Men's Sexual Health Link to Self-Worth

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The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast host and guest and do not necessarily represent those of our distribution partners, supporting business relationships or supported audience.

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Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for instigating self-worth when dealing with each other and even within ourselves, where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries, fostering community and finding identity.

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My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are redefining sovereignty of character.

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This is why values still hold value.

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This is Transacting Value.

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There was something in me that was like I cannot just be complicit with, like my inherited idea about my sexuality.

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There was something in me that was just like no, no, I need to figure this out.

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I need to know what this is Like.

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This is singularly the most important thing for me to learn about.

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Today on Transacting Value.

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What do you do when it's uncomfortable, being vulnerable?

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Probably freeze up, but what impact does stress have on that and can it help the process?

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More importantly, what does it do to your relationships with yourself and with other people?

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The process?

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More importantly, what does it do to your relationships with yourself and with other people?

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We're talking with men's sexuality and trauma coach, rob Kanzler.

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All about it.

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I'm Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and from SDYT Media.

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This is Transacting Value, rob.

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What's up man?

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How you doing.

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I'm doing well, Josh.

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Thanks for having me Happy to be here.

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Thanks for coming on the show, man.

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There's a lot of things that when I first heard you were going to come on the show, I got nervous about.

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I don't know where this conversation is going to go.

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I don't know what questions you're going to ask or how the conversation is going to get diverted and I'm going to say stuff I'm not comfortable or ready for, I have to imagine, in your line of work professionally.

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That's a common response to knowing that a session comes up with you.

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Well, I think that there's something indicative about a greater cultural theme that, even though sex is such an essential part of being a human being, there's so give nor, in a way, normalizing a culture of honest communication and just like simple information sharing.

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And you know, one way that I could maybe weave this in is that I think most men have never had a grounded, open conversation with other men about sex.

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That's probably accurate.

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It's so often this machismo thing or this flex type of energy or some sort of weird sexism locker room thing that the bros just get into or whatever.

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But a conversation with two men, two brothers are just openly discussing what is your experience, what is it like for you being a?

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You know not that any conversation would necessarily sound like this, but like, yeah, what's going on in your sexual life Like, what's that like for you?

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And so much of this part of being a human being is so in isolation, right.

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So this, this ends up uh, you know, let's see how deep we want to go into this direction or whatever other ones is that we end up being educated by pornography, by kind of like secondary impacts of, uh, religion or all kinds of other stuff, that the trauma of our parents, the confusion of our parents, the whatever sort of role model or examples that we get when we're little of what intimate relationships are supposed to be, that we take all that stuff on and then usually we just keep it in and we live it out without actually engaging or being educated from sources that understand how to have healthy and fulfilling lives and sexual lives so I'm curious your, I guess, opinion or position on this, because whenever I hear topics in any sense frame, fashion or scope about sex and sexuality, it's always physical and I don't know that it is.

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In fact, I don't think that it is.

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However, that's generally the connotation and maybe that's why a lot of these cultural considerations about, let's say, conversations about sex and sexuality, especially among men or even just between two dudes, is such a weird sort of uncomfortable conversation topic, because you're talking about physical stuff that now neither of you can relate to.

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There's no grounding, because it's not physical between the two of you.

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It's mental or cognitive or behavioral maybe, but that's it, and so how do you talk about something in common when you have none of it in common?

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And it's all based on empathy, right, and I think that's a difficult thing to do.

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However, before I get to that, how do you get into something like this?

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Can you just take a couple minutes and explain to me for a second who you are, where you're from, what sort of things are shaping your perspective on the world to make this a career choice?

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Sure, yeah, and in a way I heard somebody say this once and it does resonate that I hear a lot of folks talking about like choosing their life path or figuring out what they want to be when they grow up or whatever, and I feel like my life in many ways hasn't given me the luxury of that.

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And I don't know, I don't know if this is just like language, communicating something intangible, but I often feel like, with this particular career path or whatever, in so many areas of my life it feels like this has just been the path that it would almost be weird if I didn't end up here, given who I am and what has happened to me?

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Yeah, like it's not.

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Like I woke up one day it was like, oh, I want to like pursue sex education or whatever as a career.

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It was more so that, like, this was just the trajectory of my life.

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And here I am, 35 years later, in this position where people refer to me as whatever titles might be appropriate.

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But yeah, your question.

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I don't mean to discredit it.

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I think it's a worthwhile thing to give people context how I ended up in this position and why I'm talking to you with the premise set up this way.

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It's interesting.

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Yeah, it's unusual.

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You're right.

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I think that for a lot of people, yeah, they have a similar question.

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So I can say that, like from a from a young age and I I don't know that I would have put words to it until pretty recently, and the way that I'm about to words to it until pretty recently, in the way that I'm about to, I just had this sense that the thing that I was told sex was wasn't true, like it wasn't a complete answer to like what is sex and how is it relevant and how do you do it, and like what is this about?

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That I was, as we all are, informed about this through all these different sources and there was just something in me that was like I don't buy it, like I don't think that we understand this.

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This doesn't satisfy some sort of intuition that I have about this subject, some sort of intuition that I have about this subject and that, combined with a couple other factors one of them, I would say is is, uh, like insecurity and probably unworthiness, like something in me that was like the way that I'm going to get love and belonging is to like solve the puzzle of female emotional and sexual needs, that the way that I'm going to get love and belonging and security and find my place in the world and have people like me and to have access to community and family and all that or whatever is.

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I'm gonna hack this thing and thus I'm going to be okay, right, like.

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I remember that and I think this is really normal to a certain extent.

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I think that young men especially, but probably all men, especially, especially with a new lover that we want to be impressive, we want to show that we are beautiful and valuable and that we're unique and can provide something special for a woman.

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I think this is a very normal part of the male experience is wanting to, to offer something meaningful to a woman in, in sex, especially at the beginning of a relationship, and I think that I took that to a a pretty unusual degree of like.

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I need to know like, like, almost as like an obsession, like how do I learn about this subject?

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How do I, how do I become a wholly satisfying lover, even like better than anybody else, so that I potentially contend with this deep sense of unworthiness and self-hatred?

