#79: How to Spice Up Your Relationship with Bonding Based Lovemaking

Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Hey, welcome to the Love Shack. It's a little old place where we get to get together and explore fresh perspectives. And man, do we have a good one for you today. We're going to also eavesdrop on some juicy conversations and discover the things that really matter. And we're going to also have a little fun along the way. This is episode number 79, how to spice up your relationship with bonding based lovemaking. Have you ever heard of it?

I have not. And it can be tough to keep the erotic spark alive in long term relationships. Let's just be honest. Especially when there are so many tasks and logistics that need our attention or you're simply feeling distant from your lover.

Yeah. Ofttimes the topic of sex and intimacy can also bring up feelings of anxiety and dread. Especially when our day to day interactions and connection with our partners have become strained and complicated. Sex is usually the first thing to wane or stop altogether as the closeness that you once felt with your partner begins to fall away and we begin to make excuses, being that we're the human beings that we are and keeping up with the new ways to say, honey, I'm sorry, not, not tonight, not, not feeling it. You know that lots of jokes about having a headache, lots of jokes about not being right ready or, or gotta work or get up early or I could go on and on there. What's, what's also frustrating is when you feel like you want to be intimate but you don't ever feel like those needs get met. That also can set in some anger, some frustration, some resentment. And over time, these are the things that break down our relationships.

As Stacy just mentioned. Have you ever heard of bond, Bond bonding? Excuse me, Tongue tied their bonding based lovemaking? I have not. And grateful that we have our guests. It's going to help us understand that's a simple way to bring into intimacy back in our relationships. Today in Love Shack, we're going to teach you how to get out of your own way so you can really connect and enjoy intimacy with your partner again.

So in our restlessness, Tom and I and our commitment to you, our listeners, we're always exploring new principles and wonderful people to bring into the Love Shack for you. And today we have Carolyn Hauser. She's the creator of Bonding Based Lovemaking and she's joining us on the show to talk about this innovative approach to moving forward and healing some of our sex and intimacy challenges that come up in our relationship. So if you're ready to spice up your relationship and finally stop the challenges that you may be experiencing right now in your love life. I want you to know this episode is for you and Carolyn will be with us right back after we take a short break. Stay tuned.

I met Stacy and Tom about two years ago. I was at a point in my relationship where I was ready to file for divorce. Not that I wanted to, but I just felt hopeless and helpless. I'd been through other counseling and coaching and didn't find any success with Stacy and Tom's methods. I was able to eliminate insecurities, set boundaries, plant my flag, eliminate rabbit holing. I was separated from my wife for a year and I have since moved back home for the last six months. Now. I still refer back to a lot of the teaching that Stacy and Tom provided and it's helped me. It's well worth it.

Learn the simple three step system to rescue your strange struggling relationship by registering for Stacy's brand new free workshop. Reserve your seat by going to Stacybartley.com workshop.

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Hey babe, did you know that the average couple spends only two hours a day with each other and the majority of that time is spent eating, watching TV and surfing social media rather than connecting with each other. And if children are involved, my gosh, it's even less time than that.

I know baby. That's why you created our conversation cards for Connection. Because they're the perfect conversation starter. So the next time you're sitting on the couch, rather than turning on the TV or grabbing your phone, pull out a card and get ready for some good old fashioned laughter and loving connection.

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Free range and fresh daily alternative talk 1150.

Welcome back Inside the Love Shack. We are your host, Tom and stacey bartley. Episode 79. And thanks to our engineer Eric Ryder. And today we are talking all about lovemaking.

And if you're looking for ways to spice up your relationship currently, this is a conversation that is going to be a game changer for you. Together we are going to embark on a conversation about bonding based lovemaking. We're going to cover how to bring stability, harmony and romance back into your intimate relationships to help you overcome the destructive patterns of sex effects that lead to us becoming roommates instead of lovers. We have with us on the Love Shack, Carolyn Hauser. She's a German trained naturopathic doctor, a humanistic psychotherapist, and a family constellations facilitator. She's also the author of the award winning book Blossom, your seven steps to sexual Healing and the creator of the Pleasure IQ and Blissful Marriage method. Carolyn's also an internationally recognized speaker and teacher on the subjects of spirituality, relationships, emotional healing, and of course, our topic of conversation today, bonding based lovemaking. Carolyn, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you here with us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

Hey, I want to jump into our first question, which is how did you personally become interested in bonding based lovemaking yourself? Where does this come from?

Well, it comes from, it came from a lot of desperation.

I relate, I still relate.

I was not blessed with having very good relationships for a lot, a lot of my life. Well, the first half of my life and just struggled first with the relationship with myself and then with the relationship with men and my second marriage. I was very committed to making that work. And we were just hitting bump after bump after bump and a friend of mine handed me a book called Cupid's Poisoned Arrow that she had read. And she was in a marriage, but her marriage was still kind of good enough. She wasn't as desperate as I was at the time because what the things that were suggested in the book are a little bit extreme. And so she's, she just kind of like handed it to me and said, you know, like, maybe you can try this. I, it seems it sounds too out there for me, like, why don't you go ahead and try it and then come back to me and tell me so that's kind of like how it came into my life. And yeah, I was desperate enough to, you know, to read it and what the woman was sharing. And her book sounded very much like my story where relationships would start out great. I have no problem attracting guys. But then making it last and making it stable was just out of my reach.

I love it. And say the name of the book that inspired this for you one more time. Yeah.

Cupid's. Cupid's Poisoned Arrow. Marnia Robinson is really the pioneer in this whole field.

