810. John Wineland’s Guide To Conscious Men + Liberated Women (Bonus)

33:47So like he who must be trusted completely, right? He's grounded. He's breathing into his belly. His heart's soft. His eyes are soft. There's a width, right? And there's an unconditional love or worship or, you know, like he doesn't want anything from you. It's just a complete recognition. And you take that home and you just meet your wife in the kitchen and start talking to her from that place or looking at her from that place and literally time how long it takes for her to smile or touch you or come near you, right? And it's usually a couple minutes, if that. It's a very short amount of time if you're really in it.

34:33So we can evoke, the power we have to evoke states from our partners is really unbelievable and very underutilized. Oh, yeah.

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37:32That attention to detail really matters to me and I appreciate. So don't settle for less than evidence-based support. Save 25 % off your first month at ritual.com slash almost 30. That's ritual.com slash almost 30 for 25 % off your first month. Yeah. I want to talk. I'm excited about the book too. And I think there's so much we can go into about that. And I feel like this is like such a perfect book for a perfect time by a perfect author. And it really felt like the, the right arc for you, the right for us. And it was a topic that I've been wanting to explore for a long time. And at almost 30, you know, we hate men.

38:10We want to bash men as much as possible. I'm just kidding. We are men lovers And we are open to a conversation of like, how can we have more of a cosmic balance rather than kind of like take the power back? And then we're sort of in the position where the feminine is just like now in power because we've stripped it away from the masculine. Yeah. More of like an invitation is needed. So what do you think has been the journey for us to get to this place where it feels like as a culture, masculinity is like bad and it's shameful and it needs to be extinct? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the patriarchy and masculinity are very intimately linked, right?

38:53Historically, right? and um you know when you break down the word patriarchy it really just means like protection right but the way that the church used it in the 1500s and the way that it was used for manifest destiny in the history of oppressing you know slave slavery and women and And, you know, so part of what we need to do is to tease apart patriarchy, the historical patriarchy, historical masculine values or traits, right? Which have been associated with dominance, winning, right? And create a new paradigm, which is what I'm hoping to do. And other people are doing it too. It's just my attempt, right?

39:43A new paradigm where the values, the core masculine values are around things like liberation and presence and depth and warmth. You know what I mean? There's a certain level of a retraining for men to begin to understand that winning, winning. And you can ask anybody who's successful. I'm sure Aubrey would agree here. Anybody who's successful who's won? will be and is masculine in general will be like okay you know i made my you know made a couple million bucks wow that's not it that's not it so winning dominating is this kind of the patriarchy is about controlling might not make a lot of sense but patriarchy is about controlling the feminine right dominating nature dominating women dominating right right the new paradigm of masculine masculine practice should be about liberating liberating love liberating consciousness liberating ecstasy liberating right liberating the feminine so for that to happen there has to be an internal union of masculine and feminine.

41:05So a big part of the book is I'm trying to get men to understand what their feminine is, how to amplify it, and then how to integrate it, right? So if we were going to be super simple, we would say awareness, let's just call the masculine awareness, right? And the feminine energy. So each of us has unlimited amounts of both, right? We can just We can keep gesturing towards more awareness. We can keep cultivating more life force, let's call it life force, right? And the combination of awareness and vitality creates a very deep grounded presence that doesn't hunger for power the way that something, that a fear-driven, which is what the patriarchy was driven by, right?

42:03Fear of women, fear of other peoples, fear of other, right? I mean, so the patriarchy is fear driven. I mean, people will often deny that, but I believe that the desire to dominate is based on fear of there not being enough. So if you're full because you're so filled with life force and so connected to awareness, the deep infinite space of awareness, then your natural tendency, the natural human, especially the natural masculine tendency will be to love and to liberate. And so we'll liberate with presence, we'll liberate with play, we'll liberate with sex, we'll liberate, we'll naturally just want to liberate.

42:48And that's what I've seen in my work, That's what I've seen in men who like really take this seriously. So that's what I'm hoping people will start to gravitate towards. And I think it's happening. I mean, this whole, you know, I don't know, when we spoke, I don't know, four or five years ago. Yeah, literally. You know, the men's, like all these men's groups that were, they were just starting. You know, now you throw a fucking rock and there's a men's group somewhere, which is great, right? Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know if that answered your question, but it gave some context. And there was something a lot interesting you said, but I'm curious about the decision to, and I know you do more in the book, but you mentioned heal the feminine within men.

43:32So why would it be heal the feminine instead of heal the masculine? Well, okay, because that's a great question because the masculine, the pure masculine in men is whole and complete. So there's no healing needed. Consciousness is whole and complete. There's no healing needed. Emptiness is whole and complete. There's nothing needed. It's our feminine. It's our emotional bodies. It's our intuitive bodies. It's our desires. These are all aspects of the feminine within any human, not necessarily just men. So if you buy this framework. Like some people might not like this framework, but you know, this is the yin and the yang.

44:16This is old. I'm not coming up with it. David Data didn't come up with it. It's been around for years, right? So the feminine is where a man's feminines, as we're talking about men, is normally where the trouble starts because they don't know how to control it. They don't know how to control their emotions. They don't know how to control their desires. They don't know how to be with the emotional experience of others. So they'll try to dominate versus feel, right? And liberate. So here's a good example. So think of a dad, right? You got a four-year-old kid, doesn't want to go to bed. Okay. So the toxic masculine will say, get to bed.