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frankly, yeah, and again, you can be as vulnerable as you want.

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But where does something like that come from?

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Because it doesn't sound uncommon to me.

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And it does seem like at the root of it and when we start talking about trauma especially folks who haven't been exposed to these conversations they typically think of, like what folks in the like therapy world or the trauma healing world say is episodic trauma, like something that, for example, like people that experience PTSD because of being in active duty and like see something really extreme or experience something really extreme that we could say that it's like episodic trauma, like that something happened, like there was a, an incident and, yeah, some something really intense happened and the system is rocked and it it takes a unique approach to integrate it.

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The more prevalent kind of trauma, which sometimes can be kind of crazy making because it's difficult to validate, is neglect, and I think neglect that I would say that I think almost everybody that I have explored with in any way to be able to give my two cents about it it seems like there is developmental trauma related to neglect.

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Some theories that I have about this are that we are designed I mean, I don't mean to be like bringing any sort of like religious connotation to it, but like our, our hardware, the way that we are as mammals is designed, that we are meant to be accompanied by adults as we develop system that can process intense experiences and regulate on its own until seven or eight at least, like you literally don't even have the hardware to do that.

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You have to, you have to like.

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Literally you require adult nervous systems to digest intense experiences and regulate your body Like fundamentally you cannot.

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You cannot do that essential function without adult nervous systems until you're much later on in development.

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And I think what ends up happening is because you know, necessarily we run into things that are intense and the adults around us don't have the capacity to be present to their own feelings, nevermind what goes on for others, that something that we could effectively call neglect happens, that we ended up being alone.

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Alrighty, folks sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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Here's a short quiz who won Best Actress last year?

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Who won the World Series two years ago?

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And finally, name your favorite teacher.

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Now, I'm guessing that the last question was the easiest.

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Why is that?

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Because that person made a difference in your life.

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So go ahead and make a difference, because making a difference is in you.

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From PassItOncom.

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You know, necessarily we run into things that are intense and the adults around us don't have the capacity to be present to their own feelings, nevermind what goes on for others, that something that we could effectively call neglect happens, that we ended up being alone.

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Okay, and I think that this is this is a pretty consequential thing, because we are not meant to deal with our, our lives by ourselves, especially when we're little, that we need to be accompanied.

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We need we need that, and I don't mean not to like romanticize what it is to be a human being, and often when we start talking about this stuff, it almost like invokes a sort of romanticization of the human experience, and I think it's really important to be clear that, like we're talking about biology, like this is not like, oh, it's cool to like feel your feelings or like have empathy or like have somebody be with you and your feelings and that's you know.

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Like whatever you think about that is irrelevant.

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What I want to highlight is, like this is about biology, like this is a fundamental reality that we are hack animals and our the way that we deal with gestation and developmental sequence with young ones is such that they literally require attuned adult nervous systems to develop correctly, like fundamentally, they need that and in the West they they don't get that and it's been you know hundreds or thousands of years, since that was the way that we are.

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And yeah, there's many directions that we can go, but I'm curious how this lands for you at this point.

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Oh, my most immediate question is what is your baseline for comparison?

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You said Westernized culture, but compared to what?

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Yeah, yeah.

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So there's some research that I've seen and I know some kind of anecdotal stuff from folks that I know that have lived with indigenous people and like, for example, one interesting analogy is that a friend of mine who lived with pygmies in Africa for an extended period of time he said that he had never, ever, seen a baby like or or throw up in a place where it wasn't supposed to.

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That not only its own mother, but all of the childbearing women in the community, or just the women in the community, are so attuned to the bodies of these little humans that they just know that they need to take care of business, that it's like they don't have diapers.

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They're not like.

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Do you know what I mean?

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Like they don't even have the means to take care of these sort of things.

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It's almost like they are.

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They are an embodied extension of the adults in the community and we don't have that.

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We don't have that, and I think that it's definitely more commercialized yeah.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So it's like what, what?

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What ends up happening is that we adapt to figure out.

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How do we deal with the fact that we're not able to process our experiences and digest what happens to us?

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But also, how do we develop a personality or personas that allows us to get love and avoid harm?

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Does that sort of let's just call it trauma, because it's not always going to be witting and it's not always going to be willing from any parties involved, right, sometimes it just happens and you don't know until hindsight from anybody involved.

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Sometimes it just happens and you don't know until hindsight from anybody involved.

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But that kind of trauma I think can manifest as sort of maybe even intentional distancing.

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Let's say it's rooted in fear or discomfort or uncertainty or any of these other types of positions, mindsets.

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You brought up the military earlier, which is the majority of my professional life in the Marine Corps, infantry, and intentional distancing is necessary, in fact it's encouraged.

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It becomes the platform that the majority of us, in every platoon that I was ever in, communicated from as a point of commonality, of commonality, and I found, at least in my experience, that it deepened our relationships.

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And this is before, at least in the US and in the Marine Corps infantry, women were allowed in the infantry and as infantrymen, and so it was all guys.

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But what we had in common, what we would talk about, you know, long walks or late nights or whatever was more what we called intentionally distancing from whatever On a deployment.

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Maybe it's bills, maybe it's family.

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Maybe it's whatever, but it was the way to cope and process and focus and actually put distance between those catalysts and whatever we were going through.

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But that's neglect intentionally.

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Are they associated or correlated at all, do you think?

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It's a fascinating question.

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My immediate impulse is I don't know and I'm curious about what you say.

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I'm like, oh, that's that's interesting and I can relate to it in some way.

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But I'm also just interested to understand.

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Your experience feels unique and I get the sense that I don't fully understand where you're coming from, which is cool.

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I'm like, oh, tell me more.

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Um, so, the people that I've learned from and, uh, I've read a lot of books on the subject that it seems like what trauma is about is too much and I'm alone, like something happens that's too intense and now I'm by myself to deal with it.

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Oh, okay, okay, like.

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So that's what I understand is the foundation, and it can be like too much, too fast, too intense, like something happens that's too intense for me to process in the moment and now I'm by myself to deal with it.

