{"id":19716,"date":"2022-07-29T15:02:22","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T21:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&#038;p=19716"},"modified":"2022-07-29T15:02:22","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T21:02:22","slug":"masculine-depth-and-power-from-the-core","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/masculine-depth-and-power-from-the-core\/","title":{"rendered":"Masculine Depth and Power\u2014from the Core"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-transcript pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/transcript\/19716?print=print\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div><p><b>Tami Simon:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Welcome to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, produced by Sounds True. My name\u2019s Tami Simon. I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True. And I\u2019d love to take a moment to introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation. The goal of the Sounds True Foundation is to provide access and eliminate financial barriers to transformational education and resources, such as teachings and trainings on mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion. If you\u2019d like to learn more and join with us in our efforts, please visit soundstruefoundation.org.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this episode of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, my guest is John Wineland. John is an LA-based men\u2019s group facilitator, speaker, and teacher who has been guiding both men and women in the realms of life purpose, relational communication, sexual intimacy, and embodiment. Drawing from intensive study with David Deida, who wrote a book with Sounds True, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Way of the Superior Man<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as well as the deep lineages of Vajrayana, tantra, kundalini, and qigong, John seeks to create a profound experience for men and women longing to express their deepest desires with open, fierce, and loving hearts. With Sounds True, John\u2019s the author of a new book. It\u2019s called <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From The Core: A New Masculine Paradigm For Leading With Love, Living Your Truth, And Healing The World<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">John makes a direct connection between the inner practices we can do to connect with emptiness inside awareness, consciousness, inside at the physical level, the energetic level, and then moving further out as spiritual beings, and how this enables us to be truly ourselves and live our purpose in the world. Listen to this conversation from the core with John Wineland.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s great to be with you, John, and to have this chance to get to know you a bit and for our listeners to get to know you. And in that spirit, can you share a bit about what brought you originally to do men\u2019s work in the first place and then how you became a men\u2019s work facilitator and how that work became so important to you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>John Wineland:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yes. Thank you. It\u2019s great to be here, Tami. Thank you for having me. So my journey is one of desperation and attempts at trying to figure out how to live in relationship, both with myself and with women and with the world. And so I came into this about 20 years ago, first through 12-step recovery programs. My first soiree into really getting to know men in an intimate level was through 12-step recovery work. And every day for a good 10 years, I ate lunch with about 50 or 60 guys and really allowed them into my world, which at the time was very tumultuous, because I had a daughter with special needs who was constantly in and out of the hospital. And so it was the first time in my life that I had men showing up for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My father was not one of those men and both my grandfathers died when I was young. So like a lot of men I see come into men\u2019s work, I came in having a very skewed relationship with men and the masculine in general. So it was a healing journey at first and then, at some point, I wanted to move more into a deeper spiritual understanding of life. And so that brought me to some spiritual work, Buddhism, and that originally\u2026 Then my failed relationships, I thought that I had everything that I was supposed to have. I was married. I had, literally, a picket fence in Westwood, California. I was in a community and yet I found myself to be really lonely in a certain way and unfulfilled in a certain way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I started to just sample teachings, everything from Tony Robbins to Th\u00edch Nh\u1ea5t H\u1ea1nh. And then I found David Deida, who I know you know, and I started to do a lot of work, a lot of men\u2019s work through his lens and followed him around for many, many years and learned sort of this language, this framework of the masculine and feminine. And as I got more and more into it, men started to come to me and say, \u201cHey, why don\u2019t you lead a men\u2019s group?\u201d So I just kind of fell into it out of a desperate need to be a better man and to be and to find some semblance of happiness in this world and to have better relationships. And then, ultimately, it just kind of grabbed me as I started to see more and more men feeling this kind of existential crisis, which is amplified in the last few years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Eventually I put up my own shingle and just started to lead men\u2019s programs. The book became a compilation of sort of my boots on the ground on the front lines, what I was seeing, what I was working with, where I feel that men got sort of trapped in their attempt at applying David\u2019s work for a long time. And so the book really became, \u201cThis is what I\u2019m seeing. This is what works worked for me. And this is what I\u2019m trying to teach.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It\u2019s amazing how much our failed relationships kick us in the butt, huh?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It\u2019s a great pain for most humans, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yes, and a great driver, evolutionary driver. Now, for people who are hearing about David Deida\u2019s work for the first time, they\u2019re not that familiar and the subtitle of your book, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A New Masculine Paradigm<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and you mentioned the masculine and feminine energies. And you\u2019re very clear in the book that when you talk about masculine and feminine, you\u2019re not saying men are the masculine, women are the feminine, but that these are energies we have. So explain this notion of a masculine paradigm that is going to enable us to live with more empowerment, more heart, more purpose, and how you understand masculine and feminine energies in all of us. A big opening question here for you, John.