John Wineland: Your Guide To Masculine & Feminine Polarity | Wellness Force #Podcast

John Weiland, welcome to Wellness Force.

Thank you, Josh. Good to be with you, man.

You know the question that came up for me this morning, which was radical? It was this question of the dao. I was in my meditation in my new place. I just moved to a new place, and it was something that was bookmarked in a book that I read last night. And it's perfect because you just posted about it this morning, and it was the Great Dao Flows Everywhere. This is. This is a total synchronistic moment for me. I literally just listened to an Alan Watts video this morning. I read this yesterday, and it was the Great Dao Flows Everywhere. All things are born from it, yet it doesn't create them, and it doesn't lord it over them either. And you. Your voice, the way that you've created over the past 20 years, the way that you've led men and women, and just the conversation, John, about what it actually means to be in polarity, to have a dynamic, rich life. You don't lord it over people. And I think you're a representation of the dao. So thank you for coming on the show, man.

Thank you. Yeah, no, that was. I hadn't. I hadn't picked up the dao in a few days, and I picked it up this morning and posted something on Instagram about it. So it's funny that we're in sync, man.

I mean, and Alan Watts is one of my greatest teachers. If there was one person I could interview who's passed, it would be him, because the knowledge this man had. And there is something to say about intelligence. I was mentioning this to you before we jumped on the show. Intelligence is not how smart you are. And I'm curious how you would even see this in your world, where you're working across the world with men and women about how to embody lessons so they're physically integrated into the body. How would you define intelligence when it comes to men's work and women's work? Like, what does that actually mean to you? To be intelligent in oneself?

Yeah. You know, I use the term awareness, right? So for me, it's emotional intelligence is really just an awareness practice. Like, I'm aware that there are sensations in my body that may have feelings, and there may be grief, there may be anxiety, there may be love, maybe turn on. Like. So awareness is something that, you know, intelligence, we tend to think of something that you either have or don't. Right. You know, you have an iq. You have. You know, awareness is absolutely something that can be trained, sharpened, deepened Heightened, sensitized. And so we all have the capacity to become more emotionally aware, both of ourselves and of the people that we're with. Right. If we pay attention and we. We. You know, we kind of get out of our minds. So we have. I'll just break it up one step further, which is we have a mind awareness, which is more shallow, quite frankly, because it tends to come from habitual thinking. Yeah. And then we have a heart awareness or a body awareness. And, you know, some would argue we have a heart awareness, gut awareness. I just kind of considered a body awareness. And. And they're different. So. Yeah. So I kind of look at emotional intelligence in the realm of embodiment as mind, body awareness, and sensitivity.

The cool thing about this, I remember seeing a video a while back, and it's actually one that I bookmarked for our conversation. It was an IGTV clip. You talked about habitual thoughts, the monkey mind. John. Like, we all fall into this category. Specifically. I'll just speak from the concept of a man. I ident as a masculine core. I have a female partner, so that's how I identify. Anyone can identify how they choose.

Right.

But that's just how I'm identifying. And I want to say that as a caveat, because I actually had someone write into Wellness Force, and they said, how come you mentioned men and women on your podcast but you don't mention any other ors? And at first, I was taken aback. I was like, what do you mean? We're all men and women from a biological perspective. And this person was like, well, what about if we're a man, but we identify as a woman? And back and forth. And before we even dive into my question about habitual thoughts, how do you deal with this, where people will say, how come you're not identifying the percentage of the population that identifies different than their biological origin? How do you deal with that?

Well, I don't. I don't. I don't necessarily address that, because that's more identity driven. Yeah, I. You know, which is fine. Totally. Like, whatever your identity is, it's great. Like, yeah, transgendered, queer, lesbian, gay. I don't. I have no opinion really on that. It's. It's great. It's all great. But within every human being, there is a masculine. There's a masculine energetic, and there's a feminine energetic. Now, the person that you just mentioned seemed to be a human being who had a male body. But. But the core of this person was feminine.

Yeah.

Right. Like, the highly feminine energetic doesn't mean that, that they don't have also a masculine capacity, even though they identify as feminine. And so once people can get out of the gender politics or gender charged gender arena, most of us get like, yeah, yeah, we have a. There's a part of me that is still an unchanging, and then there's a part of me that's always changing. One is my masculine, one is my feminine. And then in between is a massive spectrum of possibility. And I think most people get that.

The reason I ask is because this person was offended that I used the text men and women and that I didn't say men, women and other. And so this is a challenging topic because, you know, Jordan Peterson talks about this. He was lambasted. There's many people, our mutual friend Connor Beaton being one of them, where we've had conversations about how do we be inclusive with our language so that all are accepted and all are loved. For me, it just seems very easy that it's the masculine and feminine. But also too, John, you know, there is this concept that we are born with a certain type of biology. We're half beast, half spirit. How do we honor the both? Like talking about the beast and acknowledging the spirit's expression.

Yeah, Well, I just think, you know, I think that you bring the intention. I try to bring the intention because I'll teach a lot. I teach a lot of workshops, and in these workshops I'll be talking about masculine and feminine. So I try to just be really open, like, however you identify. Right. Like you could be a man identifying as a feminine being. You could be a. You could be a woman identifying as a masculine being. And however you identify is fine with regards to this work. Yeah. So I just try to keep it super light, you know, because people can get people. I think when people get offended, it's because somebody's identity is getting challenged. Yeah. And. And that kind of thing I don't want to get into because, you know, that would be like me, like, identifying as a teacher. You don't respect me. I mean, however you identify. Yeah, great. But don't be militant about it.