Wow. So you read that book and then from that is the genesis from where we are Today and your, and your specific frameworks and strategy.

I mean I had already been working as a family constellations for some facilitator and you know, I've worked as an energy healer, but my own just by, oh no, relationships weren't working and my husband at the time, once I introduced what was in the book, he couldn't get on the same page with me. So that relationship didn't last. But since then I've been able to really create a lot more stability in my life. And, and, and it is due to what I learned from Marnia and also have helped a lot of people bring intimacy and instability back to, to those through their love lives. And we don't think, we generally think that our problems are psychological or because of traumas. And there's obviously something to it, but what Marna was suggesting is that our problems actually some come from biology and neuroscience.

So tell us more about that. So the, and I, I, I believe wholeheartedly, by the way, I, I know that our problems around sex in our ability to talk about it and explore it. Right. Our age old historically we have been forbidden to talk about such things, to explore such things even. I bet you have this in your clinical practice as well, that when the topic of sex comes up, we all tend to clam up. You know, our clients tend to clam up. Like, can we really talk about this? Is this really okay? Even though it's where we all come from sexually. Right, right. None of us would be here without this wonderful vehicle called sex. Because of our religious and family of origin programming, we tend to feel it's a taboo subject. And I think in a large part too, and one of the reasons why I was so excited to bring this conversation to our listeners is trying to open up those conversations around sex. Right. Because they are the things that we can, if we have the conversations about sex, we can get better at this. We can understand it for ourselves. We can adopt an identity of who I am sexually and, and, and where I want to go with this and how I want to show up in this and I can explore this with my partner. And a lot of people don't also understand that sex is a great vehicle for self exploration. Right. With myself and my partner. And so one of the things that I was so excited about bringing you on is this idea of course of bonding based lovemaking because it is rooted in biology and neuroscience. So tell us a little bit about that. Yeah.

So first of all, there's a lot of confusion when it comes to sex. What it is, what it's for what it's not and so forth. And the confusion is actually understandable and it's real. Because what we as human beings don't know is that we actually have two programs for love making, right? We just know. We just know what we know. And that's just, you know, making love the way that we know, in a sense, where that program biologically is connected to procreation. And that's where the pro. That's where the problem starts. So when we have sex the regular way, meaning including orgasms, we're kind of like entering into a survival program for our genes. So genetically speaking, our genes really want us to mate with as many people as possible so that our species survives. It's not interested in the survival of the union, in a sense, between men and women. It's, it's. It drives us to getting bored with each other and to. To finding novel interests more stimulating and so forth. And it does that by using dopamine. Dopamine is a very, very highly addictive neurochemical. And so nature was very clever. It connected making babies with something like a cocaine high, you know, basically, right. You know, we laugh about it, but if you look at it too, I'm not a brain scientist, but there, there are brain scientists who actually at this and have done brain scans on people taking heroin or taking cocaine and people having orgasms. And it's the same exact thing on a brain scan. Like, it shows up and it impacts us the same way. So imagine you just took a whole dose of cocaine and if you have, you know what that feels like, and you also know what it feels like right after and coming down off of it, right? And so that's where the problem starts. When we have an event in our brain that is so intense, neurochemically speaking, it shifts our perception of each other. And it makes it so that over time, instead of being in love and having the honeymoon feelings that we have because something is new, we start seeing all the falls and then, you know, all the. The negativity starts creeping in and we close down and we don't feel attracted anymore. And it all goes downhill from there. Now, the good news is there is a second program that we just don't know about. And it has to do with oxytocin activating oxytocin and a bonding program, which is also a survival program. So it has very strong pleasure rewards. Just like nature rewards us for making babies, it also rewards us for deeply bonding with, like a mother to a child for a mother. It's very pleasurable to be bonded to the baby. And nature made it so that the mother would actually take care of the baby and not just drop it and leave it optimumly, right?

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I love this distinction in my work and in my conversations with my clients. We're talking about the physical attributes, right? And the emotional, spiritual attributes that we all have as human beings. So the act of having sex would be the release of dopamine arriving at orgasm, and the oxytocin that we experience would be more of what drives the emotional bonding piece, the spiritual piece, the deeper pieces that we have inside of ourselves. I refer to this as our human navigation system. And I totally agree with you, Carolyn. We don't talk about this enough. Right. We talk about life through the lens of the physical, I suppose, because that's what makes sense to us. Right? That's what we see and can measure and test, etc. So.

And just. I don't want to like be rude, but just interrupt you. Bonding based lovemaking is a physical way of, of having sex. It's just a very, very, completely different way that none of us has done before. It's not having sex without an orgasm, you know, it's just having sex in a very different way.

Yes. So tell us about it. Tell us about what? So we can start understanding this. Yeah.

How graphic do you want me to get?

Well, I just remind you that it needs to be radio friendly, so.

Which means we have to speak scientifically about body parts and biological sense. But, but I, I'm thinking of the listener out there who's saying, okay, tell me, tell me about this and tell me how it works and why I even want to embark on it. So maybe let's start and dive a little deeper there. Like, why would I even want to entertain the idea of bringing this into my relationship? And what does it look like? I don't even know if I'm on board yet.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So the only reason why this would make sense to you and why I would suggest you embark on this is if you have a lot of friction in your relationship, if the honeymoon feelings have gone away, if you feel disconnected, and if you want to have the honeymoon feelings back, and if you want to have honeymoon feelings every day, and if you want to know how to produce them, then I would suggest listening. You know, you want to feel the way that you felt when you first met then, because there is a way to learn to navigate your own biochemistry and your own biology that will feel very, very pleasurable after A short amount of time of like being confused, you know?