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So the way that I've heard it framed is like the trauma is the response.

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It's not even the incident Right, which is trippy Like.

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Trauma is the way that we respond to not being able to integrate what happened.

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Trauma is not the thing necessarily.

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Trauma is the, the adaptation or the reaction to an intense experience that we don't have the resources or capacity to process and yeah, I mean it's a, it's a profound thing.

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And again, I do really like to highlight here that like it's useful to separate our sort of like narrative about about like a room, a romanticization of the human experience, from by biological reality.

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Like that's not how I am, but it's like you're a mammal, like that's how your nervous system is.

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It's not like I understand.

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I understand that there's like personality variation and that there's value of like stoicism and that people have incredible will and skills for navigating life and all of that.

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But the reality of like, when we have experiences that are too much and then we are just isolated, that that changes the brain, it changes the nervous system, it changes the way that we are.

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Because we have to, we have to carry on with a part of us not being integrated, that there's like a fragmentation.

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We have to proceed to live by having a like, a construct of a personality that has this other thing like bolted onto it.

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That's not integrated.

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Or it's like something happened to me, something happened to me and like I don't know how to include it in who I am.

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Yeah, and it's like the thing that most people are carrying isn't related to war or combat.

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It's related to I was a little kid and I was by myself and I was scared and confused and angry and sad and happy and inspired and I wasn't supported to meet that and to have that proliferate, you know, and that that is traumatic.

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It is traumatic and I again, it's like it's traumatic on the level of biology, on the level of the nervous system, not on the level of like, oh, that was such a you know, like was it a bad thing, was it not?

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Like that that conversation can get really intangible or like opinionated and think the thing that's like this is just a, this is the reality of a biological system, is a much easier conversation to have because it it necessarily kind of strips from opinion.

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It's just like it's a body like that, it's just a nervous system, that's how it works okay.

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Well then, let's talk a little bit more objectively grounded about some of these things.

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Stress, for example, cortisol spikes, hormones go all different directions and levels for any random periods of time and one of two things happen, right, you either can't focus or you can.

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I think, interestingly, both of them are a response to whatever traumatic event occurred and it's all the same catalyst.

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I don't know what to do here.

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Tunnel vision, and then you process, you know, to whatever the extent is after the fact.

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Yes.

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So what is your opinion on the impacts of a high stress environment, occupationally, circumstantially qualified, how you want, on somebody's objective, maybe biological ability to regulate themselves, to better align and identify as themselves?

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Again, yeah, or at all it's a cool inquiry.

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One thing that comes up is flow like flow states right, like how.

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From my experiences, I would say that there's two categorically different kinds of flow.

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One of them is like based on adrenaline, and the other one is based on just kind of like being in the pocket and just like the way that, like jazz musicians are just you know, they're just in the pocket and yeah, that's interesting.

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It's something that I think we'll understand more about in the next years as there's more research.

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That I think we'll understand more about in the next years is there's more research, but the the different there's.

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Experientially, it seems like there's two totally different kinds of flow that have commonalities but are very different.

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One of them is like cortisol and adrenaline.

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So you're like super focused, because often there's high stakes and if you up, it's not okay.

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Like if you're you know if you're like on a mountain bike going down a hill really fast.

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Like if you're you know if you're like on a mountain bike going down a hill really fast, you're not, you don't have add anymore, because you're not gonna, you're not gonna be okay.

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Like if you start thinking about something that's not in the moment, you're gonna hit a tree and you're not gonna be, you're not gonna go well.

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So I imagine the same thing is true in combat scenarios, in whatever case, whether it's martial arts or war or you know whatever scenario where it's like yeah so, and I think that this is something that comes with training, that I imagine in your military training same with people who are emts or they work in the er, whatever that you get trained to respond in high stress environments by basically like habituating yourself to protocols, I assume right when it's like you learn that like I got a checklist like we do these things in a scenario like this to ensure that everything happens the way it's supposed to and we have good outcomes and if things are safe as possible.

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Alrighty, folks sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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Join us for Transacting Value, where we discuss practical applications of personal values, every Monday at 9am on our website transactingvaluepodcastcom, Wednesdays at 5pm and Sundays at noon on wreathsacrossamericaorg slash radio.

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I got a checklist Like we do these things in a scenario like this to ensure that everything happens the way it's supposed to and we have good outcomes and if things are safe as possible.

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Well, ideally also, some of that is to give you something to focus on, of that is to give you something to focus on.

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So the the psychological idea and to, I guess, maybe even a a greater degree that the physiological idea behind the premise you just brought up is, colloquially, in the dod, the department of defense, trained to a standard brilliance in the basics, right.

00:26:01.847 --> 00:26:38.269
But the idea is, the reasoning is because when, inevitably, you become so stressed that, for whatever reason, you start to panic or, like we would call it, go internal, you just can't focus on outside your body, you're stuck in your body that you need things that don't require fine motor skills and so, metaphorically, those fine motor skills may be the checklist instead of the details in the moment that's happening during an explosion or or or an ambush or something.

00:26:38.269 --> 00:26:41.171
Okay, let me take stock of what's here.

00:26:41.744 --> 00:26:47.614
My hands are on the ground, I'm breathing, I don't know where I am, what's happening, why I can't hear anything.

00:26:47.614 --> 00:26:48.885
I don't know why I can't see anything.

00:26:48.885 --> 00:26:51.614
It's dusty, okay, but you know you can't see anything.

00:26:51.614 --> 00:26:52.636
You know it's dusty.

00:26:52.636 --> 00:26:55.010
You know your head you can feel Right.

00:26:55.131 --> 00:27:01.146
So it's the metaphorical fine motor skills that you wean out through this checklist type mentality.

00:27:01.146 --> 00:27:03.835
But I guess psychologically as well.

00:27:03.835 --> 00:27:28.914
But physiologically I can't focus enough to push the buttons on this radio to call for air support, but I can use the entirety of my hand to mash a spot on here or the corner of my hand, or I can't pull my trigger to fire back because I don't know, because I can't feel my fingers.

