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Hi. Welcome back to our podcast RelationshipAlkemy. I’m Jordan Bessaignet.
And I’m Olivier Bessaignet, we’re married.
And together we are Relationship Alkemy.
Where we talk about intimacy, relationships, conscious communication. And this is the last episode of our mini-series. And if you remember, we started on this journey long time ago.
Long time ago.
And we were getting on board this boat or flying carpet, whatever you want to yesterday in therapy, I had a client who wanted to fly in her. So she was in her bedroom and she wanted to leave her bedroom, but she was really comfortable with her bed, so she had a flying bed. It makes sense to me. Flying carpet so that we can leave the mainland of Mediocrity, Mediocrity or Bourne with all the zombies that are programmed the same way and travel to this magical land of intimacy where we can cultivate first, we mapped out the territory, what we want, what we do not want. And we realized that was a stowaway in our boats and that was ready to destroy our new intimacy on the land.
We brought our own shadow with us. Right, Dang? Shadow follows us everywhere.
Yes. Then we talked about the language, and we talked a lot about conscious communication. I thought it would be one episode, but it ended up being three or four, I don’t remember. And so let’s wrap it up with custom and cultures. So what are the custom and cultures of intimacy? So we have a little list. And so we have emotional intimacy and we have sexual intimacy.
Just to reiterate, if you are following along, we do have a free handout on our website. Just go to the free download section and you’ll be able to follow along right beside us.
Right. So just enter your email. You can download this handout. This one is called Journey Into Intimacy and Conscious Communication. And this is what we’re showing on the screen. If you’re listening to us, you can’t see it. But if you are on the YouTube channel, you can watch it or on the Facebook page, you can watch this recording.
All right, let’s get into customs and cultures of intimacy.
Right. Customs and cultures of intimacy. How do we behave? What do we do? What do we not do? Right.
So we’re going to start off first with emotional literacy.
Yes.
This is huge in intimacy. This is greatly beneficial in our relationship. Being able to understand and empathize with each other when we need to has really elevated our relationship to the next level.
So we always communicate from an emotional level. And so every time somebody like either her or me, we say something the other says, and how do you feel about that? So we have conversations around how we feel about things and what our needs are. That was the last episode. We went into great length to explain all that. And when we get triggered, when it’s rough, we tap into the power of vulnerability. And I know it can be scary and it can be hard to open up and be vulnerable, but we have this habit of say, I will share a little bit. Okay. And if I get a positive response, then I might feel trusting to open up a little more. And we’ve fostered that trust. That it’s okay. The more we open up to each other, the safer we are.
Yeah. It’s really interesting talking about vulnerability right now, because I remember when we first got together, I felt like, okay, I’m being vulnerable, I’m being vulnerable. And then I remember going through this pattern with you where I thought I was being vulnerable, and then something would come up in our life that we needed to face together. And then suddenly I would, like, explode all these feelings. Yeah. And for me, there’s definitely a learning curve, too. And I would say I’m still going through this, like, how vulnerable can I be? How open can I be to my partner, to my husband? I just remember going through this pattern really intensely when we first got together. Yeah. Just withholding my feelings.
Yeah.
And I remember you energetically reaching out to me and physically and emotionally. And like, I had to go through this process where I had to learn that it was okay to be vulnerable.
Yeah.
And that you as like you, Olivier, were actually really great at receiving my vulnerability.
Yeah. I’ve been in multiple relationships, but I always wanted to share vulnerability. And I’ve shared a lot of very vulnerable things in previous relationships where it has backfired, especially in the conscious community. No. I mean, I’ve dated people who are like life coaches and book authors on the person of the black men, so they should be more inclined to this. And what I’ve learned is the stereotype is that the women want more emotional connection than the typical man, but I also want more emotional connection. I’m totally addicted to it. Yeah. I get so much more connection. And they would say, well, tell me everything I really want to know for connection. But then they couldn’t really handle it. And they were feeling fear with things that I would share because I was going through a lot of therapy at the time, and a lot of things were coming up. So I still had a lot of unresolved things. It’s good to know how much the other can handle, and the other goes into judgment or fear or rejection. And then clearly it’s not really okay. So there might be a limit to the share of vulnerability, and that’s what we’re doing with each other.
