Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 160. Healthy Masculinity & Femininity After Divorce: How They Shape Dating & Co-Parenting
Transcript
- 0:49Speaker 1: Hi love, the team and I are behind the scenes creating some really epic new content for you, something different than we've ever done before.
- 0:57Speaker 1: But in the meanwhile I wanted to rerun an old episode.
- 1:01Speaker 1: That's one of the favorite interviews I've ever done with author GS Youngblood.
- 1:05Speaker 1: He's an expert on polarity dynamics in relationships healthy masculine energy, healthy feminine energy.
- 1:12Speaker 1: Toxic masculine energy toxic feminine energy.
- 1:17Speaker 1: Where do you fall on that spectrum?
- 1:19Speaker 1: Who do you tend to attract in relationships?
- 1:21Speaker 1: This is such a rich and powerful conversation for you to understand.
- 1:25Speaker 1: Where you've been, so you can understand where you need to go.
- 1:28Speaker 1: Enjoy.
- 1:29Speaker 1: Hi love.
- 1:36Speaker 1: Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence.
- 1:45Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
- 1:51Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
- 1:56Speaker 1: Hi love, today on the pod, we are going to new frontiers.
- 2:09Speaker 1: We have a man on the podcast, so get ready.
- 2:12Speaker 1: I have asked GS Youngblood, author and coach, to come talk to us about his body of work.
- 2:22Speaker 1: His book that I found is the Masculine in Relationship and Loves.
- 2:27Speaker 1: What I want you to know about GS's work is that when I read his book, I experienced an immediate state change.
- 2:36Speaker 1: You know, sometimes in life where you hear something or you read something and you are forever shifted.
- 2:41Speaker 1: That was my experience with GS's book and that's why he is here today.
- 2:45Speaker 1: Gs, welcome to the podcast.
- 2:48Speaker 2: Thank you, dawn, good morning.
- 2:50Speaker 1: So, gs, your story is one that you experienced a painful divorce and it led you to do a bunch of personal work.
- 3:00Speaker 1: From having done that personal work, you got the bug.
- 3:05Speaker 1: Is that right?
- 3:06Speaker 1: The bug, oh, like this is cool.
- 3:11Speaker 1: All the cool people are doing this work shifting, transforming yeah, yeah, for me it was.
- 3:16Speaker 2: It was, um, there was a, there was a like, a gravitas to, to my compulsion to do this work, and what I mean by that is I didn't want guys to go through what I went through.
- 3:27Speaker 2: You know, I was in that marriage that you referenced.
- 3:30Speaker 2: I, I was really unaware of polarity dynamics, and I was married to a very strong woman, and so she needed a man who could inhabit the masculine pole so that there was both polarity and balance, depending on the situation.
- 3:44Speaker 2: And I had just gotten to the point.
- 3:46Speaker 2: Well, one, I didn't understand those dynamics and two, I'd gotten to that point where I was just trying to keep the peace, and that's really the opposite of what I'm talking about here.
- 3:54Speaker 2: So, yeah, I didn't want guys to go through what I went through, and I say this on every podcast but I'll, and I'll say it here.
- 4:02Speaker 2: Okay, Even more so.
- 4:03Speaker 2: I didn't want kids to have to have that conversation with their parents like I did.
- 4:08Speaker 1: And I remember.
- 4:08Speaker 2: I remember the day pretty vividly as many years ago of having to tell the kids that we were not going to be together Worst day of my life.
- 4:15Speaker 2: And if I can save men from having to go through that, but, more importantly, if I can save those kids from having to have that split home.
- 4:24Speaker 2: Then I'll feel really fulfilled in this work that I'm doing.
- 4:29Speaker 1: Thank you so much for bringing that work.
- 4:31Speaker 1: So let's tell our listeners a little bit about what you do.
- 4:35Speaker 1: So what was so striking to me in your work is the acknowledgement that there is a lack of true leadership from men within marriages, within the world.
- 4:50Speaker 1: Really, there's a systemic issue around true masculine leadership, and then what happens is that us women get into a toxic masculine space where we do that whole angry, nagging, emasculating thing where what we really want is leadership from our man but it's just not happening.
- 5:10Speaker 1: And then we get desperate and that desperation turns into an escalation.
- 5:13Speaker 1: In the book.
- 5:13Speaker 1: You call us crazy, which I didn't mind, because there's such an acknowledgement there of the dynamic that's created it, and so when you were talking to me about what was missing in my relationships in the past, I was like he gets me.
- 5:32Speaker 2: And what happened was then.
- 5:33Speaker 1: I felt safer in my body, in, like, leaving the house.
- 5:37Speaker 1: It was so interesting.
- 5:38Speaker 1: I felt so seen by you in such a such a way.
- 5:41Speaker 1: So you lay out this idea of polarity dynamics and, for our listeners who have never heard a single thing about polarity in relationship, help us understand.
- 5:53Speaker 2: Yeah, polarity is.
- 5:54Speaker 2: Well, I want to acknowledge David Data.
- 5:56Speaker 2: He's kind of the guy that really kicked this off for me and so when I talk about just polarity, I'm speaking a lot about his principles and mine are the practical extension of that and what you do about that in real relationships.
- 6:07Speaker 2: So I wanted to acknowledge David.
- 6:08Speaker 2: Polarity is just very simply, in certain situations you have a lead and a follow, and I I'd said that as generically as possible on purpose.
- 6:19Speaker 2: Um, let's say we're tango dancing you know man and woman are tango dancing and um, and actually I need to stop myself.
- 6:27Speaker 2: All my gender references are just for my ease of of speaking Like it doesn't matter what gender we're talking about.
- 6:33Speaker 2: So, please, anybody that wants to apply the genders as you see fit.
- 6:38Speaker 2: What's really important is you have one person in a masculine and one person in a feminine pole, and it could be either gender.
- 6:44Speaker 2: And so in tango you have a very strong lead, follow, dynamic.
- 6:50Speaker 2: It doesn't work without that.
- 6:51Speaker 2: You're doing something else.
