How to find THE ONE & Have the Best Sex EVER | Stefanos Sifandos

What do most people do gets too difficult wasn't like this at the beginning sex was great before now we're having it once every three months [ __ ] this I'm going to another relationship we leave too soon and for me this is where the real work begins I personally have been to some very very dark places within my own cycling within my own soul it was a love compulsion sex compulsion sex addiction I was running for myself Completely I tried to taste [ __ ] emotional I don't think I would have been able to have

my daughter if I hadn't done that deeper work the more you demonstrate discipline from seeking excessive pleasure the more attractive you are and that builds trust ultimately I often say the greater the pain that we're harboring whether we know it or not the greater the pleasure we require to mitigate that pain and pornography food adrenaline making a ton of money Being successful Fame is very distracting from the pain that we don't want to feel here's the Paradox feel the pain and you'll move through it you'll close the loop and you'll be a different person hello

beautiful humans welcome back to the know they self podcast for every single week we get the honor and the privilege to sit down with a beautiful mind and open heart and somebody who can help us know ourselves me included I Enjoy this journey for myself first and foremost so much if you come to this podcast you want to become the most healthy liberated authentically expressed version of yourself and my job is to introduce you to tools individuals conversations people that can help you do just that my guest today is a incredible relationship coach his mission

is to help uh help individuals reach the fullness of their potentiality and discover what It means to authentically relate and have a deep understanding of conscious Dynamics within partnership but also in relation to all life and um just getting to meet him as he came over about 30 minutes ago I can feel how people would feel safe in his presence because he feels like a very integrated individual and that's something that you can pick up on if you're sensitive to to be attuned to that and so without further Ado my guest Stefanos sifandos Andre Thank

you for having me man pleasure to be here my pleasure man how do you uh in your words give the framework of the work that you do with people what is the framework and understanding of how you invite people in to this conscious relating and and work with couples and individuals um how would you break that down yeah I asked people to well I get curious and as a result of myself getting curious about their lives and where they're at It hope intelligently prompts them to also be curious about their lives and I asked them

questions around the relationship to the things that matter most to them and so is that their past is that the relationship to their parents their relationship to trauma if they have any because you know that those intense experiences can really shape who we become as do the deeply pleasurable experiences that we have during life as well our relationship to Our values to our future dreams our relationships to the people in our lives that really matter most and I ask people to look at all those areas of their lives and are they satisfied are they connected

to those practice do they want more are they saying what they truly want to say or is there so much that is unspoken that is left in those relationships that compounds over time that builds resentment and creates Distance and so really you know when we're moving through life it's not too difficult to realize I'm not exactly where I want to be because we notice patterns that come up we engage in habits that are unhealthy we know somewhere in us we know that we're doing things that we shouldn't be doing that is in alignment with who

we want to become and so giving permission to people not that I'm the permission King by any means but but you mentioned Safety earlier is is creating a safe space for people to actually explore that without self-judgment without critique from external forces and other people because most of us I won't say most of us some of us myself included have experienced a great deal of judgment and critique and what that does to our nervous systems what that does to our organism as a whole our psychology is it retracts Us in life and therefore we're not

really being in Our truth in relationship or even out of relationship and so creating a safe space for people to delve into the areas of their lives that need changing but that can be very daunting is a safe place to start yeah it's beautiful man first discovering who we are is really important before we and oftentimes it comes by virtue of relating right through the mirrors of our life we can actually start to know Ourselves more but what's really fascinating is understanding relationship in general as the wide umbrella not just romantic partnership but how we

relate to All Things how we relate to addiction how we relate to stimulus in general um and with all the phenomena of life through all of our five senses what do you feel like is a really important understanding to discover first about the place in which from where we're Relating because a lot of times people think that if they want a healthy relationship or if they want to find the right partner or if they want the right business they have to go find it instead of reconciling what's in the way of it internally first and

so yeah is there anything that you want to speak to about how we can get better Clarity and develop Clarity within ourselves to first um to have that kind of self-nosis and Then we can go relate from the world in a different energetic completely it's a great question it's a it's a question I don't think many of us ask because we don't know where to start so you eloquently created a starting point and so I'll elaborate and go a little deeper to what I perceive to be a great place for us to start as humans

so when we look at early childhood development we look at our formative years and how our views of the world and our views of Ourselves and our relationship to things that matter most to us like love and intimacy and connection and the need to be seen and belongingness and all those good things how they those experiences over time shape us it can be a really empowering place to start many of us have given our power away lost our power our power has been taken from us our self-esteem our self-worth has been taken from us some

of us experience all kinds of different abuse we experience An environment that is maybe volatile or violent or even just alone like we feel alone or the critique or we're judged or we're not seen for who we truly are we have to wear masks to feel psychologically socially safe in the world and so if we can start there and not necessarily by ourselves because we're relational beings right now that doesn't mean that our path doesn't consist of solitude I'm a firm believer that our path needs to be our life's Path needs to be a combination

of being in our own space in solitary without other human intervention interaction ideally in nature and then also being in the presence of other humans but the caveat to that is being the presence of other humans that are non-judgmental that are compassionate and that have the tolerance and the patience and the empathy and the love to stay with us in other words they've worked through their own [ __ ] they are not triggered by the Stuff that you're bringing the big emotions that you're bringing maybe it's anger maybe it's resentment maybe it's deep sadness maybe

it's in jealousy maybe it's this attitude of not being seen and because of that you've developed a compensatory strategy of false bravado whatever it may be right that they can hold that and gently keep bringing you back to regulation nervous system regulation but also psycho emotional regulation And when we experience that for most of us the first time ever that we're actually meant for who we are and we can be these quote unquote ugly versions of ourselves and still be respected still be met still be loved that is deeply empowering so I say let's start

there but let's start in a very safe way not by yourself because it can be too overwhelming if we start to revisit these experiences so that we can equilibrate them and make them whole Again if we do that by ourselves it can feel like we're lost in the maze yeah I think it's a beautiful desire and wanting to get to the place to where you can have a partner or relationships where you can be witness in your core vulnerabilities and still be accepted still be loved and have that safe presence not be wavered a lot

of people are under the illusion that they want to find the one they want to find the one that's going to complete Them right and to fill that hole how do you for people that want to have a Divine Union create a harmonious relationship but it seems a little bit like a far-off dream how do you support people and gaining the proper perspective of how to attract the the partner of their dreams yeah find the one within yourself you know get get comfortable with you and it's not about you know love yourself fully so that

others can love you that's part of it And I'm an advocate of that and it's far deeper than that it really is equilibrating and working with any unresolved unconscious trauma and wounds that we carry and fears that we carry that we unconsciously unknowingly project and bring into relationship so an example of that could be this um let's just I'll use myself in this example myself and my wife so let's just say my wife makes a request of me and she does she'll she'll often make Requests of me and I don't mean that in a facetious

way like as a part in part she'll say hey can you support me with this or hey I have a request around this sometimes if I'm in a place of maybe overwhelm that triggers old aspects of myself so my I'm literally regressing in my nervous system I will see that request as a demand I will view it in that moment as a demand my experience with being demanded of was very intense growing up I experienced my father and my mother demanding a lot of me physically and emotionally I almost became this caretaker for my mother's

emotions and even my father's emotions managing those emotions and managing the dynamic between them from a very young age probably from the age of around five or six when my younger brother was born that again that's a story I told myself but that story shaped who I was who I became and so if I'm in an Unequilibrated place I'm unsteady within myself I'll see that as a demand I'll react to that demand I won't meet it as a request I won't meet it with curiosity I'll meet it with I don't want to say violence is

a very strong word but it's not that I'm going to make it with physical violence but I'll meet it with a sternness with rigidity we I'll see it as a threat yeah and now what I do I react now I become big in my energy because as an adult and As a teenager I learned to become big because I was so mean and passive as a child and I wanted to be big to get my power back and be in control I will revert back to these old patterns that are very familiar to my brain

and to my body and so what I do is I resist the request now what does that do to Christine that unless she can hold that and see in the moment which sometimes she does an exceptional exceptional job of doing she Sees in the moment that I'm being reactive her reactivity will be triggered her wounds will be triggered now we've got two wounded people colliding and it's no longer about a simple request it's about survival I don't know if that answers the question no there's a beautiful Direction though to keep going down because like I

said it's great to discover yourself in solitude and find Silence in nature and see who you are um but a lot of our growth does come from the reality of a mirror in Partnership where you can see somebody in those the friction that's created it's like the energy and heat that's created from that friction allows us to know ourselves and to deal with our [ __ ] because other time you know without having the container of a loving partnership it's like these these core wounds are how else are we going to Really have the motivation