That’s what I love about you. Our relationship together is that. Yeah. It’s gradual, but it looks like we can go really far. And that’s just so exciting.
And that’s why we’re married.
Yeah, exactly. And I know in my thirtys I was in a relationship with a Township teacher named Baghdadi in France for twelve years. And she was a former dancer and like a professional dancer, I mean, her art was gorgeous and she was telling me that force can get you so far. And she had to be strong, right. To be able to lift her leg up to her head. She had to have a lot of strength, but it would not be graceful. Strength is not Grace. So we are taught in this society, Western society, especially in America, the rugged individuals build this country. Right. So you got to be tough, you’ve got to be competitive.
American story.
Yeah. Do not show weakness. Otherwise you’re dead. Right. But she could only bring her leg up so far based on strength and training and competitivity. But in order to really have it come to her ear, her head like really up. And with Grace, she really had to open up to vulnerabilities. So that’s something I really learned with her is that if we only go one way only onto toughness, then the range is limited and the real power is to open up the range. And the more we open it towards vulnerability, the more strength we have.
I agree with that.
The more resiliency, the more we can take on, the more we can face and be present and support each other. So the power of vulnerability for me is so important because it is what gives me more strengths on the other side of the spectrum.
Yeah. I would even say my point of view on vulnerability is that vulnerability is the true strength.
Yes.
That’s really what I’m getting from our relationship, from my relationship with others, my relationship with my son, and even touching on the relationship with my family where vulnerability is not necessarily valued. There’s something really, really touching about being able to show up and say this is me.
Yeah.
And that’s all this is me. I have nothing to hide. I have nothing to prove. This is me. If it’s not for you, thank you. But this is me.
So that’s the first point of the culture that we are creating and nurturing. And so the second one is that we choose self reflection to come back to connection fast. So we choose self reflection by choosing self reflection, which is like a very powerful tool. So if we’re triggered to each other, if we’re upset with each other, the first thing that comes to mind is the story and how you did be wrong and how the other XYZ, blah, blah, blah, we can go on forever. But if we can pause a minute and step into self reflection, that can give us an insight on what’s underneath the trigger. And so we give you in previous episodes a few examples like the food truck and we were upset to each other and we came back to connection within an hour because of self refraction. So for me, that’s the main key. It’s not to say, well, I’m upset with each other, but I want to be in my heart and I’m tapping into the light and I forgive you, but then we don’t address it. So that would be a huge bypass. And if we don’t address it, guess what’s going to happen?
It’s going to happen again.
It’s going to come back stronger.
Yeah. Stronger and stronger until it starts off as like a little knock on the door and all of a sudden it’s pounding the door. The door down.
So a big part of our culture of intimacy, emotional intimacy is self reflection.
Yeah. And self reflection. What I really value about self reflection is it takes the pressure off of your partner. In this case, you are my partner to submit or rebel. Right. There’s no pressure of like, you have to make it up to me.
I should have written, we choose self reflection to dissolve power struggles and come back to connection fast.
Good. Yeah. It takes the pressure in this case, you it takes the pressure off of you to get it right.
Okay.
Yeah. That’s what I see self reflection as. And it really offers I can only speak from my experience, but I assume you have this experience, too. It really offers growth.
Yeah.
And when triggers do come up, it turns into an opportunity for growth and to come back together. But without self reflection, we wouldn’t be able to do that.
Yeah. And more often than not, in intimate relationships, especially when they’re sexually involved. So, I mean, we can have an intimate relationship with a friend, but with a lover, it’s even like a husband or wife, it’s much deeper. The trigger might be from the other and the situation, but there might be a lot of things underneath. And last time we talked about this framework, this formula, I just say when this happened, it triggers a child with wound in me. And so the self reflection allows to say that and to realize that how our traumas and our childhood wounds impact our communication in our relationship, which is the third point.