- 6:52Speaker 2: If you're not doing that, so it doesn't help if there's two leads, because you're constantly clashing in the tango.
- 6:58Speaker 2: So you have one lead and one follow.
- 7:01Speaker 2: And if you take this notion of polarity, of there's a lead and there's a follow, into the realm of intimacy, the goal here is really to keep the juice of that intimate relationship alive.
- 7:14Speaker 2: And so you know, if you're doing the taxes or doing the laundry or figuring out, you know how to take the garbage out, like you don't have to have polarity.
- 7:22Speaker 2: You know two people can be in their mask and you can kind of do logistical life, at least some parts of logistical life.
- 7:27Speaker 2: But when you get to intimacy, if you bring that same sameness into the relationship, it ends, tends to get dull, it gets tentative, and so, yeah, like it's kind of like well, what do you want, you know, as opposed to somebody having clarity and saying all right, this is where we're headed.
- 7:48Speaker 2: And so, with, without that, as you said, you know, if, if there's a, if there's a person I'll just even say that wants to, wants in their surrendered feminine, but they're constantly having to step up and fill that leadership vacuum, that person who wants to be in their feminine starts to get irritated and other things related to that that don't feel very good, and then that person starts to act up, exactly as you said.
- 8:13Speaker 2: And so polarity is just that notion that somebody's going to bring leadership and that leadership could be so strong and so competent that it can.
- 8:20Speaker 2: It either evokes, induces or allows the other person to just surrender into their lead.
- 8:26Speaker 2: Relax, yeah, just relax into the other's lead who they presumably trust.
- 8:31Speaker 2: This is no different than at work, like, we need people to step up at work, and everybody else loves that and is happy to fall in line with somebody that seems to have a clear vision of things.
- 8:41Speaker 2: And in relationship that's even more pronounced because you're in this realm of intimacy where presumably there's one person that wants to surrender into their feminine energy.
- 8:54Speaker 2: And the way I talk about it, I talk about it being the woman, but again, it doesn't have to be like that.
- 9:00Speaker 1: No, and you often talk about in the book that it's not always right.
- 9:03Speaker 1: There are plenty of times where I know my husband.
- 9:07Speaker 1: He appreciates when I lead in a number of scenarios right Now.
- 9:11Speaker 1: That's not sustainable for us to always switch roles that way.
- 9:15Speaker 1: But we all need an opportunity to tap out and to find that not needing to be vigilant or-.
- 9:23Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
- 9:25Speaker 2: There's certain ways where my moment I'm just like baby, tell me what to do, and so I think that's very similar to what you just said.
- 9:31Speaker 2: And so for the men, what I'm teaching them is number one.
- 9:33Speaker 2: There need to be some areas where you step up.
- 9:36Speaker 2: Here are the ones that matter the most and here's how to do it and that's what I'm working with men a lot of of bringing more of that leadership.
- 9:44Speaker 2: And I talk a lot about life leadership, like, for instance I'll give you an example, let's say it's vacation planning.
- 9:51Speaker 2: I think in a lot of couples it's the woman that does the vacation planning a lot of the cases.
- 9:56Speaker 2: So I challenged my guys in this very tactical way of you know, hey, you plan the next vacation, and what I mean by that is go research three places.
- 10:05Speaker 2: You want to go go research generally, what it will cost and some of the things to do there, and then bring that kind of clarity into to your woman and say, hey, baby, I, I, I think we need to do a relation, a vacation this year.
- 10:18Speaker 2: Here's three places that I would love to go.
- 10:21Speaker 2: So the guy's actually bringing himself into this rather than just you know asking her what she wants.
- 10:26Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's life leadership.
- 10:28Speaker 2: The other two domains I talk a lot about are sexual leadership, leading in the bedroom, and I love how your voice just got a little bit deeper, as you said.
- 10:37Speaker 1: Right on cue.
- 10:40Speaker 2: Is your husband still listening?
- 10:41Speaker 2: Can he hear?
- 10:41Speaker 1: No.
- 10:41Speaker 1: I may not have shifted into toxic masculinity, Did you?
- 10:48Speaker 1: Do you remember that chapter where he talks about sex, Do you remember?
- 10:52Speaker 1: You can't you can't play the same music over and over again, because then I'll be out, but you should revisit that chapter.
- 10:56Speaker 2: Yes, exactly Now.
- 10:58Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a lot of I mean, even as you're we're joking around about it I think that's coming from the fact that there is a huge need for more sexual leadership from a lot of guys who again have gotten tentative in the bedroom.
- 11:08Speaker 2: So that's the second domain I talk about a lot.
- 11:11Speaker 2: And the third is a counterintuitive one.
- 11:13Speaker 2: It's emotional leadership.
- 11:14Speaker 2: Usually the woman is saddled with the need to bring the emotional leadership into the relationship and I'm telling guys, guys, you want to change your dynamic in your relationship real quick, Start bringing some emotional leadership into those, yeah, and then guys will find that their women start to become more of who they were hoping they were, or maybe more they remember who they were when they met and things were good before the years and the layers of sediment built up from kind of neglect to the emotional component of the relationship.
- 11:46Speaker 2: So I talk a lot about emotional leadership.
- 11:50Speaker 2: So there's life leadership, sexual leadership and emotional leadership that I talk a lot about with guys.
- 11:53Speaker 1: There's life leadership, sexual leadership and emotional leadership that I talk a lot about with guys Beautiful.
- 11:55Speaker 1: So right about now, I would think that our listeners are saying to themselves okay, gs, you're doing this, you did this work and you're doing this work with men, but why wasn't my husband willing to do this work?
- 12:09Speaker 1: Why, what's wrong with me?
- 12:13Speaker 1: Why am I not worth it?
- 12:14Speaker 1: Why am I not good enough?
- 12:15Speaker 1: Why and I don't expect you to have all the answers to this, gs, but I do think you have some of the answers I do think you understand, from a different perspective than most women do, about why it may be so hard for so many men to come to this work.