or desire to even want to deal with them when somebody that you love is on the line the relationship is just an incredible Catalyst for us to actually want to integrate these parts of ourselves and so um from that place I and especially in romantic Partnerships how important do you feel like it is to view the other person as a mirror and to understand that they are here to reflect back to us What we haven't reconciled with them very important man I think it's Paramount in in any intimate relationship even friendship especially if the Friendship

is very close you know there were some Greek philosophers that would say that platonic friendship is even more important than the friend than the relationship of Eros or romantic partnership and for various reasons but I can see how that carries so much value and weight and so to go back to your Question that mirroring effect and knowing that your partner is there to support you on your journey and vice versa it needs to be reciprocal otherwise if it's one way it doesn't really work is Paramount to growing in the relationship so let me break down

why I feel growth is important and also the reason that we maybe come together one of the core primary reasons we come together so for me growth is a primary directive of Being Human we're Here to grow and expand out of old versions of ourselves into new versions of ourselves physiologically psychologically emotionally spiritually all of it right one of the ways that we do that is what you mentioned earlier is being met in Challenge and intensity and being in the fire but how we're repairing that fire and the Consciousness that we bring the awareness that

we bring to those um situations very much matters to if and How we grow the other thing is that we attract certain relationships in our lives especially those that carry a great deal of weight those that are very important as opportunities to redo similar relationships or primary relationships that we experience growing up that feel unresolved or feel threatening to our nervous systems example if you I work with I mean I work with men and women and couples but I work With a lot of women that have a collective masculine wound and let's just use the

wound of Abandonment where they feel they have been abandoned by the first man in their lives their father and so as an adult unknowingly to unknowingly to them they will attract men that are maybe physically and or emotionally unavailable that gives the sense of abandonment they're not doing that because they're worthless or they think they're Worthless I mean there could be a belief that supports that and moves into that but really what's happening there is there's an opportunity to be different with that to literally close the loop on the trauma Bond that's being created internally

physically so we're out of activated sympathetic nervous system response and we're able to be with it in a more calm balance way which means our self-worth has to increase which means we have to learn how to say no to the Things that no longer serve us so we're not on repeat that level of Consciousness sometimes takes time and I'm of the I guess belief for understanding or observation that where we are as a collective Humanity in our Collective Consciousness we're not quite ready to make massive change without massive hurt and so what I mean by

that is that we almost have to be dragged across Um rock bottom like those sharp Jagged rocks I know I was that was my story or part of my life before we can say you know what enough's enough I'm out I'll go to change and not taking the path of suicide because it's not my judgment isn't that that's a bad path or that's a weak path it just that's not necessarily maybe in the long term sure that's a path to growth but in this lifetime it's not simply because you're ending physical life and so I'm

Talking about that real necessity to change and what we do is as we mature and as we grow and as we learn and as we expand and as we love deeper because they're all terms that are synonymous with each other we're able to make those decisions with greater Clarity faster with greater efficacy and with less damage and that's important to our nervous systems as well and to to other people as well to help them grow hmm So beautiful it reminds me of this thing I actually sometimes when I go to bed I'll wake up like

30 minutes later and like start writing something down because I don't know just downloads come over at times yeah I get that hello Familia quick break from the episode we'll be right back I wanted to let you know that in our desire to expand this show moving forward we are going to be bringing in key select Partnerships that are in alignment and integrity brands That I know you can trust that I personally use and love and I think that you will as well we have a whole team behind the scenes here at know they sell

if that make the show possible and it's not cheap to do so so thank you for supporting myself and the show to expand more of what it can possibly be bigger guess better production and much more to come a quick share from today's sponsor I'm a warm beverage kind of guy I like my tea cacao and other products like From our sponsor today mud water mud water is a coffee alternative with adaptogenic mushrooms and ayurvedic herbs with only a fraction of the caffeine as a cup of coffee because the energy without the Jitters or crash

their original blend has chai and cacao mushrooms like lion's mane to support focus and chaga and reishi to support your immune system I personally also love to use the rest blend as a part of my nighttime ritual it has no caffeine And ingredients like ashwagandha and chamomile to help you chill out I add a little bit of honey and coconut creamer and boom you are in business everything is 100 organic non-GMO gluten-free vegan and delicioso I love what this company stands for how they believe in creating healthy Minds through healthy habits and how they donate

monthly to mental health causes to try them out you can go to mudwtr.com know thyself and use code know thyself for 15 off and they'll even Throw in a free rechargeable frother as always everything is linked down in the description below back to the episode but I wrote this thing the first part of it is we come into this Human Experience to break free of inner constraints that were play based on our cells by ourselves for ourselves and it's it's what you're speaking to in this Dynamic of maybe we chose the father wound because we

needed to reconcile that to become a more liberated version of Ourselves I can hear especially a lot of the women that are listening to this right now that maybe have that abandonment issue that have gone through uh challenging father relationship Dynamics it's quite common especially in modern society Society what is the first place you would you know recommend a woman or a man that also has that that wound to begin to heal that right because it's like we can be constrained by things that are we're not aware of we Have these wounds or these vulnerabilities

that are outside of the realm of what we possibly can even comprehend and so how do you start to gain Awareness on that and move through it energetically any wound we carry generally is accompanied by shame and shame is uh quite restricting in our bodies and so we hide as a result of feeling shame we wear masks we pretend to be someone that we're not we pretend to be happy when We're really sad we say yes to going on a second date when we don't you know don't really feel safe enough but we don't want

to let that person down or where we fear being abandoned or let go again or I've got to go on another date with a new person and start all this over again so we do things that don't really align with our truth and so one of the first thing I mentioned relational beings we're relational beings one of the first Things that we can do is find safe harbors of Truth and safe mirrors that are compassionate non-judgmental and empathetic that can mirror back to us call us forward challenge Us in healthy ways but also love on

us when we're sharing that pain that we're carrying so we're not carrying it completely alone yeah now for some people they need to carry it alone for whatever reason there's various reasons for that for a period of time but at some point they're Going to have to unload that pain and to do that in very safe spaces is the starting point for rewriting the story of our lives around whatever the pain point or the wound or the fear is that we're carrying that's stopping us from living a full life yeah it's like we'll probably need

to experience some like Rock Bottom moment or where the pain and suffering becomes unbearable to where we're actually motivated to make that change yeah and I Know for you you've had many moments of your own personal story is there something you like to share because for somebody that's come to this place of that I feel at least with an integration and supporting so many people on a deep level the branches go high to the degree the roots go deep because you've had so many per first-hand challenging experiences within yourself and relationship Dynamics you are able

to support people In such a wide full spectrum tell us a little bit about some of those difficult moments in your personal Journey before we dive deeper yeah so you know I used to in a previous life this after the previous life I used to own CrossFit Gyms and you know CrossFit if any of you are familiar with Crossfit it's quite an intense practice in intense physical practice and I would say and I was also a competitor as well I would say to my clients I will never Take you where I haven't been I won't

teach you how to squat if I don't understand and can execute proper squat mechanics as well give me an example right and at the same time I was also in the areas of Psychological Services and counseling and and in this personal development space as well whilst I also own CrossFit Gyms um really I saw the Mind Body Connection as something very sacred and almost Inseparable at some level right and so Now it's the same thing I personally have been to some very very dark places within my own cycling within my own soul um most of

those have been in familiar states of Consciousness I.E without plant medicine and I'm an advocate of plant medicine just I'm very open with that I'm definitely an advocate of plant medicine I I utilize it as a technology and a tool to expand and enhance Consciousness to explore to sometimes Unearth things that are within me that I can't quite reach after efforts of being in familiar states of Consciousness whether it's meditation or breath work or trauma release practices or whatever it may be right but most of these very dark places I expose myself to purposely and

deliberately um in familiar states of Consciousness because I knew that I just had to stop running from myself and at that time I Saw any external substance ingested as still a way to run for myself at that time many years ago and what became the Catalyst for that deeper exploration for the really for the first time in my life was a relationship that ended but the way that it ended was what prompted me to explore myself and she found out in that relationship that I didn't even tell her I didn't even have the courage to

tell her that I was unfaithful in that relationship I'd broken agreement To that race I was cheating I was um sleeping with other women I was seeing other women visiting prostitutes I was just it was a love compulsion sex compulsion sex addiction I was running for myself completely and seeing what my actions had done and watching the pain in her it brought up a lot of repressed and suppressed trauma and pain in me and I came face to face with that for the first time in my life and a lot of Shame as well and

for the first time in my life I didn't want to run from it anymore I didn't want to hide you know through my accolades and my status and my wealth or the accumulation of that or you know my my my physical aptitude or you know the amount of women I could sleep with I just you know or sex or Peak pleasurable experiences to distract me I just wanted to stop I just didn't Want that anymore and that's when I went within in the commitment I made to myself and I've shared this a lot is I

gave myself three options well there was one option actually and that was to continue to go deep and there were three outcomes that would come from that suicide or death one in the same mental Asylum well I'm going to get through this that's it there was no Other options and getting through it would mean getting through it in a way that I would no longer perceive myself to be damaged I would not be broken as a result because that would put me in the second category of mental Asylum and I would then maybe be able

to support others in their Journey and I knew that wherever I was and for whatever reason some of it was because I was very Stubborn I also have an extreme personality that I would go to the darkest depths within my own cycling within my own soul and Traverse that in ways I've never had before to be out it's the hero's journey right to be able to come through that and out of that and be able to retell that story but not in words through embodiment where people could Feel that I was changed could feel that