Yeah.

And it still is physical lovemaking, just way, way slower in a way where it's not so much about genital friction, but really connecting an energy. And the more you use their specific bonding cues, like breathing together and looking into each other's eyes. And a lot of it has to do with your intention because the subconscious is very clever and it goes by energy. So when the subconscious feels like your partner is coming towards you just wanting something. So oftentimes in sex we get touched because somebody wants something from us, somebody wants to have sex with us and therefore they're touching us to turn us on or something like that. So the perception in the subconscious conscious is like, oh, somebody just wants something from me. And kind of what makes the bonding based lovemaking and the oxytocin flow is learning to give through it to each other physically, emotionally and energetically. And that's, it's just a matter of practicing what that feels like and looks like. And when that happens, when, when, when you start getting touched in a way where your subconscious feels like you're being given to, then your whole subconscious relaxes and then the oxytocin starts flowing. So in a sense it's really learning to make love in a very, very, very, very relaxed way. Which for guys is like, oh, how, like what? Because you're so used to having to do something to be able to perform and all of that, that all falls away and it's a little bit of a, like, I mean, for my clients in the beginning, it's like very confusing, you know, how, how to do that because they're, you know, you, they think they have to have certain functions functioning.

Well, there's, there's, I, I would agree with you that there's a tremendous amount of performance anxiety, especially for the male side of the equation. Right. Which leads to a lot of EDT and, and for understandable reasons. Why do we carry the responsibility? And I'm supposed to step into this situation with my partner and be Don Juan and know how to not only please her, but please myself somehow in the process that a lot of responsibility to carry. And let's be honest, as women, typically, especially in our culture, in our society, we're not very adept at knowing even what it is we like, or if we do, we don't feel like we can communicate that to our lovers. So we really kind of set them, the male up for saying, okay, you know, figure out how to love me and make rock my world and be romantic and Pleasure yourself. And then, gosh, if you can't do that, who's banging on who, Right? So common it's the man trying to get the woman to engage or, and, or he's trying to push it away because of the performance anxiety. And then we get to start to understand why porn and, and masturbation and all those kinds of things in isolation are preferable to the responsibility emotionally and the weight that I carry on my shoulders to, you know, show up and be this Don Juan lovemaker. Right.

And risk to be rejected all the time, Right?

Yes. Yes. I mean, that's a lot to ask. What do you have to say about that?

No, and I would just, you know, ask Carolyn. So I really. I like where you're going. So I would sense from what you just described that trust is, is a very important part of this, of this newly learned framework and process, what you just described, right?

Yes. And also, as your brain relaxes and as you do the physical bonding behaviors, you are going to start feeling more secure and you, you're going to feel more trust. So we basically, in early development and early child development, we develop either a secure attachment style or an anxious or an avoidant. Ideally, a baby gets really well taken care of and feels securely attached and has the oxytocin bond with the mom. For a lot of us, that doesn't happen because, you know, mom had to go to work or whatever, other siblings, you know, it doesn't have to be abused all the time, but obviously abuse, also neglect. And so when we as adults then start using these same pathways in our brain, it is really a healing experience of getting what we didn't get as a baby. Right. So it goes really all the way back to. And so when our brain and our nervous system starts receiving those things, and even better, if you had it as a child, this will be much easier for you than if you didn't have it as a child. You will automatically have an experience of trust just based on your physiological response to each other.

Meaning that feels familiar, right? If I, if I come from a place where I had some secure bonding with my, with my family of origin, with my parents, right? When I feel it again, I go, oh, that's it. Right? That's. That's what makes me feel safe and secure, et cetera.

And I mean, we talk about subconsciously, you know, mainly like these programs are very deeply, subconsciously ingrained. So when we get attention that is loving and comforting instead of like, you know, somebody wanting something from us, our nervous system or a subconscious mind reads that as safety. So subconsciously we start trusting each other because right now we're not trusting each other subconsciously, because subconsciously feels like you're just wanting something from me all the time.

And that's a huge problem, especially as it relates to long lasting relationships, for sure, where I feel like there's always more that you want more that I have to give in order to make this work. And we all become emotionally exhausted, right? We run out of emotional gas there.

And with bonding based lovemaking, because of the physical experience and because of your feeling of really getting your needs met, all of a sudden your entire, I mean it can really transform your entire life and the way that you feel about yourself because you're living a physical experience of they're not being any lack like total fulfillment.

Well, you know, you're causing me to reflect back. You know, when relationships first start, there's a place where we have that experience typically where I say, oh gosh, you really get me or you really understand me. And I've never been able to share this with anyone before, right. That's kind of the cue of, gosh, I've never been able to relax into this before. And, and then we start to build this life together and we fast forward even five years, right? And then we start to realize, oh, I'm starting to feel unsafe, I'm starting to feel insecure. Tell us a little bit about what you know from the neuroscience and the dopamine, oxytocin, etc as to why that's typically the case. Why is it that we start out in this place where I'm like, oh gosh, you really get me. And sex is typically easy and exciting and thrilling. And then we move into this place as we start to build a family and a life together, it moves into a place of like, honey, not tonight, you know, just not feeling it. Or, or like you said, I, I feel like I just don't have it to give. I think a lot of females feel that way, like I just don't have it to give. Right. Can you do something else?

Yeah, yeah. So the, the scientific term for what you were describing is habitu. It's called habituation. And the biological reason for this is that we are programmed to find novel mates. Interesting. Right? So when we first meet somebody that's compatible with us, we have a whole kind of different chemical cocktail in us because of the novelty of it and because nature wants us to like, want to make babies.

