tantric, mystery school stuff, and it's all like the seductress, right, and the queen and the princess, like is a lighter energy, that's. But there's also just like there's like this, like kind of like just gopy wild, like imagine, just like a giddy cheerleader energy that not in like a sexual way, but just like play and fun and like it's energy right. So there's all these different textures that can be brought through. I love when my wife is just lit up with joy, like she's just excited, like that really lights me up. You know what I mean, not in a sexual way, but it's a liveness that I'm feeling from her.

Speaker 1: 35:47

Yeah, so there's different energies that we can. Oh the healer, that's another great one for the feminine. Like imagine, imagine if you treated every day like my, my, my man's coming home from war and I'm going to just tend to his wounds. Like do you realize how much we would soften men if the first thing we did is just said sit down, baby, let me put my hands on your shoulders? Like do you know what that would do in a relationship?

Speaker 2: 36:06

You know, if we had that as a cultural piece like?

Speaker 1: 36:08

every time my man gets home I'm going to rub his shoulders and tell him I love him and I'm glad he's home. Like that is unbelievable in terms of what it would do in terms of inviting him into love with you as a woman.

Speaker 3: 36:19

Well, and you talked earlier about how we are a self-centered, you know sort of society, and this is a very different paradigm. I can I can just kind of hear the women going well, why would I just rub his shoulders? I'm like, well, what, what is it that you would want him to do for you, and why would you ask him to do that for you if you're not willing to do that for him? So what if we just put each other first? I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:42

Just you know, to some degree or or what you're saying is like serve them.

Speaker 1: 36:45

Let me just explain how this happens in my life. For all the women that are like why would I do that? I work really hard. I'm in my head a lot. I serve clients all day. I'm in different emotional spaces, serving people at different levels, sometimes serving as many as a hundred people at once. When I get to the end of the day, I'm pretty tired. You know, I've gone and picked up my kids. I was in a carpool lane for a little while. I get home. I'm in more meetings, she gets home. So if she comes into my office and she just walks behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders, leans in, kisses me on my neck and says hi, I love you, what she has just done to my nervous system is she has disarmed me, she has softened me, she has allowed me to take a deep breath, and usually what happens next is I go oh hey, and there's a moment of connection that we miss in almost all of our relationships.

Speaker 1: 37:38

Yeah, that connected moment, and it's from there that the rest of our evening unfolds, mm hmm, does that make sense?

Speaker 3: 37:43

Yeah, it's so good. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1: 37:46

And let me say one more thing.

Speaker 3: 37:47

I know you're ready to go, but let me say one more thing no, no, no, no, no, we're so good.

Speaker 1: 37:50

I have committed to serving my wife fully, full stop, over anything else. Because if I serve my wife into love and into her pleasure and into knowing that she's safe and that she's well held, then she's able to live at her fullest expression because she's not worried about everything else. And so, as a man, if I can give my wife the gift of baby, I've got you Baby, I've got this, we've got it. What do you need? What I'm doing is the same kind of thing. It's nervous system maintenance, it's being aware of what she needs right and letting her know that I've got her by doing that for the men that are like, why would I do this? Because then my wife becomes available to be the full expression of all that I desire.

Speaker 3: 38:30

Yeah, it's a cycle. Yeah, it is, yeah, it is yeah you're saying that I again I can feel that, like when there's even friends, colleagues in my world that are taking some of that space for me right now, that are like Jen, don't worry about that, I got that, I can feel myself, I can hear myself.

Speaker 3: 38:47

So I'm like, oh, thank you and that opens up a different space for me, 100%. I can feel it open up a different creativity, pleasure, joy, playfulness, like that I can feel that all All the things that men want, you literally just whisked it.

Speaker 1: 39:01

Everything that men want opens for you when you're held by something or somebody. Yeah, so good. Yeah, I'm gonna go listen up, learn how to hold them impeccably and you will have everything you want.

Speaker 3: 39:13

Yeah, oh, you just posted a reel about that, didn't you, ruthless? What did I? I wrote it down. Impeccable stewardship and Ruthless clarity.