Wow. You know, that's so beautiful. Thank you for that reflection. Because I felt as if this person was almost attacking the credibility of the chauffeur. And I was, I was taken aback because the first time it's happened, and of all people, the way that you do teach, because you teach in so many different ways, when it comes to people's beliefs and their beliefs about sexuality, their beliefs about polarity, like their core beliefs about what it is to just be a human. And this post that I was mentioning to you earlier, it was a habitual thoughts. You said patterns are not our fault. They were installed when we were young. Yet they are a loving responsibility to heal as an adult. I mean, mic drop right there. Because that is our loving responsibility to heal these things. Yet sometimes, John, we feel, and I felt in my life, that if the body is sick or if the mind is sick or if we're being a slave to the physicality of ourselves, that spiritual intuition, that understanding can't really come through. Can you open that up a little bit?

Yeah, Well, I think. I think for. For masculine beings, masculine identified beings, if. Let's look at it this way, let's think of masculinity and femininity. I'm sure you've heard me talk about this before, but let's think about them as transmissions. And the masculine in me is a transmission of consciousness. Depth, stillness, emptiness, clarity. Right? Like the kind of. The kind of traits that really are kind of universally recognized as masculine traits. Right. The more that my body is tuned to transmit those meaning, the more that my body. I have a strong. I have a strong posture, I have a relaxed breath, I have a. There's a stillness in me even if I'm moving, the more that that transmission can come through. So we can be sick? Yeah, we could be sick in our thoughts, we could be sick in our bodies. But even through that kind of crumpled up, you know, limitation, consciousness can still come through. Right? So, like, you know, I could be. I could be a, you know, Stephen Hawking, for example, is a great example of this. Right? I could be Stephen Hawking. My body is definitely, you know, not working properly or not transmitting properly, but I could still, and I imagine he does, I've never met him, transmit depth and consciousness just through that. So I think that we have, you know, unpacking something like that means we need to separate out the therapeutic approach to healing versus the yogic approach to being with our environment or another human being. Or like, I don't need to change anything to be consciousness and love. I just am. So are you. So is any human being. Like, at our core, the feminine in us is love, infinite, unchanging love. And at our core, consciousness. I don't need to change anything. However, if I want that to be felt in the world, like, if I want my consciousness to be felt in the world or if I want my love to be felt in the world, I have to do yoga, meaning I have to open my body, not the Kind of yoga. Most people.

Yeah. Not core yoga.

Yeah, not core power yoga, but breath, relaxation, certain postures, maybe certain movements so that those things are felt. And that's a key distinction. Nothing needs to change for me to be perfect. I'm perfect, you're perfect. We're all perfect as we are. But for my perfection to be felt, I. There's a ton of work that needs to be done. Yeah. Because our thoughts will take over, our body, mind limitations will take over, our patterns will take over. And most of those, like I said in that post, we didn't choose, you know, we didn't.

And you, you chose a way different route. Because in preparing for this conversation, I know that, like, it was only in your 30s and 40s that you really, you write this. You, you really looked at what it took to embody and live a trustable, deep and authentic masculine life. You found mentors early. But your mentors, your parental examples, much like mine, and much like many men who now are kind of catapulted into this path, you didn't exactly receive the intelligence and the nourishment from an emotional or physical level that that would have for most people. They would have thought, oh, well, this person must have received some kind of coaching early on in life to be able to do what they do. But that was not the case for you. Like, there was an absence there. There was, there was a gap that, that you have filled in a father archetype within yourself. Can you take us to a little bit early in your life so that we can understand, like, the core and the ethos of John Weinland?

Yeah, I mean, you know, the, the. Without getting too in boring detail, the, you know, my dad left when I was young, 18 months. My grand. Both my grandfathers, for some strange reason, died when I was five. Both. So I was. And I had no true model of what it was like to be a healthy, to be a healthy masculine. You know, my grandfather was an alcoholic. He died of cirrhosis. My dad, you know, was off, you know, was kind of a hippie traveling the world. So I had none of that. And then I, when I, but what happened to me that I consider real kismet is that my mom became a Buddhist when I was seven. And so I was introduced to kind of a spiritual, masculine principle early on. And so the Buddhist, the, the, the, the, the. The man who ran this Buddhist organization that I still practice today was a very deep, intelligent, committed, faithful man. And he became the first masculine I really ever recognized. So although you're right, I didn't get any coaching. You know, looking back, I realized that my first role model When I was 6 or 7 was this guy who was dedicated to Buddhism and dedicated to human revolution and became a very deep role model for me.

Wow. I have to blink my eyes fast on this one because my dad left home early. And looking back, do you see this with yourself and even in many others in your field, that in order to receive this transmission of light and the way that you speak your truth, you had to go through some kind of contrast of darkness or some kind of contrast of absence? Do you think that nature always needs that vacuum?