Right.

And so in the beginning it's very enticing and they have Done studies with rats where rats are prayer bonding animals where the guy could have had as much sex with his wife as he wanted. In the beginning it was fine, and then he got tired and super not interested. And then they would just put a young, fertile new rat in it and he was ready to go and go for days. And all of a sudden his disinterest and tiredness and depression was completely gone. Just because a new fertile female was introduced. And then he would get used to her again and the same thing would happen and you would just see him being totally disinterested and then you put a new one in front of him and he would just totally perk up. And not that we're like rats, but we're very, we're also mammals and very similar in that sense. And so when we are in the procreation program, meaning where we have lots of orgasms, then this is what happens. We habituate to each other because we're literally just using the procreation program and not the bonding program. If we know about the bonding program and learn how to use it, then we can totally escape all of that. Or if we've fallen trapped to it. And you know, if you're hearing this for the first time and you're like, oh my God, this is what's happening to us. It's, it doesn't take very long to shift into this other program and learn it. It's really just a skill in a sense and getting some help with the subconscious childhood wounds in, or, you know, so that your, your, your traumas don't get into the way. In a sense, if you, if you were a child that didn't have safe bonding as a child, there might be some resistance, you know, that's part of it also why you might have recreated an adult relationship where you're not getting it right. But all that can be healed. Which is, that's the good news.

Yes, well, you know, I, I see very, very much so in the work that I've done over many years with hundreds of couples from around the world that we have the ability. And I'm sure this has to do with our energetic, you know, natural intelligence of being a human being. We recreate do overs to help us understand and heal from things that we've come from in our past. Which is why we tend to replicate things that are unresolved or unhealed inside of ourselves. And I don't know of a greater growth vehicle than relationships. Right. That is the personal growth vehicle that does spectacular things to help us see ourselves and to understand ourselves and, and to work some of those things out. Right. We will do, we will do things in relationship that we won't do anywhere else in our lives for others and for ourselves. And I just, I can see that what you're saying would be the greatest place where we could come in and we could kind of address some of these attachment issues that thank goodness we have so much wonderful research, etc. To help us understand more about why it is that we're doing what we're doing. Instead of feeling crazy, instead of feeling like I'm losing my mind. Right. On both sides. Whether I'm saying I can't get my, my sexual needs met emotionally, or I just feel like I don't have anything to give in the tank that can, that can be a very, very difficult place for either side to be in.

Yeah.

So I, I love, I love this idea of where we get to come together and we get to practice bonding together. Do you find that couples who stepped into this originally, is there some resistance? Is there a lot of resistance to this?

Yeah, I mean, some more than others, you know, because it is like really putting your love, like on love life on a diet. Like, you know, if you want to gain more muscle, you need to go to the gym five days a week. Right. If you want to have this amazing energy and your body's like feeling really alive. We do make love on a schedule in a sense, but it's actually very freeing. And in reality it's very freeing once you can allow it because you will know. You're not having to guess when you're getting some. This is just what you do. And you do it to. My belief really much is that a lot of people that get married, they really want a sacred union. They want something special. And they think by getting married and having that one day that that's, that's what happens and it doesn't. Right. We don't have the tools. And I believe that bonding based lovemaking is the practice to actually have a sacred unit. It's built every day. It's kind of like forged, you know, through the energy and the connection every day. Every single day.

So wait a minute. You said something I don't think we've touched on right now, which is, okay, it's a schedule, like. And I can hear, I can almost hear my listeners going, wait a minute, that's not romantic.

Come on.

I think that what I need is romance. So that's what I'm thinking I need. So tell us a little bit about the schedule and how that works.

So I'll just tell you what my life looks like, right? And so generally we wake up and we cuddle for, like, at least a half an hour. And then generally we also cuddle for at least an hour in the evenings. And then generally every other day we make love also. And then generally once a week, we have, like, two or three hours where we make love. So we make love a lot, and we connect a lot, and it's awesome. And it makes it so that we're very stable, we're very in sync. We have no communication problems when we stick to it. When we don't, we. We have all the other problems that other couples have. And it's like, you can see it immediately, like when we. When we fall into the other. Because every once in a while we're like, oh, you know, it's going well, and let's just try again, you know, let's just see what an orgasm feels like. And then inadvertently, for two weeks, we can't hear it. Like, we can't hear what the other person is saying. Everything's triggering. It's like, what just happened. Like, we don't normally have problems, and all of a sudden now we have problems like what happened. And, I mean, I have enough experience to know what happened. You know, it's just my chemistry and. Yeah.

Wow. So. So do you never. When you're engaged in the act of lovemaking, there's not an orgasm that happens in the cuddling and the bonding method.

Ideally not. I mean, sometimes, you know, you will get too excited. But ideally, you learn to make love in a way where you're not missing anything, where you're very happy. Because when you make love in a more gentle way, your. Your genitals start to be more desensitized. And even just like this, like, feeling a penis and a vagina, the skin on each other inside basically, or on the outside starts to feel very, very pleasurable. Right. So the. The pleasure is not coming from the friction anymore. It's coming from the skin getting more sensitive. And it's almost like a more electrical charge that you start feeling, and your. Your entire body and your skin become more sensitive and more tuned into each other. And we're kissing, like, feels amazing, you know? Remember when you were a teenager and, like, kissing was like, oh, my God, you could see stop for hours, that kind of thing?

I do remember that, actually. Do you remember that? I've always been a big kisser, you.