Our next point is we heal our childhood wounds in therapy.
Yeah. We’re not.
And this is, I think, huge. I totally understand that not everybody has access to therapy, but if you do have the resources for therapy.
This is a game changer. I have this recoup couple that came for therapy sessions since we offer therapy sessions, and they came in not for therapy, but for communication help on communication. They went to our workshop class, bimonthe class on communication. And they were like, okay, we need more specific help on how to communicate with each other. And the first session, we are sitting there and 15 minutes in, we’re beyond communication, and they clearly trigger each other’s trauma. Right. For example, the woman needed a lot of things organized, I mean, controlling our environment, like where the knife and the knives and the cutting board are and how things are organized around the house is very important. And, well, he didn’t care that much. So he was triggering her. And she shared that her mother was very controlling, and so she needs to know where things are. Otherwise she doesn’t feel safe. That’s nothing to do with our partner. They were trying to understand how to communicate better with each other, but right away, we realized that some really deep ones. And for him as well. Like, he had a chaotic family, like, in terms of his mother and father, his father was also managing him.
There was some stress, anxiety, and he would react in the relationship not based off. I mean, his partner was triggering him, but it was really his childhood wounds. And so 15 minutes in, I’m like, okay, that’s great. Well, what about we do private therapy session individually, and then we’ll come back together and check on communication? Well, the woman had another session yesterday, and I asked her, how is it going with communication? She said, oh, it’s going so well. Like, 80% of all the tricks and the formulas that we can learn are not even needed anymore.
Exactly.
When we heal our child with wounds.
Yes, I definitely love therapy. And actually, when we met, you told me you had done years of therapy, and that was so hot to me, coming from this paradigm of just the mindset that I have a lot to offer to someone else to help them heal, but I don’t necessarily need to be their healer.
Yeah, totally.
And I was definitely in the middle of that transition. And when I met you, and that just, like, affirmed that I was on the right path. Like, okay, this is, first of all, a man second of all, a man who’s been to therapy and a man who’s aware of his childhood trauma and just has more awareness about how he moves through the world. And that was so hot. Therapy is hot. Go to therapy if you can.
Emotional literacy and emotional intimacy is hot.
It is.
And the more you can dissolve your childhood traumas and know yourself, know thyself. Okay, let’s be Zen and philosophical and know thyself. What does it mean? Well, go to therapy. You’ll know, very fast. It means definitely because it’s hard to access this more, like, centered place. Next episode, we’re going to talk about therapy more in depth. But the modality that I love so much, we tap into the self, and the self is our essence. The essence is not wounded. Our parts are wounded, and we can talk to them. We can heal them. But if we’re clogged with all that mess, it’s really hard to access the self. Yeah, but it’s there whether we know it or not. It is there. And it doesn’t need to be strengthened. It doesn’t need to be educated. It’s already there fully the way it’s supposed to be. And the work is to unclog our space, to access that yeah, definitely. So I believe that intimacy and relationships are a great challenge for sole growth because you can go in the mountain and meditate for 30 years and be sure of all your certainties that you’ve fostered by yourself and maybe you access deeper truth about the universe and consciousness and stuff like that.
Sure.
But then put it to the test of relationships and see how it goes.
See how quickly.
Yeah.
So our next point that we have is we’re not responsible for others feelings, yet we offer our full presence and support.
Right. So it’s a fine line. Right. Because we talked about this in previous episodes. We’re not responsible for each other’s feelings, which means if you feel the way you feel, I’m not responsible for it, which means I don’t need to jump in and fix you or to bend over backwards to press on myself so that you’re okay. That’s what it means. But I’ve heard people saying, well, I’m not response for your feelings. And then they walk away.
Yeah.
