Latest / The Wisdom Trust Podcast for Gay Men 50+ / Coming Home to Yourself: Sex, Desire and What You Really Want

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Coming Home to Yourself: Sex, Desire and What You Really Want · The Wisdom Trust Podcast for Gay Men 50+

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Wisdom Trust.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Lauren Crawford.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: This podcast is for gay men over 50 who sense there's more to this stage of life than we've been taught.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: For connection, meaning, honesty, and possibility.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: Each episode is a conversation with a thoughtful gay man who's navigating the deeper questions that often emerge in the second half of life.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: Aging, identity, purpose, belonging, reinvention, community, love, and living consciously.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: These are not conversations about decline, they are conversations about becoming.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm glad you're here.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome everyone to another episode of The Wisdom Trust.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm here today for a conversation with Michael Dresser.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'll be introducing Michael in just a moment.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Before I do that, this is just a reminder that the Wisdom Trust is a coming together of men to share experiences.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: We're not here as celebrities or subject area experts.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: We haven't figured it all out.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: We're living our lives, having our journeys.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: And by way of telling our stories, we are hoping to inspire others to bring about real life stories of real transformation so that we can all have a sense of what's possible at this stage in our lives.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: So let me introduce Michael.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: Michael is a UK-based sex and intimacy coach, supporting men who want to work body-to-body with another man to build skills and confidence with desire, touch, pleasure, communication, and relating.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: His work is a unique blend of sexological body work, wheel of consent, and sacred intimacy.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: In his downtime from creating hands-on learning spaces, he's also something of 80s pop music nerd.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: Well, hello, I love that.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: Before we dive in, I'm just going to invite you to elaborate even more about who is this amazing man, Michael.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: There are more of me in the United States, but but it's pretty unique in the UK.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of a fulfillment of who I am.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I feel I'm doing what I was put on this planet to do.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: How did you get there?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: How did you get to that point?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I that'll kind of I guess be part of the story that we'll be talking about today.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I had a midlife crisis at age 40, and out of that came this connection back to the self that that is this, that is me.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Who were you before that?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: So what what was young Michael all about?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, really, young Michael was kind of closer to now, Michael.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then I hit my twenties and came out and became I I don't want to say a little more shallow, but I was more surface and I lost contact with parts of myself that actually were there all the time, but they got buried for a while.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: Cool.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: When you made that transition, how old was it were you when you started to sort of shift into a new version of yourself?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I I said sort of jokingly earlier there was a midlife crisis.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I literally around the age of 40, kind of in the year leading up to my my 40th birthday, everything started falling apart.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so for my 40th birthday, I I was literally hitting the reset button.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: So this is where we're going to dive in a little bit deeper.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: So some of us are having, you're a little bit younger.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: So you're you're just in the infancy of your 50s, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm 52 now.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm a baby 50s.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: You're a baby 50s.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: So your your pivot happened maybe a little bit earlier than some of the other interviews that we're doing here.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: You come into your 40s and and tell us about what that looked like.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so approaching 40, approaching my 40s, I guess I had this lifestyle in London, which kind of appeared to have it all on a lot of levels.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had a long-term relationship that was sort of 11, 12 years, a monogamous relationship.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had a successful career, I had a successful business, I had, you know, a beautiful house, I had wonderful friends, I had great social life, all of these things that were really surface.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: But uh sort of in that 18 months leading up to my the that sort of turn into my 40s, I literally felt like I was starting to die.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it yeah.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I and I think if I'd carried on in that lifestyle, I probably would be dead by now.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or I would have been dead by this point.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that it like by the time I hit 40, that's how it felt.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like I felt like I was suffocating.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: I felt, yeah, it just so this was like an existential, like when you talk about death, you're not are you talking about suicide or are you talking about something inside of you just needing kind of both, kind of both.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was taking way too many drugs, drinking way too much alcohol, and and that was kind of it was sort of heavy self-medication.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I kind of felt like I was running out of oxygen or like I had a limb missing.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it it by the time I actually took the step to change stuff, I it was I was feeling pretty desperate.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: So this is this pivot is about moving into wellness, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: Moving into a place of your own well-being.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: So walk us through that.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: What did what did that look like?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I got to this point where so so I was in this a long-term relationship which was effectively sexless and mostly touchless by that point.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now I look back and recognize that that that was kind of one of the biggest issues.