Know, I mean, what you've just described, Carolyn, I Mean, the greatest definition that I've ever heard of intimacy is into me, you see. And so your definition right there is. To me, that's the greatest, you know, truly experience, not definition, but experience of what intimacy is. The all of me into you and the all of you into me.

Right.

I mean, come on.

And it's, and it's really an experience of oneness, you know, that, like, that you could just have. Where it's easy to have it and, and be on the same page and really feel through the. Because we're using the bonding chemicals, you really feel like a, a unit that's, you know, and, and you become, in a sense, very un indestructible as a.

Unit, you know, because of the bonding aspects of it. Right.

Well, you're validating my, my. I've threatened to write an article and you're.

Tell me, tell me, what is the article?

I mean, it's how this old fart makes love to his wife all night long. Well, and I'll keep it radio friendly, but I mean, if the skin is the largest organ on the body, right, and you're, you're our scientist here, then the more skin, I would sense that we can, you know, bondingly and safely press upon and integrate with our partner. Well, my goodness. I mean, talk about pheromones and bioscience and all kinds of wonderful things is happening. Well, that's, I mean, that's a very common practice with Stacy and I. I mean, my gosh.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, in just looking at our own life, we've stepped into this very naturally. And I'm contrasting right now. If I'm, if I'm hesitating, it's just because my little wheels are spinning here for our listeners. Like, okay, wow. I would say very much so. On the front side, when Tom and I came together, you know, the objective is and tends to be, you know, reaching orgasm. Like, that's that. And then we, we go, okay, we're done. And very, very quickly. And I'd never done this in my previous relationships before. It was completely intuitive. We ended up sleeping naked. And I've never done that before in any previous relationship. But I had this longing to do that with Tom so that we could, like, sync up and, you know, now, more than a decade later, I look so forward to that every single night. Like, it's the completion to my day. And I know that regardless of what's gone down in the day or what I've had to face, that. That wonderful place that I get to look forward to is. Is stepping into my bed. Unless we call it like, syncing up and we get to take our bodies and just kind of cuddle for a minute and we'll talk about the endings of the day. But, but there's a very specific position that he puts his arm around me and I hook my foot on his leg and, and it's just like, everything is right. Yes. It's like, oh, everything is right with the world right now.

Exactly. That's what, that's what I say. You know, I know that every, like when I'm there, then I know everything's. Everything is right in my world.

Like, but I mean, what a, what an incredible, you know, scientific confirmation again, if you can get science to work for you, right, Carolyn? My gosh, you're, you know, you're, you're incentivizing how we're designed.

Yes. And actually one of my clients yesterday shared. My clients know that I'm like, you know, I'm a nerd on this topic. And somebody found a study that the only hormone connected to longevity and you staying young is oxytocin. So there's, you know, there's a lot of benefits. Health benefits, energy benefits, you know. Yeah. Oh, wow.

We could get younger by having more oxytocin in our lives, right?

What, what sold me actually was I saw a video of Marnia when she was already in her 50s or 60s and she looked like a 19 year old. And I was like, I'm gonna, I need what she has. Like, she was blowing and like, oh.

My God, like, well, so as we kind of get ready to wrap up our conversation, we could talk about hours. I, I'm fascinating about this. I do want to give our listeners some places where, okay, if you want to explore this, right. If you want to try this on in your relationship, if you want to take the next step, could we give them like 1, 2, 3 steps to get started? Like, how do I start doing this in my relationship? And maybe I'm really kind of, no, we're at odds, or there's a bit of disconnection between us. How do I easily and simply start stepping into maybe exploring if this is something that would work for my relationship or not?

Yeah, definitely think, you know, reading the book, like, that's where it starts. Because you need to have a lot of scientific proof in order to kind of. When it gets to not, you know, stopping yourself or weeding yourself of or having orgasms, your, your, your unconscious mind will, will want to say things like, oh, you know, it's probably not that bad and you know, it won't matter and if you don't have the scientific knowledge, really like the book is a compilation of a lot of, lot of arguments for bonding based lovemaking, you know, so it really helps having that under your belt before you try it. And then in the book, Marnia has actually put together a 21 day kind of, she calls it the ecstatic exchanges. If you want to try this by yourself, I do not recommend trying this by yourself because of the subconscious stuff that's connected to all of that. So ideally, you know, read the book, see if it makes sense. If you really want to help find somebody like me, I do have a free training on my website that people can, can also go through to zoom to get a little bit more of, you know, how, how, how it would look like working with me. And I think you'll, you'll do yourself a favor by getting somebody to help you with this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you end up having somebody that kind of mentored you through the process?

Originally, no, but I've, I've made all, you know, it took me four years to really get it in a lot of heartache and trials and because I was also dating and single, you know, and you can only practice this when you have somebody. And how do you introduce this to somebody when you're like single? Right.

So, so, so how about this? How about, what do you find, you know, that is usually, you know, with one or the other, I probably, I would imagine, you know, when two people, a couple comes to you, husband, wife, partners come to you, what are usually the common objections, you know, that people, or even though maybe with the scientific research and evidence, what, what is it? Because they don't think it's possible, what you're, what you're describing, to have this euphoric kind of reset, if you will.

