The JYLP episode 073 with Alicia & Erwan Davon - Sex, Pleasure, Relationship-Blueprints, and Orgasms

[00:00:06] Intro: Hello and welcome to the junkyard love podcast at what age do we learn how to have better conversations at what age do we learn to have better conversations with ourselves no knowledge is power cool so um i wanted to start it out welcome to the junkyard love podcast i'm really i'm really pumped to talk to both of you today um i wanted to kind of read just a little uh glimpse of your bio here that was sent over to me um and then maybe you two can elaborate on it and introduce yourselves and tell everybody what you do so well so um Erwan and alicia Davon use their Backgrounds in zen buddhism psychology and women's sexuality studies to develop the pleasure course which has helped thousands achieve their ideal love lives they provide a safe a safe place to explore psychological inquiry pleasure and sexuality recently their work has focused on pandemic related intimacy issues with singles dating intimacy during the pandemic and couples physically close but losing connection i think it's wonderful what you guys do i think it's a great time for that sort of thing right now so Welcome to the podcast hello hi

[00:02:00] Alicia: Great to be here So what i love god i love that we do that i appreciate you reading it like i love that the reflection is nice thank you yeah

[00:02:13] Jacob: Yeah of course so um give me give me kind of a how did you get into this i mean Erwan i think it was a 1995 you started Doing this and then we should join later background first

[00:02:22] Erwan: Okay 1995 i had a very far out love life i had a very far out girlfriend i had a very far out love life was going to the university of california santa cruz uh you know which is a place that's just kind of open for possibility especially in 1995 and that was i was studying psychology and that was after needing a an enormous amount of psychological Help as a teenager I was in psychoanalysis multiple days a week i had an obsessive compulsive disorder my family had basically been destroyed my mother left when i was seven my father was a street fighter my mother died when i was 15. i'd barely seen her since i was seven like and it just goes on and on and on and on that's the good part okay So i did a ton of psychological work started in new york came out to california and took every possible workshop i could You know anything and everything i'm running around the room waving my arms i'm doing primal therapy i'm studying psychology i'm in you know all the rest of this kind of stuff and in the middle of all that i realized what i was the most passionate about the most interested in especially after i kind of sorted myself out psychologically was women i was really interested in women i was really now this is it saying that now feels like well so is everybody but for me it was like a big you know like aha wow okay i know what i'm interested in right after i sort of sorted myself out having taught all those workshops i was teaching for one of the world's largest organizations then i just branched out started teaching about romance and relationship it was more about kind of sex and a wild lifestyle early on because that's what i was living long story short Later on alicia came into the picture uh

[00:04:22] Alicia: Uh what are you what trained me or Husbanded me or what do you say turn me into a husband or how do you know what's this word for that yes i don't like the word tame because you are my wild man

[00:04:36] Erwan: Yeah but something domesticated

[00:04:41] Alicia: Domestication you know so one of the biggest things we support people in now is you know if they're single getting into relationships or if they're in a couple how do you have a domestic situation much less in a pandemic that's still rocking it's still hot that's still turned on yeah so that's how i that's how i got into it How about you yes well i was i had like the opposite upbringing as Erwan i grew up in l. a had a really stable family a little brother two parents they're all great and my parents still live in the same house that i grew up in it was nice it was kind of a bubble you Know it was sheltered and of course i had issues like everybody had issues but as i went through college i started to feel like is this all there is that question like i'm pretty comfortable things are okay and there was this sneaking in of like depression and emptiness and what is this and that drove me into therapy and Like everyone was describing these workshops i'd go to these incredible like women's workshops and we were in sweat lodges and drumming and all this kind of stuff and i had these really powerful awakenings like oh my gosh there is way more to life than i thought so it starts me on the path of psychology i went to grad school got a master's in Psychology and then i remember the moment Where i realized i was totally obsessed with not just psychology but sexuality female sexuality and how that jives with our psychology and i was like holed up in the library reading these old texts at my grad school trying to like get information really about myself right and my body and opening and everything and i couldn't quite like scratch the itch that way reading books even though books are great and one day my friend shayna In my program was like alicia i just met this guy Erwan you have to meet him you know he teaches these classes in san francisco all about Pleasure and orgasm and being present in relationship i'm like i gotta get to this guy like right away so she brings me over to Erwan's and he was leading this group there were like 20 people in the room sitting around in a circle doing these communication games and i remember walking like literally crossing the threshold of his front door and feeling like i just came on to ecstasy or something i'm like this is amazing and people were like looking into each other's eyes as they were talking and talking about real stuff you know so i got interested i was very Interested in Erwan i was in another relationship at the time that was like going downhill and this made it go downhill way faster we broke up and then you know we have a long funny story of how we got back into touch but we came back together we started dating and like Erwan was Just rocking my world in all ways and so i never left wow

[00:07:50] Jacob: Wow wonderful and now you guys do this together and you've expanded your teachings and you've progressed over time and i'm sure just gotten better and uh you know made your program more specific

