Latest / Sex Advice for Seniors Podcast / Erectile Dysfunction, Intimacy & Relationships | Gaylen Wilson

Transcript

Erectile Dysfunction, Intimacy & Relationships | Gaylen Wilson · Sex Advice for Seniors Podcast

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Intimacy doesn't have an age limit and Oh My Bod is redefining pleasure
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: with beautifully designed, tech-savvy wellness products.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Rediscover connection and confidence at ohmybod.com.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's O-H-M-I-B-O-D dot com.
• 0:21
  [music]
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, this is Suzanne and you're listening to Sex Advice for Seniors.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And today's guest brings something I don't think we talk about enough when it comes
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: to sex later in life.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens when your body changes in ways you didn't expect and how
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: that impacts intimacy, confidence and connection.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: And my guest today is Galen Wilson.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's a 69, my favorite number.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite number.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a wonderful year.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Heart transplant survivor,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: we're going to get serious here,
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: heart transplant survivor,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: relationship author, and he's founder of the Monument Method Institute.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And after rebuilding intimacy in his own marriage following a serious illness,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: he's gone on to support It's wonderful to be here, Suzanne.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I see you're wearing your 10-gallon.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I come by this honestly.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a drugstore cowboy.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: My father was a cattle rancher, and so I've worked cattle and rode horses.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, there's the cowboy coming, sir.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Rode horses.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm talking with a cowboy that had erectile dysfunction.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's a first.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: you had a major health crisis with obviously having had a heart transplant
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: and you rebuilt your intimate life.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really curious to know around that,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: what was the biggest mindset shift that you saw during that time around sex?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I would say...
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: We got to back up a little bit because I developed ED at 44 years old, 25 years old.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I caught a 17-year younger wife two years later.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we were intimate like crazy.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we probably qualified for sexual addiction because Viagra worked so well for me.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was 50 milligrams in the morning and 50 milligrams at night.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So for 12 years until,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: of course, the virus attacked my heart, it gave me the congestive heart failure.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then for the next year and a half,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: it was, or for two years, it was occasionally once or twice a week.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We were still, when I was feeling good, we were still able to make love.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: But then the last year and a half, my heart got so weak that it just became impossible.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we had built such a good bond in that first 12 years that that carried us
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: through that A
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: lot of couples will disintegrate at that point and
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: the caregiver will leave.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: But Heather never hinted that she wanted out.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: She just stuck by me and nursed me.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we came through it stronger because we clung to each other rather
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: than becoming enemies in the middle of it.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so the biggest thing...
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: That has been my advantage throughout my ED journey has been I have always had
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: the attitude, I am not going to accept not having erections.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And with today's technologies and treatments, there's really no excuse to go without erections.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so the mindset has to be I need to aggressively treat my ED.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not just, well, maybe if I feel like it today, I'll go see the doctor.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I'm curious,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: when you were diagnosed with ED at 44,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: and by the way,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had a partner who died at 44,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: and ED was the first sign that something was wrong with him.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he had a chronic health condition, which was actually related to his liver.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that he didn't do, and I...
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: What I strongly encourage everyone that has ED to do is he didn't go seek help from
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: a healthcare professional around his ED.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: He just,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: like you,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: he just took Viagra,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: which at that point wasn't available over the counter like it is now.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: We had to seek out illegal means to get that Viagra.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so he never got his heart checked.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: He never got his health checked.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: So when you were prescribed ED all those years ago,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: did they not do some thorough investigation of your heart?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: the fact you even got away with over a decade of using Viagra,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's no surprise to me that eventually your heart just goes, I give up, right?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and technically I did not get away with it.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: The doctor just handed me the pills.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he probably listened to my heart, but there was no tests done.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's terrible.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And eight years after that, I did have a stroke.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the stats.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the stats are roughly five years after being diagnosed with ED,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: if you don't get your heart checked out and you don't get checked out,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: you will end up with a stroke or a heart attack.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the facts.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and that's what happens.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've heard as much as 35% of men...
