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The Truth About Intimacy & Masculinity w/ John Wineland · Harder Than Life

• 0:01
  Now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved us a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in-store or on Lowe's.com, right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's.
• 0:30
  What advice would you give someone who keeps attracting emotionally unavailable partners? My advice is stop dating. Like just stop trying for a period, right? Let go of your identity so that you can find out who you truly are. One practice that saved your relationship. Pause. Biggest lie men are told about sex.
• 0:51
  Harder is better. Women that use heavy filters on social media, there's apps that will thin you out, make your bigger.
• 1:00
  That's like false advertising. You're basically lying. It's not the real you. The message you're sending to the universe, you're sending to life, is that the real me is not lovable. And who do you think you're going to attract? We don't put the same effort into learning how to be good, how to love well, as we do into learning how to make money.
• 1:21
  And people, they do suffer. I see it. I see it every day. That's why divorce rate is so high. That's why cheating is rampant. Most people think intimacy is about connection, but John Weiland says it's about practice. John has helped thousands of men and women access the kind of love, sex, and purpose that changes lives. Let's go.
• 1:44
  Welcome to the show, everybody. Today's guest, this is a lesson in reaching out to people. I read his amazing book from the core. I messaged him, and dreams do come true. Here he is on the Heart of Life podcast, and he's going to share his beautiful wisdom. Before we hit record, I asked him, I said, John, what do you want to promote? He's like, everything's full. So you're going to get real genius today. Welcome to the show, my friend. Thanks so much for having me, Kelly. Glad to be here.
• 2:13
  What advice would you give someone who keeps attracting emotionally unavailable partners? And the reason I start here is because I see this everywhere on social media. Women, men going from person to person to person, not taking any time to themselves to see what their part of this was. We're going to start right from the hard one because everybody will resonate with this. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:39
  So my advice, you know, I get this a lot too, right? My programs, but my advice is stop dating. Like just stop trying. Stop trying for a period, right? And so I've, many years ago, after I got out of a very hard relationship,
• 2:56
  You know, I came out and I was like, all right, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to date multiple women. I'm going to get like a harem and I'm going to, you know, and I'm just going to like, you know, date multiple women and choose the best one. And my teacher said to me at the time, he's like, no, you're not. You're going to do nothing for nine months. You're going to do nothing for nine months.
• 3:16
  Actually, he said a year, and then I said six months, and then we came up with nine months. And I did what I call now a feminine cleanse, where I just stopped trying to make relationship happen. And instead, I cultivated a relationship with nature, the divine life, and I cultivated a relationship with myself. And I got busy looking at the things that were showing up in relationship after relationship.
• 3:46
  So if you're attracting, this is a very specific problem, if you're attracting emotionally unavailable partners, it means that the part of you that didn't get your needs met as a child, the care, the love, the affection that you needed as a child, is what's transmitting out into the world. So you're going to, of course, attract people who are going to fit that family systems mold.
• 4:16
  at what needs to be healed in you so that that's no longer what's being transmitted. And for many people who are attracting unavailable partners, there's some part of their, you know, they're either anxiously attached or there's some kind of wound around early child, not their fault, man. You know, me too. Not their fault. Right. Me three. Yeah, exactly.
• 4:38
  But it's not their fault, but it is our responsibility now as adults to look and go, what is blocking me from attracting, giving and receiving the kind of love that I want? And focus on that.
• 4:51
  And as we heal, as we get more conscious, as we get more embodied, as we, you know, drop further into our life and our relationship with our self heals, we are naturally going to magnetize different people. I think the chapter I wrote it in that book was let them appear, right? And I talk about like, you know, do your work, do your own deep work, and then let the new version of, you know, your partner appear.
• 5:21
  John, your advice is so spot on. I did the same exact thing. So people take time to learn to love and trust yourself. Look in the mirror, love that person, get a great relationship with that person and take time.
• 5:38
  Every time I give that advice to somebody, John, they look at me like I have three freaking eyeballs. Yeah. And they're like, oh, well, I'm not dating, but they're going out on dates because they can't. Why is it so hard for people to be seriously alone and take time to know themselves?
• 5:54
  I think they're scared. You know, they're scared. They're scared of being alone. They're scared that they're getting older. They're scared they'll never find somebody like, you know, X, Y, and Z. You know, fear is one of those things that I think, you know, people have a real hard time being with. And we'll do so much to avoid being in fear and facing our fear. Which, once we do, turns out to just be usually grief.
• 6:22
  So the warrior's work, in my opinion, is to, and I just did a podcast with Connor Beaton on this, and we've talked a lot about, especially for men, the warrior's work is to face yourself, you know, like really face yourself. And this might require people to get into therapy. This might require people to join a men's group or join some other kind of, you know, build a team.
• 6:45
  The way that I've done it twice now in my life is I built a team around me to support me while I went into the underworld of my childhood wounds. Because they were significant. I grew up in an alcoholic home. You know what I mean? Dad left when I was 18 months. You know what I mean? I definitely...
• 7:05
  needed to go in there a few times throughout my life and really just make that my purpose and let go you know i would say to the people who think they're not dating right if you're still focused on creating a relationship or finding a relationship you're not in the practice the practice is to let go of the possibility of relationship completely so completely and that that is very hard
• 7:30
  Your shit's going to come up. Your sadness is going to come up. Your loneliness is going to come up. But that's what makes you a stronger, more attractive mate, you know, is that you know yourself. The way that my coach, my teacher at the time said it to me, it's like, you're going to let go of your identity so that you can find out who you truly are.