Your shit is not mine.
I’ve actually seen that in a couple of different relationships before.
And that really sucks.
And that really sucks because that leaves the other person feeling unsupported. Like, sure, we don’t need to take on the other feelings. Like you said, pretzel herself, however, offering full presence and support because it is, at the end of the day, a partnership.
Yeah. Otherwise, it’s straight abandonment.
Yeah.
And bypass.
Yeah. And I think a good example from our personal lives about this is. Yeah. Recently, Olivier has been extremely successful with his private practice. He just wrote a book. He has a lot going, and he’s definitely put in the work. I haven’t seen. I’ve watched him.
I’m obsessed.
Obsessed in a good way. Not a problematic way about bringing his offerings to the world and creating a strong foundation for those offerings to be presented. And I have been feeling jealous of that. Yeah. Definitely really jealous of that. And there was a couple of weeks where I felt really bitter and with the beautiful tool of self reflection, that’s not necessarily, quote, unquote, like me to be jealous or bitter. And so I was like, where is this coming from? And during that time, I was honest with you about how I was feeling watching you succeed.
Yeah. She’s like, wow, I’m so jealous. Yeah. I hate you right now. And so either I go, oh, what did I do wrong? Or maybe I need to diminish myself and stop doing so much and try to level more to her to make her be okay. But that would not be useful.
No. And that wouldn’t be a full expression of your authenticity, which I value. Authenticity. And I did a lot of self reflection and ask myself a lot of questions. And it’s like, okay, I’m triggered about this, obviously. And I mean, diving deeper into that trigger of what does it mean that Olivier is successful what does that mean to me? And the answer I came back with was that by him being super successful and by me, I wouldn’t say that I’m, like, not successful because I really.
No, you’re doing your thing.
I’m doing my thing at a different pace than you. And I mean, I haven’t written a book yet, but it’s coming in a couple of years maybe, but, yeah, by me going at my own pace, which is a different pace than you are going, it made me really question my self worth. Yeah. A lot of the jealousy and bitterness that were really clues as to the deeper problem, which when I ask myself, what does it mean was that, oh, I’m not successful. That’s by you being extra successful, it means that I’m not successful, which means that I’m not worthy to be this man’s partner and that I have nothing to offer and that I’m not valuable, which really just pointed towards my needs for acceptance, to feel worthy and to feel valued. So with self reflection, I was able to come to this place, and I was able to share that with you once again. Coming back to vulnerability and having this whole process unfold, and you being a part of that process, not necessarily guiding me through it, but supporting me through it made the whole world a difference.
Yeah. So I was not diminishing myself to make you feel better. I was not dismissing you either. Like, wow, why on my case, what’s your problem? What did I do wrong? Right. So I didn’t take it personally. Okay, so what does it mean? It means that you want to feel more self worth for yourself. I’m like, okay, I’m here for you, baby. What do you need? If you have any questions, it reminds me of my friend Paul Sterling, who was also a love coach, and I think it was back in 2016 or 17. I remember him teaching a point where at the workshop, he was teaching a workshop, and he was saying, if you really want to make yourself feel miserable, compare yourself to somebody who has mastered something and that you really struggle with. So compare yourself with somebody who has mastered something. Like, I have mastered Internet marketing in the last ten years and with something you’re restructuring with because you don’t have any experience with. So that’s the best way to make yourself miserable. But to illustrate that point of not being responsible for the others feelings, like, I was not feeling responsible for your feelings, but yet I not walk away.
There is no like, well, that’s yours. I’m going to be over here instead. It was, wow, I really see that you’re struggling with this, and I honor your feelings during this time and let me know how I can support you more. It created this opportunity for connection, which when you’re feeling jealous and bitter and like that darker edge, that is an opportunity for division and just being like I see you through this process made me feel really loved and valued and coming too, with vulnerability. And like, there’s this part of me. And society has taught me my cultural upbringing has taught me that this is shameful.
Right.