I had come from something that was disingenuous that was fractured that was broken that was all the things and now there was a wholeness there as a result of that they could feel safe and Trust and I knew if I could do that and be that be that then I would start to feel safe Within Myself and safe enough to continue to explore Um so beautiful man like in those moments where you are you're in the [ __ ] like you're like suffering you're crying you're it's a really difficult experience in that moment to be

human You Know Not Looking Back connecting the dots you see how needed it was right you know you needed to go to the depths of hell so you could reach the heights of heaven and now you're able to really support people in Such a profound way and for men that are experiencing infidelity they're experiencing parts of themselves that they're ashamed of they're in a relationship where they're they're not willing to share with their partner the parts and actions that they've been doing behind the scenes um where does an individual start when they first have the

awareness and they acknowledge that there's parts of them that are not in alignment they're not Living in Integrity for you I know you support a lot of individuals with this journey what is your view on toxic masculinity that word I know it's very it's used very often I want to go into masculine and feminine Dynamics and energies and polarities and how they work within us but for individuals that are Maybe more in the embodiment of of the toxic side this toxic scale of that um or dealing with a man who is embodying that how to

shed some light on That and then we can go from there well that man that is in unhealthy Behavior needs to be witnessed in the presence of other men familiar faces that his nervous system and his psychology can resonate with and recognize and be met again I don't want to be on repeat but to be met again with non-judgment now that doesn't mean that that man's Not going to call him forward or those men are not going to call him forward and ask him to be the man that he truly wants to be and to

practice being in his healthy masculine whatever that means to him and whatever the collective decide as a group as a clan as a tribe that means for them as well but men need to be witnessed by other men there's a reason why they're sister circles there's a reason why there's Men's groups the reason is because it's tapping to something deeply ancestral in the way that we've evolved in a way that our nervous systems have evolved in the presence of other men we have to remember that many many moons ago hundreds of thousands of years ago

millions of years ago as we were hominoids roaming the earth when we were in small groups the value we brought to that group determined the survivability of that group and if the prime directive Or one of the Prime directors of the physical brain is to continue to survive then the value we bought the Integrity that we bought the commitment that we bought these virtues and values that were developed from hardship in a very volatile environment still at some level apply to this very comfortable world we live in for most of us not for all of

us the Western world but again there's so much poverty there's so much disparity and despair even in the western world Like just here in Los Angeles I mean you know hashtag Skid Row I mean it's it's we live in intense times as well but we also live in very in times of surplus too probably another conversation but I'll come back to that so we need to be witnessed by the men in the conversation of toxic masculinity how it is used in today's world um or the the common understanding of toxic masculinity to me is very

limiting it's limiting to all of humanity but Because there is a a school of thought or a premise that says all masculinity or the expression of masculinity AKA men are toxic firstly masculinity and femininity are energetic energetic Expressions that reside within every human being it's just a duality to understand the world we create contrast to create a richness in learning we can use other terms Michaela Baum uses gold and flow energies be and do energies active Passive yin yang like there's there's other ways to describe these energetics these polarities that exist within us not only

for sexual attraction which basically you know it sustains our species but also for the way that we interact with each other for me if toxic masculinity exists then toxic femininity exists it just means that there are healthy ways of being that are more sustainable than others and desirable And there are unhealthy ways of being that are not as sustainable as the healthy ways of being and every human being has the capacity to do that I will even go he is masculine feminine put that aside for a second go deeper what informs the masculine feminine usually

it's unresolved repressed suppressed wounds trauma experiences we've had beliefs about ourselves that are limiting you know our mindset that is fractured our hearts that feel broken The fragility of our egos and our emotional selves that feed into these masculine feminine polarities that cause us to behave in hyper protective and defensive ways we are better than that as humans but if we're not shown that and if our shame and our pain is not met with Grace will keep hiding that shame and it will keep leaking out in unhealthy ways in reactive ways in deceitful ways in

our relationships hmm So like we spoke to earlier like oftentimes they come up in relationships right because the container allows for that to to exist so what are some of the primary uh I guess wounds that you find when working with men and specifically I know and I first hand running my own men's group and being a parts of different circles where it's so needed and so healthy and so productive and effective to have men who can see each other in the depth of their wounds to Hold that space and to transmute the energies and

alchemize that from denser to lighter energies but being in Partnership you know and in being in in relation to others what are some of the core primary wounds that you see within men that are expressed one of the things that um I'm learning very deeply from the years that I've been in men's groups is to be engaged in healthy conflict without violence whether it's emotional Or verbal violence or even physical violence it's very very easy not for all men but for most men to just go to physical violence or to just be big and loud

or to the opposite to run and hide right and so what I'm learning in my men's groups is that I can be disagreeable to someone it doesn't need to end up in intense conflict that is a skill that carries over true intimate relationship because we're experiencing the experience of not constantly needing To feel threatened so one of the one of the biggest things that men face one of the biggest issues that men face is rejection and a fear of rejection so let me unpack this a little bit so little boys little girls we're physiologically different

males and females a hormonally a little different right maybe a little or a lot that's irrelevant but we're different okay so when we're younger and our Limbic system is activated as boys well firstly we have heightened and raised testosterone and cortisol what that does is it as little boys makes us less resilient than little girls it makes us less robust it compromises our immune systems and at some level it makes us quote unquote less intelligent right temporarily it also challenges us to um it's challenging for us to emotionally regulate And so when our limbic system

is activated we feel threatened what the next parts of our brain that are activated are the physical parts of our brain although the parts that are responsible for physical movement whereas in little girls it's the verbal centers of their brains that is activated so if these if this understanding is not held by the caretakers and little boys will just Speak about little boys from it and not nurture in a specific way and almost taught shown told nurtured in how to emote and express they lose themselves and they do they miss out a crucial aspect of

development what that does is when they're moving to the real world real world meaning outside their immediate family dynamic they start to hide parts of themselves that lends itself To not feeling safe in an environment and so a compensatory strategy needs to take place and so one of the reasons we hide is because we don't feel safe in being ourselves because what if that thing that is me is rejected and over time that causes us to hide more and compensate either by playing really small running away all by being really loud and big but they're

all masks that we wear yeah Right tracking so far making sense not you that's not tracking me I'm just making sure that I'm making sense so that rejection piece is huge now uh not to make pornography the enemy um and pornography reinforces that sense of rejection in terms of intimacy and sexuality because what it does is it says hey you can have a peak experience with whoever you want no one's going to comment on the size or the the Aesthetics of your genitalia no One's going to say no to you the woman's always going to

have an orgasm and be pleasured you're going to have pleasure you don't have to face rejection you don't have to be told no you're not attractive or no I don't want you to buy me a drink or you don't have to spend all the money and do all this Pawn's free do your thing so now all these centers of the brain are being activated these dopamine centers right and it's really really Easy to just go to pornography now what that does I'm using that as an example it's not the biggest as an example but what

it does is it reinforces the fact that we're not resilient because here's the thing when you go out and you introduce to people and you take the chance to maybe ask a person out or say hey I I find you interesting would you like to get a coffee or would you like to go to dinner or whatever and you Don't give that person the opportunity to say no you miss out the opportunity to build greater self-worth from a healthy place of course it can come from an unhealthy place too like you can develop Spite and

resentment and all that but we don't want to go there but we miss out that opportunity to be more resilient and increase our self-worth and look at it from a place of oh what's the opportunity here for me what's What's what how can I grow from this if we just play it really easy that makes sense yeah and the copying mechanisms and behavioral adaptations could be a full spectrum of things pornography is a I feel like a fairly common one because there is um there is an unsettled uh I guess dysregulated nervous system where you