00:27:29.526 --> 00:27:32.989
There's no blood in my extremities right, that's a physiological response to shock.

00:27:32.989 --> 00:27:33.810
It's a fear response.

00:27:33.810 --> 00:27:35.194
It's a fear response, yeah.

00:27:35.635 --> 00:27:45.409
Sure, yeah, and or blood loss, I guess, depending on your circumstance, but you know I physically can't do this, and so instead then we would also have training drills.

00:27:45.409 --> 00:28:42.455
I spent seven months a few hours north of the Arctic Circle a couple years ago, and one of the drills that we worked through was put on mittens and then go shoot at targets accurately, and so we took the trigger guard off and instead of using one finger, we four fingers, your whole hand, but for the same exact sort of repetitional exposure to what do you do when your fingers are numb for any number of causational reasons or causes, I guess, um, and so, yeah, I agree with what you're saying, that it gives a little bit of structure to the chaos in a metaphorical sense, but also psychologically, physiologically, I mean, there's a lot of benefits to this sort of training, to a standard or this brilliance in the basics concept, and that actually very nicely brings me back full circle.

00:28:42.455 --> 00:28:54.835
The basics, I think, of communication, like you said earlier on, is honest communication in conversation and simplified information sharing.

00:28:54.835 --> 00:29:01.994
I can happen in a dialogue when there's no pretense, it comes from curiosity, not judgment, or the facades dropped.

00:29:01.994 --> 00:29:09.704
And so when I hear you say things like two men talking about sexuality.

00:29:12.163 --> 00:29:14.894
Okay, what's that look like?

00:29:14.894 --> 00:29:17.508
What's the list of things we're going to discuss then?

00:29:17.508 --> 00:29:20.170
It's just like what's on the menu today, steve.

00:29:20.170 --> 00:29:24.472
You know you just you just break it down and talk and it changes everything.

00:29:24.472 --> 00:29:26.192
Because there's not like this conversation.

00:29:26.192 --> 00:29:26.433
There's not.

00:29:26.433 --> 00:29:27.578
Because there's not like this conversation.

00:29:27.578 --> 00:29:32.935
There's not judgment, there's not a pretense, it's just an honest conversation with simple information sharing.

00:29:32.935 --> 00:29:39.295
And so how do you do that with what I'm assuming at least the first time total strangers?

00:29:40.337 --> 00:29:41.078
It's a great question.

00:29:41.078 --> 00:29:48.748
Yeah, like part of the premise of the work that I do is, uh, we begin with context setting.

00:29:48.748 --> 00:29:51.998
So I had a formative experience.

00:29:51.998 --> 00:30:01.509
I lived in germany for two and a half years, something like that, and one of my flatmates when I was living in berlin, he, uh, he learned about what I do and what I was interested in.

00:30:01.568 --> 00:30:12.849
And he, from just like a place of innocence, like almost like his little boy, came out and he's like we teach me, me some stuff, like he was like, and my response was like sure, man, why, why do you want to know?

00:30:12.849 --> 00:30:13.772
Like what do you?

00:30:13.772 --> 00:30:14.634
What do you want to know?

00:30:14.634 --> 00:30:18.390
And why, like, why do you want to know more about sex?

00:30:18.390 --> 00:30:21.695
And he was stumped.

00:30:21.695 --> 00:30:27.205
I remember he was just like I don't know.

00:30:27.205 --> 00:30:29.775
And I sat with him for a minute and I was like well, let's think about it.

00:30:29.775 --> 00:30:33.634
Why do you want to learn more about this subject?

00:30:33.634 --> 00:30:34.710
Why do you like it?

00:30:34.710 --> 00:30:41.717
I think this is very common that he was just puzzled.

00:30:41.717 --> 00:30:48.007
He was like I don't know, I don't even know why I'm so interested in this subject.

00:30:48.007 --> 00:30:52.846
And we could say that there's like biological drivers, there's like hedonism or whatever.

00:30:52.846 --> 00:31:00.308
There's like the notch in your belt thing, like status or because it's yeah, now I can talk about it whatever, yeah, totally.

00:31:00.328 --> 00:31:00.470
But.

00:31:00.470 --> 00:31:14.910
But I remember his his response was so innocent and sweet that he was, he was just literally, he's like because my d*** feels good, and like that was what came to mind for him and it was like cool, yeah, like that's a.

00:31:14.910 --> 00:31:20.852
I appreciate the honesty and the sincerity of it, but like, let's unpack this more Like, let's look like what do you?

00:31:20.852 --> 00:31:22.615
Why does this matter?

00:31:22.615 --> 00:31:24.166
What do you care about?

00:31:24.166 --> 00:31:30.434
So maybe this is a segue into the topic at hand, or the topics at hand with your podcast is around values.

00:31:30.434 --> 00:31:51.354
So, for me, what is at the center of my work is this inquiry around sexual integrity and integrity in general, where I would say that I think about integrity not not from the perspective of like morality or whatever, like ethical considerations, the way that that word is usually used.

00:31:51.354 --> 00:32:02.007
I think about integrity as being intact, like, etymologically and historically, composition yes, exactly Like the.

00:32:02.007 --> 00:32:06.958
So etymologically, the word integrity means like wholeness.

00:32:06.958 --> 00:32:14.817
So this is this is huge when we start to have a conversation about sex from a place of like.

00:32:14.817 --> 00:32:34.608
How do I be intact as a man, Like, how do I have a sense of energetic wholeness as a human being with regards to this thing called sex and sexuality and the fact that I have these biological drivers and emotional drivers and energetic drivers and hormones and all this stuff.

00:32:34.608 --> 00:32:41.647
Like what do I do to be in integrity with the reality of being a man with regards to sex?

00:32:41.647 --> 00:32:46.077
And that, to me, is the premise of the conversation that I have with people.

00:32:46.077 --> 00:32:56.977
It's, you know, which can include like technique and understanding orgasm and understanding women, and you know a lot of people typically come with like the same issues.