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I\u2019ll do my best. Again, this is just my best shot at this of trying to apply a framework that seemed to work for the men primarily, and women, because I work with women too, and I do coed stuff, that were coming to me and struggling in relationships. David\u2019s framework was a really handy and well-known, at the time, framework to jump off of. And the way that I like to describe it in the book is to consider a spectrum in any human, from more solid, more still, more connected to emptiness, spaciousness, consciousness, to a spectrum, to the other side of the spectrum, which is highly energetic, filled with light, filled with movement, filled with, let\u2019s call it emotion or thought, or you could say love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can really, if you want to overly simplify those terms, masculine and feminine, you could just break them down into consciousness and love. Or you could break them down into emptiness and fullness, or emptiness and energy, right? Pick the polarity term that you want, but these are really representations of the natural world, the universe. And so even in atoms, they\u2019ve discovered that most atoms are empty and they\u2019re energy. So at the basis of all natural phenomena are these polarities, and I think they exist in humans as well. And they become tools, I think, or energies, you could call them like you did, that we can access and amplify in order to expand our human experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I like to think of that spectrum in any moment, any human\u2014regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of gender identification\u2014can transmit, because that\u2019s the word I use, just a deeper masculine transmission, more empty, more solid. You think of a black hole, think a mountain, think\u2026 Or they could transmit something that is much more filled with energy and movement and you can choose or\u2014emoting, for example, is something that I think a lot of men struggle with. So they could fall in that spectrum and choose to amplify either polarity more as both a way to understand themselves better, to expand their range, their yogic and meditative range, and to relate to themselves and others in new ways.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, of course, we\u2019re living at a time where more and more people are raising their hands and saying they\u2019re nonbinary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mm-hmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They\u2019re both, right in this moment, both. And I think\u2026 I know you mentioned your Buddhist training, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And so why do we have to separate them like this, John? Why? What\u2019s the value of this if actually they are the same in some ultimate sense?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right. Well, I think that they\u2026 Well, I don\u2019t actually believe they are the same.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK. Well, take it\u2026 Let\u2019s\u2026 We\u2019re having a dialogue, so please.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, Yes. So I think actually that they\u2019re, ultimately, if you look at <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yin<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yang<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, there\u2019s a unification of different forms of energy. And ultimately, I like to think of the mystic law or the divine as having both a latent aspect and a manifest aspect. And either of those aspects can be, for lack of a better term, dropped into and amplified more. And I think what I see in people, as they practice these things, because they are practices, there\u2019s a certain part of themselves that they touch and it could be, so for example, the ability to emote fully. I\u2019ll speak about men because I work with men a lot, but the ability to emote is a certain way for them to drop into the energy that\u2019s flowing through their body.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And again, this is gender nonspecific, but so in amplifying their feminine, they\u2019re basically amplifying their capacity to emote or to express or to feel\u2026 be more sensitive is a term I use a lot in the book, to amplify sensitivity. And then on the other hand, they can amplify awareness, which falls under the masculine spectrum in my jargon. And if you just think about awareness on one side of the spectrum and feeling, or feeling sensitivity on the other side of the spectrum, I think that every human can practice amplifying both.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, your point, I think, is really well taken\u2014that you don\u2019t have to label it, the masculine and the feminine. You can pick other language to wrap around it. And I think people should. If these words sort of trigger something or don\u2019t feel, like you said, native to your experience, then I would ditch them and think about emptiness and fullness. Practice going deeper into emptiness. Practice going more into fullness, and you\u2019re going to get the same sort of experience as if you labeled it masculine or feminine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, as David has pointed out in a lot of his books, there is a relational aspect. There\u2019s a sort of energetic arc that gets created in relationship when one partner amplifies emptiness and let\u2019s say emptiness, consciousness, and the other partner amplifies, let\u2019s call it energy and motion, or pleasure. And when that happens, it creates an arc of connection that deepens experience. And I\u2019ve just seen this now over many, many years. And again, it doesn\u2019t have to\u2026 One of the things I like to do in workshops is flip it and have a woman amplify her masculine, drop deeper into consciousness, use breath to transmit it through her eyes, through her body, and then have the man begin moving and they create the same arc of polarity. People get tripped up because we have all this suppressive history behind the terms masculine and feminine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, I don\u2019t want to get tripped up in the language. I want to understand your framework. So in any given moment, we can be embodying more yin energy or more yang energy in any given moment. Is the goal, in your view, for a person to have an integrated yin-yang nature where they have equal access to both, or is that not the goal?