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: But at the time it was just it felt like a big mess.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so because I was feeling like if I don't change something, I am literally gonna die.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it it wasn't kind of I'm gonna throw myself off a bridge or anything like that, but I just felt like I was gonna disappear somehow.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took this step of leaving the relationship.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, that that was the pivot that happened was that even though we loved each other really a lot, I knew that this relationship wasn't sustainable.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he kind of knew it too, but I really knew it in my body, and so I walked away from the relationship, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I was literally walking down the road to the airport, so I I chose to take six months and go to New Zealand, which is about as far away from the UK as you can get.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember walking down the road to the airport going, keep walking, keep walking, because all I wanted to, all a big part of me wanted to do was run back into the house.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that magnet of of being kept in the familiar.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: And even though we know on whatever level we're miserable, it can be such a powerful force and it can prevent us from our life's fulfillment.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and I really want to nail that point because a lot of us who will hear or listen to this, see this, will be there right now.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: We'll be at that that that point where I know that I'm I'm I'm sinking, right?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or drowning, or whatever the metaphor is, and but I can't leave the trappings of this beautiful home or this partner, even though it's mostly loveless now, because what will that look like?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: So these are these are powerful and and scary.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was terrifying.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: So you you continue to walk, you didn't turn back, then what happened?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I I went to New Zealand for six months, and one of the things that had drawn me there was a lover from 20 years earlier who I met when I was in my very early 20s, and then we'd lost touch for a long time.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And shortly before I went there, we'd kind of reconnected, and and I went to visit him and stayed with him, and he kind of I I I think possibly because he'd known an earlier version of me that was maybe freer, he had less preconceptions about what I was gonna be.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: But added to that, he kind of took me on this journey of this physical journey.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we became lovers again when I when I went.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I was reconnecting with my body sexually, I was reconnecting with my sex drive, which had always been high, which was one of the reasons why being in this sexless relationship was suffocating because I had no outlet, and there was no agreement to open the relationship up, and that wasn't possible.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was in New Zealand, I was reconnecting with my sexuality with this kind of the my primal drive, what I I realized was the thing that makes me tick with this person who knew me, who didn't have any connection with this person that I'd become in London and who knew me in a sort of freer version of myself.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he took me on a little road trip one weekend.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: What one of the things we did was we went to this, I guess you could call it it's a it's a gay retreat center, kind of homestay place, but it's it's also more than that.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a community of people, it's like a really pivotal part of gay culture and history in in New Zealand.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember walking through, and it's beautiful, like it's in these gorgeous, lush gardens, and it's just it's like a slice of heaven.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember walking through the gate into the garden, just feeling like I'd come home.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was something in me again, it was a really somatic, body-based feeling of like going, oh wow, I'm home.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then I met people and I kind of got connected with people, and I and then it made more sense.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: But there was just this moment of going, I need to find my way back here.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so yeah, that's that was it sounds very much like this idea of awakening, and there can be different awakenings that occur at different stages, but I totally resonate, and I'm sure others will as well, with that sense of coming home.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: When you when you land at a place that feels like, oh, I didn't know this was missing.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: And you you can only the words can't even describe it because it's such a like you said, it's the somatic thing.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: You feel it in your body, right?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, that was kind of like what happened with me when I deepened my journey into yoga and found the right teacher that was kind of like, oh, this is what this stuff is about.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's not only exercise, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, I'm home.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: This is this is what I've been yearning for.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: So you're at this amazing retreat and you're exploring.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us a little bit about what that felt like to reconnect with sex and sexual expression after a sexless relationship.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it I mean, I I sort of said earlier it was a bit like having no oxygen previously, and and it was like somebody had restored the oxygen supply or restored the missing limb that had kind of disappeared.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it was almost like I was starting to come back into color from having been black and white for a long time.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Just this kind of life source.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I remember my friend saying to me, like, he took a picture of me like when I first arrived, and I and later on he said to me, You just look dead in that photograph.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: You like you're washed out, you're pale, you're you've got no expression on your face.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he said the comparison between that and now, you know, this was you know, a while later.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: He said, It's just it's like you're a different person.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: So how long you were there for six months.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: So then, then how did the how did the journey shift?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: So when I left New Zealand and I came back to the UK, I well, right at the end of my time in New Zealand, I remember sitting with another friend who who was visiting me, who'd come out to visit me.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: We were sitting in a field in the middle of nowhere, and she was saying to me, Well, what do you what are you going to do next?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember saying to her, I think I want to be a sex worker.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: But at that point, I had no idea what, like all I had was escort as a kind of, and I knew I didn't want to be an escort, but I knew I wanted to work with sex in some way, but I had no reference point for what that could look like.