• 7:52
  And what I found out was that, you know, I can be needy. I can be afraid. I can be, you know, anxious. I can be avoidant. I can be all these things that, again, weren't my fault. I wasn't born this way, but that got installed in me when I was a kid. And the first order of business was to really learn to face my shadows, face my pain, and, you know, and really...
• 8:16
  make my relationship with myself and with whatever you want to call God, right? Whatever higher power, whatever you want to call that a primary experience. That's beautiful. I want to reiterate what you just said. Let go of your identity so you can find out who you really are. Yeah. Let go of your identity because that identity is false. I flat out, this is why I resonate with you. I used to be what everybody would call a fuck boy.
• 8:44
  Sorry for the language, guys, but that's what I did. I went, I buried my feelings in the next woman. Yeah. That sounded horrible, but literally what I did. And I was the best at it. And I just, I was like you, I said, I'm just going to go from woman to woman and have no feelings. This is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And then God said, yeah, right. Introduced me.
• 9:07
  to the one that absolutely ripped my heart and soul out. So if you try to avoid these feelings, God will come for you and say, I'm better than you than this. And you're going to have to face yourself. It's easier to just face yourself. So having said that, if my listeners are going and playing around, and I say this to the young men,
• 9:33
  My daughter is 17 years old and she talks about these young men, these 16, 17, 18 year old kids who think they're little players and they're just avoiding themselves. Will you speak to that and what it does by about voiding your feelings at that young of an age?
• 9:49
  Yeah. Wow. It's so hard, you know, for 16, 17, 18 year olds, because they're so hopped up on hormones and they're so horny and they're so, you know what I mean? Like, it's just so, you know, I want to have 50 and I'm still that way. I want to have compassion for our young brothers here, but, you know, I'm, I'm seeing usually what it means is that they haven't been fathered properly.
• 10:12
  They haven't been taught how to respect the feminine, how to revere the feminine, how to be a protector and a provider for the feminine. Instead, we're just trying to extract.
• 10:27
  Right. Like we're trying to extract in this. And so I would ask these young men, you know, even guys that are older in their 20s, like, you know, are you just a vampire? You know, because that's going to come back. You know, your example of, you know, there's going to be a woman who's going to rip your heart out and leave you sort of crushed. You know, what goes around comes around. And we can't avoid.
• 10:52
  I'm a Buddhist. I've been a Buddhist since I was a kid. So you can't avoid the karma. You're just going to create a lot of shit karma. And it's not actually going to be what I find out from most people who are fuckboys at some point. I was too at one point in my life. It's empty. It's like eating chocolate cake. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, you end up feeling more and more empty. So I would tell the young men, I would say like,
• 11:17
  really ask yourself, what's the most important thing? What kind of man do you want to grow into?
• 11:25
  Do you want to grow into a man who has integrity, who is respected, who women trust, who really good women trust, who is a pillar of the community? Or are you just like wanting to mow down as much chocolate cake as you can? And I think when I present it that way, most young men will stop and be like, no, no, no, I want to be good. I want to be as good.
• 11:50
  a nutritive source in my community, not a vampire just extracting energy from woman after woman.
• 11:58
  Now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in-store or on Lowe's.com right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's.
• 12:28
  I'm gonna be very vulnerable with you because I don't get into my, I wrote a two books, but I didn't really get, I touched the surface of how bad I was. What, like that sex and women were a drug and it was just like a drug where that you kept getting numb to it and you needed more and more and more. And then it got to the point where I was doing, where I would do two at a time.
• 12:57
  together and it still wasn't enough yeah and it's like what is wrong with me and i knew there was something wrong with me but i just didn't want to deal with it so yeah what do they say smart people learn from their mistakes wise people learn from other people's mistakes here's two gentlemen that are of an age that have been through it yeah learn from us man and
• 13:20
  I want to talk about intimacy. And I'm sure that you've heard this intimacy into me. I see. And I avoided that like the plague. Like it was, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because I was afraid to put my heart out there and have it broken. The funny thing about it is ultimately what set me down the harder than life path was somebody breaking my heart. And guess what? I lived.
• 13:48
  And I got stronger and you're batting a thousand. So having said that, what would your advice be about how to embrace true intimacy? What does it look like in a healthy relationship? Right. Well, so my definition of intimacy, I'm writing a second book and it's on relational intimacy. It's called evolutionary love.
• 14:10
  And one of the pillars, I have four pillars. The first pillars, do your own deep work, which we talked about at the beginning. The second pillar is become devotional to love over self. Third pillar is, you know, create intimacy. And then the fourth pillar is create erotic magic.
• 14:28
  If those things are in any relationship, right? Both partners are doing their own deep work. Both partners are more devotional to the field of love than to their own, getting their own way or being right or being whatever we do, right? And if both partners prioritize moments of intimacy and moments of sexual magic, the relationship flourishes, right? It's just law. So for intimacy, my definition of intimacy is the removal of space, right?
• 14:58
  So when I'm, and I can be intimate with anything. I could be into nature and be intimate with nature. I can like, so if I'm out in nature and I'm feeling the trees and I'm feeling the river and I'm feeling the sun and I'm actually removing space between me and the natural environment I'm in.
• 15:16
  If I'm intimate with myself, it means that I'm not putting my awareness on my thought loops or on some future moment or scrolling or gaming or doing anything where I'm not actually close to myself. I'm not removing the space between my awareness, my thoughts, and the essence, the true essence that I am. The way I would put it is there's a me. There's like a me that is beneath myself.