45:00I'm telling you now, you can get a spanking. That's the toxic masculine. The sort of more healthy masculine would say, would try to reason. Like, if you don't get to bed early, you're going to be tired in the morning. We've got a big day. We're going to Disneyland. You know, you don't want to be tired. We'll try to reason with the feminine, right? You know, in the form of a four-year-old child. And we know how that often goes. But the sort of sacred masculine will pick the kid up, blow on his stomach, you know, like carry him into bed, wrestle him into bed, you know. They'll probably be laughing and loving by the time the kid hits the bed, his heart's wide open and he feels totally loved.

45:42And the capacity to do that, whether it's with a workshop, a romantic partner, a child, is your capacity to elevate above and beyond patterns, patterns to dominate, patterns to, right? And so it kind of falls into the category of shepherding your own feminine. It's the way I talk about it in the book. And that just means bringing awareness, breath, ground to your emotional body, energetic body, so that you can make choices that liberate versus dominate. Interesting. Cause I remember when you talked, it's like the feminine or the masculine almost seems like it's the tussling where it's like the play.

46:30So I guess how in that example is that feminine and not masculine. Well, anything that's energetic. So this we can get, we can get - I'm stuck on the labels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's okay, it's cool because we're just, we're trying to understand the polarities. Think of it this way, that anything that's energetic is the feminine, right? But awareness on how to use the energy of our bodies is our masculine. So our awareness. meaning if you're aware for example you get home right and you're aware that your partner's just had a shit day and needs just stroking and loving and right so you go you you walk into the house and you're you're feeling oh he needs this right he needs this um the part of you that is aware that he needs that is your own masculine.

47:28The part of you that gives that is the feminine. What level you give that, like, do you give a lot? Do you give a little? Do you come in hot? Do you come in slow? Do you come in fast? Do you wear this? Do you wear this? Like all those things are functions of awareness and awareness in all of us is our masculine. The capacity, the energetic realm is our feminine. Ultimately, the best practice is a fully expanded awareness and a fully expanded energetic capacity where what we normally see is a lot of energy with very little awareness. And this is the difference, right? So a lot of energy, like just giving energy from whatever.

48:18I'm going to blast her with this. I'm going to blast him with that. I'm going to react. I'm going to blow up. That's just tons of energy with no awareness. Whereas awareness requires meditation, breath, slowing down, like to really tap into awareness. And those are the skill sets that I think anybody who wants to cultivate more masculine, women or men or whoever, you need to use. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's a different yoga. Yeah, 100%. Right? So. Yeah, with it. So, but ultimately, ultimately, Krista, you want both, like fully, like you want like incredible amounts of awareness and width and connection to consciousness and you want the capacity to express or feel fully.

49:09And when those things are unified in a human being, we see them as extraordinary artists. Like think of any great actor, Prince is a good example, you know, any great musician, right? Beyonce, you know what I mean? You could feel they have this ability to bring both. Yes. Yeah. And so do you feel like, because I've also noticed too within the patriarchy and even sort of this shift that is happening or has happened over the years that it's not only affecting men negatively, but it's also affecting women negatively. And, you know, obviously we'll speak to the negative aspects of it because there's also a lot of beautiful, for the most part, more so beautiful things happening within both polarities.

49:56But for the women, it's like almost like where capitalism gets inserted in both the patriarchy and when we're talking about the feminist movement, because then it becomes our sole organizing principle is money and power rather than love and truth. So have you noticed that too, where women are just completely burnt out and like nervous systems are just awry? Well, you think that, I mean, look, and here I am a guy, you know, critical of feminism and I'm not, right? Feminism needed to happen. It should have happened the way it happened. There needed to be parity and equality and workplace. But really what happened is that women cultivated their masculine capacities for equality of power and accumulation, let's call it, right?

50:47And so they hit that level, not understanding that those skills, although really powerful in the workplace and totally needed in the workplace, would not translate into relationship, right? that would not, they wouldn't have the same impact in areas of the heart. So yeah, that is, so basically feminism just elevated the toxic masculine in women. And I'm sure I'll get some hate mail for that, but really, and what I'm seeing now, and Kendra Kunoff, who's a dear friend of mine, said it so beautifully. She's like, the next wave of feminism will celebrate the feminine versus just women, right? The elevation of the feminine, which in men, in women is much more about flow, love, worship, you know what I mean?

51:44And those were not part of the first wave of feminism. But I think women now recognize that these are traits that have a lot of value. Yeah. And I want to acknowledge, I can even sense that fear. And that's, what's hard in these situations when you kind of are around topics like that, where you're like, there's a supercharged conversation about this. And I'm a person that from the perception believes that I should not be talking about this, but it's related to all of us. And I've seen it within the community and just sort of observed that it's caused women to be just completely out of their bodies and and unhappy.

52:22And the solution isn't for every single woman to be someone that's going to stay at home barefoot, have kids, but the solution is to be in a more balanced state where it's more about, yeah, where we're not applying the principles of toxic masculinity, where it's like power, CEO, burn the stake at both ends, you know, where it's not that. 80 hour work weeks. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Sure. It's like, it's wild. But within the, do you find that when you're working with men and - Which is why you'll see, I do see this, Chris. They're like, and this happens in my group, which is why by 40, most women who've lived that for 10 years, those are the women that show up in my groups and don't understand why there's no, they've achieved financial freedom.