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I got back to the UK, I was continuing on my sexual expansion journey and meeting people, and somebody said, You should do the training in sexological bodywork, which I'd never heard of.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I looked it up.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And again, there was this moment of going, that's the door I need to walk through.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been kind of looking to do some training that formalized the experiences that I was having, have having and giving it some sort of formal context and giving me skills rather than just being in those moments, but actually going, How can I learn how to do this more consciously?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I looked at the training and I was like, Yeah, this is the doorway I need to walk through.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us about sexological body work.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: What is what is just you know an overarching kind of framing of that for us?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's uh sexology is obviously the the the study of human sexuality, body work is working with the body, and so it combines those two things, those two elements.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so what it allows for is within some quite strict protocols around touch and how touch happens, it allows for touch to include the whole body, the client's whole body.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So their genitals, their arousal, but it's focused on their learning, so it's focused on their learning about themselves, but including the whole body.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's so powerful because as men, you know, we do have that primal yearning.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, women obviously have it too, but we're we're here talking about gay men over 50.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: So that primal yearning around our sexual drive and all of that.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: And when we can get clear on that, it can be so helpful, right?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there's a lot of confusion around what that means, especially at this stage in our lives where, and you can probably speak to this in a moment, our bodies start to operate differently, like the erections maybe aren't as spontaneous or aren't as firm or aren't lasting as long, these kinds of things.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: And we can turn on ourselves and think that our sexual expression and well-being has kind of gone or lost or waning.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: So this this sounds really amazing.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: So, what is it that you see mostly in your practice and power men showing up?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so now I work beyond sexological bodywork.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I include sacred intimacy, which allows for two-way touch.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sexological body work only allows for one-way touch from the practitioner to the client.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So now I use the wheel of consent as a framework for safety so that there can be two-way touch.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's kind of a variety of what I work with, but essentially I'm working with guys who want to be able to practice sex essentially, to get naked with another guy, to try things out, to be able to explore themselves.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I sometimes work with men who are stepping into a bisexual side of themselves or exploring their gay side for the first time in a space that that doesn't have the baggage of a relationship or the kind of the lack of safety that many hookups have, where they're wondering what's going on with the other person.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you they get to just focus on themselves, and I'm holding that space for them essentially.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, over my journey, one of the things that I've explored is providing intimate massage, central massage, and mostly the clients that I would see were largely straight identifying men who were yearning for male touch.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I had to do my own journey around reconciling all that.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like, uh am I a sex worker if I do this, you know, like and and all the you know, the labels that we apply and the judgments and the values.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then I ended up this place where, like, no, this is a service.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: These men are having a a need and an interest in some connection, and what a beautiful way to provide it, right?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: And and to this day when that occurs, I don't I don't do that that work as much anymore, but I I honor that place of like you're saying, creating a place, an environment, a space for for that exploration.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that's beautiful.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, I'm I'm bringing myself and my body and my arousal in service to their learning or to their experience and so like.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: So you you went through all of this, and you've already alluded to this to some degree, but we're just gonna maybe circle back a little bit.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: So as you made this transition and you started to connect again to your sexual expression and liberate yourself in many ways, awaken yourself to this new version of who you were ultimately meant to be.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: What did that give you freedom from?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what were you able to like leave in the past?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I so I I often kind of joke that that relationship I'd been in.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was a beautiful relationship in many ways, but it was very much a kind of parent child where I was the child.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of joked that he'd done such a good job of parenting that I grew up and helped grew the relationship ultimately.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I left that part of myself behind that that needed to rely on another man, that needed to be kind of, you know, quote unquote, looked after by another man and and became kind of independent.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Really, I mean, I'd been sort of technically independent previously in my life, but I'd also kind of gone from one relationship to another to another.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so actually, I deliberately spent that first year of being on my own.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: I decided I was not going to go into a relationship, I was going to spend at least a year being single and independent and finding my own way and figuring out who that looked like and who I was when I who who who am I when I'm when I'm just me, when I'm not part of a couple or yeah, being looked after by somebody else.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's beautiful.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that term conscious and coupling just came into my head when you were saying that.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: But this conscious choice to be single, that will terrify a lot of listeners.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm the opposite.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: I've been perpetually single and have have had, you know, throughout my journey, peppering of relationships.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: But so tell us about I want I would love to explore that a little bit.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: What does that feel like?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: Going from the serial monogamous kind of way of living to saying, no, the next year is me.