061 Jordan Luke Collier: Ars Amorata

Jordan is the head instructor of Ars Amorata and men’s coach. We go deep into attachment theory for men in dating, the spirituality of beauty, and some of the inevitable “magical” experiences when a man reaches advanced levels with women.

Please note: This podcast may contain explicit language.

Transcript

Today's guest is Jordan Luke Collier,

The head instructor of Ars Amorata.

He works closely with Zan Perrion,

Who you may know.

If you don't,

You should listen to that episode.

I think it's in the 30s or something.

Jordan I met five years ago when I was running an intentional community in Brooklyn based on orgasm and all that sex cult stuff that I was a part of.

I met him,

Let me speak about that,

In the episode.

He came to run an Ars Amorata,

I don't know if you called it a boot camp,

But a workshop with guys and approaching and stuff.

Since then,

Which was five years ago,

We both have evolved and we linked up again here in Chiang Mai,

Thailand.

It's awesome seeing him again because he and I have known each other for a while.

We haven't really hung out,

So we spent the day shooting arrows,

Went to an archery range and stuff.

We went into some pretty deep things,

Some deep things that I wasn't expecting into.

Obviously,

We spoke about dating and love and relationships and women and the era's journey and all that stuff as a man.

But also,

We got kind of deep into some mystical ideas.

I'm hoping we didn't go so deep that you as a listener get turned off.

Actually,

I post this later in the episode,

But I am curious,

Especially if you're a guy who is earlier in his journey,

Maybe learning just how to meet or learning how to have a better relationship.

I'd be curious to see if the stuff that we speak about,

Especially the mystical stuff resonates because I was thinking like,

Man,

In my early 20s,

If I heard guys talking like this,

I probably would have tuned out.

I think though,

Going through the whole cycle of learning how to connect with women and learning how to be the lover archetype as Jordan speaks about in this episode,

I'd be curious if it connects some.

So hit me up on Instagram.

I always love hearing from listeners at Ruwondo.

If you're not on Instagram,

You can find my Facebook or something.

Anyway,

This is a really awesome conversation and I got a lot of value from it.

I'm excited to have Jordan back on the podcast in a few months actually when I'm back in Thailand.

So please enjoy episode 061,

Jordan Luke Collier,

Mild terror.

You're listening to the Ruwondo podcast,

Perpetual orgasm,

Infinite play.

Please subscribe on iTunes and enjoy the show.

All right.

So we've had a fun little afternoon.

We got lunch,

We did some archery,

Probably many metaphors that you can apply to it.

Yeah,

And you were saying,

Yeah,

You're a dad and you have a male lineage of archery in your family,

Right?

Yeah.

This is totally throwing me off course during the whole process.

It's basically my first,

Second time really doing archery,

First time doing it like with a proper teacher and so on.

And you were saying,

You were talking about archery and Zen,

Right?

That is this meditation,

But the more thoughts come in,

The more it's going to kick your arrows in bad directions and you can calm the mind.

You're going to hit every time in the yellow.

And I was literally,

I'd get one yellow,

Two yellows.

And then this,

I was watching my ego.

I love the,

Just understanding the ego and watching it and coming from a place beyond it.

So I particular favorite thought of mine field of study,

But I kept having this golden boy complex.

I'm like,

So I'm a Sagittarius,

Right?

So it's like,

I imagine when I go and do archery,

I'm one I'm Sagittarius.

So my star sign is I'm the archer and then my dad and my uncle archers as well.

And didn't have too much connection with them,

But in the family male lineage,

I'm expecting just to go out there and nail every single sharp line.

Your Y chromosome has archery in it.

Yeah,

Exactly.

And my,

My golden boy archer complex got in the way of good shooting.

Yeah.

And it's funny because the mechanics of archery,

At least this,

I mean,

I only took the one lesson that you took.

So I don't know much,

But it's pretty simple.

And like the difference between hitting the yellow bullseye and being off,

Even if you try to do the same exact thing is really your,

Your mental,

Emotional state.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it can all literally,

I can be lined up perfect posture,

Perfect conscious consciousness over what my body is doing,

What my focus is doing.

One tiny little thought,

Like one greedy thing of like,

I'm the man,

I'm going to nail this or whatever it's going to be,

Can literally move the yellow.

And then the arrow ends up hitting the whites,

Which is right outside,

Zero points.

Right.

Yeah.

I forget what you were saying about some dating coach analogy,

But the one that,

It's like in the moments of the critical moments when you're speaking with a woman or doing anything where you don't have time to think your emotions are what has you hit the bullseye or not.

Like if you're on point,

You're,

You're in the zone,

If you're not,

You're going to hit them,

You're going to miss the mark because it's so sensitive and archery.

I mean,

We could probably come up with analogies for an hour,

But yeah,

Like tension is one of the buzzwords.

Oh,

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You want to increase sexual,

Emotional tension and be in those like really thick spaces with a woman and with a partner and linger there.

But what happens when it,

Cause the,

The,

It's all about the bow.

So you're pulling that,

That the string and as you're waiting the whole body is under tension and it's like,

Can you actually execute a clean shot under conditions of tension or do you kind of crumble and lose awareness because the tension got too much?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like the simple,

This is the last thing maybe I'll say it's like,

Uh,

Otherwise,

No,

Like,

Um,

A lot of like those simple grounding things like noticing your body,

Feeling your body,

Making sure your butt's relaxed.

I'll notice it's like easier to notice it with archery because the action is so simple,

But if I'm missing four arrows in a row,

I'm like,

Oh shit,

My,

My legs are actually clenched for no reason.

And this is like throwing me off because I have an insecure thought or a prideful thought or something.

And if I just relax,

Feel my body again,

I can actually do what I need to do.

Yeah.

And practice.

Yeah.

So I was thinking when we were,

When we were about to meet for lunch,

We actually met quite a while ago.

It's like five years,

I think.

2014 it would have been.

Yeah.

That's the start of that year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's kind of wild.

Uh,

So you,

Uh,

Actually I never even found out how you,

I was,

I was running a,

An intentional community based on orgasmic meditation.

We might call it days many years ago.

Yeah.

I guess you had found the house somehow and how did,

How did that even happen?

I never asked you.

Yeah.

I was a couple of years into my work and my journey with the Asa Murata.

And at some point during that journey,

We met some people from the community and in London.

Okay.

Yeah.

We got invited.

They,

Their group came to our party one night and then they invited us to their party the next night.

And I'm like,

Who are these people?

What is this?

Some of these women have got a strong vibration.

That's very curious.

Like,

What is this?

And,

Uh,

So I took the opportunity when I went to New York of like,

Okay,

Is there a way I could find out more about this?

And someone told me,

Oh yeah,

You can pay a bit of money and stay the night.

So great.

Take care of my logins.

Yeah.

And then you did,

Um,

You did one,

I don't know if they were called boot camps,

But you had,

You had some clients,

Our Marathi clients.

You were in the garden with us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I filmed part of it.

I was like there hanging out.

I think the,

The,

The women were all my friends who you had the guys approaching.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was fun.

We were doing a work,

A weekend workshop about approaching basically classic art of flacking up courage,

Overcoming the limitations and approaching.

And we were doing,

Um,

I was doing a lot of kind of under the microscope work at that time where it's like,

Okay,

You can literally go and talk to women all day long,

But,

But what is actually happening when you do approach a woman?