- 12:30Speaker 2: Yeah, even to start to do the work.
- 12:35Speaker 2: It's almost an acknowledgement like, oh, I'm not masculine enough and that's something that a lot of guys can't admit to themselves, or you don't even want that to be even partially true.
- 12:43Speaker 2: So to have my book sitting on their coffee table screams to their friends like I'm not masculine enough.
- 12:49Speaker 1: So I got to go read a book, you know what's really interesting that you say, say that the book on the coffee table.
- 12:53Speaker 1: Because I work with couples and I work with women who are divorced and I have recommended your book to so many people.
- 13:00Speaker 1: And there was this one husband who was embarrassed to read it in front of his wife in bed at night and I was like, bro, like that's, there's no room for that here.
- 13:11Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
- 13:12Speaker 2: Here's the thing that I would say to your female listeners is let him have his space.
- 13:17Speaker 2: If he were to engage in this work or read the book, you know it's not like what are you learning?
- 13:23Speaker 2: What are you learning?
- 13:24Speaker 2: There is a little bit of an embarrassment factor I think we just talked about that and so give the man space to do this in private and don't ask him what he's learning and how it's going, because your desperation to have a better relationship and maybe some more polarity dynamics is going to show through and he's going to experience that as pressure again, as an acknowledgement that there's something broken or insufficient about him, not good enough.
- 13:51Speaker 2: It's one of the things that I think your listeners would do well to understand is how driven by being competent we are in life, and when we're not feeling competent, we feel like shit.
- 14:01Speaker 2: Basically, there's certainly corollaries, I think, to the feminine.
- 14:06Speaker 2: There's certain traits that they want to adopt, that if they don't feel like they do, then it's really painful and maybe there's some shame involved, and competence is one of those in your perception of us as competence.
- 14:17Speaker 2: So you know, if you're, if your desperation for the man to change is showing through, it's going to start to shut him down and make him more resistant than he needs to be.
- 14:25Speaker 2: So give him a space.
- 14:26Speaker 2: This is what I always tell him.
- 14:27Speaker 2: Just put the book on the table and don't say a thing ever again about it.
- 14:31Speaker 2: You know, I mean there's caveats to me saying that but, relative to reading the book.
- 14:37Speaker 1: What an interesting concept.
- 14:38Speaker 1: So just the acknowledgement that there's work to do in a marriage or in a relationship can trigger this shame shutdown response, because you need us to see you as like the knight, like the shining knight, yeah.
- 14:55Speaker 2: Yeah, shining knight's, maybe not the first phrase that would come to mind for me, but to be seen as competent, as a man, I mean I know, that sounds a little caveman-y, but I like it.
- 15:55Speaker 2: We want to feel that we're like a primal man in some ways, and a lot of guys don't feel like that, so they're already feeling the shame even before the subject comes up.
- 16:04Speaker 2: And I think I you know, we should probably go into like, what are the ways that a woman can express that, what has turned into a desperation but just started as a longing?
- 16:14Speaker 2: And I think I mean we can inject that wherever we need to in the conversation.
- 16:18Speaker 1: Let's do it, yeah, because so we've got this why you know we can understand that.
- 16:22Speaker 1: Ok, that for many men it's just very hard to face that level of insecurity, or acknowledgement that something might be wrong.
- 16:31Speaker 1: But.
- 16:31Speaker 1: But there are things that, as women, we can do to approach it differently.
- 16:37Speaker 2: Yes, most definitely.
- 16:39Speaker 2: One is this is going to be hard for, I think, a lot of women who have really hit their breaking points, so they're kind of pissed really.
- 16:48Speaker 2: So I'm going to ask you to be gentle Say the least yeah, exactly.
- 16:53Speaker 2: So I'm going to ask them to be more gentle than maybe it feels natural to do, because they're so like dying.
- 16:59Speaker 2: But let's just, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
- 17:04Speaker 2: We all know that phrase.
- 17:05Speaker 2: So be gentle and recognize our tenderness around your disappointment.
- 17:15Speaker 2: Your disappointment is very painful for us, so the more you show it, the harder it's going to be for us.
- 17:21Speaker 2: Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't show it Like.
- 17:23Speaker 2: There's lots of situations where you need to show it.
- 17:25Speaker 2: But we're we're talking about an area, we're trying to grow some shoots in the ground here.
- 17:31Speaker 2: So let's be, be gentle and just know that your disappointment.
- 17:34Speaker 2: So if it comes, if your expression comes out with the smuggled disgust in it, it it's DOA.
- 17:40Speaker 2: So really try to strip out in your expression of your pain the drama.
- 17:46Speaker 2: Yeah, the drama, and I like to call it an amplification, because there's usually this is important there's usually something that happened that is worthy of some not liking it on the woman's part, but often there can be an amplification from the person's past, and I think men and women do that.
- 18:05Speaker 2: I'm just talking about this.
- 18:07Speaker 2: So it gets amplified because it feels like what her brother did or her father did, like, we all have those childhood that amplify and then it comes at us and the disgust can get smuggled in.
- 18:17Speaker 2: So what I always say to women is give your man the cleanest expression of your pain.
- 18:23Speaker 2: The minute you put a blame or attack or smuggle in disgust, you've given him something to defend against and he's going to get defensive on you.
- 18:31Speaker 2: Not that it's your fault, it's just that it's going to create conditions where defensiveness is more likely.
- 18:36Speaker 2: So, number one, give your man the cleanest expression of your heart and the pain in your heart and what the feeling on your side?
- 18:44Speaker 2: not, you did this and you're so this, and you always and never that.
- 18:48Speaker 2: So that's number one.
- 18:49Speaker 2: The second thing that I recommend is don't step in immediately to fill the leadership vacuum.
- 18:56Speaker 2: I like this one, yeah, yeah, I think it's compulsive because women are very capable.
- 19:04Speaker 2: If the guy doesn't step up, she's just going to step in and do it.
- 19:07Speaker 2: And a lot of kids I can't think of too many, you know, other than if there was a physical limitation.
