117 Taboo Stuff: Overcoming Compulsive Thinking, Archetypes

"All the taboo stuff comes out on your podcast" - Tim. | Tim is a former client whom I recently demoted to a friend. (His joke, not mine.) He shares some vulnerable things related to OCD/getting stuck in thought loops, particularly with women in relationships. We also hit on the problems with pathologies, why cortisol isn't a bad thing, and what makes relationships work. We also hit on all the taboo topics, obviously.

Transcript

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Enjoy the show.

Mr.

Jack.

I'm going to push continue,

Reluctantly continue.

All right.

We're going on this meeting.

I didn't know Zoom has all these consent things now.

Yeah,

Well,

You know,

Consent is important.

I don't know if you got the memo,

But consent is important these days.

I've been hearing little birds have told me.

Yeah.

I do get a little annoyed with like the over consent on the end.

All of it.

Anyway,

That's a whole other thing.

I don't even want to talk about that.

But great.

Oh,

Yeah.

It's interesting,

You know,

Especially from a dude that's in your line of work with sexy stuff.

You know,

A lot of it is feeling the limbic system,

That limbic resonance.

And oftentimes,

When you superimpose your neocortical judgments or permissions or whatever,

You like stop the energy that's building and you put someone into their head.

I would assume that that is maybe said,

You have.

Yeah,

Yeah,

It takes away it takes away the human part of Yeah,

Exactly.

You said reading a person actually having consent.

It's kind of like when it's imposed by by governing body.

It's like,

Have you seen Clockwork Orange?

I have,

But I didn't understand what was happening to me when I saw it.

One of the moral themes is that if you take away a person's choice,

They don't have morality,

Like they force him to be good through conditioning,

But he's not actually a good person.

And I feel like it's the same thing with a lot of this consent stuff.

Like you're not actually teaching people to respect boundaries,

You're kind of just forcing them out of fear.

So that's so interesting,

Dude,

That's so fucking interesting.

So I want to see if I can,

I can take that in.

Because that's a great point.

It's almost like a,

You talked about slave morality,

Master morality,

But I don't think that really ties in a little bit.

I think it is a thing that you know,

Cancel culture and a lot of this like mob shaming of powerful people is like a slave uprising in our collective unconscious.

I think yeah.

Oh,

Yeah,

That's it.

That's a really,

That's true.

Fuck.

I think it's so hard to say that nowadays,

Because there's like,

I even even you telling me that,

I think,

Okay,

Well,

Now,

He's telling me that and I agree with him,

But there's a part of me that I'm not really that,

But I don't like as much but dominates most of my reality,

Which is just kind of like the the part that wants to fit in,

That wants to conform that wants to be like that,

You know,

And I want to like,

You know,

It's so funny.

Um,

Okay,

Well,

I guess we're going here for a second.

But um,

I was I was talking to my buddy,

We were talking about Black Lives Matter.

And I was in Seattle,

And all the crazy stuff was happening in Capitol Hill was this really vibrant neighborhood where a lot of cool shit was going on gay bars and IPAs.

And,

You know,

It's like really fun.

And,

And after Black Lives Matter,

It was just completely fucked up.

It was like completely destroyed.

And you know,

I'm torn on on this issue,

Because on one level,

I understand the Black Lives Matter movement,

I completely support the ideas that are underlining,

You know,

The compounding interest of racism,

And how that continues and needs to be thought through and adjusted for.

But at the same token,

It was like,

You know,

A lot of the people,

This is kind of getting into a weird place,

But a lot of people that were doing that stuff,

They weren't like,

They weren't black people,

They were a bunch of white anarchists that were just like wanted to break shit.

And,

And anyways.

So I told that to a friend,

The reason I bring this up was that I told this to a friend,

But I couldn't even get to the point where I said,

But I was there,

I saw it,

It's like,

It was a bunch of like,

Just people that wanted to fuck shit up,

And that had an excuse to create chaos.

And,

But I couldn't get to that point,

Because right when I even questioned the premise of any kind of socially,

You know,

Pushed,

PC,

I guess you could say,

Identity,

It's kind of a less accurate way of putting it.

It was just like,

He's like,

You're wrong,

And I don't want to tell you why you're wrong.

And this is like a friend of mine,

Like a male friend.

So obviously,

Inside of me,

I'm like,

Well,

Fuck you,

Motherfucker,

Don't fucking shut me down,

You know,

But like,

I didn't say that,

Because it's like,

Well,

You know,

We're going floating on an inner tube,

I guess we'll keep things light,

But it just bothered me.

It's like,

Man,

Like,

You know,

There's something about being on the right side of things that allows you to shut people down.

And,

Like,

Makes you feel entitled that you can do that and not hear out any kind of minutia and opinion,

Because so many of these problems are so far from multivariate,

You know,

There's so many things to consider.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of people who have that reaction,

I don't know your buddy,

Of course,

But like,

A lot of people have that extreme reaction.

Part of it is that they don't want to have that done to them.

They're so afraid of the mob turning on them.

So like,

They're all quick.

I bet a lot of these people who are so quick to shame other people about having a different opinion are not fully on board with it anyway.

Otherwise,

They would kind of want to talk about it.

I think it's like they're so afraid of the mob,

Tearing them down or labeling them as a racist or an anti something or whatever.

Anyway,

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you think that so.

So what do you mean by that,

Though?

Why does that point to maybe that the fact that they're not fully on board with it?

Why would they be so on the side of it?

I think if they were choosing on their own,

If like,

Oh,

This is the right way they would have like,

Come to the point with their own conclusions,

And they would kind of want to argue,

Maybe not argue,

But they would want to explain why.

Whereas someone who's maybe not even thought about it that deeply,

But the real motivators that they're afraid of being labeled as something or being outcast,

Or being found out that their opinion is shallow.

Yeah,

They don't want to talk about it.

They just want to like,

You know,

Pledge allegiance to the flag or the God of whatever ideology that is anyway.

Yeah,

No,

Man.

I mean,

I know,

I know this isn't what we're trying to talk about.

But it's,

I just love I love that.

It's so true.

It's like,

And I wish I could explain it in an eloquent way.

But there is an element of like,

You know,

The more somebody is reactive to something and wants to put a lid on something,

Just like the more when somebody is like,

Life of the party funny guy,

Then it's probably,

They're probably kind of,

You know,

Low self worth and,

And maybe lonely or something like that.

It's like,

Whatever trait you're really distributing or whatever point you're really trying to make.

Yeah,

Yeah,

It might be a response to some other thing that you're not,

You know,

Willing to bring into the light or whatever.

So yeah,

Okay.

So but the point,

The point of the conversation,

Or at least the realm I wanted to take it down,

Because I think that you will be able to shine a lot of fucking great light on this.

And I've never heard you talk about it.

So fingers crossed.

This is like new territory for everyone probably.

Although I haven't listened to a lot of your podcasts,

But I didn't see this.

So,

Um,

Okay,

So there's a subset set of people,

Myself included,

That have OCD,

OCD is like,

You know,

You think of monk,

You know,

The dude who's like solving crimes using his OCD or whatever,

But you know,

OCD is basically compulsive thinking,

It's the inability to stop ruminating on something.

And OCD is really tightly aligned with intrusive thoughts.

And a lot of the work that you do is on the shadow side,

And on the dark side of,

You know,

Maybe these unexplored energies.

And they,

There's a lot of different themes that people have with OCD,

Some people have contamination,

Some people have religious,

Some people have pedophilic,

Some people have sexual orientation,

Some people have self harm,

Some people have like,

Anyways,

There's just a lot of different things.

And what I would want to kind of ask you about,

Or at least sift through a little bit is how,

How do you interpret intrusive thoughts?

Like what,

When people have intrusive thoughts that are just way the fuck out there,

You know,

Like maybe incest thoughts or something like that,

Something that is just so fucking socially taboo,

But they're inside of us,

You know,

What do you say to people that have those thoughts,

Get freaked the fuck out by them,

Try to push them down,

And then in the process of pushing them down,

Start cutting off pieces of their own expression in the process?

Well,

As you said,

You know,

When you are self shaming some aspects,

Right,

Actually,

Well,

To bring it all the way back,

I think all of the thoughts that we have are there for some reason,

Right?

Like that reason may have become obsolete many generations of humans ago,

Like the desire to rape was useful to like our great,

Great,

Great,

Great,

Great,

Great grandparents or something.

And probably every taboo thought has some kernel of that.

I think they become particularly weird,

When as you said,

You shame them or say like,

Oh,

That shouldn't be me or I shouldn't think about that.

And of course,

It persists.

So my general strategy with that would be to find a way to appease that part of yourself.

Like,

If we just think of all of these thoughts coming from like,

Archetypes in your brain,

What is the thing that that guy who wants to think about germs all the time in your head?

Like,

What does he really want?

Like,

What's he going after,

And explore that.