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it ended up being, I think, nearly two years in the end.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was really liberating because I I got to, I think because I got to figure things out on my own.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, partly that was about I don't have to worry about what somebody else is thinking or what somebody else wants.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can just do things for me.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and it really brought me back to being able to trust my own inner compass again, which I'd sort of had when I was younger.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: So trusting my own wisdom, coming back to things like stillness and silence.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I was brought up as a Quaker.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So stillness and silence were very familiar to me, but I'd sort of abandoned them in my 20s and 30s for this kind of glitzy life of doing stuff.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so coming back to those things that actually I realized were my inner comfort as well, actually, nature, things like because I was making those choices, nobody else.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: I love this.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: I love I love the metaphor of the inner compass.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: This is hard to hear.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, when I when I started to understand this stuff, I didn't want to accept it.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: But 95% of what we do every day is unconscious.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's driven from the subconscious level, it's patterning, it's programming.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: So when you're saying that inner compass, how did you know that you were connecting to that?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you used the the frame coming home earlier.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that that environment you were in really made you feel that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: But can you explore that a little bit with us?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I think it I think ultimately it came down to starting to trust myself, maybe for the first time.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think because I was single for the first time, I didn't have somebody else to lean into or lean on.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was having to trust this in a compass compass.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was having to trust my own wisdom, realizing that actually it was there and it had always been there.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'd just been ignoring it or overriding it.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was about trust trusting my body, trusting my wisdom, which was actually, I'd realize I realized quite quickly that that part of me had been the pivot that we were talking about earlier.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: That it had been the voice going, keep walking down the road to the airport.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It had been the voice even before that going, if you don't make a change, you're gonna be dead.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was that inner voice going, this doesn't Make sense.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's completely mad.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's really difficult, but you've got to keep doing it.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I I learned to trust that voice inside me.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: So beautiful.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: Men in particular, women experience this too, but we're very left brain oriented, which is the rational, you know, logical, process y language-based kind of way of thinking.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: We we we want to think and think and think our way through our problems and manage them through all this thinking, thinking, thinking.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like that's a big part of our problem for men in particular, especially when we're feeling stuck, because we're trying to rationalize everything.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: We're trying to so what you're sharing here is there's there's something inside of you that will give you direction, but you need to kind of get out of the way.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and you need to feel it.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think you need to feel that voice.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about the words it's telling you, it's about the feeling it's showing you.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I could almost feel, I could almost taste the alternative.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what it looked like.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a name for it, I didn't have words for it, but I could almost feel that different thing that I needed.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think, yeah, I think it's coming back to the feeling side of our thinking.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: Can you give an example of what that might be like to sort of feel something as opposed to think something?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I guess it's about feeling how your body would feel different.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I I remember having moments where it was almost like a yearning or a daydream or something where I could feel the delight in my body.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like this was at the point where everything was spiraling downwards, but I could though I had moments where I could feel a pull towards something.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had moments where I was also feeling a push towards something, where it's been like, oh, you ought to do this, or you know, like you were saying the rational brain going, oh, that doesn't make sense.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: You should do this instead.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, everybody else is doing this, so you should do it too.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then I had these moments where I was feeling this kind of irrational pull towards, you know, like it made no sense to go to the other side of the world to New Zealand, but I the pull was so strong that I followed the pull ultimately.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: There's this term that what my last teacher used, philogical pull, which is in many ways, it's kind of like there's this something in the spiritual uh the yoga traditions and and in the Vedas, they talk about this mystical white horse that's always guiding us forward, right?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: So that's exactly what you're talking about.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like the ancient traditions talk about this stuff that there's something dragging, drawing us, pulling us.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: Pulling is a good word because the pushing is the ego stuff, right?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, pulling is that deeper part of our essence, but we shut it off and we discount it or disconnect from it.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I always I often use this thing like we're we're walking down this very myopically focused hallway of who we and who we think we should be and and what we are.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: And meanwhile, there's all these doors opening, but we're so focused, we're missing those doors.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: So this pull is beautiful.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's kind of what started happening to me.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: When I started listening to the poll, I started to see the doors that were there.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I started to see them and I started to walk through them, and then everything else changed.