the more collapsed we are or the more you know up and out energetic we are the less we are going to be able to contain
ourselves so there is a real sense of you know lifting your chest you know
feeling your spine deepening your breath slowing your nervous system down there
is no containment without nervous system regulation so being able to actually
contain your own energy feel the part of you that is wide enough to hold the
jealousy or anger or rage or anything that’s coming through you and then being
able to artfully and thoughtfully and mindfully express or open that little
steam valve is crucial hello my name is John Weinland
this is the embodied relationship experience podcast and today we are
going to talk about the concept of containment and what it means to create
containment for yourself for your partner and then also for the relationship itself there has been a lot
of talk recently about this concept elm Rapani has done some really good work i suggest you check him out as well and I
have some uh different thoughts i I agree with much of what he says about how important it is for the masculine to
master this capacity of containment and you know of course when I say the masculine I’m talking about the
masculine in both a man and a woman right so at points in relationships each
partner is going to need emotional containment there’s just you know unless you are with the most stoic man on the
planet or somebody who is totally repressed their emotional body uh your
man will need containment as much as you need containment and so learning how to
develop containment first for ourselves and then to understand our partner’s nervous system and be able to contain
them and then to be able to have a a you know containment for the entire relationship i want to talk about
containment in those three areas but before we continue I wanted to let you know about the embodied relationship
experience platform which is a platform that has hundreds of practices thousands
of hours of content and so I will often hear from people asking you know how do I get into this how do I improve this
well that platform is a really wonderful way to be in a global community of people there’s about 500 and something
people from around the world coming together to practice the things that I’m talking about here uh to dive deeper
into content and then to support each other so if you are interested there’s a free 7-day trial link down below and
we’d love to have you join us and jump in deeper to you know practicing becoming an artist of love so I think
the first thing to do is to define what I consider to be containment right and
there are many uh different definitions for this there are many different you
know ways to approach containment you know some people also consider it sort of holding space but I think the word
containment is a little bit more juice to it and it’s a little bit more specific as to what I think is going on
in both our bodies in our partners’ bodies and in this sort of dualbodied
experience that we call relationship so learning how to literally wrap your
energy or use your body energy and emotional capacity to wrap hold and then
you know sometimes even direct somebody’s heightened energetic
experience is what I would consider containment there’s also containment for
erotic play like in BDSM there’s also containment for the relationship itself
and the dynamic that that a relationship creates and creating a containment
experience for that that’s often a um you know requires both partners buy in
of course let’s just start with the first principle of containment which is that we have to learn to be able to
contain ourselves sounds simple right but it’s one of those things that so many people
struggle with why because we get triggered why because we were wounded
you know in past relationships and in our childhood and so when our partner says or does something that triggers
those wounds right we have this sort of whoosh of energy this burst of energy
and that energy wants to go sort of up and out up and out is kind of the
natural way that let’s say anger for example or frustration or jealousy right
we might have an experience of having one of those uh emotions sort of
overtake us in a moment and our capacity to actually hold those emotions within
ourselves and then find an artful way to express what’s going on in us is the art
of self-containment so let me say a little bit more about this when you think about self-containment what you’re
thinking about is you’re actually needing to train your nervous system
which includes your energetic body and your physical body and your emotional body and even your sexual body you are
training your nervous system to be able to hold the energy that moves through
you this could be sexual energy like desire for example this is something I see a lot of men struggle with this
could be emotional energy right the you know again the whoosh of anger or jealousy or fear whatever comes up in
the moment this could be withholding containing criticism for example right
or um unnecessary provocation of your partner so containment can take lots of
different forms and I think a really good way to think about containment is
to think about a nuclear reactor I’ll go to the extreme here so to think about a
nuclear reactor Many of us many humans you know have fiery and emotional um uh experiences
and sides of ourselves and the the cacophony of emotion that comes up when
we’re in the heat of intimacy or we’re in the heat of relationship is you know