- 19:11Speaker 2: I can't think of anything that a woman can't just step up and do just as well as he can, you know, speaking generically.
- 19:17Speaker 1: Well, see that one hooks right into a woman's tendency to want things to be perfect, especially when it comes to parenting.
- 19:24Speaker 1: So that urge, that compulsive urge to step in and do it right, whether it's for something as simple as dinner, but especially where it comes to childcare, I find that women really struggle to let go and allow leadership to be cultivated.
- 19:41Speaker 2: So this is sexy what you're talking about, yeah, and let's have some empathy for what's going on on the woman's side.
- 19:45Speaker 2: It's like either he's doing nothing or he's doing it really poorly or absentmindedly.
- 19:51Speaker 2: So of course there's that compulsion like just get out of the way, I'll just do it.
- 19:56Speaker 2: And the more contempt creeps into the relationship over the time, the quicker and the more violently she steps in.
- 20:03Speaker 2: She's like get out of the way, asshole, I'll take care of this again.
- 20:07Speaker 1: See how well he gets us yeah.
- 20:13Speaker 2: So this is the hardest part, but I think it's supportive of what the women are longing for is don't immediately step in and take it and maybe even reiterate I need you to handle this and I need you to handle it competently and this is what I need from you as my man.
- 20:28Speaker 2: And try to rest in the anxiety that that would induce to be able to do that and say that to your man and not jump in.
- 20:36Speaker 2: So that would be that's.
- 20:38Speaker 2: You know.
- 20:39Speaker 2: That's hint number two, I think one of the ways to deal with a man who's not stepping up.
- 20:45Speaker 2: And the third is to try to have a really objective conversation of your longings and a heartful, and start with, you know, start with reassurance that I love you, I want to be with you, and here's some things I realized I've been longing for, and one of those is for you to step up and lead.
- 21:03Speaker 2: And you know, the other day, when, you know, I asked your opinion on what we should do about our son's grades, you know you kind of didn't even have an opinion and I I really wanted to see some leadership and I want to see you step up.
- 21:16Speaker 2: I want to know what you want.
- 21:17Speaker 2: I want to, I want to partner with you and it feels like maybe you're.
- 21:21Speaker 2: I don't always know what you want.
- 21:24Speaker 2: So, anyway, that was my poor acting job Wonderful.
- 21:28Speaker 1: I was, I'm here for it, Okay.
- 21:29Speaker 1: So so to our listeners who are currently hearing us and doing a relationship autopsy, and they're like, oh my goodness, he's so telling our story.
- 21:39Speaker 1: Um, I could see where they would be asking themselves okay, if I did it the way GS recommended, could it have worked?
- 21:47Speaker 1: Because I feel like I tried so much of that, gs?
- 21:50Speaker 1: And so let's take a moment to talk about how much work is involved in a man truly embodying masculine leadership, because this isn't a thing where a woman can just tweak her presentation and boom, he shifts into embodied masculine.
- 22:07Speaker 1: You advocate for a lot of personal development work, healing work.
- 22:15Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're right, it's not an easy path.
- 22:17Speaker 2: You can't just read the book.
- 22:19Speaker 2: This is not a cognitive endeavor, this is a somatic endeavor, and what I mean by that I'm sure you know, of course.
- 22:27Speaker 2: But for some people, you know, you can get cognitive ideas and techniques and approaches and intention.
- 22:36Speaker 2: You can have a.
- 22:37Speaker 2: You're like I'm going to be better, you know I'm going to lead more.
- 22:40Speaker 2: And the problem is the minute your nervous system gets jacked, anxiety arises.
- 22:45Speaker 2: There's a lot of discomfort associated with it and at all costs you're trying to stop that discomfort.
- 22:52Speaker 2: And so that's when you get defensive, that's when you get dismissive, that's when you go stony, et cetera, et cetera, all those things that we do just to make our anxiety stop.
- 23:03Speaker 2: So you can have all these ideas.
- 23:06Speaker 2: But the minute your nervous system gets jacked, all those ideas go out the window and you just revert to your habits.
- 23:11Speaker 1: Fall back to your habits.
- 23:12Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and so this is a lot of the work that I do with guys and so I really am such a huge proponent of a daily embodiment practice and we can go into what embodiment is maybe in a moment but daily embodiment practice because what you're doing is you're using that to ground the nervous system and I found in, I would say, most cases that a grounded nervous system would solve whatever problem they're having, like they come with all their circumstances and challenges that are unique to them.
- 23:39Speaker 2: But almost always the part of the answer is we've got to get your ground, your nervous system, more grounded.
- 23:45Speaker 2: So yeah, that's a years long endeavor.
- 23:47Speaker 2: It doesn't happen in a day or a week or a month.
- 23:51Speaker 1: Years long, Like you weren't going to save this thing just from changing your approach.
- 23:57Speaker 1: You know a person has to be committed to completely reworking, overhauling right their somatic experience of living life and relationships and people and triggers, and that is a healing process.
- 24:08Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
- 24:09Speaker 2: And let's just say something encouraging, because we've totally discouraged them.
- 24:13Speaker 2: Now that they've got to spend years on this, you'll notice that the world just gets easier.
- 24:18Speaker 2: Yes, and it's not the world changing Right, it's just a reactivity.
- 24:22Speaker 2: Yes, it's not the world changing, right, it's just a reactivity.
- 24:24Speaker 2: Yes, it's that, like Terry realized a great name for it, it's the whoosh.
- 24:28Speaker 2: You know, your nervous system just goes boom and the anxiety explodes within you.
- 24:33Speaker 2: That just gets you know.
- 24:35Speaker 2: After your first year of concerted embodiment practice, that is, you know, 15% quieter.
- 24:40Speaker 2: And then your next year, it's 11% quieter.
- 24:43Speaker 2: And then you know it's, you know you get down to maybe 50%.
- 24:47Speaker 2: That's pretty damn good.
- 24:53Speaker 1: Oh gosh, life feels so much easier.