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That is absolutely the goal. And where I think I differ from David\u2019s framework is that because he\u2019s trying to amplify sexual polarity, that\u2019s a huge outcome of his work. One partner amplifying the masculine fully, and one partner amplifying the feminine fully creates this great arc of sexual polarity. My assertion is that humans in particular can benefit from developing capacity in both, but ultimately bringing both in an integration. So the perfect moment of practice could be something like a connection to consciousness, to the infinite, to the awareness behind awareness and amplified sensitivity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And as we do both, we are integrating these two polarities, whatever you want to call them, and we\u2019re felt differently. We feel differently. We\u2019re more aware. We\u2019re able to lead a moment better, understand a moment better, feel a moment better. And so, yes, I would say absolutely the goal is to\u2026 But the problem is, Tami, that sometimes people will get tripped up in being a certain way more, let\u2019s call it just a denser nervous system, and they won\u2019t actually do the practices that amplify their capacity to be more sensitive or be more feeling. And so part of their human evolution and development would be to spend a lot of time developing that and bringing their awareness, their identification with awareness to more sensitivity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, I want to make sure that our listeners are all tracking with us. And I think a personal example would be helpful. And maybe if you could just share from your own experience on this yin-yang spectrum, where you sort of found yourself and the development work you needed to do to come into greater wholeness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, that\u2019s a great question. So I, actually, after many years, found myself more naturally on the feminine side of the spectrum, meaning, I was much more emotionally intuitive. I was much more sensitive. I just felt more\u2026 I was more at home in flow than stillness. And so part of what I had to learn, so that I could round out my yogic capacity and my relational capacity, was to learn stillness and to learn grounding and to learn slowing everything down to the point where I could actually feel more of a connection to consciousness than a connection to experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And what I see with a lot of men today is that\u2014and I see the opposite in a lot of women that I work with\u2014is that they\u2019re highly connected to experience. They\u2019re almost prisoners to their experience. And so teaching them the capacity to separate from experience, become witness to experience, become the field of awareness that their experience is emerging from is a really valuable tool to help them both in their own life and their own living, their relationship with themselves, and also their relationship with others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, for people who\u2026 It does. And I\u2019m going to keep going with it because I think it is very helpful for people who are hearing connect more with consciousness, not feeling sensitivity. What exactly does that mean? Because you said words like awareness and I just want to make sure people know exactly what you mean. Like when you\u2019re connected with consciousness, what\u2019s that like for you. Describe it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. And myriad spiritual traditions go into this, right? The part of me that is aware I\u2019m having this conversation with you, but is not actually having the conversation with you, would be the field of awareness, or you could call it consciousness. That part of me never changes. That part of me is the same before I had a name and it will go with me when I die. So that part never changes. And that I do by, David\u2019s definition of that, being the innate masculine in all humans. The part of me that is connected to sensation, connected to feeling, thought, emotion, that is always changing. That is always different. And that part of me, I would also agree, is you could term it the feminine. You don\u2019t have to. Again, these terms are arbitrary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sure, sure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So when I, in a meditative state, learn to become more aware of the field of awareness\u00a0 that all of my experience is emerging from, I\u2019m creating that relationship with the great \u201cI am,\u201d you could call it. The great I am. The me that is not inexperienced. And the more I do that, and the more I bring that awareness to experience, the more I\u2019m experiencing what I would consider an integration of those two polarities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK. Very helpful. Making it personal like this, I think, really communicates clearly. Now you mentioned that you encounter many men like yourself who benefit from spending more time and energy connecting with consciousness, connecting with the I am, with awareness. But you also said that you work with a lot of women who could very much benefit from the opposite. And I was like, really? Women need to connect more with their sensitivity? That\u2019s what your experience is?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, let me rephrase that. I think what I\u2019ve seen is that\u2026 Actually, I\u2019ll come at it from the opposite direction. What I\u2019ve seen is that women have found more of a home in their, let\u2019s call it superficial masculine, the directionality drive, success, creation, creating purpose, mission. And in that space, they have a hard time with their sensitivity. So what I will often end up teaching women in women\u2019s groups is grounding and stillness and a deeper masculine that will ground their sensitivity. Because I agree with you. I think women, at least many that come to me, are highly sensitive, highly intuitive. And they\u2019ve sort of, in the postfeminist world, found a pressure, let\u2019s say, to take on the old masculine paradigm, which is succeed, conquer, win. And so what ends up happening is that I end up teaching them a deeper ground and a deeper connection to consciousness, which actually helps ground their own emotional body or sensitivity or energetic bodies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now your book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the Core: A New Masculine Paradigm for Leading with Love, Living Your Truth, and Healing the World<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you start out by saying that your sense is that many men today want to bring forward more of their purpose, more of their gifts. They want to manifest, if you will, at a higher level, bring more to the world, but they don\u2019t quite know how.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So given this model, how does this model help those men specifically?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What I would term the old masculine paradigm is really centered around doing, winning, accumulating, breaking through. I mean, you can pick the way you want to describe it, but it really stems from this idea that\u2019s grown out of the last century in particular about what a man should do. And my assertion is that in staying in that strategy-driven paradigm of masculinity\u2014how do I win more, how do I accumulate more, how do I win in my relationship, how do I win in business, how do I win in the world\u2014they\u2019re missing a really key component of capacity. And that capacity requires them to go inward into the body, into consciousness, and make a home there that then becomes what they create from, what they love from, what they experience the moment from.