53:06They could have babies on their own, but they also show up like feeling very unfulfilled. Yes. So I think it's important that just like success for a man is not the end, is really not the path to fulfillment. It's not the same thing for a woman too or anybody, right? So ultimately we keep coming back to this idea of like what are the traits that create real fulfillment? And there's a masculine set and a feminine set that each human can cultivate and make a palette so that they can give it, give it as a gift. Yeah, it is. It's like the buying into the lie that this will make you happy, the success, the money, the power, whatever.

53:55Within or just on the point of the 40 year old woman or like people in the space where you're kind of on that track where you've bought into that idea of what success is. And then you're sort of looking around like, I haven't been able to have a nourishing relationship with a man. I haven't been able to feel ravished. I haven't been able to feel that nervous system comfort with being in the masculine. But what happens I'll see a lot of times too is, and I'm curious if this is a lot of is true or not, a lot of women will say like, oh, they're intimidated by you. Like men are intimidated by you.

54:23Men are, you know, intimidated of your success, intimidated of whatever. And I think there's truth to that too. But like, what do you think? But then there's also not truth to that. So what do you think about that statement or that situation when that comes up? That men are intimidated? Yes. Well, I think it just depends on what they're, you know, if they're in the workplace, like just like, you know, power exists in the reverse, right? So if you have a very powerful CEO who's a woman and there's a, you know, one of her subordinates is a man and she's really intense and powerful in her position.

54:56Yeah. He might be intimidated by her in the workplace. I don't know if that translates totally towards relational field. I think it's different in the relational field. What more often happens, I mean, I'm just digging my own grave here. That's what I like to do. I like to make people like. What more often happens is that there's a repulsion. Of course. Yeah. So he, if he is masculine, if he is masculine, right? And this could be in a same-sex relationship, right? If he is masculine and she's bringing a toxic masculine from the workplace to the home, he will not, there's no polarity. It's basically two alphas kind of fighting for position, so to speak, which is what I see a lot.

55:47It's also her, you know, not even to hate on it, but it's like being inauthentic to herself and her own essence. And that's, from my perspective, really what it is. It's like if you're inauthentic to what's true for you, then it's going to be, there's not going to be a match. Well, and this is what your generation, right? I'm sure you guys see this all the time, but your generation is kind of moving in the right direction, like moving in the direction of, okay, let's take what's been successful in terms of entrepreneurship and creativity and power and structure and all that. And then let's add this other realm of intuitive beauty and radiance and, you know, and let's add these things, intuition, and let's now cultivate a new generation of success with this kind of deeper understanding of what success really means.

56:40for men, what I'm seeing now is they spent the last 50 years learning how to express themselves, how to go into the woods and play the drums and how to be fully expressed and how to flow. And they spent the last 50 or so years doing that. And they're realizing like, whoa, wait a minute, that also repulses her if I'm too far in flow. Flow boys, fuck boys. I mean, you see it all the time. That'll repulse her. So I need to add depth. So I think there's this recalibration happening on both sides that's very healthy and hopefully like going to help people relate more fully, you know? Yeah. On the, you know, that flow boy, fuck boy, how can we as women tell if they're in their feminine essence or if they're in their like little boy?

57:33well it might be a little maybe a little both i mean they they they might just really because flow feels good for everybody right you know i put a group of men in a flow practice and they're so happy right because holding presence is is is effortful yeah you know it takes it takes effort at first at least until it's relaxed and so so you know you got to also think that the feminine the feminine has been just like the masculine has been celebrated in women the feminine has been celebrated in men a lot and so just men have been celebrated for uh you know being more radiant being more beautiful being more um expressive right all of those things right which is good it's good um so the capacity little boy i think you would i think what you would probably want to discern is can he deepen in a moment of you revealing your truth that's how women can tell right like if if no matter how flowy he is or blah but when you like stop and really let your heart out does he can he receive it can he drop into the moment can he drop into this breath can he drop into the earth and hold it.

58:57And if he can, and he can really fluidly move, because ultimately that's what we want. We want humans who move fluidly between masculine capacity and feminine capacity, regardless of where they land on the spectrum. So I don't know. I think that would be the way to test your flow point. Try to reveal something difficult. Try to reveal like an ouch and see what he does. And if he, if he can't manage it and he just kind of like evades it, then, you know, probably stuck in little boy, but if he can deepen with you and, you know, chances are you have a second date, you know? Yeah. With the, um, the yeah it's just interesting to like even thinking about little boy and the feminine how so much of what we understand as feminine and what I understand as feminine is like that love, that like uninhibited love, but then how is the, is the masculine not that and it enables that or, or what is like the perfect?

1:00:05Yeah, this is a tricky definition. And, and, you know, this definitely refers back to David Data's framework, which I take some from, not all of it but some i think is really valuable and this is a piece i think is valuable so let's let's say you're having an experience right so you're having experience with your partner and there's there's love flowing between you guys you're making out or you're looking into each other's eyes or whatever there's an experience of love flowing between both of you that experience all experience is the feminine right and this is this is buddhism this is ancient daoist principles like the feminine is experience.

1:00:45The field of awareness from which that experience emerges is the masculine. And the more we're aware of, so you have an experience, like we're having experience now, right? But there's a part of you that knows that the experience is happening, but it isn't part of the experience. You know what I'm saying? Like witness, the witness, the witness it's obvious but you know there are many witnesses right so there's the witness and then there's what's behind the witness you can explore this forever the deeper you go into that place of of the field of awareness like a big sky I like to think of it as a field of awareness sky of awareness the more the more you're in your masculine essence and the more that a human, man or woman, can express that infinite space.