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: The developed ED will have a heart attack or stroke within five to seven years.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually 80%.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually 80% is the figure that if they don't go see a doctor,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: within five years of being diagnosed with ED will have a heart attack or some sort
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: of cardiovascular event is what a doctor friend of mine told me and sent me
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: the science.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really high.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been using that for years in the group.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's much higher than that.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're kind of screwed up by that point.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: my stroke was kind of an anomaly because they did the tests then
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: and my cardiovascular system was fine.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't know, we to this day do not know why I had the stroke.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: But to tell you how scary our healthcare is in this little town,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I live in a little town of 7500 in Southeast Colorado.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: When I had the stroke and I was in the hospital,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: The doctor came in and she said,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: the nurses think it was probably the Viagra because it's a basal constrictor.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a basal dilator.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: There was actually a doctor at the Henry Ford Medical Center that ran
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: a trial
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: on using Viagra for stroke victims to restore brain function.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: there's recent studies that show that Viagra reduces the chance of heart attacks
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: by 25% in men who have taken it for decades.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of people see erectile dysfunction as the end of sex,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: but it sounds from your experiences that that wasn't true.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Aside from the fact that you'd obviously built up a strong sexual connection
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: with your partner,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: am I right in saying that sex was more than just in and out for you guys?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was always, you know,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've always had the philosophy, she comes first.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our lovemaking was always very tender and sometimes quite rambunctious.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it was always connection first, is the way I'd call it.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: obviously you've worked,
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: you've had this,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: we were talking before the recording,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: you've had this massive Facebook group of like 11,000 men.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you've obviously heard from loads of men and couples.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: what are those struggles that you're seeing the people
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: in your community face around erectile dysfunction?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, a couple of my big frustrations are the man that says, I'm giving up.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried everything.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they took Viagra.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I actually have written a trilogy of books, erectile dysfunction books.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: One's called Rebuilt for His Eyes Only.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it has the ED ladder in it that takes him step by step.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, try this.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: If that doesn't work, try this.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: If that doesn't work, try this.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: It takes him step by step through the path to fixing his ED.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Also in that group, that's what a lot of ED books do is tell the guy how to fix it.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But also in that group,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I challenge these men to become master lovers
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: because I can't tell you how many women in the group told me
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: that their man had blubber once he got ED because he was no longer zeroed in
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: on performance and he became present Yeah.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: there's a guy that I interviewed who had a radical prosectomy called Bob Mizek,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: who's amazing.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And he said,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: that having that terrible surgery and all the subsequent surgery All the stuff
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: that he had to go through, which was really significant.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: He said it brought him closer to his partner because suddenly they have to talk
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: about sex and intimacy in a way that they never had done before.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: When it was all just quite performance-based, as you say.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it was kind of like, we do this, then we do this, then we do this.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the way it goes, right?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly you take that down there out of the equation.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have to kind of be much more expansive in the way that you approach it, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly foreplay can become all play,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: or touch,
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: massage,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: kissing,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: cuddling,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: all sorts of kink,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: all sorts of things that people may not have even considered before.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly it's like, well, what other things are out there?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And suddenly when you start looking,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: you're like, God, there's a hell of a lot of stuff out there.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: We just never thought about it because it was just so focused on,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: mainly if I'm really honest and I'm sure that you've heard it in the groups,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: the guys just wanted to get off.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I, I,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Porn is a big problem right now,
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: even in the older men,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: because porn is the worst teacher about what a woman wants from lovemaking.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Porn teaches a man to use a woman as a fancy masturbation toy,
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: where women crave spiritual connection during lovemaking.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I tell my guys, hey, guys,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: there are women out there that fall in love with people that don't have penises
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: at all.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, especially the guys that come in and they're worried about dating,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know, their first relationship.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Has died.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll get into exactly why that first relationship died here in a second.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But that first relationship has died and they're worried about dating.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I tell my guys.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, you know, there are lesbians that never fell in love with anybody that had a being.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a woman out there for you somewhere.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you make the sex more about the spiritual connection than it is about
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: the physical performance.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: But to get to my little thing that I said about getting to it later,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: one of the biggest frustrations in the groups was when a woman would come into
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: the group, and invariably it was the same story over and over and over.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: These women,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: their man had developed ED,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: refused to go to the doctor and get any treatment, and then...