a lot you could consider it you could consider it like what goes on inside a nuclear reactor if the containment for
all that nuclear fision is not strong then it is going to leak out and do some
really serious damage so the first thing we have to do is make sure that our system which includes the you know for
men especially our posture our breath our you know sort of awareness where our
awareness goes our nervous system regulation all of these things are important for us to learn to practice as
we learn self-containment so let me give a you know classic example of this let’s
say you’re at a party with your feminine partner and you know she’s in a conversation with somebody else and it
gets a little sort of flirty or whatever it is you may have this rush of jealousy
come through you right this rush of jealousy come through you now if you are uncontained right then you’ll go you
know go up to her or him or both of them and and lash out like “What are you
doing why are you flirting with him?” You know it’ll kind of show up as this this
projection of your uncontained jealousy or anger or fear or
you might go the other way you might like shut down you know shut down and just and see right and then you’ve got
this sort of nuclear seething going on while your body is really tight and um
and I would argue uh eventually going to explode so there are there’s this sort
of measured approach to containment which includes not just keeping your mouth shut cuz that’s not necessarily
healthy either but finding the ways to actually release a little of the steam
you know to turn a little valve that releases a little of the steam in a way that allows the energy to move through
you and allows you to express truth to your partner but is not this sort of you
know explosion a dam breaking or the nuclear nuclear reactor um you know kind
of exploding and so the art of containment is first to really be able
to like recognize so in the example I just gave let’s talk about jealousy at a party you might feel like this whole
whoosh of stuff come through you and you might have all your mind might race and it’s just like this very primal
energetic experience and so often what we actually need to contain in
self-containment is this kind very potent very uh fast kind of
onslaught of very big emotions and so learning to be able to self-contain to
literally like kind of lock it in in a in a relaxed way to ground literally to
feel the ground beneath you to ground using your breath meaning to counteract
the up and out that that whoo of energy wants again it’s up and out right your eyes will get big sometimes your face
will get big your voice will raise that is your energy wanting to go up and out
so containment is actually using the breath using ground using the spine
right using all of these sort of structural elements to pull the energy back down into your lower belly into
your deep deeper into your heart deeper into your center column and consolidate
it there so that is the first step of self-containment right when you feel that whoosh right to just to really just
kind of take a moment go inside deepen your breath feel the ground right and
then you get to have a choice about how you want to let the steam out so for
example I’ve often talked about jealousy as a a beautiful opportunity to create sort of playful art right so a good way
a good example that I use is you know maybe at the party you know you pull
your woman away from the guy she’s talking to gently or whatever you wait for a moment and then you whisper in her
ear you know don’t make me fight that guy right or you play like or you know
if he looks over here at you one more time you know I’m going to go tackle his ass you’re letting off a little bit of
steam but you’re still contained containment is not all out stoicism
right and that’s I think a mistake that a lot of people make especially men they think I’ve got to clamp down all the
emotion i’ve got to you know deal with it myself that rarely works why because
the nuclear reactor is firing on all cylinders and and there needs to be some
outlet so one approach is what I just did to kind of make some humor out of it but to honor what’s moving through you
right it could be as simple as when I saw you talking to that guy I got so jealous and I wanted to you know run up
and throw you over my shoulders and take you out of this party so it could be any of those things another way to let the
steam out and this is true for both women and men what I’m talking about
here I just want to circle back for a second and make this really clear what I’m talking about is the masculine in
any moment is responsible for containment now is the masculine always
the man no in many healthy polarized relationship the man is holding this
sort of pose of containment or the the sort of masculine pole of containment or
holding space you know much of the time 70% 60 70 80% of the time but there are
often times when uh when women who will struggle when the fe the feminine will
struggle with containment the feminine in a man the feminine in a woman right no matter how you identify gender- wise
you know the more feminine a human being is the the less
contained they are normally and the more this is this is the thing that I’ve seen
over many many years and the more they actually crave containment right so the
more feminine the more fiery the more volcanic the more orgasmic the more you know wild a feminine being is again man
or woman the more that they will both resist containment right because just
they the the volcano wants to explode the volcano is programmed to explode