Like,

Um,

Can you slow down time and observe your sense of groundedness?

You know,

Like,

Are you feet flat on the floor?

Are you breathing into your belly?

Like with archery.

And you go straight in and do the walk up,

You have to hear the balls out.

And then we,

I think we had four women in the garden and they were like,

Yeah,

This is where I'm feeling you.

This is where,

Oh,

When you approach us that time,

Literally my whole body contracted and felt fear and wanted you to go away.

But the next girl was like,

Yeah,

Actually I felt tingling in my,

In my pussy.

I got excited and the guys are overwhelmed because they've never heard a woman actually give honest reflection.

Right.

You know,

They might be out in a bar and the woman's like,

Oh yeah,

I'm just going to the bathroom.

That's the last I'll see of her.

They'll never find out that every time he approaches her,

He has this kind of energetic effect.

That that's a mystery for most men.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm just going to surrender to the archery analogies today,

But like when you hit,

It's like a most guys,

Like you just said,

They get rejected,

But they don't know which way to adjust.

They have no sense.

There's no feedback of like,

Oh,

I was off to the right.

I should go left.

Like that was so cool because they actually was like,

Oh,

You're doing too much of this.

In fact,

I bet a lot of guys do too much in the wrong direction.

Like they get rejected.

They think,

Oh,

They weren't being bold enough.

I've met a lot of guys,

A lot of guys from the red pill community are like,

Oh,

I need to be harder.

I need to be harder.

And like,

No,

You're,

You're failing because you're being too hard.

They need to go the other way.

And like,

Yeah.

Like feedback is,

Is so needed and then a lot of things,

But especially meeting women.

Yeah.

Literally like a two or three hour session like we did.

And then just someone whispering.

Yeah.

Just slow down a little bit more.

Breathe deeper.

Open your heart.

Enjoy.

Like look at the smile on her face.

Just like enjoy that a little bit more that make that could make all the difference.

Yeah.

And then at that time,

2014,

You had just started working with Zen and Amorada and I was on Marotta two years in by that.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

2012.

I okay.

Cool.

Cool.

Cool.

And I don't know for some reason I thought you were a police officer beforehand.

I must have mixed you up with someone else.

I bet.

Um,

So what's,

What's happened since,

I mean,

We've kind of crossed paths here and there,

I guess,

Twice in Thailand,

Like how,

What has life been like with Amorada and your,

Your work and stuff in the last five years.

Yeah,

Even the broad strokes.

Yeah.

Um,

Wow.

Yeah.

That is a big and expansive question.

I've essentially given my life to my interest and my curiosity in this dance of attraction,

Love,

Romance,

Intimacy between men and women.

This has been the thing that fascinated me even as a child.

Think I had,

Um,

Maybe a hypersensitivity to pretty girls in school.

And all my friends would be playing football.

I'd be like,

Why have I got a crush on this girl?

And the other guys don't have the same kind of thing.

Like I just was really drawn to that.

And so,

Yeah,

I qualified as a coach in my twenties.

I was already doing coaching and some psychology work.

And when I found the Amorada,

I was like this,

You know,

Let's help.

Men and women understand like what determines that connection to,

To love.

Like why does some of us get glimpses of the intimacy and the sex that we always hoped for,

And then it can be really difficult to sustain.

Why does some of us get like really none of that and what determines that and how can we,

How can we go on a very fruitful journey to have more,

More beauty in our lives essentially.

Yeah,

And you're saying,

Uh,

When we were waiting out the rain earlier today,

I,

Part of what drew you to Zan is like the big brother thing or like it was like a mentor.

You were saying something about like he had this thing that other people didn't.

Could you?

I've,

Yeah,

I've,

I would say Zan is very much a lover,

But very much a magician.

And he has this quality of seeing the invisible.

Um,

Some of the big,

I mean,

I went to him for some dating coaching.

Basically I wanted to be able to speak my truth and have better results for women.

I went for a weekend workshop as a client,

But what had me stay around was this notion of sub communication,

Which is men can be very overt in general.

I'm generalizing here,

But men very overt in their communication and women can be very contextual.

Like men rely on the content,

Women much more on the kind of context as for at times as emotionality,

There's energy.

And Zan seemed to be able to point to that and speak to it.

And I was like,

What,

There is a language of women.

Like,

You know,

I've got to learn this.

I cannot live my life without understanding the subtle communication between men and women.

And so he was a guide for that,

But throughout my life,

I have always been drawn to the kind of the shamans of the world and those that have a bit of mystical knowledge.

Like it's like,

I can feel,

I don't know,

I believe in a certain kind of magic in a way.

And that type,

That archetype I've always been drawn to.

And yeah,

I feel like,

I feel like I've got a huge amount of answers to those mystical questions that I sought out for years and years.

But like we talked about earlier in the archery,

There's still a few things that perplex me and still some mysteries of the universe I want to understand.

Yeah.

I think earlier,

Actually when around the time we met,

I probably was going too deep into exploring every little magical thing.

Some of it was bogus,

Some of it wasn't,

But more recently.

Yeah,

I love your journey dude.

Like when your book comes out,

I'm going to be like,

Oh really stay down.

Yeah.

Thank you.

But yeah,

I mean,

Lately I've been finding the most magical things and spiritual things.

Like when I dig into kind of regular ideas of,

Like last time I spoke with Zen,

The way he speaks about beauty,

Which is a mundane concept,

Beauty,

Pretty girls,

Right?

But like the way he speaks about beauty,

It can't not become mystical at some point.

I mean,

You really go deep into like,

What is really beauty?

And like,

And that's,

It just feels more grounded,

But also equally as fascinating and magical when you take this maybe regular concept and go so deep or self-love,

Like when you really think about loving yourself,

You can't not,

It can't not become spiritual at some point.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would say this has been my journey for the last five years,

Essentially.

If in between 2012 and 2014,

I was doing a lot of students and approach workshops.

I was doing some dating coaching.

I was really helping guys to get into,

Like,

Get over the hump and get into the world of women and start enjoying that.

And then things in my own personal life turned spiritual.

Like I followed this,

This route of inquiry.

What is attraction?

What is seduction?

What is romance?

And then it turned into a mystical experience,

Like moments of like,

Okay,

I'm with this woman.

I'm attracted to her.

I'm speaking my truth.

She's resonating with me.

Like she feels the same,

It's mutual and all of a sudden it's like,

We're in this bubble of ecstasy and it opens the heart.

It brings tears to the eyes.

It's like everything I ever wanted is happening right now in this moment in a cafe or this late at night.

And that's soaked up a lot of questions like,

Wow.

Yeah.

Here's the kind of short story,

Short kind of life in the cafe.

The way I fell in love as a teenager or in my early twenties,

I'd fall in love in the confines of my own head.

So I would see an attractive girl at school and enjoy,

I guess,

The interactions with her,

But then I'd go home and then I'd start imagining like,

What if we were together and like,

If she loved me and I'm me and all this kind of romantic daydream,

I'd be on personal fables,

Personal psychological term where you create a fantasy.

Our love is the only love in the whole world that's ever existed in history like this,

But really,

Yeah,

We must be soulmates.

Yeah.

Like no one else has loved as intensely as I love this girl.

Yeah.

And it was a total illusion because when I was present with her,

There wouldn't actually be much emotional sensation in me.

We blocked it all off because of the stress,

But also in her,

There was like no reciprocity or mutuality.