Speaker 1: 39:22

Impeccable masculine stewardship yeah, that's what I posted about.

Speaker 3: 39:25

Explain that what that means.

Speaker 1: 39:27

Yeah, it's kind of what I just said. How can I be a man who shows up as, how can I be a man in relationship who shows up as baby? I've got you, I've got us. I know where we're going in life. I know what you need, I know what we need. I know how to repair when things get off. I'm here for you, like when you can hold all that. As a man, you are the shelter of the home.

Speaker 3: 39:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:52

How do?

Speaker 3: 39:53

you know what she needs.

Speaker 1: 39:55

Well, you can ask her, but often people that are in any emotional moment or in disembodiment or in neurosis, you just have to be a master of understanding. You really have to. I mean, I've been with my wife for six years. I know what she needs, you know, I know, and usually it's just she needs to come into just me holding her body against mine or me Just putting my hands on her, anything it's all. If you look at it through the range of nervous system. All we ever need is to be brought down into presence.

Speaker 1: 40:21

Yes, that's all we really need you know, and so so, first of all, it's that, but then, if there's a particular thing that's popping off, you know, I might say what's really going on underneath this, and it could be fear. Usually it's fear when people are popping, popping off in their nervous system Insecurity, which is fear, frustration or anger, or resentment, which is Unmet needs you know. And so Also, I, like my wife is really smart and she's super conscious, and I might just say baby, what's going on, what do you need? And she'll tell me yeah, tell me some version that I can work with. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3: 40:57

That's great, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's talk about amazing intimacy After children, or maybe not for some people who don't have children. How do we cultivate deeper Intimacy within?

Speaker 1: 41:10

a relationship. Okay, so intimacy. There's two forms of intimacy. There's the runway at the beginning of a relationship that just happens automatically off chemistry.

Speaker 1: 41:23

Mm-hmm and that can sustain For some period of time, usually six months to two years. It depends. It depends on how real life gets and how quickly Once we get into the longer space of relationship, that really doesn't work anymore. So what we need to do is we need to learn how to cultivate. You know, the energetics that foster connection, and so for a man, a man needs to learn how to cultivate real presence, and what presence looks like is. For me to cultivate presence with my partner, I have to slow down my breathing, slow down my nervous system, I need to feel my body, and then from that place I go hey, how are you? And that's a presence.

Speaker 3: 42:06

You know what I mean Yep and so.

Speaker 1: 42:09

So knowing how to do that? Because what most men do is they come in the door and they're in their own head and they're Going a 90 miles an hour, and then they do that all the way until they grab a beer and they check out with football on the on the screen, or they grab video games, or they just numb out with whatever phones even. And so presence is the number one thing. So if a man can cultivate real presence, that's the big thing there. For the feminine, it's being a stand for love, and so if a woman Fiercely comes back to time and time again hey, baby, I love you, I want to love you. Can we sit down on the couch?

Speaker 1: 42:42

I put my hands on your shoulders. What do you need? Can I get you something to drink? Like whatever? Like love. Love is the thing that comes from the feminine side, that's the energy of love and so if a man and a woman can work on practicing those things.

Speaker 1: 42:54

Even if one does, it'll inevitably fix it. You know, there's this idea of relational polarity and I think polarity is worth understanding, like if we're just neutral in our energy and we're just running a track in life and we have no intimacy, it's worth slowing down and understanding, like what is the energy that will elicit the opposite Right? So a lot of men are in their emotions all the time, whether they know it or not, and that's gonna. That's gonna masculine. The women, the women, are gonna become the masculine side of the relationship. So to write that, becoming emotionally intelligent, learning how to work with our emotions so we're not just spilling them out into our relationship all the time, and then learning how to bring energy that actually Awakens the feminine so good.

Speaker 3: 43:30

I think it's worth, at least for me, pausing. I'd recently heard some somebody say like man. When your mind is racing as a man or you're really having an angry outburst, you're actually in you in like a feminine energy.