right and and the more they will resist containment and the more deep in their heart they will actually crave it
because it makes them feel safe a volcano exploding emotionally an
emotional volcano exploding does not feel safe they feel afraid they feel
ungrounded they feel out of control most of the time are scaring themselves with
their heightened emotional experience so it’s true for all of us that we will
that we will all resist containment and then crave containment and so it’s such
a beautiful paradox to be able to learn the art of containment i want to express
to you know everybody listening out here that this is a skill that’s not just for men this is important for men and very
important for the masculine but at any point in a healthy relationship you know each partner will be having to hold
space will be having to emotionally contain both themselves and their partner so this is something that I hope
uh women can you know take to heart as well so back to self-containment um there are a number
of practices and again this is something that for many of us including me right i’m a pretty fiery human right so
learning to take a beat learning to take a breath you know
learning to feel my feet on the earth learning to feel my spine learning to
you know sort of widen my energetic uh capacity so that I can it’s almost
like I can wrap around the the whoosh of energy with my own awareness with my own
energetic body learning how to do that is a skill and it takes time and there
will be lots of failure and hopefully recommmitment but I mentioned a few ways for us to really work with that the the
key concept I really want to I really want to stress is that there is both structure and relaxation in the body in
the moments where we need self-containment so the more collapsed we are or the more you know up and out
energetic we are the less we are going to be able to contain ourselves so there is a real sense of you know lifting your
chest you know feeling your spine deepening your breath slowing your
nervous system down there is no containment without nervous system regulation so being able to actually
contain your own energy right feel the part of you that is wide enough to hold
the jealousy or anger or rage or anything that’s coming through you and then being able to artfully and
thoughtfully and mindfully express or open that little steam valve right uh is
is crucial so in some instances it might be appropriate for you to actually
remove yourself from the experience and then go into the bathroom for example let’s say we’ll go back to the party and
jealousy so if you feeling like if I talk to her I’m going to explode then
what that’s telling you is that you have to take responsibility for moving that energy right so you might go into the
bathroom for a minute and just have a you know a a silent tantrum or a bit of
a you know like just move the energy out or you might pound on your body or you might you might sort of release with
sound anything that you can do to artfully and thoughtfully move the
energy is containment containment is not just locking down on things so that is
one way that you could do it if your emotions are so strong that you’re afraid you’re going to say something you’re going to regret or you’re going
to blast your partner with way too much energy this is very true for women as well so really true for women as well
because I see a lot of women who believe that it is the masculine’s job solely to
contain whatever they’re bringing right and we have to understand that our
partners have capa certain capacity levels right and each capacity level might be different in fact it is
different for every partner so to expect ladies I’m talking to you to expect I’m
just going to you know ex be the exploding volcano and expect him to put his body over the top of the volcano and
keep it from exploding that’s just unrealistic and quite honestly unfair so
there is a certain amount this is why self-containment is so important and finding out you know what are the valves
the little pressure valves that you can open to release some of the energy while
maintaining a sense of structure and a sense of containment and so what we’ll find is that often times it’s important
to leave a conversation so that we can move the energy and then come back into our center column come back into our
core uh sometimes it’s just a matter of you know taking a beat taking a breath
feeling the center column of your body which is this sort of really beautiful space between your throat and your
paranneeium really feeling that part of your body pulling the energy back into
the center of your body rather than having it just you know expand and explode pulling it back and then finding
ways to express it i like the three sentence rule as a way to really
practice containment so let’s say you’re in that party watching your partner you
know get a little flirty with somebody else or watching somebody get somebody else get flirty with your partner you have all these things you take a few
breaths you know you walk over there or you and you have a you know you shake the guy’s hand and then you you say to
her you know you pull her aside and you say you know when I saw the flirty energy between you two and I’m not
blaming you for anything I had the deep experience of jealousy and
possessiveness and I noticed I had some fear about you wanting somebody else
three sentences expressing what’s true right
in a way that doesn’t blame them but also expresses the truth the deepest
truth of your heart so part of a really good containment practice is to