You know, that's a tough question. I don't know if. I mean, I do believe in polarity and I do believe in duality. So I would say the short answer of that is yes. Yeah. And I do think. I do believe in karma. Right. So I think we're born into a. We're incarnated into a life, right? And that life has parents and environment. And then the question that we have to continue to ask ourselves as we get older is, how do I want to make art with this body, this mind, these parents, this relationship, karma, this financial karma, this mission karma? And. And so that has been the way that I've approached this, where I've said, like, I. There's certain karmas that I want to live through and I want to refine. I want to. I don't even really think about shedding them so much as more like transmuting them into goodness. And so I feel like that I certainly had that with my daughter, who was very sick and ended up dying last year. And that was a real karmic experience. There's no. I didn't ask for that. She didn't ask for that. Nobody created that. But that I do believe that the karma that we're dealt provides an opportunity, which I think is the basis of your question, provides an opportunity for us to express the divine.

So in that divine expression sometimes can be really challenging for people that possibly haven't done the work. I mean, let's be honest, like, you. You did so much work, John, and my heart, just like when I learned about your story and our mutual friend Luke Story had attended one of your workshops, and he'd share with me, and then, you know, as fate would have it, I realized that she did a TEDx talk right here in Cardiff, where I live, and it was about, don't wait to be healed to serve humanity. Like, you don't need to wait until you're healed. And I just. It brings me to this question, even with what you're saying about karma and John, we're in such a great mystery here. We're in such a massive mystery, this life on planet Earth. And like you had said, we're just living it out and we're, we're sometimes living it through karmic lines. My question to you is, with, with everything that happens for us or karmically or whatever it is, don't you believe that it's the degree of our emotional intelligence and our training in who we actually are that allows us to withstand the waves of this thing?

Yeah. Yes, I do. And, and yet some of that, even with the deepest emotional intelligence, even doing the deepest practices on it, if you, we did, you and I could do two to three hours of practices that would expand our intelligence, our emotional intelligence, our awareness, our mind body awareness, our capacities, right? We could become ninja, right? And still get hit by a bus or still fall in love with, with somebody that crushes our heart and takes. Steals all our money or, you know, I mean, like, so there's, There's a certain level of. There's a certain level of. I think there's this. The way that I'm trying to look at it now is there's a certain level of. Detachment from form that is a key to my masculine practice. And my teacher talks about this a lot, David talks about this a lot. That the masculine, the real masculine capacity, man or woman, the masculine in all of us, is a. An awareness of form without an attachment to form. And so my work has been, how do I, especially with Claire, which is that. How do I just kind of allow form to, you know, Claire arose in my life and then she was gone. Women and men, friends come into life and then they leave and money comes and goes, A plane comes and goes, and this moment comes and goes. And so part of our, Part of my depth, I would hope, is my ability to just not get attached to any of it. And I think that makes me. Because you mentioned emotional intelligence, I think that makes me more intelligent. Again, I'll use the term aware because I really do think, yeah, you know, it makes me more aware if I can stay in that zone.

It's such a powerful answer. It makes me think about all the work I've done to get here, to actually have a valuable exchange with you. Because nine years ago, I was sitting around a campfire, somebody gave me the way of the superior man. And I was like, what is this? I actually made fun of it, truthfully, when I First saw it, just like all truth, it goes through three stages, right? First it's ridiculed. Well, I ridiculed Data's work heavily before I dove in. And then once I dove in and I started to feel things that I'd never felt, I went through a spiritual purge of some sorts of where I had to like, let parts of my brain and beliefs die. I mean, it was a, it was a scary death too. I mean, career changes, relationship changes, like, boom, just hitting me to my knees. And I got to this point where I realized, oh, it's actually the acceptance and the surrender of doing this work for the rest of my life without having the pre frame that my work has to be white knuckled and so challenging. Like, yes, there's going to be times where this work is hard, but can I just commit to doing the work and surrender to it as a life path? I think that has been valuable for me. And do you find that you attract people like that with that type of lens?

Well, I checked all kinds. And I think men, just men in general, we want a fix for something, something in the world, right? We want more money, we want to live deeper purpose. We want great relationships and great sex. And so to be honest with you, man, most men show up on my doorstep, not like, I want to know God, they're not coming to me, they're not coming. They're like, I want more of this and I want to do this better. And I want. Right, so. And I want to fix this, I want to fix this, some version of that. However, what I try to teach them is that nothing, there's no strategy for success in relationships, in the world, in life. Like depth. And depth is the depth. Adapt into the moment, adapt into your core, adept into your body. Like, really, depth is the most magnetic thing on the planet for, for a mat, for a masculine being, a feminine being, it's a little different. So. So, you know, I, I think when men hear that, when men feel that in practices, for example, when we do practices, when men feel that something wakes up in them, that that is the thing that I'm looking to work with. Like, you know, I could, I could care less whether they. It's not true. Of course I care about their missions and their relationships, but that's not the end. That's not the end game. The end game is depth. Then all of the other stuff will kind of transmute through that. Depth.

When you say depth, though, I mean, what exactly are you talking about? Because we could go all the way to the bottom of the ocean and possibly drown. So how much depth is real for that works for this 3D. And how much depth guides us to the top of the mountain wearing a white robe, where we're just being within ourselves and not sharing our gifts? I mean, there's a balance there, right?