[00:08:03] Alicia: It's so what have you found

[00:08:06] Jacob: I mean i really like sticking in where you guys have been working on helping people during the pandemic because i feel like that probably totally threw a curveball to what you guys typically do i mean because you did live events before and so that's suddenly not able to do that so how did it change when the pandemic hit how did your guys work change

[00:08:26] Alicia: Well it was it was actually a change that we were slowly making anyways bringing our classes online and this just kind of pushed us to do it really quickly so luckily we had been doing some teaching online and some coaching and some of our classes so we just moved everything online really quickly and it was amazing because not only our current students but lots of people were looking for connection and kind of like what am i going to do i can't go to bars and parties and this and that so you know our mastery of relationship class that was primarily in person expanded like to three times the size online within a couple of months and it was like not that i wanted the pandemic to happen at all but it was actually there were some positive things that came out of it in terms of our teaching and being able to reach people all over the world you know basically we embraced change and when it happened we just said

[00:09:26] Jacob: Yes okay you know what's required here there was always a lot of innovation and change in what we do by the very nature of it and the organization

[00:09:37] Alicia: Actually kind of had that uh

[00:09:40] Jacob: Theme as well so when the pandemic came we were like okay you know online great boom you know in three weeks we were completely set up we were just you know like that and we found

[00:09:53] Alicia: It was really surprising because you can touch people and be touched by people and reach people through zoom online in ways that i wouldn't have thought it's because the you know the spirit or

[00:10:08] Jacob: The being

[00:10:09] Alicia: Yeah sort of in the body in a particular way but it's also not really limited to that so if people are really present like we just met you jacob but like i feel you

[00:10:18] Jacob: You feel us there's a lot of infinity there's a closeness we're in each other's space we're in each other's experience like we're actually very close in a particular way if we're willing to acknowledge it since we're being open you're being very open we're a little open so you know it's it we just kind of

[00:10:36] Alicia: Embraced change in a situation and

[00:10:40] Erwan: From alicia's history of having a you know great parents i have great in-laws she's got a kind of natural ability to do that for me all the difficulties i've had to undergo i also have an ability to embrace change and romantic relationship really requires that and the pandemic

[00:10:57] Jacob: Really requires that right yeah so i even noticed just in this podcast because i started out um doing in person i had i had a nice little studio set up um and then once covid came around had to switch to zoom and uh it took me a little bit you know and but i started kind of realizing what you just said is you really can get a good connection on here as it turns out um you can really kind of just lock into the conversation with one another it is a little bit different than um in person but i was i was pretty happy with how quickly i was able to adjust and the guests are able to adjust and we can be here with one another um so what are you guys seeing coming up since the pandemic um what's what are the people in your audiences that the people you guys are working with um what's coming up a lot like what are some common issues um some things that some listeners may be able to go oh that's happening with me i would love to hear that explained yeah so the first thing i'll say is that

[00:12:03] Alicia: Like any big you know crisis or big

[00:12:05] Jacob: Event it exacerbates things that are already

[00:12:09] Alicia: There so for example a lot of people we work with both singles and couples and of course as singles especially with the pandemic but even beforehand online dating is a huge thing it's like a big way to meet people prior to the pandemic we would always support people and like yeah do some online dating have fun with the apps here's how to do this effectively

[00:12:33] Jacob: But go to house parties meet people like

[00:12:36] Alicia: Mingle right because in person is great that was impossible once the pandemic hit so people that are single have felt isolated and felt like oh my gosh i really want to meet my person my soulmate you know there's some people that were kind of the age of wanting to have kids and feeling like oh no you know this is getting delayed so we've been working with our singles on how to successfully

[00:13:02] Jacob: Online date and how to safely

[00:13:06] Alicia: Move the relationship forward you know from initially hooking up with someone on an app and then um getting on zoom and meeting each other and then being in person eventually like that's okay if you do it safely a lot of people have been scared to do that obviously because of covid so and we've also discovered lots of um like speed dating events online that's actually the thing that works the best is these speed dating events online versus the apps so we've discovered a bunch of those and helped our students navigate those and that's a good tip for your audience jacob speed dating

[00:13:46] Erwan: It's you know speed dating online is pretty optimal because it's so convenient if i were single i would do two or three speed dating events per week literally oh wow you know they're like 30 bucks you know spend 30 to 90 bucks per week

[00:14:02] Jacob: Meet five to 10 people every time you get a lot of social interaction which takes away from the loneliness and the isolation you potentially meet somebody we also as

[00:14:12] Erwan: Alicia said support people on taking it offline but speed dating online is really convenient it's pretty optimal and it's generally a lot better than the

[00:14:23] Alicia: Apps the apps you know they can be good for hooking up they can be good for getting into a relationship but they're way more difficult than people think right so how does the online speed dating work it's just so you it's just kind of like this and then it shifts through you meet different people based off of interest or because i'm uh i had been in a relationship for 10 years and we split ways healthily we're