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, energetically and quantum-wise, you know, on the multidimensional universe, multiverse that we live in, that's what that stuff's all about.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: And people will roll their eyes and go, like, no, get into the logic brain, and it'll tell you everything.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, no, no.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: When we're operating and functioning at those levels, and we'll get there in a minute, um, the universe aligns things for us, right?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: And we think of them as, oh, that's kind of a coincidence.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, nope.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: So so you you're doing all this stuff, you're going through these changes, you're starting to work with men.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: So this liberates, it awakens.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us more about that.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: That gave you freedom to what?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think the whole process that I'd been through up to that point, you know, the change and the and the following the pull and the listening to the inner wisdom, what that enabled me to start doing was to start noticing what I wanted for a start rather than subsuming it underneath a relationship or a house or, you know, whatever.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like noticing what I really wanted.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, kind of being single helped me do that.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what do I want?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to think about somebody else.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, here's a choice: what do I want?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and taking action for it without relying on somebody else to take action for me or manipulating other people, which I used to be quite good at doing.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me personally, what that opened up was the possibility, that whole journey opened up the possibility for so much more pleasure.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just talking about sexual pleasure, although that was a big part of my journey, my particular journey, but but just kind of pleasure in life.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, beyond the surface pleasure that you know you can get by buying a new piece of clothing or you know, buying something or going to a party, you know, that there's surface pleasure, which is great, but there's pleasure in just being alive.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's pleasure in the contact you have, the connections that you have.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I think that's what it opened up for me.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: It sounds to me like it's you you evolve to this place of pleasure from your beingness as opposed to pleasure from your doingness and all the accoutrement, the trappings of what we think is pleasure, right?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, yeah, the a big part of that journey was was really starting to connect with what do I want?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do I want and how can I take action for that, you know, rather than I love that.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: And the action part is so important because some people might have inklings of something, but then we discount it, right?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's unfortunate because that could be the the window, the door that that that takes you to that that next that next place.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and if I look back at the journey that I've been describing, you know, that that inner voice was telling me what I wanted.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it was what I wanted.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know that I wanted it, but but it was telling me what I wanted and I followed it.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I took action.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I walked down the road to the airport, that was action.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that was a really big learning point for me of going, okay, when I take action for something that I want, things change, things get better, things improve, I'm more connected.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's so so beautiful.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: It starts with trust, I think.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like we have to just begin to trust, to surrender a little bit to that, to get out of the rational, logical frameworks of, oh, that doesn't make any sense, right?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's like if it's coming up in you, that's coming from somewhere, that's coming from source.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: Everything is coming from somewhere, and the old patterns too are coming from somewhere.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: But sometimes those need to be, you know, overridden so that we can actually see the potential.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think sometimes the patterns are survival mechanisms.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've we've got the pattern because we had to survive something that was traumatic or challenging, and and it's not the source.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: The pattern is not the source, but but if we start listening to those impulses, yeah, I love that.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_03: So good because we want to break some of those, you know, the referenced as saboteurs, these thought processes that originally came about to protect us and to keep us safe and and all of that.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: But then all of a sudden they get this grip and don't allow us to be moving into the full nature of our being.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: You're in this new place.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: Find the wisdom trust on school, school.com slash the dash wisdom dash trust slash about.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: Website is wisdomtrust50.com.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: Find us on Substack, the WisdomTrust.substack.com.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're not watching this on YouTube, youtube.com slash at the Wisdom Trust 50.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: See you on those platforms.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: Of a fuller version of you.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: That requires necessarily some up-leveling, some shifting.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: Clearly, you know, you you did the the necessary work to that you wanted to define, you know, how do I do this, this work with intimacy with sex in a way that's that's gonna serve others and all of that.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: You're also in doing that, I like this this term leveling, right?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so tell us a little bit about what that felt like as you were as you were entering this new version of yourself.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: How did your life change?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think the best way I can probably describe it is quite quickly.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I started feeling like I was stepping into, and I use this term, I don't use this term lightly, but I was stepping into a place of eldership, and it was gradual, like it didn't happen overnight.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I started realizing that I I had this wisdom, and you know, the wisdom had been there, but it had been sort of suppressed, or it wasn't fully kind of I wasn't fully in it.