• 15:45
  my feelings, my experiences, my thoughts, that's like the true me. And the more I recognize that part of me, and those of your listeners that are meditators will know what I'm talking about,
• 15:57
  The timeless me, the infinite me, the ancient me, the closer I am to that part of me, the more intimate I am with myself. Now that you could also make a point like the closer I am to my feelings and the closer I am to my truth in a moment, right? I'm feeling sad or I'm feeling angry. You know, that's an intimacy as well.
• 16:17
  So you can be intimate with self, you can be intimate with nature, you can be intimate with a dog. You know, you can be in so, so when you're intimate with somebody, it means that the space between you is dissipating. You know, I'm human and you're human. I have a heart and you have a heart. I get afraid, you get afraid. Like I'm seeing your humanity, like the distance between us is, you know, is, is, is dissipating.
• 16:41
  And, you know, another way to think about that is, you know, I have a soul, you have a soul. And so if you were in one of my workshops, I'd put you in front of a woman and you guys would eye gaze for a few minutes and breathe together. And you'd start to feel the space between you get smaller and smaller until you felt oneness.
• 16:59
  I was just going to say oneness. Yeah. You were right out of my mouth. You were literally saying oneness. And what did I do? What does all these guys do? They keep you at arm's length because if you get close to me, you won't love me because I don't love me. And that, and what you say is,
• 17:14
  It's I'm for the people that haven't done the work. It sounds weird. Like we're on a computer. We're not in person today, unfortunately. And please make a promise that when your new book comes out, you'll come join us in Fort Lauderdale in person. And we'll do a massive fun thing when that comes out. When is it coming out?
• 17:30
  Uh, end of this year. Okay. And we're, you're in Texas, right? I'm in Austin. Yeah. I'm in Austin. Yeah. Well, please come on a tour, come visit us or we'll come to you. This is good. You make it to Austin. We'll do it too. Yeah. Either way. I feel the closest of the computer screen because of the vulnerability of you just opening straight up and me too. We're going to be lifelong friends because we were intimate together. I know it sounds weird, but it's, it's true people. And it's.
• 17:57
  It's a bonding of brotherhood and of living that I can't explain. Can you expand on that a little? It's a recognition. I think it's a recognition of self and other, right? I can see, I can listen to your experience and feel myself through your experience.
• 18:18
  And what you've gone through. I had my heart broken too recently, like a few years ago. So it was a huge gift. And when I run a men's program every year and what I see ultimately, guys are coming in because they want to improve their relationships with women or they want to learn their purpose or they want to create more structure and discipline. But what actually ends up happening is they fall in love with each other.
• 18:46
  They like literally, you know, fall in love with each other and they're there. They get to see themselves through the eyes of another. They get to meet their own goodness, their own beauty, if you want to call it, through the eyes of another man, watching them.
• 19:03
  get intimate with themselves, watching them face their own pain, watching them get really deeply rooted in their bodies. The intimacy that happens between men, which is very rare, right, is so healing and it's so nourishing that men just like a whole new part of themselves opens up.
• 19:26
  So, you know, intimacy is a practice. It is a practice. It's a practice of training my awareness and training my body to open to you, you know, to feel you, right? To feel me, to feel the moment. Like you can be intimate with a moment. You can be a good meditator will get really intimate in the pocket of a specific moment. And that's an intimacy as well.
• 19:51
  Yeah, it's odd. In your book, I read a book a week. Your book took me a little longer because it was deep and thought provoking. Thank you. And I pinned back, the one page I pinned back was about the meditation and prioritizing depth over comfort. Yeah. It says we are fed relentless cultural messaging that satisfaction is the byproduct of winning and accumulating. And it's really, what resonated with me was that
• 20:20
  The byproduct of doing so is peace, openness, and radical aliveness. And that comes from the meditation. So this, guys, get out, read this book. It is, this is a, I'm pretty sure I tagged you when I read this. I read a lot. And I just, this book, man, it just split me wide open, guys. And anybody that's been following a heart of the life or an avid listener,
• 20:46
  This was a really good page turn. I learned a lot. So thank you for putting out in the world. And I can't wait to see the next one. If you ever need a speaker or want another thing at one of these men's group, I will fly to Austin and gladly do it. Cause we, I'm sure, you know, Stephanos, right? He lives in Austin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Steph and I are in a men's group together.
• 21:05
  dear he's beautiful the the three s's that he gave me i've taken and run with it silence stillness solitude yeah yeah and i just you know men are men in particular i mean the masculine in a man or a woman but the masculine is fed by stillness silence and solitude right we get nourished our dopamine levels replenish our testosterone gets boosted in the space i think i talk about it in
• 21:34
  In the space of no demand where we can be silent, we can have solitude, we can be still. Literally, our brain chemistry, you know, resets from all the cortisol driven, you know, impulse driven, you know, producing that we do all day long. So, yeah, part of being intimate with yourself is slowing the down. I'm sorry, I'm cussing here. So it's okay. I'm a bit of potty mouth. But yeah, slowing down.
• 22:02
  And really feeling the moment, right? That's women. Women want to feel men who can feel life, right? Who can feel the moment, who can feel what's needed, who can feel what's happening, right? Not guys that are distracted and check out. Feeling is healing.
• 22:21
  I've said it a thousand times, feeling is healing. What, you talked about the pillars, the third pillar. What does it really mean to lead with love? That was your third pillar. Yeah, it was, it's really so, I'll let me expand a little bit on it. So if we're in relationship, right? Like even you and I, like there's a field of love, right? And respect and regard between us in this moment. Absolutely. There's like an energetic field between us.