[00:14:47] Jacob: Still friends um the like six seven months ago and i just totally haven't i haven't done any of the dating apps i haven't done any of the any speed dating so um i don't know i just don't know a ton about it i guess so uh yeah so the way that it works is that there's somebody facilitating it and then they're just rotating people into different breakout rooms with each other for limited amounts of time so you can connect with someone briefly

[00:15:17] Alicia: And then you can show interest in the people that you are interested in later and they have a system for that and then they match you and they're usually uh have a theme

[00:15:28] Jacob: Right like some speed dating is about you know uh whatever you know being jewish or being christian or being new age or being interested in uh you know uh i don't know films or whatever and the other way they sort of segment it is by age group so you kind of you know you go to one that has an age group you like maybe one that has a theme you like and then you meet people who are in that and you get a lot more information about them because you're really interacting right cool oh

[00:16:01] Alicia: That's awesome i hope that i hope just that little description encourages people to go to go give it a try i've uh i've been trying to flirt with the idea in my head more and try to you know think about expanding and moving on to the next stage of life and uh you know allowing myself to meet people so working on that myself of course um so i was kind of curious

[00:16:23] Jacob: Could you guys explain how does how does

[00:16:26] Alicia: Um a lens of psychology

[00:16:29] Jacob: Really fit in with um being in tune with our sexual selves like how does so how do someone who doesn't study psychology or know much about it they might be like well how does how does psychology and you know learning about your mind and your emotions and these sort of things what does that have to do with sex yeah so we have a term for psychology we

[00:16:50] Erwan: Call it a person's relationship blueprint and that relationship blueprint is something that's forged in the crucible of our childhood that sounds very profound but it's true we all know it's true right like our you know how our parents related with us and how we related with them and how they related with each other is basically how we learn to relate and most people's relationship lives whether it's colleagues or friends or romantic relationships are inside of that box

[00:17:24] Jacob: So we it's probably the most

[00:17:28] Erwan: Difficult and the most important part of our work there's really sexy parts extended orgasm and flirting and dating we've been talking a little bit about that's really fun and great you know we love supporting people in that stuff but where the biggest difference is made is usually in a person seeing and understanding their box their relationship blueprint so they're not limited by that box and not reproducing the same relationship or

[00:17:55] Jacob: Lack of relationship over and over again yeah um yeah i noticed uh um

[00:18:05] Erwan: I was watching a couple of the videos

[00:18:06] Jacob: I was trying to just pull it up here um alicia you had talked about one that kind of stood out um you were working with someone who i think it was basically um around when it take sorry around when it came time to get sensual around these moments um she would kind of bring up some drama she would she would kind of create her own friction or you know it would cause an argument around these things i thought that was that was super interesting you know because i think that of course seems kind of unconscious right you know who would want to do that who would who would you know knowingly try to bring arguments when they would like to release that tension in another way um could you could you elaborate a little bit on that alicia yes yeah i know the example that you're talking about and um with this couple that i work with and

[00:18:55] Erwan: There's something like on one level she was like yeah you know i want more sexual activity in the relationship i want to be more turned on they've been together for years and she didn't quite have her hands around why they weren't and so as we inquired into it we realized oh she actually starts to feel like a little scared and like uncomfortable and unsure of herself and insecure when she gets closer to intimacy and sexuality and she was like not aware of that all and she would unconsciously act out you know pick a little fight or find some reason to avoid and then later complain and it's these funny things we do as human beings where we say we want one thing and then that might actually be

[00:19:41] Jacob: Our heart's desire but then if we're not aware of what's unconsciously driving us it can actually sabotage what we want yeah so how do we how do we

[00:19:51] Alicia: Bring awareness so if anybody's uh you know saying oh that kind of sounds like me

[00:19:56] Erwan: I think we do that you know i want to work on that how do we that first step i think is always awareness right you know that's right get a look at awareness is the most important i'm sorry go ahead no go ahead elaborate you're right awareness is the most important part there's four practices that we have our students do ideally daily i don't know if they all do them daily but we recommend they do them daily the first one is meditate that's really just cultivating awareness it's like having a garden of awareness in your space that you're cultivating we think that's the most important that's what i picked up at the zen monastery and the yoga ashram second one is psychological inquiry what's going on with me right now ooh you know i'm kind of

[00:20:38] Jacob: Turned on but like you know i'm sort of in the opposite house uh opposite side of the house from alicia and like i'm kind of avoiding her or something like that like okay what is that about ooh you know i'm kind of scared you know to sort out what's going on in the moment

[00:20:52] Erwan: For us bring the unconscious conscious so that's psychology or person's relationship blueprint we recommend some psychological inquiry every day doesn't need to be a big therapy session it can be two minutes of journal writing or just sitting down in an easy chair saying hey what's going on with me right now you know like that third thing is body practice especially in the pandemic particularly important people are really in their heads as human beings our brain is most developed of all of our organs and systems compared to other animals so people just end up in their heads and when we're spending a lot of time without social interaction in our houses on zoom etc really easy to do that right so body practice could be anything right now i've got this mat under my feet you can't see it but like i'm rolling around this sort of ball with my feet and that kind of thing and i've got a yoga block there and there's some texture and like you know we've got sort of yoga props kind of all around our house