understand the deepest truth within yourself the part of you that is actually causing most of the energy to
get amplified and then opening that that valve that pressure valve in a way that
won’t damage your partner or in a way ideally that that creates closeness and
intimacy in your partner and the two best ways are to be playful and humorous
or to be deep and vulnerable and each of those ways is a form of containment and
expression i really can’t emphasize this enough especially for men i see this as
a problem in so many men and I’ve certainly put this pressure on myself where there’s just too much energy
coming at me my nervous system cannot just sort of hold it i need to be able
to release a little of the energy myself and I need to be able to uh manage it uh
titrate it however you want to describe it but I I’m not holding space does not
mean just locking my energetic body down and just going totally silent and often
numb right numbness is not containment containment has aliveness meaning you’re
feeling what’s moving through you but you’ve cultivated the nervous system strength to be able to actually let it
move you’ve cultivated your capacity to not jump out in reactivity and again
this is hard and you are going to fail at it i have failed at it multiple times and it’s one of those things that
this is where I do really agree with Omra Pani one of the things that I see you know that causes women the most
stress in a relationship is they’re feeling that they aren’t being contained emotionally and energetically by their
partner so step number one learn the art of
self-containment and there’s ways to practice this you know a great way to practice this if you have children is to
literally just practice being in the energetic wildness of your children
while keeping your awareness on the center column of your body or the next time that there is some kind of heated
discussion with your partner really take the awareness and put it in the center of
your body and then just track the breath track the breath up and down the center of the body feel the ground right so
these are some very practical ways that anybody can use to develop their capacity to be contained and sometimes
just practicing if you swing way too far to the overly reactive side then maybe
you just try a couple fights where you just keep your mouth shut and practice
being in your center and receiving the energetic you know onslaught that’s
coming at you and learn to really circulate it learn to really widen your body you know and the more energy that’s
in you the wider your energetic body has to be right and so learning self-containment means that you actually
learn to hold yourself in some way you know energetically sometimes it might just be putting a hand on your heart is
a form of containment right and just taking some deep breaths and putting your hand on your heart that’s a self-containment moment so the
self-containment piece is something that we practice a lot in men’s work it’s something that I think is crucial in
polarity practice because if he cannot contain for example this is another
thing I see a lot in polarity practices as things get hotter and the energy gets
turned up right his capacity to actually contain his desire and not just be
grasping for her or leaning into her but to really be strong spine sitting
upright breathing deep and just circulating that energy of desire for
her right of course he can let it out through his eyes or through a sound or
you know just you know have it kind of come the out the front of his body as a transmission of desire and love but when
he loses containment of that desire he’ll you can I see it in men all the time they’ll start to either lean
forward their eyes will start to get really big and they will they will lose their capacity to contain their own
desire so again these are yogic and martial arts and energetic practices
that take some time to develop if your nervous system took 40 years to get to
where it’s at and you feel that it’s overly reactive or overly triggered then
you know working on containment slowly daily and again we’ve got lots of practices in the embodied relationship
experience platform that address this um but that is a really important and
potent practice especially for men okay next I want to talk about what it means
once you’ve achieved some level of self-containment because if you don’t have self-containment any attempt to try
to contain your partner is going to be absolutely fruitless you know especially men have used their physicality to try
to contain the feminine while they’re uncontained so often times what will happen is that
will be the time when men will try to use their physical or imposing presence to contain her energy thinking that it’s
going to solve the situation but it it often just exacerbates the situation or
it turns abusive so self-containment first then when and this can happen once
you get good at it it can happen in 30 seconds it can happen in a minute you could just you can even say to your partner love give me a minute i just
need to contain myself that’s way more trustable than you know gritting your teeth and pretending that you’re not
having an emotional experience but once you actually feel contained you might take a couple breaths close your eyes
and then you open your eyes again and then you reach out and you actually start to contain her body with your body
uh one of the things that I think I think that this is both or all three
physical energetic and emotional so if you just do the physical without the