• 22:51
  And if you're in a relationship, there's a field of love that surrounds the relationship or a family. Or for me, it's a workshop. Sometimes the first thing I do is set the field of love. And if there's a field of love, that field of love has the possibility for healing, for magic, for juiciness, for all of the things that make us feel beautiful and alive.
• 23:15
  So that field is almost like a third entity in any relationship. And the more that I do things that feed that field of love, the more amplified the relationship gets, the more healing the relationship gets. So for example,
• 23:31
  If I was out to dinner with my girlfriend and we were just both on our phones, just sitting next to each other. Which you see all the time. All the time, right? So it's kind of a weak field of love. And everybody around the restaurant can see it. But the moment, like let's say so I'm on my phone and she's on her phone, but we're holding hands.
• 23:50
  The field of love is kind of strengthened a little bit and people feel this stuff. And then if we put down our phones and she like feeds me a bite of food, the field of love gets amplified even more. And, you know, God forbid she like sat on my lap and fed me. The field of love would be fed even more. And so it's really quite practical that we're paying attention to the health of the field of love.
• 24:16
  at all times over our patterns, our distractions, our addictions, our fears, all of that stuff, which then just diminishes the field of love. And that's why people end up splitting up. Weak field of love. I mean, the Gottmans, if you follow the Gottmans at all, but the Gottmans talk, they don't talk about the field of love, but they talk about, you know, addressing bids for connection and praise and, you know, all of those things are things that feed the field of love. So...
• 24:46
  It that's what it means. It means to be paying attention to something, to the energetic, beautiful, energetic field, kind of like Joe Dispenza's quantum field. If you if you if you listen. Oh, you're speaking my language, my friend. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing, except it's a field of love. You said the feed the love, right? Feed it. Oh, that's beautiful. Feed. Yeah.
• 25:11
  We need to feed your fear of being, of your heartbroken. Are you going to feed the love? Whichever one you feed is going to grow. You can feed your distraction. I mean, you know, good. Another good example is like, you know, you're living with your, you know, let's say you live with your partner and you guys are both busy. Everybody's working at home or a lot of people working at home, coming and going and the kids and all that stuff.
• 25:29
  stop for a minute and just give them a kiss, like give them a real kiss that feeds the field of love. You know, these are very practical, not crazy things that we can do for each other that lead to a deeper sense of intimacy, safety, care. And, you know, we're just, we're just stingy. We're stingy and we're distracted and, you know, it shows. Let's talk, talk about that stinginess and a little bit,
• 25:57
  How many times, what would you recommend to the people? I hear this all the time in relationships. I just want them to change or I want them to be better. Everything I read is you have to love them for who they are. Yeah. So where does that fit into your expertise? Yeah, it's a dance, man. And I coach a lot of couples. It's a dance. So there should be in any healthy relationship the healthy expression of needs.
• 26:27
  Right. Like I would need you to put down your phone when we eat and pay attention to us. I would need you to and you phrase it that way. Not you need to. I would need you to, you know, for me to feel safe and alive and loved in this relationship. For example, I would need, you know, us to spend more time together. I would need us to make love more. I would need and we're being really honest and truthful about what we need.
• 26:54
  Not what they're doing, but what we need. And then we get to let our partners try to meet those needs. Now, if you're in a partnership and you've had conversations like that and your partner's not trying to meet your needs or in many instances wants to but just can't. They're too f***ed up. They're too in their own shit. They're too distracted. They're too wounded. All of those things.
• 27:19
  And they can't actually meet your needs. That's really good information for the relationship that you're in. But if you have that conversation and you're really clear, like, hey, here's what I would need to feel like I want to be with you for the rest of my life, you know, and then you have to let them know.
• 27:40
  do their thing. Then you have to be patient and kind and, and praise them when they do try to, like, when they do put their phone down, like, thank you for putting your phone down, honey. Like, I really appreciate you being present with us. It really means a lot to me.
• 27:55
  And praise, praise, praise, praise, praise. We're so focused on what's missing, so stingy about praising what's beautiful and it causes relationships to diminish, it weakens the field of love, and people don't feel safe. Rewind that, everybody, what he just said, and then I'm gonna take it a step further and that's where the cheating happens.
• 28:23
  So you ask, I need this. They don't do it. Or you don't give them enough time. Somebody else offers it. And this is where social media and the illusion of having so many options messes things up. But the reverse is true, too. When you're really healed and you say it and you put a boundary and they still don't meet it and then you enforce that boundary. Yeah.
• 28:46
  Whoa, watch them freak out on you. But it's funny because both work for you where they both work out. Everything you think you started off with, my heart was broken, but it was the best thing ever. That's what started harder than life. That's what launched this big brand is my heart being broken. So when you think, is it working out for you? It actually is. If you put a boundary and she, or he or she doesn't meet it and you have to move on, good. If you...
• 29:15
  If she does, good. Well, there's a caveat to that too, Kelly. There's a caveat, right? Let's say you say, I need these sorts of things, right? Now, of course, they're going to respond back with what they need. And so, you know, you really have to, like, you know, if you're setting in your mind a time, like, okay, let's try for six months to meet each other's needs. Then you really have to try. You really have to. And I think what this is one of the things I see people really stumble in.
• 29:45
  They'll say their needs aren't being met, their needs aren't being met, but are they really meeting the needs of their partner? Are they really showing up with love? Are they really showing up with patience and compassion? Are they really seeing what's beautiful in their partner versus what's not? Are they really taking the time to take care of their partner's nervous system? Yeah, somebody's got to go first.