00:32:56.977 --> 00:33:23.277
We can get into it in a second but, like you know, the typical that you would imagine like people are like my doesn't work, like ejaculation and erection concerns, or they have performance anxiety, or they want to understand female pleasure and orgasm, or they want more sex or better sex, or they feel like their partner isn't, is like too modest, or it's her issues that that are the reason why we don't have a better sex life.

00:33:23.277 --> 00:33:24.827
Like it's it's just the same.

00:33:24.827 --> 00:33:26.835
I hear just the same couple things.

00:33:26.835 --> 00:33:29.594
Like almost always it's just the same few things.

00:33:30.266 --> 00:33:59.996
And when we orient, we address all that stuff and we orient to it from the perspective of integrity because it's like there's so much more energy to change things and to do deep work and to create new habits and to infuse our heart and our intentions into the way that we make love and hold this part of our life and our most important relationship from an understanding of what really matters.

00:33:59.996 --> 00:34:03.527
Where it's like when you connect to the why, like the sense of what we talk about, this, this term, formative intent.

00:34:03.527 --> 00:34:06.209
Where it's like when you connect to the why, like the sense of what we talk about, this, this term, formative intent.

00:34:06.209 --> 00:34:18.998
Where it's like when you can really connect to like this is like the deep meaning that I have for my life and for my sexual life and for my relationship, then it's so much easier to be like okay, does this match or does this not?

00:34:19.099 --> 00:34:23.041
Is this an integrity issue or is this the way that I'm supposed to be in the world?

00:34:23.041 --> 00:34:25.878
Or is this the way that I'm supposed to be in the world?

00:34:25.878 --> 00:34:31.884
For example, like some of the language that comes up, a lot for me and for other people is like it's about an expression of natural love.

00:34:31.884 --> 00:34:34.072
It's an expression of aliveness.

00:34:34.072 --> 00:34:50.652
It's an expression of like my, my aliveness and my primality and the impact that my woman has on my vitality being circulated back to her as an expression of love and adoration for her and for her beauty and for her dedication to me and for my dedication to her.

00:34:50.652 --> 00:35:02.510
That it's like that is a profoundly energizing reason, let's say, to investigate what are we doing or what don't we know yet, or how beautiful could this really get?

00:35:02.510 --> 00:35:13.021
Because it matters, Like it matters, Because this sense of like do you want to just be a better lover that usually kind of goes into more like egoic things.

00:35:13.101 --> 00:35:15.672
Or like hedonism A little more superficial in comparison.

00:35:15.672 --> 00:35:15.873
Exactly.

00:35:16.144 --> 00:35:48.168
Like hedonism right, it's either like I want sensory indulgence or ego indulgence or, on the other side of it, which I think is something that people don't realize as much as it actually is the case, is that people use sex and ejaculation as a means for regulation, that they use it as like endogenous drugs, basically where, like your body has the capacity to release pent up tension and stored emotion that we don't know how to release on our own by ejaculating.

00:35:48.168 --> 00:35:55.047
So like that's what people do, and they don't realize that, like it is in effect an addiction.

00:35:55.047 --> 00:36:00.686
It's basically like the body does not know how to regulate and come back to equilibrium.

00:36:00.686 --> 00:36:19.498
So I can do this mechanistic release thing called ejaculation that releases some tension in my body and in my pelvic floor that I don't otherwise know how to regulate, and I also get to experience the kind of endogenous chemical change that happens in my brain when I ejaculate.

00:36:19.498 --> 00:36:52.844
No-transcript.

00:36:52.844 --> 00:37:08.351
But they just get in it and they just live in this old information and they don't realize that there is, or there could very easily could be a different scenario or there could very easily could be a different scenario.

00:37:08.351 --> 00:37:18.731
So this comes back to the thing of trauma where, like a lot of it is just like there's old information playing in a nervous system and we habituate to it and then we think it's our personality and then it gets very difficult to change because we don't have any real reason to.

00:37:18.731 --> 00:37:22.668
It's like complacency, right, or it's like it's okay, I can just live.

00:37:22.668 --> 00:37:25.436
I can just live like this and it's fine.

00:37:25.817 --> 00:37:40.273
And I think that this is such a big problem and I see this as a big issue with men specifically that there's almost like this, like coolness or this nonchalance that's almost like a big part of especially the American male ego persona thing.

00:37:40.273 --> 00:38:03.052
It's like it's cool to like just be chill and be cool with things and like there are some people that I know are like the thing that makes them so successful is that they insist that they're really like this is not okay, like I am absolutely not going to stand for this being my life or the life of people that I love, or a situation that I observe in the world.

00:38:03.052 --> 00:38:07.226
That's not cool, it's not okay, I will not stand for this.

00:38:07.226 --> 00:38:15.451
And it seems like this is very counter this thing that I think our anger is a really important driver to be like cut the.

00:38:15.451 --> 00:38:18.056
Something needs to change that.

00:38:18.077 --> 00:38:21.952
There's this thing that happens with a lot of men, especially younger men.

00:38:21.952 --> 00:38:35.536
Well, I don't know, I don't know if younger, older generations have it more or less definitely very different and significant thinking of like my dad's generation and like younger dudes that I know at the gym that it's almost like there's this sense of like.

00:38:35.536 --> 00:38:47.969
The way that you be cool and respectable is by demonstrating that you're like, emotionless and have like a nonchalance about everything, and I think that's actually an expression of like losing our aliveness.

00:38:47.969 --> 00:39:03.677
It's a kind of disembodiment that we don't think it's safe to be in our bodies, where our like, the body, intelligence, like there's like anger is supposed to help us move through things that need to change or to say stop or to be like no.

00:39:07.385 --> 00:39:09.831
Alrighty, folks sit tight, We'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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00:39:40.893 --> 00:40:14.576
Anger is supposed to help us move through things that need to change or to say stop or to be like no, and we think that yeah oh, I was just gonna say that a lot of that distancing isn't always intentional, and I mean not from a place of purpose intentional, not from a place of purpose intentional, but from a place of, maybe, emulation intentional because you don't know any better and it's still then rooted in some degree of of ignorance, I think and you mentioned complacency earlier.

