we need to know what we’re crying for what am I actually seeking what you know there’s a beauty in just liberating our cry but when it comes to relational intimacy it’s like is there’s there’s a bigger question to ask I guess in the self of just like what am I needing right now what do I what do I need in this cry what do I need in this offering am I needing his you know am I just feeling desperate for his attention and just to feel loved or do I really want to feel met do I really want him to come into my heart welcome to the embodied relationship Experience Podcast my name is John weinland I’m your host and I’m here today with Nina Lombardo the creator of way of devotion and a woman I’ve known for I don’t know what is it 10 years now8 n yeah yeah it’s time has flown and we we sort of grew up in this uh space surrounding David data’s work and David data’s teachings and spent a lot of time you know sort of learning and growing and then becoming teachers in our own right and she you know called me a few or connected with me a few weeks ago and said I’m coming to Austin and I was like yeah let’s let’s do this because I think there’s so much to get into in the space and I know there’s a lot of questions that have come from you guys about wanting to dive deeper into the you know space of polarity what that means what that even [ __ ] means and uh Nina is the perfect person to do that with so thank you for being here Nina I really really love and appreciate your work and and how you’ve developed and what you offer you’re the one of the few women that I send women to thank you I appreciate that yeah because I I I really appreciate the way that you are living in the work in your relationship in your life in your your daily life it’s just like there’s a lot of people who will teach feminine embodiment and teach sexual polarity but you’re not quite sure if they’re actually living it in their lives and that’s one of the things that I’ve always really appreciated about you yeah thank you yeah you’re welcome so we have a list of questions um you know you suggested and I thought it was a great suggestion to get a list of questions from men specifically to ask you know someone who works with women very closely and this woman herself um so what is we have some questions from men and then I I also have some questions that I I was thinking about and I think we’ll just kind of Bounce these questions off and then if we need to take a left turn or a right turn we’ll follow the flow perfect cool M yeah I think maybe just starting with a couple clarifications of definition right like a lot of people a lot of these terms get thrown around in our space you know sexual polarity uh devotion uh embodiment right and I keep forgetting that a lot of normal people you know not weirdos like us don’t know exactly what those things mean so it’s always nice I think to stop and go all right what do these things mean and and not that you and I have the you know dictionary definition or the you know the only definition but I think it would be a nice way to start so I would I would ask you what what do you consider Devotion to be in short I believe devotion is orienting to something greater than yourself and pouring your love your energy your attention towards that thing and so it doesn’t necessarily have to be something spiritual obviously when we think of the word devotion a lot of people think of God Devotion to God but motherhood is another big one devoted to Parenting devoted to your children devoted to your work devoted to your art devoted to your project whatever it is that you are orienting your life around orienting your attention your energy and your love around yeah so I think I think if we were going to you know take that and run with a little bit we could say that what you’re spending your time and attention focusing on is what you’re devoting yourself to yeah pour what you’re pouring your energy yeah right right okay great so and what I find is that so many of us right will will go through the days and our devotion has moved from something Divine or greater than ourselves to something you know within ourselves a set of thoughts or some habit or pattern and and so I think a really cool way to to work with devotion is to look at where are you putting your time and attention and is it what you want to be devoted to right and since you’ve created this space You Know the Way of devotion you teach workshops you make content how do you try to help people reorient themselves from that which they’ve habitually devoted devoted themselves to whether it’s money or you know physical fitness or I don’t know Doom scrolling you know whatever we spend our time doing to something that’s more fulfilling something that’s more expansive mhm well I work with a lot of women and a lot of women without realizing it are probably more devoted to getting love than to being love oh what a great Point yeah and experiencing love and living as love so that’s one of the biggest shifts that I take women into is where is your attention are you focusing on what you can get from your part how pretty you look or what you need from him or are you focusing on your own bodily experience and the fullness within you and offering that freely through your body and heart yeah yeah that’s a that’s a a great distinction yeah and and a question I think that people can you know men too can just ask themselves throughout the day as they’re sort of you know try to orient and navigate the world or their relationships is like am I trying to am I trying to get something am I trying to give something something or am I being the embodied expression of right which I think brings us to this topic of the three stages of David data’s three stages which is you know this foundational piece that you your work and my work it kind of revolves around and it’s so it’s another piece that I think has been I don’t know misinterpreted or you know as David’s work has been disseminated over the years there’s been misinterpretations there’s been you know these kind of cherry picking of certain Concepts without real context and so starting with the you know what are the three stages I like to think about them in in terms of there’s three stages of relating but there’s also three T three stages of expression right but I’m curious how you would Divine David’s three stages sure it’s a huge topic is a huge topic yeah there’s a lot of different angles to explore it from and I like to focus first on the the personal angle rather than the relation angle of growing through the three stages on our own as AO practitioner and one thing about them is that they are not necessarily linear that’s really important to remember because people are like I want to get to the third stage and stay there as if it’s this permanent thing good luck um so they’re simultaneously evolutionary we can evolve and grow through the stages over time and we naturally do if we’re focused on on growing but they also happen moment to moment moment and the three stages exist within us simultaneously and in any moment we can Orient our attention to the first stage which is the domain of the personal survival what do I need I need food I need sleep I need comfort I need safety so when our attention is focused on those things that’s we’re in a first stage state of awareness and granted a lot of the time throughout the day we need to be in in the first stage when we’re hungry yeah um so we need to build upon them right so it’s hard to move to the second stage for example if our first stage needs aren’t met yeah right yeah the first stage like I mentioned is the stage of the personal our survival needs our basic needs the second stage moves into a little bit more development of of the soul of the spirit of the psyche and becoming more whole unto ourself right so we start to look at our triggers our patterns our wounds that all kind of fester in that first stage place and we start to uh decondition ourselves from some of those patterns because the first stage is a stage of our patterns and conditioning and all of that so we grow into the second stage when we start wanting to work on that like oh I don’t want to be run by the patterns of my parents or the cultural patterns I really want to find out who I am and grow into my own sovereignty it’s a human being and liberate myself from some of these confines of of the first stage yeah so you start growing into the second stage when you start doing that work and then the leap from the second to the third stage is where I work with a lot of people and and so I’ll work with women who are in the second stage like I feel whole un myself I’m I’m good I don’t really need anyone or anything I could be alone for long periods of time but I I want something more I want to be filled by life I want to feel Aros I want to feel [ __ ] I want to feel permeated how do I get to that NE next level of communion and that’s where we start doing the third stage work was which is really about embodying love and and offering love and that domain of other woow woo words that also probably need some definition yeah for sure for sure and you know what I’ve found personally this is you my personal experience and what I’ve seen teaching people this is that I see a lot of people who think that they’ve done their second stage work like oh you I’ve done that I’ve gone to therapy for years and I’m happy being alone but what I found is that we really don’t know if we’ve done that until we’re in the relational field right because you know because that’s where the triggers that lead to the patterns of relating that were imprinted Upon Us by our loving parents thank you Mom thank you Dad that’s where we can really you know get to see so I just want to maybe fluff this out a little bit about what how you see people moving from you know second stage experience um or second stage let’s call it Spiritual Development emotional development um into third stage how do they get there I suppose is the is the question that I would how do they get there that is the money question right how how do you get from like I’m I’m in my pattern I see I’m in my pattern I’m actually working on