1:01:44So if I go, if I feel the infinite space of consciousness that's always there, right, that never changes, it's just, it is. And if I start to express that through my eyes, through my breath, through my body, right? I can feel it. Yeah, you can feel it. It's actually crazy. Yeah, you can feel it. Now that's masculine sexual polarity, right? that training men to be able to feel the depth of consciousness and then press it through their physical body is masculine sexual yoga and but it doesn't have to be sexual it could just be it's the more if the more that they bring that part to the relationship the more the feminine whether it whether it's children or your feminine partner the more their nervous systems can relax because they feel you attached or connected to something greater than the experience of the moment yeah right and so the experience of the moment is always changing it's not stable it'll never be stable it's beautifully unstable but it's not you see you see the what i'm saying yes so teaching men to give as much attention to that space of infinite awareness and grounding and that kind of stuff as they do to experience is, I guess, my work in a nutshell.

1:03:09Yeah. And that's all energetics. Totally. Energetics and awareness. And awareness. Yeah. If I'm aware of that field of awareness, I'm taking my awareness, I'm taking it off of you or I'm taking it off of my thoughts and I'm putting it on the infinite. Yep. And it's really freeing. Yeah. I mean, this is what meditators have been doing for millennia. But the difference is, is that we're not in caves and I'm bringing this out of a cave and, you know, and bringing it hopefully to my partner and men can bring it to their partner. Is it the first time when you have these experiences, do you find that it's one of the first times that men are aware of energetics?

1:03:55because, and I've been like obsessed with this lately, just thinking about every, you know, it's kind of the cliche, everything is energetics. Everything is energy. But when you truly realize like the subtlety of - Well, except what's not energy. What is not? That which, that, so if you break down an atom, we'll nerd out here a bit. So you break down an atom and atom is empty space and energy. So it's not all energy. Okay. It's like - So the atom's like masculine and feminine. That's the nature of it, right? So everything, everything, everything is everything. Like this table is electrons and protons making movement, moving and empty space.

1:04:36Yep. Right. This moment is both empty and full. Yeah. Right. The cosmos is both filled with space that never changes and stars that are exploding. So energy is the feminine. that which just like if you think of like and the more feminine there is the more you need some kind of grounding presence so think of space think of consciousness as the grounding presence for the energy that is the feminine in all of us now the more a human being is connect is identified with energy the flow of energy the more they are naturally feminine the more that a human being is connected to just kind of the stillness and denseness.

1:05:23You know what I mean? Like, you know, men like that. Maybe I don't know. Maybe your partner's like that. Like, just the more they're naturally connected to the masculine. So, you know, the masculine and feminine, if you break it down into, it's basically the polarity of the cosmos. Mm-hmm. I love this.

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1:08:35in my personal relationship, I'll just say it. I feel like because, and I'm not like fully in the masculine, it's not really, but I do feel like there have been times and places in our relationship where I have been more in the masculine, which caused my partner to be in more of the feminine, but I'm trying to understand, I guess, how can I know if that's his essence is a little bit more feminine? It's not like very much feminine, but how do I know if his essence is more feminine or if I'm just causing him to be in the more feminine state? Yeah. More often than not, it's the former. I mean, the latter, sorry.

1:09:08The latter, right? More often than not, it's the latter. Not always. Not always. I say this in the book. I'm actually, because I was raised with women, you know what I mean? I'm very, I'm about 60 % on the feminine scale, right? More feminine. I had to learn masculine capacity, but left to my own devices, I would probably be much more fluid, much more kind of energetic. I'm still kind of wired, right? So I don't know where he falls on the spectrum, but if you think of polarity, like any two beings in a polarity together, if one goes in a certain energetic direction, the other is going to go in the opposite direction.

1:09:56So if you're directional, like let's drop the term masculine and feminine because they get weaponized, right? So if you're just more directional, he's going to fall into less directional, right? Because if he wants harmony, right? Now, if he's heavily in his masculine and then you come in directional, then you've got two directional. That's when fights will often happen, right? You've got two masculine, right? Being directional or often what happens you've got two feminine being expressive right so one right riding this wave of of like of the polarity wave is an art it's a fucking art and it's it's but the first piece is to recognize oh i'm in the masculine when i'm telling him what to do versus being expressive, right?

1:10:48The difference, I think I've used this before, is, you know, please close the window, right? Versus I'm cold, right? So I'm cold is like you're expressive, right? Then you invite him to be directional. He gets up and closes the window. And none of that is wrong. Women should be using their masculine capacity because in large part, it's better than a lot of men's masculine capacity. Just know that you're not, you can't do that and expect him to be directional at the same time. Yes. That's the problem that I think a lot of women run into. You want to be directional? You're better. Do it. But don't expect him or resent him for not being directional.

1:11:32Yeah. I feel like that's the trend I see is that. Like wanting the directional and then they're like being directional about wanting them to be directional. And then it's like this. They send them to my, they send them to my workshop. We went to your workshop. Yeah, they'll buy the, I bet you initiated that, right? Yes, I was. Yeah, so, and that's what'll happen is when, you know, when you can't expect him to be directional, just like he can't be totally expressed and then expect you to feel safe to express. Yeah, I know. That's what I've realized this past year is I'm like, whoa, I need to be okay when he's expressing too.