And I'm speaking super general terms,

But I did have a client actually,

Who had like,

Had this like,

Pedophilic OCD,

Because he once like,

Kind of accidentally came across child porn when he was kind of young,

Like,

He was a teenager,

I think,

You know,

For like,

More than 10 years,

He's had this like,

Shame.

And like,

This,

This,

Like,

OCD kind of thought about it,

It's like,

Oh,

My pedophile,

Not a pedophile,

He wouldn't stop thinking about it.

Whereas like,

For my opinion,

He really,

I mean,

He was just a guy who saw something.

And you know,

Wouldn't stop shaming himself about it,

Essentially.

Yeah,

So it's interesting,

When you look into a little bit of the literature on on,

You know,

It's exactly as you described it.

It's like,

People either have this,

You know,

They have some event when they're usually when they're younger,

There's like an extremely traumatic,

Random,

Spontaneous cognition that most people would be able to let go.

But for whatever reason,

It really fucking scares them.

And they might already be predisposed with like a sensitive amygdala or some kind of,

You know,

Kind of temperamental leaning toward threat detection.

That that when they see this thing,

They can start ruminating on it.

And it kind of gets the life of its own.

And,

And in in the weird thing about it is that when you have a thoughts,

The pink elephant thing,

I hate that I fucking said that,

Because everybody says it,

But it's true.

Like when you have the thought of I don't want to think this thing,

Or this thing is scary,

What you're really telling your brain is,

We need to categorize this,

This is a threat.

And we need to look out in the environment for this threat.

And then what ends up happening is you look out in the environment.

And anytime you see a shade,

You behave,

And you avoid that stimulus.

So for him,

It might be like,

It might have started really small for this guy,

Like,

Oh,

Well,

You know,

I saw a group of kids at a playground,

And I didn't want to have an intrusive thoughts.

So so now I avoid the playground,

And now it just gets a little bit bigger.

And then I saw,

You know,

I'm with my nephew,

And I have an intrusive thought about my nephew,

And now I'm avoiding my family and just gets worse and worse,

Because it's avoidance is constantly confirming,

Essentially the false alarm of the initial stimulus.

So and that's kind of how OCD becomes OCD.

And so from from like a scientific point of I wouldn't say scientific point of view,

But from a psychological point of view,

An empirical point of view,

What they use is ERP,

Exposure response prevention.

And that's essentially saying like,

Oh,

Well,

You're afraid of,

You know,

Of must and kids.

Well,

Man,

All the taboo stuff comes out on your podcast.

Then what we'll do is we'll,

You know,

We'll have somebody volunteer and we'll have you spend 45 minutes with it with a kid alone in a room.

And you'll voluntarily put yourself in that position.

So what can happen is your threat detection can spike and spike and spike,

But you choose to feel it instead of avoiding it.

And then eventually habituation or inhibitory learning is what the new term is for it now will kick in,

And it'll go lower and lower.

And eventually your brain will categorize the stimulus as non threatening because you've showed it via quote unquote,

Architectically speaking,

The hero's journey,

A journey into the unknown of being terrified of what could be on the other side of this thought.

And then returning back with a bit more,

You know,

Wisdom,

Strength,

A new capacity to endure a threat that you previously thought was,

You know,

Was too,

Too much.

So,

But,

You know,

I bring this up to you and just because it's something that I've struggled with a little bit.

I still continue to struggle with it and we'll go into this since I may as well just tell the truth to you and the viewers so they can see a normal person going through shit.

But like it's interesting,

Archetypically speaking,

Like on one level archetypes seem to have,

You know like a fundamental benevolent,

Like core to them.

Like when you go beneath consciousness,

You have these crazy energies,

But really speaking,

There's ways to channel these energies to become a fuel full of fuller person.

And ultimately your unconscious is working,

I mean,

Ideally toward your individuation,

Toward your completeness of personality,

If you're able to kind of channel them and develop them.

But when you think about people with like this shit going on,

Like people that are afraid of meteors hitting the earth and they can't fucking go outside.

I just think to myself,

Like how would a Jungian psych psychotherapist,

You know,

Like,

Is it helpful?

Is it helpful to view it in terms of union archetypes or is there really a subset of the population where it's just like,

No,

Like this is just a false detection.

This is literally a broken alarm system.

And because it's a broken alarm system,

Digging into what it could archetypically mean could be just digging deeper into a problem that functions via digging deeper into the problem.

Does that make sense?

Yeah,

Yeah.

Well,

Actually,

I mean,

The things that come to mind is like when Jung first described archetypes,

At least as far as I know in his books,

At least he kind of described them the way Darwin described genes.

Like they're kind of just like not like,

Yeah,

Kind of random mutations that coalesced and then persisted over time.

It's like the way like a gene,

You know,

Lasts.

I think actually last time you were on my podcast,

I think this is the part where you zoned out on one of the articles.

But anyway,

I mean,

I like this stuff.

It's like,

It's like there was a function.

It's the selfish gene,

Right?

This comes from the selfish gene.

Yeah.

It's like the gene part,

You know?

And like that's really all an archetype is.

We kind of label it because it becomes more fun to call it like this is the hero or whatever.

But like really just like a set of traits that became useful over time.

And maybe they're not useful because the second thing that made me think of was this guy.

Oh,

Shit,

I'm going to forget his name.

He's on my podcast.

He wrote the book.

Mark Lewis,

He wrote the book Biology of Desire on Addiction.

And his model of addiction is that addiction is basically a very useful desire mechanism that found that's like being,

It's like a program running for the wrong purpose.

Like we're all supposed to want to eat sugar because if you come across berries,

It's good for you.

Our,

Our biology didn't know that we're going to have donuts in our environment.

So it's like misused when we want to compulsively eat donuts.

But that,

That mechanism is really useful.

It's like a good thing to want to eat nutrients.

And like every addiction is like that.

And I would think that even like the fear of a meteor,

It is a good,

You know,

It is like seeking out threat.

It's just like now being misdirected.

Because as you said in the beginning,

Like we can think about stuff,

Our cortex can do stuff that maybe is beyond the abilities that it was really supposed to have for our survival and happiness.

Yeah.

Yeah,

That's,

That's interesting.

Yeah.

You know,

I,

So the,

The previous therapist that I saw,

I haven't spoke to him in about a year and a half now,

But his solution to this,

And I want to see what you think of this too.

This is so fun to talk to you because you know about this shit.

I'm so glad that we're talking,

We're talking.

We need to talk more often.

Yeah.

I definitely have plans to come to Thailand and hang with you.

Sweet.

Very soon.

I'm going to,

Yeah,

It's going to happen.

Oh,

Quarantine is done.

We'll talk about that later though.

You can actually get in without quarantine.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So,

But,

So part of,

Part of a very interesting thing,

And I want to get your take on this too,

Is that when people have,

And you know,

You could,

You could apply this to like just approach anxiety if you want to get like,

You know,

Less,

You know,

Niche about it.

A little more broey.

Yeah.

A little bit more broey.

But like,

There is an element of,

In order to like,

You know,

Become more,

More comfortable with approach anxiety or attention or whatever,

Not only do you have to put yourself in a position,

But you have to willingly feel what happens when you put yourself in that position.

So like,

You know,

You did a lot of dating coaching back in the day,

And there was probably a trope where the dude that goes out and just approaches women's like,

I'm going to do 20 today,

But he's just like,

Fucking,

You know,

State pumping,

Like he's in his head the whole fucking time,

And he doesn't really enjoy it maybe that much.

It's just what he has to do to finally get to like this illusory,

You know,

End goal of,

You know,

Being good with chicks or whatever.

Like they don't really improve because they're not,

They're not feeling what they need to feel throughout the process.

Yeah.

And,

And so to a more extreme thing,

It's like if somebody,

You know,

Will just use your friend,

I feel like we should use me because it's more personal,

And I have to be more vulnerable.

Well,

I can say to what you just said,

I mean,

That was kind of my initial period with pickup where like,

I had created a character and was forcing myself to do things mentally.

And not only did I not feel it,

Because I did get certain results.

But like,

I think it actually caused my erectile dysfunction,

Because I was so cut off to maintain that character.

I had to become so numb to my actual feelings that like,

It just had weird consequences.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Man.

The psyche is such a fucking crazy place.

And I feel like on one level,

We're all kind of sitting around trying to figure it out.

And we have our little epiphanies and we share them in our books and on our podcast,

But it's so fucking messy.

It's just so fucking messy.

And and so this is something that happened today.

So I've had some trouble with the lady that you just saw.

She hasn't like I've been open with her about it.

And the first time I met her,

I couldn't get it up.

And it was the first time in my life that I couldn't get it up because I really fucking liked her.

And I was like,

Overload,

Too much of a good thing.

And I just couldn't get hard.

And I knew enough about exposure therapy to where I knew that I needed to tell her.

I knew I needed to say,

Hey,

This is happening with me.

This is who you're dating right now.

The way that I'm going to deal with it is we're going to keep having sex and I'm going to keep putting myself in positions until I can get a positive experience with you.