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Gradually I started stepping more and more into this place of realizing my eldership, and you know, as I was as in my 40s, I was kind of moving towards my 50th year, you know, like we're sort of talking about this, what happens after 50.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I think it's been a gradual process which started in my kind of maybe in my mid-40s.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: It it took sort of three or four years to do the training and kind of start working.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: But then I was I was moving into this place of having wisdom, having training, having skills, people recognizing that.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it actually took other people recognizing it in me and relating to me differently for me to start recognizing it in myself.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when I started recognizing it in myself, it made sense.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I kind of feel like almost almost like I started stepping into that, you know, almost post-50s version of myself before I hit 50.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I guess because the the drive that I went on was pretty deep, and and so maybe it was a bit turbocharged than more so than it is for others, but uh that that space of kind of being able to support others from a place of wisdom and care and integrity.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: And what does your life look like?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: Because you mentioned when you were partnered that there was a lot of partying and you know consumption.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: How was life different on that level?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think sorry, I I met somebody else um about two years after that, and we're we're together and and we have a polyamorous relationship.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: It went from monogamous to open to polyamorous, and that was a journey and a really interesting one of kind of and it's it's a more solid relationship because of that journey that we've taken with it.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you he interestingly came from a kind of similar type journey from me with with partying.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of often joke that if we'd met each other in London when we were both in London, we would have hated each other on site, but it still happens sometimes, but I think it comes from a much more conscious place now, and it's not all the time.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's about kind of amplifying what we've got rather than trying to replace it or you know, substitute.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm a big advocate for moderation, right?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like this whole thing of good, bad, right, wrong, you know, that's that's that's a very dualistic and way of living in it, and it creates a lot of suffering, you know.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: And we all, I think most of us go through periods of of that where we're trying to like figure things out.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, for hyperachievers like me, it's like, oh, it's all it's gonna be this way.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's like relax, you know.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: They're like, yeah, yeah, finding that that moderation in in all aspects, you know.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: So if it is someone bibing, do it with moderation, perhaps, rather than overdoing it, you know.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and do it from a place of of wanting, like for me, it comes back to this impulse of like, oh yeah, I really feel an impulse to go out and party this weekend and like raise the roof and great, do it, but it's not everything.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then and then that whole thing about guilt and shame, you know, like if you're uh you use the word conscious earlier, like when we when we start to get clearer about our our needs and our desires, and not the ones that are filling a void, you know, because that that's that's that saboteuring kind of energy that that actually isn't healthy.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: But when we're when we're more connected to what is the desire, you know, why is that there?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: And and how do I explore that consciously as opposed to filling a need that's that's not even I'm not even conscious of.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, kind of like we were saying earlier, it's the difference between the pull towards something and the kind of push, like you shouldn't do how everyone else is doing it, or you know, whatever.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: So tell us a little bit.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: Your life sounds like totally like people are gonna be listening to this going, I want his job.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um tell us a little bit about how you have fun.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like what is it now?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: You've you've made this whole shift, you're you're this new person, you know, you've you've reinvented yourself over the last decade.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: What does fun look like?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: You you used the word joy earlier, just around the joy of your your your your living and the way that you've you know consciously chosen to move forward.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah so tell us more about that.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I mean joy for me is very different in different moments.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ironically, I've just been through a period of a couple of years where there was very little joy for all sorts of uh boring and uninteresting reasons that I won't go into here.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: But so I'm kind of re-emerging from that now, actually, and it's it's nice to connect with the joy again.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, again, sort of in this moment that I'm at right now of kind of finding my way out of the struggle and the lack of joy, what's been really important for me to help me do that is coming back to my body and my sexuality.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, for the this is very personal for me, it won't be the same for everybody, but for me, touch is an incredibly important part of helping me stay connected to joy.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I one of the things that I realized along the way on my journey, actually with touch was that it was the way that uh my nervous system resets.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if I have a meltdown, if I shut down, the quickest way to get me back online is to start stroking me.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a really strong relationship with touch in terms of helping me to feel alive.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, the best way to do that is to connect with touch in some way.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes that's a massage, but but generally for me, that's some kind of intimate, physical, intimate connection.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: Whether that's beautiful.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: And what would you say to fellows who might be listening to this that they're not getting that?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like as I I'd like to hear your response to that, and I'll speak to it from a single person's point of view.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I think your question was around what what if you're not accessing that kind of touch or you don't have access to that?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the things that I realized when I started doing my training was that actually, I mean, as human beings, we're wired, most of us, to need touch.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes trauma kind of puts that down a strange path of not feeling not being able to connect with it.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: But for most of us, actually, it's a really essential part of well-being.