Speaker 3: 43:41

Yeah and it's gonna elicit the masculine from a woman, and I hadn't heard it quite that way. It seems really basic and of course I'm like, oh yeah, of course, aha. Except I don't know that we see it that way, that a man, if a man's like angry and he's storming in, he's like masculine. I'm like that's not, that's not what it means to be masculine, but it makes me Feel unsafe, like there's a lack of clarity, a lack of groundedness, like it just feels Chaotic yeah, so, yeah, so you use this language.

Speaker 1: 44:09

You said feminine, right? So if we just let's just draw it out this way, within this kind of frame of looking at it, masculine is nothingness and everything that is, so it's the space between everything. The masculine is also like the mountain, whereas the feminine is the wind, the air, the fire, the water. It's everything that's happening in the world.

Speaker 3: 44:25

So another way to look at.

Speaker 1: 44:25

That is, the masculine is awareness and the feminine is energy. Now, there's no positive or negative on any of this. It's just like whether the energy is love and excitement, or the energy is rage, that's all energy. Okay, so the thing you were talking about, a man who's like angry yeah, he's in his feminine, he's in his emotions, he's in his energy. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 44:46

You know what I mean? It's far more masculine to go. I'm fucking pissed and I got to sort it out you're killing me, max cuz. I'm like. You know what I mean. That's the masculine version of awareness, of anger and angry, but not in the feminine but not and not losing yourself, you know just like yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:10

Yeah, yeah, like if you're a man that's truly in his masculine and angry. You have awareness that you're angry, you can feel the anger in your body, but you're not at the effect of the anger and blasting the anger around the world or at your partner. That makes sense.

Speaker 3: 45:24

Yeah, yeah. And then you can feel it.

Speaker 1: 45:25

You could feel it in my voice when I just said that, like you go. Well, yeah, that really feels like a man that probably has anger.

Speaker 3: 45:31

I'm not angry right now, but you know what I mean. I can put it on for the sake, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:34

I teach this stuff, so I should. I know how to show it.

Speaker 3: 45:36

Yeah, well, that, and it also still felt it still feels safe, like it doesn't feel like ooh, what's gonna happen here? So it doesn't put me on guard. It's like, alright, he's got himself, he's got himself.

Speaker 1: 45:49

Yeah Well, you know, I think Jordan Peterson said something a while back. It doesn't matter if your listeners like him or not. This is an important thing you want to date, and just man that has control over himself, like a man that is capable of killing people but is in control, rather than someone that has no wherewithal with any of that, because someone that actually has no control Like that's actually more dangerous.

Speaker 1: 46:08

You know, what I mean? Mm-hmm. I find that the most destructive thing in relationships is men that are just Overly emotional or over thinkers. I actually saw this. Somebody said what's wrong with overthinking? Like logic matters and it's like overthinking isn't logic. Logic is actually much more simple and reasonable. Overthinking is an expression of energy through your mind. That's not masculine.

Speaker 3: 46:28

How would you coach a man that is that's mind is spinning.

Speaker 1: 46:32

Yeah, so all of my coaching always brings him back to presence yeah.

Speaker 1: 46:35

Well, first of all, I teach practices. So I teach practices how to breathe, how to feel your body, how to feel the ground, how to, how to. It's a nervous system, it's always the nervous system. So I teach people how to look at where am I, where am I at, you know? Am I? Is my mind racing? Is my heart racing? Do I have tension in my chest? And I teach practices where I literally bring people into an experience of their theta brain waves and I can really calm.

Speaker 1: 46:58

You know, I did this on a call with a client today. We got on the call and I was like how are you? And he was like 90 miles an hour and he was like his energy is through the roof. And I was like, hold on, we're going to do something. So we did a 20 minute practice. I use my voice, I have, I have a whole setup so I can. I can use music and sound and my breath. I have breath counters that I've created to bring people down. And by doing that I first of all just give people a sense of like do you see how you feel now versus how you felt when you came on the call? And they go yeah, and I go okay. So this is what we want to create more of in your everyday life, not just on calls with me, and so I have all these practices that I send my clients and I send to people, like how to bring your nervous system down so you can be more present. That makes sense.