00:40:14.576 --> 00:40:30.873
I don't know, based on that definition, maybe complicity is a little bit more suited in some circumstances, because then you, you, you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, but you know you're doing something that you otherwise wouldn't do.

00:40:30.893 --> 00:40:31.855
Why am I doing this?

00:40:31.855 --> 00:40:37.614
I don't know, but I'm going to do it, whatever it is Talk this way, dress this way, act this way.

00:40:37.614 --> 00:40:47.666
Yes, because you get put into a position where you just don't know if there's a right way or an appropriate way to respond to something.

00:40:47.686 --> 00:41:02.371
Yes, so this circles back to the thing that I was saying about like how did I end up in the position that I'm in, which I think I can come back to this more is that there was something in me that was like I cannot just be complicit with, like my inherited idea about my sexuality.

00:41:02.411 --> 00:41:09.132
There was something in me that was just like no, no, I need to figure this out, I need to know what this is Like.

00:41:09.612 --> 00:42:35.735
Like it almost just seemed like like life or death, almost like this is singularly the most important thing for me to learn about, and I took it very, very seriously and I did a tremendous amount of personal exploration, like a little bit of like self-pleasure stuff, but mostly just like a lot of time with women, a lot of time, and I've had some amazing teachers and different kind of spiritual traditions and some true mystics, like real spiritual practitioners that are almost like a different, a different version of a human, basically, that have given me some keys and opened the doors, because previous to meeting some of these people and also previous to the things that I just stumbled into in my own sexual explorations, I had no context for at all, like I didn't even know that that was a thing Like what I have effectively been able to continue to recreate and recreate in my life with more and more and more depth and beauty over the years, and to support tons of men from different backgrounds and being able to become pioneers of their own sexual life, is that like you can experience something that is like a psychedelic or religious experience by having sex all the time, and the power of that experience is so, it's so formative.

00:42:36.617 --> 00:42:41.447
It changes a man, it changes a person, it changes a woman.

00:42:41.447 --> 00:43:04.228
To get rid of all of that shame and to, in a way, have to transcend our ego and our fear and our, our contracted sense of who we are, to be able to open into that kind of expanded state of consciousness and and unity, or whatever we want to call it, the well, there's that integrity you talked about earlier.

00:43:05.713 --> 00:43:07.237
I don't know what if you don't.

00:43:07.237 --> 00:43:15.800
You know there's plenty of people that don't have that degree of companionship or live in some degree of neglect or fear about finding it.

00:43:15.800 --> 00:43:20.199
And so I mean then what?

00:43:21.530 --> 00:43:24.440
So there's a couple different things that I think we're touching here.

00:43:24.440 --> 00:43:43.324
One of them is this pervasive and super common theme of isolation in the world, and the other thing is like how marriage is less and less common statistically, like less people are getting married, less people are having kids.

00:43:43.324 --> 00:43:51.063
I read some statistic recently that 50% of American adults have not had sex in the past 12 months.

00:43:51.063 --> 00:43:58.521
50% of all American adults have not had sex in the past 12 months.

00:43:58.521 --> 00:43:59.023
Is what?

00:43:59.302 --> 00:43:59.923
the long time.

00:43:59.923 --> 00:44:07.385
Yeah, half of all the humans in one year have not had sex wild and like.

00:44:07.385 --> 00:44:09.532
Divorce rates are insanely high.

00:44:09.532 --> 00:44:11.182
Marriage rates are lower, lower.

00:44:11.182 --> 00:44:22.740
So it's like clearly there's something going on right, like clearly, and I think that there's influences, like I think pornography actually affects us a lot, a lot, a lot hugely.

00:44:22.740 --> 00:44:24.143
I think dating apps do too.

00:44:24.242 --> 00:44:51.425
I think that the fact that so many people are able to get their survival needs met by not socializing very much which is new in the world, like that hasn't been going on for very long that it makes it so that there's so many dudes who just like play video games and have a tech job, who don't know how to talk to women and they watch porn all the time, so they don't even really have, like, this biological urge to be like how do I change this?

00:44:51.425 --> 00:45:00.576
Because they have a active sexual life with tons of women in this like hyper, hyper, normal stimulus in front of their computer and off every day.

00:45:00.576 --> 00:45:09.032
So there you know, there's layers and layers of influence, and I think that that is also stacked on tombo, this developmental neglect thing that almost everybody has.

00:45:09.032 --> 00:45:18.474
So so I think it just creates this fabric where, like, we are so disintegrated from the reality of our unity, that we are herd animals, like we're not.

00:45:18.474 --> 00:45:20.418
We're not individuals.

00:45:20.418 --> 00:45:26.576
Like we are a pack we are meant to be in a shared co-living experience with a big group.

00:45:26.576 --> 00:45:31.163
Like that's how we developed in family and community.

00:45:31.304 --> 00:45:43.121
And you know, that's just how we are and that's not the way that people live and it is extremely unhealthy and it is difficult to get out of because people don't know how to relate.

00:45:43.121 --> 00:45:51.353
So when they try to interact with people, it's weird and people don't like it and it just it's like the negativity begets negativity begets negativity.

00:45:51.353 --> 00:46:19.721
And one thing that I you know from coaching men around dating and sex and attraction and relationship conflict and all this sort of stuff, for a while it's like how do you get somebody into the abundance spiral where, like their life is awesome and then that makes their life more awesome, and then like all of the things are working because they synergize into creating abundance basically, rather than all of the negative shit synergizes into creating your own private hell.

00:46:20.523 --> 00:46:20.742
Yeah.

00:46:21.715 --> 00:46:30.378
It's just astounding the number of men who I think are just in a uh like abject social, intimate and sexual poverty.

00:46:30.378 --> 00:46:38.061
Essentially, that's like strapped together with video games and porn, or social media et cetera, et cetera.

00:46:39.143 --> 00:46:41.271
Yeah, absolutely yeah, whatever the mechanism is.

00:46:41.271 --> 00:46:46.664
I have no idea the statistics or the degree of accuracy about the ones you brought up.

00:46:46.664 --> 00:46:52.443
I'm totally ignorant to that accuracy about the ones you brought up.