Yeah, that and then a lot of it. You know, a lot of women have autoimmune stuff and think that, you know, people think that they don't want sex because of their libido. And the libido is connected to the procreation based program. So once you get out of that, your body will start wanting and start responding and getting juicy again on its own. You know, but it's a, so oftentimes it's hormonal issues and people don't think that that would, you know, because they're older or have had babies or whatnot. You know, they don't think that it could be any different physically, you know, so that's. And I'm a naturopathic doctor, so I have a lot of experience with helping, you know, people naturally bring the hormones back and back in balance and, and for men too. You know, a lot of men struggle with, you know, they think they have low testosterone and. Yes, but for bonding based lovemaking, you don't need to have more testosterone. It's a, you know, you need testosterone for the, for the procreation program, but not for the bonding necessarily.

You bring up a really great point. And I'm, I'm, I'm really pretty passionate about not allowing this part of our lives to kind of, you know, just get set aside. And I think so many of us women think, oh, all right, good, we're done with that. Right? Let's. Now that we've had the kids and we're approaching 60 and I'm, I'm through menopause, we don't have to worry about any of that. And, and our intimate lives sexually kind of get put to the side.

Yeah.

And I, I think that we, we miss out on a lot of opportunity there, you know, for rejuvenation, for longevity, for brain health, for emotional health. Right. There's a lot of things that we don't realize. We're kind of setting to the side and.

Yeah, in my opinion, it's like setting parent, you can have paradise on earth and you're like, oh, I don't need that, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not for me. I, I don't need that. I'm 60 now. We're just gonna ride into the sunset.

Just gonna ask Carolyn, do you, Are you able to, like you say as you get, say, you know, cross over the age barrier of 60? Is that a place where, you know, you can help, you know, someone that steps in with you, you know, because again, I have no interest in that, you know, and for those of our children that are listening, please plug your ears. I'm just kidding. But you know, I mean that, that's, to me, that's just a bunch of junk. But I'm sure, you know, you, we see out there in societally, you know, you don't have the drive. No, maybe not. But doesn't, you know, I always say don't confuse performance, performance with pleasure, you know, I mean, come on, you may not have the same sperm count, for heaven's sakes, but it still doesn't lessen my drive for the pleasure and the connection, you know. Connection? Yes, the intimacy, you know, I mean.

To everybody that comes, you know, the men and women, they think that Sex is the way to connecting. And yes, it is when you do it in the right way. You know, we've just not been taught to connect in a way that feels actually super fulfilling physically and emotionally and spiritually. And men and women, what they truly want is connection, you know?

Yeah. Which is so true. It's not really about the sex or the orgasm. It's more about this deeper place, but I just don't know how to get there. I don't know how to access that. Yeah. And so tell us your routine again one more time so that we can kind of wrap our heads around it. Like, I love the cuddling part. Right. And when couples come to you to start this, I mean, are you just inviting them to, like, sit on the couch and cuddle or. Or in a place? No. Okay. All right, so back it up. Step one. Okay. Read the book. And when we talk about read the book, it's Cupid's right. Okay.

That's the book.

And give us the author one more time.

Marnier Robinson.

Okay, so I've read the book, and I'm like. And the book is going to give me, like, the outline. Step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Yeah.

And then we. When you work with us, we work on your subconscious. The energy work that I'm trained in, and I have a whole team that I've trained in is called Family Constellation. And it helps with shifting these subconscious programs around our attachment style. So if there's any wounding or trauma from you as a child that would not let you move forward into the bonding, because in your brain, that's not safe. We know how to do that. We know how to basically do, like, a. Yeah. Do the healing to reverse that so that your. Your subconscious actually allows you to move into that. And then we also have a community. You know, it's. It's because this is so new, it's super helpful to be with other couples that are, you know, figuring this out and trying this out. And, you know, for a lot of people, like, they have kids and jobs and, like, you know, how do you do it with. How do you integrate it? So part of how you'll be able to have a schedule like mine where, you know, you have lots of time in the morning, lots of time in the evening, and then throughout the week, actually, it comes from helping your subconscious release any kind of survival programs that make it so that you think subconsciously that you have to work hard to survive. Right. Because our time management has a lot to do with what we think we have to do subconsciously. If in our family you had to work hard and struggle and there was no fun, you're going to repeat it. You're just going to become a workaholic because that's the only thing that feels safe. So a lot of what we do with our clients is to help them reprogram all of that stuff so that it becomes, it can become safer and safer in their subconscious for them to actually work less and have more time. And they can see, you know, they actually start making more money in less time and all of a sudden their brains figure it out, you know, but it's a, it's a transition. It takes, you know, we work with people for a year to transition all of this.

Wow. And so, and that, and when you think about a year, you might go, wow, that's a long time. But let's think about how many years maybe we've struggled with this. Yeah, right, well, so then you're a.

Year, like, okay, you're bumping up against the very fundamental, like you had said, you know, I mean, some of these attachment styles come from when we're very, very small. So you're, we're talking many, many years of, of this, you know, programming that gets deepened and deepened and confirmed and confirmed. And now you have this bonding based, you know, process that, like, it's challenging everything in our fiber, you know, Exactly. Like, come on, man, like, let's get back to reality.

Yeah. And your, your energy work, the, the energy work that you do is, is helping us kind of shift our energy a bit so that we can kind of step into this.

Exactly.

And deal with the head screaming. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. And then having the other, having the other people in the community also helps, you know, and seeing it and getting reassurance and creating, in a sense, creating, you know, no experiences for yourself where you're confirming that this is actually safe and other people do it and it's safe for them. You know, they're not starving, they're not being on the street all of a.

Sudden, you know, and they had similar challenges when they first stepped into it as well. Because I think many times we often think we're the only ones that has that problem.

Right? Yeah.