Speaker 3: 47:36

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense so that's how I teach it. So he's cultivating more presence and she's cultivating more love.

Speaker 1: 47:43

Aliveness, aliveness Love.

Speaker 3: 47:45

Okay, and that and then how does that lead to?

Speaker 1: 47:47

Aliveness that opens, not aliveness that closes right.

Speaker 3: 47:51

Oh, talk about what that means.

Speaker 1: 47:53

Well. So aliveness, look, unconscious. Feminine is is like any energy all the time is just available and possible, including resentments and angers and everything else. If my wife is resentful and angry for any period of time, it will close me down, even though I'm really good at practice and really good at holding. You know, if she just blasts me like instantaneous, I'm going to close before I can open and go. Okay, what's really going on here? But if there's a pattern and habit of resentment, closure or just negative energy, like it's not going to function to open me as a man. So we have to be responsible for what is the energy I'm bringing to my relationship? That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so, so, so, yes, so masculine presence, feminine aliveness and energy that is opening in its expression, you know.

Speaker 3: 48:36

Yeah, yeah, I mean I can feel, if I'm feeling, feeling like well, how do I bring energy that is open, and for me it's actually just an energetic openness.

Speaker 1: 48:45

It's like yeah it's the center column and for listeners who don't understand, it's like if you're contracted in your body and you're angry, like you're closed, yeah, if you can, if you can move that through your body and come back.

Speaker 1: 48:56

I'll give you a good example, actually of when I was feeling crunchy and in a negative place and I brought that to my wife so that she could metabolize it and it opened us. So I was feeling a period where we, like our kids, were up late, there was some sickness for an extended period of time, because all everybody's kids have like coughs and sinus stuff these days, and so both of my kids kind of oscillated between sickness for like a month and a half, and my wife's name is Kelly, so Kelly and I were kind of off. We were missing each other, we were exhausted, we were tired and our intimacy was kind of missing in action for a minute. And so there's the part of me that if I'm closed, I'm going to go. I'm really frustrated, like our sex life isn't happening the way I wanted to and like I don't feel you and I feel like we're.

Speaker 1: 49:39

That's me in a negative expression of my own feminine, the other version, and this is what I brought. Baby, I fucking miss you Like I miss you and my heart aches to feel you, like I just want to feel your hands on my body and I want to feel the softness of love you know that's beautiful.

Speaker 1: 49:57

So it's the same it's the same underlying issue, but I'm bringing one from a place of neediness and contraction, or I'm bringing it from a place of like my heart breaks to feel your love and if I can bring it from that place that opens her, I can imagine her responsiveness.

Speaker 3: 50:12

It was much different. It was a response versus a reaction that the other scenario she didn't have to defend herself.

Speaker 1: 50:20

She went. Oh, I know, Turns out me too.

Speaker 3: 50:22

Let's go Exactly, exactly, yeah, and you know, yeah.

Speaker 1: 50:27

And then you know, in terms of masculine stewardship. Getting back to that, when I realized that we were kind of like we co-sleep we. Our daughter still sleeps in our bed with us. We have a pretty holistic parenting methodology. The way we parents are Our daughter's in bed with us, our son is in the other room and I just realized we had this habit in our life where we were like, getting the kids to bed and we were feeling so depleted and fatigued that we would just end up on the couch. We'd put something on TV, we'd both be on our phones and that just became our relational habit.

Speaker 1: 50:54

So, getting back to your question about reigniting intimacy over the long term, I looked at it and I just said this is just. This is a terrible habit that we have. Like it's literally we're shutting down every night and even though that's like all we have, we're not going to be able to do anything. We have like we have no energy at the end of the night. I was like what can we do? That's better.

Speaker 1: 51:11

And so I just proposed something to my wife. I just said you know, I want to try something. I want to do a 45 day practice, monday through Friday, where every night, instead of going to the couch, we come to my office. I have I have an office with a practice space and I have cushions on the ground and I said every night, monday through Friday, I want to meet on this lying mattress that I have here.