00:46:52.443 --> 00:46:54.588
I'm totally ignorant to that.

00:46:54.588 --> 00:47:10.202
But what I can see, which is pretty common, is this response to people being I'm not sure what the word is unaware or maybe unwilling to talk, to just have open conversations.

00:47:10.222 --> 00:47:16.315
The discourse and the inquiry, I think is gaining traction with podcasts, not specifically like mine, but podcasts like these, and it's helping.

00:47:16.315 --> 00:47:24.036
Right, it's not just a social circle at the church or bingo nights or wherever people might be otherwise forced to talk.

00:47:24.036 --> 00:47:25.923
It's not that anymore.

00:47:25.923 --> 00:47:26.630
It is shifting.

00:47:26.630 --> 00:47:52.972
But I think the amount of dignity inherent in that process or the amount of relative grace for any parties involved in that process isn't there yet and I think when you have that kind of maybe awareness and that kind of capability, but to the integrity you mentioned earlier, it's a little bit disenfranchised or disjointed.

00:47:52.972 --> 00:47:56.641
It still is misaligned and I think that causes friction.

00:47:56.641 --> 00:48:01.780
It's like tripping on a sidewalk, um, and that's going to cause its own social problems.

00:48:01.780 --> 00:48:05.974
But I think, like you brought up, it's having a degree of chaos and a degree of conflict.

00:48:05.974 --> 00:48:11.465
That necessitates the awareness and the conversation, and 100% takes time you know.

00:48:11.630 --> 00:48:17.083
So, yeah, I think there's a lot about what you're saying and a lot about what you're getting into.

00:48:17.083 --> 00:48:23.043
That's true and simple to understand and that's what helps, because it becomes more resonant then.

00:48:24.010 --> 00:49:03.079
Yes, one thing that I think is sometimes a bit, I don't know, confrontational or whatever, but it seems like it's getting worse, and I think the issues that we're kind of talking about directly or indirectly, I think in a lot of cases they're actually it's getting worse and the idea that, like it'll be all right, is like I don't know that it will be all right, like I think that actually this might play into this kind of complacency or complicitness thing again, where people are like, oh, it'll be all right, it's not a big deal, and like I wish that people are like it's not all right, this is a big deal, I need to do something different.

00:49:03.079 --> 00:49:15.840
Right, cause it's like the fabric of our world, which I think used to rely on things like church and community and neighborhoods and all this sort of stuff for us to be, yeah, for us to be a part of togetherness.

00:49:16.282 --> 00:49:17.411
That stuff doesn't exist.

00:49:17.411 --> 00:49:23.835
Like we people don't know their neighbors, they don't go to church, Like that's not, that's not normal for a lot of people.

00:49:23.835 --> 00:49:31.878
I mean, some people have great neighborhoods and amazing church communities and all that's beautiful, but it's not the norm and it's less and less common.

00:49:31.878 --> 00:49:39.469
And I think that this is really important for people to realize, especially as it seems like younger generations are moving away from alcohol.

00:49:39.469 --> 00:49:47.994
So this like community hearth of the pub or whatever isn't there anymore, right, Like people don't go out drinking anymore.

00:49:47.994 --> 00:49:56.554
So it's like more isolation, more and more isolation, and it's sad In a way.

00:49:56.554 --> 00:50:07.818
Yes, we could argue that people drinking less is a good thing, but because that means that we don't have a community hearth anymore, it's like how do we replace that?

00:50:07.818 --> 00:50:13.516
If we don't have church and we don't have drinking, how do we have intimacy and community?

00:50:13.516 --> 00:50:14.759
What are we doing now?

00:50:14.759 --> 00:50:17.753
What are we going to do instead of church and drinking?

00:50:19.016 --> 00:50:29.985
Yeah, I think somewhere between the social aspect that digitized media provides and the societal benefit that broadcast media can provide.

00:50:29.985 --> 00:50:33.494
100 becoming more the supplement.

00:50:33.494 --> 00:50:37.284
But uh, you talked about the gym earlier.

00:50:37.284 --> 00:50:38.809
I'm sure you can attest to it as well.

00:50:38.809 --> 00:50:47.876
Like any other supplement, the more you swap out steaks for shakes, the more problems you have, and it's just going to compound until you go back to steak.

00:50:47.876 --> 00:50:48.717
You know it.

00:50:48.717 --> 00:50:51.103
Just, you can't eat natural diets.

00:50:52.769 --> 00:50:55.679
And so it's like I love what you're saying.

00:50:55.679 --> 00:50:59.380
Don't mean to interrupt you, but I'm enthused, go ahead, all right.

00:50:59.380 --> 00:51:01.639
Well, I was going to say like steaks and steaks are shakes.

00:51:01.639 --> 00:51:11.590
I would say that the equivalent to that is like social media and porn or interacting with women, like.

00:51:11.590 --> 00:51:20.539
And it's tricky because it's like I socialize with podcasts, I socialize by even watching personal development content on social media, where it's like, yeah, but are you actually relating to people?

00:51:20.539 --> 00:51:22.023
Are you being in your body?

00:51:22.023 --> 00:51:28.523
Are you, are you experiencing intimacy and meaningful interaction with the brothers and sisters in your community?

00:51:28.704 --> 00:51:34.416
like that rejection, though, or failure or vulnerability, yeah, it's par for the course.

00:51:34.416 --> 00:51:48.302
All that, totally man, hell, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think that this one of the issues that when you said that, like people just need to be honest, and I agree, I think that communication is so important, but I think one of the issues is that people don't understand themselves enough to be able to take advantage of opportunities for connection.

00:51:48.302 --> 00:51:54.619
That communication is so important, but I think one of the issues is that people don't understand themselves enough to be able to take advantage of opportunities for connection.

00:51:54.619 --> 00:52:33.880
And and often this is from my experience of teaching dating a lot is like men have this habit not all men, but a lot of men have this habit of when they're in an interaction with a woman, they try to almost like say why they're cool, right when it's like they they like flex about, like all these things that are awesome about their career or their life or their personality, and it's like it's so off putting and it's immediately just kind of like okay, like I've seen so many women that are trying to just, you know, be kind and accommodating, or just like okay, like you're giving me your CV, expecting that I'm impressed and I don't.