need pleasure to reconcile the pain that you're not facing the pain of self and being okay in your own presence and that Can have so many different Ripple effects and expressions but how does somebody for example that has a porn addiction or they're in relationship and they're watching it and they're not telling their partner maybe there's an interesting Dynamic there how do you how does one move through that yeah often with difficulty and it's it's very much connected to the shine Pace as well and so I often say the greater the pain that we're harboring

whether we know it or Not the greater the pleasure we require to mitigate that pain and distract us from feeling the pain that we don't want to feel and pornography food adrenaline making a ton of money being successful Fame the pursuit of that if because dopamine's an anticipatory hormone even forget about the actualization of the thing just the pursuit of it is very distracting from the pain that we don't want to feel but here's a here's the paradox Feel the pain and you'll move through it you'll close the loop and you'll be a different person

you create that spaciousness so we come back to that that quote unquote porn addiction or sex addiction is we've got to get to the root of that and when we dig underneath that what is often the case and not to not to reduce or to simplify quote unquote porn addiction or love addiction or love compulsion but often what is at the root Of that is intimacy issues lack of low self-worth uh sorry lack of self-worth so low self-worth harboring deep deep shame and it could be you know unresolved experiences maybe it's sexual abuse that you've

experienced maybe it's physical abuse maybe it's emotional abuse maybe it's a sense of isolation I can't trust anyone intimacy is not safe but it's safe when I'm by myself it's safe in this with my computer screen and myself And my own being but to be seen by someone else that hasn't been safe in the past you know Dad would criticize me or Mum would not accept who I am or demand a lot of me I I am projecting that my partner is going to do the same so I'll just hide so we have to take

like you know the first step to Healing is really bringing that thing out that we are carrying in silence not to the world that can be a little Overwhelming but to at least one other person that can help us carry that load yeah yeah because then it's like when we think it's all of our own [ __ ] and we have to figure it out all on our own it becomes a daunting task that is usually going to be pushed off to someday in the future one day when um we need to know that we're

not alone yeah yeah yeah and it can get so heavy and like the path of self-actualization And reaching our full potential and knowing ourselves like it can get a little over serious sometimes and when we're carrying that load alone it's just a it's a heavy it's a heavy task yeah and then big terms as well man like hi reaching our Highest Potential and the terms that I use as well and I'm an advocate of and even self-actualization they're very very big terms for most people not because people are ignorant or stupid because people are holding

so Much pain I think what is probably even more important is like what's the next step yeah like what's the next thing that I can do okay so I watch porn and I masturbate to porn three times a day can I just cut that back down to two times a day and observe what happens can I maybe seek a counselor or join um you know a sex anonymous group or one little step that breaks a habit that helps you see aspects of yourself that you couldn't see before but the thing is We need to be

willing and wanting does this Gap that happens like people say well how do you do the thing but you've got to be aware of the thing before you can take a step totally and some people are just not aware of their pain they just think it's part of their lives they can't see the forest through the trees something needs to happen to me that something is immense discomfort that is a wake-up call it's that Rock Bottom moment that has them say oh [ __ ] I'm addicted to pornography or [ __ ] I don't like

being rejected therefore I keep my mouth shut and don't say the thing that I want to say so no one I don't open myself up to being told no or a different opinion or whatever do we need that I think we need that Rock Bottom moment I don't think that's we're going to be like that for the rest of our existence but we need it in this state of Consciousness totally you could be a people pleaser and like just be coasting in the slightly uncomfortable comfort zone of that and and be in that zone for

a while but until uh something from life the universe smacks you with a cosmic 2x4 to wake you up to realize that you've been living a slightly shittier version of yourself that is possible um then it's just necessary I feel like oftentimes it just boils down to like You said getting awareness of what the root is which is a task in and of itself and then fully feeling it like fully you have to fully feel it to be able to transmute it right and um it would have been off the top like a couple of

the most powerful modalities to actually get into that space to actually feel I know you spoke to plant medicines but are there others yeah for me breath work literally saved my life I mean I was on the I've been on The verge of suicide many times and this one particular time I was I just felt so hopeless and and I knew though at the same time I had a little ways to go in terms of the depth and despair to be able to slingshot out of it but I was just tired man I was exhausted

I just not just physically but I was emotionally spiritually exhausted I was just at my tether and a friend of mine said hey there's this amazing practitioner she Does breath Works many years ago she does breath work and she's here visiting from Sweden or something some some European country I can't remember which one and you've got to try it and I said yeah I mean I'm sort of familiar with breath work man and but yeah okay I'll do it whatever like I'll do anything at this point so I hadn't given up but I was close

Changed my life man it changed my life I mean I released stuff from that I had I had a DMT experience like like a DMT release like no other I went to the beach after that particular session and you know have you ever done DMC no uh sorry not not yeah exogenous yeah so it's like Duality collapses at least for me right and so after this breath work so I don't know how I got to the beach it was only a few minute drive but I Don't know how I got there and I was sitting

on the beach and all of a sudden the ocean was where the sky was and the sky was where the ocean was at least that's how it looked so it's a very very deep profound experience but what what happened as a result of of me allowing myself to just really let go and breathe and be in and be witnessed by this woman and be in her guidance in a nurturing presence I was able to release such deep trapped Repressed emotion that just was stuck and I couldn't access it by myself and I couldn't access it

in other conventional or even slightly unconventional methodologies that I'd utilized as well um even with the inner child work and the family constellation work I just couldn't get it and I needed to breathe in this way and access this through the somatic body and that's when I just that Was a that was a big turning point for me and I started to gain just a Slither of Hope yeah and I and I immersed myself in breath practice it's beautiful you just like gave yourself some space from being being the identity that is the person who's

suffering to like slightly having some separation and watching the version of you that was going through it and that's a powerful shift man I want to keep going into some relationship Dynamics because I feel like you provide A lot of really expansive insight into this whole um this whole topic for being in a relationship years on end or decades you realize the importance of how it is to properly address anytime there's conflict like having that healthy relationship to conflict is inevitable right there's going to be things that come up within relationship Dynamics and how we

approach it and having Frameworks And values and shared expressions of how we're going to go into things as a partner is so important so in the pursuit of authentic relating and having a conscious relationship developing a Divine Union where we can have dynamics that are harmonious and it's not me versus you but US versus our neuroses you know and having kind of a teamwork aspect somebody who's been married for a while and like understands this very well and supports people How important is it to learn how to fight oh it's everything I mean when it

comes when it comes to healing and it comes to um creating wholeness experiences of wholeness in our lives macro and macro moments of that the the deep healing is in two places in the in the presence of others in the safe presence of others and in the repair of the conflict so the the what stems from the repair of The conflict is how quickly you can repair how you cannot be triggered and activated and reactive in that moment where your partner is sharing and vice versa of course right your ability to be curious in that

conflict so ask questions your ability to not project your pain and so again come back to asking questions to get really clear your ability to listen Heart and ear like really really listen your ability to create space so that you can repeat back what you're really hearing that person say to reinforce the truth that they're sharing however they're expressing it and to ask is there more these are these are I mean if I was to use two modalities it would be combining a Margo dialogue with NVC non-violent communication those two modalities what was the first

one Imago dialogue okay I'm not familiar with Hendricks um old school OG probably in his 80s keeping the love you find creating the love you find a couple of books those are the two really big books um and he speaks a lot to this dialogue this way of communicating so essentially it's listening so amp listening with empathy It is then repeating back what you heard and asking is that accurate is there more is there anything else you'd like to share then it is empathizing or rather intellectually not agreeing with but an example would be once

you have repeated back what they've said in your words and theirs You would then empathize from an into a cognitive place and say I hear your need to be seen I can you use language such as I imagine that what you're sharing right now must be very difficult for you given that this reminds you of the experience you had when you were six years old exactly it's like honoring their reality 100 and then the next part to that is that but it's more feeling based language where I feel that you were sad I and I

feel your sadness not Not and it's not a codependent feeling but you're just it's an acknowledgment and that's based in in essence that's the Imago dollar it's very similar are you familiar with NVC that's a little bit more yeah so NBC super simple observation request sorry observation feeling request need four steps what's the observation what are the facts no no there was a video camera here which there are many here right now what is The video camera picking up you've got a black shirt on got a necklace around your neck you're sitting in a cross-legged