To feel this way. And here I am kind of with those thoughts in my mind. But here I’m still going to present this piece of me to you. And you just loved it.
Yeah. Because it also reveals to me that you aspire for more for yourself.
Yeah, definitely.
And I love that.
Yes.
That means you’re eager to tap into your potential and what you want to offer to the world. Yeah. Can I not be on board with that?
Yes, definitely. So, I mean, just that in itself brings us to our next point. We express our emotions fully by owning them.
So, yeah, we talked a lot about how to do that in the previous episode. And I was just reading a blog post recently on somebody who was saying how nonviolent communication is bullshit yet again. I’ve heard it so many times because they reject anger, for example, nonviolent communication reject anger. And you need to speak smoothly and softly to spite nonviolent communication. And I believe it’s totally untrue. That’s not the way I do it.
Yeah. That’s not the way that we do it. I also read the article, and I definitely can see how I would say, like the spiritual bypassing, nonviolent communicators.
Yeah. Nonviolent communication can allow spiritual bypass. That is true. But it’s also like a new language. Yeah. And so it’s really hard to be fluent in a new language unless you immerse yourself in the country and you can double for a long time and for years. And I understand the frustration of trying to express things better and not succeeding and meeting rejection and not knowing how to do any better. And also it can be a tool for bypassing. But the true environment of nonviolent communication, I like to call it conscious communication. Is it’s the tool to express your emotion fully? But instead of expressing emotion, I could put an s here emotions fully. Like if I feel anger or if I feel jealousy. Right. Either I express it out onto the other and so I rage to the other or I’m jealous of the other. Okay. And so I put my emotions onto them or I own them. Right. And owning them does not put it on them, but they can hear it. It’s like if I’m really enraged and upset and pissed and disappointed and I can resell all that as long as I’m not putting it onto the other, because that can be really hurtful.
So depends on what we want. If we want to burn a bridge and say, I’m done with you, go fuck yourself. I don’t want to see your face anymore. Then I might do that.
Yeah.
But with my wife, what are we going to do when it comes to night? We need to sleep in the same bed and take care of the kids. How’s that going to go?
Yeah.
So the alternative is we to express our emotions fully by owning them. I feel this way. I need this. My need for this is not met, and I’m furious about it. Okay. And she’s going to hear it. But I’m not blaming like, you are responsible for me being so upset going back to a few points earlier.
Yeah, definitely the last month, which after we express our emotions to each other, the next point is we place healthy boundaries with compassion.
Right.
I mean, this is huge in any sort of relationship, whether it’s a relationship with the family member, workplace relationship, intimate relationship with your lover. You need boundaries. Yeah, we all need boundaries. And learning how to place healthy boundaries with compassion makes a huge difference.
Yeah. I think you’re going to need to have a full episode just on that.
Yeah. I mean, probably a series.
Right. But the gist of it is non healthy boundaries would be to not speak our truth and let the other Trump our boundaries. Okay. So nonhealthy boundaries, another type of non healthy boundaries would be or like, not with compassion would be. Well, in order to place my boundary, I need to be harsh and disconnect from love.
Yeah. And I can relate to that with my personal experience of coming from an upbringing where there weren’t any boundaries, at least. Yeah. That was not taught to me. Like, you’re allowed to have boundaries. And so when I first started placing boundaries, it was this really harsh, right.
Almost.
I compare it to the fence with the shot collar where the dog has the collar. And if the dog leaves invisible fence. Yeah. Leaves the area, he gets a shot. And that was the only way at that time in my life that I knew how to place a boundary. And it was like angry electric shock, like, out of bounds to other people. But since I have definitely learned how to place healthy boundaries with compassion and softness.