And at some point during the journey,

Rather than having love,

Falling in love being this thing that I would do in my own head,

In the confines of my bedroom,

In my fantasy world,

It started to happen in real life in real time.

So I'd be sat there with a woman and be like,

Wow,

Like I have some great early experiences of when this started to happen of being like,

Wow,

Like we're falling in love with each other right now.

Like,

Aren't we?

You feel that too.

Yeah.

It's like,

You're becoming more handsome every single second that goes by and your face is transformed.

It was literally like,

Yeah,

The love actually happened in full present time in full connection with women.

And it was like mutual,

Like real love,

Not the fantasy world,

But real love.

Yeah.

And then it's together for real.

You're both perceiving the same color.

It's not your own.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

We're definitely gonna speak about intimacy stuff,

But this reminded me,

I recently coached a guy who was saying that he's dating someone and he loves her when she's not there.

Like when she's not,

When she goes home for like the next day,

He feels so much like adoration and how beautiful she is.

But when she's in,

When they're on a date,

When she's in his home,

He can't like access that for some reason,

Which may perhaps is classic fear of intimacy,

But that's the experience.

Like we want to be in the same place with people,

But it's so much easier to have the imagination at home when they're not there.

It can't be challenged.

It's your own personal reality.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's tricky to work through.

It's totally possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So complex Rubik's cube.

I mean,

That's been a big part of my journey.

Yeah.

I was talking about avoidance stuff earlier and I know you're in a monogamous relationship.

There's a lot of growth there,

Which I'm curious.

I probably have many questions for you,

But you're sharing,

I forget the term you use,

Like two person something.

A two person psychological unit.

Yes.

Yeah.

Can you speak about that?

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean,

This is pretty new for me.

I've been in my relationship for 18 months at this moment and you know,

The classic thing about falling in love and having a relationship is you get a free ride for like six months.

You know,

You fall in love,

The gods are on your side,

The whole mystical soulmate thing blows up and all you want to do is be together.

It's amazing.

And then after a little while,

Okay,

The patterns start coming out.

Yeah.

Those unconscious things I always suspected about myself and now actually happening and that can be kind of confusing.

For me,

It's like constantly trying to get awareness of the next dynamic that pops up and we have a little fight and then we try and see our part in it and resolve it and get to the next level.

And so for me,

My life has been about travel and doing my thing.

I traveled for the first time when I was 19.

I made my first trip to Thailand and it was literally like all my friends were going to have this summer holiday and I was going to go to Thailand and Cambodia and Laos alone doing my thing.

And all of my twenties were about Jordan doing his thing.

And most of my thirties so far were about Jordan doing his thing.

Like I'm designing my life.

Who am I?

What do I want?

What am I going to create for myself?

Boom.

I'm going that supremely powerful,

You know,

Because I cut contact with the naysayers.

I created a life's journey,

Which is unique and fulfilling.

It's going to be a great body of knowledge.

But then I come into intimacy with somebody and it's like,

Yeah,

I want a relationship,

But I want all of the good parts and I want to minimize all the parts that like piss me off or stamp on my freedom.

So my girlfriend would bug me.

She always bugs me in the most beautiful,

Delightful way.

But at the beginning,

She would bug me a lot about sacrifice.

And so if you want a real relationship,

You're going to have to sacrifice.

And like sacrifice,

Compromise,

They sound like bad ideas for a glorious relationship.

And I started to see the truth in that.

Like I could not sacrifice,

But then I'd pay the price with her not being able to trust me.

Like,

Is he going to show up this week and can I rest into him?

Or is he going to like not call me for a few days because he got busy doing his own thing.

And so if I wanted her to actually feel a sense of home,

Like I could be a home for her to like,

Let everything go and open up completely.

And if I wanted her to be a home for me,

Like she felt secure enough in our connection that she could have her heart completely open and receptive and devotional towards me.

If I wanted that to happen,

Then I would have to show up with a certain level of consistency.

Sacrifice some of the things like,

Oh yeah,

I just want to go away and do this retreat or hang out with friends for a few days.

Or actually that there would be a price to the depth of openness that she could have.

And so the word sacrifice came on my radar for the first time.

And we made jokes about like,

We'd sing,

Was it Elton John?

Like constantly that was a theme song for the past six months.

But like,

It's not a relationship you're like,

Baby,

It's not sacrifice.

But I guess you're saying there's an opportunity cost both ways.

It's not like you're not,

You are giving up something,

But you're giving up something bigger or possibly more fulfilling if you do your own thing.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So I'm giving up,

Ongoingly,

I'm giving up more and more of my autonomy.

And if you've got the Western mindset,

Freedom is the number one value in everything.

I'm giving up parts of my freedom to discover that a sense of home,

Let's call it that,

Is more valuable.

And I've found different layers and steps in the journey towards deeper intimacy over the years.

But to look into my girlfriend's eyes and for her to look into mine and us to be together and both of us say and recognize like,

You are my home,

This is my home.

We can travel everywhere we want to go in the world,

But I never feel like I can just let go and surrender and be myself and open as much as I can when I'm with you.

Doesn't matter what country or house we're in,

But the connection that we've created is home.

And I can trust the stability of that home fully to always be there and not fuck up with my needs when I most need safety.

That's kind of the essence of the two persons.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

I'm just noticing as you're saying all this,

A part of me is like,

Wow,

That sounds so beautiful.

And there's like another part where it's like,

No,

I feel a contraction.

I feel like a TV that's not finding the right tracking.

Yeah,

Me too,

Man.

It's like the ultimate longing to feel at home with the ideal lover,

Like a beautiful woman.

And then,

I mean,

Yeah,

I mean,

I long and part of my work and just my spirit to eulogize about love.

This is how beautiful women can be.

This is how beautiful intimacy can be.

Relationship like we should devote our lives to becoming masters of the skills of relationship and intimacy because it has many ads.

He is to our lifespan.

Yeah.

It helps us with purpose,

With creativity,

Makes us feel great.

And yet I've gone into the depths of my relationship.

The way it is now like kicking and screaming,

Like resisting and denying and throwing up all my shit.

Yeah.

I'm feeling like mild terror,

Even like thinking about it.

Because I do want that eventually.

I'm dealing with my own avoidance.

So yeah,

This is really interesting to hear.

And you were saying something earlier.

Mild terror.

Mild terror.

Yeah.

That'll be the name of this episode.

Mild terror with Jordan Luke Elliott.

Yeah,

The other thing my girlfriend says is,

This is relationship,

Get used to it.

So you're saying that she's anxious and you're avoidant for the most part.

Is that right?

Yeah.

For the most part.

Like I don't want to label her this or me that.

Yeah.

Those are the tendencies.

Yeah.

There are some kind of pulls and fluctuations under the surface.

Yeah.

And you were saying something which I think is really important about when she's feeling anxious,

Like you soothing.

I mean,

Maybe I misinterpreted when you first said the term,

But like you're this one unit together and it's just something going on with her because of you.

It's really the super organism that you are.

It's like the super organism is being attacked and it's not operating.

Yeah.

This has been one of my more recent discoveries.

We've we're together like 90% of the time and it's pretty harmonious living together and we can live in close quarters,

Share the smallest of rooms and get along really,

Really well.

We're a great fit.

When things go long distance,

It gets a lot more tricky for us because the simple being together,

Like the nourishment of just being in the space with your lover is not there.

