{"version":"1.0.0","segments":[{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":0.25,"endTime":13.84,"body":"My belief is that the main thing that humans are tracking on all day long is do you care about me? Or to what degree do you care about me? So, especially in our intimate relationships, that's what we're tracking on."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":15.65,"endTime":82.838,"body":"Hello, friend, and welcome to the Sex Upgraded Podcast, a podcast for men all about sex, where we'll combine real, authentic, down to earth conversations about sex life and relationships with some pretty wild personal stories and practical how to episodes as well to help you have the most amazing sex life you can possibly have. My name is Taylor and I'll be your host on this journey, and it's my goal with each episode to give you practical actionable tools and insights. You can start using today to improve your sex life and to improve your entire life, because the quality of your entire life is directly linked to your sex life. Let's begin today's episode by taking a deep breath in together through the nose, into the belly and exhaling with an audible sigh. And let's get into today's episode. Welcome to the show. I feel so grateful to be here sitting with you in your teaching space, your teaching room."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":82.924,"endTime":86.306,"body":"Thank you for agreeing to show up for this conversation."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":86.498,"endTime":99.418,"body":"You are so welcome, Taylor. I have such fond memories of you being in this space and a bunch of your friends especially. Yeah, I'm like kind of teary just thinking about it right now and being here with you."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":99.504,"endTime":146.442,"body":"Yeah. When I think back to some of the most influential people in my life in terms of relationships romantically, sexually, but then also with my friends and my family, I think of you. I think of all the things I learned here in this classroom and all the things that I put into effect that have changed all my relationships for the better. Like, all of them. And that's great. Today my goal and my intention is to sit here with you and learn again from you in the process with everybody listening right now. Some really amazing, powerful and simple tools for deepening intimacy and relationships and actually being able to come closer together with those that we want to come closer together with sexually in sexual intimacy and in all areas of life too. How's that sound to you?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":146.496,"endTime":149.034,"body":"That sounds great. Bring it on. Great."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":149.152,"endTime":173.78,"body":"Can you just give me a little backstory of how you got to this point? I'll just briefly say Steve teaches classes regularly in Asheville around communication, empathy, nonviolent communication, intimacy, all this stuff. Many of my close friends, almost all of my close friends have taken these classes. I've encouraged my family to come and I've sent it out to my email list for people to come take these classes too. So that's part of the context. So, Steve, how did you get to this point?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":174.79,"endTime":242.534,"body":"Well, I would say I've been a psychology geek since high school. I had a teacher who did a lecture on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs when I was about 16. I was like, oh my God, this explains so much. I knew from that moment I was going to go on to college and study psychology. That hasn't wavered for one moment in my whole life. I've just been so fascinated with why we do the things we do and what creates suffering and disconnection and what creates love and beauty and togetherness. That's been that journey specifically around teaching these skills and so forth that can be traced to about 2008 when a dear friend of mine said to me, hey, let's start a school for holistic sexuality and communication, and I'll help you start it. And I said, Great. I had a whole nother job I was involved in at the time, so I didn't jump in full time, but we started doing some basic classes and so forth."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":242.582,"endTime":311.44,"body":"The name that we chose was center for Sacred Sexuality. There was of nonviolent communication built into it, but it was mostly around other aspects of sexuality and intimacy. Within a couple of years it became clear to me that people's relationship challenges were not so much about how to have sex. Most people can figure that out, at least decently in terms of high grade, really deeply satisfying sex. Probably need some education. But the basics people can figure out. It's more like what would happen in terms of their emotional intimacy when they try to build deeper connections with each other. What I noticed was there was a lot of dysfunction and disconnection and pain. Around that time I was getting reunited with the nonviolent communication ideas and practices and so forth, because I had come across it when I was in my I'd kind of forgotten about it."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":314.21,"endTime":399.75,"body":"There was also a lot of conflict going on in my own intimate relationship, primary intimate relationship with my partner Terry and in my neighborhood that I belonged to at Earth Haven, Eco Village and within the whole community at Earth Haven. I was just surrounded by conflict that was so painful and not surrounded, immersed in it that was so painful. Luckily somebody in our group of friends said, what about this nonviolent communication stuff? I hear there's somebody in town in Asheville who teaches it. We looked it up, and that started a journey. We brought that person to do a class and that started a journey that really picked up steam for me. I re envisioned the name of the teaching organization from center for Sacred Sexuality to the Real. Center as an Real, as an acronym for Relationship Embodiment and Awakened Living, which would include, of course, sexuality, but more foundationally, understanding how the human mind works, how we work emotionally, and how have we been conditioned by culture to think in ways that create disconnection that communicate in ways that create disconnection."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":399.91,"endTime":465.666,"body":"How can we undo those learned patterns and get back to what in NBC and many systems talk about our natural state. Our natural state is to be connected, is to be tender and vulnerable and intimate. Yes, of course, there always will be conflict and painful stuff happening, but that our basic primate and human hominid tendency is to be bonded. We've been doing this for millions of years, deeply bonded with each other. That then started that was probably 1012 years ago that really started focusing more on nonviolent communication, how as the core of what I teach. Then, of course, bring in other ideas and authors to round it out. Because for me, NVC is the best combination of theory and practice of anything that I know. It's not completed in terms of the worldview and tool set and so forth. I'd like to bring in other stuff."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":465.768,"endTime":492.506,"body":"Yeah, and merging that also, right before we hit record, you were speaking about the intersection of evolutionary psychology with this kind of work, too. Yes, perhaps in our base level state, we will be resting in a state of connection and bonding with each other. When it comes to romantic and sexual relationships, though, could you say the piece around the evolutionary psychology reality? Yeah, again, yeah."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":492.608,"endTime":554.96,"body":"I heard this woman, this evolutionary psychologist woman, talk about her understanding of the basic three phases that sexual relationships go through. The first, she just called it the lust phase, the desire to have sex, right? You see somebody think, oh, hot, I want to have sex with them. That's been going on for millions of years in our evolutionary past. And so strong energy, right? We have all the hormones and drive to make that happen really easily. After that, then there is often what she call a honeymoon phase, which is like a year to two, where there's a flood of all these great chemicals going through our body where we're really enjoying each other and we're in love. It takes no work, really hardly at all to maintain a relationship when all those chemicals are flooding through our bodies. There's this mysterious thing about how it goes away."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":556.29,"endTime":614.022,"body":"Very rare. Does anything even like the honeymoon period, extend for many years? She was explaining because from an evolutionary perspective, nature wants the man to stay around. And it's not a sexist statement. This has to do with the evolutionary principle or the evolutionary fact that men are bigger and stronger in general than women were. He was protecting her when she was pregnant and when she was lactating, when she was nursing the child. The goal of this honeymoon phase is to get that baby to be a year old. Because when it hits around a year old, the chances of it being able to survive go way up. I forget what the statistics are, but it's like something like it goes like at least five times more likely when it hits that level. So what does nature want? Nature wants us to copulate. Nature wants us to make a baby."