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like our nervous systems actually do need touch.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: As human beings, we're wired to need it.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can actually access that through self-touch.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's often this perception of like, I need another body to connect with.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: And sure, yeah, that's a really great way to do it.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you can actually also start to activate some of the same hormones through self-touch as well.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, anything that is what is described as warm touch, so touch that feels safe.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so that can be some with somebody else, that can also be with yourself.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: So even just kind of you know, starting to bring your own touch to your body with curiosity, again, not necessarily trying to get a result, you know.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: So often self-pleasuring or masturbation is is kind of focused on an end goal.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, to just spend time stroking your body to kind of to notice how the hair on your arm feels or how the shape of your muscles feel or your bones or whatever it is without trying to get somewhere.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're a very achievement-oriented kind of species men are anyway, in in terms of that, like gotta have an orgasm or or what have you.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I dissuade that or discourage that even when I'm you know, I don't have hookups much anymore at this stage by by choice.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm choosing not to.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: But oftentimes, even with those, I wouldn't necessarily have uh have an orgasm.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then it would be like, well, is there something wrong?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, well, no, but that's I just had an amazing connection with you.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: But the fact that there was no orgasm doesn't mean that it wasn't an amazing time, but that becomes this sort of standard.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: The other thing that I wanted to talk about is yeah, how do we how can we self-pleasure like solo sex, individual sex?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, obviously porn is a big thing, and porn can become very addictive and stuff.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: And and if we can self-regulate around that, especially I'm a very visual person, so I love seeing sexual expression and using that in that way.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: And there's been periods where I've totally overdone that, gotten overboard, and then gotten back to moderation.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: What does that look like?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: But aside from that, the way that I teach and and do my yoga practice involves a lot of touch.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: So, like running your hands down your legs as you're folding forward, right?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like these are things, and and it's that tactile connection is is it it's there's so many chemical cocktails that are being released through that.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't all always have to be what we may think we need to get that that effect of that oxytocin releasing it from the bloodstream and all of that.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that reminds me, you know, often when people talk about pleasure, there's this sort of expectation of bells and whistles and fireworks and all of that stuff.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I quite often say to people, you know that that time when you scratch an itch and it feels absolutely amazing, or you're really, really thirsty and you drink a glass of water and it just feels beautiful.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Those can be pleasure moments too.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not all about you know the orgasmic stuff.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's there's lots of different versions of pleasure, and it's I think it's starting to become more attuned to what well, what is pleasure?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does pleasure feel like?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes it's quite tuned.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think, Michael, we're gonna have to do a wisdom trust workshop on some of this stuff first.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: Our viewers tell us a little bit about you used this word already, stepping into your wisdom at the young age of 40.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think for those of us who, you know, in in my training over the years, we we look at this as dharma, purpose.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like what is the big raison d'être?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: Why are we on this planet, right?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and and there is work that we can do to sort of get clear on that.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_03: Purpose can be very almost utilitarian, but then there's this bigger notion of purpose, right?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: And and when we connect to that, that's our thriving, that's that's what lights us up, that's what's going to keep us, you know, sparked up, you know, that that up leveling for for really the rest of our lives, because we're all here for a grander purpose.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not the career stuff we often think about, it's bigger.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: You stepped into that a younger age, probably than most of us do.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: Tell us now what wisdom looks like for you.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: And particularly, what would you like to share with folks who might be listening who are maybe at that point where it's like there's a lot of uncertainty, they're not clear what the next stages in their life are gonna look like.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: They know that there's something potentially more, but not really clear where and how to get there.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: What words would you share that can maybe help people find a little bit of that?
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think one of the things that I've learned, and and actually I'm gonna start by just saying I'm still on that journey.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: We all are, we all are, I would argue.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't hit it before I got to 50.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still there.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm still on the journey.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I think one of the things I learned, and one of the things that changed for me on that journey, on that pivot, was being much less attached to preconceived outcomes.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I used to be very much like if it doesn't, I I imagine it a certain way, if it doesn't live up to that, or it doesn't, or that does thing doesn't happen, something's gone wrong.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Usually there's something wrong with me, is what I thought.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so actually, I've learned to kind of lean into the flexibility more.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and and again, I think it comes back to this idea of tuning into what is what is my desire, not what is the outcome that I want, but what what do I want to feel?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Again, coming back to feeling.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: What how do I want to feel?