And then that should snowball into us having good sex.

But this is fucked up.

But here I am,

You know,

And the thing is,

Is that it started to work out.

But then within the last couple of weeks,

I've just had this dull ache,

Like this numbness,

Like in my in my groin area.

And and even though I haven't had a problem with it yet,

My brain is starting to kind of like obsess about a little bit.

It's like it's almost like pre anticipatory anxiety.

It's like,

Well,

What if I fuck up again?

And it kind of gets,

You know,

It kind of goes on that train a little bit.

So this is so interesting,

Man.

So like this is all happening.

I'm getting more and more afraid of this,

But it's starting to affect other little things in our relationship.

And I'm noticing that I'm I'm starting to be like a yes man more like I'm getting out of my grounded energy because I'm in this fearful place.

And and then today,

Like we were super fucking disconnected today.

It was like bad.

It was like there was like,

You know,

We didn't even want to talk to each other like,

You know,

Like you can be 10 miles away from someone,

But you can tell they don't want to talk to you even though like shit on the surface.

It's like,

Oh,

No.

So anyways,

I'm talking to her on the phone and I realize I think back to my ex girlfriend before her.

I think when was the time that I was fucking up and didn't feel like I could perform or felt really weird?

And then I thought,

Well,

It's it was what came to my mind is like it was when I couldn't say no,

Like when I lost the ability to say no.

And when I lost the ability to to,

You know,

Kind of pace things the way that I wanted them to go.

And when I started to become so concerned of whether or not things were on track or whether or not things were going right or whether like how to just maintain this little thing that I had somehow fallen into that I didn't want to fuck up.

Like I went into that energy and I thought,

OK,

I need to start I need to get back to a place where I can say no and where I can end this relationship if it's not right for me.

I need to let those fears come in.

The fear is that I'm going to lose a really awesome chick.

The fear is that my anxiety is going to fuck it up and that the cost of me having to say no and get back to my grounded space is that I was going to have to behave as if those things were as plausible of things as it being successful and that I was equally OK with both.

And so I could return back to my frame a little bit.

I don't know if this sounds way too convoluted in the way I'm saying it.

But but yeah.

So I called her up and she's like,

Hey,

I want to bring the dog to dinner with us today.

And I like said really defensively and aggressively,

I was like,

No,

Don't bring the dog.

No.

And she's like,

OK.

I'm like,

All right,

See you.

And then I like hung up and I was like,

Oh,

So so then I called her back after I kind of thought about the fact that I was an asshole.

I said,

Listen,

You know,

I have trouble saying no sometimes to people.

I have trouble being OK with saying no and not not just saying no,

But saying no from a place of positive emotion.

Like I'm saying no to you,

But I still love you.

And it's OK.

Like,

No,

But no,

Like,

No,

Not today.

You know,

Where I'm at peace with it,

Because sometimes you'll say no to people and it'll be like you're saying it because you think you're the kind of guy who has to say no.

It's like it's time for me to be assertive.

I'm going to start saying no to motherfuckers.

But you're doing it from a place where people are like,

What the fuck?

OK,

Fine.

No,

Whatever.

You know,

You're turning me off or making me feel weird.

So I called her back and I said,

I I'm working on saying no more.

And I think that I just way overdid it.

But I want to tell you that,

Like,

I want to have some time with you one on one.

And the dog is a little bit of a distraction that I just don't want right now because I want to focus on you.

But is there any other reason that you really want the dog to be there?

She's like,

No,

No,

No,

We can do us.

I'm like,

OK,

Cool.

So anyways,

That just happened today.

But I felt like my energy from when I said that,

Like over the last four days until I said that and after it's like automatically right after I said that,

It's like my masculine pole went boom.

It's like the polarity,

Like like clicked back into place.

You know,

I wasn't sure what the bad thing.

You know what I'm saying?

It's I mean.

I mean,

Whenever we have conversations,

I bounce all over the place,

So I appreciate you being patient with my school.

That's how I think if you listen to my solo podcast,

This is what I do to you.

I do.

Way off topic.

All right.

Yeah.

We did one recently about like how to get her into her feminine.

And then you went into this like long historical.

It took you like an hour.

Yeah.

Sometimes I have like one little note because I do have a script.

I kind of like an outline.

So I don't do that.

And I looked at the time and I was like,

Oh,

Shit,

It's been 40 minutes.

I haven't gotten to point one yet.

I was like,

Holy fuck,

Bro.

I've already ran two miles and I'm sitting in my bed.

Like what are you going to get to the point?

It's fun.

It's fun listening to you talk about stuff because all of the shit that you read and all of the kind of obviously deep inquiries you have not only about yourself,

But about life in general,

You start weaving them all together,

You know,

And it's really cool.

It's like when a songwriter is just kind of like making a song up off the top of his head,

You know,

It's just like the moment is dictating where things go.

That's a cool energy that comes out in your podcast.

So yeah.

What was I saying?

Okay.

So said no polarity went ding.

Yeah.

Polarity went ding.

So but,

You know,

Honestly,

Man,

I have so I have so such anxiety,

Like,

And it'll get really fucking high.

And I don't know if it's something that I just have to accept will always be there to a certain degree.

And but like,

Yeah,

I worry about where things are going to go with her because I don't know how I'm going to always be able to maintain,

You know,

The masculine pole.

I don't have to always do it.

But it's like,

Yeah.

But hold on.

I mean,

It's one of the two things you just said.

One you did an action that's within your control and the polarity went ding.

Like if you could do that once,

I mean,

That should be the evidence you need to know that if you do slip,

There's something you can do consciously that fixes it.

Like it sounds like you fixed like,

Maybe a day of lost polarity in a minute of the right thing you said.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean,

That's that's a great way of looking at it.

I didn't I didn't really think about it as making up for all of the other days.

I kind of think about it as a as a as a little checkbook.

You know,

It's like every little day of a fuck up is kind of building up,

Building up another layer of potential resentment or something.

Yeah.

Well,

Maybe that's not the best model,

Because what you described is like,

It seems like,

I mean,

In a couple of minutes,

You fixed what was like slowly becoming no polarity.

So I would say that on a practical level,

Just like what allows high polarity is just not waiting a day to do that next time.

Like if you do it in 20 hours or 10 hours or whatever.

You know,

The thing is,

Though,

Man,

It's like,

I rely on my analytical mind so much and it's it's a blessing,

But it's mostly a curse.

It seems like in relationships,

I have a lot of shit with intimacy that is that is rough to parse through.

I have,

You know,

And it's like I got to this place after three days of kind of trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong,

But not being able to rush the inner wisdom and not being able to rush the inner calm.

And in my seeking of trying to figure out how to regain the polarity or whatever the fuck,

I dug myself deeper and deeper and deeper into the hole.

And honestly,

I don't know if there was anything in particular that happened today.

The only thing is that one of the things that I've struggled with for a long time is called HOCD.

It's a sexual orientation,

Orientation OCD.

And it happened when I was really young,

Like like your friend.

And it was this dude named Tim.

Another friend named Tim is he just he put his hand on my leg when I was like 10 and it freaked me the fuck out.

And ever since I've just been walking that path of being freaked out and and.

You know,

When I get really,

Really anxious,

These themes pop into my head and there's all of these little things that that serve to kind of confirm or possibly,

You know,

Make me doubt,

You know,

Whether or not I'm on the right path.

And on one level,

I think,

Well,

I should like I have a legit part of me.

It's like I don't fucking care about this.

I'll suck a dick if I want to suck a dick.

Like it's not this is life.

Like it's not a big deal,

But it's like.

But I've never I've never seeked out the experience and I can sense the reason that I don't want to seek out the experience is because it doesn't come from a place of like,

If only I could just be with the man,

You know,

Like that's that's not the place it comes from.

It comes from a like a scared like.

What if everything I know about myself is is predicated on a lie or is predicated on,

You know,

And that's the terrifying thing.

So so anyways,

The what started to make me feel better yesterday as I was listening to this podcast and they said that when you have some kind of thought and I would love to hear your opinion on this,

Too,

Of why this works.

But when you have a thought,

You know,

The idea is to is to what in Brian Bay's in terms what welcomed the thought or whatever it is.

But like so don't be like,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

But the idea is not only to welcome it,

It's like like they were in this podcast,

They were actually talking about pedophilia OCD.

And what they were suggesting this person is that when you get into the bedroom,

Welcome the thoughts about kids,

Like experience them,

Try to literally try to like be OK with however they feel,

However they run through your body,

Whatever they do.

And I just thought,

Man,

That is such a fucking crazy thing because you would never in your right mind be like,

Hey,

You know,

When you're with your lady,

Make sure you're thinking about,

You know,

It's just like that's that's crazy.

But it just speaks to this total.

It's just a totally different universe between the literal language center,

Neocortical brain in the strange unconscious and its and its connection to your emotions and your physiological responses and and and I would assume that I'll shut up because I want to hear thoughts,

But I just keep talking.