[00:21:51] Jacob: So we're sort of like always doing yoga

[00:21:54] Erwan: It could be walking body practice could be walking around barefoot it could be lifting weights it could be taking a shower it could be anything but just there's a consistent practice to stay in one's body and then the fourth one is sensual practice which can be anything of the senses from music to

[00:22:12] Jacob: Incense all the way to sexual practice practiced alone or with a partner we have a whole set of practices so daily practice

[00:22:23] Erwan: Is what makes a difference that's another thing i picked up in the zen monastery people kind of think that intellectually knowing something is really living it or knowing it or

[00:22:33] Jacob: But that's not true

[00:22:35] Erwan: So the most famous zen master said practice is enlightenment that just totally blew me away so those are the ones that we've found make the biggest difference

[00:22:46] Jacob: Yeah i was thinking about uh i forget who says it but before enlightenment uh chop wood carry water after enlightenment chop would carry water yeah i love mentioning that practice you

[00:22:58] Alicia: Know in a i think that is something very important especially with us you know we're more on our computers a lot of us have switched our jobs to zoom in these sort of things i think uh you know the act of movement you're saying you're moving your feet around you know i have a one of those massage guns i like to use that every morning and i think that probably does help you know um is that kind of related would you say you know as we feel more present confident and you know connected to our bodies that helps us be more open and willing to you know meet that within our partner would you say definitely we often say

[00:23:36] Jacob: That you could put any two people together that are you know whoever they're attracted to a man with a woman or it could be woman man and if you're open in your body and your heart and your mind like you will be turned on towards each other and you will get along the mind closure and all those patterns

[00:23:59] Erwan: Is what gets in the way you know couples will often come to us like we have decreased chemistry and what do we do and should we still be together and we're like there's nothing wrong with your bodies your bodies work perfectly so moving through those patterns and

[00:24:14] Jacob: Opening the body and being in the body can lead to a lot of connection in chemistry right um did you guys i mean you mentioned awakenings for you did you have awakenings of uh i asked this because did you have awakenings of kind of realizing that you were disconnected from your body before at all um i feel like when i first kind

[00:24:38] Alicia: Of discovered uh meditation yoga a few years ago i'd always been athletic and worked out but i had no idea i didn't realize i was kind of like disconnected from my body a lot of my workouts were more ego lifting you know looking in the mirror and um it's so hard to put my finger on and try to describe with words but i felt uh when i discovered yoga started doing meditation i really started understanding being in your body being connected you know feeling your shirt touch your skin instead of being lost in the mind and feeling you know temperature throughout your body and in different pressure points and um the i think the first

[00:25:20] Jacob: Opening of discovering

[00:25:24] Alicia: The awareness of kind of keeping your mind you're we're constantly thinking all the time right and i believe that a lot of us don't know that we're thinking we don't notice that we're thinking a lot of us haven't discovered that awareness um and it's still kind of new to me just a couple years but it did help me come back into my body a lot so is there anything we could touch on right here um to speak to people who might feel some sort of disconnect from their body maybe they haven't explored too much too much yoga they haven't really dove into meditation they haven't really looked into their thought process and how it affects our physical bodies here because i think if we can all connect to our bodies a little bit more of course that's going to help in our romantic relationships

[00:26:11] Jacob: Yeah i mean everything you said is absolutely right uh people are disconnected from their bodies and people are disconnected from their experience in a thought zone the matrix is a perfect metaphor for that you know that movie is in some alternate reality we can imagine

[00:26:32] Erwan: Stuff and people mostly are living in kind of an imaginary universe given by the relationship blueprint and their thought process and their work and all the rest of that kind of stuff almost all spiritual traditions use the body as a portal as a gateway to presence because the body is actually happening i could imagine pink elephants but there are actually no pink elephants here you know but my body is here your body's there

[00:27:00] Jacob: You know or alicia's body is here you know that's something that's actually happening so concentration in the body serves as a

[00:27:08] Erwan: Ballast or an anchor to

[00:27:13] Jacob: The presence and to presence and then from there we can get into more subtle dimensions of being or being a human being you know emotions and feelings and things that are actually real they're as there as the body

[00:27:32] Erwan: You know love for example right love really is there i mean if we really feel into reality deeply love everything is love that can everything is made of love it's very interesting right from my childhood i never would have expected that it was a big one it was like oh wow you know you know now in the background we all kind of know that but we do so much imagining usually of negative stuff and you know all kinds of stuff because of what we see on tv and lifestyle and our histories and all the rest of that kind of stuff but focus in the body

[00:28:04] Jacob: Trains one to concentrate and not be

[00:28:07] Erwan: Distracted by the mind and concentration is in short order these days nowadays more than ever because of the speed of technology so body practice is more required and now than really it's ever been and it's a portal to awakening to being to love