position like they're the facts right what am I feeling I'm making it about me my I language right I'm not making about you or you did this and I felt that no no really taking responsibility for what we're feeling yeah what's my need in the situation and what's my request of you Now you didn't have to make the request you didn't have to say you didn't have to say yes I'll do that you may not want to so we go back and forth in dialogue but it's called non-violent communication because it's not about coming from

reactivity it's about really feeling and hearing each other when we're able and I'm gonna put my hand up here I do not do this well all the time sometimes my wife and I get it we do we Do it right we do it really well the other night we had conflict we did it really well we both got heated well she doesn't really get heated I get heated but I got heated but not to the point where I was overbearing where she shut down so I was tempering my heat and I was being Mindful and

conscious of her and I was really communicating with and look at the beginning when you have these types of conversations and you use these Frameworks it feels a little Robotic it feels a little for lack of a better term fake yeah however if you stay with it it becomes more natural and organic and your ability to listen and hear and still be expressed yourself it increases tremendously very powerful techniques beautiful I think it's so needed to start to incorporate that and to allow it once it's matured and it's an actual expression of how you watch

relate that's when it'll feel normal and you Know or feel more natural for individuals that like they the thing is that you got to get at is to like relinquish the inner need to be right like you want to win instead of actually learn from the experience the Dynamics right and so do you have an example of moving through some of these stages where like a conflict came up within maybe your partnership or somebody else's that you've helped them through because I think it's helpful to also Frame it in like real-time experience yeah so you

know my wife and I ask each other and ourselves two questions do you want to be right or do you you want to be love and what would love to do now so if you just ask that question like in Conflict what genuinely what would love do now and maybe love would be a stand for the truth that is being expressed but how would love then uh Express that truth but would love express it with violence and resentment and anger and Rage or would love express it in a different way we have to get really

honest with ourselves most people don't want to be really honest with themselves I know there are many times I don't want to be honest with myself because my ego doesn't want to be wrong yeah and so to answer your question um around conflict right yeah if there's an example also that particular sticker Yeah where this need to be right well I often have this need to be right because I like the club and I and I own that um because I I felt I was made so wrong as a kid and so my compensatory strategy

was to argue very well and be very loud not as a child not even as a teenager but towards my later teens in adulthood where I started becoming bigger and stronger and I just became more aggressive and was fighting every Weekend and drinking alcohol and doing all those things that many young men in Australian culture will do to prove their manhood that's their right of passage and then get me started on ineffective rights and passage in the western world where you may want to get me started on that later but you know it became that

for me and so it became a habit to need to be right because I felt so threatened every time someone disagreed with me every time someone Said no that doesn't that's not true for me I made that an attack on me personally because I hadn't gotten over and I hadn't resolved the pain that I experienced as a young boy growing up being made to be wrong being reprimanded all the time just for dropping a spoon on the floor being screened at for not finishing my food or you know by my father like this this intense

intense family life growing up and never really Having a voice so when I got some power back I wanted my voice so how that translates into relationship is sometimes when I'm in overwhelm or I'm not regulated in my nervous system I'm on I'm in this reactive posture so everything feels like a threat to me and as a result of that I often feel shame so I withdraw but then after a while it's it's Insidious pattern then after a while to compensate for the Shame that I feel I get very angry so now or I need

to be right because that's one of the ways that I express my anger I I express control in the world so now no matter what the [ __ ] you say I'm just going to be against it even if I agree with it I'm going to find something that I can disagree with in that just to have conflict so that I can win or at least attempt to win so I can feel in control now that's not mean my adult 40 year old self here and now that Is my nervous system regressing so that's an

example and I'll do that with my wife where I will then criticize her and I will make judgments on her like I will say to her ASC like you're a glass half empty person I'm a glass half full person so I'm trying to elevate myself and belittle her that's not appropriate in conflict and it's not appropriate intimate relationship or any meaningful relationship and I'm coming from my Reactive self now over the years I mean I said that to you the other day actually literally the other day so this isn't like a 10 years ago thing

or five years ago I think I said to the other day and I also am I able to apologize and take ownership in real time and and say look I'm sorry I said that here's what's actually happening and what's underneath that and you don't deserve me saying that to you so please accept my apology And I'm doing my best to be aware of that pattern as it comes up oh that's beautiful man and it's like you said it's a practice it's a process something that you can continually get Awareness on and the more that you

do the better you get at it or at least the better your ability to spot your own [ __ ] and see when it's it's your own stuff when it is all our own stuff and you know it's great to have the desire to want to Do this but also takes two to tango right you need you need a partner that's willing and has this desire this fire for inner self-transformation and taking ownership that's one of my core values especially going into a romantic Partnership of something that I just absolutely need because you're not gonna

find you know if you want to try to go out and find the next Mother Teresa you know good luck I'm sure she had her own [ __ ] Um but you know it's more so about instead of finding somebody who's in this absolute place of wholeness that they have the desire to take ownership and to to take responsibility for their own process into like want to have this conscious relationship and like that desire allows the space to be created to to actually grow in the presence of each other and have real intimacy yeah yeah

you're right it really does take two to tango like It's so important so everything that I'm saying it it really does need to be reciprocated for it to be maximally effective yeah otherwise you know we have a saying in Australia you're pushing [ __ ] uphill and it becomes very difficult um if only one person is very willing and the other isn't like yourself both my wife and I value growth as one of our highest values in relationship and so immediately there's an orientation Towards coming back to repair coming back to how can we grow

from this coming back to what's my role in this but we both have to be doing that and I'll be honest sometimes she'll do it more than me and I will do it more than her and that can be frustrating but we have to stay the line and we have to have that we have to apply that compassion to our partners but to ourselves as well and also at the same time and this is a Trixie piece right I say Trixie because I like Lord of the Rings so it's a Lord of the Rings reference

um but it's a tricky piece right where can we hold the line of compassion for our partners and the situation while still honoring our own truth and doing that in this very eloquent way usually it's pretty messy for most of us but again practice the more we practice the more we have our own personal practice of how we just move through the world outside of any relationship to anyone Just our own personal way of being right that can reinforce this ability to remain in the quote-unquote fight long enough to extract the value and grow and

move on to the next thing whatever the next thing may be another pathway people I'm sure would love to get clarity on is especially being in Partnership for a long period of time a lot of people struggle with sex so let's talk about it because the Reality is there is the novel experience of 18 months of oxytocin when you first have that immediate attraction right and then there's the evolved version of true intimacy and being with another on multiple planes not just physical but for individuals that are struggling having harmonious love and having that fire

stay alive within the relationship how do you support people where it feels dead it doesn't feel as exciting not as interesting there's maybe one person That wants it more than the other there's one person that wants to do it more frequently than the other um and how do you support individuals from from that regard so yeah such a complex topic man you know in my own personal experience that there are there have always been Ebbs and flows in um sexual traction and sexual frequency and I guess the quality of the sexual experience which is a

subjective measure I guess you know everyone would rate Quality and quantity in different ways but I think really a starting point is what is underneath the desire for sex and what is underneath the um non-desire for sex right and what is driving those individuals so let's let's pull back for a moment you mentioned you know the the limerence phase of the honeymoon period essentially right and at some point that usually for the vast majority of us wears off so the novelty And the the novelty and variety it dwindles and so now our Pathways for attraction

begin to shift and for me this is where the real work begins because if you're just valuing sexual intimacy then you're probably going to want a new partner right or you're going to want to create novelty within that partnership which can be difficult for people to do so an example of that is role play another example is introducing other partners another example is being In different physical environments and activating our sexual Creative Energy because Sexual Energy isn't just the act of sex you know penetration giving receiving it is also Creative Energy it's also personal expression

it's also personality right so there's all those things that you can do yes but really what happens is the deeper intimacy practices begin and so once that limerence phase has dwindled and We're no longer preoccupied and obsessed with all these sex hormones moving through our bodies and that the priority is now off the sex and it's living it's cohabitating together whether you're living in the same physical space or not but it's living in each other's lives in different ways you're starting to see now a less polarized view of the person you're starting to see more

of who they are you're starting to see more of their ugly Parts yeah not just the best Version of themselves that they've presented to you that's right and that you have done to them and not necessarily intentionally right no it's just it's sort of like this natural byproduct it's part of it can you love those parts because when you start to begin to love those parts that that seem ugly or don't seem attractive or that are difficult to be with and you start to bring them into your existence and say how is this serving me

what does This remind me of quality questions lead to Quality outcomes in our lives how am I how can I grow from this what can I heal from this what am I learning what can I give and can I learn to love those parts what do I need to love Within Myself to love those parts of my partner now you may you may come to a conclusion where for you those parts are unlovable then you're at a different crossroads right but can you put the time and the intention into loving those parts and You're both