Speaker 1: 51:27

I set it up with blankets, I have candles and we just lay with our bodies touching and that's it. Like I want to start 20 minutes at the start of every night. Our bodies are touching. We're not on our phones, maybe there's some music on and we just sit or just lay and I mean inevitably. You can imagine what happened. Like all of a sudden, every night, we're just together, touching each other, holding each other's bodies, like our sex life went right back through the roof, and also we're just feeling each other and we're really connected because instead of being disconnected and looking at other things like our phones and the TV, we're in a space of really like I'm here, how are you, how was your day? Like what's alive for you, you know it's building that connection very intentionally.

Speaker 1: 52:06

Yeah, yeah, and that's a pretty extreme to be like the next month. Every night, monday through Friday we're going to lie next to each other wrapped in a cocoon of blankets with music on. Like that's a pretty upper level practice. But I'm a deep practitioner of love and I'm a deep practitioner of life and I really felt that it was a time to just call that kind of practice in. It only works because we've cultivated trust and safety and love in some relationships. If you try to bring that kind of thing to prematurely, there's so much shadowy stuff at play. Like if I tell a man to do that, he's going to do that and he's going to be like she's going to have sex with me and then when she doesn't, he's going to get pissy and he's going to get frustrated and it's like no, you can't do that. If it's not going to happen tonight, let it be like whatever, just be with each other. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3: 52:47

That makes a lot of sense and creating the space for that. So what else would you say to people that are like I want to have the most epic sex life ever? How?

Speaker 1: 52:55

do you cultivate that? Well, I really do believe that there are skills that need to be learned in terms of the energetic sub intimacy, like I thought I was good in the world of sensuality before, but I was missing the entire spectrum of what the masculine energetics are and I was a good I was a pretty good lover, I think. You know I don't know, I've never pulled my past people, but you know, I think I was good. Good.

Speaker 1: 53:21

I'm going to back up from this part of the conversation, I'm going to move right to the next. So anyway, I, you know, a number of years ago I learned from you know, john Weinland, who's studied with David Data, they, that there's a whole realm of world there's. There's, like you know, the tantric energetics, right, and one thing I will say is the tantric space is a complete mess. John does a really good job at, you know, sacred intimacy, events and learning how to cultivate intimacy. I now lead his men's program with a number of other guys and so I I teach a lot in this space and what I 100% believe is that men need to learn the art of energetics and what energetics are are learning how to actually transmit presence, learning how to transmit desire, learning how to transmit love through your hands, through your eyes, through the way you're breathing, through the way you're speaking. If you can transmit these energetics, intimacy happens in the subconscious you know, like for any man listening.

Speaker 1: 54:17

If you don't have intimacy in your life and you tell your wife or partner, hey, I want to have sex with you tonight, it's not going to work. It's not going to work. It doesn't work in the cognitive mind. If you want to create intimacy this evening, here's how you start. In the morning you say baby, I miss you, I really miss you and I love you. That's going to start softening our heart. Midday. I would really love to lay in bed with you tonight and just dream about our life together. Cool, Just before you guys get home. I can't wait till you get home. I can't wait to feel you and then, when she gets home, put your hands on her in a way that lights up her body, not from a place of wanting anything, but from a place of I just want to love you. That's a good start. That's how you would start a day that would lead toward likely some degree of connection, unless there's pent-uppers, that you know resentments or a lack of safety.

Speaker 1: 55:01

But yeah, I mean, I teach this stuff all the time with men and eventually it clicks and it really clicks. Here's the thing it really clicks when I have a man, feel another man holding masculine energy in his body, because it will absolutely activate that other man, you know.

Speaker 3: 55:18

Isn't that wild? Yeah, it's wild, it's wild.

Speaker 1: 55:21

Yeah, it's crazy. I've done this year after year after year, where I take men and we sit in these places and we run these energies and in every case, what happens is and it's so funny because especially the guys that kind of have a little bit of like whatever I'll just say like the number of times I've heard guys say, yeah, I'm still pretty sure that I'm not gay at all, but and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead and tell me what you're going to say, and they're like that felt amazing and I'm like, thank you, it's just energy and it's pure energy and it's not, it's, there's nothing wrong with it.