- 24:54Speaker 1: Yeah, so by daily embodiment practice you mean things like meditation, you mean things like talk, talk about that.
- 24:59Speaker 2: Yeah, Meditation.
- 25:00Speaker 2: I always like to compare meditation and embodiment because I think meditation is something that most people mostly understand.
- 25:06Speaker 2: Okay, you know meditation use.
- 25:08Speaker 2: Well, meditation is a component of embodiment.
- 25:11Speaker 2: I'll say that.
- 25:12Speaker 1: Okay.
- 25:13Speaker 2: But here's why I like embodiment better than than just pure meditation.
- 25:16Speaker 2: In meditation you generally as it's taught to most people you close your eyes and you use your mind to notice that same mind thinking thoughts, and then you use that same mind to remember your intention to not think those thoughts.
- 25:31Speaker 2: So you sort of let go and disidentify, but all the while you're using the same mind.
- 25:36Speaker 2: So it's really incestuous, really incestuous.
- 25:43Speaker 2: So usually what happens for most people who try meditation for years is they just continue to drift off into thought and they get frustrated and they quit and it doesn't really help them and it's, you know.
- 25:49Speaker 2: obviously lots of people meditate, but it's hard for most people.
- 25:52Speaker 2: They usually have a sitting session and they're just thinking the whole time.
- 25:56Speaker 2: Embodiment is different.
- 25:58Speaker 2: Embodiment is not trying to do anything.
- 26:00Speaker 2: You actually just take some of your attention and turn it away from the thinking mind and into some sensation in the body which anybody can do.
- 26:07Speaker 2: Anybody like you and I are both sitting in chairs and we can feel the weight of our butt in the chair.
- 26:12Speaker 2: We can actually feel that Like I'll just, I'll just look away and just feel, you know, close my eyes and just feel.
- 26:20Speaker 1: And when you do that, what that does is it naturally crowds out that thought in your head and so you don't actually have to try to notice thoughts and let go of them, because your awareness is focused so powerfully in a different space with a different sensation.
- 26:39Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah, and physical sensations are much more attention attracting, but it's I can tell you that putting your attention on a physical sensation that's much more enticing to your attention than trying to not do something which is not a thing Just because your focus is easier, to try to not focus.
- 26:58Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.
- 27:00Speaker 2: I like that.
- 27:00Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly so.
- 27:03Speaker 2: I find embodiment much more accessible and effective for people, and that's what we want.
- 27:11Speaker 2: If we can get some quick success, then guys will stick with it.
- 27:14Speaker 2: But if it's super hard, they'll quit and won't do it, and that goes for all of us, right.
- 27:19Speaker 1: So for my listeners who have joined the Post-Divorce Roadmap, the 21-day journaling program that I have out there this is the first week of prompts is about embodiment right, getting connected with the body, because that is where we store so much of our nervous system awareness, so I love that this is what you're doing with men also.
- 27:37Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's so important that I have this is.
- 27:42Speaker 2: My second book was about embodiment, and then I created a companion video course to go with the book on that.
- 27:48Speaker 2: So I have a video course that is on embodiment, so we go super deep into that, and also a video course that I'm just about to release for the masculine blueprint.
- 27:57Speaker 2: So everything we talked about, you know respond versus react, revise structure, create safety.
- 28:01Speaker 2: So everything we talked about, you know respond versus react, revise structure, create safety because I think those are important.
- 28:10Speaker 2: And so the video.
- 28:10Speaker 1: You know how it goes the video element adds, I think, another layer of the to train your nervous system, and so nervous system training is the trending conversation right On TikTok and all the places, and we're really starting to understand how nervous system health translates to overall health relationship, health personal health, how we respond to the world versus react to the world, world versus react to the world.
- 28:44Speaker 1: So that's actually fun fact how I found you, because I started following the nervous system coach.
- 28:48Speaker 1: Her name is Lindsay Lockett and she had her husband on her Instagram stories one day talking about coming to your work, and this is how I got the little hint from the universe to check out your book Is this Lindsay in.
- 29:02Speaker 1: Minneapolis?
- 29:03Speaker 2: I think so she's definitely up north, somewhere very cold.
- 29:06Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I know who you're talking about.
- 29:10Speaker 1: And so that is one of the places where you've really made a splash is in the conversation around nervous system health and as a mental health professional trained therapist, trauma-informed therapist, emdr therapist we really are understanding on a deeper level that so much of what has been called mental illness really is poor nervous system health.
- 29:36Speaker 1: We have been so bombarded in a modern world with so much that we don't even know how disconnected from our true operating selves that we are yeah, we never give the nervous system a rest, and that's not how we were built.
- 29:52Speaker 1: That's just not how we were built.
- 29:53Speaker 1: So when our listeners are saying, dawn, why, why did my marriage fall apart?
- 29:58Speaker 1: Why can my husband, why could he not come to this work so much of it really is about a modern lifestyle where we don't rest and heal our mind bodies and we cannot tolerate the amount of stimulus, stressful stimulus, that facing our insecurities brings into our mind bodies.
- 30:17Speaker 1: Is that right?
- 30:18Speaker 1: Am I saying that correctly?
- 30:19Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's one of many things, but the relentlessness is a big part of that I talk in this video course I talk a lot about.
- 30:27Speaker 2: It's a new topic for me because I'm actually learning it from one of my teachers and starting to really implement it in my life to great effect, but it's the cultivation of spaciousness.
- 30:37Speaker 2: This is not a quality that's really ever associated with masculinity, but I say, yeah, if you have the spaciousness within you to really start to receive the moment as it is, instead of how you want it to be or how you don't want it to be, and be with the moment as it unfolds.
- 30:57Speaker 2: I mean, this is stuff that's based back and going back to Ramana Maharshi, of really being able to be with the unfolding moments of life as they unfold, and so I have some, you know, embodiment practices that help foster this and develop it within yourself.
- 31:13Speaker 2: But it's been a beautiful evolution both of my teaching but also my being and how I move through the world, and it's really I feel so free because of this, and so it's.