And so what happens to the relationship?

She wants more connection because when she is in connection with somebody,

If she is anxious or not feeling so good or like emotional or has some kind of need,

The way that she feels soothed is to come into connection with someone that she loves and feel safe with.

And the fact that there's like one nervous system and another nervous system coming together in a space of love and good presence that allows her anxiety to release.

It nourishes her in deep ways.

A lot of her needs are fulfilled and sometimes within like 10,

15 minutes,

She's like totally refreshed and feels solid and stable.

And it's just when she doesn't feel quite in center,

She needs to come into connection with me to have that just calm down.

And you and me on the contrary with the other kind of typology,

The way,

I guess we had our young childhoods.

Anytime we have needs,

We're like,

Yeah,

I just need to kind of extricate myself from the situation and I can take care of myself.

So it's like that.

The avoidantness.

Yeah.

That cool dynamic of like,

Yeah,

I'm also like missing you and a bit heartbroken and lonely and I'm going to deal with that by just being by myself,

Taking care of myself and then doing what needs to get done.

So I'm focusing on my work purpose.

And you want to talk to me for an hour every day and I don't want to go there because you're going to talk about what he had lunch with the thing that you had in the restaurant,

That cute dog that you saw on the way home,

Something that you're stressed about.

Like I mean,

It's more of a masculine thing,

But I want to feel like we're going somewhere in these conversations.

There must be a reason for exchanging information.

I want to be practicing something or going deeper or something somewhere.

Where she's just grasping to feel you or maybe not even grasping us a negative for it,

But she just needs to feel you.

My new understanding of it is her nervous system just needs to calm down and I'm her attachment partner.

I'm her home.

So she needs to come and do this ideally once a day.

And once I started seeing things and it's not her being demanding,

It's not her being jealous or mistrusting or controlling.

It's like her nervous system needs to feel like it gets nourished and feels like home.

She operates in just the way that would trigger my normal tendencies into closure.

So I'm just working on it.

So I have a magical question for you because I have these certain long distance connections and I also feel like I don't want to Skype every day.

I don't even want to Skype every week.

I love these connections,

These women.

But what was interesting is one can kind of – she'll message me as like,

Today I feel disconnected like something – what's going on in your life?

It's like she can feel me across the way.

And uncannily,

A lot of the times,

It's like when I'm connecting with someone else that night or something like that.

And I wonder – and the thing that I keep thinking is like is there a way to connect without needing to Skype?

If the Skype is just a medium for connection,

Is there like an energetic thing?

Like psychic dreams.

Yeah.

I was thinking like if I say keep this woman in my thoughts,

Will she feel connected even though I didn't text her today?

I don't know if you've ever played with that or have any noticings with that.

Yeah,

I believe that in a certain way.

Yeah.

Come to think of it,

I believe that very much.

Like if I'm thinking of my girlfriend all day,

Say we're in different continents like we are right now.

If I'm thinking about her all day,

My heart is open.

The next time I talk with her,

She seems like fulfilled and held and connected to and absolutely good.

And if I've literally gone an entire 24 hours and not thought of her once,

As I've been doing,

Doing,

Doing,

Doing,

Doing,

Next time I speak to her,

She's,

You know,

Her brow is furrowed and she feels cold and she might not say anything.

She might complain a little bit,

But I think through the ether,

We do feel each other.

I don't know how it is if you're seeing a few girls,

Like that must get totally complex,

Like the cross wires of being open relating.

But with one woman,

It's,

I mean,

We're very attached.

Like we've created a thing.

Yeah.

Well,

I'll tell you like to the day she'll message me,

It's like,

Oh,

I felt like cold towards you today.

And like that,

Those hours I was with someone else and like,

I was like,

Ah,

I mean,

So another magical thing when I was going deeper,

When I was in the cult and going deeper in this stuff,

I had a,

I guess it was like a coaching session with a witch doctor,

Self-described witch doctor,

She was referred to me by like another teacher.

Like you need to talk to this witch doctor.

And it was basically a coaching session where she didn't like ask me anything.

She just told me,

She just like channeled whatever.

And she was,

She said,

Out of nowhere,

Oh,

You have all these jealousy things with women,

But you don't have to,

You don't need to change anything.

You just need to learn how to energetically connect with the ones you're not with when you were someone else.

And I had no idea what that meant.

That was,

That was maybe six years ago.

And now I'm thinking about it.

I was like,

Oh,

I have to figure this out.

Like there's something,

There's something to this long distance,

Wordless,

Totally immaterial connection.

Yeah.

I believe in it.

And my kind of hunch is my own inner witch doctor,

You know,

After all these years of chasing these mystical mentors around the world,

You know,

I get my,

I would say something like to look at a picture of her face or like I have my girlfriend's image on my wall,

Which is not here,

But I can,

When I'm having a morning coffee or I take a break from work,

I can just see her face and I can look at that,

Feel a little bit of love in my heart and maybe say a little prayer or just say a few words like,

Oh,

Maybe,

Well,

My love or just mutter something in my head,

But like a little prayer for all intents and purposes.

I think that might be enough.

Like that's what it means to stay connected.

Huh?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just thinking now like,

Man,

10 years ago when I was trying to get laid,

I would never have thought I would be trying,

I would be saying prayers to pictures as like my next level of growth.

I figured out approaching,

You forgot number of closes.

Now pray to her photo.

Pray while you're sleeping with another woman,

Pray with her heart so she doesn't feel closed.

Send her some orgasm.

Yeah,

I know this is,

Yeah.

Going back,

Where were we?

Oh yeah,

The avoidance thing.

So I don't know if I asked you,

Was this like the first time you've been monogamous long term with someone?

Yeah.

Can you share,

Because I mean,

I again feel mild terror when I think about even like commitment to that level.

Can you share about how that transition was for you?

Yeah.

I'd love to.

It's I think it's almost worthy of writing a book about,

Because I worked with so many men who were looking for this similar thing.

Like I said,

My younger years,

I fell in love a lot in my own head,

So they weren't real relationships.

I might have been dating a girl for a while,

But it wasn't really that intimate.

And then when I started to feel more confident about my sexuality in particular,

Then I would have lovers travel here and there,

But it would only be a few weeks or a few months at the most.

And we would never really build that base.

So to come into the relationship,

Wow.

I mean,

One side of this is how do you know?

I mean,

Literally I have questions of like,

Where am I going to live this year?

You know,

We're living in this time in history where we can go on an app and swipe and get a bunch of dates within the same day.

It's like ordering fast food,

You know,

Like getting a few dates on the phone,

Let alone who do I choose to build something with or go deep with?

Where do I even live?

Like if you're freelance online or live in this nomad type lifestyle,

Like we are not everyone is there,

But a lot of people are,

Where do I live this year?

Where do I want to live this year?

Let alone,

Who do I go deep?

And when you're able,

Like,

So as men on this path,

I think one of the things we're looking for is freedom,

Women as well.

Right.

I don't want to just focus on men,

But like we want freedom to work anywhere in the world.

It's big,

Fashionable,

Beautiful.

We want the freedom to be like sexually attracted to a whole host of different possibilities.

Everyone.

Yeah.

Depending on your megalomaniacal.

Yeah.

But like we want that,

But it's the paradox of choice because then it becomes super hard to know when to settle down.

So I was wrestling in my mind for years.

Like I remember telling a funny story.