[00:28:28] Jacob: And within oneself and in a partnership

[00:28:31] Erwan: You know romantic love and chemistry and

[00:28:34] Jacob: Turn on and union and intimacy yeah yeah wow yeah i like that's a great explanation there um as you were talking about us being kind of more disconnected from our bodies i was thinking about technology um and how it's changed there's a lot of wonderful benefits right you know we have online dating we have the um dating apps we could have this conversation that's so great um but the what do you guys have any um

[00:29:01] Erwan: Opinions or recommendations or um

[00:29:05] Jacob: Experience with people uh around online porn is that something that's that we can do healthily is that something that maybe is better off you know for relationships to stay away from do you have any recommendations there

[00:29:20] Erwan: It's the overuse that is the problem

[00:29:24] Jacob: It's not porn that's the problem right i mean a little porn is fine if you enjoy that and of course there's some that's you know more tasteful or not you know whatever more well done or more whatever than others but everybody has their own preferences and things they like to explore so it's really not the porn right it's the overuse the misuse and like replacing real intimacy with that more

[00:29:50] Erwan: Erotic staring at a screen and that's difficult

[00:29:55] Jacob: You know because you know human beings

[00:29:58] Erwan: Are not wired up to have uh

[00:30:01] Jacob: You know potential sexual

[00:30:05] Erwan: Visuals in our pocket on our phone any time of day you know for guys in particular that's hard you know like i remember when i was

[00:30:14] Alicia: I don't know how old i was 14 or something like that and like you know it was like you know when i first saw my first magazine that had naked women and that kind of stuff like it was weeks of like walking by the newsstand you know being too nervous to do anything and then like finally buying it and like the guy wrapping it in a newspaper you know you know you know what to say so it's like a big deal and a whole process and that like and it was a few relatively tasteful pictures it was like playboy or something right you know you know what i'm saying you know not necessarily realistic pictures but you know because nobody really looks like that exactly but you know what i mean it was a you know it now it's very hard on males in particular but both sexes that there's this massive funnel of any kind of sex you want to see like available right in your pocket and most of it is very low quality very goal

[00:31:13] Jacob: Oriented so it's you know it's a little bit like being an alcoholic and living in a bar right yeah i think that it's uh it's interesting thinking about how for you when you first dove into porn like how different it would be for you know young people now where again it's all right well i'm going to check this thing out and then you just click a couple times and you have thousands and millions of just the most insane you know uh just i

[00:31:43] Alicia: I think i imagine as a young person you know diving into the world of online pornography it'd be just mind-blowing to see all of these things before you really know any like knowledge or um real you know how it may be

[00:31:58] Jacob: In real life in um what you can expect going forward i think we probably do put we bring in different

[00:32:06] Alicia: Expectations into our relationships um without the

[00:32:10] Jacob: Knowledge uh of things being different than they

[00:32:15] Alicia: Than they appear on the screen so um

[00:32:19] Jacob: How do we

[00:32:24] Erwan: Let's see how do we bring in oh oh sorry here's where i want to go a diet i did want to mention apologize i'm a little all over the place today changing diet you did mention that diet was something important when it comes to intimacy is this something that could help you know relationships who have been together for a while maybe they're kind of like losing some of their spark because they're eating bad food during times that they could be kind of keeping a little bit lighter is that where diet comes in diets really important and everything that you're saying sort of point there's a word that comes to mind with all the sort of different areas that you brought up jacob and that's lifestyle Right you know like how we're living i would say the biggest challenge people have to great romantic relationships is their relationship blueprint their sort of internal pattern but then there is the external pattern how much they're working what they're eating pornography technology so the way we work with people with those issues is or those sort of external environmental issues is setting up a life

[00:33:31] Jacob: That actually works for the person and

[00:33:34] Alicia: For their remote romantic life and relationship life because most people's lives are not really actually set up to have a great relationship you know if you're a couple and expect you know we have a boy a beautiful boy you know but we work with each other and like we work in our house and all the rest of this kind of stuff so we have as much time together as we want if you're two people working two 50-hour week jobs and you have a child you know much less

[00:34:01] Jacob: Than a pandemic like where is the time

[00:34:03] Alicia: For the relationship right you know and then if there's like you know eating things that are kind of draining you know that kind of thing like okay then there's less vitality you know if there's you know a lot of watching porn then that's usually kind of hidden in secret and private and that brings division and a lack of turn on especially because for men in particular who most porn is watched by men you know it's very goal oriented or ejaculation focused so if a guy's watching a lot of porn and ejaculating a lot he's going to be really drained there's not going to be much response left for real women in his life or if he's in a relationship a real woman in his life so all of these are really big issues and that's the second category of challenges that we work with people on the environment and the external diets important um you know and if i were to i mean you know that's not our like super duper specialty but uh yeah eating healthy is really important Yeah there's a couple that i'm working with and they're a young couple they have two little kids you know they both work these crazy tech jobs and they're just like ah and one of the things they said in one of the first couple sessions i had with them they're like we're couch potatoes you know after the whole day and the work and the kids and then they're in bed and like we just wanna on the couch and eat potato chips and watch netflix there's nothing wrong with that inherently but there wasn't time set aside for their relationship you know i mean it's one thing and it's a beautiful thing to have goals in your relationship life a vision like yeah let's connect more let's have more sex let's be more intimate but it's so important to actually get that into your schedule and your calendar i mean we're huge fans of actually scheduling you