1:12:11because that's been a fear of mine. It's like the, if it's big expressions, rage or grief or all these things, I felt that's really scary to me. Yeah. Because I'm like, oh, that's scary. But I'm like, how am I wanting to have that myself but not being able to hold that of my partner? Yeah. You know? But yeah, when we did your workshop, it was amazing because he totally was like into it. Like we were like doing the exercises. I literally shut down. He was like, he was like, surrender. was like surrender more and i literally was like this i was like it was i was like wow it can be confronting very yeah i think my thing too was in front of people feeling embarrassed probably easier for with women like if you came to a women's workshop yes so you have a standing invitation to come to a women's workshop and practice i would love that yeah it was but in the book you have um a few different principles or ideas or ways in which that you want to have this healing or you envision seeing this healing happen or invitations for the healing to happen and I want to talk about three of them that I, a little bit more.

1:13:15And the first one is taking responsibility. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I'm sure women listening are like, yes, bitch. So again, the masculine gift is awareness, right? Think about almost every complaint you have towards your masculine partner and it will be someplace where he drops awareness. He leaves the toilet seat up. He's not feeling your feelings. He's not aware of time and space. He's not aware of his own life. It's almost always the complaint is about his lack of awareness. So just notice that, men. So when a man takes responsibility, I'm just going to speak super heteronormatively.

1:13:57I apologize if this doesn't apply to everybody in there, but this can apply to anybody, right? This can apply to a woman who wants to be the masculine in a relationship, just to make that super clear. So when the masculine partner says, I'm going to take full responsibility for the culture that we've created, he's basically saying to the feminine partner, I'm bringing my awareness to the entire field of our relationship and I'm going to categorize all of the ways that I have been unconscious, uncaring, neglectful. And I'm going to bring my awareness to your heart. And I give this kind of example in the book, and I'm going to say how my lack of awareness has hurt you, which is more awareness.

1:14:45So I'm basically, I'm washing you in my awareness. And then I'm also saying, here's how I'd like us to get better. So when a man does that, he immediately can reverse the polarity trend, like you're talking about, because he's just bringing a massive amount of awareness to the field of the relationship. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the awareness is the antidote to unawareness. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I've noticed that too, even with apologizing, just on a very small level. Like I love apologies and it's really because it is the awareness of the unawareness that you're really seeking.

1:15:28Yeah, but the depth of an apology. So for example, if he says, hey, I'm sorry, I was a dick last night, right? Versus, I'm sorry, I said that thing that hurt you. I can imagine that that made you feel dot, dot, dot. I'm bringing more awareness to you now and I'm laying out how it must have impacted you. And that's going to have a much deeper experience on you than just me saying, hey, I'm sorry. So when we talk about masculine practice, what we're talking about is expanding the capacity for awareness to be able to feel beyond the surface and into the core, which is the whole point of the book.

1:16:08Another one was aligning with the sacred feminine. And I want to talk about that. How do you envision that happening? You know, especially if the, I don't see much sacred, not I don't see much, I see sacred feminine. I'm very grateful that I'm surrounded by sacred feminine, but I don't know if we're able to really understand or see it as much as. Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that when you think about the patriarchy, right? The patriarchy in all of us, every time a man, and this is tough because I'm guilty of this, just like every time a masculine being, let's say, wants to control the expression or experience of the feminine, the feminine in them, the feminine, right?

1:16:53It's the patriarchy. There's the patriarchy, right? So part of aligning with the sacred feminine is, and we have to recognize our own internal patriarchy, right? So when I want you to shut up, right? Because you're making me feel da, da, da, da, right? that part of me that wants to control your experience or your interpretation or your expression is my internal patriarchy now that doesn't mean i can't set boundaries i should set boundaries i could say that's enough i'm going to take off i'm leaving right i don't want that it's not the same thing so aligning with the sacred feminine means to be in service to the healing of let's say women right um and the feminine within right so the feminine the feminine i mean up until just a couple just a hundred years ago women were put into institutions for being too emotional right they were given lobotomies for being too emotional um uh so there's a lot of healing that needs to happen.

1:17:58And I, I argue, many will disagree, but I argue that part of our, the modern man's responsibility is to take, take, take responsibility for the sins of our fathers. We're here. We're the ones, you know, in it now. And part of doing that is to make it, is to create a safe space for the feminine. When we do that, what naturally will emerge and I see this in workshops a lot, although in your experience, you know, it didn't quite happen, but in workshops a lot, what I see. No, everyone else was like, it was wild. I'm like, this is like partly my work. Yeah, absolutely. So what will happen is when she feels her nervous system feels safe, she basically feels safe to go into her parasympathetic.

1:18:46Then whatever emotions that have been trapped will come to the surface, whatever desires, whatever energy needs to move through her will come to the surface and then the masculine gets to be a container for her healing and expression. That's a way that I would say we can align with the healing of the feminine, right? And the sacred feminine, I would argue, is just like the sacred masculine is consciousness and awareness, the sacred feminine in me, in you, in all of us is the unconditional expression of love. The two things that there's infinite amounts of consciousness and love.

1:19:33And then I love that, this was like my favorite, prioritizing depth over comfort. I love that. I love that. I'm like, oh, I do that. I love that concept. Yeah. I think that's a big, this last generation of men, particularly since the invention of the iPhone. Not to make it all about the phone, but the internet in general. My generation didn't have that until I was 30. So that added a layer of distraction and dopamine addiction and comfort and basically just ability to check out. And so almost always comfort numbs awareness and comfort becomes an addictive cycle. And challenge expands awareness.