So in a nutshell, then, bonding based lovemaking is a place where we get to bond physically. Right. And we might even have intercourse. But the idea is we don't need to reach orgasm because that's. Is that where our brains kind of cross the line in regards to the oxytocin release and the dopamine release? Do we have to Release dopamine in order to have an orgasm. The.

Or the feeling of orgasm. We only have that feeling because it's a dopamine release.

It's a high.

It's the only natural high that we can fabricate other than take, you know, otherwise we would have to take drugs to have that same experience.

Well, so is it, is it in. In bonding based lovemaking, is there places where it is okay to do that? Or do you find that everything that you've been working on for the long haul breaks down and you got to kind of start from scratch again because.

You have a totally different chemical cocktail all of a sudden? You know, once the, once the dopamine high happens and it takes the brain two weeks to get back to just neural state to normal.

Wow, two weeks. Seriously? It takes that long to burn off dopamine. And so how do we, you know, then I start to think about lifestyle and I know we're not going to be able to get into this in our two minutes or so that's left. But, but I start to think about all the places where we get dopamine hits throughout our lives. Right. It doesn't just happen in orgasm. So I mean, I can get a dopamine hit on. On Facebook or shopping or.

Yeah, yeah. And. And all those things generally do not foster connection, real connection, you know, so it is a detox. Like it's the entire detox process and coming back to yourself and what's real and real pleasure and getting pleasure from real things. But food, Food is also, you know, connected to. I mean, there's lots that's connected to it, but. Yeah, yeah.

Aphrodisiacs, you know, I. I mean. Oh, yeah.

I mean, this industry knows this, you know, and they use it to get us hooked in.

Yeah. Oh, for, for sure. And it's almost like you have to play in that world in order to even be able to rise above the noise. Right. As is where in the world in which we live in. And things are traveling so fast and more, more and more things are done online than they are face to face or in person through our text technologies. How do you see that playing out as we wrap up here?

Well, we're really on a mission to get people back to like, a more healthier way of living. Like, too much dopamine is just not good for us. It creates a lot of aggression, it creates a lot of violence. It creates a lot of misperception and lack. And so if we as a society can learn to as a whole, get off the whole Dopamine train and back to something more normal.

It will.

Will create a much peace, more peaceful world. That's what I believe.

I love that. And any. Let's. Let's do that sometimes. I love to do everybody take a takeaway, right? Like, what is the one thing that we want to leave our listeners with through our conversation today that maybe stood out to us individually or personally? So for Carolyn, I'll let you start. You know, what is something that you want people to remember and take away from our conversation and all that you've shared with us today that we can.

You know, truly have paradise on earth. And it just takes, like, doing things completely differently than most everybody. But, you know, it's never too late. Like, you can. Even if you're older or, you know, wherever you are, there is a way to shift this.

I love that. What about you, Ben?

Well, I would. Yeah. You know, it's what I just hear overwhelmingly screaming in my subconscious is, is. Slow down. You know, I mean. Yeah, I mean, that was so well said, Carolyn. We have so much coming at us and, and the amount of, of over. Over stimulation is, Is. Is literally off the chart. So, I mean, I mean, it's what we tell our clients. What do we do when we become a hot mess? What's the very first thing we share with them and teach them? Pause, breathe. Because we know from a science standpoint that's going to slow our brain down. We don't need anything to speed us up. I don't for having sex. Any of us do.

No. It's so true. And you kind of somewhat took mine, but. But it is this idea of being able to slow down and recognize and realize that intimacy happens in many forms, right? And holding and feeling close to somebody is oft times way more rewarding than any active sex that we could do. You know, I know when I work with couples, I. I have this practice touching each other because it's been so long, right? Just hold hands or sit close together, hug and, and just let that be enough. Right? And then, and then you can bring in, you know, maybe the kissing and those kinds of things. But. But like you said, it's always very slow and there's plenty of time to enjoy it. And I think that's a part too, where we don't really take the time to enjoy, you know, the touch of your hand or the kiss your lips on my lips and, and just really kind of soak that in. So, gosh, I would say, like, you did slow down and enjoy these precious things that we have in our lives and it can make a true difference in regards to not only helping us feel better but changing our chemistry. Now we know Carolyn.

So Carol, please share with with us and our listene listeners. Where can people you know find out more about you and your work?

Yeah, it's all on my website carolynhauser.com Carolyn is spelled C A R O L I N no e and then houser h a U-S-E-R.com it's been a pleasure here Carolyn.

I'm sure we can have you come back and we'll have many conversations about this. This is something, yes, this is something we offer to our listeners. You know, we're, we're all about helping you explore things that may or not may may not work for you. This is something that Tom and I realized, oh my gosh, we kind of just slipped into this intuitively. Carolyn, thank you so much for you and your words of wisdom today and the work that you do proves couples lives around the world, I'm sure. So have a beautiful week and we look forward to connecting with you again soon.

Thanks for having me.

We're going to take a quick break here, really short break and then we're going to come back with a little bit of fun called Follow the Fun. So take a breath and just think about slowing down, maybe taking a pause. Hi, I'm Stacey Bartley, the author of my new book Feeling Like Marriage is Dead. A Divorce Mediator's Guide to Ensuring a Lifetime of Love. In this book I integrate a no nonsense grip on reality with a compassionate understanding understanding of human behavior to provide you with a systemic approach to marital bliss that is easy to understand and implement in your life. Read this book to find out how to make marital magic happen. And you can do that by going to lifetimeoflove Me again. That's lifetimeoflove Me on the path to.

Good health and well being. Alternative Talk 1150 is the station for you.