Yeah. Boundaries are really revealing a lot of things. They go really deep. I just want to bring up the story of our friend who was with her roommate. So they were friends and they moved in together because they loved each other. Right. And they were buying food together and they were filling the fridge together. And then one day, one evening, our friend goes to the fridge and open the door. And instead of the eight veggie patties that she was expecting, there was only one left. Okay. And she was like, oh, wow, we bought this together. At least. I should have four. I should have four left out of the eight. Right. So she felt shocked with that. And that was clearly a boundary crossing. And also she would be responsible for the rent and her friend would give her the rent later, like five days, ten days later. So she was feeling really anxious. So it was really not working for her. And her boundaries were crossed all the time. So at some point, either she can say, burn the bridge, you’re disrespecting me and you’re responsible and you can burn that bridge and stop the friendship, or you can go like, hey, I love you.
And I don’t want our friendship and our love to be impacted, but I really need when I go to the fridge, I need at least half of the food that we bought together, at least half of it. I need to find it in the fridge and I need the money on time. Otherwise I’m taking the responsibility for that and it’s a huge burden. So I love you. I want to continue our relationship, but I cannot live with someone who pays rent ten days later. It doesn’t work for me. So a new aspect of this love, it needs to transform into something else. It needs to transform into a situation where we’re not living together, for example. But without burning the bridge of like, me moving out or you moving out does not mean that I don’t love you. It’s just like this one specific thing that we cannot make it work. We cannot agree. We cannot make it work. It’s okay. It doesn’t mean that we hate each other. We don’t need to talk to each other anymore. We can still love each other, but that doesn’t work for me. So we need a different arrangement.
Does that make sense when talking about boundaries?
Yeah, definitely.
You had a recent example with your coworker.
Yeah.
That you share last time.
Yeah, we kind of touched on this. I mean, we didn’t just touch on it. We dive deeply into this with our last episode. So if you’re curious about the background information, definitely would recommend listening to that episode. But basically I had an experience where somebody crossed my boundary.
Yeah. So she with that information for a month.
Yeah, she withheld valuable information, work information from me about a client for a month. And I mean, we had a whole sit down meeting about it, and I was able to place my boundary with compassion and with strength. I was like, yeah, that behavior is not okay with me.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, we were not able to come together into connection. And I decided that I would not be working with this person ever again because we didn’t have an alignment of values. First and foremost, our values were not aligned.
That’s hard to find a common strategy when values are aligned.
Yeah, definitely. Everyone already has their own, you know, their own belief system that they operate from about the world. And when collaborating with others, especially in the workspace, there does need to be an overlap of belief systems and values. And, you know, by this boundary of mine being crossed, we were able to actually sit down and come together and realize, like, okay, yeah, this will not work for me.
Yeah. So I would say the unhealthy way to place boundaries is it would be through a power struggle, either by imposing onto the other or by withdrawing myself or my love to force the change. Okay. But the healthy battery with compassion is to own your values, to own your emotions, and to allow more agency for self and for the other instead of trying to press, push, pull or force the other into a certain thing. It’s like this is what works for me and this is what doesn’t work for me. What about you? Okay. And so we’re equal in terms of strength, power. We’re not creating a power struggle. We’re equal human beings, and we both have different needs, different strategies in ways that we meet those needs. And we might not agree, but placing healthy boundaries with compassion is not disconnecting from love and not creating power struggles.
Yeah.
Makes sense. All right. And we’re going to have a full episode on that because it’s three words.
That’s going to be a mini series.
Yeah. And we’re going to have probably many episodes on sex.
Okay, guys, we have finally gotten to the juicy stuff.
Yeah.
Mean, it’s all juicy, but sex is especially juicy. And after all, we do talk about intimacy, and sex is a part of an intimate relationship. Totally sexually intimate, of course. So for sexual intimacy, which is a huge culture of intimacy island.
Yeah. When we met each other, we were having sex three times a day.
Yeah.
But then she got pregnant, and then we got a baby.
So of course, having sex three times a day during COVID where we couldn’t leave the house during the peak of COVID.
Well, we were still working.
Yeah. I mean, he was working from what type of office was that?
It was a workspace.