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And so it\u2019s less about strategy, which I would consider a key component of the masculine paradigm that does not work, and it\u2019s more about dropping deeper into awareness and sensitivity, if I\u2019m just going to simplify it. Training your body and your mind to be more aware and more sensitive are the unsung tools of great leadership of yourself, of any moment, of a business, of a relationship, of parenting. You name it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Now, explain \u201cfrom the core.\u201d You\u2019re referring actually to the core of our energetic self, or how do you understand it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All the above. I mean, you could go into martial arts, right? And one of the first things they\u2019ll teach you is to connect to your pelvic floor to your <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">dantian<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, because that is the center, the core of your body. So part of what I spend a lot of time working on in the book is teaching men how to go into that space, bring their awareness from thought\u2014How do I win? How do I win? How do I win?\u2014into that grounding space of the lower abdomen and using breath and using some meditative tools. I try to make the argument that is where their greatest impact will come from.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And so there\u2019s the physical core, there\u2019s the core of the heart, right? The core of the truth of your heart, whatever that is. So going into their emotional core and then going into the core of who they are at the center. And that I would label is the part of them that is unchanging and infinite. The whole point of the book is to make the argument that going inward and making a connection to the deepest parts of you\u2014physical, emotional, let\u2019s say energetic or spiritual\u2014is the best, the deepest way to live and the deepest way to create impact.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Can you give us an experience right now for people who are like, \u201cThe core, the physical core? I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about. Pelvic floor, yes, something down there. I\u2019ve never been inside.\u201d Let\u2019s do something right here that\u2019ll give people a sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK. Whoever\u2019s listening, if you press the soles of your feet down into the floor, or your sitz bones, if you\u2019re sitting cross-legged, and you open the soles of your feet and you open that energetic space that is connected to the Earth, and then begin to breathe, preferably through the nose, down into the base of your abdomen as slowly and elongated as you can. And you do that, let\u2019s say, for 30 seconds. Might just be three breaths. Maybe a little hold at the top of the inhale. Maybe a little hold at the bottom of the exhale. And just slow the moment down by taking your awareness down into the base of the abdomen. And you might actually feel the abdomen expand in all directions. You might actually feel the abdomen start to ground. You can actually breathe as if you\u2019re grounding the abdomen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And as you do that, you\u2019re going to find that your nervous system, your thought processes, literally your heart rate, your nervous system begin to slow and connect more deeply to the moment. And in those, the more that we can do that, day by day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, the more we\u2019re going to occur in the world. Not only are we going to retrain our own nervous system into that space of the lower abdomen that is grounding by nature but we\u2019re going to regulate our own nervous systems and we\u2019re going to occur to the world around us as more grounded, stable, trustable. So it has an immediate impact on our relationships. It has an immediate impact on how we\u2019re felt in the world and how deeply we\u2019re trusted in the world or trusted in a moment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And what\u2019s the connection between living from the core, having a connection, an inner connection to the core, and what we might call true masculine power, not the surface masculine that you were talking about of ambition and stuff, but true, genuine masculine power.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s a great question. I think the connection, I would define it as it\u2019s a deeper space within. Now, there\u2019s this interwoven connection between the physical body, the energetic body, the spiritual body, and the capacity to train the physical body immediately impacts our capacity to feel consciousness. So for example, if I\u2019m thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking, it\u2019s more difficult for me to track that field of awareness, that great I am that is always there. But the moment I deepen my breath, I take my awareness from my thought and place it down into a deep space in my body, which yogis and martial artists have moaned for years that this is the key to connecting to consciousness. The easier that connection can be made, and the deeper my sort of sense of\u2026 It\u2019s sort of a centering. We talk about being centered, but we rarely talk about what that means. And so a centering, I would say starts with that deep breath connection to the lower abdomen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now you write in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the Core<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, if you can master focusing your awareness on the core spaces of your heart, lower abdomen, and the central column of your body, you will be felt as more still, more relaxed, more confident, and ultimately, you\u2019ll be more attractive to others. And you call this the magnetism of depth. And I thought to myself, \u201cWell, people want this. People want to be more attractive.