- 31:25Speaker 2: It's it's been increasingly something I'm working with men on.
- 31:28Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
- 31:29Speaker 1: It's like life is an adventure rather than like a mission.
- 31:31Speaker 1: It's like and in a relationship.
- 31:33Speaker 1: It's being on an adventure together, just being with these unfolding moments.
- 31:38Speaker 2: Yeah, and I, you know, add a little of that.
- 31:40Speaker 2: It's and it moments, yeah, and I'll add a little to that.
- 31:46Speaker 2: And it's like in the male-female dynamic for me with my woman, it's to be with what's happening for her in the moment.
- 31:49Speaker 2: Even if I don't like it, she's upset about something and something legit and I want to push it away because it's pretty intense sometimes.
- 31:57Speaker 2: But if I can just actually be with it as it unfolds, like what's actually happening right now, and we just don't do that, we kind of we kind of start to play the movie of all the times that she's upset and we start to do the always and never thing and start to blame inside of our head.
- 32:13Speaker 2: So that spaciousness allows you to be there with what's actually happening, not the this sort of autopilot version that we go into what's actually happening, not the this sort of autopilot version that we go into.
- 32:27Speaker 1: That's beautiful, slowing things down, yeah.
- 32:30Speaker 2: And allowing.
- 32:30Speaker 2: Okay, awesome, can we talk a little?
- 32:31Speaker 1: bit more about sex.
- 32:32Speaker 1: I love how your voice gets all conspiratorial.
- 32:34Speaker 2: Can we talk about sex, Like well, Dawn, hell yeah, we can talk about sex.
- 32:38Speaker 2: Let's do it, you know.
- 32:40Speaker 1: I think it's an interesting space, especially in a post-divorce world, for our listeners, you know, coming out of a marriage where sex had probably fallen off quite a bit right, and then there's a certain insecurity that has come to the surface around all the rejection, all the hurt, all the things right, and then getting back on the horse, as they call it In a culture of dating these days.
- 33:04Speaker 1: I think it's just, it's tough, you know.
- 33:06Speaker 1: So let's talk about what really great sex looks like, because I think too often at least I can talk about from the woman's perspective we really don't know how to advocate for really great sex, because, whether we call it, you know our insecurities, body image, the all the puritanical right Like be a good girl, and then there's all this sneaky like how could I say that better, you know, like there's a wildness inside all of us, but maybe we don't have a healthy relationship with that wildness and then it comes out as maybe one night stands or unsafe sexual behavior.
- 33:50Speaker 1: So like, let's talk about really great sex, you know, in a really great dynamic.
- 33:56Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what's so much we could talk about is something's coming up.
- 34:01Speaker 2: It's not exactly what you're asking and I almost feel kind of condescending the way it comes up for me, but let me just share it is you're talking about people getting back out there and and you know it's pain, there's a lot of pain associated with sex.
- 34:15Speaker 2: I mean, I was speaking of emotional pain.
- 34:17Speaker 2: As a man, I love a woman that is totally in touch with her sexuality, but she there's.
- 34:27Speaker 2: Everybody doesn't get to access it and it's like is, is confident, waiting on it, even while she's still sexual and you know, like it could be a let's just say it's a third date, like she could make a sexual reference and that's going to turn me on.
- 34:41Speaker 2: But but even though there might still be, you know, seven or eight more dates before the sexuality happens.
- 34:48Speaker 2: And I'm not puritanical by any means, but I, I'm not.
- 34:53Speaker 1: I'm not in a dating not everybody gets tickets to the show.
- 34:55Speaker 2: That that there you go, but you can still own your sexuality and I just, I love a woman who's who can bring it.
- 35:03Speaker 2: But it's going to make me wait and I and I I'm not in a dating situation, so I don't want that to come out the wrong way, but um, I think that's refreshing to hear.
- 35:13Speaker 1: I don't that doesn't land as condescending to me at all.
- 35:15Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that lands is um yeah we want to.
- 35:21Speaker 2: We want to know you're a little wild, but we don't.
- 35:23Speaker 2: We you know we may think we want to have sex early on in this dating relation think we want to have sex early on in this dating relation?
- 35:31Speaker 2: We don't.
- 35:31Speaker 2: Yes, let's talk about that, yeah, yeah.
- 35:32Speaker 2: So don't believe our actions around sexuality early on, you know, because our, our kind of our more animal brain will pursue the sexuality, but our higher brain doesn't.
- 35:44Speaker 2: We want to wait, we want to make it special.
- 35:45Speaker 2: So, if, if that, yeah, okay, I'll leave it.
- 35:48Speaker 1: Yeah, that permission that you just gave, that kind of permission, I think, is what I experienced when reading your book this yeah, I'm going to say one thing, but it's not my higher self saying it, right?
- 36:04Speaker 1: So stay the course, stay the course, don't just settle.
- 36:09Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you just gave a beautiful permission for us to embody our sexual selves and be in touch with that, but not feel a pressure to perform or to make some paltry exchange of sex for love, which isn't even a thing, but it gets all twisted up.
- 36:30Speaker 1: Yeah, or up or whatever.
- 36:32Speaker 2: Exactly.
- 36:32Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 36:34Speaker 2: I don't know if this is obvious or not, I'm just going to say it we need more time to fall in love.
- 36:37Speaker 2: And when I say fall in love, I don't necessarily mean just the L word, more of just the energy of it.
- 36:45Speaker 2: But we need more time, and sexuality prematurely cuts that off.
- 36:48Speaker 1: Yes, and all of the psychology backs all that up right, when we look at the and not just the psychology but the somatic experience of it we look at the various hormones that get released at various stages of courtship.
- 36:59Speaker 1: All of that science backs up what you and I are discussing right now that falling in love does come from a prolonged courtship where sex doesn't happen immediately.
- 37:09Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly so, yeah, so do other things, you know.
- 37:13Speaker 2: Learn to blues dance together.
- 37:15Speaker 2: There's a few things sexier than being able to blues dance together, you know.