Well, yeah, and that balance is tantric practice, right? So if I'm. If I'm just. You know, I could go to a cave and I could, you know, meditate. I could turn my awareness in and I could feel in for the core of me. And I could look forever and I would probably. I'd feel it. I'd probably. In fact, I do that part of my meditation is I'll feel the core of me that's infinite and unchanging. And I'll just spend time in that. And it's fucking blissful, man. Like, I'll live there for an hour at a time. But I'm not much good to the world there. However, if I bring that tether, if I tether to that part of me that is infinite and unchanging, and then I have a conversation with somebody, or I make love, or I coach a client, or I lead a workshop, or I go to Whole Foods, right? And I stay tethered to that part. Then the depth that I've cultivated in my personal practice becomes part of my body, becomes my embodiment into the world. And that's something that people feel, and that's something that relaxes people's nervous system. And that's something that gives. That actually ripples out into my environment and makes people feel good for the most part, right? So when I'm talking about depth, I'm talking about our capacity to be with the deepest part of this moment, right? The deepest part of this moment. The part of this moment that is. That is both form and formless. And to feel it as deeply as possible while having the conversation. And I think that that's. That is something that most men, when they hear, they're like, fuck, yeah. Like, that's freedom.

Yeah.

To me. To me, that's freedom.

Yeah. Bring it on. Bring me more of that, man. I'm visualizing an anchor that's connected to that bottom of the ocean. That we can always drop whenever we want, just as we choose. There's a part. There's a deep part of me that I think for a long time was so afraid, John. To go down to the waters. Cause there was some scary shit down there. You know, Letting go of porn. 25 years in my life, it took me to Let go of porn. And, you know, even longer than that to let go of negative belief systems. And negative belief systems, like you had said, they're installed. Do you have a sense, though, in all your work and all your workshops, that a lot of times they're installed, possibly second or third generation? In other words, do you have an understanding scientifically or just anecdotally about past life integration, like our grandfather's lessons that we're learning in our lifetime?

Yeah, they've proven this. It's called epigenetics. Right. And so, yeah, epigenetics. Epigenetic trauma absolutely transfers generation to generation. We have in our DNA the stored trauma of our mothers and grandparents. It's already proven. So. So, yeah, so that's part of the karmic lineage. The way that I try to address that with people I work with, men and women, is are you wanting to take responsibility for changing the karma of your lineage seven generations back, all the generations forward? Right now you have the awareness and the resources to literally open through that karmic habit. Let's say porn, for example. Let's use that, since you brought it up. Right. So a man might have in his nervous system that imprint of sexual objectification, or whatever you want to call it, sexual objectification or. Or distracting himself through sex. Right. And ejaculation. Right. Whatever it is, I have no judgment. I fucking done it. You know? I mean, like, I don't know. Man who hasn't had a bout with porn.

Sure.

So.

So.

If he takes that on and literally has to be with those impulses, that anxiety, the stuff that actually comes up before he engages in porn or he engages in porn, but not from a place of closure and shame, but from a place of openness and proudly sharing his heart and his cock with the world. He's changing his karma in that moment. And he's not only changing his karma, but I believe, because I'm. This is how I'm wired. I'm a Buddhist. I believe he's changing the lineage, the karma of his lineage. His son will not have that. If he does that enough times and he really installs it into his nervous system, his son won't have that same relationship to sexuality. He'll have a healthier relationship to sexuality. His son's son, hopefully, will have a sex. A healthier relationship to sexuality. So when I'm working with people in relationships, I kind of pull this card on them, and it really helps them feel that this moment ripples. Ripples. And so how we show up in this moment and what we take on in this moment. We do have responsibility to, like, do the deepest work we can right now. So, you know, because we're at a crucial fucking place in history, right?

Yeah. Wow. What do you feel, if you feel into that crucial place? Because, man, I've talked about this a lot in the past couple of weeks especially. I feel like we are being. If we. If humanity was an almond tree, John, we're being shook so hard right now that all the almonds that aren't connected to source are just disintegrating. How would you describe the actual place? We're at this nexus of like old school ivory tower, kind of the dark side of the patriarchy, which I don't think all patriarchy is terrible. I just think that there is some darkness there and. And then it overlaps into this new paradigm where we're all understanding who we actually are, that we are this maybe formless piece you're talking about. Where exactly are we, dude, in humanity's evolution right now?

Well, we're at a crucible, right. We're at a crucible where we could go. There could be an expansion consciousness. And I tend to believe that there's an expansion of consciousness coming. But like you said earlier, it would be naive to think that there's not a corresponding darkness. And I think that there's both. When you think of the autocracies in the world, you know, without getting into politics, the patriarchal leaders, that more than one major country has the three biggest countries, I would say, yeah, you know, when we think about that, there's a corresponding. And it's part of the reason why my work is about masculine leadership. Right. Like, so what does it mean to lead from a place of healthy, sacred masculine energy? And. And I believe that. I believe that men are hungry for that. And I believe that there's enough of a. There's like some. There's a momentum shifting. And that's why my. You know, I was like, men's groups, like, that's a mechanism for delivering depth. Men's groups, deliver. Deliver. They're like a. Like a portal to the divine. Yeah. You lead men's groups or you're in men's groups. You know what I'm talking about? So. So I think that. I think that both are happening simultaneously, and I think that both will happen and they'll be this kind of just like there has been for all of time.

Yeah. The differentiating factor, though, and I'm curious how you feel about this is right here in our hand. Dude, this has never existed. You Know this cell phone, like my ability to consume, assume your wisdom and the things that you put out, the conscious content has 50x because I'm able to just do it while I'm at sprouts getting some food, and I can watch you on Instagram. Like, that's the world we live in now that hasn't existed before. So the exp. The exponential possibility of light pouring in has never been greater, yet equally, there's never been as much space for darkness to fill as well.