[00:36:02] Erwan: Know for people that are in relationship we call it pleasure time it is literally in our calendar every morning at 9 15 is our pleasure time you know we have sex and practice extended orgasm and talk and hang out and then we have other times a few times a week to do this relationship inquiry together you have to like put it in there it's not just going to happen right yeah that's wonderful i really like that uh planning it putting it on the calendar what is there any other bits of pieces of advice that you can offer um people in relationships during the pandemic i have plenty of friends um who i'm sure could

[00:36:41] Alicia: Use some advice around these realms you know who uh suddenly all the fun because i think of all the uh the date nights that we're not no longer able to do or you know maybe the date nights are just different they're kind of at home um things are starting to slowly open back up there's some outdoor seating and stuff at certain bars and whatnot but uh yeah so what are some other uh helpful

[00:37:05] Jacob: Tips and tricks for people in relationships to kind of keep the spark going amidst the pandemic here all right i'll say two or three things if you want to add any um to write on the coattails of what alicia was saying in it take an hour a day and have it be pleasure time it doesn't necessarily need to be sexual but if you're in a relationship half an hour a day that you're spending with each other doing something fun and if that

[00:37:32] Alicia: Time can't be found then declare a breakdown you know if we can't find an hour a day for the relationship it's a really good idea to say hey wow there's a problem you know there's something that's not working and that's often difficult for people to just simply acknowledge neutrally without making it bad but just telling the truth like okay you know we can't find an hour a day that's a problem thing you know like that so find an hour a day for uh having fun for maybe romantic connection maybe going for a walk you know that kind of thing second thing is even in the pandemic because we have a child right so you know all of a sudden like you know we couldn't take him to playgrounds you know so it was a you know really big change so i bought a tourist book for san francisco and it turned out to be a gold mine it was amazing it's like i discovered san francisco so even though we're in a pandemic

[00:38:36] Jacob: There's tons of places to go and we started going out more and yeah we can't do the usual things but it's kind of like where we started

[00:38:48] Alicia: Our conversation jacob if we embrace change there's usually all

[00:38:52] Jacob: Kinds of opportunities so it turned into you know going all i mean san francisco has like six beaches and you know all kinds of

[00:39:01] Alicia: Natural things that i didn't know about and now we're going to all those kind of places and picnics and all kinds of stuff

[00:39:09] Jacob: So it does take adapting so the first thing is set up some time for the relationship the second thing is be willing to adapt and find the things that you can do and you might be really surprised because you know there might actually be even better things to do than before you know for example i watch more netflix now than i used to but one thing i found is that like i really like documentaries there's like a gazillion great documentaries so instead of watching all this like stuff that's crushing my spirit i'm watching things they're like i'm learning and it's interesting and i'm reading more and reading i like biographies and you know so it's kind of like that yes and related to what you were just saying Erwan um to wake up to the fact that like wow we're in a relationship and we're having trouble making time for each other every day it's like unless it was an arranged marriage or an arranged relationship which does happen but not a lot you know in this country you got together with the person because you have the hots for them you know like it was it was hot it was sexy at some point and

[00:40:19] Erwan: That's why you're with the person that's the main reason it's not you know there's other good things we do with our partners like we have families some of us or we get into a house and we live together we build a life together but to ignore or de-prioritize that main reason you're together is like you know it's never urgent unless it gets urgent you know you just want to nurture it

[00:40:45] Jacob: So too practical to make everything we said a little bit you know practical if i love what alicia

[00:40:51] Erwan: Just said if a couple said okay we're going to use this pandemic as an opportunity to learn extended orgasm right and then they took that sort of condensed space that they're in and then they use that and focus that you know in the long run the pandemic would have been a blessing right or for a couple or people who are

[00:41:12] Jacob: Single if they use okay we're in all this sort of private space together we're going to use it as a spiritual retreat or a meditation retreat right in the long run it would be a blessing so you know it anything to you know i've heard lectures by people who are in solitary confinement and used it as an opportunity to meditate the most obvious example is not exactly solitary confinement but as nelson mandela nelson mandela came out of 20 years of prison tortured most of those days a better

[00:41:45] Erwan: Human being than he went in

[00:41:46] Jacob: Yeah incredible yeah i love that

[00:41:50] Alicia: It really is all about your framing you know your mindset that you're bringing into it you know i think a lot of us uh could benefit from kind of shifting our all right how can we turn this into a positive how can we uh you know add some spice into our love life and uh not kind of take this beating from the lock down so to say um i do want to

[00:42:10] Erwan: Uh explore a bit more on the extended orgasm so that was new information to me i honestly can't say that i had i had ever heard about that um i thought it was the typical you know six to 12 seconds situation i didn't