We were in Texas where you were talking about earlier and we were doing a salon.

So we had a lot of men and women gathered and we're all talking about love and romance and our adventures.

And I was telling this story about being this Peter Pan lover,

Which I was at the time,

Traveling to all these different places,

Flying in through the window,

Whisking Wendy off to an adventure for like two weeks and then leaving her back and then going back to Never Neverland basically.

And I told this story about the way I was loving.

And then one year I would come back like on Christmas Eve to somewhere like London or New York city and I'd go back to the living room window of the girl that I loved the most.

And I'd knock on the window and she's putting presents under the tree and the turkeys coming out of the oven and all those Christmas kind of stereotypes.

And I'd knock on the window being like,

Oh yeah,

You're Peter Pan lovers like lonely and out in the cold and out in the snow.

And she's looking back at me and she's literally like,

I can't,

You know,

I've grown up,

I'm in a real relationship.

You can't come in and yeah,

I told that story in a very ironic way,

But it totally came true.

So you were in the earlier phase,

Were you projecting this,

That this is a thing that might happen or had that already happened at some level?

I already felt it on some level.

Yeah.

There needs to be a male,

A masculine version of always bridesmaid,

Never the bride,

But like always the love of never the boyfriend.

Well,

I thought about that with a,

You know,

Good luck Chuck.

It was a rom-com.

It was like this guy,

He had a curse on him.

Whereas every woman was attracted to him because after sleeping with him,

The next man would become their soulmate.

So he,

All these women would find out and like,

I need to sleep with this guy because I'm going to meet my real man right after him.

So he was always left.

He had,

He had all these sexual experiences because women were using him as a talisman and then,

Yeah.

And so he's like half in heaven because his sexual,

Um,

Like the demand for him sexually is just rising and rising and rising.

Right now the sex God,

But no one stays total poison chalice because his suffering increases the more he has sex.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A little bit like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so at some point it's like,

Okay,

I can have anywhere in the world I can like have such a massive choice of women then like,

How do you actually grow out of that sense of abundance and openness and freedom to actually want to be with one woman that,

I mean,

That's a massive question.

Yeah.

And I'm now wondering,

Cause I mean,

So if you're not getting laid,

Then almost every guy's quest is to have this problem.

Right.

Like,

Um,

And,

But then,

So I've been,

I've been,

Well,

There's a bit of a tangent,

But I've been reading a lot about storytelling and how to structure my book and things like that.

And they're like,

You know,

All the great stories,

There's a refusal of the call.

Like,

Or there's actually,

They named it something else.

Basically the hero finds out the solution to all his problems early in the movie or early in the story and he's,

And they ignore it.

And then it comes back and you go through all these foibles and at the end they realize,

Oh,

I learned,

You know,

That person told me the answer.

And I'm wondering now if like,

Do you think men should or need to experience the Peter Pan experience before they settled down or is it perhaps more evolved to come to this conclusion immediately?

Maybe it's not a question that we can answer,

But.

Depends on the man.

Like I,

I wondered this,

One of my best friends from school got married when he was 23 with like his second girlfriend.

So he had one little girlfriend at school and then he had this girlfriend that got married and I was so embarrassed.

It was like the wedding night and he came around to speak to me and I'm like,

You know,

Do something in my heart.

I really wanted to ask you,

Don't know how to say it.

And he's like,

Are you going to ask me if I feel bad that I didn't fuck more women while I had the chance?

I was like,

Yes.

He said like,

Not an issue.

And he literally marriage deepened,

Had his two kids,

Corporate career is going very well.

It's a me of a secure relationship,

Basically very beautiful thing to see.

But some men,

You know,

If they've got that wiring or like,

Ah,

I guess our hero's journey is that we need to venture on through the land of women until we find that fundamental deep acceptance or fundamental like,

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Like I did what I needed to do.

The solution is within.

I don't need to do XYZ in the world of women.

But um,

I don't know if you can just get that through being smart or doing a lot of therapy.

I think there's a lot to be said for going out every hero's journey.

I didn't hear of any hero's journey where the guy went to a therapist,

The therapist uncovered the shadow,

You know,

Like,

Why do you want to go on this quest?

Well,

It's funny you should say that.

Let me just release that,

You know,

And now you don't have to go on it.

End of movie.

So like some of us have to live out an epic story and inflict some pain and atone for it and you know,

Suffer for it and find salvation.

Yeah.

And I guess,

Yeah,

Not everyone has to rest part of the fun of life also.

Like in the same book I was reading,

It was saying,

Um,

Fairy tales have to start with the hero,

Do like ignoring the advice,

Like don't open this cabinet or don't eat the apple.

Like otherwise there's no story.

Yeah.

On another lens,

I'm thinking,

Uh,

Like on the science side,

I was reading this great book on testosterone and how,

You know,

There's a lot of male personality comes from this,

Like the high testosterone versus low testosterone for instance.

And the behaviors are so different in what is really natural.

Like these high testosterone guys almost never can stay in a marriage.

They sleep with a lot of women and maybe that's actually the best thing for them.

Whereas like other guys are meant for,

Uh,

Pair bonding earlier in life.

And maybe a lot of us are in between and,

Uh,

And there's some theories that like,

There's like different types of males,

Like some birds,

There's like the male that has sex with everyone in the male that takes care of things.

And maybe there's just types that we don't consider when we're talking about men's work.

You know,

There's many journeys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Very much.

So how did you know,

How do you know this was the right thing?

I mean the,

The commitment,

The monogamy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because realistically you probably have already given up many adventures to have this one with your,

With your partner.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is an interesting question.

And um,

Some of the listeners might get value from this.

Some might,

Some might not.

That's always the case with the podcast.

Right.

But,

Um,

Yeah,

Some might not resonate or think it's a little bit spooky or a little bit weird.

But,

Um,

On the one hand,

I was getting a little bit tired of,

Uh,

Traveling and loving the whole thing of sewing my wild oats or whatever.

Um,

It started to feel like more distraction than kind of energy or pleasure gained.

So I just slowed down and started tailing off with some of my exploits,

Romantic exploits,

Let's say.

And I suffered a few bruises along the way.

Like there were a couple of times where I came close to something deep,

But it didn't work out,

Um,

For her reason or my own.

So yeah,

I was starting to get a little bit,

You know,

The Peter Pan knocking on the window,

Like feeling a bit of,

A bit of sadness for nothing deeper having yet emerged.

And as I slowed down,

I started to feel more and more my loneliness,

Which was incredibly sweet.

I think most of us are organized to avoid loneliness,

Right?

Okay.

I'm lonely.

I'm going online.

Okay.

I'm lonely.

I'm going out.

I'm lonely.

I'm going with Tinder.

But I started to sit with the creative work I was doing at the time and my feelings of loneliness and I just had enough of a,

Maybe enough skill with a little bit of yoga and meditation that I could feel my loneliness and feel the immense sweetness of the loneliness.

And I think as I became more and more accepting of it,

Like even loving it,

Like,

Wow,

Like this is with me and I don't have to do anything to make it go away.

I can just live.

I'm phenomenally creative.

My heart is getting kind of pulverized and tenderized by this feeling that lives within me.

It's good for my creativity.

There's beauty immersion with my clients.

My friendships with women are becoming like just more heart opened and I felt the sweetness of the loneliness.

And as that kind of shaped me,

Informed me.