But I would assume that like,

You know,

In in having people welcome the darkest parts in parts where they wouldn't want those things to exist.

What you're essentially doing is when you're in a relaxed,

Welcoming state,

You're not producing cortisol.

You're not pumping the brakes on physiological responses anymore.

You're allowing relaxation to occur and allowing what your body is meant to do in those situations to just do it.

And but but yeah,

It's just this this whole thing,

This whole kind of OCD thing and the unconscious and in the dark side and how to bring that into the light.

And it really seems like something that our culture is not ready for that would freak the fuck out of the culture.

But it's also this like unlived life that so many people have and in,

You know,

In low,

Low to very high resolution,

You know,

Derivations.

And some people when it gets too bad,

They come and seek you out and others just kind of maybe live with it and manage it.

But yeah,

I'm just curious.

I just said a lot.

Yeah,

There's a lot of stuff.

And she's reminding me of things I meant to say earlier.

Like,

I think there's something with this kind of thought spiral,

Whether it's OCD or not,

Where it's like,

You're kind of looking for evidence that things are not okay.

And you know,

I don't I mean,

I don't have OCD.

But I spoke about this in like an episode I did on regret recently,

Like,

I quit caffeine,

And it was making me feel kind of physically depressed.

And I was thinking all these negative thoughts that hadn't thought in forever.

And like,

I was like,

Man,

I fucking suck.

But I had to keep reminding myself that literally it was caffeine withdrawal that was maybe maybe filling me with bad hormones or chemicals that was making like,

Stupid negative thoughts seem more real.

You know,

I mean,

I had to remind myself that because it felt so real that I sucked.

So I think there's there's some level of that.

But also to what you just said about the acceptance,

Like,

I think with a lot of desires or impulses,

If you give it free rein,

I'm taking a puppy site,

I just got new puppies,

Like,

If you let them do a little bit of what they want to do,

They stop being fixated on it.

You know,

It's like,

Oh,

That's a thing.

Like,

I mean,

With certain taboo desires that I have,

Like,

If I just like,

Let myself think about it,

It kind of stops being interesting after a while,

As opposed to like fighting against it,

You know?

Yeah,

Like,

Habituate to it a little bit.

Yeah,

Like,

I think I think,

Yeah,

I think I think a lot of guys have fantasized about killing someone or like,

Maybe,

Maybe everyone has done this,

Like,

But if you just like,

I mean,

Maybe it's partly because violence is more normalized in media.

But if you just think about it,

And like,

Oh,

Yeah,

I wanted to kill that person for a second.

Okay,

And they don't think about it again.

Like,

It's not like you ever have to concern yourself with like,

Oh,

Am I a serial killer deep down inside?

Like,

I can hear people.

I can hear people thinking this as you're saying this.

And I think this is an important point here.

Why doesn't the murderous thoughts about wanting to kill somebody actually say something fundamental about who you are?

I think it's because in our society,

Even with the schools being I'm thinking out loud here in taboo territory,

So I don't know,

We'll see what comes out of my mouth.

But like,

Like,

Like,

I think even even if you do something terrible,

Like shoot up a school,

I mean,

Not you like a person,

It's still not shamed in the same way that pedophilia is.

In current society,

I think this is this is a sign of the times like there's,

There's been cultures where like,

Sleeping with a child was totally normal,

You know,

Like the Greeks or whatever,

Right?

And I don't think anybody had this kind of I mean,

No one would have had OCD like this in ancient Greece,

Because there's no reason to ever feel bad about wanting to bang a young boy.

You know,

That was kind of normal.

You know?

So yeah,

And yeah,

Anyway,

I think I think it's like,

Because the shame is like where your impulses and the culture you're part of don't match.

If you're in a culture where it's normal to like kill babies,

You're not going to feel bad about that impulse if you have that.

So so I feel like we're I feel like we're,

I want to make a slight divergence here.

Because on one level,

I agree with you.

I think that the only I guess I would say divergence I have is that I don't necessarily think that the thoughts that people have are actually important.

I think it's the fact that we have because we have what's his name?

Was it Albert Ellis?

He came up with the term spontaneous cognitions.

I think whatever.

Anyways,

Basically,

It's the idea that the brain is an associative creative machine.

It associates,

And it creates new thoughts,

And it does it endlessly,

Whether you fucking like it or not.

And I think that because it's constantly associating free association,

That for us to take responsibility for its associations,

As something fundamental about who we are,

Is kind of,

I think it's I think it's not necessarily missing the point,

But I think it's a burden that people don't have to take on.

You know,

I think it would be.

And I think that the reason that maybe,

You know,

Pedophilia OCD or even contamination OCD or religious,

Whatever,

Like all of these things have in common,

You know,

That you had this disturbing thought,

Which everybody has,

But most people just say,

Fuck it,

Like I had a disturbing thought,

I'll move on with my life.

But these specific people,

You know,

They have,

They have an alarm go off.

And then it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse as they avoid and avoid and avoid and avoid and avoid.

So you know,

And it sounds like the reason I say that is because it sounded like you were saying that if somebody has a murderous rage,

It's because there's some part deep in the psyche that wants to murder somebody.

And that's why the thought was generated as opposed to,

Does that make sense?

Yeah,

I think,

Well,

To tie this together,

And maybe some sense of what you're saying,

Like,

I think,

You know,

The person who has that compulsive set of thoughts,

Going back to like,

They're kind of,

There's some they,

They're maybe with all of the thoughts they have,

If just like,

It's like splatter paint on a canvas,

They're kind of looking for why things are not okay.

Like they're overactive threat seeking,

As you were putting earlier,

I think that's what is I think,

Like,

That same person,

That same consciousness with the pedophilia OCD now,

Maybe in ancient Greece would have a totally different thing that they focused on.

It's like the it's like the issue with the person is they're looking for a threat,

And they just pick the thing,

Like pedophilia happens to be a threat that can that fits modern day,

Essentially.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And it's what's really interesting about it,

Too,

Is that people with this,

Their OCD will change themes constantly.

So people that have pedophilia,

See,

Like,

Okay,

Well,

For whatever reason,

It's gone now.

But now,

Like,

I'm terrified of,

Of Labrador retrievers,

You know,

Or it'll just like,

Or,

You know,

Or I'm terrified of dirt,

Or I'm terrified of a full moon or whatever the fuck it is,

Is it goes all over the place.

But the but yeah,

You know,

Yeah,

I guess we can we can kind of tie this together,

Because this could probably keep going.

But I am curious as to what like,

You know,

It seems like a lot of people with this specific issue.

And I have it pretty low level,

You know,

Like,

Once I started to actually look into this shit,

I was like,

Oh,

Man,

Some people really have this shit bad,

Like,

This is rough.

But it's just kind of interesting to think about,

You know,

We have these energies.

And on one level,

We definitely have these unconscious things.

But on another level,

It seems like some people legit have just like,

Kind of like,

Broken parts of their brain.

And I hate to say that,

But just like,

Parts that are just not quite.

Does that make sense?

Yeah,

Yeah.

I mean,

In general,

I'm kind of against pathologizing things.

I know.

I know.

Yeah,

Like,

You've been like,

I'm not saying that,

Obviously,

There's a thing that is OCD.

And it's like a thing,

You know,

Obviously,

For people to work on.

And I'm not saying it doesn't have real effects.

But I think,

Yeah,

I mean,

The labeling of stuff,

It's like,

It becomes an identity for a lot of people.

I mean,

See this with add and like,

A lot of anyway,

I don't even get into that.

But like,

I like where you're going with that.

Well,

Yeah,

I think,

You know,

I mean,

This is a little bit of my like,

Maybe anti-corporate side.

But it's been known that a lot of things that we consider,

Especially mental diseases,

Were invented not by medical people,

But by what's it called?

Pharma advertising,

Like seasonal affective disorder.

I think even erectile dysfunction,

Like as a name,

It was come up,

It was invented by the marketing company,

Not by the doctors,

You know.

So I think that's one thing that kind of keeps people stuck when they have an idea like ADD.

Yes,

Maybe some kids are more active or hyperactive.

But like,

Just the idea that what a normal person or normal five-year-old is,

Is someone who wants to sit and like,

Sit and like,

Learn math instead of playing outside.

Like that's a pathology.

That's ridiculous to me.

Like then maybe that kid who wants to run around would have been the most successful young man in a tribal society because he wants to run around,

You know,

Like to make that into a disease that people feel bad about,

I think it's all fucked up.

Anyway,

I forgot my other point.

I forgot what we were talking about,

Actually.

Oh,

Well,

We've been all over the map,

But we're talking about,

Yeah,

You were talking about how pathologizing certain like acute mental derivations is.

Oh,

Because you said like people are broken.

Some people have broken brains.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

I think,

I mean,

I think the thing with someone who's looking,

Not looking,

But like their unconscious is focusing on like something,

Right?