[00:42:25] Jacob: Realize uh there was a opportunity for you know this extended sensual experience in our uh human sexuality so could we explore the difference i'm sure you guys have already explained this a few times in other videos which people can check out on your youtube um can you explore the difference or explain the difference between extended orgasm and regular yes so

[00:42:46] Erwan: What most people know as orgasm is like a climax orgasm right we call it traditional peak orgasm you know you're going along you know let's say you're with someone you're making out you're getting more turned on and it kind of plateaus a little bit then it spikes up and you go over the edge and have that rapid set of contractions and that extreme pleasure you had an orgasm that's awesome now extended orgasm

[00:43:16] Jacob: Is having all of those same

[00:43:19] Erwan: Signs of orgasm clinical signs like involuntary contractions in the genitals and you know the extreme pleasure in the genitals which is not really clinical you can't really measure that but that pleasure and increased heart rate and all these

[00:43:34] Jacob: Signs over an extended period of time

[00:43:38] Erwan: Your body has the ability to release

[00:43:42] Jacob: Into a state of orgasm over time

[00:43:47] Erwan: Versus having one little boop and it's over and how that's possible is by being relaxed because usually when people have a very high level of sensitivity especially in their genitals they're very tense right so they tense tense you know the genitals are gripped and then they just let go and relax or they get fatigued and the genitals relax and then they crash over the edge very rapidly but if you get to that high level of sensitivity that's what we call the orgasm line it's actually masters and johnson's the clinical sexologist from the last century they distinguish the orgasm line above this level of sensitivity in the genitals a person will have an orgasm so what we added to that is if you get to that level of sensitivity and you're relaxed you'll stay

[00:44:37] Jacob: Above that line and you'll have all those signs of orgasm that alicia was talking about involuntary contractions in the genitals engorgement release etc for really as long as you want to so what

[00:44:52] Erwan: You need is high sensitivity in the genitals

[00:44:55] Jacob: Above the orgasm line and relaxation so excuse me it's a little bit like if you were filling a bathtub instead of sort of filling the bathtub with water and then the water level rises you know then you're above a certain line of sensitivity let's say you know water line and then you open the drain you turn the faucet off you open a drain the water level goes down instead you have the water rising and the drain open the drain open is the orgasm the release and you have the sensitivity increasing

[00:45:30] Erwan: Through all the body practice and meditation and central practice you're really good at adding chemistry internal on a mile a minute but you're not tensing up around it so then the body stay you get past a certain very high level and the body just stays at that level it's funny because tomorrow we have uh an extended orgasm course

[00:45:50] Jacob: Online yes we have courses about it because

[00:45:54] Alicia: You know most people can they're like oh i can kind of get that you sort of feel like yeah my body's capable of that much pleasure but people aren't quite sure how to get there you know women especially we work with a lot of women who come to us and they're like you know i've never really had an orgasm or i'm not sure if i've had one or um i can have them by myself but it's hard with a partner or like i have orgasms i want more

[00:46:21] Jacob: And you know from wherever you are

[00:46:25] Erwan: You can learn how to have extended orgasm right yeah so why is this why is this such new information the extended orgasm you know you think we have so many years of exploring our bodies and learning about our bodies and minds and how our psychology works with our bodies why does it seem like this like um

[00:46:44] Jacob: You know padlocked thing or something you know because it seems like a beautiful wonderful thing that you know a lot more people should should be able to explore and experience in their life is it just kind of like the western model of society life uh wha

[00:47:04] Erwan: Why is this so you know i guess

[00:47:07] Jacob: You know what why is it's strange to me that i'm just now learning about this you know you think that there would be information floating around about this something you would think right but people are very sexually repressed i mean on average people in the east are more sexually repressed than they are in the west i mean sexual repression really is the norm and you can look at it from a psychological viewpoint conditioning in childhood and life and culture and all the rest of that but it's probably better to take a sort of longer view you know maybe a historical or evolutionary view you know sex is a big deal you know

[00:47:44] Erwan: Throughout most of human history

[00:47:47] Jacob: Even prehistory uh you know getting pregnant is a super big deal it changes life completely um you know it's potentially dangerous diseases all kinds of stuff so it's you know the pill condoms this kind of

[00:48:02] Erwan: Thing these are this little tiny little blip you know in human evolution like this little tiny fraction in like miles and miles of you know

[00:48:13] Jacob: History and time and like that so you know there's a lot of uh holding and gripping around sex you know even mammals if you look at mammals like you know their sex is kind of like they get kind of agitated about it and it's kind of a big deal and like that so you know we're just catching up

[00:48:34] Erwan: With uh what's possible sexually and relaxing during sex you know as a species we're just kind of opening up to it um

[00:48:44] Jacob: And you know the cultures and the norms or are you know just starting to kind of release and unfold and all of that tension and fear is held in people's bodies you know people are you know kind of

[00:49:00] Erwan: Constrained and tight and afraid

[00:49:03] Jacob: And you know uh it's uh you know it's a really big deal to open

[00:49:09] Erwan: Up sexually with somebody you know there's a lot you know you really especially for extended orgasm you have to open your heart and your mind and your body and like