\u201d And also, I think, I found in my own experience that when somebody does have that kind of sense of stillness inside, and you can feel it when you\u2019re with them, for me, there is a kind of attraction, like I want to be near them. I want some of what they have, some of that space inside. So I wonder if you can comment about this, the magnetism of depth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. Well, let me just say that what I\u2019m talking about is a deeper form of attraction, like you mentioned. This is not necessarily about physical attraction. This is obviously about an energetic attraction, a deeper attraction. What I have seen, and some of this is just anecdotal from years and years and years of watching people in workshops, is that I notice that as any human finds that space of depth, they become an invitation, just like you talked about. They become an invitation because people, I think, people are longing to experience that. People are longing to experience both a deeper understanding of themselves, a deeper experience of themselves. But they\u2019re also longing to find a connection to that which does not change, that is not swayed by the phone, or experience, or politics, or the trauma of daily life. And I think people just naturally want, like you said, naturally want to be around that more. And it actually relaxes them. It relaxes their nervous system. I think this is\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh yeah, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014the moment that I drop into that space, people around me now actually experience a relaxation in their own nervous system. It\u2019s a sort of a mirror neuron effect that happens. And I\u2019ve just seen it now, over thousands of hours of seeing people in workshops.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s talk more about the nervous system, because you devote a whole chapter to it in the book. And I think it\u2019s so important about how, when we can strengthen our capacity at the nervous system level, we have greater capacity for both awareness and sensation. So talk about that and this clueing in at the nervous system level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. Our nervous systems are sort of\u2026 Literally, our bodies are columns that run energy, right? The energy of life, vitality, sexual energy, emotional energy, even thought. And our capacity to run more energy, to be able to hold more experience in this kind of meat body is absolutely determined by how stable our nervous system is. And what we notice is in that meditative and yogic practice, we literally will move from a sympathetic nervous system state into a parasympathetic nervous system state. Now, that might take two minutes, three minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. It doesn\u2019t take that long to really get into a deep parasympathetic state in your nervous system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we do that, all kinds of beautiful things happen. We\u2019re able to actually hold more energy, more sexual energy, more of our own experience. We\u2019re able to transmit that experience through our bodies in a way that feels more, let\u2019s call it grounded and stable. So the impacts on sex for example, are pretty evident right away. And we\u2019re also able to, I think I would call it hold others\u2019 experiences more fully. So the deeper I am in that grounded sort of stable nervous system space, the more your emotions or the more life\u2019s challenges become more easily handled and just more easily digested.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And part of why I wanted to talk here about the nervous system is, when you were sharing how living from your core, people are drawn to that, and then they feel it with their mirror neurons. It\u2019s also possible, if you\u2019re not that deep and stable in your own inner stillness, somebody comes up and they\u2019re a little crazed or disheveled or anxious or depressed, and before you know it, you\u2019ve taken on their state. They haven\u2019t taken on your state that you started with. So talk more about how you deepen at the nervous system level. You make this really great point in the book that when you strengthen your nervous system, you can even better receive strong feedback from your partner. And I thought, I need greater strengthening for the kind of strong feedback I\u2019m getting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. So I relate and part of my journey was to learn how to do this. It\u2019s really quite simple. Elongated breath, deeper elongated breath. I mean, the Tibetans have been talking about this wind training and they make the point that much neurosis tends to come from lack of lower belly breathing. And whether you buy that or not, it\u2019s obvious, at least in being with people that the more you can pull your energetic center from here. Most of us are living from here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You\u2019re pointing to your head. Yes, from\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, from my throat to my head, right? You can pull it down so it lands more between your heart and the base of your body. You\u2019re actually closer to ground, your nervous system has sort of stabilized in a way, and you are more able to receive what the world is giving you, what life wants to give you. Good too. But you know, people have a hard time receiving love, praise, joy. And so it works in both directions. And I think what I would want anybody who reads the book to get is that these are not skills that are really difficult to master. They just take\u2026 No one taught us. At least my generation, no one taught us, hey, one of the great success strategies is to learn how to ground your lower body into the Earth and deepen your breath into your abdomen, and then soften and relax your heart.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No one taught me that early on. That\u2019s certainly not what I think gets taught in schools. But the processes, and I think I go through a pretty\u2026 Like a five- or six-step process of grounding, of breathing, of relaxing the heart, of relaxing the body. And that that actually has the impact to both take what life is giving you, good and bad, and also stabilize the moment. Stabilize the moment. And from that place, what I think happens is that we detach. And this is a big piece I see in men, especially. We detach from the patterns of needing to win, of needing to get, of needing to succeed, and we sort of plug into something greater than our own thought patterns, or our own history, our karma, let\u2019s call it. And we make ourself available to wisdom and energy and nourishment that is always available.