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: He dealt with it by withdrawing into himself,
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: quit touching her, quit being affectionate, quit saying I love you.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: He just abandoned her in the marriage.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And these women had been in these marriages five and 10 and 15 years and were coming
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: in trying to see.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so it always frustrated me because
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: all I could basically do was empathize with them.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have an answer for it.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I actually did come up with a little answer for it,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't know how effective it was,
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: but I was helping a woman in Scotland with this same problem.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I had an epiphany.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I could sit down and write a letter to these guys from me,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: offering my help in the group,
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: and give it to her and let her give it to her man,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: preferably with tears in her eyes.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because this letter, I called it the Tough Nut Letter.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry for the pun.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: But in it, I told him, you're not less of a man because you have ED.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're less of a man because you're not dealing with it and you're abandoning your wife.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a letter that
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt got used very much because it was a final ultimatum letter.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was, you know, it's time to shit or pot.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she would know if he didn't respond to that letter because it was
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: a tough love letter that was strongly worded.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's an interesting strategy.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think from all the sex therapists and sexologists and all
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: the professionals I've spoken to over the years about this,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think the main thing is to remove any aspect around the shame, right?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And women often think that ED is a problem that's manifested
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: because their partner doesn't find them attractive enough, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the very first thing they think.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you got to take that out of the picture because we know that in probably 90% of
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: the cases of ED, that's not true.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: But also it's about, look, it's something that we need to deal with together.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're a couple and we need to work on this together.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And either, you know, we go to counseling together or we work on it together.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: We find other ways of being intimate together and we remove the.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: for me, that's got to be the starting point is how do you broach that conversation?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: if a guy is just backing away because he's just so ashamed of it,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: it is quite difficult.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's not going to solve any
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: problems, you know?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things this caused me is I got Heather and I into a course
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: to become certified thriving relationship coaches just for this reason,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: to try to crack this nut.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the first books we read was by Dr. Sue Johnson, and it's called Hold Me Tight.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And wonderful, wonderful book.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in it, she talks about attachment theory.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And her attachment theory is that we were bred through thousands of years
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: of prehistoric evolution to have an instinct for a strong attachment to our mates.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that most fights are not about the fight we're in,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: but about the fact that that attachment instinct has been,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: has detected a threat to the attachment.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started working with Heather and saying,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: okay, how do we stop triggering each other's attachment instinct?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing I came up with is, well, tone.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: We got to watch what tone we talk to each other in.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes you talk to your loved one like the worst person on the planet.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that you get by with it because they love you.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's triggering that attachment instinct and keeping them in fight or flight.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so...
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: We gave each other permission to call each other out on it when one of us was using
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: a tone that wasn't necessary.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so that helped a little bit.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the big nut was the fact that once you're both in fight or flight mode,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: logic has left the building and left the lizard brain in control.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And things get said that aren't meant and things get said that are hard to take back.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got to say, how do we get ourselves out of that fight or plight mode?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, before we do, we believe we're building this big, beautiful monument to our marriage.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And each loving word and kind gesture,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: and especially when you make love with presents,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: you're building onto your beautiful marble monument.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: But each cruel word or cold shoulder or fight you get into is like taking a hammer
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: and chisel to your monument.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And some people's monuments end up crumbled on the floor and they divorce.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decided, again,
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I got together with her and we gave each other permission to call a sacred word.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: When either one of us sees the other headed towards the monument with the hammer
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: and chisel, because we want to fiercely protect that monument.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: We've become a team against the lizard brains.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: A team, the Monument Method Institute motto is fiercely protect the monument.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so anytime one of us is heading towards that monument,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: the other one can say monument to remind us that that monument is sacred.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we've agreed to stop the fight there, but you don't just stop and separate.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you separate and come back together after you've settled down a bit,
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: boom, you're right back into fight or flight night again.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to get each other out of fight or flight mode.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so the way we found to do that is we turn towards each other,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: approach,
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: embrace our arms,
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: and gaze into each other's eyes softly,
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: lovingly, and patch that little spot on the monument.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: No words, no nothing, just the connection.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the science behind that is,
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: is that when you do that with your lover, it goes into that primal brain, right?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And tells it, your attachment is safe.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can stand down.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And once you practice it enough, and it does take practice.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: We are human beings.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: It takes practice.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: But once you start practicing it,
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: you're You basically quit fighting because the second one of you says something
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: that was going to start a fight,
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: the other one's saying monument, and you come together and you repair it.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And even the big fights that used to be,
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: you just used to be mad at each other for a day and a half over,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: 10 minutes maximum, and we're back repairing.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I originally thought that these men withdrawing was a character defect.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: But as I learned about attachment theory and learned the monument method,
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: and all of a sudden it came clear to me, these men were in fight or flight mode.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Their penis had quit.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: They saw a threat to the attachment.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: They said, oh my God, my wife's going to leave me.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it had thrown them into flight mode.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I actually wrote the second book of my ED trilogy is Anchor for Her Eyes Only.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in it,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: it teaches her the monument method