And at one point I was like,

I can imagine if the right woman comes along soon,

Like I'm totally ready for a relationship.

So that was one process that was happening.

And the other thing that I was toying with was the notion of surrender.

And so with this paradox of choice,

I can live anywhere.

I can have a big choice of women.

Who the hell do I choose?

If I leave such a decision down to my conscious mind,

You know,

The one that makes this and tries to plan it perfect route forward,

Like it's never going to make a decision or it's just going to try and figure out the right woman and what I know about me and what I know about,

Especially my clients,

We try to figure out who is the right woman.

We're writing up the list of pros and cons,

The skepticism enters into the air and there's really not much of a surrender in the heart.

Like if you're kind of profiling,

Analyzing a woman to see if she,

You know,

Should I make a discern decision to go deeper with her or not?

Going from that place,

Romance is extremely limited,

Like there's not much ecstasy in the intimacy that happens.

So I was like,

Yeah,

When my time comes,

I think a higher knowing or a higher power,

Call it God,

Whatever.

Like a partner is going to get chosen for me and it's not going to be a partner I consciously kind of strategically decide upon.

I think magic is going to emerge through me and a woman and both of us will ride that wave.

How do you discern that feeling from infatuation?

That's where I,

That's the last year and a half.

I've known this is not a good idea,

But I have this running list of women lovers and pros,

Exactly what you said.

And I know it's not a good idea,

But it gives me comfort.

It gives my ego,

My mind comfort to have this list.

I have control.

I'm going to make a rational,

I'm going to get the highest expected value.

I'm going to be a partner.

And I've been doing better about not thinking that way.

But I get infatuated so easily and maybe this is like a trick I've played with myself of thinking my heart's open,

But it's really,

I'm just like getting high on oxytocin or something.

So I don't trust myself because when I fall for a woman,

I want to move in immediately and have that fable.

And then two months later,

I'm like,

Ah,

All right.

So like,

Yeah,

Do you have any advice?

This is very directly,

This is very personal to me.

Yeah.

Oh,

Thanks.

I owed it.

It's easy to say.

Do you have any advice for our listeners?

Yeah,

No,

No,

This is for me.

It's all for me.

Hopefully it benefits others too.

Yeah,

No,

I'm on the spot.

Don't want to do you wrong with bad advice.

I think my first hit is like if you get a clear red flag,

Maybe that's a,

Do I get a good idea to keep some space and not go there?

Like literally if the vibration of the woman,

The energy of the woman has got the flavor of like,

Oh,

I went for her type before and it was super painful.

Maybe.

Yeah,

No.

Um,

But yeah,

Also ride it out.

Like we can like,

If we follow the bodily wisdom and the heart's wisdom for who to fall in love with,

I think we're going to commit some real mistakes.

And that's absolutely fine because you'll go into those mistakes and then the lesson,

Oh yeah,

My heart was like,

There was a part of me that was like infatuated with this particular profile of women.

So I was still seeking something that was an unintegrated part,

But I needed to have this love affair to find out that lesson and have it.

And for me,

I,

I fell in love with a few red flags that was painful.

Then I really followed my heart and had some epic things,

But they didn't work out or they didn't go long term and there was a lot of learning in that.

Then I got to the stage where it's like,

Okay,

With Adelia,

My girlfriend,

Now I met her and it was like,

Okay,

Brutally 10 out of 10 love and ecstasy and the infatuation,

The opposite light.

It doesn't get any more falling in love than this.

I'm like a surfer.

This is the big wave.

I'm in Hawaii.

This is the big wave.

I'm going to ride it.

And I tried to ride some big waves before of falling in love,

But I fell off.

But this wave came on and to this day I managed to stay on my board,

Right in this wave of relation and I could fall off in any minute.

And then like,

Oh yeah,

Why didn't I see those red flags stamped all over this relationship?

Here I am,

Podcasts and whatever,

Talking about my love for this girl.

You know,

I missed the glaring obvious,

But to this day where we're staying in the relationship.

And then interestingly,

Now that we're in the relationship and she loves to go deep and like,

What's your shadow?

She asked me this,

Like,

This is a Maratha coach teaching men about seduction.

Like what's your fucking problem?

You know,

Like why were you screwed up that you had to make a life trying to understand women?

And I'm like,

That's a really good question.

Yeah.

Let's explore that.

Like what happened?

And so,

You know,

We're connecting on this deep level and we come,

I see red flags in her from times she sees red flags in a relationship.

I see stuff that's like,

Oof.

Cash me on social media,

Have a rwando,

And please do not forget to subscribe.

Both of us have got to a point in our life where we've got just enough skill that we can stay in the love affair and stay in it safe,

Safe,

Functional thriving.

And I could have taken some weights before,

But I didn't have the skill level to be able to do that.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I like that.

It's like kind of a very Dallas way.

I mean,

Or like seeing the infinite game of like,

And that was one thing that gave me comfort in the relationship situation I'm in is just thinking whether or not this is supposed to be long term or if this is the right woman,

Keeping my heart open and I guess riding the wave,

Using your imagery is the only way I'm going to progress whether I fall off or not.

And I think that's really the thing.

I feel like the,

Hopefully it helps out.

I hope you guys listening.

Someone I know.

Does this relate?

You were mentioning earlier about like the cutting edge.

I think you were talking about men's development of the heart.

Is this what you're talking about?

This type of,

Uh,

Yeah,

Like these themes that we're talking about today are really close to my heart.

This is where a lot of the work I'm doing is focusing now a lot of the things that I want to talk about is this there's my progression.

A lot of my clients have a similar progression.

I want to learn how to approach women.

I felt stuck.

I want to get that monkey off my back and feel freedom.

And then the next part,

No,

Like women like me,

But I want to feel sexually powerful.

Like I want to know and have some sense of mastery that I can seduce and lead her somewhere.

That's more than a friendship.

Like that's the best sex of her life.

That's another phase.

And then where my,

Where my cutting edge is the conversation I want to have is like,

Yeah,

I'm good with women.

I can have sex.

Women are attracted to me.

Like why can't I open my heart?

Like I want to open my heart fully.

I want to feel impacted.

I work with a lot of guys who become good ladies,

Men,

And then they're like,

Yeah,

I have women here.

I have women here.

I go to Bucharest and have a girl.

I go back to the States.

I have a girl here and have a girl,

But like,

I want,

I want my life to be profoundly rocked by the magnitude of love,

You know,

That I know is possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was,

Um,

The last workshop I took and stay in it like not just have the two week high,

But then like,

How can I fall in love?

How can I have this mystical experience of falling in love?

Then how do I create that sense of home so that that love and that relationship is going to sustain you on goingly and how can we experience devotion and have that fuel my work,

My purpose,

My feeling of being,

You know,

A king.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That resonates a lot.

I mean,

The Peter Pan thing,

I think I felt a little bit too.

And um,

I forgot what I was going to say.

I'm just,

Yeah,

I cut you off.

I know.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Oh yeah.

I mean,

I know they,

Uh,

It's kind of a shamanic thing and they asked what you write down an intention and the only thing I could,

I was like,

I think it was the first time I don't have a material longing.

Like I don't want to get laid more.

I mean,

All these things I still want like money,

Women,

Sex,

All those things.

But like,

I was like,

Oh,

The thing that I feel is really missing in my life is like the rapture where I'm like being pulled by something and like,

This is magical,

Not because I am dressing it up or lighting incense,

But I feel like I'm being,

This is like,

You know,

Yeah.