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK. Let\u2019s bring it, again, back to you, because you started by sharing how part of your journey was launched by difficulties in relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Intimate relationships. And I\u2019m curious how building this capacity in your nervous system, through the types of exercises that you now teach others, how has that changed intimate relationships for you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hmm. Yes, that\u2019s a great question. I was on with Connor Beaton, who I also know is writing a book for y\u2019all, yesterday. And we talked about ROI, how men need to know the ROI of doing practice or any kind of work. And the immediate impact is that, suppose my partner is in a state of anxiety or even trauma, and her nervous system is lit up\u2014and this obviously applies to any human, my practice has the ability to down regulate her nervous system. So the ability to actually now use your breath to\u00a0 access the states we\u2019re talking about, and then using hands on the legs to just ground their nervous system, using eye contact to feel into a deep sensitivity, to feel into a deeper space of whatever they\u2019re experiencing, and then literally using my breath to help ground both of us in that moment, has an immediate impact on her nervous system. And I\u2019ve just seen this now, that this sort of nervous system regulation is an immense gift that we can give each other that goes highly underutilized and can change moments that could be hours of disagreement into a very deep, heartfelt connection and hopefully softening. So that\u2019s an immediate, immediate way to work with this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now I know one of the things that you teach, one of the topics that you teach on, and this is a question I think that in popular literature, people really want to know. What is it that men really want? What is it that women really want?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right. Right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">John Wineland, he\u2019s going to share from his perspective and all the work he\u2019s done with men and women in relationship and granted, this is\u2026 We\u2019re referring mostly here to a heterosexual paradigm, that the work that you\u2019ve done, what men in that paradigm want and what women want. Go ahead. Tell me, John.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, OK. This is a good moment to bring back the feminine in all of us, versus the masculine in all of us. So the masculine in all of us craves nourishment through all kinds of energy. One of the things that I see in workshops is when a man is receiving, let\u2019s call it devotional energy, from a partner, there\u2019s an almost\u2026 Many times they\u2019ll burst into tears. Many times they\u2019ll weep, and they\u2019ll have this really deep reaction to receiving that, let\u2019s call it a texture of energy, or a form of nourishment. And of course it\u2019s different for every human, but what I\u2019ve seen over the years is that\u2026 To be recognized for the good that they are trying to do, to be recognized for the stands that they are trying to make, to be recognized as a good human who fights for love, fights for consciousness, protects his family, tries to, that recognition through the body is a major piece of nourishment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And there\u2019s oodles of other kinds of nourishment. There\u2019s certain kinds of sexual energy that are very nourishing. There are certain kinds of playful energy that are very nourishing. We work a lot with archetypes and textures because these are just easy ways to access those pieces of nourishment. For example, let\u2019s call it sorcerous, so the magic. So if a man\u2026 And I\u2019m just using heteronormative terms now. If a man is feeling magic move through the body of his feminine partner, it occurs as magic in his body. And so we have this capacity, and I think it\u2019s one of the great tragedies of modern relating, we have all these gifts that we could learn to give each other, these pieces of nourishment we could learn to give each other.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And on the feminine side, I just went through an example, which is to be grounded, seen, felt in the truth of her heart. That occurs to somebody in their feminine as nourishment. And so I\u2019d like to frame it as that. It\u2019s not something that you have to do to be loved. It\u2019s not something that you need to weaponize. Please, I see people weaponize these terms all the time, but these are\u2026 We have the capacity to nourish each other in very deep ways that really aren\u2019t that difficult. And that, I think, is the real gift of embodiment practice, in general. We learn these pieces of nourishment that you can see. I mean, you can just see it in people that it just lands very deeply in their body, in their soul, in their heart.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Part of what I heard you say is that what we all want, actually, is a type of recognition and being seen. So the masculine in us wants to be recognized for how hard we try, again and again, and the feminine in us wants to be recognized for how true and full our love is. And it\u2019s like, huh, we see each other. We recognize each other.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. Yes, that\u2019s a beautiful way to put it. I think that\u2019s very true. And I think what I would like people who read the book to get is that these are just some tools that I\u2019ve seen work over the years that have an immediate impact on not only romantic partners, but children, right? The ability to ground your child, or be able to hold their truth in your heart without being reactive, the ability to burst into play. I think I talk about currencies, the currencies of presence and the currencies of play. And these new currencies are gifts that\u2026 Not just the masculine, but just, I think we can all give each other more, but it requires that we break out of the habit of our body minds. The habits of thinking and the habits of closure, to use a term David uses, and just be more fucking generous. Right? Just be more generous with each other in these ways that are immediately impactful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, you mentioned presence and you make a really interesting point in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the Core<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that being present and having presence, manifesting presence, offering our presence, they\u2019re not exactly the same thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So say more about that, because I think a lot of people think, \u201cWell, I\u2019m being present. I\u2019m chewing the raisin and I know I\u2019m chewing the raisin, being present.\u201d But having presence has a different way of impacting people. So talk about that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So let\u2019s think about the being present to the moment, right? Which is just a simple awareness practice to be aware of the desk under my hands and the room that I\u2019m in and the breath and the sound of your voice. I can expand infinitely into feeling this moment more fully and that\u2019s beautiful. Now, when I actually take that experience of feeling the moment more fully and I transmit it through the body, through my breath, through my eyes, literally through the pores, through the energetic, subtle body, I\u2019m now experienced as having presence. It goes from a personal experience of being present in the moment to an interpersonal relational experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it\u2019s tantra. It\u2019s tantra. It\u2019s basically taking the divine as I\u2019m feeling it in the moment, whether it\u2019s just the sensitivity of the hum of life all around, but now when I start to give that, I\u2019m now being experienced in a different way as having presence, as I fill with that. There\u2019s a difference between having a mind awareness or even a subtle body awareness of the present moment, but my capacity to use breath and to use <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">chi<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, to press that awareness of the present moment into the space I\u2019m in, or into the partner I\u2019m making love to, or into the eyes of a child or a man that I\u2019m working with, that\u2019s a different ballgame.