- 37:19Speaker 2: Do some of the things that you would see at a tantra workshop of just breathing and eye gazing.
- 37:24Speaker 2: I'm sure you know, you know, experience this yourself.
- 37:26Speaker 2: It's just, you can do things that are highly sexy and energetic you want to.
- 37:31Speaker 2: This is a lot what I work with guys on, particularly in the realm of sexuality, but also outside.
- 37:35Speaker 2: It's just, it's the energetics of things and men.
- 37:38Speaker 2: Can you embody your own sexual desire, you know, and bring it animalistically, not out of control or dangerously, but just but just allowing, just like the raw, primal nature of it, to show through?
- 37:53Speaker 1: So in all of my work with clients over the years, I think the thing that then happens because I'm following you right, I'm like with you.
- 38:01Speaker 1: I conveyed that I perform that I right and I don't just mean me right, I mean all the me's and that expectation comes with a certain cutting to it.
- 38:22Speaker 2: Cutting, cutting.
- 38:28Speaker 1: That the man can become aggressive, whether it's physical or verbal or emotional, right, but a certain amount of aggression, blame, attack around.
- 38:37Speaker 1: No, I expect you to do this and I deserve it and you owe it to me, and this is right.
- 38:43Speaker 1: I'm not saying, you're doing it, this is the dance that I think is being healed through the work that we're doing right.
- 38:52Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
- 38:53Speaker 2: This is the toxic part of masculinity.
- 38:55Speaker 2: Where there's an entitlement, that's the word that always comes to me.
- 38:58Speaker 1: And.
- 38:59Speaker 2: I do believe that exists deep within the darker hearts of men.
- 39:02Speaker 2: A lot of men, most men, don't manifest it, but some do, obviously and sadly, too many women have experienced that and that is, yeah, that's the darker parts of the masculine that really don't have a place, and thankfully we're making progress in that, in that realm.
- 39:18Speaker 2: And so, guys, for you the art is how do you bring your, your, your primal nature?
- 39:27Speaker 2: But you're still, your higher brain is still in control, and that's the art of things.
- 39:33Speaker 2: And some people veer too much on one way or the other and we do the work to try to impact that as best we can.
- 39:43Speaker 2: But that's the art for the guy to really bring your primal, but don't be aggressive and entitled and dangerous.
- 39:51Speaker 1: Love that.
- 39:51Speaker 1: Thank you for acknowledging that.
- 39:53Speaker 1: So, beyond just sex, let's talk a little bit more about dating and being able to cultivate this dynamic of lead follow and to sustain that.
- 40:08Speaker 2: Yeah, what I would say first and foremost is for women who maybe are looking for a relationship whether you're post-divorce or not, it doesn't matter.
- 40:16Speaker 2: Look for these qualities in a man and just use the blueprint as laid out in the book and it's like is this guy reactive?
- 40:24Speaker 2: Does he kind of seem to get fired up easily and in not a healthy way of seem to get fired up easily and in not a healthy way, and and you know, everybody's on their best behavior in the first 10 days?
- 40:34Speaker 2: But if you use your discerning eye, you could probably start to pick up on that.
- 40:37Speaker 2: So you know, whatever criteria you're looking at now looks money, intelligence, charisma, chemistry add to that kind of the blueprint diagnostic.
- 40:49Speaker 1: Does it?
- 40:49Speaker 2: seem like this guy's got a grounded nervous system.
- 40:52Speaker 2: Ask yourself that.
- 40:52Speaker 2: And then the second one is provide structure and does it seem like he has leadership qualities?
- 40:58Speaker 2: And then this one's a little harder on the earlier front edge of a relationship.
- 41:05Speaker 2: But is this guy going to keep me safe physically?
- 41:08Speaker 2: I say financially, not as in like anybody's out looking for money of a relationship.
- 41:14Speaker 2: But you know, is this guy going to keep me safe physically?
- 41:15Speaker 2: You know, I say financially, not as in like you're anybody's out looking for money, but just the does the guy have a?
- 41:19Speaker 2: certain responsibility about him that he can provide, and I'll you know you might be, yeah, even if you're a provider too.
- 41:22Speaker 2: Can?
- 41:22Speaker 2: He hold up his part and, most importantly, although it's hard to determine is can he keep me emotionally safe?
- 41:27Speaker 2: You?
- 41:28Speaker 1: know, does he?
- 41:28Speaker 2: It's hard to determine is can he keep me emotionally safe?
- 41:29Speaker 2: You know, does he?
- 41:30Speaker 2: Will he really does he deeply listen to me?
- 41:32Speaker 2: I think just I don't know, I can't speak for women, but I bet a lot of people overlook those kinds of qualities, and so I've always thought of the blueprint as a diagnostic that women can use to help find the right mate for them and not not repeat, you know, the situation they got in relative to the divorce and picking a man that ultimately wasn't a good fit.
- 41:52Speaker 1: And that's the whole goal, right?
- 41:53Speaker 1: The thing that motivated you was, I'm sure, to not repeat.
- 41:56Speaker 1: You mentioned not wanting kids to have to go through that pattern and repeat an experience.
- 42:02Speaker 1: And as you bring up this kind of diagnostic tool, the blueprint that you lay out so beautifully in the book, I want my listeners to be asking themselves the same darn questions, Ladies, do you have a grounded nervous system?
- 42:17Speaker 1: Are you bringing a certain integrity in provision, whether that's that doesn't have to be financial right, but is there a provision that you're bringing to the relationship Meaning?
- 42:30Speaker 1: Are you showing up with your own purpose, One that's not completely intertwined in who your partner is, but your own identity and purpose and provision?
- 42:41Speaker 2: Can I add one to that Dawn Please?
- 42:42Speaker 2: And do you bring your heart?
- 42:45Speaker 2: And not in the obvious way.
- 42:48Speaker 2: I mean, most women are more emotionally oriented, so they're often bringing their hearts.
- 42:51Speaker 2: But in terms of the expression, can you, when things get tough, can you, can you give, as I said before, the cleanest expression of your heart and can you gently help us come back to ours?