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: and teaches her how she can become his nervous system regulation and get him out of
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: that fight-or-flight mode.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's the key right there.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then once they're out of the fight-or-flight mode,
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: all of a sudden, the nervous systems start feeling safe with each other again.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we know when nervous systems feel safe, desire blossoms.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: But as he said,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: the thing about and what I've learned about ED having,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: developed this program that Ken and I have developed is that it is very complex.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not sometimes.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's porn, right?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: And too much dopamine.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's cardiovascular.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's stress-related, sleep-related, medication-related, environmentally-related.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's so complex.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: How, you know,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the big challenges that we've all got trying to solve this,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: trying to help and support men who have this and,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and you're a prime example, I hate to say it, is that.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Most men that have ED, the first thing they'll do is just get a blue pill, right?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in the same way that people that I know that have needed to lose weight
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: for several years will just now go get a Zempick,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've been saying to my guys for years that these hymns and Roman
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: and all these online places are killing men.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Killing them.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Killing them, right?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I get the fact that people, human beings, want that quick fix, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: They want it.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: They just want something that's going to make this go away.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And like you discovered at the beginning, blue pills make it temporarily go away.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look, I don't know the answer to this, and maybe you don't either, but I want to know.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because I want, like you, to be able to help all of these men with ED.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: I want to know what you think it's going to take for people,
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: for men,
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: to be able to really look and examine their lifestyle,
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: the diet,
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: the exercise,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: the stuff that they need to really take seriously because So much of this is sitting
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: in their body, just waiting for them to do something about it, right?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that blue pill is just masking all of this.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's not solving the problem.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it takes a heart attack?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what it takes?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: How are we,
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm using the collective we here,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: because I believe that you and I are on the same path.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: How are we going to convince these people that this is something that you've got
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: to take seriously?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's no use hiding in your bedroom.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And ignoring your partner or taking a blue pill for 10 years only to end up with
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: a heart attack.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you think it takes?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know the answer.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what we're doing is one of the things it takes.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of men...
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Their doctors aren't telling them this.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, that's right.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the complete disconnect
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: in this whole system is physicians are handing out those pills and not telling them,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: oh, hey,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: maybe we better check your heart and circulatory system before we go much further
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: with this.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: But you're right.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm guilty of it myself.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have moved on.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I went through shockwave therapy, which was amazing for me.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: But as I've aged more and more, I've needed a little more help.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And especially I have challenges because of my immune system suppression.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I get sick a lot.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times it's a low grade sickness, but it's just enough to cause problems downstairs.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to the doctor about a little over a year ago and got Vimix injections,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: which are amazing.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: But then again, they're an excuse for me not to keep, not to get the weight off and
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because things are working.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need to have to work on being healthy.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: The reality is that if you really want to get this under control
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: and you don't ultimately want to end up with an implant,
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: which is kind of where you will end up if you keep using some sort of alternative
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: to just getting your weight and your fitness under control,
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: That is where you end up.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no shortcut here.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's pills and it's injections and then it's an implant.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's the journey.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: I actually checked into an implant just because I was tired of taking the shots
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: and wanted to be able to have one anytime I decided I wanted one.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I For me,
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: it's not an option, really,
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: because of my immune system suppression,
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: the chances of infection are far too high to make it worse the risk.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So what's stopping you, Galen, from just like exercising and eating well?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: What's stopping you from doing that?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your mindset.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I am a good person.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 30 pounds off of what I used to be.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been able to lose a lot of the weight and keep it off.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still probably 30 pounds from where I should be.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: quite frankly, I got into this Monument Method mission.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was born out of the fact that I joined the ED groups to help myself,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: but I stayed in As a way to pay the blessings from my heart transplant forward.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And because so many grief guys will come to those groups, find their fix and they're gone.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and so and and then because of my.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Deep empathy for these women was what got me into the to the.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: The.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're a certified thriving relationship coach, which I spent $2,400 of my own money.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not charging these guys.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I never charged a dime to any of those thousands of men that I helped.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I did it because I had to figure out why these men were doing it.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what gave me the Monument Method.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden, I've got a new mission to save millions of marriages.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I think it all, like, look, it all goes, for me, it all goes hand in hand.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, building a healthy lifestyle and being able to communicate effectively
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: with your partner,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: they're all going to ultimately lead you to,
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: A, having a longer life together, right?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Which you both want because I don't think any woman on this planet,
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: or man for that matter,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: wants to spend the last 10 years of their marriage caring for their partner.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: They want to be able to have a good time with them,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: good sex, healthy life, be able to do all the stuff that they want to do.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And as we know, as we age...