[00:49:19] Jacob: You know it's kind of like you know

[00:49:22] Alicia: Taking uh acid it's going to be a really good trip or it's going to be really difficult you know and once you get the hang of it that's why we work very gradually with people we usually have people start with just you know with their partner or if they're single with themselves but let's say with a partner you know one person will just put their hand on the partner's heart and partner's abdomen we call it deep touch you know maybe do a few weeks of just deep touch or in the pleasure course even couples will have them practice individually masturbating kind of learning about this kind of thing so that the entry is very gradual

[00:49:59] Jacob: So that their psychology and their mind can keep up with the intensity and so they

[00:50:05] Alicia: Don't basically blow out or go unconscious

[00:50:09] Jacob: Yeah wow yeah that's cool i mean i love that you guys are teaching about this because i feel like it's a you know it's a corner of conversation that um you know i think our culture does have uh you know a bit of shame and repression around uh sexual you know uh sex intimacy uh you know a lot of our romantic side so i think that it's great that you guys are doing this when you were talking about um Erwan when you're talking about you know the release like the tightening that we have uh interiorly the tightening that we have of our muscles and the tension that we hold uh that was when i first started doing yoga and meditation uh just a few years ago i

[00:50:54] Alicia: That was something that i learned i was like oh i didn't realize it but i was i'm holding tension in areas that i never knew and you know you do guided meditations though you'll be sitting there for a few minutes following your breath and they'll inquire you to you know let go let go of the holding you're doing around your eyes let go of the holding you're doing around your arms that sort of thing

[00:51:13] Jacob: So um i imagine that when it comes

[00:51:16] Erwan: To the extended orgasm it's probably a lot of that like you're kind of letting go of things that you didn't realize you were holding internally does that sound all right yes especially your mind especially remind you yeah and to and to do to let go in a somatic way the work we do with people is very somatic uh you know for example we might have people breathe into their pelvis you know breathe into their pelvis feel it you know notice that tension they're probably holding gradually release it actually practice some exercises like a kegel pulling the genitals in but or a moulabanda like a yogic lock in the pelvis but then also pushing out you can read all those old texts the taoist texts and the yogic texts none of them actually even talk about pushing out right they all talk about the mulabanda kind of pulling in but pushing out is actually more important because there's already so much tension there so have people practice those kind of exercises breathe the energy up the spine down the

[00:52:23] Jacob: Front that's a classic taoist exercise breathing up spine down the front or kundalini exercise up the spine right and in our addition is we really bring it into everyday life and relationship and orgasm and emphasize the pushing out and how do you keep the genitals in that kind of nice relaxed juicy place it accentuates spiritual life and chemistry and romantic life and you know it just it just kind of makes us happier because there's not a missing link in the chain of our body and mind when there's a missing link in that chain you know there's a there's less zing jing enthusiasm vibrancy energy you know fun turn on let you know it's just less of a good time so you know sometimes i don't say it this way anymore but you know i used to say you know can people take it the wrong way but you know we're kind of a school about learning how to party you know but like you know people now a days think that means you know taking a bunch of drugs that's not really our thing yeah no i resonate with that i like that i like uh i like that phrasing i think that still works um Well so we are getting up here in time you two i really appreciate your time i really appreciate you coming on here and uh and allowing me to poke and prod and ask the questions so you guys have some workshops who you can find we can find you on youtube you do have an online website what where else can we find out where else if we want if anybody wants to dive more into this where do they go yes so the best way to

[00:54:04] Alicia: Do that actually if you're listening to this and you're like wow cool you know i want to know what extended orgasm is or oh i want to get into that relationship or whatever if something just really touched you i'm offering love life consultations and you can set one up with me by texting Erwan Davon teachings i'll give you the phone number it's 415-308-9580 it's 415-308-9580 and you just tell me your name and that you heard about us here on the podcast and that you want to set up a consultation and then we'll schedule it from there and in the consultation you can tell me whatever you want to tell me about your goals your challenges your desires and your love life and your sex life and we'll look and see which of our programs would be the best fit we have private coaching and we have classes like weekly year-long classes And weekend intensives and all sorts of Fun stuff

[00:55:07] Jacob: Wonderful beautiful uh okay well let's do one last question and then we'll end it here uh for each of you could answer individually um what does the world need more of right

[00:55:19] Alicia: Now um you know consciousness love it awareness yes yeah i was going to say uh well besides when i said love sweet

[00:55:31] Jacob: Love in my head with the song

[00:55:34] Erwan: Uh like relaxation and enjoyment

[00:55:39] Outro: Perfect answers uh i really appreciate it you too i appreciate your time i appreciate you guys doing this work you know like i said to me anyway there's not a ton of people that i know of that are doing these things and i think we should we should be invited more to explore our own uh physiology psychology how it all relates uh you know the wonderful experiences we're all able to have as humans on this planet so uh thanks again so much you guys uh i will be in touch via email listeners take care of yourselves drink some water check out these two uh send some send some text to alicia if you are interested in exploring more thanks again take care guys knowledge is power