• 30:06
  Yeah. And so I can't leave you because you're not meeting my needs if I'm not really at a level eight, nine or ten telling you and telling if I can't look at you and say, I gave you my very best shot at meeting your needs. Yeah.
• 30:21
  That's a hard one because I've been in that dance before where I'll say what I need. I'm very good at communicating. I've been studied it. And then you're right. She will immediately say, well, I need this. And then I don't feel seen and heard. And then I say, wait a minute. This was about me. Right. Well, you could maybe set it up. The way that I did it with my partner last year was that we took two different nights.
• 30:51
  The first night was just me hearing her needs, me reflecting back like, OK, so if I'm hearing you right, like here's what you need for me. Right. Here's what you need for me. And then me saying what I was willing to do and what I wasn't. And in most of them, I was like, of course, that sounds totally fine. And then, OK, here's maybe some negotiation. Right. And but we come. She stated all of her needs. I told her what I was available to try to do.
• 31:17
  And then the next, and then, you know, we bowed and said goodbye for the night. And then the next night we did the same thing for my needs. So that way, you know, you can write them down, you can keep them with you. You know, if you're really devoted to love, if you're really devoted to love, then you'll write your partner's needs down and you'll check yourself every few days. Like, hey, when was the last time I gave her physical affection?
• 31:44
  Or when was the last time I really, you know, like filled his body with energy and love? When was the last time that I did something really nice for them without them asking? You know, and you can track yourself. Because I think people stay, Kelly, in relationships as much because they know they haven't given it all. You know what I mean? As much as they aren't getting their needs met, right? So if I can't leave you,
• 32:13
  there's some part of me that thinks I haven't really tried. I haven't really shown up in a very deep potent way. What I love what you said is you're backing up the talk with action in that you said Vita very early when we were talking about the 16, 17, 18 year old boy or man and saying, are you really trying
• 32:36
  And that's showing you took two days out in yours and guys, that's what doing the work looks like. If you were trying to make money and you did it once and
• 32:46
  You're not going to make money. So really look in the mirror. And if you were to write down all the things that you were doing, did you really put forth the effort that that love deserves or that you want? If your end goal is to become, have a man or be a man that everybody envies and looks up to and says, that is what a man looks like. And to live a life with a significant other, then you have to put in the time. You owe you, you owe it to yourself. And it requires two days at minimum of,
• 33:16
  of devotion. I have a love journal. Oh, that we, that we're literally my girlfriend and I, we, we went over and over new year's and then we're going to Costa Rica in a week and we're going to finish it all. And it's all of our plans. Yeah.
• 33:29
  Yeah, great. Desires, actually. Yeah, like having a journal of desires, like all the things that she would want to do with you and you would want to do with her. And then you guys just have that as your Bible. Yeah, I think that what's happening in relationship now is people are realizing –
• 33:48
  that the next one isn't necessarily going to fix it. Nope. And, you know, for most of your listeners probably know this, that, yeah, success is great. Money is great. Living in your purpose is great. But I coach so many very successful men who have, you know, who never have to work again, right? And they feel miserable. They put so much time and attention into that
• 34:14
  And they put no time and attention into being a deep lover, in being a deep, a generous partner. And most studies will tell you what makes you live longer, have a higher quality of life, feel better about yourself, is the quality of your love relationships. Not just romantic, but friends and family and community and all that.
• 34:37
  We don't put the same effort. I mean, they are now. That's why my workshops are sold out. We don't put the same effort into learning how to be good, how to love well as we do into learning how to make money. And people will suffer. They do suffer. I see it every day.
• 34:56
  that's why that's why divorce rate is so high. That's why cheating is rampant. But the, I would say this money won't make you happy, but happiness will make you money. And what'll make you happy is loving yourself. Like your life depends on it. Cause it does. And everything you're saying is beautiful. I've been wrestling with something, John, and I want to get your opinion on this. I believe that
• 35:20
  this is more of a woman thing, but I believe women that use heavy filters and augment themselves on social media. Wow. Are, are, are the thing you could do, but I guess, I just learned it the other day. My girlfriend told me I, she goes, look at her arm.
• 35:40
  Where her arm was, you could see that there's apps that will thin you out, make your bigger. Obviously, you've seen the face filters. I've been wrestling with doing a solo episode talking about how if you're doing that, there is something...
• 36:02
  And your core that needs to be addressed and just seen and heard because, honey, you're not going to make – you don't love yourself, so you're not going to be able to love somebody else. But yet those are the ones out there. It's not the real you. Serial dating. Yeah, it's not the real you. And so, you know, basically what the message you're sending to the universe, you're sending to life, is that the real me is not lovable. Oh.
• 36:30
  The real me is not attractive. The real me is not, you know, is not good enough. And so I need to use all these filters and apps because the real me is not enough. And that signal is going out into the universe, right? And who do you think you're going to attract? Right.
• 36:49
  What do you think you're going to attract? People who are shallow. People who like someone who's, you know, reaching out to you on Instagram because they like the way your looked, right? They're shallow. You're not going to find anybody with depth. You're not going to find anybody that has a real heart. Right.
• 37:06
  You're going to find somebody who just wants to have sex with you or, you know, I'm talking about women mainly, but men do it too. You know, you said it's just, it's, I want to say it's all, it's, it's self-love gets thrown around, but you're right. Self-love.
• 37:20
  but it's really self acceptance, right? It's self. Um, it's, it's the way that one of my teachers talks about it. He's like to recognize the beauty of your own life and to see your own goodness and beauty. And for people who need to put filters on, they obviously aren't in touch with their own beauty. And so they think they have to augment it.