my pattern but my pattern is still kind of in charge most days or maybe it’s 60% of the time um it’s it loosens slowly David used to talk about this all the time it takes years for the therapeutic wounds to unwind and yet if we try to practice in the third stage the yogic stage the art stage right the Divine stage we’re still we still have to come and deal with these things absolutely and and so yeah maybe you could talk a little bit about H how that movement in and out of second thir stage and back down to first and then into third Works in in your experience yeah I’ll try and I think talking about the third stage is best approached in through a more poetic lens because it’s kind of hard to get to directly and that kind of gives you some information about uh what we’re talking about here but I like to use the example of of making art I play music so music is usually my portal to describing how to achieve or get to that place so when you’re learning a new instrument one that you’ve never played before say you’re learning how to play piano you’re going to sit at the piano and you’re not going to know what to do because all your first you have all these old patterns where your fingers don’t even know how to move that certain way right so there’s a period let’s call it the second stage work where you’re just going to the piano and practicing your scales every day so that your fingers can play fluidly so you’re breaking the patterns of your habits that have uh been developed and you’re just learning how to play in this structure freely and once you get that down then you can start bringing some more poetry into it some more feeling into it you can play that chord progression not so monotonously like you’re practicing scales but you can bring your emotion through you can bring your love through it and you can start to flow and improvise and jam with it and most musicians know that at some point when you’re and you just reach this state of you totally get out of your mind you’re not thinking about what you’re doing because the structure is so there you you kind of have the foundations down that where you don’t have to think about the process so much anymore and you could just make art you could just give your love through your fingers and granted you don’t have to be a master to give love through your fingers or whatever instrument you’re using your body your voice thank God yeah you don’t have to be a master but the field and the domain we work in is how can we become more masterful right how can we bring more love and more poetry through this of course anyone could play two notes on the piano and play it with all the feeling in the world whether they have training or not and they could give all their love through it and I encourage everyone to do that and I encourage us to keep practicing to keep that Foundation strong so our vessel becomes more uh liberated to give wider and Fuller expressions of Love yeah through the body yeah yeah and and I’m curious how you would relate that to the Practical day-to-day living of relationship yeah living with somebody and you know what what would be the scales that that somebody would be practicing in the second stage that would then allow you know that their devotion and their art to come through their bodies more question being really clear with your needs both in yourself and in the relationship so communication is a big part of the second stage identifying what do I need in this relationship what am I wanting what’s not working and learning how to identify that in your own body and and communicate that with your partner is one of those foundations that will allow the flow of love to become a lot easier because the third stage in Intimate relationship so I’ve been talking a lot about the personal process but an intimate relationship it’s really just two people doing that together improvising jamming loving together and and it really is a state of no thought it’s just a state of love loving completely so anything that’s preventing us from totally opening as love in the moment we have to go back and work add yeah yeah that’s an ongoing process yeah I like to think about these this as sort of foundational pieces right like so if we’re thinking that the third stage is sort of a sacred Temple and the second stage is the the the foundation on which in the first stage too those are the found foundations upon which the temple can be built and so if there isn’t for example if you’re not able to take care of your own needs or identify your own needs or communicate your own needs or be able to hear their needs without collapsing right which is another you know practice in and of itself then the the foundation is weak and cracked and the work in the temple is is built on you know sand right or cracked pillars or whatever you know metaphor you want to use but if we’re moving into this space of trying to artfully take care of our own needs right which I think is what you’re talking about the first stages right artfully identify and be clear on what our own needs are and then learn to communicate them to our partner then we are sort of in the scales version we’re in that sort of learning version of the instrument of love that we’re trying to play together right I I think this is important cuz so many people miss this they just want to jump into the juicy you know masculine feminine practices you know get [ __ ] to God and open to God and and who doesn’t who doesn’t but what I see in people and what I’ve experienced in my own relating you know I I I went through this period recently where I I had to realize like wow there’s so much in my personal development that I never attended to you know and even though I I was really good at the you know at you know art Mak I could make art I just couldn’t you know I couldn’t live in the mundane with that art right because because of childhood wounds and patterns that I’d never fully transmuted and so and lo and behold I start to see it everywhere in my community I’m imagining you see it in your community too and I appreciate staying here a little bit because these are the questions I get all the time about like how do I stay open you know how do I bring my fears or my resent or my pain or my wound into Artful practice that’s the question I get you know in a relational moment where it could go south really fast right right or it could like bring us both closer to the Divine really fast and how do I address that moment I’d love to hear what you think works well don’t suppress it I think that’s what often happens when people are trying to get to the third stage they’ll feel something that doesn’t feel third stage and then they’ll suppress it and do some right so even if you graze over it for a moment take that deep breath and you’re like I’m feeling really cleansed right now I want to love you but I’m all I’m noticing all this stuff coming up right that would be a second stage way to communicate and sometimes just receiving the validation or the I see you from your partner can just be like oh relax you enough or like okay I don’t I don’t I don’t need that anymore now I can just relax and love you yeah I just love the way you put that you know I’m feeling very clenched right now and I want to love you you MH I mean it’s such a simple thing to say yeah such a simple thing to say and and yet so many moments you know so many moments that you know kind of explode into you know the power struggle yeah miss that right so that’s isn’t that the foundation of everything we all just want to love and be loved so we can just remember that yeah yeah yeah so that would be that would be something I just want to bookmark for the people you know at home that that’s a scale being able to identify oh my body is clenching my heart’s clenching my butt’s clenching you know what I mean whatever’s clenching and but I want to be more open in love with you and I’m not quite sure how to get there yeah yeah so simple it’s so simple and so overlooked yeah right right and not easy because when all of that is occurring it’s some it’s sometimes hard to name yeah right it’s hard to name and we go into the state and and we get confused so really taking that gentleness and slow approach with yourself to really meet what is arising is essential yeah yeah and and without you know without giving the first stage short shrift here if we could just back up a little bit it would be great to discern and and and because you know there’s a there are you know let’s call it light and dark first stage moments right where you know we’re super selfish or we’re super rageful or we’re super whatever in in pattern so much but then there’s these healthy first stage moments that you talked about where you’re identifying your needs and and I wonder if you could speak a little more about how you see people you know just navigating that that first stage of really identifying I this is kind of I’m kind of nerding out here a little bit but feels like both first and second stage where you’re identifying your wounds like most people you know including myself in this like it took me a long time to just really get like oh this is what happens to my nervous system when a woman gets angry and withdraws okay where where where did that come from right yeah where did that come from and so how do you suggest people like really get masterful in understanding what their needs are or what their what their wounds are and where they need to work so that when they go to make art it’s coming out in the well simply becoming aware of your wounds moves you from the first stage to the second stage okay that’s yeah that’s good to know in my so when you’re in the first stage you’re not aware of your wound you’re living the wound you’re in the wound you are the wound but as soon as there’s that little voice inside of you and we all have it it pops in maybe even for a flashback and like why do I feel this way or what’s going on that’s your second stage voice like urging you to to grow through that experience to relax through that experience but the patterns are so strong some of them they’re so intense that that voice could only peek in for just a minute before we