It was like a workspace. Yeah. Coworking space because I was visiting in town. That’ll be a whole episode in itself where we talk about how it’s very beautiful story that I love to share.
So I was going to the coworking place. And you were still going?
Yeah. At the time I was working at Sprouts.
So you still have to serve food. Unfortunately, we met at.
A contact income.
What it means about that is that we love nonverbal communication and energy and body.
By the way, there was no talking in this class. There’s like giggles here and there. But the idea is to really drop into your body. And if anyone doesn’t know what contact improv is, it’s basically a form of dancing that is improv free flowing, making it up as you go along. And contact is the part where you’re touching other people so you’re contacting and flowing with other people, which is a beautiful embodiment practice. I highly recommend it. If you’re into touch, go to a contact improv. You don’t need any previous stance experience. It’s definitely very gentle, free flowing, and that’s how we met.
Yeah. So we can talk a lot about environment, sexual intimacy, and stuff like that. And we will have many episodes on that. Just to give a little table of content or summary. It happens that our primary love language for both of us is touch, but that’s not for everybody. Some people it’s active service. But I believe we believe in physical corgulation. That’s something we do a lot with our son, for example, and that rehabs calm his nervous system. And no, he knows we don’t need to tell him. He knows that he’s loved and wanted.
Yeah.
So we are a safe place when he gets neurotic or agitated or he pinches his fingers and drawers.
He’s in a phase of learning how to open doors, like hinges drawers. He loves the concept, like, oh, I can push and open this. And he has shut the drawer with it. He hasn’t learned to move his fingers when he shuts things.
So some parents would say they would block all the drawers and the doors so that the kid does not pinch himself. We come from a different place. We’re more from. Okay. Have your experiences and learn from your experiences, because when we remove something, such as the cat food, then he’s obsessed with it. So until he has his own experiences, he’s obsessed with it.
Yeah.
So we just comprehend. So coregulation physical co regulation is obvious with the kids. It’s so obvious with the kids because it doesn’t have any sexual filters yet.
Yeah. Just to shed a little bit more knowledge on car regulation, I’m also a doula, and I heavily preach skin to skin. And a newborn baby physically cannot regulate their own nervous system.
We’re mammals.
Yeah, we’re mammals. A newborn baby cannot regulate its own body temperature. Yet, you know, fresh from the womb, there’s a lot that a newborn baby can’t do. They’re very vulnerable. And skin to skin is a beautiful practice in which you sink your baby’s nervous system to your nervous system.
Yeah.
And just by having each other’s skin to skin, the baby learns that, oh, this is how a nervous system should work. And the interesting thing is, why do we stop doing that? At least I grew up in a family where touch was not really a thing. It was like maybe an occasional hug, which felt really forced and stiff. But, yeah. Why does our society do that?
Yeah.
What age do we stop regulating the nervous system?
We also teach Tom trial workshops because I have 20 years experience of that. You have also your own experience. And one of the things that we teach, I wish I had it with me right now. There’s a little Rod, right. With two polarities and little lights in between. And by itself, I mean, there’s no battery. Okay. So by itself, it’s inert. But if you grab it from one hand, it doesn’t do anything. But if you grab it with the second hand, it goes. And so the electrical current from our body lights up the little leads and there’s a little alarm sound. Now you take it with one hand and you hold somebody’s hand as well, and they touch the other end of the Rod and it lights up again, which means this electrical current that goes through me, through her back to the Rod that light us up, which means we are electrical beings and our nervous system is wired in the way that, like current flows through our bodies. And that is essential knowledge for touch, expanding pleasure and feeling orgasms and things like that. So that’s the last point that we would like to bring for this podcast is the three layers or levels of to expand pleasure for sexual intimacy are the physical layer, the emotional layer, and the energetic layer.