• 37:42
  It's sad. It is sad. Yeah. It's so sad. And if I could fix one thing besides everybody has to tell the truth, that would be it. Just getting everybody to love them. Because a lot of these women are beautiful and they just don't think so. And the sad part is some of them that aren't and they do that. And it's like, we're going to see you in real life. The dude that you're going to ask out or is going to ask, I'm going to see you.
• 38:06
  That's like false advertisement, but that's the story. Well, it's a lie. You're basically lying. So what you're going to attract from that. I mean, we have to get one of the hard truths that people don't like to admit is that whatever we put out is going to come back. We're going to magnetize from...
• 38:24
  So if we're showing ourselves, we're showing an untrue version of ourselves, whether it's about how much money I make, or how I look, or how happy I am, which is another way that people lie, right? Like people will lie on social media about how happy they are, right? Just presenting the beauty of their life.
• 38:42
  and not really talking about like, you know, the shit that they go through that we all go through. Right. And if you are living that kind of projecting that kind of lie onto the world, you're not going to get beauty back. So you're going to get other liars back. You're going to get other liars. This is one of my most favorite. I don't say this is my most favorite podcast. You are dropping. Cause I've been there and you're making my heart sink because I want everybody to find the love that they, that,
• 39:12
  everybody should be able to have, I was going to say deserve, but there's no deserves. You have to earn it. So let's get into this masculine feminine, feminine stuff, because it was all over your book. And what's the biggest misunderstanding men have about masculine energy? That's a good question. Um,
• 39:33
  The biggest misunderstanding that I see now is that they think aggressiveness or warriering up or pounding their chest or primal screaming is essential masculine energy, right? Being dominant. And look, that is one part of a healthy masculine palate, let's call it, right? That's one part. But like I say in my book, masculinity is the transmission of depth and
• 40:00
  Consciousness, grounded aliveness. And the more that I'm transmitting my fullness of self, my connection to consciousness, my grounded depth, the more masculine I appear, the less flappable I am. I'm not pounding my chest. I'm not, you know, I'm not warrioring up. Although there's definitely a time and place for that. But that's not the foundation. That's not the trunk of the tree.
• 40:30
  The trunk of the tree is my grounded depth and my connection to something greater than my thoughts and my experience. Asculinity. As one of my teachers, a man named David Data wrote The Way of the Superior Man, who's my teacher for 18 years. He's talked about it a lot as if we look at the universe as basically emptiness, stillness, emptiness, consciousness, and energy.
• 40:57
  Everything is made up of emptiness and energy down to the smallest particle, space, planets, this chair, right? Everything is made up of emptiness and energy. The more relating we are with the energy of being alive, you know what I mean? Like just the more energy, you know, the more we're in our feminine.
• 41:18
  And the more we're relating to what's still, what's deep, what's grounded, what's heavy, what's infinite, we're relating to our masculine. And we all have both. Men and women have both. That's another big, big, big misconception. Women, men are trying to cultivate their capacity to feel, their capacity to express. Those are all feminine attributes and they're all beautiful. Women are trying to cultivate their capacity to ground, their capacity to be still, their capacity to...
• 41:48
  feel consciousness. Those are all beautiful masculine attributes. And ultimately what I'm seeing Kelly, just to provide a little hope here, what I'm seeing is that more and more people are wanting to be whole humans, you know, with a fully fleshed out masculine capacity and a fully fleshed out feminine capacity so that we are whole. We're not stereotypes of masculinity or femininity. We're, we're whole complete human beings.
• 42:16
  Coming back to that oneness again, John, it's beautiful. And I'll give a, for me personally, when I'm in my masculine, I'm comfortable and calm and I provide peace and stability and I create that safe space for my girlfriend to be whatever she wants to be. And that's the kind of intimacy that I never thought was possible until I did it.
• 42:44
  Yeah. And it has when a man is in his masculine in the way that you described and I described. When he's in his masculine, when she can feel his inner stillness, when she can feel his grounded depth, her nervous system automatically downregulates.
• 43:02
  Her nervous system automatically softens and she begins to feel safe in the space because she can feel that he has, he's got it. His awareness is online, his stillness, his calmness, his equanimity is online and I can relax and let him hold it. And then the conversation that flows after that guys is mind blowing. There's nothing that I don't know about myself.
• 43:30
  my significant other is nothing that she doesn't know about me because we created that safety. And it's, it just brings that, and it takes that intimacy and it closes that space that you call it. There's, there's no space between us. Now, do we get mad at each other? Yeah. Do we need a minute away? Yeah. Do we still fight? Of course. But.
• 43:50
  you have that core, everything's going back to your core. Again, get out, read this book is from the core. So good is what brought us together. Doing this work really does work. And let's talk about what makes sex sacred. We talked about being an F boy, but what makes it sacred? It's a great question. So what makes sex sacred is the recognition of the divine.
• 44:20
  Right. Which you could call love, which you could call, you know, soul recognition. Everybody's kind of got their own.
• 44:28
  But I'm not just making love to your body. It's not this two bodies, right? So it's I'm feeling your emotional, I'm feeling your physical body, your emotional body, your spiritual body, your energetic body. Like I'm feeling every inch of you and every ounce of your energy. And I'm feeling how...
• 44:53
  for lack of a better term, God or goddess is expressing through you. And so when we get that, when we make, I mean, a tip, a pro tip, I'll just, I'll give you guys here. Thank you. Is next time you're making love, like really look into the eyes of your partner
• 45:11
  And feel how deep they go while you're feeling the pleasure of making love to them. I just see past, you know, don't just look at their, you know, breasts. Like look into her eyes and really feel into the deepest part of her heart. And you've immediately deepened the moment. The way to deepen a moment is to place your awareness on something deeper.