like shut shut shut the [ __ ] up I don’t want to hear I don’t want to hear from you sometimes it’s so hard myself still all the time I’ll be in a pattern that I I don’t like but a part of me does like it a part of me does like and I don’t want to take that deeper breath I like being there right I want to be self-righteous yeah so we’re playing with this tension where part of us really likes to be in the pattern in the wound there’s a comfort there there’s a security there and then there’s a part of us that obviously doesn’t want to be there because it’s not supporting or serving the lives and relationships that we want to live so we have to be motivated by that like is this living in this pattern living in this wound producing the results that I want yeah right yeah I’ve really been trying to play with this myself which is which is to just name the pattern without it being a problem yeah right like oh I am so in my pattern right now and and you know okay yeah okay yeah you know it doesn’t have to change neily and and the beautiful thing that I I love and I teach this a lot is that moving into the third stage doesn’t mean the first stage pattern is going to disappear it might still be there you’re just not entrenched in it anymore you’re not trapped by it anymore you can give love and feel nervous as [ __ ] you can give love and also feel some of those things still there but you just start to free yourself from them so they’re not running the show yeah anymore yeah you know our mutual friend Eli Beren gives this this um example of these big beautiful trees that have huge knots in them right and that those knots are part of the beauty of the tree you know and so you know whatever our you know first stage wounds or patterns are they might always be a knot that we just have to kind of grow around I love that yeah yeah yeah and I also I also really love the image of are you familiar with kugi M the Japanese um basically the idea is that something that breaks it’s an art to put it back together right in a really beautiful way that is often more beautiful than the original yeah because of its flaws and I think that that’s a nice way that I like to look at you know bringing our first stag our our our young one our reactive one our collapsed one you know first and into awareness which I guess like you’re saying brings it into the second stage and then some form of expression or revealing or how would you define like that moment where it goes okay I’m a I’m aware of this wound that I’m in but now I want to make art with it how does someone practice that I’d say first don’t rush the process because sometimes you can’t sometimes I wouldn’t encourage you to practice through a wound if the wound still has quite a big grip on you and need some love and attention and more therapeutic care in that second stage domain but if the wound is something that you just know I’ve worked on this I’ve done a lot of work on this and it’s just not going away I I feel it it’s here all the time okay now how do I work with it how do I live the life I want to live how do I you know expand my full expression with this still here right and then it’s just a practice of doing the damn thing like you know just like if you have a pattern playing an instrument and your hand just doesn’t move a certain way at some point you’re just going to have to learn how to play really really good with that weird hand right so that is the practice as you know yeah I like to think about I don’t know have I have a my pinkies a little messed up and I play guitar so right when I try to hammer with my pinky it’s it’s always one of those things where I have to really press hard right to get it to hammer down there’s the Go guitar player jeno Reinhardt who had three fingers I think oh [ __ ] yeah perfect example perfect example perfect example and I think you know it’s I think it’s really good for people to just understand that they can they can have three fingers and still be wonderful artists right they could have deep childhood wounding that they may never fully heal from and still be beautiful artists you know and three fingers is different than a broken finger true that because you don’t want to play with a broken finger and that’s what I was saying before you need to heal it before you can play but three fingers it’s like okay well this is what I got these are the limits that I’m given I could complain about it INF fester in it or keep trying to seek healing or I can just live with this and we all have limits we all have patterns some more severe than others so there’s no limitation That’s too great for you to love through you could be totally paralyzed and find a way to give all your love through just your eyes or just your breath and so we work with what we’ve got yeah and we aren’t too hard on ourselves for the limits that we have but we still do the work to you know stretch through them but we’re not hating them or yeah I think that’s I think that’s a really and and there’s and and trying to remove this you know pernicious tendency to fix it right right and so many people get into personal development work or even my work or your work because they want to fix something you know they want to become more masculine they want to become more feminine like it’s something that they need to fix yeah and it isn’t it’s just something that it’s just an opportunity for more wholeness you know so we’ve laid a foundation for um um on what the three stages are at least given by David data you can find these in many of David’s books or [ __ ] you can just ask chat gbt to you know pretty much outline David’s three stages um and these are just our experiences and interpretations of it we don’t speak for David in any way so let’s I just want to identify one more and uh one more term that people use a lot in our space which is sexual polarity and and when we’re talking about sexual poity we’re really talking about practice that lives in this is that sort of living in the third stage right place right right although the scales for learning sexual polarity you know according to the framework you just laid out would live in the second stage that’s the learning to belly breathe for example or learning to eye gaze or learning to let’s say match breath or you know like the basic scales that people can you know learn in your workshops and my workshops and then then which would allow the art of love to come through so how would you define sexual polarity just for any of the people who don’t haven’t heard that term before well sexual polarity exists in all the stages as well and that’s one of the biggest conflations that I see when someone throws out the word polarity is no one really knows what kind of polarity you’re talking about the whole universe is polarity yes there’s unhealthy forms of polarity which would fall into the first stage domain and then of course what we strive to teach is the healthy sacred forms of it um but in short it’s it’s an arc of attraction between two things right it’s the shortest way to say it uh you know the simplest analogy is a magnet positive negative poles there’s a pull there’s a magnetism to those and when you put same ends together they repel yeah and so we can have that kind of attraction or repulsion in two bodies is human beings and we can strive to generate that consciously or most of the time what happens is it happens unconsciously right right and when we’re talking about polarities you know we’re not simply talking about masculine and feminine right emptiness and fullness exactly light and dark um and and so this Arc of energy that happens when we sort of turn up our oppos the opposite poles of our magnets is what creates the attract the you know magnetism let’s call it of Attraction but but you know I’m often letting people know that you don’t have to think about this in terms of masculine feminine you just look in the natural world and you’ll see North Pole South Pole you know you’ll see space and you know form right emptiness and form so you touched on something that I I’d like to double click on which is there’s a lot of conflations and misinterpretations of not only David data’s work but your work my work the entire sort of polarity space I saw a post the other day that was said something about like you know polarity puts women in boxes or something like that and I thought to myself I’m not sure where they’re getting that because any definition of the feminine that I’ve ever heard from people who really know what they’re talking about is that the feminine is everything happening all the time all at once in every direction it’s like all existence is the feminine so I don’t really think there’s a box big enough for that so but that just you know proves to me that people are are you know kind of pulling threads or you know little clips and sort of running with them I yes based on their own wounding but I’m curious what are the biggest sort of misinterpretations or conflations or just downright mistakes people are making when they talk about your work yeah it’s a huge topic attraction is such an interesting compelling topic for so many people right and the terms masculine and feminine can have a lot of different meanings and on the cultural level we usually interpret it as masculinity and femininity and on the first stage level what a lot of people teaching polarity are speaking to is that first stage domain of how can I be more shiny on the outside and move a certain way and do this kind of thing to attract this kind of attention just superficial attention or a man who provides or who’s strong and who you know uh has makes a lot of money and is successful those are first stage domains of polarity they’re not unimportant like we might have desires in the first age pretty much any woman I’ll ask is what do you want a man who can provide they’ll say yes and that’s not a bad thing but it’s important not to stop there right we grow through it for a woman who has a deep spiritual heart she wants more than a man who can provide obviously so that’s a really good way to to take someone through this journey right like a woman who is deep she would love a man who can provide