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now you mentioned the currencies of presence and play. If someone wants to increase their play bank account or whatever you want to call it, have more access to playful energy, what do you suggest?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK. So something I\u2019ll do with men in particular\u2014I\u2019m running a group now\u2014I\u2019ll have them go out and sing. Go out into public and practice busking for&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pick a song and go out and actually express themselves fully. Or I\u2019ll have them take an improv class. I\u2019ll literally have them practicing play so that their body and their nervous system gets the felt experience of improvisational expression in the moment. So these are things\u2026 And this is a big point I try to make in the book that look, these things are available, but you have to practice them. You have to train. It\u2019s almost like a martial arts training in a certain way. So play requires to learn how to be more playful, requires you practice being more playful and you get it in the body and you practice it outside of a moment that you think it could be useful. It becomes like a paint in your palette. It becomes a tool in your kit and to liberate others. Because play is a very liberating currency, I would call it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know. And I want to be more playful, but I notice when you say train in being more playful, part of me is like, really? I\u2019ve got to practice this? Something seems off. I mean, it seems more like something needs to get removed, that\u2019s inhibiting play.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That happens. That happens. The reason we practice is to get to the real practice. So when I send somebody out to sing a song on the street, the practice is actually going to get them to the block and they have to actually move the energy through that block and the block eventually dissolves. And they\u2019ve, in that moment, created a deeper capacity for play, which they can access at another time when it really counts, so to speak. And that\u2019s why improv or using some of the master techniques that people have to drop into the moment and express in the moment, or play in the moment, they\u2019re out there and they\u2019re definitely worth checking out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now you talked about David Deida\u2019s work a couple of different times, and you mentioned this habits of closure, habits of closing ourself. I hadn\u2019t heard that term, but I\u2019m curious about that. What is informing our habits of closing down, especially when we\u2019re with the person we supposedly love the most?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. Yes. Normally it\u2019s some trigger that some stimulus in the environment, in the relationship, that triggers a childhood pattern or childhood wound, which then makes us self-referential in our thought. And as we get self-referential in our thought\u2014I\u2019m not doing it right. They don\u2019t like me. They\u2019re going to leave. Or they\u2019re critical of me. Whatever the thought is, as we get self-referential in our thoughts, our energetic bodies immediately begin to turn inward. What happens over the course of years is, our physical bodies start to take the shape of our energetic bodies and will start to\u2014you\u2019ll actually see it in people\u2014their heart space will actually collapse. Their sternum will come in. Their shoulders will round. Their belly will get tight. Yes, it\u2019s a constant checking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And so as we get triggered, the habits of our childhood and our programming throughout our lives will show up in our bodies. And that is, sometimes, a very subtle closure, a very subtle closure, but it\u2019s almost always accompanied by self-referential thought. So the habit will be take my awareness off of the self-referential thought, put my awareness on expanding the belly and relaxing the heart, maybe dropping the shoulders, maybe lifting the sternum, maybe planting the feet, planting the sacrum, and put my awareness on opening, on opening the body. And that immediately changes the thought pattern. It immediately opens up channels of energy and it immediately changes the\u2026 So the possibilities of the moment become more apparent, not just the same old default possibilities that we find ourselves in, especially in relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, John, something I really want to understand, and I don\u2019t want to presume that our listeners have any knowledge of David Deida\u2019s work, because they very well may not, which is you said earlier when we were talking about polarity, that in David Deida\u2019s work it\u2019s a big emphasis when it comes to sexual fulfillment to work with polarities, but that you see it differently. So how is it that you\u2026 You talk about, in the book, sex as an art form, but how do you see it differently from David\u2019s model?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, well, there\u2019s a lot that I agree with and a lot that I practice and teach. So it\u2019s not that\u2026 I think where I diverge a little bit, in a significant way I consider, is that David is more interested in expanding the polarities to create a sacred union in the moment. And it\u2019s highly effective and he\u2019s built a whole career on aspects of that. I really want to think the modern human requires much more integration of those expanded polarities in most of the moments that they live in. Not just sex. So in sex, the capacity to say, \u201cOK, in this moment, I am choosing to drop deeper into consciousness, to still my body, to really deepen into my body and access my masculine&#8230;\u201d I\u2019m using quotes for those of you who can\u2019t see. \u201c\u2026 as a gift to my partner\u2019s nervous system, my partner\u2019s heart,\u201d that kind of thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But what I see is that most\u2014staying there, for most men that I\u2019ve worked with and including myself, staying there is really, really hard. And so there\u2019s this whole middle ground of life that I feel needs to be touched on. And that, I feel, is more in the integrative space than the actual polarized space. If that makes sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that\u2019s a big argument that I am making in the book. Not necessarily to refute anything David\u2019s done. Just my innovation, I would call it, on those topics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, once again, just bringing it down into everyday human\u2019s experience, I think that a lot of people discover in long-term relationships that the kind of play and presence that was perhaps there in the beginning, isn\u2019t there after 5, 10, 20, 30 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What do you have to offer in terms of coming from the core that will help in those relationships?