Like whether it's pedophilia or dirt,

Like it's moving around,

That to me is evidence that their brain is looking for a problem.

Like that's the issue if there's an issue and like what allows that person to be like,

Oh,

Everything's actually okay.

Like it might be the exposure.

I don't know what the best mechanism is.

It might be the exposure thing that you described from the physiological standpoint of like,

Oh,

There is no threat.

It might be the,

It might be the Sedona method of like just welcoming it and being okay with the situation the way it is,

You know.

And if you know existential kink,

Carolyn Elliott,

She's been on my podcast.

It's basically an extreme,

Oh,

Go ahead.

I just listened to that podcast.

I think I got 30 minutes the way through it,

But go ahead.

What's kind of like extreme Sedona method?

Like can you get off on this thing?

Oh yeah,

Getting off on every stroke.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can you like find a way to derive pleasure from being broke or from being overweight or whatever thing you don't like about yourself or about your reality?

Can you like relish in it?

Because on some level,

According to that model of thinking,

Like some part of you wanted it to happen.

That's why it's happening,

Which may be another way to put it.

It's like a dissociated archetype or like,

Or whatever,

Whatever model you want to use.

We've covered a few.

So yeah,

I mean,

I think that is the issue.

Maybe the issue for almost every mental problem is like looking for a reason why things are not okay.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah.

An element too that they talk about is there's just a need for certainty.

Like a lot of anxiety is predicated on black and white,

Right?

It's like we intuitively know that if you're anxious,

Then you're not in the gray area anymore.

You've gone to like one end of the pole.

And I think that what people are after and the reasons why exposures are so helpful,

Or even why,

Yeah,

Just why expositors are so helpful.

But and this is just with anybody in general,

It's not OCD people exposing yourself to what you're afraid of is just like a fundamental way to grow as a person.

If you do it voluntarily,

If you're forced into an exposure though,

Where you force yourself into something that you're afraid of,

You'll fuck yourself up more,

You'll reach trauma attack yourself.

And that's so interesting that those are two different parts of the brain,

A choice to move into discomfort or fear and a reaction,

A forced reaction,

Like,

And it goes to totally different it just happens totally different than the brain.

But the main thing is that,

You know,

People that have a lot of anxiety are ultimately looking for certainty.

I need to know that I'm not a pedophile.

I need to know that I can commit to a relationship.

I need to know that I'm not gay.

I need to know that God isn't going to,

You know,

Kill my dog if I don't do five Hail Marys or whatever it is,

You know,

And,

And if you,

We can switch topics because I know that this is probably going really fast.

But yeah,

If when people do go to therapy for this,

The fundamental thing that they're taught is uncertainty is that if you,

The successful therapy is the ability to say,

Maybe like,

That's it.

Like when a thought comes up,

However fucked up it is,

Your response is like,

Maybe.

And then you move on,

You know?

Okay.

You know?

Yeah.

Well,

I just want to say,

Cause I've been reading a lot on like the physiological side of our,

Our emotions and stuff.

Like cortisol is supposed to rise when there's uncertainty.

Like that's why,

And cortisol at low levels,

When with active choice,

Like you just mentioned,

Like so cortisol and dopamine together feels really good.

I mean,

That's why,

That's why people drink coffee and stuff.

It raises your cortisol levels,

But when it gets so high that you can't control it or derive the benefits from it,

It's anxiety.

So it's like,

It's finding that right level of certainty.

So it makes sense as someone who's anxious or OCD,

They're just trying to get their cortisol down,

Which comes from certainty,

Like anything they can do to feel certain just will bring their levels down.

So I had no idea that that's what cortisol did.

I didn't know that cortisol.

I didn't,

I didn't know that coffee raised cortisol.

I had no idea.

Why would anybody drink coffee then though?

Why would they want to raise it?

Cause a little bit of cortisol feels good.

I mean,

It's like the positive effects of coffee,

Like the focus,

I mean,

Just coffee.

If you think about it,

Like however many cups someone drinks that feels good.

If you double it,

They do feel anxious.

Like the cortisol is just too high.

It just feels shitty.

I wonder if I should stop.

I wonder if I already have like a sensitive cortisol,

You know,

Trigger.

Cause I'll notice that when I drink coffee,

Like I love coffee,

But I'll notice sometimes like,

Man,

I'm fucking like,

You know,

I'm like anxious the rest of the day or something.

So maybe I should go to tea.

Maybe that's what this is.

It's also,

You know,

Dosing,

Like I'm trying to drink a little cups.

I know it's working cause I still have my full French press and I've filled it up a few times already,

But like,

Uh,

You know,

There's a certain sweet spot with everything,

Right?

And uh,

Yeah,

Cortisol does feel good.

Like when we,

When someone,

You see someone who's like not anxious,

Who relishes an adventure or uncertainty,

Like they're kind of seeking higher cortisol or they're seeking that feeling of like,

Oh,

What's going to happen next?

Like the horror movie or whatever.

I wonder if I went skydiving like three days ago,

Just on a whim,

I had never done it.

So I figured I would just go do it.

And I like,

Yeah,

Interesting.

Did you enjoy it?

I did.

Uh,

For the most part I did.

Um,

I got there and the people that were running the place that were kind of,

They just,

Just bad vibes.

So I kind of got there and I was like,

Oh,

This kind of sucks.

I don't know if I want to do this with these people.

Um,

But then like I met another staff member and she was awesome.

So we vibed and I was like,

All right,

I'll do it.

So I'm basically,

Eh,

I won't bore you with the story,

But,

Um,

But yeah,

So I want to change directions now because I definitely wanted to ask you about your life.

Um,

You're,

You're in a committed relationship.

You're talking about kids,

Holy shit.

Um,

And,

Um,

And from what I remember,

Uh,

You had some real resistance toward commitment and,

And toward kind of the type of intimacy that could,

That could,

Um,

That the could leave you ungrounded.

If like that,

They could literally leave you ungrounded in the fact that you were taking a leap into deeper intimacy,

You know,

And the risk could be that maybe you couldn't find the ground again or something.

That's,

That's what is in my head,

But I'm just curious,

Like why this person,

How is this different from past relationships?

What are some of the shifts that goes to your head that is like,

You know,

Scary and how you talk yourself off the ledge when those thoughts come up?

Tell me a bit about that.

Yeah.

Um,

Okay.

Well,

Differences on some level.

I mean,

This sounds cliche,

But I think I was ready.

And part of that came from,

Oh,

Actually,

I mean,

I told the actuals the play by play in other podcasts,

But like I decided to be celibate,

Um,

Because I had like the absolute worst relationship of my life the year before this one.

Like it was just like,

What's that?

I think I saw her,

You guys were posting stuff.

She was posting stuff and I was tagged in it.

I really lost myself in that one.

Like,

And I wouldn't even get into that.

Right.

Um,

I was like,

Man,

I really went backwards,

But I kind of look at it now.

I'm jumping around a little bit,

But like,

It's kind of like,

There's a strength principle where you warm up for your lifting set by lifting a weight that's a little bit too heavy so that the regular way it feels light.

Like I kind of feel that like,

I'm kind of grateful for that shitty experience.

Cause I'm like,

Man,

There's all this stuff that used to be bad with in relationships.

I'm kind of good with,

Cause I dealt with like a way worse version of a relationship.

Like like words of affirmation I've always sucked with.

Like,

It's just not a thing that I process in my head,

But I kind of learned how to become good with it being in this kind of like,

I don't want to say,

I want to say traumatizing.

That's I think too pathological of a word,

But like I had to learn anyway,

Stuff like that.

Um,

Yeah,

There were some,

There were some videos you were tagged in where it was cringy.

I can just tell you were like uncomfortable.

I'm like,

Man,

I guess he's putting this out in the public or on,

On your finger.

Yeah.

I mean,

I was tagged in stuff.

I wasn't putting out anything.

Um,

But anyway,

There's that.

There's also like I had known her for a few years and we kind of fell in love over video call.

So the beauty of that was that sex hormones weren't making me make stupid decisions.

Like it wasn't my body.

Yeah.

Just that,

That,

That drug of sex wasn't there.

So I was a little bit more sober,

Honestly,

Um,

Compared to other relationships.

I was able to be a little more levelheaded and not,

Yeah,

Anyway.

So it was kind of like my emotions and my brain were able to kind of make a more conscious decision if like,

Of course is uncertainty.

I mean,

She flew across the world to be with me and we hadn't actually really spent time together.

We'd only like spent any time together like four years ago.

It's like,

There's a lot of question marks,

But I was like,

This is as certain as,

As I could be.

I'm just going to like put all my chips in and see if it works.

Cause I do know that if you don't put all your,

I mean,

My experience has shown if you don't put all your chips in,

Actually,

I'd actually,

I don't even say.

Something like a maxim,

Like I just felt like I had to put my chips in,

Chips in,

If it was going to work.