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":614.106,"endTime":662.91,"body":"Nature wants us to get that baby to be at least a year old so they can survive after that. Nature doesn't give us this big burst of yummy hormones to keep long term intimacy going. The kind of work that you're doing and that I am doing and many other people in terms of trying to educate ourselves about how to have sustainable long term relationships is actually an evolutionary growth point for us. It's not easy. It takes hard work. As anybody who has delved into really their inner world around relationships and all that knows this is work. The fruits of it are just enormous in terms of connection and intimacy and love and belonging and creating families and communities and so forth."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":662.98,"endTime":683.558,"body":"100%. Yeah. If you're listening and you like me in the past have been somebody who got into a relationship and then two years later wondered to yourself, like, why are we not in love in the same way anymore? This is part of the reason for that. This is why you might go through relationship and relationship falling in love and then falling out of quote unquote love."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":683.644,"endTime":683.942,"body":"Really?"},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":683.996,"endTime":718.562,"body":"There's another kind of love here that we're talking about, and that's a love that we're learning to cultivate and an intimacy that we're learning to deepen. We're going to go into some really incredible tools here in this episode to do that. Also got some worksheets here next to me as well. If you're listening, if you check the show notes, you'll be able to download those worksheets as well and bring them into your relationship. I thought we could start with a demo of something that really kind of blew my mind here in this room years ago, which is this concept of there being three different levels of interpersonal intimacy that we can choose to navigate with anybody who we want to deepen with."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":718.616,"endTime":718.93,"body":"Right."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":719.0,"endTime":720.434,"body":"Could you give a little overview of that?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":720.472,"endTime":760.078,"body":"Sure. Yeah. The three levels of conversation is often how it's referred to. I just want to give credit to the circling movement. Probably some of the folks listening know about this phenomenon called circling, which is a relational skill process that's kind of spreading around the world now, and I gleaned it from them. The first level, the most common level of conversing with people is informational. It's the joke that we have about, oh God, all we talked about was the weather. It was such a boring conversation, which is fine. That's often how you begin a conversation with the informational stuff like, oh, did."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":760.084,"endTime":764.93,"body":"You watch the Super Bowl last week and see who won? It was amazing. Play a controversial call at the end."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":765.08,"endTime":775.294,"body":"Yes, exactly. Informational is just what it sounds like. It's the data, it's the facts and what's happening in our life and so forth."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":775.422,"endTime":793.02,"body":"There can be some bonding that can be felt around that, too, especially like Super Bowl, for example. Some people are so into it, and if you talk about the controversial call, if you talk about the longest kickoff return, people are like, oh, yeah, they feel it together. There's the second level emotional, personal."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":793.55,"endTime":812.522,"body":"And that's where I start. Whoever starts sharing what's going on inside of them, it's the kind of thing you're not going to know unless I say it. It can be thoughts, but more connecting usually is when you start talking about feelings."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":812.666,"endTime":813.518,"body":"What do you mean?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":813.604,"endTime":814.24,"body":"Yeah."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":815.01,"endTime":816.786,"body":"Can you give an example? Sure."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":816.968,"endTime":862.878,"body":"Go back to the Super Bowl thing. I can say, yeah, the Super Bowl is really great. Well, you don't know which team I was a fan of or how am I sad about how it turned out, am I happy about how it turned out? Talking about the feelings related to that would be like, yeah, my partner Terry lives in Philadelphia, and I was so bummed because I wanted them to win. Now I'm talking about oh, I was bummed. I'm relaying some of the emotional content. Now, like I said, it could also be some thoughts that could be emotional, personal, like, man, I really thought that Philly was going to win. I really thought the Eagles were going to because I've been really thinking about that. I can start talking about my inner world."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":862.964,"endTime":866.974,"body":"This is letting me into your reality more than just the informational."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":867.102,"endTime":874.562,"body":"Kansas City won, opening the inner door, letting more out about what's going on."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":874.616,"endTime":888.362,"body":"Yeah, I actually felt excited and happy that Kansas City won because Naima, my partner, is from Kansas City, and I was just there a couple of months ago, and I feel this, like, affinity to the city. Right. Yeah. There was like a victory kind of feeling. It felt good."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":888.416,"endTime":889.34,"body":"Yeah, exactly."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":889.79,"endTime":891.322,"body":"So that's the second level."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":891.456,"endTime":951.614,"body":"The third level is we call the relational level, which is what's going on for me right now in this moment in relationship to you or the person that I'm talking to now. This is the most intimate. It's also the most vulnerable. We actually don't do this much in normal conversation. It's not a conscious decision as much as it is it's an unconscious decision or pattern that we have chosen, because vulnerability can be met with reactions that are painful and have been painful. Most of us have learned to kind of, as I say, keep our cards close to our chest, to not be revealing too much about what's going on until I feel really safe. And then I'm like, okay. I'm pretty sure that if I tell Taylor that I'm really curious about getting to know him more. That would be a very relational thing to say, but a vulnerable thing to say."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":951.652,"endTime":967.234,"body":"We tend to hold those things back until we feel more safe. Learning to go there, learning to be able to share at this relational level really speeds up and deepens the intimacy process."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":967.432,"endTime":973.14,"body":"So, for example, could you share yeah, we can both do it, but can you share a relational statement with me? Sure."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":974.79,"endTime":1011.63,"body":"I really hope that this podcast goes well for me and for you. I'm so grateful that you're doing this. I'm a little nervous right now and I want you to be happy with how this podcast turns out and maybe even invite me back another time, some better down the future. I just have so much respect and awe for what you're doing that I really want to contribute to your success also. It's what's going on right now between you and I, particularly at a feeling level."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1011.7,"endTime":1051.9,"body":"Yeah. Let me just speak to the quality of receiving that. It's a fundamentally different quality to receive that than the second level of communication. When I heard that you were bombed, that Philly lost. This is calling forth something within me that I can't deny. There's an activation, a life force, an emotionality that I feel that feels really good and connected and there is a vulnerability to it. Like, wow, we are connecting here in this moment. This is happening right now and it feels really good. Thank you. It feels good to receive. I'll share an example of a relational statement you just did."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1052.43,"endTime":1053.022,"body":"You're right."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1053.076,"endTime":1053.84,"body":"Thank you."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1054.29,"endTime":1056.298,"body":"You said this feels good to receive."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1056.394,"endTime":1087.394,"body":"Yeah. So I'll share one more. Yeah. In this moment sitting here with you right now, I feel really grateful and happy to be having this conversation because you're somebody who has had a massive impact on my life and my romantic relationships and my relationship with my parents and my sister. And it feels yeah. There's this warmth that I feel in my heart and gratitude that I feel because this is meaningful for me and the joy at the thought of sharing it with the rest of the world really lights me up. So I feel really tender and grateful."