- 43:03Speaker 2: I think that's that's.
- 43:05Speaker 2: I think that's part of a leadership role that the feminine can bring is is is, you know, leaning with their heart and helping, gently bring us back to ours, because we need that.
- 43:14Speaker 1: We need that, it's so beautiful and I think we can't sit here because this is on a certain level.
- 43:20Speaker 1: This is like kind of a low-key man bashing podcast episode.
- 43:23Speaker 1: It's absolutely not, but it kind of can feel that way, like we're pointing at yes, see, this is everything that was wrong and this is what is wrong and this is why.
- 43:33Speaker 1: But the reality is we're in it together.
- 43:36Speaker 1: We have an entitlement around anxiety and around emotional like a drama right, like weaponizing our emotions and knowing exactly how to cut you with them.
- 44:02Speaker 1: So we have the same accountability to really come back to our true feminine selves and learning how, like you said, to communicate from our heart, in the cleanest version, what we need and then to not settle and to not blame you because I chose to settle.
- 44:22Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, what to look for going in, so that you don't get in this situation where it's just toxic on both sides.
- 44:27Speaker 2: And you talked about man bashing, and I'll just say something that I say a lot.
- 44:33Speaker 2: I have a quote from the book you may or may not, so this is to the men.
- 44:36Speaker 2: You may or may not be the problem, but you are the solution, and so I put all the weight on the men, not because it's their fault but because I want to empower them and you know and stop looking for the answer externally Now.
- 44:52Speaker 2: Do the women play their part?
- 44:53Speaker 2: Yeah, and you just put it so beautifully about how they could.
- 44:56Speaker 2: But I put a lot of pressure on the guys, not because it's their fault, you do you really do?
- 45:00Speaker 1: And it probably worked for me in again that state change I keep referencing and in the couples that I work with I've had different men respond to that piece differently.
- 45:14Speaker 1: Right, some men have come from that really empowered place like, wow, okay, I am the solution, but I don't give women a pass at all.
- 45:22Speaker 1: So there's that, and I've had one or two that are like you know that I want her to go first mentality which I find-.
- 45:28Speaker 2: Why do I have to do all the work?
- 45:29Speaker 2: Yeah, the guys say I go to work all day and you know I provide this great life and I got to come home and do all this stuff.
- 45:37Speaker 1: Yep, that's exactly what they say.
- 45:39Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- 45:40Speaker 1: And.
- 45:40Speaker 2: I get it, I'm empathetic to that and I asked them number one do you want to enter masculine or do you want to enter feminine?
- 45:46Speaker 2: Because if you continue to abdicate leadership in the relationship relative to, say, the emotional connection or in the bedroom, she's just going to get increasingly in her pain body.
- 46:00Speaker 1: Yes.
- 46:01Speaker 2: And so, if that's what you want, just keep doing what you're doing, brother.
- 46:04Speaker 1: Keep doing what you're doing.
- 46:04Speaker 1: That's what.
- 46:05Speaker 2: I say but if you really want to change things and take it on yourself, then don't.
- 46:16Speaker 1: GS, you have just really shared so many beautiful things with us today.
- 46:18Speaker 1: Tell us more about how we can find you, your work, what you've got going on all of that.
- 46:22Speaker 2: Yeah, I certainly recommend the embodiment book and course for everybody to go deeper into daily practice.
- 46:30Speaker 1: Everybody, meaning men and women.
- 46:32Speaker 2: Well, my audience is men, so I'm speaking to the men.
- 46:35Speaker 2: I think women can get a lot out of embodiment too.
- 46:37Speaker 2: I just teach a very masculine version of it, so I'm not.
- 46:40Speaker 2: I don't know if my version would be.
- 46:41Speaker 2: Translates yeah, I mean, most of it would, and there's some things that are that are more masculine oriented, but my, my biggest passion right now is just is this video course that's based on the book.
- 46:52Speaker 2: So people are, you know, the book is being received really well, so I wanted to give everybody an opportunity to go deeper.
- 46:57Speaker 2: So I'd say, you know, just head to my website, gsyoungbloodcom, get on the mailing list and in this, this course will be out within the next few weeks.
- 47:06Speaker 1: Awesome.
- 47:06Speaker 1: I will put all of that in the show notes.
- 47:08Speaker 2: Yeah, and then if you want to just sort of get tidbits and things, then go to Instagram.
- 47:12Speaker 2: It's GS Youngblood M-I-R, masculine In Relationship, and that's a great way to just see, obviously, what I post there and get a good flavor for who I am.
- 47:20Speaker 2: And then there's one-on-one coaching for the men.
- 47:23Speaker 2: So, ladies, send your men my way.
- 47:25Speaker 1: Send them to GS.
- 47:26Speaker 1: I will tell you my husband has really enjoyed your book, the embodiment book.
- 47:32Speaker 1: He says they're very complimentary.
- 47:39Speaker 1: He loves how you just add your thoughts in, finds it very digestible, very helpful.
- 47:41Speaker 1: And I've said to my clients who have read the book, especially the ones who have already been working with me, who have already been doing EMDR, who have already started having a somatic processing right, they're already ahead of the curve.
- 47:51Speaker 1: So I really, I really hope you so much success in this new course.
- 47:57Speaker 2: Thank you very much, yeah, and I and I wish you all the best in your, you know, quest to help women.
- 48:02Speaker 2: It's we, we, as you said, we're all in this together, yeah, and.
- 48:07Speaker 1: I hope we can have you back in the future.
- 48:09Speaker 1: I just know that this episode is going to be such a hit, so I plan on being invited back to the show.
- 48:17Speaker 2: Cool, let's do it again.
- 48:18Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it again.
- 48:20Speaker 1: All right, thank you so much, ladies.
- 48:22Speaker 1: Have a beautiful day.
- 48:23Speaker 1: Peace, dear.
- 48:33Speaker 1: Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach, john.
- 48:35Speaker 1: You can find more at mycoachjohncom.