And,

Um,

I kind of was okay with the idea of like,

Okay,

Things might not work and I might've wasted a lot of time and energy and emotions and money on something that doesn't work,

But I'm going to go down with the ship.

Um,

If it,

If it fails,

Um,

And I think in some of the moments where it could have,

It could go either way,

Like fights that could have become big fights or like,

You know,

Things like that,

It's that kind of,

Well,

I'm going all in no matter what feeling has like steered the ship back more quickly.

Like I'm giving her every benefit of the doubt.

And I think she's giving me every benefit of the doubt.

And like,

We basically haven't really had,

We've had conflicts obviously,

But we haven't had like anything that's become a fight or what would become a fight in my previous relationships.

And there's something to that.

It's like,

We're both like really in it to win it.

Cause we've kind of sacrificed a lot to be with each other or risked a lot,

I should say not sacrificed.

So I think that's,

That's part of it too,

Aside from the fact that she's amazing and all the other positive,

Wonderful things I could say about her.

I think those are some differences for me at least.

Hmm.

Wow.

So yeah,

I mean,

You guys,

What do I make of that?

Yeah.

It's just like you said,

It sounds like you're ready.

You know,

It sounds like I do have to say I also,

Cause she listens to my podcast.

She has all these amazing qualities that actually did line up with my real values on a deep level.

I mean,

It's true too.

Like it wasn't like I put my chips in just cause I want it.

It's like,

Oh,

This is as certain as I could possibly be with someone based on what I know about her.

So I got to take a shot.

Yeah.

Okay,

Cool.

That's that's a,

That's the hero's journey.

That's the,

That's a,

That's a big one.

That's yeah,

Man.

Yeah.

Crazy.

I feel like I want to do that too.

I just haven't found the right person.

And you know,

It's weird though.

It's like,

I'm,

I'm,

I've gotten used to not committing.

I've almost gotten good at it,

You know,

I've like,

And I think that that's something that people don't really consider that you're,

You're practicing certain things.

And you certainly,

When you're young and naive and defenseless,

Like you get fucked up for sure.

And then you develop a,

Either a persona or defense mechanism that you bring with you into other relationships and it could start working.

But what's weird is that you just build another layer.

Like I'm kind of the avoidant now.

And I was always the anxious one,

But now I'm like an avoidant guy.

But like when shit actually starts going difficult or when I really feel my feelings come up,

Like I can flip to anxious on a dime.

It's just like,

You know,

It's like,

You know,

It's just anyways,

That's really cool though,

Man.

And you know,

You want to be a dad.

Do you guys know when you want to have kids or is that just,

Well,

I don't want to announce that on the podcast,

But soon I don't want to be bound to such things.

But yeah,

I mean,

Soonish,

You know,

There's talks.

So now,

I mean,

I,

In the spirit of transparency you're a transparent guy,

So I'm just going to keep talking to you as if I didn't know your significant other was listening.

But I am curious,

Like you know,

You had ED when you were younger.

Does that still pop up or maybe ironically the opposite?

Does it still not?

No,

It's funny.

I was thinking about,

I think I was thinking about what you might talk about today.

So I was like kind of talking in my head this morning,

Like an hour ago.

And I was like thinking like,

There are times,

Like actually I realized in recent years,

Like I don't really like having sex at night.

Like I go to bed really early,

Like it's just like not my thing.

And there are times where like,

I know she wants it and we will maybe start and like,

I'm just like,

Yeah,

I'm just not feeling it.

Like,

Okay,

Fine.

You know,

Whatever.

And like in those moments,

It's almost identical to times that I had ED where like I really was just tired and wasn't feeling it,

But I made a whole story about it.

So I just construction outside now.

And like made a whole story about it.

And like,

I was like,

Oh my God,

I have erectile dysfunction.

Whereas sometimes the same thing,

Like literally the same material actions will happen.

And I'm just like,

I'm just tired.

Like it's just a reframe.

And then,

You know,

We have great sex the next morning or in the afternoon.

Like it's not even a thought like,

Like,

Yeah,

It's not even a thought.

Cause like,

Yeah,

Anyway,

So sometimes,

Yeah,

I don't get it up because,

But I have a totally different meaning assigned to it.

And I don't like think it takes away from my sexual life at all,

You know?

Yeah.

That makes me think labels are for jars,

Not people.

Have you ever heard that expression?

No.

Labels are for jars,

Not people.

So labeling somebody is like,

You know,

There's something wrong with you.

You have ED,

Like you said,

The pharmaceutical kind of,

You know,

Introduce a lack in the population,

Give it a name and then they'll buy the product.

Yeah.

But,

Uh,

But that's,

That's interesting to hear and I really appreciate you sharing that because you know,

I,

I don't,

I haven't had it with Chrissy in a,

In a while,

I guess really since the first time,

But I feel like it's going to happen again.

And it's like,

I'll notice that I'll avoid moments where it could happen unless I'm really fired up.

And then sometimes I don't know if you've ever had this experience.

I'd really appreciate if you tell me if you did,

But you don't have to,

But like sometimes,

Um,

I'll like,

I'll be having sex,

But it's like,

I'll,

I'll be in my head while it's happening.

Like I won't really be in my body and I won't fully be enjoying it.

And like,

Sometimes I'll be like,

Gosh,

Am I,

How hard am I down there?

Like,

Am I still really hard?

Am I not really hard?

And then,

And then obviously that spirals into like,

Why the fuck you in your head?

What's wrong with you?

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And it sounds like you've not necessarily perfected the boner,

But it sounds like you reframed it in a way to where it's like,

You know,

Uh,

You just have a healthy relationship with your sexuality on its terms and without having to label it into the ground and make it more than it is.

But I'm curious,

Like,

You know,

Did you,

Have you ever had an experience of,

Of when you were like,

When you were actually having sex,

Having like an inability to fully feel what you were doing or does that ever happen anymore?

Was that something from the past or?

Yeah.

Well,

I mean,

Yeah.

And,

Um,

Well,

I just want to like say this before,

Like,

What do you,

We usually say to guys who have sexual psychogenic sexual issues.

I mean,

Almost always,

Basically always they're trying to perform for her or for some external thing,

Right?

Like if they were purely being selfish,

Like,

You know,

Whatever,

To think you're in a simulation and no one else is real or like,

I'm just like the only person that matters or whatever,

Whatever frame helps you get into this is like,

Why are you having sex is to make your body feel good is to make your dick feel good.

And if your dick doesn't feel anything,

Then why are you,

It's like,

Why are you trying to force yourself to eat food that you can't taste?

You know,

Like that's actually,

That's the problem.

It's not whether your dick is getting up.

It's like,

Why are you abandoning what you actually feel?

The answer is usually some sort of feeling of lack or I need to get it up to impress her or her for her to like me.

But like you're doing like,

You're,

You're,

You're centering the cause of your action further and further from who you are rather than like,

I'm having sex because it feels good to have sex.

You know,

Like that's,

That's the issue.

And I,

You know,

And honestly,

Especially,

You know,

I'm with someone who I really care about and I really want to have a good time and it has happened.

I spoke about this in one of the really recent episodes.

Like I was trying to ironically be selfish because I knew that turned her on,

But I was doing it for her.

Yeah,

Oh,

I heard that too.

And then like,

And then you're like,

You overcorrected and shit.

And then it got,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like I was,

I was like trying to like take her body,

But like I was doing it cause she wanted,

Like,

It was like,

It was funny,

Like loop in my head.

And then,

Yeah,

I had to like stop and like,

I mean,

She's really amazingly supportive of like,

You know,

She'll say,

You know,

Well,

Truth is like,

She,

She has a higher sex drive than me.

And sometimes I feel like,

Oh,

I want to match her,

You know,

Meet her needs and stuff.

But she's like,

Always like,

I only really want you to make love to me when you really want it.

That's the only way it's going to feel good.

And I have to remind myself of that too.

Because,

You know,

She sounds like a keeper and that's,

That's so cool.

That,

You know,

A tip of the cap to girlfriends and women out there that are,

You know,

Just able to not freak out or,

Or not even not freak out,

But not take advantage of the moments when,

You know,

When the man isn't supposed to,

Isn't able to meet his man,

You know,

Role in every moment,

Because with women,

It's like,

You can hide it,

You know,

It's like,

You can't really hide it,

But you can hide it a lot fucking better than a man can.

It's like,

They can still have sex,

Even if they're not wet,

It won't be enjoyable sex,

But they can have sex.

But men,

It's just like,

Well,

Nothing I can do here.

I guess you could pop a pill,

But that's slippery slope.

The one thing that I wanted to throw in there,

And I want to see if you,

If you agree with this,

I think this is just in my own life.

Something I've noticed is that when I start to associate negative shit with certain things,

Like it can take on a life of its own.

So hypothetically,

You know,

You don't get it up.

You start to associate sex with failure,

Like even on my own at times in my life,

Like even just,

You know,

Going into my own fantasy world and jerking off or whatever,

Like there was like,

It was almost like,

Like the problem still continued on my own.