1:20:31So even just challenging a man to breathe for 30 minutes and follow his thoughts sharpens awareness. so comfort dulls awareness challenge sharpens awareness and challenging a man to be or you know i mean i have i have transgender people in my programs too challenging you know anybody who wants to cultivate their masculine to to deepen expands awareness how much within that when you have transgender people within your groups is them tapping into their own internal balance between them and understanding their own specific energetics. Maybe it's a little bit of both. And then sort of reframing these toxic or incorrect ideals and then understanding the sort of sacred masculine and feminine.

1:21:26Yeah. Well, that would be my goal for everybody, regardless of sexually, right? because each of us has this sort of, we were sort of born into and received a certain, let's call it, I talk about it as a spectrum from uber masculine to uber feminine. Each of us was born on that spectrum and it's our essence. It doesn't change a lot. It's like our operating system. So whether you're a transgender human or you're a man or a woman, whatever, you still are born on some spot. It's kind of like your natural starting point. From there, you get to choose what capacities, like what artistic capabilities, let's say, you get to expand.

1:22:13And I think that everybody, the first part is to find out like where you are, like what is your essence? You know, like what is your essence? I, for example, my spiritual essence is very masculine. I prefer stillness to movement. I feel much more comfortable. My emotional experience is more feminine. I prefer hard, open, full emotional expression to my sexual experience. I'd much rather be the penetrator and the director of the sexual experience, so it's masculine. My physical experience, I'm just kind of like a tank. I'm like a tank. I don't really care so much about looks or things like that.

1:22:58So my physical experience is masculine. So we each have these different parts, right? And so finding that out is a really important piece for every human, right? Like I have a feminine mind. I'll bounce around. You probably heard me in this conversation. I'll go, oh, here, here, here. Yeah, right? So some people have masculine minds where it's like point a point b point c point d right that's not me so podcast though what's that so you can be the podcast for me is that feminine i'm like we're gonna go here and then we're gonna yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so so so so you have a feminine mind right you probably have you know you probably once you addressed all these different areas you'll probably find your feminine in most of them you know and and then you get to choose oh okay, I'm feminine this way.

1:23:50How much awareness do I need to cultivate or how much presence, for example, to hold my own partner's feminine, do I need to cultivate? And you get to choose like, oh, so I can do some presence practice. I can do some grounding practice. I can do da, da, da, da. And you can expand your capacity yogically. and everybody i think is getting to the place because relationships are now art like relationships are not about security they're not about like you know propagating the species right they're not about safety yeah you're right so relationships are now for the first time ever, these totally unique personal art forms that we get to play with.

1:24:41And you see it on social media, like everybody's version of their art, right? You see it in their relationships, right? And we get to expand our capacity as artists.

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1:26:51I love that. Something I wanted to explore with you is something we were talking about with Danielle Laporte the other day. Love her. Yeah, I love Danielle. I know you guys are homies. And it's kind of the concept and I've been exploring this on myself and I'm exploring it in real time trying to understand it. The idea of having an open heart and being open hearted, but also there's like the concept of boundaries kind of be getting more momentum and traction in the world. So what do you think about those two concepts? Like how do they work together? Do they not work together? Are they misunderstood?

1:27:25What do you think? Yeah, I think they're highly misunderstood, right? So let's start with open-heartedness. Most people think of open-heartedness as this concept, right? Like it's a ethereal concept, but it's literally a feeling your own heart. So the moment that you're, the moment that you use the heart to filter the energy that's going through you, your emotions, your thoughts, your sensations, that energy is purified with love, right? When it's disconnected from the heart, when it bypasses the heart and just comes out of the head, it tends to be, it tends to become, it tends to be attached to childhood wounding patterns, right?

1:28:10so the bypass for that is heart is the heart literally the physical heart so when i say i sail off into my students i'll say okay take that need like i need to be recognized or i need to be seen or i need to be safe right that's a big one for women i need to be safe but take that need out of your head and literally press it down into the tissue of your heart and then relax it let it expand through your chest. Like just feel the need to be safe. Let the tissues of your heart get really full with it. You feel that? Yeah. And in that moment, do you feel safe? I feel like I have a good idea of what I'm going to do later.

1:28:53Okay, good, good, good. So you feel safe, right? And that is heart. So heartfulness to me is very, is as important as heart openness. So being full in your own heart, meaning taking your awareness, the masculine and putting it into your heart, the feminine creates a sacred union internally, which then allows you to be felt and seen and express yourself in ways that are much more artful. So the heart openness piece. And also you could think of it this way. I mean, this is all, this is just, I nerd out on this stuff all the time, right? So it's like, how do you actually express heart openness physically?

1:29:37You could imagine the heart like a big satellite dish, just walking down the street, just blasting people with love, right? So you could feel the pulse of love that is the eternal feminine and blast it through your heart like a big satellite dish. People would feel it. People would feel it. So that's heart openness. I think it's literal. Make your question really simple. like literally open your fucking heart like a flower would open or like a big dish. So that with, um, Oh, the second part of your question was boundaries. Okay. That can all happen while you're setting boundaries. What tends to happen when people set boundaries is that they retreat and set boundaries.

1:30:24So I could say, I don't like, I don't, I could actually feel my own heart. I could feel my own heart and I could say, it doesn't take long, it's three fucking breaths. She says something that pisses me off. It hurts my feelings. I breathe into my heart three times and then I look at her and say, I don't like that when you talk like that. Please don't do that. I'm setting a boundary, but I'm not setting it from a place that's closed hearted. I'm actually, she can feel my heart in the transmission of it. So heart centered, let's call it heart centered boundary setting literally involves the feeling of your own heart while you're setting a container, which is the masculine.