and she wants a man who is also deep right who is free in himself who can hold her beyond the physical domain right and so that’s a really important domain to address because that is the third stage domain of polarity right yeah what I see a lot of people um misunderstand is that polarity work is about U just the phys the physical bodies like you’re talking about but that there’s a spiritual aspect to it you know David used to talk about it as Consciousness and love right and this this sort of the the magnet or the yeah the magnetism of Consciousness and love and so when people are you know talking about polarity work I’m often struck by the shallowness of their interpretation is to just stop at the masculine and feminine which most people conflate to mean man and woman right but you and I have both seen men in a highly you know pleasure-filled juicy movement space fully embodying the feminine right feminine energies and a woman resting his Consciousness and the same polarity happening absolutely and and I just think we can’t say this enough because so many people tend to misunderstand that we’re talking when we say masculine and feminine we’re really talking man and woman now you know most of the world is heteronormative Right few percent are not but but but it doesn’t really matter even in heteronormative relationships right being able to flip around and you know play with that I think is really important one of the criticisms I guess of sexual polarity work is that um it infantilizes women and and again I was always really surprised by that because the way that I’ve learned about it was that she is everything M and so I’m just curious how you address sure that criticism well a man might have an erotic Delight let’s say in some maiden like energies and what happens when a man has that is that women will try to be like that more to please him and there could be a lot of sexual joy in playing like like the little cheerleader girl and be kind of like oh my God I don’t know what I’m doing what I’m saying right there could be sexual play in that but that’s not all a deep man wants from you and even if a man is asking for that from you it’s important for you as a woman to know your depth and often when women get caught in this like he’s infantilizing me it’s usually an indication of their own pattern playing out like they feel infantilized they feel like they can’t step in their full power with a man they feel like they have to perform or be this certain way in order to please him right so often it’s an indication of of their pattern yeah as equally as the man’s for wanting to hold on into this maidenhood quality forever right so we have a responsibility as as women to step in our own power with a man regardless of what he’s asking from us maybe he wants your maiden like energy but remember your own depth as a woman and learn to Anchor in that and give that without any shs or without any obligation yeah right yeah I mean there there are there are highly energizing role plays I mean I cannot tell you how many women love Daddy dark dark daddy energy right and how many men love you know dirty little girl energy I mean it’s just there’s just we have these sort of archetypes that naturally sort of enliven us but none of it really matters if we’re not deeply heart connected yeah right and that that is the moment so even if we’re playing Dark daddy dirty little girl right I mean if there’s not a deep a literal I consider like a literal feeling of the Heart Like a literal feeling the weight of my heart right if I can’t if I disconnect from that I tend to get into I’m just pleasure seeking I’m just pleasure seeking and I’m not actually in the exchange of this sort of really deep loving play is that how you see it and for women it’s it’s often uh pleasing right maybe there’s pleasure seeking in there but we have a tendency to get into a trap of needing to please right and that is a huge Shadow for women that prevents us from growing from first stage polarity into third stage polarity because in essence it should be freeing right you should feel free if you don’t feel free you need to take a step back and do some of that second stage work when you’re practicing in the third stage you can play in the full spectrum of colors and energies and there’s no should there’s no have to there’s no you know like performance or need to fit into a box you’re you’re simply just making art and playing and you’re playing it in a way that maintains that polarity like you’re connected to that field so that will look like you playing on a certain end of the spectrum but you’re not you’re not trapped in that right right a couple things you said I’d love to love to just expand on power mhm for example like how how do you see because I think we’re at this remarkable stage where for so many years men have been empowered for the most part right there’s certain cultures where that wasn’t totally true but men have been empowered physically and financially and now we’re getting to this place in the last 50 years where women are are are finding their power in all kinds of domains and so I’m curious how you might see some of those Shadows playing out yeah that’s a good question well I’ll take this back to the personal journey of moving through the three stages in regards to feminine expression and power right because in the first stage we are often living disconnected from our power right that’s where our victimhood and the infantilization and the need to please Daddy and all of those wounds play out right and when when a woman grows from the first to the second stage she reclaims her power she’s like I’m a whole Sovereign woman I could say what I want when I want I could wear whatever I want I don’t need to please anybody and that’s a really significant and important stage for women to grow through what I see happening is that women believe that that is the end all be all of feminine empowerment that me liberating my expression and saying whatever the [ __ ] I want when I want and wearing whatever I want when I want is the ultimate empowerment for women and I like to to invite women into another layer that it doesn’t end there not everyone’s ready to go into that next layer right and so I could suggest to you know a lot of the women I work with are like I freed my expression I I feel whole and Sovereign I know how to ask for my needs I need more right I mentioned that in the beginning it’s like okay well how can we bring more Artistry through your expression and Artistry there is an element of Restraint of of pulling the energy in and deepening them and grounding them so it’s more exacting so it’s not just saying whatever the [ __ ] you want when you want it’s saying it in a in a in a way that has the exact impact that your deepest devotion and heart is Desiring so that requires you to draw in all that energy and really direct it and harness it and that’s everyone’s not ready for that stage because sometimes I could suggest that to the woman a woman and she’ll be like well you’re it feels too like you’re trying to control me and for her at that time in her life that may be true yeah and and the process shouldn’t be forced yeah oh that’s a great point right in the second stage sort of learning to be fully expressed and learning to um be fully Sovereign and to say whatever you want and to speak your needs and to stand your ground and you know whatever you need to do that there is a steeping in that that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to making art yet right yeah and that’s really that’s a really great point for for people to get and I and I think men you also need to sort of live in that reality as well like because we want to move to it um and yet I I know and I’ve heard you teach this right that there’s so many simple ways to like gently move into a third stage moment um you know for example softening your throat softening no matter what’s happening no matter what’s happening you can soften your throat right no matter what’s happening you soften your heart you know you soften your cervix if you’re a woman right and and and so you know it so that so that because that’s a practice but it’s so that you could feel the field more feel your partner’s heart more and give the thing that’s actually required what love requires right so that’s the biggest movement that I see is that women in the second stage who are really attached to saying things how they want when they want it right like well I don’t have to do things more feminine I should be able to say it exactly how I want and he should be able to respond this way and I’m like well is he responding the way you want with that free whatever you feel expression and if not can you let go of your own attachment to saying what you want to say how you want to say it and feel into his heart and what the moment is actually requiring so you’re putting yourself aside and you’re you’re delivering beyond the self you’re expressing beyond the self and that is that is what defines third stage polarity you’re not doing it for yourself you’re not even doing it for him on some level you are and that might be the second stage like I’m offering this to nourish you and I’m offering this to heal you but at some point it just becomes I’m offering this because this is what needs to come through and this is what’s going to generate a deeper field of love between us in the moment yeah right and so if a woman has a pattern of being really sharp and intense and that’s not creating the the love that she wants she might have to put her ego aside and and learn how to soften her voice so that it lands in the heart of her partner yeah right and and to some women like I said that might feel confining that might feel like stop telling me what to do right right which feels more like a first stage moment it’s a first stage reaction reaction okay yeah yeah yeah yeah don’t tell me what to do I’m just going to express myself the way and then do this too right I’m just going to express be I’m getting this off my chest because you need to hear my truth doesn’t matter if you my truth totally you know collapses you or did whether creates love and I like to