energetic and emotional it’ll feel like you’re trying to control there’s a big difference between controlling your
partner and trying to contain their experience right trying to offer your
nervous system and your body as a rapper for everything as a rapper and a soother
and a relaxer of their nervous system really what we’re talking about with containment is that you’re using your
body and nervous system to downregulate their body and nervous system and so how
that happens is that if your partner is starting to have a lot have their own
whoosh of energy right is important for you to contain yourself and then you can
try actually imagining that you’re wrapping your arms around them so let’s
say it’s really hot and you don’t you know touching them probably wouldn’t be
a good idea but you can always wrap your arms around them energetically you can
imagine holding them pulling them close you can look into their eyes and and and
hold their eye contact and you can contain them with your eye contact you
can deepen your breath and then your practice and your energetic body will
then begin to ground their body and in many cases it is appropriate to touch so
you can put your hands on their upper thighs for example and just press down
you can use soft gentle words to downregulate their nervous system and then you can learn to wrap you know wrap
your energetic body around their energetic body and watch sometimes it takes very little time sometimes less
than a minute right of you doing that and you offering them the emotional and
energetic and then often physical containment sometimes just putting your
arm around a partner this is a form of containment and of course if it’s just
physical you’re not present there’s no energetic component to it there’s no heart-c centered component to it when we
talk about energetic what I’m really talking about is the heart right is the heart activated because the heart is the
is the center of our energetic body the heart is the battery the kidneys as well
but that’s chiong but for for keeping it simple the heart energy is the energy
that contains that calms that soothes right and so to stay connected to our
heart to stay connected to our breath and then to gift our partner in that moment the down reggulation that we’ve
just created for ourselves that is what it means to contain your partner and
contain them emotionally now there’s other ways that that shows up right but I just really want to focus on the
energetic and physical so if somebody is going into a heightened triggered response a fear response a trauma
response oftentimes a fear response again the energy is going to want to come up and out because that’s what
anger does that’s what rage does that’s what most strong emotions do they want to go they want to go up and out so your
practice of really using your body sometimes it might be as simple as just holding them tight and pressing their
body into your body and just breathing with them that is a beautiful form of containment like feeling your heart at
one point you could actually feel your heart wrap around their heart you could imagine your heart having arms wrapping
around their heart there’s all kinds of really beautiful energetic subtle ways
to create containment for your partner but the thing to realize is that when
they are going into a traumatized or fearful response they will often be leaving the present moment they might
often be leaving their own body right because they have to sort of it wasn’t safe to be in their body when they were
young this happens quite a lot so your capacity to actually breathe them down
with use your breath to help breathe them down use your heart to wrap their
heart maybe use your physical body to you know to hold their physical body all
of these elements are really important and very effective quite frankly very
effective elements of containment so if you are especially this is especially
true for the masculine right this is especially true when you feel your partner’s energy revving up when she’s
feeling in a bad mood or critical or complaining right before you deal with
the content you have to deal with the nervous system and look this is hard especially when you feel like all that
energy is uncontained and coming at you this is very hard practice so this is
ninja level [ __ ] quite frankly and yet it is one of the most important skill
sets to learn in creating uh safety emotional safety for the feminine in
your relationship which again includes his emotional body and your emotional body so there has to be sort of a dual
joint responsibility and commitment to containment this is not something that
should just fall on the man i know a lot of women who believe like this is the man’s sole responsibility that is
[ __ ] it’s not sustainable let me put it that way and I know many men who want
to be better at this i know many men who are working to strengthen their nervous systems to be better than this but it
does require that there be some kind of responsibility on both sides for
self-containment and managing our emotions right which like I said the more feminine you are the more you’re
going to [ __ ] hate that and the more you’re going to appreciate when it’s done artfully so let’s talk a little bit
more about the physicality of containment you know one of the great examples that I see a lot and I see
women respond to this so powerfully is Shabbari if you are highly feminine
right and this could be true for a man as well but if you are a highly feminine being then being actually
contained with the extreme physicality of being tied up in a shabari practice