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there could be many different ways that that looks, or many different ways that that could happen.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, again, it's it's all these things that we've talked about.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's when I when I'm tuned into what I want to feel, then I can become more.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Aware of the doors that might be available to me to walk through to get to that feeling state.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so these this idea of not being attached to a fixed outcome has meant that yeah, I can move with stuff that's unexpected more than I used to be able to.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't get blocked by something or thrown by something that I didn't plan for or that I didn't expect, but I can kind of absorb it.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, sometimes those are the moments where I'm like, oh, I would never have thought of that.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: But that's that's brilliant.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's I'm gonna head down that avenue there.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas before I probably wouldn't even have seen it as an option.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting because in a you know the eastern traditions, Buddhism in particular, and there's lots of lots of different lineages of Buddhism.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm not speaking for all of it, I'm just speaking very generally.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: This idea that you know that expectations, those those become the root of our misery, right?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: Where we expect things to be a certain way.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then just to contradict that, in a lot of our sort of aspirational stuff, if we expect ourselves to arrive at a certain level in our journey, that's actually a positive, right?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: Rather than, oh, I could never do that.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't want to poo-poo the idea about about setting that that standard for yourself to move towards, but it's when we it's the attachment in the yoga world we talk about.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's the attachment to the outcome that creates the the suffering or the the misery.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yes, have your goals, have those, those, those bigger versions of who you who you are becoming, but remember it's the journey to get there where all of the interesting stuff occurs, the the joy, the pleasures, the pain, the suffering, too.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: But all of that is is really what it's that's life.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_03: This this is just something we're we're we're lifing towards, right?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and what you're saying reminds me of something that I learned in my training when I was doing my sexological bodywork training, particularly around pleasure, but it applies to all sorts of things, is that you know, often we come to it with a goal in mind, you know, we talked about goals.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: What I was taught was to shift away from having a goal and to have an intention, because an intention can be flexible, an intention can change, it can move in the moment.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: You might have an intention to feel a certain way.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, how that happens in practice can look lots of different ways.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have a goal for a specific thing, so I think for me that's the difference.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's the difference, right?
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_03: As opposed to the intention, maybe a little bit more fluid, like water as opposed to like rock or something.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, those are beautiful words.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna share with folks your contact, uh, your website.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_03: What might they find there?
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when you go there, you'll get two different doorways.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: Talking of doorways, one of the doorways is into my work specifically with the wheel of consent, which is a tool for navigating interactions that isn't specifically sex-based or that side of things.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I teach workshops and I coach one-to-one specifically with that.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the wheel of consent also informs everything else I do.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a bedrock for all the other work, so all the sexuality work that I do.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so the other doorway that they'll find there is into my website around working with sex for men, whether that's pleasure in your own body, pleasure relating to another body.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, two doorways into different and with the with the intimate stuff, both of it amaze me.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like I like the foundational work you're doing on the one side, and then the experiential work.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_03: For me, I do a very similar thing, right?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like the positive intelligence work is really the foundational because it gives us the base language to work from, and then we we do our growing from there.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: By the way, for those listening, it's michaeldresser.co.uk.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_03: So circling back, then tell us a little bit about if someone were interested in working with you around the sexual expression side of things.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: Do are you able to do that virtually, or does it have to be an in-person experience?
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can do some of it virtually because of because most of how I work on that side of things is relational, there's a limit to how much you can do on Zoom.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are some there are some skills that I can teach around, you know, starting to tune into your own desires, starting to give those voice.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: How does it feel when you're in front of somebody else and and saying what you want to do with them, seeing a reaction so that you can we can do some of that stuff online, but obviously anything that involves touch needs to be in person.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: What a great conversation.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_03: I want to thank you again for being with us today, Michael, and sharing.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_03: This is an amazing journey that you've been on.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I think inspiring probably for many and maybe unsettling for others who might have seen a little bit of that inner itch in themselves that maybe they've been avoiding.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_03: Perhaps this will inspire people to maybe dive a little bit deeper into some self-inquiry and and figuring out what the next steps might look like.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hope so.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks again.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you to our guests today, and thank you for listening.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: If what you heard landed with you, if you felt seen, heard, inspired to make a shift, want to hear about it.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: Get back to me on one of our platforms or where you're listening to or seeing this.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_03: And if you know another man over 50 who you think would benefit from hearing this, share it with them, please.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: This community grows when we show up for each other.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_03: You can find more essays on these topics, reflections, and such at our Substack account.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_03: Watch for other content on our YouTube channel, and stay connected to us through our school platform.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_03: This is where we engage and are building our community.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_03: Remember, the second half of life isn't the beginning of the end.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_03: For many of us, it's the moment life finally begins to open up.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_03: You're not alone in this, we're in it together.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'll see you next time on the wisdom.