think about expression in that way it’s like okay I’m expressing for me MH going to burning man I’m wearing my you know tassled unicorn outfit because that’s who I am and D or I’m expressing in some in a way that that that deepens us and heals us and you know and for both of us or I’m expressing because that’s what love wants yeah which may not be what I want or what you want it may be something totally different and it’s hard to really put that into words but I thought of something as you were talking to go back to the infantilization of women yeah and the nature of feminine practice so there’s this belief I see sometimes that to be in the feminine is to just be emotional to like express your emotion when it’s coming up like if I’m sad I’m just going to cry and if I’m happy I’m just going to wail and laughter and right and on some level that is feminine expression but it’s more first stage feminine expression in the sense that a a child does that yeah a child laughs when they’re happy a child cries when they’re sad right you know they’re they’re totally free in their expression right so there’s nothing wrong with that but the feminine practice doesn’t stop there but sometimes if we’re just expressing in that way usually a child Expresses in that way because they uncon iously need something right they’re not aware like they have an emotion they’re crying because they need something that they don’t know what they need that’s the first stage Sometimes women are like I’m expressing love me but they don’t know what they need they haven’t even identified it in themselves and that’s an infantile approach to our own practice like we need to know what we’re crying for what am I actually seeking what you know there’s a beauty in just liberating our cry but when it comes to relational intimacy it’s like there’s a bigger question to ask I guess in the self of just like what am I needing right now what do I what do I need in this cry what do I need in this offering am I needing his you know am I just feeling desperate for his attention and just to feel loved or do I really want to feel met do I really want him to come into my heart and just identifying that shift in yourself and feeling into your deepest needs as a woman as you’re crying it’s like I want you to love me as deeply as possible like come into this expression meet my heart meet me as I am I don’t need you to that’s the biggest difference to of the first and third stage is when we move through that second stage period we do come into a place of wholeness in the self like I’m offering we can meet our own we can meet our own there’s not desperation to get your love and affection because I’m going to be lost without you we’ve grown past that and the first stage infantile feminine expression is like crying because you need that love because without it you’re just lost right so you need to come into a place in yourself where you feel like I’m okay like I I got myself and I’m offering you my heart because at the end of the day I want you to love me I want to feel communion with you so I’m offering this these tears with that longing really exposed that deeper longing really exposed and coming into that awareness in yourself as a woman is going to shift your expression in the way your man feels you from an infantile wailing crybaby to a deep third stage Goddess that he just wants to pour his his deep love into that’s that’s such an important point you know I mean that that touches what I talk about a lot about evoking right same thing you’re crying because you’re upset about something and it can either be I’m crying because you’re touching the same wound that I’ve had my entire life and I’m just I’m angry at you just like I was angry at my dad that’s the cry that’s going to evoke a certain response from your partner exactly usually one that’s deflective and defensive or there’s the the same cry from a place of like this is my need right and then there’s this this I guess the way I would Define it and then there’s that cry from the deep longing of your heart to be met yeah in that and you know I think I think people often times really need to hear examples of The Human Experience in through the three stages I think that’s one of the magic you know parts of the three stages is that any moment could be you could kind of parse out the first second and yeah third stage way to address that moment yeah in any moment you can tune in to each of those stages within yourself for sure for sure okay so I feel like we’ve laid a little groundwork with talking about the third stages and sexual polarity and devotion what all those things mean uh we have some questions I put some questions out to my community and Men came back with quite a few questions but we sort of we whittel it down I think I’m going to condense one of these questions into something that I sort of curious about as well which is how do you like to be led right um and how and then you could expand that like how do you see other women that you work with really responding to leadership it’s just it’s something that’s in my work about you know what what is good masculine leadership and hearing from a woman’s perspective what actually feels good and what doesn’t and what are some of the you know cheat codes right that men can you know consider I’d say the biggest leader in a relationship isn’t so much what the man is doing but the quality and depth of his attention of his presence that leads the relationship on its own he doesn’t have to force leadership or move my body from here to here necessarily but just by the mere fact of him already knowing where we’re going what the next thing is already holding the bigger picture in his awareness in his heart that itself is leadership that is something for me to relax into on the outside probably doesn’t look like much it could just it might look like nothing right so I think when people have a thought of masculine leadership it’s the man coming in and being like okay we’re going to go here here and we’re going to do this and now you’ll sit down there and do this and there is an eroticism in that and there is that is a form of masculine leadership that’s not necessarily what I am interested in as a woman that’s all nice but just that is enough for me yeah because it it could be strategic exact it’s not necessarily a deep knowing which is what I think I hear you saying exactly not all women are attuned to that though yeah for some women that that leadership in a very practical sense is is ecstatic and probably enough for some women they might feel wow he leads so well in all these domains he knows how to step in he knows how to plan he knows how to be on time he knows how to you know take us from one moment to the next but I don’t feel held by his awareness yeah right and that’s such a great point I just want to say this to the men right you can actually you know be really meticulous in planning an evening or an experience but throughout that evening in experience if your breath is shallow or your attention is spotty or you’re you’re not actually holding her from one moment to the other yeah it’s not all your great planning is going to mean [ __ ] yeah that that’s kind of what you’re talking about strategy is the killer of a woman’s Aros that’s so good a certain kind of you need to make a bumper sticker of that I love that we don’t want to feel you plotting and planning and trying to get a reaction out of us and we want to feel a a man attuned to our relaxation and usually in a deep intimate relationship especially a long-term one in which you might be practicing polarity if you are in the feminine pole your body is the measure of happiness and love in the relationship and a a deep man who’s leading the relationship is is using your body as a measure of success but he’s not plotting like how do I do this or how do I do that or I need her to do this he’s just like oh when I shifted this she took a deep breath okay that’s nice let me do this again oh she clenched up okay let me move this way again a she relaxed that’s great but there’s not an attachment to the relaxation of a woman specifically the attachment for her to relax so that you feel good yeah I see that I see I that’s a big thing that men trip over a lot is they you know they learn a few skills right how to track her breath or how to you know feel her body somewhat but then they get attached or even like addicted to that you know that if she’s not relaxing then they get very tense which then will make her more tense so it’s this really beautiful um you know Paradox between being attuned without attachment yeah and that’s the third stage that’s living in the third stage there’s just like you’re if you’re jamming with someone playing music with someone it’s like you’re you’re in a Vibe you’re in the rhythm you’re hitting those right notes and all of a sudden you’re out of it but it’s like oh that just happened let’s skip back in yeah there’s not like a it’s not a value not a measure of your worth yeah exactly and when we’re in please listen men to that it’s not yeah yeah and it’s so important to track that when we are in that mode when a man is in that mode of trying to get uh a woman’s response so that he feels good that that is a first stage moment even if on the outside he’s leading and he’s breathing and he’s doing all the right things visually right if in his system there’s that little tinge of I need her to show up this way so that I feel love so that I feel good that in itself is going to actually prevent that deeper level of surrender that you probably want on that deep level yeah and that I think that’s such a such a crucial piece I mean I see with women too you know I’m I’m going to give him my devotion but there’s an attachment or my energy there’s an attachment to a certain response right and and that attachment you know pretty much just cancels out the you know any good intention your practice was bringing it’s so true and it’s the nature of spiritual practice in a sense it’s like one of the first Noble Truths how can I live as devotion just and let that be enough like my practice is to live as Devotion to live his love and sometimes that