Like I said, they're just like two. They're brother trees. Right. And. And, you know, I. I don't know. I certainly. I certainly, you know, worry about this. But ultimately it's. It's form. Right. And. And so ultimately all the physical world is the feminine. Everything that's changing in this moment, everything that's changing in the world is the feminine and the. It. Ultimately it's form. Yeah. And so. And so at some point, I have to. I have to. This is just me personally. At some point. At some point, I have to detach and just witness it, feel it, and wait for some impulse to come through me.

We had a question from someone in the Wellness Force community named Faith. And she said, john, when. When I understand in the integration of darkness, especially in sexual realms, it goes with what we're talking about, with due the duality. How do I do this? How do I understand and integrate the darkness, especially in sexual realms?

Well, because I'm not speaking to specific kinds of darkness. And I mean, I talked to, you know, our friend Madeline about this a lot about Taboo. And the basic rule, if there is a rule, really is about. Is about bringing darkness through the heart. So darkness, that's the cleansing force, the purifying force, the clarifying force, is the heart. And so bringing darkness through, adding. It's more like adding love to darkness. So we're all angry. You know, Maya Angelou talked to you. If you're not angry, that something wrong with you. So we're all angry. We're all angry. We're all heartbroken to some degree. We're. We're all grieving. We're all, like. We're all dealing with these, you know, what we would call darker emotions or deeper emotions. We all lust. We are animal. Right. We're all lustful. We're all primal. Right. We all want to, you know, rip each other's throats out in some way.

Sure.

We want to fuck each other to death in some way.

Right.

There's parts of this is, you know, we got to own These things.

That's a beautiful part of being a human man.

Totally, totally. And so the problem with dark sexual energy is when we literally don't make that connection between the heart core and the lower extremities, especially the genitals, when we don't make that connection, when our heart is closed and we get angry. You can add love to anger, and all of a sudden it's very sexy. You can add love to grief, or you can add. You can add love to virtually any dark sexual energy. And it becomes. It becomes a purified, intoxicating, healing experience. And I've seen this now, literally, people get healed now. If they're just in a. If they're just bringing the light, it's nice and it's sweet, right? If they're just bringing the light energy from the heart up, let's say at the top of the heart, you know, the bottom of your heart has a very dark, rich energy. It roots into the ground. The top of your heart has a very light energy if you feel the difference. So if you're just bringing the top of the heart, it's great, it's sweet. But it doesn't have, like. Doesn't have the power. So you need the dark to amplify the light.

That's one of the coolest explanations I ever heard. It's almost like the roots of the bottom of the heart, literally like a tree go screw into the ground, which gives us that kind of magnitude, power that. That veracity. But then at the top of the heart, there's all these buds, like flowers opening up, you know, and those are sweet to smell like, stop and smell the roses. But make sure we're connected to the ground at the same time. That's what I'm getting from your share.

Totally, man. It's actually part of my meditation that I do and that I teach. Like root, because, you know, the bottom of your heart has a root. We'll just get into a tiny bit of yoga here. So the bottom of your heart looks like it has a point. And that point, it just so happens, is pointing straight down to your genitals, through your genitals to into the earth. Right. So you root that part of your heart and your legs and your genitals and all of that can root into the earth. I like to think about it like, the tree starts with the upper heart, and so everything is rooted except the upper heart. And then you put those two things together and you become a literal bridge between heaven and earth. So. And it's just a qigong way of doing it, but sure. But yeah, I think it's part of the practice.

Looking back on your journey, 10 years with data, another 20 years, it seems like maybe even more than that. In the Buddhist teachings and philosophies, what is something you can share with us, man, that we can know is true for you? Something that you've healed? Maybe it was a blocked energy pathway or a limiting belief of some sort of. Is there one that surfaces right now when you think, wow, it brings me so much joy and happiness to know that I healed that part of myself?

Well, because we were talking about dark sexual energy, I'll just. I'll share a little bit about my. My journey, right? Most guys who grew up in the 80s and 90s, right, we were taught to be, you know, I'm older than you, but we were taught to be nice guys. Like, we weren't taught to own our fierce kind of primal sexual selves, right? And so our killers, David would call them, right? Like our killers. And so for me, this journey of actually really connecting to the killer in me, the wild man in me, and then being able to see what. How it's healed the women that I've been with sexually, you know, most of them in monogamous relationships, right? Seven years, three years. That sexual energy that I had denied and didn't quite know how to access, once I learned how to access it, it actually became a healing force for my partners that I would have never seen coming. Like, no idea that that dark would actually heal something in them, very deep.

How does that work? How does that work really? I mean.

Well, it's very. It's very unique. It's very unique. So let's say, for example, that. Oh, let me think of one that is not too personal. Say, for example, a. Okay. Say, for example, a boy gets caught masturbating, right? Like, so he's masturbating. He's 12, he's 13. He's masturbating. His mother comes in and catches him and then shames him for it, right? So there's this wound around the. Around this, this. His sexuality, right? As he. Let's say he came into a sexual yoga yogic experience, he could be healed by. Actually, he doesn't even have to masturbate. He just has to sort of kind of imagine it and maybe be with part of the practice. But instead of shame, if he has a group of practitioners, men and women or whoever, around him, witnessing him in love in that experience, it transmutes that shame to an opening and a healing and Something very deep, a shame that he's carried, maybe his whole life can be healed. Does that make sense?