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1087.442,"endTime":1096.97,"body":"And touched to be here. Right. That's activating all kinds of more relational stuff for me to want to talk to you about."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1097.12,"endTime":1097.894,"body":"Yeah, totally."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1097.942,"endTime":1110.414,"body":"But mostly just wow. Thank you. It's such a pleasure to have shared this stuff with you and shared heart space with you and your friends that I've gotten to meet through you and so forth as well."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1110.532,"endTime":1130.886,"body":"Yeah, thank you. Obviously we're collaborators here in this context, and if you take this into the context of your romantic or sexual relationship, intentionally going into the third level of relational communication can be an incredibly powerful and deeply intimate thing to do."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1130.988,"endTime":1149.366,"body":"Absolutely. It's the fast track to bonding. Now I guess you could say things that would lead to not bonding if they're painful things and you're wanting distance from somebody. If you're wanting to deepen with somebody, it's a fast track to deepening with people. Totally."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1149.398,"endTime":1178.598,"body":"Even if you're having conflict, you can use this methodology of communication as a way to deepen through the working out of the conflict. It's not like everybody who's listening you might know I'm recovering from a sinus infection at this point so I'll be sniffling some. It's not like you're going to want to go out into the world and start communicating with everybody you meet on this deeper level three style communication that would be exhausting and you probably don't want to connect with everybody like that but it's an option that's there for the people you want to deepen with."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1178.684,"endTime":1203.754,"body":"Yeah, it's important that I be clear with people that I'm not saying relivational level is better than the emotional personal level, which is better than the informational level. We make jokes about, oh, we just talked about the weather. It doesn't mean that these are just three different tools and they're in your toolbox and like any tool in your toolbox, you want to know when to use that tool."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1203.952,"endTime":1204.314,"body":"Right?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1204.352,"endTime":1241.56,"body":"If you're going through the grocery line and you just want to get in and get out, you're not likely to want to create any kind of a relational connection with cashier. You may be feeling kind of warm hearted and there's no one standing behind you and you feel like you have time. I've done that many times at grocery stores like no one behind me. I have a 32nd minute long conversation with the cashier, then I feel more enriched, they feel more enriched and it's simple to do and has very powerful effect, adds to the beauty of the world."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1241.95,"endTime":1255.92,"body":"Speaking of the toolbox, I have here a list of some of the things we talked about, talking about and love to get into some of these actionable tools. You have a list of five different things here. I wonder if any of them feel most exciting for you to dive into first."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1256.53,"endTime":1323.22,"body":"Well, I want to give a little context to all of them about evolutionary psychology, more about evolutionary psychology. Yeah. So it's a relatively new field. I graduated from college in the early eighty s and I never even heard this term evolutionary psychology back then so I don't even know actually when the term happened. Basically what it means is that as we've understood evolution more and more particularly the brain, there's been so much new information about how the brain works and how the different parts of the brain evolved from in an evolutionary fashion. That what we've been learning from that. Mostly this has to do with learning about the brain and how it works. One of the key concepts is this thing called mismatched instincts, which means that there are instincts that we have with us today in 21st century Earth that are instincts that we've had for tens of millions of years."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1323.83,"endTime":1383.094,"body":"And they served us really well. Otherwise they wouldn't be instincts. They served us really well. Because we live in such a radically different environment than when were evolving for the last millions of years, these instincts are now problematic. One of the main ones that I like to give as an example because it's real obvious is the instinct that if I see food, it looks good and I want to eat it. Which was very helpful because food supply was irregular for millions of years. Nature would have us eat as many calories as we can get into our body today because we might not find food tomorrow or the next day. Now we're contemporary, modern world, we're surrounded. Most of us are surrounded by food. This is now problematic to have an instinct to want to eat food every time I see it consciously when it's all around me."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1383.292,"endTime":1440.39,"body":"That's an example of this thing called mismatched instinct. The primary mismatched instinct that I talk about in my classes a lot is this thing called the negativity bias. What it means is that the human mind evolved over these millions of years to look out in the world to try to notice where danger is, what's wrong? What do I need to be cautious about? Primarily around predators, because we've been prey. We were also predators during all those millions of years, but were also prey. Our ancestors, the ones who got to pass their genes down, were the ones who were good at looking around, being alert for what's wrong, noticing what's wrong, not only noticing what's wrong, but when you do see it, you have big energy about it, rather than just like, oh, well, that might be a tiger in the bushes over there. Let's wait and see."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1440.54,"endTime":1509.37,"body":"No, it's like the bushes are rustling. You run up the tree or you grab something to try to fight off whatever this thing is. So we're looking for what's wrong. We get scared easily and we have big energy. So that's a very important instinct. Today's world, most humans are not surrounded by predators anymore. We still have this tendency to look for what's wrong and to get scared easily. Another very essential piece that happened from an evolutionary perspective is that when were in the stage of being what sometimes we jokingly call furry little mammals, there was a stage when were like furry little mammals. Like when the dinosaurs went extinct, that was about where were at. At that stage, there's basically very little defense we have against predators. Fast forward to when we become hominids, right? We become like monkeys, that kind of a thing. Early hominids where we can pick up rocks and we can pick up sticks."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1509.53,"endTime":1591.762,"body":"There's now a group of twelve of us or 15 of us now we can defend ourselves from something like a wolf, whatever. This is an enormous development in our technology, our social technology, to be able to defend ourselves. Well, there was a commensurate development in our nervous systems about wanting to stay connected to the pack, to stay bonded to the pack, because we're safe when we're in with the pack, and were very vulnerable when we're by ourselves. So what's the mismatched instinct in this? The mismatched instinct today now, is that anytime we hear something as criticism, blame, judgment, I take something as like, oh my gosh, you're telling me I'm not good enough, you're telling me I don't belong. Those kinds of things, those messages go into us at this very deep survival level. We hear something and we go into fight or flight, some version of fight or flight or freeze, which by definition, fight, flight, freeze response means we're perceiving something as dangerous as life threatening."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1591.906,"endTime":1593.718,"body":"By definition, that's what that means."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1593.804,"endTime":1601.226,"body":"Yeah, you never take out the trash. You don't care about me. All of a sudden gets translated to maybe I'm out of the tribe."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1601.338,"endTime":1670.74,"body":"Yeah, it gets translated into I'm not good enough, there's something wrong with me. All those messages, which means I'm not safe now, right? I'm not safe. My partner comes home and I have all my stuff strewn around the house, and she throws her coat on the floor and says, god, Steve, you're such a slob. My nervous system starts getting really activated. I want to yell back, fight. I want to collapse and shut down, fleeing, run out of the room, or I just freeze. When we've all had zillions of those responses in our life, and to be able to develop the witness consciousness, to realize what's going on, it takes a lot of work to actually not have that response. It actually can. I've done it. Not entirely, but to a large degree, I know lots of people who have been able to really reduce that fight or flight response when people are saying judgmental or critical things."