1:31:03So boundaries are the masculine. I think I talk about this in the book. Boundaries are the masculine. They're a container for the flow of emotion, the feminine. So boundaries are absolutely necessary. What happens is that people will tend to um disconnect from their heart and wonder why their boundaries create disconnection too you know yeah i feel like and there are it's an art form yeah boundaries in our form yeah it is yeah yeah kendra kunoff again i think you wrote her name down yeah kendra's wonderful around boundaries okay yeah i would love to talk to her yeah yeah yeah because it's such a balance where it's like originally i'm like boundary you know and i set boundaries unconsciously when i was younger.

1:31:51And then it's like, as I get older, I'm like, Ooh, how much are these boundaries? Like a place where I'm not willing to go in my heart and have a conversation. I'm not willing to, I'm scared to speak my truth. And so I'm doing these things like boundaries are so powerful, but I think we're sort of getting lost with them. And I've even realized too, like we have such a conversation about it, but recently I had a boundary set with me and I was like, Oh, this is interesting. I'm like, okay, boundary set. But I was, I didn't understand why. And I'm such a why person. Like once I understand why of anything, I'm like, great.

1:32:28I didn't understand why. So I was like, I'm going to Google how to accept a boundary. Like, what are the rules? How do I accept this boundary? So I was Googling. I'm like, how do I accept this boundary? There was nothing. There's like nothing out there about accepting a boundary, but there's so much out there about giving a boundary or creating a boundary. So I'm like, oh, this is obviously a problem. If every single person is creating boundaries, putting up boundaries, but we're not reciprocating them, then tons of people are just boundaried up. That's so funny. It's really interesting. Yeah.

1:32:57They're boundaried up. That's a good way to put it. They're boundaried up, which is, here's the way to check. Is it a closure? Yes. Right? So there's a way to be boundaried up and heart relaxed. There's a way to be, And it almost always starts with elongated, deeper breath, a softening of your heart, a softening of your eyes. Hey, I don't like that. That didn't feel good. Ouch. Ouch. Just ouch is a really good boundary. And if the boundary is a closure, then chances are you're defending. Of course, a boundary is a defense. but you're defending to the point of shutting the door on the person you maybe love.

1:33:43I'm sure there are times, in fact, I know there are times when hardcore boundaries are absolutely needed and a closure, a heart closure is absolutely needed. But most of the time, especially in romantic relationships or people we love, that capacity to do both, that's the art. Yeah. You know? Boundaries aren't needed. How can you set up? Okay, here's a challenge for your audience. How can you set a boundary where the person receiving the boundary feels deeply loved? I know. Yeah. I think bringing in the ouch is a good one. I know I'm trying to figure that out as well. I'm actually. Well, how about baby?

1:34:22I want to be, I want to be, I want to relax in your presence. I want to feel really, I want to feel like I can just bring my heart to you. but when you dot dot dot i can't do that yeah okay you know yeah i love that yeah so i can think about it with friends more so because we're in my marriage we're figuring out the boundary thing too like he's more now understanding boundaries and it's kind of fun because it's like oh wow okay i like it i'm like oh i enjoy this you don't want to do this now it's clear i understand i just always want to understand but yeah um i want to talk a little bit about just like as we sort of come to the close, a lot of our audience are going to want to have their partner, like they're going to be so jazzed.

1:35:08They're like, yes, I want my partner to read this now. I'm so excited. So what do we do? Because, you know, we don't want to be in a situation where like all of them are buying the books and being like, we're going to read this together. Like what's that balance? Yeah. I like the idea of, so a good way to get to the masculine nervous system is to talk about nutrition. or nourishment and say, hey, this guy talks a lot about how men can nourish themselves and like refill so that they're not so burdened by relationship and life. I like what he had to say, you know, check it out. If it becomes a thing about like a criticism, like this, if there's the subtext of, hey, this guy's going to tell you how you can love me better or even worse, like, you know, fuck me better.

1:36:02That's not going to go over very well. The masculine ego is still very, you know, much a thing. However, if it's presented as the solution, like, I mean, a good part of what I talk about is nourishment, right? So this guy talks a lot about nourishment in this book and how men can nourish themselves and how you know how to set boundaries and i think that's the way i would say for women to to offer this book you know um or they can just you know have the guys again it's listen to this podcast listen to this guy it just it's really unless it's presenting something that every i'm i'm pretty clear every man that i know feel some version of this yeah feel some version of i'm burdened by life.

1:36:50There's not enough time. I feel distracted and numb. I feel like disconnected from the core of who I am. And I think that's something that most men will relate to. Yeah. And this is the antidote for that. Would you suggest that women do the reading and work with them or no? You know, I think they could, I think what they could talk about, and I hope this does happen. I didn't think about this when I wrote the book, but I really hope this happens. I hope women read this book and actually apply it to their own masculine. Yeah, 100%. I hope that they read the book and go like, oh, if I wanted to cultivate a deeper sense, like, for example, a lot of women will go through workshops and they'll be like, okay, now I'm just wide open and like, how do I ground myself?

1:37:44And that's where I'll say, do these masculine practices. So women are just learning now the value of sovereignty of how masculine practice, like depth, grounding, breath, expansion of awareness, that actually creates more sovereignty so they can hold their own feminine. They can hold their own wild heart. Let's call it wild heart, right? And so I hope that women actually read this and as opposed to seeing it as something he should do, they actually apply it to themselves and cultivate their own masculine in whatever way they want to. Would it help women be better friends with other women? Because then they would be able to like hold that for women?