It does.

The essence of sexual yoga, that's why each person's trauma, like part of the sexual yogic practice, is to kind of hone in on, on an individual's trauma and then create, kind of create a art, like a healing art piece.

Yeah.

That can be practiced in a super safe container that liberates them from that shame.

Oh my God, so much that that's an entire podcast right there. So I don't know how in depth we can go there because there's a lot else I want to cover with you. But, but I almost can visualize water when you're talking about like the shame element of a 13 year old feeling like, oh my God, masturbation is wrong. I'm shameful. I should be ashamed of myself. That to me feels like the energy of constriction and chaos and fear. So just like anything, chaos is always trying to find order in some way. Right. Sodium, potassium, gravity, it's all trying to find order. So what I was feeling when you were sharing was like, if water is trying to find gravity's way for it to flow, then when it comes to sexual healing, how could a man's energy heal a woman in that way? Like, how could a man being his full warrior, actually heal a woman? How does that work?

Well, it goes back to the energy of the heart. Right. So he's being a warrior for the sake of liberating her heart. That makes sense. Like she's kinked in some way. You could take an example of a woman who, you know, who, for some, who got, who got spanked or slapped around or, you know, physically punished when she was young.

Yeah.

Many women like that actually grow up to have fantasies about getting dominated. And right now that could turn to a pathology, right, where it actually she recreates that in a way. She picks abusive boyfriends or, you know, things like that. And it could be a pathology or it could be done with like, like with the most tender, loving heart. And that's the yoga. Now this is, you know, don't try this at home, kids kind of thing. Right. Because this is stuff that I've been trained in for a long time that my teacher was trained in for years and years and years. But creating those containers where these, these, these karmas can be transmuted through sexual energy because sexual energy is the most powerful energy in the human body. Right. It's very, it's magic, man. It's, it's it's sexual magic. And I think it's one of the things that I fell in love with right away about David's work and about this, you know, about sexual yogic work.

I remember at the start of my entrepreneur's path, I read Think and Grow Rich, and he had a whole chapter man, sexual transmutation. Right. Like the most. And he said it too. The most powerful energy in the universe is sex. Energy, life, creation, self, life create, life, creating itself. I mean, that's. There's nothing more power. It's what motivates masses. It's what. It's what causes wars. It's. It's the fuel for power itself. Right. And so I can only imagine now with this real conversation you're having about polarity and intimacy, the feedback and even sometimes, dude, the pushback that you're getting from societal norms, like, what's one of the things that comes up for you? Who are your biggest critics right now? And how can we send them? Compassion for the truth.

Yeah, I don't know. Luckily, I'm just under the radar enough that I don't have. I don't know. I'm not aware of who they are. But I think the pushback I get, normally, Much of it will come from women, and much of it comes from the part of women, because I lead women's programs and I lead women's workshops and I lead. Right. Women have been taught to step up and take the lead in their lives for great reason. Right. Because they should have. Because hopefully they'll be running the planet. Because absolutely, women should be leading their own lives in very deep ways. So women have been taught this skill for the last 50 years. However, in relationship, if they want to attract the masculine in their partner, be it a man or a woman or however somebody identifies, if they want to attract the masculine, they have to relax that leadership so that their partner can take the reins and lead for that moment. Not everything in their life, not every area, but in the sexual and intimate moment, so they don't have to make a fucking decision so they can surrender, so they can open. And when women are both intoxicated by that idea and terrified by that idea. And so most of the time, when I get pushback from women, it's because they have a knee jerk. Like, what do you mean? Like, what do you mean, I should let him lead? What do you mean? I should be helpless? Sacredly. What do you mean I should. And that's kind of the. That's where I have to have a lot of compassion. Because you know, just like men are learning to own the part of themselves that would rip her throat out for love. Right? Women are learning and it's terrifying for them, for good reason, to surrender their hearts wide open for love. And it takes a lot of courage.

Wow, I just got a full body chill. Cause in every relationship I've had these dynamics on of learnings arise. And in this relationship, my life partner, I feel the polarity is consistently something that I'm tending to like a garden. I mean, every day is a new journey. And there's a part of me that's like almost a cry, feeling grateful for it. And then there's another part of me that's like, damn, I'm balancing entrepreneurship and my clients and my work and my health and my community and this relationship. And sometimes I think that the younger man inside of me would wish it was easier, he wishes it would be easier. But the all knowing observer, the guy who's with you right now, is like, bring it, you know, like, bring it on. Like, I want to be able to satisfy all these demands and be the rock, you know? And in your workshops, you teach this. Like, there's many components of being the rock, of being that trusting anchor, you know, to go back to the ocean analogy. But what are the beginning steps of this? I mean, if a woman is listening or if a man is listening and they want to cultivate more of that masculine essence where they can handle it all, you know, and have fun and enjoy the damn process. Where's the beginning step of that?