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1671.99,"endTime":1729.24,"body":"That when you eventually can not be so triggered by it. Until then, and to get to that place, it requires really having a lot of awareness, to be able to have what is often called witness consciousness, to have the witness consciousness or awareness, to not go to a fight or flight reaction, but to go to a self connection practice of I'm really feeling scared right now. I would probably just say this to myself. I'd probably just close my eyes and take a deep breath and just say, I'm really feeling scared right now. From that place, try to respond to my partner either with honesty. Tayrer, I'm feeling really scared right now, and I would like for us to just breathe together for a couple of minutes before we talk any further about this or an empathetic response, which is even harder in those moments, but it's to connect to what's going on for her."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1729.77,"endTime":1790.814,"body":"Sounds like you're really frustrated, like you're really hoping for more beauty and support when you got home. Is that what's going on? To be able to say either of those honesty or empathy responses requires prefrontal cortex, which gets shut down when we go into fight or flight. Recognizing that this is a mismatched instinct, there's nothing life threatening here. She can turn around, walk out the door, and I'll never see her again. It's still not life threatening. It'll be sad, disappointing, heartbreaking, but it's not life threatening. So this is a huge mismatched instinct. The negativity bias, the tendency to focus on what's wrong, have big reactions to it. I don't have a term for this other one. This tendency to perceive things as life threatening when they're not, are two of the biggest challenges or two of the most destructive tendencies that we have as human beings."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1790.882,"endTime":1793.194,"body":"There are tools for working with these."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1793.312,"endTime":1846.54,"body":"Yeah. So, say, for example, I'm thinking about my own relationship. We recently were having an evening where were reflecting on our relationship and some of the things we appreciated about each other and some of the ways we wanted to grow. I noticed at one point, my partner shared something that was a little challenging for me. I noticed out of all the things that were said, like the positive, the appreciations, my mind latched on to that one thing. Granted it is useful to look at these things but like an inordinately large amount attached to this one thing and wanted to dive down the spiral to find any other negative thing that could be brought up just because danger, like danger, that thing. I was able to catch myself and were able to have a constructive conversation. Still noticing that even after doing a lot of this work, that still exists, like the negativity bias absolutely."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1847.31,"endTime":1857.21,"body":"I haven't experienced it going away completely. The witness consciousness and being able to notice it when it happens and then constructively work with it, absolutely. Very useful."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1857.29,"endTime":1858.75,"body":"Absolutely. Yeah."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":1858.82,"endTime":1868.082,"body":"I think you were saying it takes some there's some ratio. Five positive experiences equal one negative experience. Something like that, yeah."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1868.216,"endTime":1931.174,"body":"There's research about this. I particularly draw from a guy named Rick Hansen who wrote a book called Buddha's Brain and some other books as well. And Rick, he has this great phrase. He says the human mind is like velcro for negative experiences and teflon for positive experiences. That's exactly what you were talking about. And I had a similar experience. Exactly. I had a similar experience just a few months ago where this was the last class of a series of classes. And so I. Was asking for feedback. I went around the room asking people to just in a couple of sentences, tell me what your experience was, things you liked, things you didn't like. There were like about ten people in the class, and nine of them were like glowing reports. Really got a lot out of this class, but one person said it wasn't quite as good as I had hoped to be."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":1931.212,"endTime":2007.31,"body":"Oh, my gosh. My mind just like my mind latched onto that for days. Not all day long, but for days. I was like, gosh, what could I have done different? And I should have known. He did mention one thing. I was like, yeah, I should have known that. I should have did it all the other nine basically just fell out of my consciousness. I just focused on that. Being able to go back to Brick Hansen's image about velcro and Teflon, so to be able to develop the practice of being to remember the good things. A few years ago, I started what I call a velcro journal to write down the positive things that happen between me and certain people that I'm close to, particularly if I have trouble. If the tendency has a tendency if the relationship has the tendency to move into disconnection, then it's really important to me to write down in this notebook the positive things that have happened, so that when something painful comes up, if I remember."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2007.38,"endTime":2043.702,"body":"I don't always remember to do this, but if I remember, I go back to my Velcro journal and I remember. Oh, right, three months ago, we had this amazing afternoon where we did this stuff together on this event. We shared this experience and they told me that they loved me. It's really positive stuff that just falls out of our awareness when something painful happens. That's a tool that I really encourage people to create a velcro journal to write the good things down, so that to compensate for the fact that our mind is not going to hold those totally."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2043.766,"endTime":2063.373,"body":"That might if you're listening and thinking, well, that seems like a lot of effort or a silly practice or something like that. I understand most of society doesn't talk about this kind of stuff, but one of the biggest studies of human satisfaction and happiness has been going on for decades now, maybe 70 some years."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2063.411,"endTime":2064.217,"body":"The Harvard thing."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2064.244,"endTime":2112.0,"body":"Yeah, the Harvard University, where they looked at lots of people over their lifespan and tried to figure out what's the metric that would give or generate the most happiness, success, satisfaction over life. What they found unequivocally was that the number one thing, the number one predictor of health, satisfaction, longevity, happiness, everything was the quality of relationships and community that they had with other people. More so than working out, more so than you name it, human connection. If we're really on this spectrum of people who are wanting to optimize our life for health, for happiness, for connection, for joy. All of these things, like then actually putting in some intentional effort to our human relationships to help them thrive is an integral part of that."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2112.69,"endTime":2126.566,"body":"Yeah, I love that you brought it up, Taylor, that this is not just about how to have quality relationships, but that quality relationships is the number one factor to a successful life. And it's well documented. Like you said, I think it's 70 some years now."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2126.668,"endTime":2143.958,"body":"Yeah, let's all take a deep breath to that. In the name of cultivating deeper, more intimate, more thriving relationships, how about some of these tools?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2144.054,"endTime":2221.378,"body":"Yeah, probably the first one that comes to my mind is going back to the gratitude thing, is translating compliments to gratitude and appreciation. Now most people are pretty surprised when they hear this because like what? I've worked so hard to try to remember to compliment my partner. Yeah, which is great. It's better than not. In nonviolent communication, how world, there is a very strong emphasis and belief that connection deepens through sharing our hearts with one another, which is really about sharing our feelings and our needs with one another. It's much less of a connection that's made by sharing thoughts with one another. This kind of goes back to the informational, emotional, personal, relational level that were talking about earlier. Sharing a thought, wow, you're a great person, you're sexy, you're a great partner. Those are judgments. They're positive judgments, but they're judgments. It's a thought."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2221.544,"endTime":2294.62,"body":"Now obviously you're going to see my facial expressions, you're going to see my body language. There will be some communication of feelings nonverbally, but the words are not actually expressing anything to do with my feelings and my met needs. If I hear myself having a compliment, wanting to give a compliment, and if I catch myself, what I'll do is I'll translate it into observations, feelings and needs, which is the basic core NVC communication model. Instead of saying something like, wow, Taylor, you're really rocking your career, that's a thought. I might say something like when I read the stuff that you sent me and I hear about some of the other things that you've done with your career and how many people you've touched, that's the observation. I just feel so happy. I'm delighted to see thriving like this. That's my feelings, I'm delighted and so forth because I just love how you're contributing to people and I love how you're just expressing who you are in the world."