00:52:34.563 --> 00:52:48.163
I don't want this right now, you know, yeah, so I do think that there's something about like self-awareness and social awareness and communication skills that it is often really beneficial for men to take seriously.

00:52:48.163 --> 00:52:50.257
That you might not know, though.

00:52:50.257 --> 00:52:54.443
You might not have those skills unless you make a concerted effort to develop them.

00:52:54.443 --> 00:53:11.251
And especially, you know, I think, that people that are in like hospitality and service professions or sales professions might, by nature, have more social skills and more capacity for calibration and empathy and understanding, or especially if you work in mental health or whatever.

00:53:11.251 --> 00:53:24.994
Um, but I I think that it's it's very valuable for men to not take for granted how little skill they have in understanding how to socialize and how valuable it might be to develop those skills.

00:53:25.856 --> 00:53:51.483
And I see this at a lot of a lot of people think that like if I, if I just get really fit and I like focus on my business or whatever, that like the issues that I have with women or with sex or with my relationship are just going to work themselves out and that's wrong, like that's not true in some cases, that you know you can build fortitude and discipline and build character by you know having a serious fitness practice or like being an entrepreneur or whatever.

00:53:52.231 --> 00:54:00.699
But in most cases people get to the end of that road and they realize that they're still unhappy and they don't understand so much about what they want and how to create it.

00:54:00.699 --> 00:54:17.471
And I do think that there's such a huge blind spot around sex and intimacy and dating and communication and community and all this sort of stuff where people just don't know that they don't know and they just somehow just continue to live in isolation and eventually we'll all be dead.

00:54:17.471 --> 00:54:31.159
So it just seems to me like it is really valuable to take seriously that, like maybe I don't know the things that I need to know to be able to have a life that I would feel truly whole for me.

00:54:31.360 --> 00:54:51.043
Well, and then we're back, I guess, ironically full circle, to your wholesome point about identifying anything in conversation, context, construct, concept, from a place of curiosity, not judgment, and being able to develop some degree of dignity through the process.

00:54:51.043 --> 00:54:55.380
I mean, you can't you any, I guess in the last couple minutes we have.

00:54:55.380 --> 00:55:14.818
You can't look in history, any eon, any culture, any generation without seeing the same circumstantial, cosmic lessons of humility is going to help you out in life, or reality will introduce it to you.

00:55:14.818 --> 00:55:26.402
You know, you've, you've got to treat people the way you want to be treated right, be, be dignified in your praises and be graceful in receiving dignity.

00:55:26.402 --> 00:55:42.023
Same sort of, I think, appropriation to the, to the concept and all of these other types of lessons where, if you come from a place of curiosity instead of judgment, you drop the facade or put your ego away, or whatever other psychologist you prefer to quote in that reference.

00:55:42.710 --> 00:55:53.851
Like you mean to tell me that this many billions of people, at least that have been on the earth, let alone anything outside of recorded history, are all saying the same things, having never met each other, and there's no truth to those.

00:55:53.851 --> 00:55:55.494
Yeah Well.

00:55:55.494 --> 00:55:56.418
I love this quote.

00:55:57.561 --> 00:55:58.603
I'm totally with you, man.

00:55:58.603 --> 00:55:59.507
I love this quote.

00:55:59.507 --> 00:56:05.242
It's something like one thing that we can learn from history is that people don't learn from history.

00:56:06.911 --> 00:56:07.974
Yes, I like that.

00:56:07.974 --> 00:56:10.378
I like that, yep, and then then.

00:56:10.378 --> 00:56:15.998
But by the same token, I talked to a guy last week and he said history does not repeat itself.

00:56:15.998 --> 00:56:17.983
He was a cop in baltimore.

00:56:17.983 --> 00:56:22.199
Said history does not repeat itself, it rhymes.

00:56:22.199 --> 00:56:24.583
I like that.

00:56:24.583 --> 00:56:30.420
I like that's cool, right, yeah baltimore pd dude crazy stories.

00:56:30.650 --> 00:56:34.577
But let me ask you this, I guess to close us out at this point, we're out of time.

00:56:34.577 --> 00:56:41.737
So for anybody that wants to get in touch with you, follow along with your journey, learn from you, become a client, anything and everything.

00:56:41.737 --> 00:56:42.579
Where do people go?

00:56:42.579 --> 00:56:43.621
How do they get in touch with you?

00:56:44.530 --> 00:56:45.291
Yeah, thank you.

00:56:45.291 --> 00:56:49.121
So we are just going through like a rebranding process right now.

00:56:49.121 --> 00:56:59.469
But if you go to hdbedroomcom or hdbdrmcom, you can put it either way, or if you prefer a more fun URL.

00:56:59.469 --> 00:57:01.577
I hate not having great sex.

00:57:01.577 --> 00:57:04.708
All the timecom is also another way that you can find me.

00:57:04.708 --> 00:57:05.831
People remember that one.

00:57:05.831 --> 00:57:08.396
So I hate not having sex.

00:57:08.396 --> 00:57:15.422
All the timecom is is a way to find me, or you can just look up my name on all the various socials and that's a place where people can get in touch.

00:57:15.422 --> 00:57:22.074
I'm happy to answer any questions or share resources or let you know about the stuff that I got coming up sweet.

00:57:22.356 --> 00:57:23.599
Yeah, okay, well, I appreciate that.

00:57:23.599 --> 00:57:32.277
And for anybody who's new to our show, like every other conversation we've had, depending on the player, you're streaming this conversation or watching it on click see more, click show more.

00:57:32.277 --> 00:57:42.012
And in the drop down description for the conversation, you'll see links to Rob's websites and his social, and you'll be able to find him there as well.

00:57:42.012 --> 00:57:44.916
So if you're trying to figure out, I need to write down and copy down the URL.

00:57:44.916 --> 00:57:45.177
You don't?

00:57:45.177 --> 00:57:46.784