Well, it's almost always in a personal practice, and the personal practice usually starts with breath. 99 of men in the world do not breathe into their lower abdomen. I didn't. Right. Yeah. And so just to give them a very simple exercise, just put your hand below your navel and take three minutes and breathe into the palm of your hand. Just belly rising, belly falling. Everything will slow down, everything will drop, everything will get more still and you'll be more trustable and you'll feel better. Takes 2 minutes, 3 minutes. So for men, I think it's really about connecting to breath and connecting to stillness, because men are nourished. Actually, dopamine is created in our system, which is the precursor to testosterone when we sit in alert stillness. That's why for tens of thousands of years, we sat around a fire with other dudes, basically just hanging out. Like, not a lot of talking. Yeah, it's a lot of, like, if you get a bunch of guys together now, there's not a lot of talking. You know, I mean, they're a bar maybe, but, you know, you put them out in nature. You put them on a boat, right on a porch, and they'll just sit there and fucking stare at the ocean. Maybe two, you know, you know, and, and that's because that's how we were set up. So I think that the, you know, David said the masculine grows in solitude and in relation with other men. I totally believe that. But I would add that the masculine grows hormonally, energetically, spiritually by recognizing the stillness that's at the core. And every moment, you know, you can just touch that. You're. Boom. You get a little hit of your own masculine. You like your, your own masculine kind of comes out. If that makes sense.

Sense, yeah. It's the tether. It's the tether you were speaking about earlier, where you can go to it and you said it's pretty blissful for an hour. And you bring that tether to Whole Foods, you bring it anywhere else because it's, it's that connection to. And I love that you said this. And by the way, if you're feeling what John is saying, go to wellnessforce.com forward/m21. We have a seven day breathwork challenge there. I'm in full alignment with you on breathing. It's been something that I've been going very deep into for two years now. Going to Thailand for a month intensive last year. Like, without my breath, I can't choose. It's tattooed on my arm, John. Se poso respiratory. It's Italian for if I can breathe, I can choose. I can choose to come from love and calmness and the anchor. But if I'm like, if I'm holding my breath and I'm triggered by my partner and she's upset, like, I can't hold space. I can't do anything if I'm holding my breath.

Right? Yeah, it's. It's key. You're. You're absolutely right. It's the key to feeling life. It's the key to your body sensitivity. It's the key to embodiment. It's literally the key to you thinking clearly. It's the key. So breath is super important.

What's another key for us to start? What's another key? And I love that placing the hand below the belly button.

That's.

I'm gonna do that before the ocean today. But what's another key for us? There's a lot of men that write to me about pornography because I've shared my healings around this. And in my opinion, or at least in my experience, my only connection to having it be something where it didn't control me anymore, where I actually healed from. It was my connection to God. It was my connection to source, to spirit, to guide me, to surrender that I don't have control and that I'm just seeking guidance and bidding on where I go next. But. But that for me, is a big way that I've also seen that bleed into other areas of my life where because I let go of the porn and the. And the dark kind of controlling energy there for me, I got to open up to other things that I never thought was possible, but I did it. From that key to spirit. You talked about breath. I've brought up spirit. Spirit, is there another key where we can tap into that masculine essence that you can mention?

Yeah. Nourishment. So most men lose touch with their own capacity and their own core because they're malnourished, right? They have a job, they have kids, they have a. You kind of mentioned it. Like, I've got all these things going on, right? And I want to show up for all of them. Well, if you don't nourish yourself, if you don't make yourself available to the feminine, to the great she, the ocean, the mountains, the moment, the breeze, the flowers, your partner just. The earth is earth. The earth. The earth is trying to feed us all the time, trying to give us energy. All the time. She is trying to give us energy. We're usually too tense or too distracted or too numbed out to. To actually plug in. Think about a roots of. The roots of a tree, to go back to that metaphor, they don't have to suck, right? They just root and then the earth gives, right? Water gives. And they. Maybe they travel in the direction of water, but they're not like, grasping for the water. They're just kind of allowing the water to come in. And so nourishment for men to actually learn to nourish themselves, it makes the whole thing possible, makes showing up for these big lives that guys are leading now. Because men are awesome. I love my brothers. You know what I mean? Like, I love all of them, man. You know, like, men are noble and men are deep, and men want to love well and men want to make a difference in the world. They normally just forget that their consciousness and forget to nourish themselves and they forget to breathe those three things. Just focus on that, my man. You know what I mean? Whoever. If many men are watching and your life will change that.

That is like the, the trifecta that you mentioned right there. So we will put that in bold in the show notes as well as link to your workshops and the ways that you serve man. I have a few more questions before we say goodbye. And the first one that came up actually was you were sharing was there are things and energies and situations that block that nourishment. You know, whether it's excessive stress or choosing a life that's not in purpose. One of Data's massive teachings is a man really will be empty if he's not living his life on purpose. And that hit me like a gong five years ago. But what are the things that block us, that block our nourishment that we can be aware of?

Well, usually a couple things. Usually it's body tension, right? Like, all you would need to do to get nourished is relax your body and lay on the sand, get into the water and get, you know, I mean, like, you don't have, you don't have to pay anything. You don't have to do anything special. You just relax your body and let nourishment kind of just flow up through the earth into your body. And you'll get up and you'll feel, you'll feel good, right? So most of it is tension. The other thing that I see a lot. You mentioned porn. The other thing I see a lot is men will opt for short term dopamine hits like ejaculation or Reddit or, you know, zoning out on Facebook or watching TV or getting drunk or getting high or. Right, we'll opt for those rather than the steady stream of real healthy nourishment. And so I think that's a tendency that a lot of men fall into. And, you know, I think if you just start, if they just started there, like, you know, nothing wrong with porn, but if you're gonna, if you're gonna, if you're gonna watch porn, make it about loving it and make it at least 15 minutes. Don't just get in there, get out. Like, literally find a way to like, feel every woman. If you're a man watching women porn, feel, feel all women through this woman on the screen. Like, let your heart feel all of them. Let your whole body, like slow your breath down. Don't speed your breath. I mean, there's ways to bring practice to porn that actually help heal our relationship to porn. So, yeah, the short term, getting over the short term dopamine addiction is a big piece of.