um is often very very pleasurable so you’ll see this um this idea of physical
and energetic containment of your partner show up in the emotional realm like I just described and then working
with their nervous system to to downregulate and in a sense contain their nervous system you’re using your
nervous system to contain their nervous system but it’s also very true in the erotic playground right so in many dom
sub dynamics the the dom is containing
um the sub you know the the woman can be the dom and the man can be the sub but whoever’s in the dominant role is
responsible for the energetic containment what that can often mean is being certain directional you could be
in sort of a command is a sort of containment you know come to me that’s a
sort of containment right um you know show me your throat it’s a sort of
containment um you know lift your heart right you you’re you’re actually not
just holding but gently directing the energy there’s a a misconception that
containment is just the static holding of the experience but really good
containment also navigates the energy also sort of directs the energy there’s
time and space involved there’s a place where the energy is happening and the
the masculine containment responsibility is to manage that right a great example
of this uh sexually right is this capacity to breathe her energy back down
into her lower body so using your breath matched to her breath to pull her energy
back down into her womb back down into her cervix to hold her spine tight you
know one of the first things I was taught in um sexual yoga practice was right hand you know when she’s sitting
on your lap right hand is just behind her sacrum left hand is just behind her heart and you are holding her you are
containing her and what that does is it allows her to tap deeper and deeper
wells of desire pleasure expression etc etc right because the container is being
beautifully held now that again there might be moments where you could use
language or you could use some sort of phys physical movement you could grab her tightly or you know you could
express something through your face and sound right you can be expressive this is the mistake I think a lot of men make
is they think that containment means sto absolute [ __ ] stoicism that is boring
that is boring containment is the capacity to be in charge of your energy
to be in control of your energy and then to learn to be in charge of somebody
else’s energy or not really in charge so much as you know to be able to to move
it to that is what sex magic is right sex magic is the capacity to take sexual
energy and move it open somebody’s body with it move emotion with it um move
pleasure with it right so when we’re talking about containment we’re really talking about the capaca and containment
of our partner sexually we’re really talking about our capacity to you know
to create a space where they they feel safe enough to bring more of their
energetic capacity right because again the feminine both fears full expression
and craves it and so this is that beautiful dance that goes on between the
masculine and the feminine right it’s the beautiful dance that goes on between the raging river and the river banks
right if the river banks are are not strong or tall then the river just you
know kind of floods everything and you know if the river banks have some girth
to them and are you know some sturdiness to them then the river just flows
effortlessly and that’s what we want to create for our feminine partner is that capacity for them to flow effortlessly
and then occasionally using our you know the energy that’s moving in our body to
to direct or expand the energy moving in their body and these are all forms of
containment that I think often times are not properly discussed so if we’re
thinking about being able to contain our partner in a highly emotional state and
to contain our partner in a highly sexual state you know both of those things again require our practice you
know for those of you who’ve been watching this podcast for the last year you get that you know practice training
your nervous system training your body now you know why right containment without practice is almost impossible
unless you were rela raised by the most relaxed potent parents on the planet
which you know most of us were not so the art of containment requires practice
it’s not something you can just think yourself into now you can create an intention to contain your partner you
know a little more in the sexual realm for example you can be the structure to
her energetic experience but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to be also containing yourself in that experience
you’re going to be having to deal with the more energy and pleasure that moves through her body the more energy and
pleasure that has to move through your body and so this is why often times men ejaculate prematurely because they can’t
contain that energy it sounds really simple and it is but it’s not easy it’s
not easy learning to circulate that energy while maintaining the the posture
and the structure and the consciousness the body awareness and consciousness
these are all forms of containment okay so let’s talk about what it means to have a containment for the relational
dynamic for the relationship itself because if we think about it you know there’s three entities in any
relationship there’s you there’s your partner and then there’s the dynamic that you create together and all three
of those things need containment right all three of those things need to be
able to have some space to hold the energy some structure some space to hold the