It's hard to put into words,

But.

That's beauty.

I think like bringing it back to Zen and the word beauty at the beginning,

Like rapture.

I mean,

My sense of the word is like,

I stand just or struck by the immense,

Everything of this moment and this woman and this feeling that's between us.

Yeah.

I'm curious to see,

I love,

Especially like you guys listening,

Whoever you are,

I'd be curious to see if this resonates and at what level.

So I'm thinking,

Would I have understood what we're talking about or related to this at all 10 years ago?

And I'm just curious.

So shout out to you listening.

Hit me up.

I'd be curious to know shoot me a line on Instagram at Rwanda.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This cutting edge,

I was speaking about this with my friend Aaron,

Who you met,

He's been on the podcast.

This might just be my limited perception,

But I do think there's some sort of zeitgeist or like shift among men.

Obviously,

I know for myself,

My sample of guys I talked to are definitely not representative of the population,

But I do feel like there is a shift where like pickup was an important movements within men's work.

And there's another swing of like the far left,

Super soft stuff.

And it's not a new concept of balancing the yin and the yang,

But I think there is a fairly small group of thinkers and coaches who are really driving for the ideas that you're bringing up.

I don't know if that's your perception or me.

I'm just talking to a few guys.

Yeah.

I don't know either.

I mean,

I've got the same skewed worldview as you.

Most of the people I know share the same values and think the same way.

Yeah.

Well,

Maybe think of it as that.

I mean,

I feel it.

Yeah.

I guess every small group of people thought that their movement was a thing,

But I've had clients as soon as reach out and be like,

Yeah,

There's only a few of you.

Like there's Zen,

There's Steve Maeda,

There's us.

There's people.

And there's a lot of,

It's like kind of hard to find what resonates.

And not to say that our way of thinking is the almighty truth,

But yeah,

It's just interesting to think about.

It is funny that.

And I think as I've been exploring,

Looking for different ideas and practices to evolve my own basically and enrich me,

I've resonated a lot with some of the world of psychology.

I think the archetypal stuff that also.

Yeah,

The young,

I'm in a rabbit hole.

Yeah.

That's beautiful and fascinating.

A lot of spirituality has informed me,

But I mean,

Not some of the,

I mean,

That's actually a minefield actually,

Just to say the word spirituality and everything,

But by particularly the kind of love mystics,

The Sufi,

And the way that these guys and the poets would talk about their love for God.

Yeah.

Cause all rapture,

All their poems are like the drunkenness of loving.

Yeah,

Yeah.

That's,

That's informed me a lot.

And then San of course is working closely with this Roger Scruton.

He is an English philosopher.

He talks about beauty.

So it's the philosophy of aesthetics basically,

And why culture is important to preserve because he,

He talks a lot about conservative politics,

Philosophy,

Basically in England,

We've got two parties,

The Labour and the Conservatives and the Conservatives is a bit more of the Republican side.

So it's like,

Ooh,

You know,

Some people don't,

But like they're in power at the moment.

So they're kind of like the bad guys and so on for a lot of people,

Good guys for others.

But the essence of that philosophy is like,

There are beautiful things in our culture,

Like going back to Shakespeare and beyond,

And every culture has got their heroic playwright or their grand musician or whatever.

And he's saying there's this lineage of beauty that extends back hundreds and thousands of years,

And all of our people have been involved in that.

And so if you know the grandeur of Shakespeare's plays or the beauty of like the Beatles music or whoever's current right now,

That is inherently beautiful.

And so we love that so much.

Like the music of our time has given us so much solace,

Consolation,

Affinity,

Sense of being at home in this one human life that we got to do all we can to protect that and pass it on to the next generation.

Because the world is moving so fast.

It's like,

You know,

The cell phone generation,

Are they going to have connections to the beauty and the transcendence that comes through that?

And yeah,

On a tangent with you,

But these are some of the themes that Roger Scruton talks about that Zan's very interested in at the moment.

And what I've been doing this summer,

I worked with a couple of different meditation teachers that were talking about the meditation and the yoga of beauty,

Which is how can I meditate?

You know,

If we didn't lose the listener before,

We'd totally have now,

But how can I meditate in a certain way on a film,

Like a movie,

On a masterpiece,

Like a painting,

An item like a photograph,

A piece of music,

Contemporary or classical,

How can I go into a state of meditation and open myself so much that the gifts of that art floods my being.

And I don't just stand there and think,

Oh,

That's a cool painting.

But I can have an experience of rapture almost on command because I've trained my nervous system to open to beauty and expand beauty.

Yeah,

All right.

I have three,

Like it's made me think of a lot of things.

The first is it reminded me,

Like my dad would always say when I was growing up,

There's no point ever getting to know fashion or art or fads because they change all the time.

It's clearly their bullshit,

Which is like maybe a hyper masculine,

Left-brained way of thinking.

But what you're saying is reminding me,

Well,

There's like a thread of culture that has to evolve.

And yes,

The fashionable or the avant-garde are like tapped into that feeling because it's not a material thing.

It's like,

Why are bell bottoms out of style now?

I don't know.

But in that moment of time,

That was the right thing.

And just like in a certain moment,

A woman feels a certain emotion.

But then it's also making me think from what I am rent,

It's a conservative,

A conservative American philosopher happened to be a woman.

I forget what era she was popular.

I think the fifties or sixties.

But she,

I remember I landed a lot of conservatives in America.

Now we'll quote her and stuff.

She has a lot of books on that,

But she would speak about how if you're really appreciating beauty,

You have to also call out what's ugly.

And the idea that you can appreciate everything removes the concept of beauty.

Well,

If you treat everything the same,

Then who cares if there's poop on the wall?

The last thought,

I'm just curious,

Do you think you've become more conservative in your ideals as you've gotten older?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Not enough to vote conservative in my own country's elections because I think what they're doing is not conservative in the way that I see it.

But yeah,

It's funny,

You know,

Um,

There is a swing of interests,

Which is when I was 21,

I read like Marx and you know,

Leftist politics at school and I was like,

Well,

The shit was George Bush and Tony Blair.

Things have got to change and I've got no sense of power.

The world is so big and confusing.

What the fuck are these multinational companies doing?

I don't fit in.

I'm just going to go traveling and see if I can break off my piece and have a half decent life while I do it.

And hopefully there's like revolution in the corporate structure that helps out the guy with no money in his bank account.

And that would be my way.

So I was more swinging to the left,

You know,

Like let's get the underdogs a chance.

And as you get older,

It's like,

Yeah,

I put in a good 15 years of effort now to really understand how the world works.

I kind of don't want it to change too rapidly because I found my,

I found my groove and now I'm a bit like,

It's just a self serving mechanism of an animal being worried about its safety.

I'm like,

Well,

Don't change too much.

I've got roots of a good career now.

I want to build that out.

And hopefully this,

This,

You know,

I can surf this wave into my old age and live a nice life because I like my life.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

Like when we met,

I was super like pro anarchy.

I would watch the walking dead and kind of wish for it to be like that.

It's so funny.

Was it Winston Churchill?

It might be misattributed that if you're not liberal when you're in your twenties,

You have no heart.

And if you're not conservative in your thirties,

You have no head.

I might be getting that wrong.

I might be getting the words,

But something like that.