So I was just talking about. Well, let’s break it down. So emotional layer, we’ve talked about it a lot. Okay. So if we connect physically, but not emotionally, we’re going to miss out on a lot of intimacy. And to that the gateway is vulnerability, emotional connection. All that we talked about, why do we talked about all that? Well, because it’s so important to expanding pleasure into sexual intimacy. So the emotional layer is very important. If I shut down, I’m not trusting and I think I’m not I mean, I believe I don’t think, but I believe that I’m not worthy of love. Probably. It’s going to be harder to accept pleasure.
Yeah, definitely.
The physical layer is the one we know. It’s skin to skin. It’s rubbing. It’s also the cuddles and the co regulation. So we can expand pleasure by knowing our bodies better. Erroneous, erogenous, erogenous, things we can do. Pleasure mapping. One of my daughter teacher is big on sacred spot massage for explaining pleasure for women and for men. And the third layer is the energetic layer. And that is like the blueprints.
Yes.
So if your energy field is blocked or you don’t have access to it, you’re not aware of it. Also, you’ll be limited in your access for pleasure, for expanding pleasure. So those three layers, it’s like physical, emotional and energetic are essential. They work together in sexual intimacy.
Yes. And I mean, in our Tantra workshop, we do offer practices. The workshop that we teach, you never take your clothes off. There’s no genital touching, there’s no rubbing. Yeah. You never take your clothes off. But we offer a lot of energetic practices that really help you tap into that energetic layer. And then you’re able to make love energetically.
Exactly.
Without even having to take your clothes off.
It’s very hot.
Yeah, it is very hot. So when you go home and you’re practicing with your partner and you do take your clothes off, it just really brings your sex to a beautiful new level.
Yeah. Energy, whether we are conscious aware of it or not, energy flows through our bodies, and the three keys in Tantra are sound, breath, and movement. So to activate the energetic layer, we need to move around, activate our breath, and express ourselves through sounds. Okay. And that’s it. Solanguage. We can interact and even be real hot with each other without even touching. We can touch, but without taking genitals. Yeah. And the energy follows the breath. So I can create a whole circle of energy and be aware of my presence beyond my skin and interact in this way. And that brings a whole other layer to the bedroom.
Yeah, it does. It really does. And I mean, it’s great foreplay you’re at the grocery store and you’re having energetic sex. It’s amazing. So if any of this interests you about how we explore Tantra and how we have just explained it, here we are offering a new Tantra workshop that is upcoming soon. If you’re curious about it, go ahead and send us an email.
Yeah.
And we can also share the link in this podcast if that’s something that you’re interested.
Yeah. I’ll put the link in the shell notes. It’s a different website anyways, and I need to update the dates for when it starts. If you just want to go to relationshipalchemy.com. And the podcast tab gives you all the recap of all the podcasts and all the links to the different apps that you can listen to our podcasts on. You have the free downloads tab where you can download our worksheets, and we will send you an email for upcoming events such as this central workshop that we offer once or twice a year.
If you’re interested in that, just go ahead and give us reach out to us. But that basically concludes our podcast for today and that miniseries. And we finally finished the mini series.
Imagine that. Originally, I thought it would be episode or four episodes, and we did this presentation, a three hour presentation, and we didn’t have the time to unpack all that. It took now six episodes, 1 hour episodes. So 6 hours to re unpack all that. It’s just the surface, the table. Accountants.
Yeah. I mean, we’re really just getting started, and we’re so happy to have you along with us for this journey. And we are extremely grateful to share our offerings with you. And if you do like what we’re sharing, go ahead and give us a review on wherever you get your podcast from. Give us five stars. That would really help us out. And ultimately we want to bring our offerings to as many people as we can.
Yeah. And subscribe so that you can get the new episode. As soon as we release them.
We have this one person. We’re going to give them a quick shoutout. Tanner, you are our number one fan. He texts Olivier after every podcast we release and just expresses gratitude and joy. So shout out to you, Tanner. Being our number one fan. But we’re going to wrap this up, all right? And yeah have a beautiful day. And we hope to see you next time.
All right? You can be well.