energy of the dynamic so for example let’s say this is the classic one let’s
say that you know you guys the moment that that you know each of you kind of starts a fight that the the igniting of
both of these energies within you becomes this big nuclear reactor right
so often times when we’re talking about the dynamic of a relationship and and especially the dynamics of conflict what
we’re really talking about is just a large amount of energy that needs
structure and containment so this is where things like agreements come in
about how to fight right when you both create an agreement on how to fight
you’re practicing containment for the energetic that is your relationship and
the you know all relationship energetics include past childhood traumas and
relationship traumas um life stressors and life throwing everything at you um
and then you know all of your personal desires and wants right so you know
there’s more but all of these things your needs all of these things create this cacophony of um energy that needs
containment so having agreements on how to fight having agreements on how to
repair having agreements on what is and is not allowed in your conflict right
like let’s say name calling for example that’s a hard no for me so you know being able to have some agreement some
structure around how you fight what’s acceptable in fighting what does not cause a nuclear explosion so
strengthening that container that holds the fision the nuclear fision is the responsibility of both partners it’s not
just the responsibility of the man i can’t say this enough it’s the responsibility of both partners to be in
agreement with to to first be responsible for their own nervous system
second to be able to you know use their their self-contained self-regulated body
to serve their partner’s body and help contain their partner but in instances
where both partners are not resourced both partners are not in equinimity both
partners are triggered right in those moments that is the nuclear reactor getting turned up to attend and so
containment means we’re going to have agreements we’re going to have structure we’re going to have you know ways that
we can and cannot fight for example when this happens it allows for the energy to
be held and directed which is why I’m such a big fan of you know non-violent
communication a mo dialogue the feedback wheel there’s so many great tools those are tools of
containment those are tools to contain the nuclear reactor that is your history
and their history coming together in relationship there are no relationships that I know of that that does not that
is not needed where there is not some agreement on how to contain the mutual
energy the shared energy that is the entity of your relationship it’s a
separate entity from you and them what are some other examples of the ways that
containment can be used in relationship so you know again a good way to think
about this is whoever the most resourced partner is in a moment is probably the
one that should be really thinking about how can I contain you know my partners
and my own emotional experience now that might vary from day to day you know in
most healthy polarized relationship the masculine partner is really in charge of
that and in many you know healthy polarized relationships like I’ve said
the feminine partner will resist that but also crave it so that puts you men
in a very interesting position trying to create containment for the relationship
so I’m going to speak directly to men now about this so creating containment for the relationship that entity that
separate entity that is the two of you together you know requires you to step more into both being the energetic
experience the grounded energetic experience of conscious awareness right what does that mean for
those of you who are not meditators what that means is that you are aware of
what’s happening in the field of your relationship pretty much at all times
you have some part of your awareness some of your awareness can be on work some of your awareness can be on the kids some of your awareness can be on
you know your community or your hobbies or that kind of thing but some of your awareness is is trained to feel the
field of the relationship and to um use your consciousness and awareness and you
know feeling body to be able to create things that you know help contain and in
many ways direct the flow of the relationship so a great example of this is rituals right you may find that you
know having a Friday Friday night temple space ritual is really good for
containing the the love that you guys share right and it’s also very
nourishing it may it could be something like you know family rituals like you know certain family trips or you know
even holiday rituals or it could be you guys drink tea together in the morning and that’s your ritual there’s lots of
things that are possible that you can feel the relationship need so you can
create containment and often times when that kind of leadership is not present
that kind of masculine leadership is not present in the relationship container the feminine will start to a fill the
void with her own masculine which he’s probably got a pretty good capacity for that most women do these days but also
she’ll start to resent it she’ll start to resent it so so good masculine leadership is to constantly be keeping
an eye on what’s what are the structures the rituals the practices the agreements
that are holding the field of our relationship so that no matter how much energy is within the reactor the reactor