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's certain stuff we just can't avoid.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And as much as I don't love exercising, I just have built it as a habit into my life.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I wake up and I do my workouts and that's what I do.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been doing that.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: For 30 years now,
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: and my parents are,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: my mom's the same and she's 88 years old and very sprightly running up and down,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I do think a lot of this boils down to just looking after yourself
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: and not taking those blue pills so easily.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it's hard.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: I get it means you have to get it in here, but yeah.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't,
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: it doesn't,
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: it's not as,
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know that if you're not a person that loves going to the gym or doing any form
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: of physical fitness, it's a drag, but it's about finding something you enjoy.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Don't, you know, I'm assuming with that cowboy hat on, you might like riding horses.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I can't quite afford one yet.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully these books take off and I get to work.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's one of Heather's passions is horses also.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I promised her a horse ranch if these books take off.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not if, it's when.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: When.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I have built something that is inevitable.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Monument Method is just half the story.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote The Monument Method and Then something happened,
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't know if we've got time to go over it here,
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: but it ended up creating a second book called The Sanctuary Bond.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in that book,
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: I teach couples how
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: conduct themselves to where they become a refuge
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: for each other.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And from the outside world.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Monument Method protects the monument from each other.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the Sanctuary Bond protects it from all the crazy in the world.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because we can let the outside world come in and have its turn at the hammer and chisel.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the beautiful thing I found about it once Heather and I started practicing
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: the Sanctuary Bond is...
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: One day I was sitting in my chair.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been working on the books and she came over and we did the sanctuary bond thing.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked up at her and I said, you have me like a giddy school boy.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's so nice.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because our desire,
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: once you create that kind of a bond that you're each other's refuge,
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: the desire goes crazy.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's really lovely, though.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you've been together.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're an encouraging story.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: You've been together for how long now?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: 23 and a half years.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: We just celebrated our 20th anniversary in April.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: I also celebrated my 20th sober anniversary in April.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well done.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well done.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: It took Mary and Heather to get me sober.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I do give her a lot of credit for my sobriety because...
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: The extreme eye-gazing and connection that we had from the very beginning,
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: think, allowed me to kill that instinct for the alcohol.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what alcohol does, too,
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: is it will get into your primal brain and it makes itself an instinct to
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: where you try to quit and it says, are you kidding me?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to die, boy.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so...
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I give her a lot of credit for helping me finally kill
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: that.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sadly, the guy that I was with who died at 44, he was an alcoholic.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, we know that alcohol and ED go hand in hand.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: so there was a lot of stuff that was going
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: that I suspect he thought it was one thing,
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: it was another thing,
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: and ultimately, yeah, ultimately he died as a very young man, sadly, so...
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: But he just he was ready to go.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: So not to end on a downer, but yeah, you know, he didn't he didn't want to change his mindset.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't want to take the steps necessary to become a better and healthier person.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's what happens when you just let it let the devil just, you know.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Get in there.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, Galen, it has been a very quick conversation.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have loved it.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been great chatting with you.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and I'm really interested to hear more about the Monument Method.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll have to get you back so we can kind of get into the nitty gritty of it,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: because I think it sounds really fascinating.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we can talk about maybe a little bit more about How you keep
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: that long-term relationship going and keep the intimacy alive over decades.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think it's not easy.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you seem to have cracked a problem there.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Culture has been telling us it's just normal for a couple to start off on fire and
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: then just
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: let the fire burn out.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't have to be.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we should talk about that in a separate conversation
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: because I think that's really super interesting.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, enjoy your day in Colorado.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it's lovely.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll have you back again.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Suzanne.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: I thoroughly enjoyed it.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you're enjoying this conversation,
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: you'll find more stories, resources, and advice waiting for you.