1:38:29Yeah, the world needs, like you got to think the world needs we've never actually had except for maybe some Tibet. Think of maybe some areas of Tibet or some cultures where a sacred masculine was really cultivated. There's never been in the West sacred masculine cultivation. Never. Really. I mean, you know, nor sacred feminine really. It's all kind of like for the masculine gaze and for the masculine desire. So we're talking about introducing concepts here that are really new, totally new to our culture, the Western culture. So men, the masculine can serve everybody. The masculine is basically your capacity to be aware of everything that's happening and then decide how to create liberation, how to liberate her heart, how to liberate his heart.

1:39:27If you have a friend whose emotion Emotionality is challenging for you. Your capacity to ground or tussle or play or hold. Yeah, I think that would benefit women with their friendships. Yeah, I was thinking about that when we were talking. I'm like, I wonder what the cultural global significance of this is because it feels like such a Western ideal and issue in the way that it's happened. and yeah it is curious to think about how across the world this sort of balance is imbalanced or totally i guess when i think about globally there's a i would even think there's actually a graver imbalance in some of the most violent and dangerous places of course yeah i mean you know it's still very much alive in the middle east you know the toxic masculine is still very much alive in the you know various parts of the world Yeah.

1:40:26So it's really this new, it's like a pea shoot. You think about it and yet it's, you know, read the Tao Te Ching. Yeah. It was right there in ancient China, you know, go back and read yogi texts from 5 ,000 years ago, right? It's there. So we're just now, you know, and this is one of the things that David brought into the world that I think is so valuable, right? He took these concepts that were very ethereal and he came up with some books that really laid it out clearly. And then people like me and others are kind of finding our own way to innovate with it. But yeah, it's new. It's so new. And I think when I have women in workshops actually do masculine practice, like get really still with each other, go really deep with each other, like really sharpen each other's consciousness, they fucking love it.

1:41:21They love it. They love this like being so connected to something that's infinite that like there's a nervous system thing that happens that's really beautiful to watch. so I'm hoping that will be the experience that women have with this book you know beautiful yeah last question what was like the most surprising part that you wrote like what was the part that you were like whoa I didn't know that this was gonna come through or I didn't know that this wasn't gonna be included or maybe even a part that scared you yeah I think I think the part about death maybe oh wow yeah I think I got really because you know I wrote I wrote this after Claire died, you know?

1:42:02And, um, and I think the, the, probably the piece that I think will be most cringed at, I mean, I wrote a piece on taboo. So I think that might be, that might be a close second, but, um, will be that feel death as the masculine. Right. And I think there's an exercise I give in the book where I have men meditate out and feel everything that's dying, you know, within a mile or two miles and just literally like connect not to the suffering or the morbidity, but just feel that transition from vital to from existent to non-existent and meditate on that. And I think that'll probably freak some people out.

1:42:48And I'm not sure where that came from. I think a trip to the Redwoods. I was feeling like how everything's living and dying at the same time. We focus on everything that's living. We're like, oh, look how beautiful. But feeling everything that's dying at the same time just relaxes something. Wow. Yeah. Why do you think it relaxes? Because it's still. Because it's, you know, we're in this world, I think, and this goes to your previous question about what women can get from masculine practice, It's like this ability to feel deep, deep stillness is a human condition. I think we're all craving more of, you know, we're so inexperienced.

1:43:36We're so in consumption. We're so like, you know, more ayahuasca, more chocolate, more, you know, goods, more sex. And this ability to really cherish stillness, I think, is something that hopefully people will get. Beautiful. Yeah. we're so grateful so grateful for you thank you um i'm really looking forward to it thank you book is out august 2nd so it'll be out now and you guys can all get it and then we have like four other episodes we've done with you yeah right that's right yeah we've done a few one we did like five years ago we were at lindsey's yeah i remember it was hot it was like we were We were at her kitchen table.

1:44:21I remember that. Yeah, no air conditioning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was. So I'm just so excited to see you grow. I'm excited about this book. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. It's good to see you too. Good to see you. All right. Bye. Thank you so much, John. Again, the book is out now. It is incredible. It is called From the Core. And thank you to our sponsors for this episode. As always, just bringing you brands that we love and use on the daily. So you can go to almost30.com slash partners or check out our show notes for discount information exclusively for all of you out there that listen to Almost 30.

1:44:56Thank you for listening to the show. Make sure you're subscribed. We have new episodes every single week and make sure to check us out on YouTube. We're looking good today. Looking good today. Wow. We're on YouTube, baby. There's tons of good clips and content on YouTube for you to dig into too. All right, y 'all. We'll see you on the next one. Until then, take care. Bye.

1:45:38Thank you, John Wineland, for being on the podcast four times. You're the best. We love you. We adore you. We honor and appreciate your work so much and what you've taught us and guided us through. We will remember forever. I hope you loved this rerun of John Wineland's episode 536 on Almost 30. We're going to be dropping these rerun episodes throughout the end of the year as a little bonus. So stay tuned for that. We love you here at Almost 30 so much. our OG listeners, our new listeners. This is more than just a podcast. It's a community. It's a movement. It's a remembering, you know, coming back to yourself in more ways than one.

1:46:22You deserve that. We love you. We're proud of you. We'll see you on the next episode.