• 45:35
  Not her breasts, but the deep part of her heart. Of course, you can feel her breasts and great, who, you know, feel her body, feel his body, right? But if you're looking into the deepest part of her, the deepest part of him, you're already gesturing towards a sacred experience.
• 45:53
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• 46:23
  I can imagine people are driving listening to this right now going, these two have lost their mind. And I'm going to tell you, I was there. This was before I started doing the work. I was at these two woo-woos are crazy. And what I'm going to say to you is, first of all, follow John. All of it will be in the show notes. Second of all, email me directly and I will help you. I will give you resources. I will point you in the right direction. But if you're sitting there going, these guys are off their rocker, we need to help you.
• 46:53
  And I want to help you. And email me, kelly at heartandlife.com. And I will point you to either Stephanos or some group that's open. I don't do any of that stuff. But I'm fascinated because I believe that everybody –
• 47:06
  Everybody needs love. I grew up without love. I had to beg, borrow, cheat, and steal to try to get it. And now I get it unconditionally. And it's freaking beautiful. And I want it for all of you guys. So we've got a couple more questions. And then we're going to do a rapid fire to have some fun. What do women secretly crave from their partners that most men don't realize? Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 47:34
  I think we've touched on it, but it's really, it's really your stillness. And when I say stillness, I'm not just talking about like, you know, standing in the middle of the room still or sitting on the couch, super still. What she's craving is to feel the part of you internally that's still, that's not jumping around. That's not super distracted, but that's really just like in the moment. And,
• 47:59
  I just did this thing with Connor, Connor Beaton, who's also fantastic, man talks. And we talked about how emotional, is that what was the term we used? Emotional mastery, right? To be, so your stillness and your emotional mastery, meaning you are in charge of your own emotions.
• 48:18
  You know how to communicate your needs without blowing up. You know how to like, you know, state a boundary without, you know, chopping her head off. You know how to. So emotional mastery and, you know, and grounded stillness and depth.
• 48:34
  Those things are, I wrote about it in the book, those are currencies. They're currencies, just like providership and protectorship and all those things are currencies as well. And what most men don't realize is that those things are now as important because women can make their own money. Women can create their own careers. They don't need you to provide for them necessarily, but your grounded depth and your, like the stillness of your heart and of your mind
• 49:03
  is will put them into a state of sort of blissful relaxation that most men just do not practice and do not understand. And I'll give you my interpretation of that at a gateway and just the gateway of that.
• 49:17
  gateway to end a portal to that is just listening without trying to solve anything and then you could that is the first step in stillness just listen we're men we're solvers yeah we want it god gave you one mouth and two ears and two eyes to use in that ratio one mouth
• 49:37
  And I don't know how many times I catch myself. I have a daughter and I have a girlfriend. I am bombarded with two girls. And I just literally have to catch myself before I go into full fix it mode. And I say, do you want, am I just supposed to listen or do you want answers? You can get, you can ask her a question and let her answer. Yeah. 75% of the time they go, dad, I'm just venting or honey, I'm just venting.
• 50:02
  Yeah. And it is so hard, but it's, I'm telling you, pro tip, do it, guys. What's your vision for where this work is headed in the next 10 years? Okay. I have sort of two legacy projects that I've built over the last 10 years.
• 50:20
  The first is the men's work that I do every year. I do a six-month program. I take the men out to the desert. We go to Mount Shasta. We go off-grid just outside of Death Valley, and we do a lot of deep work together. And from that work over the last 10 years, teachers of men's work have kind of sprung up. And the guys have started men's groups together, and they've started their own men's programs, and they've become teachers and leaders in their community.
• 50:49
  And so it's been this really beautiful, organic sprouting of men's work, including men's groups out into the world. And so my vision is to, and I think I wrote in the book, one of my impossible goals is to create 10,000 men's groups. Well, you know, maybe at 100 or somewhere over 100.
• 51:07
  But, you know, that's going to go exponential at some point because those things are just going to keep rippling out. My students have been teaching. And so one of my legacy projects is to really create a solid foundation for men's groups and men's work into the world. And I think it's happening. It's happening. It's speeding up. It's getting more traction. You can just see it. It's become an industry. It's become an industry. I would have never thought 30 years ago that teaching men's work would be an industry. And it's become an industry. So that's the first one.
• 51:37
  The second one is I have a teacher training program, a year long teacher training program, where I teach people the yogic and relational and emotional skills for very deep intimacy. And the same thing is happening. Teachers are now starting to like, I've been doing this for seven years in that program. And so the first wave of really good teachers are starting to go into the world, start their own stuff.
• 52:00
  And so I really see my vision is to is to really create amazing teachers of this work and practitioners of this work so that it just ripples out into the world. Are you working with Chris Williamson, who's also in Austin? You know, I haven't actually Connor Connor's making an introduction between us, but no, I haven't worked with Chris.
• 52:21
  So he said something the other day that really resonated with me where I thought you would go with that. And those are two beautiful things. I think the third thing where I was kind of looking at this, I see men, and this is probably happening in your groups, talking more openly and acknowledging their feelings. I did it yesterday, and I'm not kidding you.