doing this at the same time because now you're creating novelty you're creating Variety in the relationship again because you're seeing each other through very different lenses yeah but you've got to do that in a work and ultimately that's that's in a child work that's trauma work that is that is Habitual patterning work like it's breaking on patterns of relating because now the relationship me is like I damn you remind me of my mother Well who's the common denominator in that you because that's your partner and that's your mother and you're in the center of that

but is she your mother she's not your mother so she's behaving in a certain way that reminds you of your mother what are you doing to enable that what are you being to enact that in her now you can't be responsible for what she does but you can be responsible always say our greatest locus of control Is within ourselves even that is debatable right what we really have control over but it's easier for me to control or Master my own inner faculties than it is yours unless I'm a master hypnotist or whatever which I'm not

so so do you get what I'm saying so let me start with me yeah well I'm the common denominator in this let me start with me now if we're both doing that if we both have an agreement and a commitment to both doing that you can see that growth Can accelerate very quickly and it becomes less about the conversation of sex that comes back in in Harmony and joy and excitement and Novelty as you start to heal this stuff that comes up but what do most people do gets too difficult it wasn't like this at

the beginning sex was great before now we're having it once every three months [ __ ] this I'm going to another relationship We leave too soon now I'm not saying that those that relationship shouldn't end but can it end with you extracting both of you extracting a lot of growth from that so you take that into the next phase of your life right otherwise you just go on to often times and you can work out right there's a saying you can work out one thing with a thousand people or a thousand things with one person

there's relationships that maybe there's just like a soul contract where It completes after a certain amount of time but more often than not we're given the opportunity to deepen and instead of just using it as a as a the point to escape and go on to something else something that's more attractive we need to wake up to see like to evolve our level of attraction what we're attracted to because if we're operating within a smaller identity where we just find the physical is what gets us turned on not just physically but like Multi-dimensionally mind-body spirit

all of it how important is it to develop attraction to and and cultivate that attraction to the inner qualities of somebody I can see the emotional depth that you have how you care your heart you know your creativity and a lot of these things can allow us to be turned on energetically and not just physically and I feel like that allows for a more wholesome integrated approach to Attraction having longevity instead of you know three years down the road it's like I'm just gonna be attracted to a younger hotter version of somebody you know person

of someone else especially if you want to be and have a long lasting relationship where you're 20 30 40 years I'm sure it's just an incredible test to developing the attraction of what you value in another person that can allow sex to be part of intimacy in a larger umbrella yeah Yeah I go back to that understanding of seeing that person through a different lens and you know part of that is that sapiosexual approach where you're really attracted to the inner workings of their mind their being their the layers of self that comes through that

is more intangible than the physical tangible right and I also don't want to shame individuals that have a strong physical attraction to someone as well because That is part of Attraction but for me there's I guess there's two two fundamental Pathways there's the the fertilizer that is driven by I guess our genome this fertilization driven sex and then there's bonding Behavior so we need the polarity or the attraction to procreate and extend the life essence of our species but we're also social beings and so we need there are hormonal profiles that that change and shift

and mirror each other in the socialization Of being together and so I really it's not the thing that you value the most that's most important it's what's the come from of that thing so let me explain that so if you're talking about let's just look at monogamy and Broad brush Strokes non-monogamy for a moment right and you want to be in a monogamous relationship there's nothing wrong or right about that it's a choice but what's underneath your choices is it Social construct constructs and conditioning is it familial conditioning does it come from a real healthy

place within yourself where you've given this a lot of thought and you've felt into it and you prefer to be in a container where it's just you and one person you're going Adept and this is how you define depth was it coming because is it coming from a place of well you're scared that other people may think they feel with multiple People then you're going to be X Y and Z right and vice versa for a non-monogamous container as well so anything that we do in life I I like to take the approach of great

this is what I like this is my value what's my come from or what do I come from because usually not just one where we're multi-faceted beings as you mentioned earlier right so it's usually pluralized what do I come from now the majority of my come from coming from a integrated Grounded healthy place and the ones that are not can I work with them and observe what happens does my yearning or desire change does my need for this thing shift and if it doesn't let me go back to it this deeper level of self-analysis is

not something that I have been doing you know since the beginning of my time it's something that has cultivated over time and the more I do it the more and I the more I sit with myself in this deeper reflection and feel not just think but Feel the easier I'm able to make decisions that are more genuine to who I truly am not to they external pressures or previous conditioning or someone else's voice that has been imprinted in my own mind um it's powerful it's a powerful understanding because it's like the evolution of it and

you're continually given the opportunity to deepen and have Uh awareness and shed light on what are the things coming from those come from so that's beautiful man um would I want to go into next is you know it's it's beautiful to have and have the attractions and I wanted to First go into it's natural to have those attractions even in Partnership right where you're attracted to another beautiful individual how do you deal with that how do you communicate that how do you navigate that in a Relationship where you're committed to somebody you're devoted to a

partnership but attraction is natural it's not shame it but to uh just call it call it for what it is right because there's the attraction and that might be on the physical and then there's also the internal of like what I'm committed to a family a person and so is there anything you want to speak to with that yeah yeah proactive agreements so just really being proactive like the Simplicity of It is is but again what did we talked about before about men fearing rejection but people fear and rejection rejection if we bring an idea

or a thought to someone we're scared that it might not be met in the way that we want it to be met so we have to cultivate enough self-worth and do that in a work that when we bring an idea to someone that may be quote unquote rejected which there's a whole can of worms in and of itself because I am of the belief and The understanding that really people aren't rejecting us they're rejecting a notion or an idea that they have a relationship with from a historical context that they perceive is represented in us

but it's not really us that they're rep that they're rejecting that was a side note so proactive agreements proactive agreements means okay so when this committed relationship we're both clear we want to be in this relationship we're also aware we happen To be aware that we're also going to be attracted physically emotionally spiritually psychologically excuse me to other human beings how do we want to go about sharing that you may come to the conclusion of that keep it to yourself whatever I don't care or hey if you uh are attracted to someone tell me about

it I want to hear the fantasy about it because that maybe that maybe helps them become even more sexually active to each other hey if that if you See a woman that you really are attracted to bring that home to me tonight and let's play that out let's role play about whatever like you know what I'm saying you're just proactive agreements have those mature conversations and here's the thing man the more difficult conversations you have in your partnership or in your Intimate Relationships actually this is this is a really beautiful thing the more closeness and

intimacy you're Creating through that challenge especially if you can repair from it especially if you can move through it and keep being together in healthy ways when you give that freedom to your partner to like be the full expression and and have their attractions are or whatever that security and safety that provides somebody actually it creates so much more intimacy and oftentimes We Fear the expression of saying I'm attracted to this person or whatever but It's really the clinging that makes us resist right so it's like what you don't make space for then becomes the

barrier and resistance for intimacy so I think it's it's ideal to come to a place where you're in Partnership where both people can safely Express whatever it is literally the full spectrum whatever it is and know that it's not going to mean anything about how much I still love you or you know that the that we're still here and that space that freedom that You provide um is just such a beautiful place to get to for you on your own path and you know I've gone through periods as well how important is it to have

those times where you are single you find Solitude perhaps you go into celibacy because until you have those periods where you fully can you know to a degree right we're always oblivious to what we're unaware of by the nature of it but to to Really be in our own energy like you spoke to earlier it's important to be with individuals in community and partnership but then also be alone ideally in nature and have those moments where your energy comes back into yourself and it's not so scattered and you can have you know develop that Clarity

so how important is that to have for at least certain periods of your life whether it's a year a couple years or sporadic for me on my Own personal Journey having periods where I've gone intentionally celibate I'm going to reserve my energy not share it with somebody physically like that and the potency that you carry as an individual who's conscious I feel like is just so impactful for them becoming a magnet to authentic connections that are meant for you life-changing for me deliberate celibacy distancing myself from the feminine and females and that feminine energetic and