itself is sound and let’s see another great way to to think about this is you
know what are the areas of growth for example or the
spiritual practices for example or any or you know again the the sexual practices maybe you decide to you know
part of what your relationship needs is it needs to come to a workshop and learn you know uh sacred intimacy and tantric
practice i mean there’s all kinds of ways that the masculine can help contain
and guide the field of relationship so men it’s a really important exploration
for you to take stock of how can I create a stronger structure of
containment for my relationship and I invite you to ask yourself this question and maybe do some journaling on it you
know how can I you know where are is the structure that holds all of the energy
that is us weak how can I strengthen it how can I strengthen it with time and
space with my energetic awareness with my attention right so being able to
bring all of those things makes you incredibly valuable to your feminine partner right and it gives her so much
more space to to really be the energy that most women want to be it doesn’t
mean that they don’t you know go to work and kick ass and you know build everything themselves as well but
there’s a part of of them that wants to be contained right and maybe that’s a
little controversial to say but it’s just what I’ve seen over the years that there’s a part of the feminine in all of us in all of us i’ll say I have I can
get certainly highly emotional and it feels so good when I’m emotional to feel
my partner you know kind of pressing into me leaning into me right that is them containing me and when they do that
I can come right back into my nervous system it helps co-regulate so being aware man specifically about
where you can bring you know more artful structure and containment to your
relationship will serve you invaluably will be really important for your relationship another really good uh
form of relational containment is boundaries right now this also applies to you know our personal practice right
but to have boundaries around certain things like you know this is my this is
my man cave and you know please let me know if you’re going to be coming into my man cave it’s a silly one but it’s
it’s true right or these are certain agreements that if you break these agreements there will be consequences
that is actually a form of containment right just don’t be surprised men if the feminine pushes up against those
boundaries but being able to be really clear and you know women of course can
practice this as well of you creating containment for the relationship by
setting their own boundaries like here are the things that I need basically when your feminine partner is expressing
a boundary like that to you what she’s saying is I need more containment i need you to be aware of the the leaks and the
energetic you know fissures that are are you know causing our structure to crack
and so being able to be aware of what you need in terms of boundaries and then
to artfully express them that is a form of containment that is a really
important form of containment i think at some point I’ll do a full um podcast on
boundary setting and how to do it and you know the energetic beauty of it and the pitfalls of it and the way some
people use it as um a wall rather than a boundary but that’s another topic but
for now let’s just let’s let me recap here we have the art of self-containment which I talked about at the beginning
then from that place we have the art of being able to contain your partner emotionally and even sexually and then
third is what is the containment that you mutually set up to hold the
energetic space that is your relationship and I think if you take a you know a really solid you know spot
check inventory on you know how well you’re doing in all those areas there’ll
be some places for you to work and again this is the kind of thing that is
difficult to do without some kind of practice something that expands your nervous system capacity remember I said
that there can be no containment without nervous system downregulation we just do
not most of us just do not have it in us to try to do it while we’re highly agitated so really important that starts
with self then moves to your partner and then simultaneously you guys create
something for the entire relationship please let me know in the comments what you thought about this if you have any questions uh please feel free to share
this i think this is important information especially for the men in your lives and again even though I
speaking a lot to men in this it’s just as important for women to cultivate their masculine their healthy masculine
women who have spent a lot of time the last 60 years or so cultivating the masculine in the workplace the drive the
goal setting the etc right even the spiritual practice but to learn to be
able to uh cultivate a healthy masculine that can contain your partner’s feminine
because men crave being held emotionally as well dirty little secret right men
want to be held emotionally sometimes as well you know hopefully in a healthy
polarized relationship you know it’s it’s less than she needs but sometimes there might be periods in life or in the
relationship where he’s going through it where he’s deep in the [ __ ] where he’s really you know he’s emotional and he’s
feeling it so your capacity to show up for him occasionally with that and have
that ability is also incredibly important ladies all right so that’s it
for now we’ll see you next time on the Embodied Relationship Experience.