might land with my partner and he’ll receive it and it’ll be delicious and ecstatic and often times it won’t will I Collapse will I blame him will I make him the enemy or will I just say oh he can’t receive it doesn’t change anything for me I’m still here I’m still love I’m still I’m still good so for a man that slightly different texture would be oh I’m giving her my presence and she’s still resistant and not receiving it I’m still awareness I’m still I’m still present I am I’d like to expand on that a little bit because that’s a question I get from a lot of men which is like what what do I do when I legitimately feel like I’m giving her my gift right or I’m giving her my presence or I’m really trying to lead us in through you know either some issues we’re having or something in the family or so you know and it’s and she’s just not accepting it and how would you suggest that men you know work with that because there’s often the sense of like I’m really trying I re I really feel like I’m I’m I’m tuned into some wisdom or some deep knowing and I’m doing my best to present a way to do it and she’s still resisting it what’s a great way for a man to to address that sure well like I just mentioned there’s your solo practice which is stay anchored in your own presence and depth of awareness despite whatever she’s doing despite her reaction that’s your primary practice for yourself for you know that’s the practice and then moving through the stages again this is why we talk about them because they’re so important and so relevant to every question is to let her know right is to communicate like I’m I’m giving you my presence and I notice that you are resisting me that you’re pushing back why like what’s going on what can I do to so that you feel safer with me is it something the way I’m breathing or right like you you ask her what she needs and that’s usually a good portal for really working on things and that’s infinite in a relationship like it’s going to come up again and again she probably has a pattern of resistance that’s going to be perpetually there that you’re going to have to work with but if she’s willing to acknowledge it and to say oh I’m resisting you again I’m sorry and just that moment of opening to you is it will be worth it right or I’m still mad about this time last week when you know you didn’t lead when I need you to lead or whatever or you you know you were too overbearing or whatever yes so having that conversation is important so you can get to that build that Foundation together and if you do that and and she’s still super resistant all the time then it’s really a question of is it is my presence would would it be better receive somewhere else yeah right if she can’t receive the deepest gift you have to offer and it’s constantly resisting and rejecting it and is even open to working with it that that will feel hurtful over the long term and that’s really a question of yeah you know why are you trying exctly well you know since you brought this up I I I I would really love your take on this you know you’re in a long-term relationship and so um you know what do you see as being the foundational you know pillars of success for you know moving past that period of you know the first couple of years of hormon driven you know novelty driven excitement and into something where two people you know literally are growing together and expanding their practices and healing and you know whatever you want to call it what do what do you see really works in that yeah I think an all relationship there’s going to be a several yearlong process of just figuring out how to be together some people it happens easier than others but you’re throwing two people together with all their patterns and wounds and histories and and moving in together and often tight and it’s going to bring up a lot and to stick through that process is hard but if you’re both committed to love I believe there is a journey to the other side where then you can just love each other like it’s really so simple the practice of just showing up and and giving love to your partner and making space to love them the way they desire most deeply to be loved and and vice versa and knowing what lights your partner up knowing what fulfills their deepest soul and making time each day to give that to your partner letting your life that you’re sharing with your partner be centered around that kind of generosity where you’re both fulfilling each other’s deepest spiritual erotic desires and it’s nothing huge it’s not fantasy it’s not roleplay it’s honestly just the quality of your energy and the quality of your presence when you’re together yeah and prioritizing that yeah that seems to be the the really important piece right and so what you’ve seen is that as people sort of make it through that really crunchy what is it one 2 three year period of learning how to actually be humans together right like most the time it ends up being living together but that process in and of itself requires you know extraordinary generosity I think I heard you say and and a real Devotion to love itself yeah and to giving love and being love and I would imagine to your own personal practice so that you stay grounded and you know embodied in your energy in your essence right um yeah okay CU I I I see so many people hit that that period and and not know what to do to get through it right not know how to live and I imagine you coach a lot of people that are like sort of entering that period or stuck in that period and and trying to get out of it and I think that’s a that’s a really crucial place because we don’t need each other anymore and it’s always easy to remember that be like well I’m just going to go off on my own and I don’t need this person yeah definitely but it’s so beautiful to stick through it and any any problem you have in the relationship you’re in if it’s very likely it’s going to carry off to the next one so it’s probably like 90% of my experience so in that difficult period I often you know and working with women who are like I just want to leave right I’ll see them want to leave too soon obviously there’s a time and a place to leave but I really often see people trying to leave too soon because he doesn’t give me what I want and I can’t be myself around him and da da d da da if you can’t be yourself with this person what makes you think you can be yourself with the next person how can you be yourself no matter what is there right that’s your practice yeah of course other people can evoke more of your natural whatever whatever but that that inability to be yourself in any circumstance is a you problem right right I think that’s that’s that’s the thing that so many people I think get stuck on is they’re they’re really convinced that the next person is going to be so much look and and there are people that are more aligned or better matches that’s not totally untrue but the the same issues are going to come up usually yeah most of the time and so you know you don’t expect that I’m not going to have these feelings with the next person or it’s going to be easier with the next person that’s the big one this is so hard it’s going to get easier it rarely gets easier relationship is hard that discomfort you’re feeling in your relationship is a portal for you to really face for you to communicate through and express yourself through and if you’re following that pulse within of like how can I love this person as deeply as possible and as openly as possible and you’re trusting that you are doing all you can and it’s still not working yeah that’s a good time to to leave but often we hold ourselves back we’re not giving our our fullest and we think that if we have a new person it’s going to get easier and it’s not yeah that’s often what I what I try to tell people is that you most of us stay in relationship like you said they leave tooo early and I would agree but most people like are confused about should I stay or should I go normally that’s a sign that you have not given your deepest practice right it’s not that they’re they haven’t done it it’s that you feel like oh I I there’s something that I haven’t really been generous around or opened into or practiced with or you know and so I I really can’t let myself leave until I do that yeah and it often requires you to face a really big fear a fear of being seen in a certain way of exposure of expressing yourself there’s often that limitation with our own fears that prevents us from doing it yeah I like to think about that as going into the underworld together right like at some point in a relationship you know Jordan Peterson talks about this you know how you’re going to go into the depths of hell with your partner and you know and I I’ve just seen that to be true more often than not and I’m curious does that feel like your experience as well like that there’s this sense of like you know learning how to go into the underworld together or how to like deal like how to be with each other’s deepest wounds together that’s the way I would Define it right like really see the gnarliest gremlin you know gargoyle parts of each other yeah while you know and make art from that you want to take it back don’t run away don’t go to the other side of the fence don’t long for something else just be with the ugliness that’s there open to it breathe with it and and that is really all we can do it’s so freeing though I’m sure you’ve had this experience like you know to let yourself as a practitioner let’s say go there like Snot flying ugly as can be the worst childhood wound I’ve got I’m letting you see it without projecting it onto you and you’re loving it yeah so healing it is so amazing it’s so healing and I and I think that so many people give up before that Miracle yeah you know because the wound has something to do with how they behaved and so they personalized whatever it happens but I think that that’s something that I I I want to keep you know letting people know is possible because it is it is possible to be those kinds of sources of healing for each other because we talk about this in the you know in the polarity space there isn’t really a talk about and I’ve never