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. Well, what happens from the second to the fifth to the tenth year is that the patterns of our childhood and of our life, let\u2019s call it our karma, because I think many of your listeners will understand that, our karma begins to manifest in our relationships. And so breaking that, breaking those karmic vines, I argue, is a moment-to-moment practice of presence, of awareness, and sensitivity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And so let\u2019s pick the moment that your partner says the thing that they always say to you that causes you to say the thing back that you always say to them, and then you have the same fight that you\u2019ve had. That is our karma. That\u2019s the karma of our relationships. And so the moment that any human can drop deeper in, access a new possibility from a connection to the moment and choose a different approach or a different response, they\u2019re changing the karma, they\u2019re changing karma, I would argue. And it\u2019s a moment-to-moment practice. Like you said, to have the body open, to have the breath deep, to have some awareness of awareness, to have a sense, to train the feeling body, to feel in 360 degrees. These are all things that we can learn. Never master, really, or never complete. They\u2019re gestures toward continual practice. But those are the moments that change the direction or the solidification of our karma in relationships, in particular.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And then apply that specifically to sex in a long-term relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. So the pattern in long-term relationship\u2014I mean they\u2019re intimately linked. Our emotional safety and our sexual safety are intimately linked. So that moment that I just described gone awry has an impact on your sex life, on our sex. But that moment, properly transmuted into something new, something more playful, something more loving, will have an immediate impact on the trust level in sex. So you can\u2019t separate that emotional intimacy from the sexual moment and, yet, in the sexual moment, to have sex from the deepest parts of our body, so from the core, the whole idea in that is to deepen the sexual experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I\u2019m not just having sex from the physical body, but I\u2019m having sex from the energetic body. I\u2019m taking my connection to something deeper than my physical body or my thoughts or my desire, and I\u2019m giving that through my breath, through my eyes, through my voice, through my practice, to my partner, and that deepens the experience. And what I\u2019ve seen in couples time and time again, is that once they move out of the realm of having the habitual sex that they\u2019ve had into a deeper sort of exploration of what sex could be, all kinds of new possibilities develop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And there\u2019s one other piece to this I\u2019d add, which is that expanding our range. The range of our\u2014we talked about play and I would add from the masculine side, this sort of fierce love, this capacity for men in particular to connect the heart to the genitals, that is a yogic practice and your capacity to do that, it deepens the sexual moment and deepens what\u2019s possible in sex.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OK. One last thing I want to talk to you about, John. You end <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the Core<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on the note of conscious warriorship, conscious warriorhood. What do you mean by that? And why introduce the warrior archetype? I mean, it has the word war in it. Really? Do we really need that? What makes it conscious?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, I try to make the point in the book that the idea of \u201cwarrior\u201d has been co-opted by the film industry, just Rambo or whatever, has been co-opted. And so warrior is seen as a killing machine, is seen as an instrument of war. A fierce instrument of war. So conscious warriorhood is to make your body, your presence, an instrument of consciousness. The warriorhood aspect of it, which is something I see in men a lot, is proper use of their fierceness. What would they die for? What would they die to protect? What would they die to create? What would they literally give the depth of their heart to expand or liberate? That\u2019s the way that I\u2019m terming warriorhood, that it\u2019s to make your body an instrument, a fiercely loving instrument of consciousness, I think, if I was going to put it into one sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And when you ask that question, \u201cWhat would you die for?\u201d How would you answer that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ooh, I think that it would be liberation, liberation of hearts, liberation of love, liberation of consciousness. So when I see that in the work that I do, when I see somebody break that pattern that we discussed and actually have a moment of liberation that also liberates another, that to me, is worth dying for.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ve been speaking with John Wineland, he\u2019s the author of the new book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the Core: A New Masculine Paradigm for Leading with Love, Living Your Truth, and Healing the World<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It\u2019s a beautiful book, John. Thank you for pouring yourself out and into it. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>JW: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you, Tami. Thank you for having me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>TS: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thanks for listening to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You can read a full transcript of today\u2019s interview at resources2.soundstrue.com\/podcast. That\u2019s resources2.soundstrue.com\/podcast. If you\u2019re interested, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app, and if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a review. I absolutely love getting your feedback and being connected. Sounds True: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-19716","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Masculine Depth And Power From The Core - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Masculine Depth And Power From The Core. 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