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2295.15,"endTime":2327.094,"body":"Those are needs, my need for your well being, my need for the world to learn and grow, those kinds of things. Now this, to the people first hearing this, it's like, well, that sounds like a lot of words. Why don't I just say you're really rocked in your career, but the lived experience and I just invite people to try it out see if this is what you experience, but the lived experience of those of us who really have taken on this practice is that there's a deeper quality of connection totally. That happens."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2327.212,"endTime":2384.294,"body":"Yeah. For a romantic, sexual example of this, a couple of nights ago, I came home from a long day, and my girlfriend had cooked this epic, amazing shrimp dinner for us. This is compliments upgraded, right? Like how to give a better compliment. In my opinion, that's the tagline that I would title this section. I could say to her, wow, babe, you're such a great cook. Thank you. Which would land on some level for her. Yeah. Knowing my partner and knowing that she appreciates appreciations and depth of words, the deeper compliment that I could give would be, and which I did do. It's like, wow, baby, it feels so good that you took the time to create this dinner for both of us. I feel so supported. I feel like we're on a team together. I really feel your nurturing and your support for our relationship and us by doing this."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2384.332,"endTime":2388.214,"body":"Thank you so much. It means so much to me."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2388.412,"endTime":2389.16,"body":"Yeah."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2390.09,"endTime":2441.434,"body":"Much more connective for her than, wow, baby, you're such a good cook. Thank you. Because I'm talking about my own internal experience, how it relates to her and needs. Another example is we had a date night the other night, too, and she wore this really sexy outfit. I could have said in which I did say, like, God d***, you are so hot, or you are so sexy. There's layers of nonverbal communication in there, too. We both know we're communicating at a relational level when I say that. Also, there's a different level of depth that happens when I say something like, wow, I feel so turned on seeing you wearing this thing. That's a fundamentally different set of words to receive than, wow, you're so hot. If you're skeptical of this right now, listening, I invite you to try it and see the difference that it actually makes."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2441.472,"endTime":2468.27,"body":"It's pretty substantial. It's pretty substantial. If you're at an art exhibit or if you're at a music show, or if you're ever at something where somebody's performing or demonstrating something and you want to have a more connective experience with them afterwards, don't just go up and say, wow, you're so awesome, or wow, your music is amazing. Share a relational thing with them. That's how you can actually build connection with somebody you don't know, too, in the form of a compliment."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2468.35,"endTime":2539.03,"body":"Yeah, absolutely. There's a great example happened in class for me recently. Someone came up afterwards and they said, you are such a great teacher. I was thinking to myself, like, okay, but why? What happened inside of you? I just said to them, can you tell me more about what's going on for you? It was this beautiful thing about how she had been struggling with her son and they hadn't been able to get along and for years they'd been struggling and she started implementing some of these NVC practices and it's like, changed their relationship and they're feeling so much better. She said that I almost started crying because to know that I get to pass on something that has that kind of impact, it's like so fulfilling, rather than like, you're a great teacher. Like, okay, a lot of people say that. Some people say I'm not a great teacher."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2539.77,"endTime":2545.798,"body":"It just was such a powerful moment to remind me about that."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2545.884,"endTime":2592.274,"body":"Yeah, and here's the other thing, too. If she had just said, oh, you're such a great teacher, your mind could have argued with that. Your mind couldn't negate that. No, I'm not. Did you hear what the 10th person said about my teaching style? Obviously I'm sucking at this. Or my girlfriend, in her mind, she could have thought after I said, wow, you're so sexy, like, no, I'm not. I don't feel that sexy today. The other kind of compliment, like, you can't argue with it. You're not going to say to this woman, like, nah, your relationship didn't actually improve. You can't do that. It wouldn't have worked the same way. It's fundamentally going to land differently and it bypasses our own internal negativity bias about ourself to receive a compliment that's deeper in that way. Right. It's a beautiful way to build intimacy."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2592.322,"endTime":2659.934,"body":"Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that because what it points to is a deeper reality about NBC, about why we choose to cultivate NBC consciousness and practices, is because we're trying to learn to live from motivating ourselves from our own feelings and needs. Living from the inside out, or as psychologists sometimes say, internal locus of control, like making decisions based on my internal reality as opposed to doing things based on other people's judgments of us. That's how we get disconnected from ourselves. That's how we lose our way oftentimes to not being able to create the life that we want is because we've been conditioned to do what Mommy and Daddy says or to do what the teacher says or to do what advertising says. That's one of the ways that we create the life that we want, is by learning to operate from the inside out."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2660.132,"endTime":2693.442,"body":"Of course we want input from people, but in the form of, did this meet your needs? How do you feel like, what's going on for you at that feeling body level around this? Not what do you think of me? It feeds an addiction. It's like many of us are I might say probably the majority of us are kind of addicted to compliments. It causes us to not be connected to ourselves as fully as would be helpful."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2693.506,"endTime":2706.03,"body":"Yeah, like comment, subscribe culture, get the likes, post the sexy picture, get the likes, post the catchy thing. Get the likes get the oh, you're so sexy. Oh, you're so good. Are you? So reinforcing this external judgment type reality."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2706.93,"endTime":2710.67,"body":"There's a huge price we pay for that, and it's not obvious to most people."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2710.74,"endTime":2720.61,"body":"Yeah. This starts to subvert that and reorient back to the self and back to the actual aliveness that exists within each of us and not this externalized kind of thing."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2720.68,"endTime":2721.86,"body":"Yes. Beautiful."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2722.47,"endTime":2732.31,"body":"So I think that's a beautiful tool. I remember somebody saying, maybe Marshall said this. Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of NBC or somebody. Gratitude is the fuel for life."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2732.38,"endTime":2733.202,"body":"Yeah, that's marshall."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2733.266,"endTime":2771.01,"body":"Something like that, yeah. So, like, actively practicing gratitude and relationships, this kind of gratitude, using compliments as a vessel for creating gratitude and expressing gratitude can deepen your relationship over time, and it can be a practice. It might not always be easy to express gratitude, but if you're in a tricky moment and you start doing that, you'll find that it can be generative and can shift both of your consciousnesses and drive greater connection and healing and openness and joy and all that stuff, which ultimately will lead to better sex, ideally, and better relationships overall."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2773.59,"endTime":2822.546,"body":"There's a famous Zen Buddhist saying that says the quality of your life is determined by the focus of your attention. It's the wisdom from the east that we're just in the early stages. I think in the west, we're in the early stages of understanding the mind in a way that Buddha did many years ago, that our quality of our life is not determined by the stuff that we have, the number of compliments that we get and so forth. It's primarily determined by where we put our attention. Am I going to put my attention on the things that are working and that are grateful that I'm grateful for? Or am I going to put my attention on my regrets and my resentments of the past and my fears of the future and all of that? That's some really profound wisdom I will carry with me the rest of my life."