Speaker 1: 55:54

And so you know it's crazy, and it's the same inside same sex marriages. I've talked to gay guys that have these dynamics and they're like, yeah, you're dead on with polarity, You're dead on in understanding these energetics. You know, and I coached a lesbian a couple of a while back too, and it's the same thing. They were like we are, our sex life is neutral, like you know, blah, blah, blah. And so I just sort of pieced out like what would you want more of? I got both of them to own what they want from the other, what they want for themselves, and what we rebuilt was an energized relationship, and it doesn't mean that he always has to be in his masculine and she always has to be in her feminine. My wife and I have a relationship that moves back and forth all the time.

Speaker 3: 56:27

You know she was a single mom.

Speaker 1: 56:28

Yeah, she was a single mom before I met her and so she really holds a strong masculine. She also comes from a long lineage of women who are solid. Her mom is solid, her grandmother solid. So these are solid women and so one. It kind of takes a masculine man to be able to open that and soften it. But the other thing is I just allow my wife to be wherever she's at. You know, throughout the day we just negotiate wherever we're at. I'm not trying to create polarity in every single moment, but I will do little things here and there, like even today.

Speaker 1: 56:54

I sent her a text earlier where I was just like, baby, I fucking want you and she's, you know she's receiving that, and she sent me back, like you know, a bunch of emojis that let your listeners imaginations go wild. But but the thing is that's that's generating the energy in our relationship. You know what I mean. Yeah, and so there's an art to it.

Speaker 3: 57:13

So within intimacy one of the with my girlfriends or like a conversation that's come up, there's a couple guys I was talking to that are just kind of dabbling into the energetics of this and they were asking about what it means to have a woman surrender, because there's some uh, maybe baggage around that, because there are men that maybe didn't earn the opportunity to have a woman surrender. I don't, I'm not using the right language here, but you speak to?

Speaker 3: 57:39

okay, good, can you speak to what that, what that means and what that requires of a man? If a woman's going to surrender in intimacy, what does that mean, and then what does it require of a man for her to be able to really do that?

Speaker 1: 57:52

Man. If you, if you really want a woman to surrender, as a man, you need to cultivate an incredibly powerful, trustable and widely conscious way of being. If you can move through the world in a way where you are trustable and safe to be around at an emotional level, she will feel safe to soften in your presence. And what men need to know is that if you prematurely try to ask a woman to surrender from a place of wanting to get polarity right or trying to create a sexual dynamic, she will contract and become incredibly irritated because you can't request surrender.

Speaker 1: 58:42

You can only be he who evokes surrender. That is incredibly important and we have a lot of this in the Tantric spaces. I see it all the time, where men are like I tried to bring this thing, blah, blah, blah, and she's just getting pissy. And I'm like, yeah well, you have a history of not leading a relationship powerfully, brother, so what safety is existent for her, for you to try to bring these energies and think that she's just going to soften? Yeah.

Speaker 1: 59:05

So let's just be really clear If a man wants to be the kind of man that evokes surrender in a woman, get ruthlessly clear on your life, your emotional intelligence and your capacity to hold her in all of her expressions. And if you can't say that you can sit in her storm, then don't expect her to surrender Ever. That's it Makes sense.

Speaker 1: 59:28

Yes, it's so good, yes, so that's real, that's really what it is. So, if you want a woman to surrender, become a better man in terms of how you hold your life, how you hold your wife your girlfriend, whatever your boyfriend, I don't care like whatever you're holding. Hold it impeccably, and then it will soften.

Speaker 3: 59:43

Yeah, when you were talking earlier about like if a man this is kind of the classic scenario where a man is like I want more sex and I'm not getting sex yeah, and I think that when a woman feels safe and she feels met and there's presence there and I'm speaking heteronormative, but I appreciate that you're pulling out that it could be a couple stew, that that when that is happening, she kind of can't get enough. I feel like right, isn't there? Like there's, there's just going to be a cycle.