really heard David talk about this you know about the healing portion of it but it but it is so healing to be practitioners together yeah through you know through W through deep patterns and stored trauma and it’s very healing experience it’s not just about you know [ __ ] each other to God there’s something deep that gets shifted well that’s the beauty of commitment and that that sense of I’m in because it gives you that opportunity to go through that process without fearing that that person’s going to leave yeah right and and that is a really beautiful full process and you can experience that in friendships too like friends that you know like I love you and I got your back and your ugly comes out your [ __ ] comes out like the worst parts of you come out maybe you fight and tussle maybe you don’t talk for a few weeks but you come back and you’re like I’m here and that deepens your relationship it deepens your intimacy and it is is just beautiful yeah it really is the height of Being Human together and it comes through commitment and not running away from the hard stuff and and that if I’m really here with you of course there’s a limit if someone’s being abusive or whatever but that’s usually not the kind of relationships that I’m working with people come in and they’re just dealing with stuff that everyone deals with it’s hard yeah yeah no it’s hard being human thank you Mom thank you Dad world yeah okay another question from the masculine Gallery here what do women wish men understood better about their emotional needs and I’ll speak to this from from the masculine um men will often have this experience of she’s in a storm you know she’s in a in a hot mess and I want to be able to help I want to be able to support I want to be able to you know be with her and understand what’s what are the needs at the base of whatever emotional storm is happening but I just anything I try just seems to you know piss her off more or you know or you know get me kicked out of the room or whatever and so I think men really would like to know how do we help you you know either not necessarily find your needs but just support you in that exploration and and expression yeah well like I’ve already said stop trying get rid of the strategy and just stop just stop trying to fix anything right how can you be with our emotional experience as you would be with the weather or nature right and just be with it just hold it with your awareness and your presence and that is honestly all we want we don’t want you to process with us even though we might try to get you to yeah yeah yeah women do that this thing where we’ll try to get our man to like process and talk with us and do all this stuff but then we don’t like it at the end or like depolarizes so don’t get hooked into to whatever she’s trying to learn from you I’m so guilty of that so we like to learn I like to learn I’m like I want this kind of attention but it’s not the kind of attention I actually want I think I want his attention through him talking to me or telling me this or telling me that but I just want to feel his whole body and his whole breath and his whole being just holding all of it without trying not with like okay I’m holding you okay here we go it’s just like I’m here yeah I’m here breathing Deep unagitated by it and just relaxing your relaxation in a woman’s emotional storm is the greatest gift you can offer yeah no that’s a gem yeah like to really and it’s so hard I mean just you know from man’s perspective right it’s you know when when your partner’s pissed and having a really deep experience especially if it has something to do with you which 80% of the time it likely does that that that’s really you know potent practice for men yeah I’ve always found that I can do that when I know it’s coming right so if if if you just give me heads up like I’ve got some [ __ ] coming your way take a minute to get yourself to to I’m good it’s and and and I think this is probably true for a lot of men but when it’s it comes out of left field and I don’t have a moment to you know to that’s life baby I know right [ __ ] [ __ ] and and so but I think that that’s something that men struggle with a lot is is how to how to be in relaxation how to find it in the midst of that and we’re talking about two- bodied polarity practice the same thing applies to our own practice to our own presencing of life’s emotional chaos to life storms to Life’s ups and downs to Life’s travesties like how can we just hold it all with our awareness and and be with it right that’s kind of the inner process of of finding that ground of being within ourselves when all of that is swirling through and so when I am fully in when I’m the swirl when I’m the life and fully embodying that that’s what I want to feel from my partners to feel that that sense of communion together to feel like oh we’re okay we’re here together yeah yeah we’re in this crazy moment together yeah okay yeah in in those moments because I just I I I really like to try to give my men some tidbits when I’m talking to somebody like you is in that moment where let’s say you’re in the swirl and he isn’t quite grounded yet can’t quite find relaxation feels himself sort of in a collapse right is that a moment is does it work the same way where if he said hey I really want to be with you I’m just going to just give me you know 30 seconds to to catch my breath and I can be with you the the way I think you need is that that would feel relaxing yeah that would feel more relaxing than him being lost in in that and efforting to get efforting to relax exactly that would feel more agitating and I just would probably be like I’m going to go be by myself right but if he was like I really want to be with you just I need a moment just that communication would enable more trust yeah that’s good to know that’s good to know yeah from a woman’s perspective what does it look like to say no to a woman lovingly and respectfully as a powerful man so I I like that like how how how can men say no right of course everything you know we talk a lot about how women can say no to men right but we don’t really I don’t really hear this a lot where we talking about how men can artfully say no hold boundaries and stay open relaxed as you’ve talked about how does that work for you I could feel what the difference in my body but between a know that is rooted in control and like trying to get me to be a certain way which is going to piss me off yeah yeah versus a no that’s coming from his own inner Authority and a deep connection with what the moment needs so one might have all his tension and agitation and attachment in it like no I can’t I can’t try to do it but I could feel it maybe if you’re you can feel it too what that no would feel like it would feel agitating versus Like A Warrior’s no you know a grounded rooted know that is coming from his love for you and his love for that moment right it it’s coming from Attunement rather than from control I think it’s the biggest and Attunement not only to you but Attunement to the moment the relationship love like this isn’t serving us right like this isn’t this isn’t the right way to go yeah kind of thing yeah I think that I think that’s really important and I think that men you know I had I was talking with a couple other women couple weeks ago on this podcast and we were really getting into this how to how as a man to set a boundary and this is sort of an extension of that first question like how what is a nice way to re receive a boundary as a woman is it really just the same thing I mean it seems like we’re we’re we’re we keep coming back to this idea of relaxation and Attunement yes so practice I mean like this is why we talk about practice over and over and over and over again because you can’t think your way into relaxation and Attunement you literally have to learn to feel your way to do the scales yeah yeah women enjoy feeling held in in structure and containment and the first stage version of that would be coming from asserting a personal will over her and the moment right I want you to be this way I want to see you like this I want this to happen so I’m making it happen right that for some women might feel erotic for some women who are really connected to their spiritual heart it’s going to feel agitating and in like control right listen to that discernment we can feel the difference we really can and sometimes what I see when women are practicing polarity and when people are practicing this and this is one of those conflations when a man is trying but he still has some of that control she’s like why am I surrendering to this like why do I have to surrender to this this doesn’t feel good listen to that listen to the fact that it doesn’t feel good communicate that with him and ask for what you need for it to feel liberating his containment should feel ecstatic should feel liberating when it’s coming from that really attuned place and it it’s really coming from him holding holding the moment right and putting boundaries around it in various different ways yeah I can I can always I can say it as a man you know when I’m when I’m in that space you know because I’m I’m in it and then I I’m not in it often right and and to me it feels the diff the difference feels like I I I I’m attuned to my own Center but I’m also feeling all else right and so having a a simultaneous Awareness on my the deepest part of me and the field that we’re in at the same time you know and again this is a training and you know this is I mean we’re talking a lot about Concepts here but really the work that we do is yogic and meditative you know and it’s not um it’s not intellectual right and and so I hope I I hope that people are getting like you know all of the things that we’re suggesting here are only really possible with a body mind that can live into them definitely this is not the kind of [ __ ] that you can just kind of will yourself to do right you know and you’ll know if you’re listening to this and you’re like [ __ ] this this is stupid this probably isn’t for you but if you’re like oh yeah I could really work on that I am a little too controlling when I offer her boundaries