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2822.648,"endTime":2877.75,"body":"Profound wisdom and really intensive work. Honestly, in today's society, when the algorithms on social media are primed to give us the negative s*** and the charged s*** and all the news that's out there, it's like just bam, bam, bad, negative, negative. You would think that the entire world is a cesspool of despair. You go for a walk out in the park and you see, oh, there's a lot of happy families playing in the jungle gym. What's wrong? I thought they were getting bombed by whoever constantly. It's like there's actually a lot of good in the world, too, and it's useful to orient towards that not as a bypass, right, but as a practice of remembering the good. Taking a look at this sheet, there's a couple of other things on it. You're talking about the devastating effects of criticism and judgment, how to give and receive feedback that builds relationships, the importance of relationship repair through the mourning process, compassionate boundaries."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":2880.49,"endTime":2882.44,"body":"What jumps out at you next?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2883.85,"endTime":2964.578,"body":"Yeah, let's work on this one about translating judgments to empathy, what we call an NBC translating judgments to empathy. One of the most profound insights from NBC is this concept that every judgment is a tragic expression of an unmet need. If I say to my partner, you're so selfish, that judgment you are selfish is really coming out of something really important to me, which in NBC we call our needs. There's always some body feeling component going on as well. Again, we're trying to operate from the body, from our feelings and our needs and communicate from there. If I were to translate that judgment, it would be something like, hey, when you didn't show up today to bring me that thing at work, I felt really disappointed and sad because I was really wanting some support and were going to have lunch together and that would have really met my needs for friendship, right?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":2964.664,"endTime":3041.642,"body":"Every judgment is a tragic expression of an unmet need. We learn to put these judgments into feelings and needs language, then it usually creates connection, more connection instead of disconnection. Now, it can still have an element of painfulness to it, but it's what we call an NBC sweet pain. It's sweet in the sense of, I'm learning something. I'm growing by being honest, or if I'm the one receiving it, I'm growing from getting that information. We can also use this tool for relating to ourselves, self love, self connection. If I hear myself criticizing, like, God, Steve, you really screwed up, or, God, you're so lazy, haven't done s*** all weekend. If I hear myself saying those things, that self judgment, self hatred just makes everything worse. Energetically, psychologically, it just makes everything worse. I can do the work of going inside, figure out what I'm feeling and what I'm needing, and connect to myself about that."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3041.696,"endTime":3101.206,"body":"Like, okay, I'm really feeling disappointed that I had this project that I wanted to work on, and instead I sat around and watched videos most of the weekend and I'm feeling really disappointed and sad because I really didn't meet my own needs for productivity and self responsibility and so forth. We connect to the feelings and the needs, then we're connecting to life force energy. She, the Prana, whatever you want to call that, this life force energy. I'm connecting to that energy and allowing that to move me and transform me. Or if it's a relationship, then I'm expressing that energy to the other person, my disappointment, the needs that were involved. That person gets me at a deep level, which is way more and way more effective and helpful than what's going to happen if I just say some kind of a judgment."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3101.238,"endTime":3132.92,"body":"Like, you're so selfish because whatever happens after that, if you're just saying the judgment, it's not infused with life. If you're saying the deeper piece, the empathetic piece, you're calling forth the energy of life to come through with whatever it is that happens next. So, for example, say you had this weekend self criticism turned to self empathy. Okay, yeah, I understand why I feel really sad, et cetera. Then where do you go from there? Do you just stay in this pit of like, oh, I feel sad, I feel this?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3133.45,"endTime":3202.3,"body":"Yeah, so you sit with the connection to the needs. When I've felt that fully enough, you'll notice a kind of shift, which is usually like a softening. From there I go to like, okay, revisit my intention because intention is so powerful. I connect to my intention energy to be able to say, okay, I really want to get this project done because it's really going to help the company and whatever the other intentions are there. So I connect to that and energy. I make some very specific request of myself, like, okay, tomorrow my intention is to meet with this project partner, and we're going to spend 3 hours. I make something very specific, bring something to mind that's very specific to help move me forward."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3202.83,"endTime":3213.526,"body":"Got it? It's much more likely that you're going to be able to get to that place of internal requests and planning things out if you're not just saying, god, I'm so f****** lazy."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3213.658,"endTime":3214.34,"body":"Exactly."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3214.95,"endTime":3225.46,"body":"In the context of sexual romantic relationships, if my partner comes in and says, god, you just don't listen to me, you're so self centered, then what?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3225.83,"endTime":3292.906,"body":"Yeah, so first I can connect to myself. Say you were the person, my partner, you say that to me first. I think I do is I connect to myself, like, wow, I'm really kind of scared hearing this right now because I'm really wanting connection and harmony. That's what we call self empathy, connecting to myself around that. Spend whatever might take 15 seconds, 30 seconds a minute doing that. And then I could say that. I could say my partner's name is Terry. I could say Terry. I'm just really feeling kind of scared and sad right now. Would we just have a couple of breaths together? Can we just sit quietly together and just feel our shoulders against each other while I just let this scared feeling run go through me? I could then once that happens and my nervous system kind of settles a bit, my brain comes back online more."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3293.088,"endTime":3345.018,"body":"I can imagine what's going on for her. I could just think to myself, okay, she's really longing for more intimacy. She's longing for more connection. Now I know what's going on for me. I have a guess about what's going on for her. And now I have two choices. I can either share what's going on for me at this feeling and need level, or I can ask her, take my best guess of what's going on for her at a feeling and need level. If you can start with empathy, I call that a Jedi skill because that's usually going to help things deescalate a lot and quickly. Sometimes we can't get to the empathy place. We stick to the honest. Just sticking with honesty is best."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3345.104,"endTime":3366.958,"body":"Yeah. I remember you saying something that really stuck with me too about this. When conflict comes up in relationship and judgments get thrown, and when you're translating to empathy, if you take the option of trying to guess what's going on for them, it doesn't matter if you're correct or not. What matters is the consciousness and the feelings that you're holding while you ask the question like, do you actually care?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3367.044,"endTime":3367.474,"body":"That's right."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3367.512,"endTime":3392.63,"body":"Are you actually invested in healing and deepening the relationship in that moment? If so, they're going to feel that care come through. Even if you guess, do you feel pain because you want me to massage your shoulders more? Probably. That's not it. If I'm authentically wanting connection, they're going to feel that. You could say, okay, would you tell me what is actually going on for you? Right. And then that opens the door."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3392.71,"endTime":3459.92,"body":"Absolutely. This goes back to the evolutionary psychology pack animal thing. That the main thing that we're tracking on? My belief is that the main thing that humans are tracking on all day long is do you care about me or to what degree do you care about me? Especially in our intimate relationships, that's what we're tracking on. If I genuinely authentically, sincerely say to my partner, hey, are you feeling frustrated right now because you need support? Even if I'm wrong this is what you were saying. Even if I'm wrong, the main thing she's going to register is that I care about her totally. So I really encourage people. This is why everything comes back to living from your body less than living from your head. If you drop into your body, we can easily connect back to the fact that I care about my partner. Even if I'm frustrated and angry in the moment, that care is still present inside of me."