Speaker 1: 1:00:15

Yeah, I mean 100%. I sort of live a lot of my life in this way. That's a little more stewardship oriented, and I have a wife who's pretty perpetually turned on and wants wants me, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:00:31

Yes and yes, we have these times and we had kids. We have kids and we had a daughter three years ago. And you know, in the time after that, like I have to just give space To her to do her motherhood thing and, especially after the birth of a child, like I have to hold her in that with no expectations, you know, and and there's a way to tend it back open into connection, you know, you know in a way that holds that she's like recovering in her body and she's healing and you know she might not be able to hold you while she's holding a kid in the more spiritual sense and in the you know what she's here to hold in that moment. But yeah, you know I am, we, my wife and I, have a really turned on, an amplified life and it's awesome, it's fucking awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:01:07

You know that's good, Congratulations, yeah well, I've worked hard to figure out how to yes, you have, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:01:14

And I've spent. Listen, I have a really interesting story and I don't want to get too much into it, but in my first marriage we really lost our way with intimacy and I didn't really understand why. I didn't understand what the dynamic was, it was causing the problems. Some of them were external to me. Some of them had to do with I've mentioned a mental illness earlier but the other thing is I just really didn't know how to bring masculine capacity and energy into my relationship.

Speaker 1: 1:01:32

During the fact, there, the last three years of my marriage my, my last marriage we decided to open our relationship and so we were a polyamorous couple and during that time, I got to really play in the realm of different feminine beings, and so I got to feel different feminine energies and I got to play with, like, what does she desire? Like, what does she want? What is this one like? What does this one want? I got to actually understand like, wow, there's a lot of different textures of sensuality and pleasure and everything, and so one of the things that really Happened was I started to learn, like you know, the different textures I could bring as a partner that evoked different types of feminine beings in their sensual liberation, and I'm really lucky and I just I just had an interesting life experience where I got to have this experience, where I really got to try different things. And why it was really valuable is because, since I was married at the time in an open relationship I couldn't fall into long-term relationships with anybody, so these were just really like short-term, one-off experiences with people, and I've really used that as a way of informing my practice.

Speaker 1: 1:02:30

Now I will say, just for any of your listeners, I am incredibly monogamous. I have the most amazing monogamous relationship now. It was definitely a thing that was a coping tool in my relationship that we used at the time, but it taught me a lot. It taught me how to navigate conscious relating. It taught me how to build structures around relationship and sexual containers like, hey, I'd love to date you for like two months, you know, and so I use this when I'm teaching people like I don't want to be in a Relationship, but I'd love to have sexual intimacy in my life. How do I do it?

Speaker 1: 1:02:55

I can construct those containers really well because I did that, you know, and I learned how to do it, but at the end of the day, what it did, is it really taught me how do I Play the instrument that is the feminine, you know, how do I evoke music from the feminine? And and then, with my wife, it's just gone far, far deeper, because my wife and I are in a real-life practice of living life together, and it's hard. We have young kids, so how do I, you know, stroke the strings of the feminine out of a fatigued, resentful and difficult State of life and bring it back to love and connection. And so that's that, that's the art that I've developed in my relationship and that's where I've really learned, like, what this is all about and how it works, because, you know, my wife and I are Committed. We are together for, for good or for worse, and if it's a, if we're going through a hard period of time, recovery and repair has become, you know, something that I'm really Attuned to doing.

Speaker 3: 1:03:51

So beautiful. Thank you for sharing all of that.

Speaker 1: 1:03:53

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot to it.

Speaker 3: 1:03:55

So we're. We're nearing our time here, where I know we need to wrap up. Is there anything any you know as sort of an instrument for clarity and truth and the work that you're doing? Is there anything else that's been on your heart or mind that you feel needs to be heard today?

Speaker 1: 1:04:15

Don't give up. I would say it's any listener who's out there who wants love and wants beautiful love. Don't give up, because it's so worth it. It is the Garden of Eden that you can have on this planet Really. And so if you're a person listening to this and you know you desire deep love, fight for it. Find it. Either fight for it in your relationship. Call your man or your woman forward, into depth, into practice. Have your person sign up for men's work If it's a guy like, so he can start to learn how to become more capable emotionally and say you know sensually. But also, if you're dating and you just you know you're, you're wanting deep relationship. You haven't found it yet. Don't give up and create a clear structure around how you date so that you can move through men or women With efficiency to find someone that is in right alignment to your heart and your desires.