Like I was still,

Wasn't able to fully feel aroused just like by myself with,

You know,

And I thought,

Man,

This is so,

This is fucked up.

It just feels so fucked up and but I think what ends up happening is,

Is so much of sex is predicated on confidence and joy.

It's like,

If you know someone digs you and you're feeling those lighter emotions,

Then you'll be relaxed and shit will happen.

And if you have some bad sexual experiences,

It's just important for you to be very mindful of not associating sex in general,

You know,

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater with a few bad experiences.

And I think that that can happen to people like a traumatizing event is,

You know,

An unnecessarily all encompassing danger for a specific moment.

So and I do think that that I think that that's happened with me a little bit,

But but yeah,

I have a super supportive girlfriend and she's she's all down for it.

And,

You know,

And I personally like going down on,

You know,

Most of my girlfriends.

So so that's so that's fine.

Let's see here.

Is there anything comes to mind?

I mean,

Maybe tying together a couple things you mentioned,

Like,

I think I mean,

I spoke about this in another podcast.

I don't mean to reference every podcast.

But no,

No,

No,

No.

Or I didn't know what Yeah,

Well,

In the predator prey episode,

I speak about like the hormonal differences between predators and prey.

And it's actually at least as far as like,

Happiness and way more calm.

Yes,

Predators are predators because predators are in control.

Predators are the ones initiating the tension,

Not reacting to it.

And I think there is something actually something I recommend to me talk about this in men's group,

But like,

There's a bunch of I mean,

When a guy has a psychogenic issue,

A lot of times some of the like,

One of the easiest hacks is like to initiate sex,

Like when when you're now becoming reactive,

Like it kind of puts you like in this bad headspace in this bad,

On masculine feeling zone,

As opposed to like,

Initiating what feels good to you,

And also stopping when it stops feeling good to you,

Like the lion doesn't like continue eating when he feels like as and tastes good anymore.

You know,

It's like that kind of like,

I'm calling the shots,

Which maybe on some level,

Gives you the feeling of control and lets your cortisol drop because you're the one kind of calling things,

You know,

And so the thing that I would want to dive into that though on is,

Is I have a little bit of doubt about the utility that your feelings are your your,

Your true compass,

Your compass of true north.

Because sometimes I think that a lot of times you can be doing something that's good,

Or that you should be doing.

But for whatever reason,

You've gotten into a place where your feelings are betraying what you want.

And if you keep following your feelings and your feelings will keep taking you out of the game.

You know,

I don't know if you have anything to say to that.

But I often people referencing feelings as like the the gods honest truth.

Yeah.

And I don't know that they are.

Yeah,

Actually,

All right.

So a little bit nerdy,

But in one of these hormone books that I am reading,

Or just read,

Actually,

He's actually saying how are the different parts of our nervous system respond to something like a threat,

And kind of very different,

Very different speeds.

Like for us in our conscious mind is the slowest part.

So we just see everything happening at once.

But our muscular nervous system will actually react to a threat many like milliseconds before our brain can process it.

And many milliseconds before our organs can produce the hormones that give us the emotion.

So actually,

Like if you see a threat,

Your muscles are priming to move before you even have the emotional response of fear.

Like that's how fat I mean,

That's like the different speeds.

So like,

On that I mean,

This maybe is a jump.

I don't know if the author would agree with me.

But like,

And this is also evidence for like the power pose thing of like,

If you force your body into a certain position,

You get the,

Your action can actually lead your emotions,

Which again,

Is why I think like,

If you choose to initiate something,

It's like your emotions get the signal of Oh,

We're not the one running away here.

Like we're actually we're like,

We're the thing to be feared here.

And it like,

It changes something.

And subjectively,

I mean,

I just know from my own experience,

Like,

In times where I was like,

Sexually anxious,

If I chose if I like,

For whatever reason,

Got myself to initiate instead,

And like,

Do things for my selfish pleasure,

Like all everything worked,

And like the anxiety went away and like,

The boner returned or whatever.

Yeah,

The boner returns the sequel.

But you know,

The thing that I would add on to that for listeners is that I think that when people hear you say that they'll assume why should just go big quick,

I should just try and take her on once.

And I would be I think that for some people that have worked,

It sounds like it worked for you.

But I think in another possible strategy would be,

You know,

What you want to do,

I think you wrote an article long time ago called the winner effect.

But the idea was like,

You know,

You basically you want to you want to get wins in you want to get in,

You know,

So it might just be something small,

Like instead of saying,

Well,

Tonight,

I'm going to go home.

And even though I'm terrified of going to show up,

And I'm gonna,

You know,

Take her and rip her clothes off and do it,

It might work.

But it might be something as simple as,

You know,

Tonight,

I'm going to,

You know,

Make sure that I feel good,

While I tell her exactly what restaurant we're going to.

And then I'm gonna make sure I feel good when I kind of do these lower level really easy wins.

Yeah,

Well,

Yeah.

I mean,

Actually,

I want to I want to add to what I said to fit in what you just said,

Like,

And I'm using this model.

I don't know if this is actually what happens in the body.

But like,

If we take this idea that your your musc your muscular nervous system leads your emotions,

And then your thoughts like,

You can't just jump,

There's like a lag,

Right?

Like you need to give your the rest of you a chance to like,

Catch up kind of like changing gears in the car,

Because in practice,

What I was saying,

I mean,

What I've done where it worked well,

It wasn't like I just went zero to 60.

It's like,

I took a step into in a direction that was the opposite of retreating.

And then eventually,

Like some feelings caught up with me,

Or it's like,

And then I take the next step,

And like some feelings catch up with me.

And then,

You know,

10 minutes in,

I'm like,

Well,

I'm a fucking champ.

And then I don't have any,

Like,

I don't have any steps,

And then the emotions and then the thing happens.

Because it's like a cold shower.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Like,

I'm not going to like force myself into like penetration,

Let's say,

If like,

There's still nothing going on down there.

Like I'm doing these actions to catch up.

That's the worst.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

I'm curious,

You know,

I watched quite a few Fearless Man videos on releasing.

I just think that concept's really interesting.

Do you use that much?

Do you use that concept much?

Did you tell you out of that?

No,

Honestly,

I don't really,

I've never actually,

I've actually never watched any of his videos other than the ones I've been in.

I mean,

I think Brian's great,

And I love his talks.

And I just,

I don't actually,

I don't actually watch a lot of stuff at all.

But I know that he kind of got that idea from the Sedona method and I have like,

Listened to stuff on that.

Yeah,

I mean,

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'll also say,

I think,

I think grounding,

There's many ways to become grounded and drop like that contracted feeling.

And it's actually kind of simple,

But it's not as,

How should I say it?

I still have a lot of trouble with it,

Man.

I still have a lot of trouble with grounding.

Because it's like,

It's almost like you're trying to relax a muscle that isn't really a physical muscle.

It's like trying to,

You're trying to relax a certain,

It's not as,

It's not as easy as choosing to open your fist,

You know?

It's like,

But that's kind of what you're trying to do with yourself.

And I think,

You know,

I have my own techniques.

I think there's a million ways of like noticing your butthole isn't clenched or like noticing the feeling of gravity on your body or like allowing yourself to focus on that knot in your stomach and just be okay with it until it lets go.

Like,

I don't know exactly what Brian's process is,

But I think,

You know,

It's,

I think it's within that realm of stuff.

It's not a,

It's not a 10 point system.

It's like a one thing you focus on until you feel not contracted.

Okay.

All right,

Cool.

Yeah,

I think I've done it before too.

I don't need to get into that.

Yeah,

I totally just farted like,

Like 30 seconds ago when you were talking and it was a really loud one.

I came here and I can't smell through zoom.

So,

Yeah,

I'm no,

I'm genuinely hoping that it just shows up in the podcast.

So the listener will be like,

Did that dude just fart?

And then like 30 seconds later,

He's like,

Yeah,

He farted.

Anyways,

Cool,

Man.

How long have we been talking for?

We should probably wrap it up soon.

Yeah,

I don't know what time we started.

I think we started a little early.

So yeah,

I do want to ask like,

Wait,

So you moved to Austin.

I really dig your video of like creating a car van.

How long you're on the road for?

Oh,

You know,

A car bed or van bed,

Rather.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

We put,

Um,

It was me and a buddy.

So my,

My girlfriend talks a lot about the spirit of enthusiasm and fucking Amen.

Like,

I am starting to really believe in it.

But you know,

When I when I got back,

It was right when the pandemic hit,

I thought,

I saw a van on Instagram.

It was one of those conversion bands and had solar and had a shower and a bed,

A little refrigerator and it had a smiling beautiful couple.

And I was like,

Oh,

I love to travel.

I love taking on projects,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

I got this really rapey,

Weird white Astro van.

That was really stealthy,

But it was definitely rapey looking.

And,

And I took out all the seats.

And I ended up going up to this guy that I saw was converting his van.

I was like,

Dude,

Your van's awesome.