Welcome back inside the love shack. Thomas Stacey Bartley. Time for a little bit of fun. What do we, what's the fun, Mrs. Bartley?

Yeah, you know, before we step into the fun, babe, I mean I really want to give a shout out to our listeners. Like if you need help and support with this right then, then now would be the time to do that. If you're feeling inspired by our conversation or you're feeling like you need help to even have this conversation or step into exploring these kinds of things, this is what we do.

Yeah, I would say the greatest thing that we know is people wait too long. I can't. If I had to tell you how many times people said, I wish have waited too long. And I just would also like to share with you. Raising your hand for help in a relationship does not mean the relationship is over. Rather, it's the very best thing you can do to take your next best step for you to understand how you and your relationship to get better.

Exactly. If you know that you're. You're wanting to face some of these challenges, maybe it's not, you know, horrible, but you know that you want to improve it even. Or if you know that you're on the brink of. Of things, you know, making some significant changes, you can feel it coming. These are places where, gosh, it's okay to raise our hands and get some help and support with that. So as we step into a bit of follow the fun today, I wanted to impress upon you that demonstrating your affection creates feelings of intimacy and romance as well. And what do I mean by that? This demonstration of affection means you get to pause for a moment. We've been talking a lot about that, and maybe appreciate somebody in your life. Hey. As they're walking out the door to say goodbye, I just want you to know I really appreciate you taking out the trash or fold the laundry, or I just really appreciate you taking care of the kids. That really means a lot to me. And I noticed. And yes, those things translate and make a huge difference in our lives.

Or a passionate kiss. Not a kiss like a little bit on the cheek or whatever as someone turns their head. No, just take that extra couple seconds. Literally. We just got through through with Carolyn. I mean, all these things cannot be underestimated. But, I mean, sometimes Stacy will literally stop me because I'm kind of a lot of times in a hurry and stop me and say, no, no, no, that didn't work. And take a few extra moments and please, I need a. I need a real kiss.

Plant one on me, baby. Slow it down a little bit. Or, you know, something that Tom is also good at, you know, in this demonstration of affection is he'll buy me little things. He'll. He'll pick up a pack of gum for, et cetera, because he knows I love this specific brand, you know, and this specific flavor, and he'll just slip it on the counter and I think, oh, you've thought of me today, and you remember, and, you know, and so gifts or the ideas of gifts in this demonstration of affection don't have to be big things either. They can be really little, simple Things that you just kind of slide in.

You know, And I'm thinking, or, you know, a note. Like a note. Just a little note. And something authentic and genuine and heartfelt that you can maybe where, you know your partner is going to see it. Like Stacy, sometimes I'll, you know, I place one the mirror, you know, and I've left before. I know she has gotten up or somewhere in his or her car or somewhere in the kitchen. I mean, again, we're talking microseconds here, but way, way powerful, powerful demonstrations of our appreciation and love for our partner.

And. And this is a big one. And this one came up with some of my clients this week where he says, you know, honey, I don't like weddings. And as family and friends have gotten married here over the last year. So I've refused to go with, we have a family wedding coming up. And you know what? I'm gonna go and we're gonna have a great time. Like, you're gonna see me show up in a way I never had before. And it was cute for me to watch the. His wife was like, oh, man, what is this?

What does this look like?

You know, this is a whole new version of. Of you. And. And what we're getting at here is even saying, hey, I'm gonna go and do something that I know my partner loves to do, and I'm gonna show up in a way that isn't like, how soon can we get this over with? How soon can we leave? This is so stupid. This is just horrible. I can't wait to get out of here. No, no, no. If you were to turn that around with a little bit of time and a pause, how could you contribute to the experience and allow your partner to really enjoy it? You may not be enjoying it, but what could you contribute to make and help them enjoy it as well? And maybe you're really good at that. I know that I drag you out to a lot of things and you.

Do a really great job of just.

Kind of rolling with it.

So as we land, as we do every single episode, if, you know, if you've been listening and thank you if you have. Is it. We always have. What are you feeling? Because we. We. Because why? Because we're. We love music. Because music touches us, touches us emotionally. Touches to the feeling side. So what are we feeling this week?

Well, I mean, the only time. I know, I know. And actually this song was a reminder to me from my wonderful engineer, Eric Ryder. This behind the scenes right now. Eric, there was an episode that we did quite Some time ago where you said, hey, I don't know why you didn't think of Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye. And so when we had the conversation about, you know, love based bonding, I thought, oh, it's sexual healing, baby. That's. That's what we all need. And so that's our song this week. You know, Sexual Healing is available to us all. Sexual healing is something that we can step into however we choose to. Bonding based lovemaking is just, just one option for that. But I love how he says, I can't hold it much longer. Right? I. It makes me stronger. It makes me feel so fine. So, you know, you can, you can listen to this song along with all of our songs from each and every episode on our website. It's been a pleasure to be here with you this week as it is always. We hope that you've taken something away from our conversation today. Something to give you to think about, something to get you to feel. Come on back next week and if this episode has helped you or you feel inspired to pass it along, please do so. We're Thomas Stacey Bartley, host of Love Shack, along with our wonderful engineer, Eric Reiter. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

We will see you same time, same place next week. Thanks again.

Bye bye for now.

Thanks for joining us today in the Love Shack. We hope you came away with something that made your toes tingle. To learn more about everything you heard on today's show, go to stacybartley.com podcast Love the Show. Help us spread the love by sharing the show with others. Okay, everybody, time to go. We gotta close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week, though, and join us for another edition of Love Shack Live with Tom and Stacy Bartley.