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3460.69,"endTime":3481.73,"body":"If I can connect to that and then speak from that place, that even if I guess wrong about the feelings and the needs, she's going to feel that and things are going to de escalate. I mean, obviously it'll take a little time beyond that, but it'll start the process of deescalating and reconnection."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3481.81,"endTime":3543.546,"body":"Right. Two things come up for me after hearing you share that. Number one is this is where one of the stronger critiques or criticisms of NBC comes in, at least in my thinking, people will say like, oh, well, it's so dry, it's just a rigid set of communication skills. When I hear people say that, I think like, oh, you're not actually either aware of or perceiving or have maybe not even been told about the underlying consciousness. That is a precursor to the actual techniques of NVC. It's the actual cultivation of the consciousness of a desire for connection. Beautiful. You can use these communication tools to hurt people. The tool set of NBC can be used in malicious ways to help manipulate people or disempower people, or Oppress or whatever. That's not actually NVC because it's not infused with the consciousness of creating deeper connection. I like to say, like, oh, you give somebody a tool, they could do anything with it."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3543.648,"endTime":3565.39,"body":"You give someone a hammer, they could build a house to provide shelter and a home for somebody, or you could kill somebody with that same hammer. I feel like in many ways, NBC is that too, in terms of the communication structure and tools. You have to use them wisely and with this underlying intention of a desire for connection and love."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3565.46,"endTime":3566.08,"body":"Absolutely."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3566.69,"endTime":3587.874,"body":"The second thing that comes up for me, which is on this sheet, which I'd like to talk to you or talk about, is the like, say, for example, your partner comes home and she says this judgment to you. You say, hey, would you be willing to sit next to me for a moment? And she says no. Then what? How do you navigate receiving a no?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3588.012,"endTime":3667.006,"body":"Sweet. Yes. I haven't said this yet in this interview, but it's a very foundational NBC concept is that everything a person ever says or does is an attempt to get a need met, even a no, even walking out of the room, right. If someone says no, the word coming out of their mouth is no. In their heart and in their body is some really precious need that's motivating the word no. If I can put my attention on that and again, that means coming back to the body, familiarity with my feelings and needs, familiar with feelings and needs in general. I don't listen so much to the words coming out of someone's mouth. I listen to beneath those words, to what the feelings and the needs are. So she says no. If I'm in my NBC consciousness, then what I'm hearing is probably like, oh, she's feeling scared or anxious or angry, and she's not ready to be vulnerable with me right now, which we call that the need for emotional safety."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3667.118,"endTime":3675.25,"body":"She's needing to protect herself from further pain right now. That's what that no is about. So I could say that to her."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3675.32,"endTime":3693.306,"body":"Yeah. Also to clarify, it's not that you're saying you're bypassing her no or not acknowledging or respecting the no. It's like you're hearing the no, and then you're empathizing on top of that to more deeply understand what's going on for the sake of healing or connection. Exactly."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3693.488,"endTime":3703.12,"body":"I might say out loud to her something like, so you need a little space right now right. In order to kind of feel more safe with me."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3704.29,"endTime":3722.686,"body":"Yeah. To which she could say, yeah, or maybe just for the sake of experiment right now, maybe she just says, no, that's it. You never listen to me, and walks out. Yeah. I imagine potentially you could do some first self empathy, because that would probably be quite activating."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3722.798,"endTime":3723.17,"body":"Absolutely."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3723.24,"endTime":3737.89,"body":"After that, try to imagine and empathize, like, oh, what would actually be going on for her? What was the reason for her no? There what might she actually be needing? Because the no, it's not about me being a bad person. It's about her actually having some really precious needs."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3738.06,"endTime":3803.76,"body":"Right? Yeah. I might go to a morning thing we call the mourning process. I might do a little morning with myself about things that I have said and done that I think are very likely contributed to this conflict that we're having right now. I might be like, God, when I think about the number of times that I've raised my voice with her, I just feel embarrassment and scared and regret, because that really didn't meet my need for her well being. That didn't meet my need for honest communication. It didn't meet my need for care and compassion. I could mourn what I've done that might have contributed to that. I could also mourn things that she has done so I could give myself some empathy about that. It's like, yeah, I know I raised my voice sometimes, and I wished I didn't, but it's like some of the things that she says are so hard for me to hear."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3804.13,"endTime":3862.058,"body":"My needs for respect and to be understood sometimes are just so not met with her. I don't want to justify my yelling at her, but it's like, it's so real for me that I get that, I get these strong feelings and don't know how to deal with them. So I mourn my behaviors. I mourn her behaviors, and in that process, then that's what an NBC we call marshall used to call coming back to life, because were not really alive. When I'm saying, well, you're a control freak. Well, you're so lazy and stupid, doing that back and forth thing Marshall said, that's not really being fully alive. That's not what we mean by being alive as a human being. To be alive as a human being is to be in touch with what we're feeling in our body and to be in touch with the needs, which is the energy that's motivating us, that's wanting to come through us, to help us to thrive."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3862.154,"endTime":3900.682,"body":"Right. It's not just enough to identify, oh, I feel. Mad. I feel sad. This sort of thing. When there's a charge there like that's a component of it for sure, but then the morning mourning for anybody listening, the morning process is then a chance to actually discharge or allow whatever emotionality is in you to flow in the way that it needs to so that you can actually come back to life. Right. Instead of stuffing it down, which is what we get programmed to do by society, which leads to more disconnection, more isolation, more self loathing, et cetera. Actually giving yourself the opportunity to cry if you need to, maybe yell at a pillow if you need to, or do something to let that out so that you can live."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3900.816,"endTime":3921.362,"body":"Absolutely. I come back to life. It's way more likely that the next time we decide to talk about this, that I'll be in a much better place. If she does her own inner work as well, then both of us will be in a much better place to be able to talk about what happened and heal from it and grow from it."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3921.496,"endTime":3954.83,"body":"Yeah. Beautiful. Let's all take a breath together. Noticing the timing of the podcast and feeling the desire to bring things, round things up. I'm wondering you have here number five, creating boundaries, compassionately, and the skill of saying no in a way that creates more trust. I know were just talking about no. Wondering if rounding that out with that piece would be a nice way."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3954.9,"endTime":3955.71,"body":"I would love to."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":3955.78,"endTime":3956.766,"body":"Let's do that."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":3956.948,"endTime":4025.3,"body":"Yeah. One of the foundational beliefs of NBC is that the most precious thing that one human being can share with another is that which is inside of us. Which in NBC means mostly our feelings, our needs, and our requests. If somebody authentically genuinely comes to me and makes a request, they're sharing what's precious inside of them. Now, granted, a lot of times people make something that sounds like a request and it's really a demand and so forth. So that's really hard to hear. People is making a genuine request, then in effect, they've given us the gift of being vulnerable with us. If I'm in my NVC consciousness, I'm going to hear that as a gift. Naturally, the first thing I would do would be thanks. My partner says, hey, would you be willing to have a special night with me this weekend? Even if I know that I have a work commitment that's taken me away and I'm not going to probably say no, I mean, say yes."