it is coming from a personal need and from Fear whatever it is how can I learn how to relax that of course for your own self so you feel more relaxed and attuned but also for the sake of your relationship and your woman’s trust because that is what evokes her trust yeah I I would also consider it like a a personal form of Integrity right to be in Integrity with your own heart right to be in Integrity with your own heart to be in Integrity with love itself right it feels like a a different place to live from and and I think that that’s really at the you know foundational core of practice the heart of practice um so again as we’re talking about these things it’s kind of the experience I had reading David’s reading the way of the superior man I don’t know 17 years ago of like having an understanding of like yeah this sounds this sounds really good like yeah tussle you know like yeah and and yet I had no idea the yoga and the personal work that would have to go into that right for me to be able to relax my wound know it’s not about me and then learn the skills to be playful in a moment when I would be defensive normally yeah and so I’m just you know bringing that that that’s you know if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking well how the [ __ ] do I get there where I’m relaxed and attuned in the midst of her storm um that’s normal and it takes years of practice yeah you’re not going to get it the first time it’s just that question alone of checking in with yourself am I relaxed am I tuned to her heart right that’s a very beautiful question to ask yourself ongoingly yeah for men and women I mean you can just spend the whole day just going through the day am I relax I’m attuned to the moment am I tuned to my environment yeah I mean that would just make the world a better place yeah and you just keep coming back to it again and again and again again and over years your presence will deepen if you commit to that but it’s not going to happen overnight and a lot of people really want that quick solution and that quick fix but just commit to the process and and that’s where devotion comes in it’s like I’m Devotion to depth I’m Devotion to orienting to this depth in myself the masculine perspective or this love in myself which is a more feminine perspective and just commit to that and don’t be hard on yourself when you stray a billion times throughout the day yeah and I think that’s another thing I’d like to remind people is that these are NeverEnding yogic poses that that can always be gestured towards deeper yeah like there’s no you don’t get someplace yeah it’s a it’s a constant you know commitment to failing and getting back up and failing and getting back up and over the course of many years you know there’s this concept of 1% Improvement a week that’s pretty good that’s pretty good right I mean but I think if you can if you practice being more just 1% more present every week that does not seem totally unreasonable yeah or 1% more connected to your heart or 1% deeper in your breath yeah you know these are things people can do and that’s a way to track if your relationship is successful or not isn’t like how happy do I feel or how well are things going my way but how much more free are we as a couple yeah how much more rooted in love and depth are we maybe we still fight all the time and have our patterns and it’s not easy but if you two are both growing individually because of your relationship despite whether it’s easy or not that is a very good sign to stay together that’s always something I see too you know in the people um you know they’re in my programs and and or some friends even and I’ll you can just tell if somebody is good for somebody Yeah by through them right like I had a I had a good friend who was struggling financially and couldn’t quite get his [ __ ] together and had two kids and and he met this woman and he was very like uncertain for months like I don’t know just one but everything got better for him his whole life just got better from her presence and she was so devotional and so accepting and so loving and of course he was like this this can’t be right you know and and yet everything got so much better and I I think that’s a really beautiful way to look at it and it might get worse before it gets better like we fair enough yes yes fair enough because of the Alchemy of coming to I think part of growth is that uncomfortable Alchemy process right and especially in the beginning like in the beginning of a spiritual journey it’s there’s usually like a quick jolt and then it’s more smooth sailing right and that’s kind of how relationship works and that jolt up could be a lot yeah I mean as I as I get older and I’ve been you know in the space for a while I I just keep finding that this Alchemy space is such is so potent and um and finding the ways to try to navigate that for me at least at this point in my life is is my focus you know how to how to really be in the Alchemy of my family Karma my epigenetic wounding my you know all of this stuff which is doesn’t go away just because I can practice being certain kind of masculine you know right yeah yeah okay she’s got wounds that I had nothing to do with with and um and yet I want to be a stand for her healing what’s the best way for me to do we’ve touched on this already but it’s okay it’s good for people to keep hearing you know their questions brought back our wounds are always going to come up in relationships some people are a little more wounded and have more trauma than others and as someone who’s experiencing someone else’s wounds like if you’re in a good place and you’re watching your partner’s wounds all play out one of the most important things to track in yourself is the collapse that happens in you with their wounds so that’s the first thing is can I be with their wound without collapsing and if you can or at least with awareness with awareness yeah yeah I’m collapsing when you get angry is a you know is a great place to start yeah and so just holding that presence can be so healing over time she might not feel it at first but holding that consistency I see your wound I’m here I’m not running away could potentially be enough to gently unwind that over time at the same time it’s her responsibility to go to therapy yeah you are not her therapist yeah yeah your presence is not going to heal her on its own she probably needs to do some work because something I see a lot is women could be wounded or have so much mistrust towards men and pain towards men that even if a man is giving his deepest presence she can’t receive it yeah right and that’s so painful for him and if there’s a process we need to go through on our own to learn how to receive someone else’s attention and presence without putting all that responsibility on our partner all the time I just want to bracket that that’s feels so important you said that there’s a process that we have to go to go through to be able to receive their presence and and I think so many it seems so simple but I really think a lot of women just miss that that yeah it’s not it’s not like a natural state for a lot of women in particular to be able to receive you know pure presence and love I would say it is a natural state enough okay it is a natural state We crave it so deeply but because of our wounds and because of the culture and our pain with men it’s it’s very hard to it’s hard to trust men again for a lot of women so we just can’t receive what he’s he’s giving and of course you can create a practice with your partner maybe 5 10 minutes a day where you’re just practicing opening to his presence but I wouldn’t put the sole responsibility on him go see a therapist where you can really practice being seen for an hour and and sharing your process and exposing your vulnerabilities and working through the bodily patterns that are are are clenched right from receiving that and go through that process on your own and your man will be so grateful when you come and you’re like I worked on this and he’ll feel the change in you of being able to receive him more yeah now that’s a really beautiful way to put it and there’s so many you know remarkable embodiment based sematic based therapeutic modalities now it’s not just all talkie talk therapy right I mean there’s you’re on the ground you’re rolling around you’re barking you’re like you know you’re you’re you’re in it and you’re really using your whole body to work with the wound so there’s so many beautiful therapeutic modalities out there now it’s it’s really not so bad yeah thank the Lord thank the Lord so I I I think we’re at the end of time but I I really love the conversation I’m so glad I’m so glad we could have it and you’ll come back at some point and we’ll we’ll dive into more stuff and it seems like there’s an endless you know list of topics to get into definitely yeah is there is there um anything I’ll put all the information on how to find you and and how to work with you in the show notes but is there anything that you want to leave our audience with anything in particular you want them to know or anything you have coming up that you feel would be good for women wanting to jump in yeah well you can visit my website wave devotion. I have a women’s retreat coming up in April and I have an ongoing membership space called love deeper that you can join anytime oh cool cool so it’s just like an ongoing subscription space Y and we have a few calls a month it’s a community of women where we practice a lot of this stuff that we’re talking about yeah it’s really beautiful right on practice practice practice yes yes and and I also have a a community space that’s called the embodied relationship experience platform and so a lot of practices that I teach are on that and really what we’re talking about here is how to play the scales which basically is to practice right to get on the mat you know is what David used to say and then to take it from the mat into the present moment that is the that is the big leap so to speak um but I I I really am so glad that you came Nina and and I’m so glad that we got a chance to jam lot of fun me too thanks for having me yeah you’re so welcome