Speaker 3: 1:05:04

That's great. Thank you, max. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your work and your time. It it is an honor. Oh, I forgot to tell you. My mom messaged me I don't know, it was a week and a half ago Maybe and she's like Jen, so she's just in this new relationship. She's just always smitten, whatever. I love that it's so great. She's been sending me just like non-stop reels.

Speaker 3: 1:05:23

I'm like mom, you know I have a job right, I can't keep up with these, but it was maybe even less than a week ago. She sent me a reel that you had posted. She's like have you heard this guy? She's like you've got to listen to me so good.

Speaker 1: 1:05:36

I'm like mom, I feel really flattered.

Speaker 3: 1:05:38

That's awesome, and if your mom's listening, what's her name?

Speaker 1: 1:05:41

What's her first name? Peggy. Hey, peggy, thanks for sending my workout to people.

Speaker 3: 1:05:44

I really appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 1:05:45

You're doing the Lord's work, thanks and good, and I'm excited for your new relationship. No, anyway, yeah, you know that's so. That's really flattering. That's amazing. My mother-in-law comments on all my posts. It's the most amazing thing. She's like my number one supporter and it's just so funny, like I'll get it, I'll get a notification, and it's like your name's Tammy, like Tammy, and it's like I love the work you're doing. It's so amazing, it's so important, like on every one of my posts, and it's just like I love this, I love, I love that support. That's the best, yeah, yeah. So it's getting out there and it's making an impact and it's made an impact on me and I I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much, max. Yeah, I'm happy to be here and let's see if you can hear me.

Speaker 3: 1:06:19

I'm so glad you're here Thank you so much. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:06:24

It's been an amazing impact on me and I appreciate it so much.

Speaker 3: 1:06:27

Thank you so much, max.

Speaker 1: 1:06:28

Yeah, I'm happy to be here and listen. You know I've really enjoyed talking with you. If your listeners give you any feedback and they want to know more, I'd be happy to come back on another time. Or, you know, wonderful, you know anyone can get in touch with me. I'm on Instagram. My name is Max Trombley. I also have AshiftonBeingcom that's my website and I really am a stand for love and I'm a stand for solid masculine leadership and I think that we need it. We need it more than ever. We're in a time where there's so much cultural disease and dysfunction and everyone I mean just a couple years ago, like people were like falling apart in family structures because of either politics or whatever was happening during the pandemic, and it's just like we have to put this aside. We have to come back to love. We have to come back to support from the people that love us and that we love, because that is the fabric of our society and if we lose that, we lose everything. So I'm fighting for it deeply.

Speaker 3: 1:07:16

I couldn't think of a more perfect way to end than like the importance of coming back to love.

Speaker 1: 1:07:21

Coming back to love. It's everything, it's everything. There's nothing else. If you have love and you're creating love in your life, you're fine. Everything has been achieved and everything else is just the cherry on top of a life well lived.

Speaker 3: 1:07:33

Beautiful, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:07:34

Yeah, you're welcome, thank you.

Speaker 3: 1:07:38

Hey you, yes you. Thank you for tuning in today. I hope this episode is supporting you on your path to becoming the strongest, shiniest version of you. My goal and hope is to continue helping people through this podcast, so if you've enjoyed this episode or taken anything that's helped you out, the best thank you would be to join me in moving this forward by doing two simple things. If you haven't already, following the podcast is very helpful. Also, apparently, the algorithms really like reviews. If you can take a minute to leave a review, artificial intelligence would love it and I would be so grateful. Feel free, of course, to share an episode with someone who you think may need to hear what you heard today. Thanks again, everyone. I genuinely appreciate you and I'm so thankful to be building a community like this together here. I'll catch you later. In the meantime, have a banging day.