I was like,

Man,

I mean,

I can't believe that I lean right on certain things because when I made just six,

Seven years ago,

I thought like everything,

You know,

Marxist communal anarchy,

Everything on everything.

And now I find that,

You know,

I guess the culture has shifted left.

So where we are,

We are.

Yeah.

I just think it's interesting as you age.

So very cliche,

But everyone I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

I watch the most rebellious left-wing friends turn into their conservative father,

Like in really stereotypical ways,

Which is kind of funny.

But yeah,

I mean,

Zooming out,

I think politics has to go from one side to the other.

It's just the discourse of the dancing between these two polarities.

But I think having this conversation with you,

One thing that's very important is to break out of my bubble with people that have the same worldview as me and meet other people that have a different struggle.

And it's so easy just to be kind of trapped within our community of men with good hearts that are looking for beauty.

Actually there's a lot of people that have totally different life struggles.

Yeah.

Sometimes I get shocked with,

Like when my female friends mentioned like,

Oh,

Men are always doing this.

And I was like,

I don't know a single guy who has ever catcalled.

I don't know what I'm close to at least.

I have to remember that there's all this huge population of guys I don't know.

And yeah,

I guess when it comes to everything.

Yeah,

So this is our fubai.

No kidding,

Huh?

Yeah.

Fubai is quicker than the other two.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Is there anything else you want to share about anything?

Yes.

Probably.

Yeah,

My mind is a little bit.

I'll try to run us back.

We had monogamy,

Avoidance.

Oh,

Actually one thing.

We were speaking about earlier about immersion.

And I think you're mentioning your clients,

But also in your own life,

Like diving into something.

I forget what phrase you use,

But diving into something until you figured it out.

And we were speaking about people we know and students we've had,

Like when you dive all into it,

Then things happen,

But when you're struggling through,

Maybe it's very slow or doesn't happen.

Yeah.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

Two forms of growth.

I guess like if our job on earth is to coach,

Guide men through this journey to understand in their sexuality,

Their heart,

Their relationships,

It's two forms of growth,

Which is to engage in this little and often and have it grow you over a 10 year period,

15 year period.

Or the other side,

Which is literally to take a lover's sabbatical,

Which is,

I'm going to wrap up my professional project.

I'm not going to take on any work for the next 18 months or two years.

I'm just going to travel the world and I'm going to do workshops and I'm going to learn about my feelings,

My relationship,

My sexuality.

And yeah,

I mean,

The guys that have made the biggest,

Most substantial,

Like amazing progress on this journey that I've worked with in the guys that literally took a sabbatical 18 months off.

And there's,

Is it an iron jar?

In one of these books where they talk about,

There was a particular moment in history,

I don't know if it's middle England or maybe a medieval Renaissance Italy,

Something like that,

But a boy would go through different phases of his life,

Different initiations.

And one of those initiations would be a three-year stint where he dedicated himself to the arts.

So the filling out of the lover archetype within him,

And he would learn poetry,

He would learn classical art,

He would learn theater,

Piano.

He would learn how to woo,

You know,

Court a woman and dress in the right way for the right occasion and behave in the right way in the ball.

And so,

I mean,

People in the modern world listening to this in corporate America or corporate Australia,

Corporate England or corporate wherever,

We're trained as warriors,

You know,

Turn up on time,

Do your workload,

Win or die,

You know,

Do your job effectively.

So we're trained to be warriors,

We're trained to be magicians and innovators.

Some are trained to be kings and leaders,

But there is no place where you can go and train to be a lover.

And so a lot of us fall through the cracks.

We look up weird stuff online.

We find ourselves in curious retreats in Thailand and Bali and Mexico or wherever.

And here we are like trying to bring together for ourselves and love as education.

And we're providing that.

You and I and the broader community that we're a part of.

Yeah.

And if you found that the men willing to put go on a sabbatical,

Whatever that looks like,

Quitting their job or whatever,

Were driven by pain?

Yes.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And a lot of the guys who really had a glorious sabbatical and came out of it very changed and very whole,

Very grateful.

A lot of those guys were divorced and the divorce was excruciatingly painful.

So yeah.

Yeah.

It's,

I guess,

A funny thing about being a human driven by pain more.

Because now I hope I don't come off as not sympathetic enough,

But when a guy is really suffering about something like a breakup or something,

I'm almost excited for him because I know he's going to do things that change.

That stuff that really breaks my heart and I feel pity about is when a guy is slow dripping misery.

Like he's living a life of quiet desperation.

He's letting a decade go by before he makes a change or maybe never makes a change because the pain is never acute enough.

That's what really makes me upset and keeps me up at night.

But when someone's suffering,

I'm like,

All right,

Things are going to be different.

Yeah,

Brooding it,

Man.

Just tell me how bad was she to you?

You know that guy who took her off your hands?

Tell me about him.

What an asshole.

Yeah,

Tell me about him.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I'm going to tell you what it was.

Yeah,

I'd love a way to spell this out.

I talked about this earlier and I guess it's like,

For me,

It was a different slide.

How to go from being this kind of lover boy into being a man who wants a full committed relationship and is ready for that.

And for me,

It was that very slow and subtle becoming tenderized by the loneliness that was there.

And so that transformation is so important yet so subtle.

And you're never going to find that kind of transformation if you are on the phone every single night,

If you are literally buying info products and watching people's YouTube videos all night long.

Like that sense of I'm going to improve myself to be better sometimes.

So often there is a blanket kind of numbing consumption of personal development media that we put on as a way to feel good.

Yeah,

Because it's interesting and if it's well produced and fun and so on,

It gives us a feel good factor.

It doesn't produce the cutting edge because I mean,

If you want to break through,

You can just make a breakthrough anytime you make a breakthrough with women or with work or with life where you just say fuck it and go and do something.

But to snap out of the numbed out blanket consumption of personal development media.

Yeah,

I think that's important.

I see a lot of quiet desperation happening underneath that kind of media consumption.

Take this opportunity to cool that out at the end of the podcast.

Yeah,

I find that a little ironic because in a lot of this comes up in the podcast,

A lot of my Instagram posts are,

Hey,

You should get off Instagram.

And I'm like,

Oh man,

This is not good for my marketing,

But it's really what I feel.

Have you seen the Louis C.

K.

Bit about,

You know Louis C.

K.

?

I know him.

Well,

He has this great clip on,

When he's on Late Night Show on Conan,

I think where he's talking about the beauty of sadness,

Which sounds something like you have to feel it for it to move you.

But if you're on your phone all the time,

You can go 10 years and not realize that you're upset and that driving catalyst that would have started your hero's journey would have been missed.

So,

Pain's not bad.

Totally that.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well,

Thanks so much.

I'm glad to talk about you before I leave for Africa and you may or may not be here when I get back.

So,

Yeah,

I'm glad.

Yeah,

My pleasure.

I will be back later on in the year.

How can people find out about your work?

Two places.

One is they can come and find me at jordanluccolia.

Com.

I have some YouTube videos on the way out,

Hopefully out by the time people get their hands on this.

So,

Yeah,

They can find out a bit more about my intimacy and relationship stuff through that and I'm still heavily involved with the Arza Marata.

We have group programs,

Online programs.

We've got some live stuff coming up.

You just go to arzamarata.

Com.

There you can find a lot of Zann stuff,

A lot of my stuff,

Get involved with the community there.

Awesome.

All right.

Thanks so much,

Man.

I'll see you in the next one.