• 52:44
  I was always taught, there was nobody around for me to vent to. So I woke up yesterday and I got some crazy stuff going on in AI and my cybersecurity company. And I just woke up anxious. And I just, I had myself like on the verge of a panic attack and I go, it's stress. And I, soon as I just allowed myself to say stress, I'm,
• 53:07
  everything dissipated. And then I called my girlfriend and I just said, hey, I don't need you to do anything. I'm just saying this again, because it just, I'm stressed today. And usually I go into total, like, I'm stressed, but it's good stress, and I had to justify it. And if I just named it, it fricking dissipated. And just before we got out, I said to Steven, I said, Steven, we're so busy in every aspect of my life. I need a little bit more help from some people, and I gotta delegate better.
• 53:37
  And so just naming it and being okay as brothers and arms and saying, man, I'm feeling instead of us calling each other bitches, just saying I'm feeling the feelings today, man. And.
• 53:52
  putting your arm around you and going, I got you. It's all, I'm seeing more of that. That's where I think. Yeah, well, to me, that's what happens as the result of men doing the work. You know what I mean? Like that's the byproduct of there, you know, there needs to be spaces, right?
• 54:07
  And, you know, where men, especially specifically, but women too, can really feel safe to express their truth and feel that they can express their truth without being judged or needing to be fixed. And so for me, all of these spaces, the spaces that I create, the spaces some of my students are creating, they're all spaces where people can learn how to do what you just described.
• 54:29
  That's beautiful. You're just a beautiful human being. I'm so grateful that you came on and thank you for doing this. I'm going to end it before we go on the rapid fire with a question about your daughter.
• 54:40
  Yeah. How do you hope your daughter remembers your teachings? Because I just told you, I have a 17 year old daughter. Really? Truthfully. I thought that was the, that was my punishment for being an idiot. They gave me a daughter and now she's 17 and she's dating. And I've been doing this work for seven plus years. And now she sent me a meme that said,
• 55:02
  I have reverse daddy issues. I grew up thinking all men were good. And so I would say to you, how do you hope your daughter remembers your teachings? Yeah. Well, it's, you know, when my, there's a little backstory here. So I started doing this work in 2008 by 2010, I was so inspired. I wanted to kind of start doing men's groups and workshops and
• 55:27
  But my daughter had special needs. She was terminally ill. And so the guys in my men's group said, no, no, no, you're not gonna travel anywhere. Your work is to be available for your daughter at all times.
• 55:42
  And so I built my life around. I mean, I still ran a men's group once a month in Santa Monica and I still like, you know, did my training. But I but my life was built around taking care of Claire until she was 18. So she and then once I once she got to be 18.
• 56:01
  she started to actually travel with me. I took her to Europe and she would like video some of my workshop stuff. And her and I, she loved my work. What I hope she remembers, and I know she does, is that I was a champion of love.
• 56:15
  that I was, you know, men loving each other, men and women loving each other, and that I was on the front lines of really trying to teach people how to love more deeply, more artfully, more fully, more completely. And I know, I know, I know she loved it. I know she loved it. Yeah.
• 56:35
  you're amazing thank you that's just she was amazing too she was amazing too she was yeah sorry yeah all right rapid fire my friend see her picture back there that's her picture back there yep that over there that's her picture there claire and those are her ashes and so she's she's watching over us now i know i i i've
• 56:59
  I'm just going to leave it at that. That's just beautiful. One word to one sentence answer on these, my friend, and then we'll get you out of here. So one practice that saved your relationship. Pause. Biggest lie men are told about sex. Harder is better. What? Sorry. What emotion do men fear the most and why?
• 57:31
  I would say fear because it makes them feel powerless. Most underrated intimacy tool? Connected breathing. Ooh, I like that. If presence had a sound, what would it be? That was good. For those of you who didn't hear, he just exhaled. That's beautiful. A moment...
• 58:01
  where you lost polarity and how you got it back. Oh, there have been many moments. I, yeah. Okay, it's gonna take more than one sentence, but I- Okay. I had to learn how to raise a daughter with deep health issues and still go home and take care of my partner.
• 58:27
  And so I had to do a tremendous amount of work to go from the fear and heartbreak of the hospital to come home and love my woman well. And the way that I did that was I really learned to compartmentalize that fear and open my heart and love what was in front of me. So when I was in the hospital, I would love what was there. And when I got home, I would love what was there. And I tried not to let the two go.
• 58:54
  You know, I kept them compartmentalized enough. Yeah. God, this is so good. My favorite podcast. One phrase you use when you're ready to lead from the heart. Feel the weight and the texture of your own heart right now. Yeah.
• 59:16
  Like literally feel your own heart and then move forward or say what you want to say or do what you're going to do, but feel the heart first, literally feel the weight of it, feel the density of it, and then move forward. Have you ever seen me walking around tapping my heart?
• 59:35
  that's when I'm trying to activate it and re and bring myself back to oneness. So it, and then something's heavy and I just start going like this and it just, it's got so much power, Kelly, the heart literally has so much, has the most power of any organ in our body. So electrical power, the heart, it tapping into the heart creates so much more power and potency for anybody. It's incredibly underrated.
• 1:00:01
  We just scratched the surface of today. That hour went by just like that. I'm not even gonna have to tell people to share this one. This is an instant classic. And I thank you so, so much. But I'm gonna wrap this thing up with saying that John Wineland doesn't just teach intimacy. He lives it, as you can see.
• 1:00:19
  His work is a call to presence, a change to love more deeply, and an invitation to lead from truth, not that fear. If you felt something awakening you during this conversation, follow John. Read his book from the core and start practicing today. Because sacred intimacy isn't luck, it's devotion. Until next week, be hearted in life.
• 1:00:43
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.