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4026.23,"endTime":4077.726,"body":"I could still say thanks for asking. Thanks for asking. It feels really good to know that you want to spend that kind of time with me. That's the first thing we would do is say thank you. The second would be to empathize with the person, maybe not all the time. If it's a real simple request like you pick up eggs at the store might not empathize with her, but something tender like that I would empathize, which simply means put some attention on her feelings and needs. Sounds like you're feeling kind of warm and sexy. You really like to have some deep intimacy time with me. Just in some friendly, normal kind of way, just acknowledge what might be going on for her. The next piece often is we need information from people. Like someone says, hey, would you spend some time with me this weekend?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4077.918,"endTime":4135.16,"body":"What does that mean? We want to go camping. Do you want to go to a movie? We're talking about an hour. Are we talking about two days? That would oftentimes be necessary to ask, what then? The next part is a conversation about what needs that would be met that this person, that's the request, what needs of theirs are involved with this request, and then what needs of mine that would lead me to say yes or lead me to say no. In this example about the work thing is, man, sweetie, there's a part of me that would love that for the intimacy, the closeness, the sexual expression, the fun. I also got this work thing going on. I've been putting this off for a month, and I'm like four days away from this deadline, and I'm really concerned that I wouldn't be able to be fully present because I'm so worried about this project."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4136.649,"endTime":4148.666,"body":"We would have a conversation back and forth, what are the feelings and the needs that are leading to yes or leading to no? The last part of it would be searching for a solution for everyone's needs to get met."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4148.768,"endTime":4149.417,"body":"Right?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4149.584,"endTime":4170.962,"body":"Again, this comes back to the fact that human beings primarily track on do you care? As animals, our nervous systems are designed to be okay with not getting our needs met. Not chronically. That's a big problem. If I don't get my need met in a certain way, I'm designed to get over that."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4171.015,"endTime":4172.05,"body":"Yeah, it'd be fine."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4172.12,"endTime":4223.922,"body":"It'll be fine. What's not okay because we're pack animals is any thought that this person doesn't care about my needs, that's triggering. This no process is designed to actually express our genuine care for one another. That even if I end up being a no to the request, that person knows that I'm doing this not because I don't care about them, but because I have these really precious needs that are pulling me elsewhere. If they're in their NBC consciousness, they're of course going to want me to do what I need to do. They may be sad, disappointed, but of course they want me to do what is most important in my life at that time. And so we build trust. We build trust because we're being honest, and we build trust because we're caring about each other's needs."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4224.056,"endTime":4265.546,"body":"Yeah, that's beautiful. I like that a lot. Obviously, in this context, we're talking about relating with people who we actually want to go deeper in relationship with. Right. Like our romantic partners or our close friends. Not necessarily the person that comes up to you at the gym and says, hey, you want to go out with me this weekend? Oh, I really appreciate you asking me. Thanks. It meets my need. No, not this, but like your romantic partner as a way to say a no in a way that actually deepens intimacy, deepens your connection, and while still honoring that yes. No can be a complete sentence if you want it to be. There are different ways to artfully express no within the context of a sexual."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4265.578,"endTime":4280.982,"body":"Romantic relationship and to build the relationship. Most people think no is a problem, that it's going to degrade our relationship. It doesn't have to. It can actually build your relationship. You get to have your boundaries and your honesty and you get to have care, mutual care."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4281.036,"endTime":4284.022,"body":"Right. Because the no is actually pointing towards life."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4284.156,"endTime":4284.694,"body":"That's right."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4284.732,"endTime":4287.062,"body":"It's pointing towards that which is most important."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4287.196,"endTime":4288.76,"body":"That's right. Yeah."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4289.07,"endTime":4290.46,"body":"Cheers to that."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4291.23,"endTime":4292.25,"body":"Indeed."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4294.99,"endTime":4297.414,"body":"Thank you, Steve, so much for this conversation."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4297.542,"endTime":4298.57,"body":"What a pleasure."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4299.07,"endTime":4312.08,"body":"Very rich. We've covered a lot of amazing stuff. I feel really happy with it. Just a quick check before we stop recording. There anything else that you wanted to say that we haven't said yet? Or any last closing pieces you'd like to add?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4317.27,"endTime":4355.566,"body":"Yeah, one thing that Marshall used to say that I really like passing on to people is to remember that this is our basic human nature. These skills may sound really radical and really difficult, but it is our basic human nature that we've learned other things that have gotten in the way of this, and we can unlearn those things and let our natural self come out. When we do, we are so incredibly powerful to meet needs and make life, as we say in NBC, to make life more wonderful together. I love to leave people with that."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4355.748,"endTime":4369.762,"body":"Understanding and just to articulate that understanding more. We've learned things that kind of put our natural state away from what? How does this happen? Just to be aware of it?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4369.896,"endTime":4400.498,"body":"Yeah, because our culture and most of the cultures on the planet for a long time are what we call dominator cultures, and they're basically run on hierarchies, which are basically run on obedience to authority and run by punishment and reward. If you try to create intimate relationships based on obedience and hierarchy and punishment and reward, it's going to be a disaster."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4400.614,"endTime":4410.858,"body":"Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Unlearning that stuff through the intentional practicing of things like what we've talked about here today in this conversation, connected."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4410.874,"endTime":4413.566,"body":"To our bodies, primarily staying connected to."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4413.588,"endTime":4427.67,"body":"The bodies, the aliveness within, by checking out some of the worksheets that are in these show notes possibly by taking a class with Steve. You have a rotating list of classes coming up in the future, steve, where can people find out about those classes and find out more about you?"},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4427.74,"endTime":4447.69,"body":"Yeah, our website therealcenter.org. Also I want to promote these Compassion Day camps that we have. Monthly gatherings, full day gatherings, and in the summertime we have Compassion Camp four day event. All this stuff will be on the website?"},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4447.84,"endTime":4474.162,"body":"Yeah, all this stuff will be in the show notes. Steve, thank you so much for today. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. Everybody listening right now. Thank you. You the listener right now. I appreciate you being here. If you like this episode, please shoot me an email, let me know. If you'd like to have Steve back on the show, there's all kinds of good stuff we could dive into today could just be the beginning. Thank you all again. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day and I'll see you next time."},{"speaker":"Steve Torma","startTime":4474.296,"endTime":4476.13,"body":"Thank you. Taylor thank you. Folks."},{"speaker":"Taylor Johnson - Men's Sex Coach","startTime":4480.33,"endTime":4525.57,"body":"Before you go, I have a request. If you got a lot out of this episode, then it would mean a lot to me if you would take a moment right now and go over to Spotify or Apple and leave a review of this podcast. That'll help more people know that this podcast is actually worth listening to you, and it'll help me know that you like it as well. If you have any requests for the future, for future topics or future guests, please shoot me a message. Either send me a DM on Instagram or shoot me an email via the contact form on my website. I would love to hear from you. With that, I'll say thank you again and I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day. I will see you in the next episode. Tim brought."}]}