He's like,

Oh,

Cool.

I was like,

Hey,

I was gonna learn how to do this.

Do you want to join up?

He's like,

Yeah.

And then it just ended up being me watching a real man do manly things for like,

For like six months.

And,

You know,

We put in,

We put in pine all over the van.

We put in we made the bed we ran electrical,

Which is crazy.

Connected deep cycle battery for solar panels,

Get all the appliances.

I learned a lot.

And I've used it quite a bit.

But I'm planning on using it a lot more.

I'm going to be leaving Facebook in October.

And I don't know where I'm going to go,

Man.

I really like Mac.

You work for Facebook,

Not you're not deleting social media.

Oh,

No.

Yeah,

I haven't told Facebook that I'm leaving Facebook either.

But that's my plan is to leave Facebook and in October.

And then and then yeah,

Man,

I just feel like there's some traveling left to do before I feel you on the timing of being able to settle down.

Like it's like this looming kind of little voice that's,

That's barely a whisper.

And then it starts to be a conversational voice in your head.

You know,

But it's like,

Like for me,

I still don't want to listen to it.

I still don't want to hear it.

Like there's still stuff I need to do before I,

You know,

Start listening to it,

Which is kind of what we talked about the men's group thing,

You know?

But um,

Yeah,

I do want to say,

Yeah,

I mean,

I do want to say on that,

Like,

Because I did share in men's group,

Like one of my things that I'm pondering is like,

As a step in the fatherhood,

I'm saying no to a lot of stuff that I haven't done yet.

Like even even like driving across America in a van.

I'm not going to do it the way I envisioned.

If I ever do,

It's going to be with a family,

Not as a single person,

As I imagined among many other little things or,

You know,

Medium,

Whatever things.

Um,

But even,

I mean,

After speaking to that men's group,

I kind of realized like,

That is part of,

I mean,

It is kind of fun and like,

There's no way you're going to,

If you're an imaginative person,

There's no way you're going to get to everything on your list.

Like you'll,

You'll,

You can't stay in,

You know,

I don't know,

I don't know if this is useful,

But,

Uh,

That's kind of what I left men's group thinking of like,

Of course,

Like I'm not going to get to every dream I ever had because that'd be ridiculous actually.

Oh yeah,

Of course.

And I really think that the idea dreams and goals are literally just like,

They're not that important.

They just give you something,

Doing something to aim at in like an excuse to grow in a certain direction.

But like the goal of it's like,

It's like looking at a horizon,

You have all of these things and you're walking toward it and then you change as a person and horizon just kind of switches.

So you start moving left a little bit and then you,

Oh,

Well actually it's this way and you start going this way.

And of course,

Like all of your past selves are going to have these kinds of leftover,

You know,

You know,

Visions,

But yeah,

I mean,

Who,

Who you're going to be with your family and with your wife and with your kids,

Like it's not even,

You're going to think about,

You know,

The,

The idea of not being around them and taking this wonderful trip is going to be like,

Why the fuck would I want to do that?

Of course I would want to see,

You know,

My kid in a river sitting there alone.

You know,

It's like,

Yeah,

Man,

It's crazy.

I've been doing this thing that I think is so fucking cool.

And and I got it from one of Brian's videos and then a couple of other videos,

But it comes from self-determination theory.

Brian says a lot of shit and it's just psychology,

But he just like renames it other shit.

But but but yeah,

So,

And I love that.

I love his stuff.

I don't want to,

You know,

Act like I sound like a dick.

I really liked that guy.

But anyways,

The idea is that,

You know,

If you have a goal in mind that so much of what stops you from accomplishing a goal is your emotional relationship to the goal.

And I tried this out May 1st,

I wrote down my ideal scene.

Like what do I want May 31st to look like?

How do I want to be feeling?

What do I want to have done?

What do I want my life to have looked like?

And this was all before I had anything.

And,

But I made sure that when I was writing it,

I wasn't writing it from my head.

I was trying to write it from like my body is as weird as that sounds.

And when I woke up in whenever I'd feel heaviness around like running,

Running two miles a day was one of them.

Whenever I'd feel heaviness,

I would,

Instead of like sinking into a lower,

Heavier emotion,

Or actually instead of,

Instead of like abandoning it or just becoming apathetic,

I thought,

Oh,

Well,

This is a story now.

Like,

Okay,

This heaviness is a story.

This is a story that my brain is presenting with me that ordinarily in the past,

I wouldn't know as a story.

And I would just go with the emotion because emotions have so much,

The elephant and the rider,

It's like you can follow the elephant when the elephant wants to turn left.

And,

But it worked all through may.

I would wake up and there would be times where I really didn't want to do it.

And then what I would do is I'd welcome like all the heaviness,

All the bullshit.

I don't want to run the sucks.

This is dumb,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

I'd rather be working.

I don't have what it takes and I welcome more and more.

And then I would re try to connect with what it would feel like or what it,

What it feels like at the end of the month to complete my goal and how good I feel after.

And I'd really just take the time to try and get to a lighter emotional relationship.

And I noticed that the lighter that I got,

The easier it became to do shit.

And after a while,

I was like,

Fuck,

I just ran like seven days in a row,

Two miles a day.

And that's not a big deal for anybody else,

But that wasn't easy for me.

Like I haven't,

I have,

I've let myself down so many times before that.

And so I feel like I kind of stumbled onto something and,

And like,

I don't want to write goals from my head anymore.

Cause I used to do that all the time.

Like I want to meditate every day for an hour and I wouldn't even consider whether or not I even fucking wanted to do that.

It's just like,

I should be doing this,

You know?

And but yeah,

And so much of that is like,

Even when in relationships,

You know,

It's like with your,

With your girlfriend,

You know,

So much of what ends up,

You know,

Hurting relationships is the level of lightness.

You feel with somebody,

Like if there's all this heaviness together and there's some story or whatever,

It's like,

It's so hard to feel love towards someone or joy,

You know,

But ultimately that's you it's,

It's,

You are the one that,

That can,

Or at least have some dominion over whether or not you're willing to release lower emotions to try and move to higher ones or to let yourself get your higher ones.

So I don't know what you think of that stuff,

But I've,

I've,

I've been seeing some progress and I want to keep going with it.

It feels pretty good.

Yeah,

I think that's great.

I don't know if I have a lot more to say on it.

I mean,

Yeah,

I'm on the last thing.

I think,

Yeah,

Laughter is the most important thing.

Actually,

I think just laughter is the most important thing,

Period.

You know,

I spoke about this in something like the more magical episodes I've done,

Like all the,

All the Western,

Like esoteric,

Like a cult magic people are like,

Laughter is like the most important thing for like doing shit.

Cause it takes away resistance.

If you're laughing,

You're not also fearing the thing.

But as far as like that welcoming stuff,

Yeah,

That's great.

I mean,

I don't know.

I think you described it in a great way.

I matched up.

I was actually thinking while you're speaking,

Like,

What am I resistant to?

What can I,

What can I go light on instead?

The student becomes the master.

Yeah.

It's always fun to talk to you.

Yeah,

Me too,

Man.

I think that's probably a good place to wrap this one up.

Yeah.

On a compliment.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah.

I'll take that one.

Yeah.

But yeah,

Man,

I have,

I have definitely have plans to come and see you really was upset that I missed the trek that you guys did like that.

I forgot where you went,

But you did some long trek.

That didn't happen because of COVID.

Oh,

Fuck yeah.

Well,

Would you,

If you would be down,

I want to do the Incan trail.

Yeah.

At some point,

I think I'm,

I guess the one in Spain is still on my list.

Cause I didn't get to do it in 2020.

Let me know if you do it.

I'll come and join you.

Yeah,

Let's do it.

I mean,

I don't,

I don't think it's going to be this year,

But yeah,

Let's do it.

Okay.

Cool.

All right,

Man.

Great seeing you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's do it again soon.

Looking forward to to the next masculine underground post.

Yeah,

For sure.

Oh,

And your fucking book.

Oh yeah.

So exciting.

It's coming eventually.

I got to finish this.

I started this whole thing on the history podcast.

I don't know if you've caught bits of that.

Like it's taken,

It's become,

It's a whole book in itself,

But I'm almost done with that.

Then I'll go back to my book.

What is it?

How often do you write?

Do you have a habit?

Like,

Is it,

It's,

It's the only thing that I'm really consistent.

Like honestly,

I don't even work that much outside of writing and the writing doesn't actually,

Isn't really related to my income,

But like,

It's like,

Yeah,

Every morning,

Two hours a day,

Except for Sundays,

Sometimes I skip if I'm doing a podcast like this,

But Monday,

Tuesday,

Wednesday,

Thursday,

Monday,

Tuesday,

Thursday,

Friday,

Always at least two to three hours.

Wow.

It's called infinite play.

I might change the title of my book,

But I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know if you're,

If you're going through that,

But that's just some market research there.

Thanks.

I'll talk to you later.