Being in my own space no masturbation no pornography I mean I start pornography quite a few years ago um but you know no dating no um well not no desire because the desire was there though but no execution on the desire um to to be in the the energetic interchange of potential sex or potential intimacy and the deliberate practice of that for me has been life-changing especially Because of my relationship to women in the feminine right and the the actions I used to take and the way that I would be with women and the way

that I would treat women and you know really objectify women is what I mean when I say treat women right and be deceitful in relationships so much so deceitful in relationship where so many masks and live in my shadows and live double and triple lives and so the deliberate practice of really distancing myself From that it allowed me to have this deeper reverence and appreciation for the feminine that doesn't mean that I don't I'm a heterosexual man I'm attracted to women that doesn't mean that I don't find women physically attractive anymore absolutely I do I'm

gonna go back to the come from right but the place that it comes from within me now is very different to what it was because previously it was how can I have sex With this person yeah it was so compulsive that's it what I need to say who do I need to be one of the things I need to do yeah I'll be myself but I'm still going to manipulate a little bit I'm still going to say the things that I think they want to hear and it's like not even you doing it it's just

the thing doing it because it's so automatic that's right so I needed to create space and distance from that thing to really see myself in the desperation the Neediness and the insecurities and then have to deal with the shadows of that like have to come face to face with my low self-worth and my masks and my insecurity and my shame and my body shame and all the stuff that I was compensating for and deal with it well I didn't have to deal with it but I wanted to I wanted it I chose to and then

as I came out of that deliberately my relationship with dating with women with sexual intimacy with Sharing my truth being honest not not pretending completely shifted and it shifted the quality of the women that I was attracting as well because I was a different person I'm not saying that the women that I was attracting previously were not um high quality women it's that I was attracting more truth and Alignment in my life with who I actually was not the masks that I was wearing but the most important thing about I really Need to repeat this

especially for I feel I need to repeat this for men is that your relationship to the feminine changes where you'll see them and feel them very differently and the reverence that I was able to cultivate very naturally it it really shifted the way I related to my own inner feminine as well right and the way that I even saw myself too because we're talking about Reflections early in mirrors and that was just Very profound for me and very healing man very very healing and and honestly it's you know I tried to say [ __ ]

emotional not there's any wrong with getting emotional assistant I don't think I would have been able to have my daughter if I hadn't done that deeper work you know because she needs a male figure in her life man I love her so much bro oh so Beautiful man she needs a male figure in her life that is safe and and sees the world through a lens of greater equity and comes less from Shadow and and I'm not the type of person that always wanted kids only until five years ago that I came to the conclusion

and I arrived in an embodied way like I think I'm open to Children only five years ago up until then I was a [ __ ] hard no on Children because of my upbringing because of what my parents would say and what I'd see them do and when my wife was pregnant I prayed every day to not have a boy because I thought that I would be really hard on him like my father wasn't me and so I wanted I wanted to go and I prayed for a girl I prayed for a girl and I

got a girl and then now months She's nearly one years old months into our journey I'm very now I'm very open to having a boy because I see how I am with my baby gone I'm not perfect I can tell you I'm not I'm still impatient sometimes not with her just with myself she's Perfection but you know I'm opening more and more because of these experiences so what I'm saying is I I share all this to say that that proactive deliberate practice of celibacy it shifted the way I I witness Women collectively and individually it

was it was just very profound for me so beautiful thank you so much for sharing man that that shift in who you are what became available to you on the other side of giving yourself that time and space is now the possibility you know of having a loving family and a daughter and like that Paradigm switch of women and feminine energies being something we need to conquer versus something to Fully honor and to nourish and to cherish man it's it's like the more beautiful aspects of life like they both inherently intrinsically need each other but

the feminine within us and then also externalize in a daughter or the woman in your life like we all come from we all come from others you know and we do we're so disconnected um from our own feelings at times and especially as men that like have that shame around it and we spoke to earlier Like difficult to actually Express what we're holding on to but and we fear it but not only just realizing that we just need to feel it to let it go it is as simple as that at some level I will

say one more thing man to the the practice of the deliberate practice of celibacy I did some of my best creative work during that period yeah man like I was on fire because I had space I wasn't in this incessant Pursuit and Hunt right and I had space to think and feel and be with And do and execute and I was I I developed this Acuity around what my purpose was what my purposes were in life and I was able to take action on that which in turn as a man in the world makes you

more attractive to other people full stop it makes you more magnetic anyway so so the power of that was you know I like to see it as just be patient and wait don't eat the cookie because you know that experiment like if you if you have the Cookie now you can have the cookie but if you wait 10 minutes you'll get three cookies right wait six months wait a year see what you know what fruits are bad from your practice yeah and that was what I got from that so powerful man just even that framework

of delayed gratification is so so valuable it's like for me it if I Infuse that framework into anything I do it's like if there's something that I want to put off to the Future whether It's as little as doing the dishes or getting into the coal plunge which is more visceral and a painful experience or you know even bigger things in my life like I will always try to do the hard thing first because if I push it off into the future I'm going to I'm going to dilute the energy in which I do that

thing and that life force energy that was so channeled into attraction and the hunt and you know the the sexual desires bringing that back in Also for me in those periods man is like you also you got to fill that space with something right if you just try to sit at home all day and just like instead of you know masturbating or watching porn or you know swiping left or right on Twitter on Tinder and having that be the expression of your Sexual Energy if you just sit at home all day it's gonna be running

in your mind like you need to put it into something you need to have a passion a creative thing where you can Channel that energy and I truly believe that like our Sexual Energy is our life force our Creative Energy and we can funnel that transmute that into a creation externally and that's when it gets really fun man because you can I have you have created some really beautiful things by virtue of harnessing that energy putting it into something that we want to create and bring forth you know from the unmanif us into the Manifest

so it's beautiful man um Anybody that's listening to this right now if you've been considering that if you've been thinking about it if you're in a place in your life right now where you want to explore that to give yourself two months three months six months and to explore and see what happens you know because a lot can become available so much and it's almost you know telling people what can become available Is almost fruitless just do the thing totally and experience it yourself yeah it's so small into the actual thing you know it's it's

like meaningless you know just the words but they are pointing to something that if you do experience yourself is absolutely profound yeah and and here's Maybe here's something to entice the men around this as well the more demonstrate discipline And uh restraint from seeking excessive pleasure the more attractive you are particularly in heterosexual relationships where any relationship right where you're not uh desperately pursuing that can be deeply revered and respected by the person that you're pursuing because they're seeing that oh this person isn't just interested in one thing they have capacity willpower discipline Acuity Patience

to get to know me to also be in the space of I don't need you I want you and I'll pursue and we'll dance this dance in a healthier way yeah and that builds trust ultimately totally and like the the bees will come when the flower blossoms when we harness that energy of power confidence presence which people are attracted to and maybe are picking up on an unconscious level right for whatever reason if you go into a space where you see somebody that has been Going you know it has been celibate or has been has

been harnessing their energy inwards there is a poll there because somebody that's harnessed their energy and like I said maybe you don't pick it up consciously but you you do feel it and it's something that is a felt experience and from that place I'm sure the best opportunities the best connections have come to you in your life and as they have for me when I have really harnessed That energy you become like a magnet instead of chasing and grasping you just allow and you be a conduit for the universe for things to be magnetized towards

you and it's a more masterful effortless way to go about living in this experience of life yes deeply masterful and that's and that's I think we also fear being masterful because it comes with tremendous responsibility for sure and I don't think we're taught most of us are Not taught how to be with that power and that responsibility but here's the thing surround yourself with people that see you and people that will call you forward and people that have skills that are different to yours and keep practicing being in your power and trust in yourself and

you will learn very quickly more often than not how to be with that responsibility and it won't be so daunting and overwhelming so so beautiful man so powerful and it's A practice to come back to and like we spoke to it's for periods of life you know it's not a forever thing but something that um just gives us a deeper understanding and awareness to the contrast of what can become available to us in this whole experience of Life yeah so earlier in this conversation we briefly brought up about Rites of Passage you know and how

important it is that well the realization that we've really lost them To a big degree both for men and for women collectively in society we just we don't have them I've been in spaces where it's you know 200 men in uh in a you know a fight Dome where we have this expression of healthy aggression and like move through that energy in our Primal Essence but then also holding space for each other to fully release the emotional depth of which we've never shared and I know by being in Partnership and is surrounded By a bunch

of Beautiful Queens and goddesses that they have their women's circles and their full full moon ceremonies and it's so great because it allows us to be held within our own you know polarities and the energies of masculine and feminine Dynamics how important do you feel like it is especially going into partnership but just as an individual having a human experience that we have our same gender kind of meetings and then we can come Back together in more wholeness yeah I think the what really is creates distinction there is is that men and women are different

and that's okay it's okay that we're biologically different it's okay that we're a little bit hormonally different that we're culturally different uh and and we can celebrate these differences in healthy ways we don't have to demonize our differences And so the value of doing individual work or men's work and women's work it carries a lot of potential for us than coming together because when we look at where we are in the world today there's there's probably a reality that exists that we could say women are a little more advanced in the in the in the