I know this to be true now in everything that I've learned I'm 39, I'll be 40 this year. And I used to hear this phrase, you know, all choices, all ways of action come from either love or fear. And I used to make fun of that. You know, five years ago I would make fun of that. But now I know it to be true. It's a deep knowing that sometimes I'm in love and sometimes I'm in fear. And that's just part of my evolution as a human being, as a soul. But for you, is there a past way of fear that you conquered that you could share with us as it relates to being a man, to being a conscious, comprehensive, loving, powerful man? Like, was there anything in the past that that you felt was coming from fear? And how did you get through that to be and show up as John Weinland now?

Yeah, well, of course I still get afraid. I mean, the big one is fear of my daughter's death. I had to live with that for a long time in my life. And I think in general, the way that I've approached fear is more about creating space around it. So from that tether that we talked about, I can feel the fear, but I can also place my awareness around the fear or around the thoughts about the fear. And most fear is thought driven, right? So when you talk about coming from fear, the way I interpret that is I'm coming from fearful thought. Well, thought is just form. And if I slow down and I breathe, then like your arm says, I have a choice to bring awareness to the fearful thought. And just in doing that, I create a little space, a little room. And all of a sudden it doesn't latch on. And I can just watch it, you know, like a cloud or like a train going by. And I think that's a. That's the way I tend to deal with fear. Or I embody the fear. I'll go the other way. Like, if it's a true fear, I'll be okay. I'm not just going to talk about it. Like, I'm going to go into it. So I'll get on. I'll get on my knees, I'll put my arms out and I'll be. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of this, I'm afraid of that. I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'll put on some music. I'll let it. I'll cry my eyes out. And then I do. I'll do. I'm afraid for two minutes. And then I pray for two minutes. Like, give me the things that I need to be a better man to serve my community, to love my partner, to, you know, be there for my daughter. So I'll pray and then I'll finish with gratitude. So I call it the Embodied. The Embodied Fear Inventory. That's a practice I do a lot.

I wish there was a blog post we could reference for that. The Embodied Fear Practice. Well, you got it right here. I mean, maybe we'll write a blog post from it. John, just so, so grateful, man, for the way you serve. Just. Yeah, just really. Just really feeling connected to your work. And honestly, like to be able to be in a place where I can share your message and it's impactful. And I know thousands of people are going to hear this. Like, that makes a big deal to me because I've always felt from a really early age that I was here to wake people up, that they don't have to treat each other with a lack of kindness. You know, I can be really small and have memories and going, hey, adults, you know, you don't have to treat each other like this, right? But there's only that degree of how we love and treat ourselves that can never ripple out into how I serve or treat other people, man. So with that awareness, with that knowledge, my life has been this authentic sharing of what it means to. To live life well. And I'm curious for you, how would you define this? Like, how would you define wellness? The nexus of the physical, the emotional and the spiritual to everything that, you know now, you know, with everything you've been through, how would you define wellness?

Opening, right? Like, oh, just open. Opening to a moment. This very much comes from my teacher. I learned this from David. And, you know, any moment I can, any moment that I'm opening, whether it's a moment of fear, a moment of grief, a moment of ecstasy, that my body's relaxing, my heart is opening, my breath is relaxed, my belly's relaxed, and I just am opening out, so to speak. I feel. I feel well, so that's. That would be the easiest way I could define it.

And the opening is something we're all working on, whether we're a man, woman, however we identify, like, it is that opening. I believe that that is going to bring this world to a shift. And I am. I am a very realist, and I'm also a positive optimist. You know, I do believe that humanity will prevail. And if we have conversations like this and if we tune into your work and if we continue to do this opening process, I think we have an Incredible road ahead because we're just a page, man. We're just a page in this massive book of humanity. So thank you for the words you're writing on the page. JohnWinland.com is the website. The Art of Masculine Leadership is a book, right, that you've, you've written. Is there something else coming out or is there something else that people can lean on as far as using your work wherever they are?

Well, both books. I have two books written. Art of Masculine Leadership is about 3/4 written. I put out some sample chapters. And then the Love Sex Yoga is a book about the sexual yoga we talked about. And both are at publishers now finding homes. And so either I'm. Either they're going to be published, either one of the publishing houses is going to publish them next year, or I'll publish them this year. So, you know, stay tuned.

Okay, if you're watching this, if you're watching this, let us know. Write to us, the first three people that write to us. When John's books are out, we'll give you copies of each book as a thank you to John and your work. John, Deep bow. Hands together, man. Everything, everything that I do in my men's groups currently as I lead these men, is a testament to you and Data and my friend Johnny Blackburn and all the men that have come before me. So that's where I'm at. I'm just here sharing what I know to be true. And I really value the resource you provide. And honestly, dude, the radical truth that sometimes uncomfortable to hear from people, but it's, in the end, it's just fucking real. So thanks for what you do and thanks for coming on the show.

Right on, Josh. Thanks, man.