relating aspect of things in the way that they emote the way that they understand themselves psycho emotionally Socially and so forth that's not to say men are less than it means that they're a little underdeveloped in that area right and so men coming together and maturing in that way so that they can meet women in this space and women doing their deeper work so that they can understand men from even a more deeper space and then us coming together in very specific environments and containers to begin with so that it can really be held and

be safe That's probably a good starting point now I don't know how long men have to be doing their men's work to then be ready to come into those containers and vice versa I don't know well here's another thing so it's not just one-way Street here but I'm going to ask you a question I'm going to interview you I'm going to ask you a question seriously do you think women in general it's a generalization do you think women can hold The power and the rage that the masculine holds inside of them you're speaking generally or

like can a single woman hold the rage generally speaking the collect the collective feminine can the collective feminine can females generally speaking as a collective hold that in very intense rage that the violence that men carry my first thought is when I tune into feminine energy and feel like the capacity in which Gaia and Mother Earth And how it represents through women can inherently hold and transmute anything yes um but not to the degree in which men can be witnessed to that and hold that I agree so as we're saying men need to develop more

emotional acuity not women need to but it would serve that because here's here's been my personal experience my Personal experience and the thousands of men that I've worked with and taken men through different leadership programs and different rights of Passage as well is that when I have been met by a woman or by women with non-judgment and compassion it has been one of the greatest healing things in my life like one of the greatest healing experiences I've ever had that breath Work practitioner she was a female so many of the practitioners that I've worked with

they haven't all been female but so many of them have and it's been deeply nurturing and healing and they were able to witness and hold all of me not just the convenient Parts but even the parts that were maybe really scary and intense to me and to the outside world and so do women need to hold that no no we Don't need no one needs to do anything would it serve Humanity as a whole if we could develop greater aptitude in that area yes have women held a lot for a very long time yes I

believe so have the has the has the collective feminine energetic and the value of the feminine Essence and expression has that been repressed and suppressed has that been pushed down I think so for a very long time so what I'm speaking to here is doing Deeper healing work I don't think we're fully ready yet as a collective to be coming into co-ed spaces I believe some groups of people are absolutely we see it we're seeing it now particularly in you know in California in other areas of the the US and even other areas of the

world and some people are definitely ready for that but I'm speaking from a general Collective space not quite yet that's why it's so important to be in those Familiar spaces and we speak about rights of Passage excuse me we're speaking about men that have not been taken through Rites of Passage they have not been in in inducted into manhood they are still boys living in adult men bodies females have a very distinct clear rite of passage into Womanhood it's their menstrual cycle boys don't have that So we need we have to rely on cultural rights

of Passage for me a principle of Healthy Living is being proactive and deliberate if you're not proactive and deliberate you're reactive you're a victim to life we have to take our boys through proactive rights of Passage I think we can really lean into the Ancients hear the ancient wisdom and ancient teachings cross-culturally and given not all cross-cultural ancient indigenous Practices um are great when it comes to Rite of passengers some really horrific painful rights of Passage and I don't know if they're necessarily applicable in this world however the in the world we live in today

however the principles I believe are applicable challenge being one of them I mean I can go through some pretty deep deep details what some cultures would do when boys are transitioning From boys to manhood like it's almost death it's torture like it's it's if it by definition it's physical torture I don't know if that's quite that extent is quite necessary but that's probably another conversation however we lack that so now you know oh we get our driver's license when we're 16 or 17 we go to college we're allowed to drink alcohol at 21 in Australia

it's 18. and these are our rights of Passage week Passive week that is not signify manhood that does not symbolize becoming a man yeah maturing into our human Hood into our manhood yeah we need more yeah and we need to be directed by elders not olders Elders yeah yeah we can become elderly and not become an elder you know we need healthy develop strong masculine leadership just do and it's something that we're lacking desperately on this planet you know it's I believe so it's tragic and So first off thank you for being on the path

of integration to be a leader for safe spaces for men in particular as well because um there's this narrative going on that we need to get rid of men you know because we're so familiarized with the toxic wounded version that is not in a healthy place of leadership but when you experience a man who's integrated and in leadership it creates safety and assurance and that's needed in times That are uncertain and we get to create those spaces and there's thankfully we're so connected online and there's a beautiful amount of safe spaces that are popping up

all over for these men groups for these Collective coming togethers of hundreds of guys at times where we can have and choose a right of passage it's never too late to decide who you want to be true and it's never true too late for a riot of Passage and I think we have multiple Rights of passages in our lives I think probably there's this one Boyhood to manhood right of passage but you can have that at any time you you can be inducted into that space at any time you need to want to you'll be

surrounded by the quote unquote right people uh and you need to be able to release what no longer serves you and release that the pain and the wounds and the trauma and the immaturity that's often attached to those past versions of ourselves those Boyhood versions of ourselves for sure which doesn't obviously stop right as we get into our 20s like there's parts of ourselves still here sitting in this moment in my 20s or your 40s okay that are still still want to express as a boy you know and we get to make space for that

and to honor that and to not bypass it and to not sweep it under the rug and just you know um to claim that we are still on the path and that there's parts of us we Still need to integrate and um that's a beautiful acknowledgment you young buck in your 20s wow I mean I love being 40 but man how old are you exactly 26. man what was I doing when I was 26 off not a good place I thought I was but I wasn't yeah uh kudos to you thank you man appreciate it

um the soul this whole podcast has been very nutrient dense very nourishing on so many levels and I think gives a lot Of context to a lot of very important topics how we relate to all of life around us and especially the deep romantic you know intimate connections are some of those most important valuable things in our life that we go through and experience they're our biggest catalysts the biggest mirrors and I think we shed a lot of awareness how important it is to discover the place in which from We're relating to go into Dynamic

Relationships and learn how to argue how to handle conflict healthy how important it is to integrate the masculine and feminine energies both within men and women separately and collectively a lot of really juicy topics here man so first off I just want to say thank you thank you for doing the work thank you for coming on the show before we wrap up uh for people that want more Stefanos where can they find you how can they be connected with you Everything will be linked down in the description as well thank you man I appreciate that

um uh social media at Stefano sefandos and my website stefanossifanos.com um and all you know all the information is there with respect to what I do in the world and the services I offer wonderful man your name is one of the most fun to say thank you I'm glad you can say it yeah amazing good is there any last message Or anything else in your heart that you want to share with audience before we tune out yeah slow down just not so much slow down life from an external perspective although that can be very useful

but slow down the need to be somewhere or be someone just slow down pause and observe I often I won't do it here because getting up will be awkward I guess but I will often Stand and I'll physically take a step back and I'll pause and I'll breathe slow and I'll do my best to think slow and if I'm in an agitated position I'm feeling tension or I'm confused or having a big emotion not to bypass that emotion I'm not about that I'm someone that dives in sure sometimes I'll bypass we all do that but

that's never my intention not to bypass just to pause for a moment To really reflect on what's going on we can do that in Intimate relationship we can do that with ourselves it's a particularly useful tool for men to slow the [ __ ] down we live in such a fast-paced society that the faster we move the more value we perceive to have in the world which I don't think is a direct correlation to that it's a perception that's probably false so just slow down And when we slow down we're able to see the world

in ourselves and our lovers and our relationships and the things that matter most to us about the pain that we experience in our lives from a very different place and what accompanies often accompanies that is willingness the application attribute of willingness willing to have the hard conversation willing to do something different to play the opposite game so to speak them What you're accustomed to willing to explore the chasms of your own being willing to love that depths and be vulnerable and raw and open and practice new ways of being to you know if we're talking

to men to practice a new kind of masculinity that you're not accustomed to maybe you're not accustomed to strengthening in your body go strengthen your body challenge your Body we develop confidence and Acuity and self-awareness from that physical challenge it's it's in our ancestry if you're a woman and you fear being seen in relationship where are the spaces in your life where you can have a bigger voice than you've had let's practice what we're not accustomed to what we fear and what we often run from and and develop range be willing to develop range in

our expression the way That we see ourselves I guess that's what I would leave the audience with powerful invitation so thank you so much I think that perspective shift of zooming out taking a step back slowing down becoming aware of the direction we're going not just the speed in which we're going in our direction is incredibly important so thank you for doing the work thank you for coming on the show hope to run it back someday in the future and for Everybody that's been tuning in to this episode of the know the self podcast I

love you and I hope to meet you in the flesh one day thanks for coming on this journey with us hit the Subscribe button and join the family if you haven't already everything where you can find Stefanos will be linked down in the description below let us know what your thoughts were about this episode any insights uploads downloads in the description in the comments drop it Below and until next time I'll catch you on the next one blessings [Music] thank you [Music]