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The Journey to Sexual Empowerment: How Radical Presence Can Lead to Deeper Connection with Jordan Hackett

• Michael & Amy • Season 1 • Episode 42

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Unlock the secrets of transforming your intimate relationships as we engage in a candid conversation with Jordan Hackett, an international mentor specializing in men's sexuality and relationships. Jordan's personal journey from grappling with fears and shame around masculinity to becoming a transformative figure in this field offers powerful insights that promise to change the way you perceive sexual dynamics. Join us as we uncover how embracing one's sexual power can lead to a life brimming with passion, purpose, and deeper connections.

Explore the nuanced balance of sensitivity and assertiveness in sexual relationships—a balance crucial for fostering authentic connections. We navigate the historical context of male dominance and discuss how open communication can help prevent unconscious behaviors from disrupting relationships. Jordan shares invaluable advice on overcoming the fear of being too assertive, and how presence and dialogue during intimate moments can enhance the emotional and physical bonds between partners.

Discover the art of nurturing profound intimacy with your partner by moving beyond mere coexistence. We highlight the significance of small, intentional acts of love that build a foundation for genuine connections. By letting go of expectations and approaching relationships with genuine affection, intimacy transforms into a meaningful exchange. Jordan's mentorship provides a roadmap to reframe sexual dynamics, prioritise physical and emotional connections, and ultimately enrich your love life and personal fulfilment.

Jordan's details:

Website: jordanhackett.com

IG: instagram.com/thejordanhackett

Free Sexual Mastery Online Program for your male listeners: jordanhackett.com/challenge-page/mastery

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Website: https://michaelandamy.com.au/

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Speaker 1:

Jordan is an international men's sex and relationships mentor, co-organizer of FEAST, the Festival of Embodiment and Sexual Transformation, and the president of the Somatic Sex Educators Association of Australasia. His core training background is in somatic sexology and rites of initiation. As a young man, jordan discovered many of his challenges related to the heavy shame and fear of his own sexuality and masculinity. He carved a new path, reclaiming and integrating these deep parts of himself so he could live an empowered life of passion, purpose and service. Jordan supports men and couples to do the same for themselves. Through private mentoring and group programs. He teaches the art of sexual mastery and intimate relating. This episode is edgy, it's confronting, but it's so, so powerful. Make sure you listen to the end, as there are some really massive jaw-dropping gold nuggets that Jordan drops that could transform the way that you connect with your partner. Let's get into it. Before we begin, please note that today's episode includes sexually explicit themes that may not be suitable for all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. One, two, three, four.

Speaker 2:

We're Michael and Amy, your couples connection coaches. Our mission is to help couples thrive using a conscious and holistic approach. This podcast is for couples and singles who want to unlock their relationship potential and reconnect on a deeper, more meaningful soul level. We share insights, client breakthroughs and personal stories to help move your relationship from surviving to thriving.

Speaker 1:

Jordan Hackett. Welcome to the show. How are you?

Speaker 3:

going. Thanks, Michael. Yeah, doing well, man. Great to be here after having met you at T-GOM recently Feels awesome.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, amazing and for the listeners, t-gom is a massive event actually, um, the biggest one that I've attended in terms of a men's gathering, and there was over 150 of us and, yeah, a supercharged growth for men who are interested in kind of up leveling their lives and, you know, getting rid of cleaning out some of of the junk in there and maybe up-leveling in a few areas. And, jordan, definitely I was drawn to you and as a facilitator there and just to give the audience a little bit of an idea about you and your background and your story so that we can kind of connect with who you are. Yeah, just give us a bit of a spiel into you and how you've come about the work that you're in.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you man, absolutely. I've been working in men's rights of initiation retreats for about seven years now and I've been working in the sexuality development, like intimacy and relationship coaching space for about five. And I came to that journey because I kind of came out of a long-term relationship in my early 20s and started to explore myself in a new way when, overseas and stuff, and as I dove into my inner world a bit more, I kept banging up against this recognition of like a lack of confidence at times in intimate scenarios and also this fear of like doing harm. Basically that was. That was what it was. I looked around the world at men and I was like, wow, the track record of men and the damage they've done is not good and I don't want to be that. And so I started to kind of get in touch with this mechanism inside myself and then when I did my first men's rights of initiation retreat, I really got full contact with just how unsafe I actually felt as a man, both in my own masculinity and manhood and with other men, and particularly my fear of my own sexual power and the potential of doing harm with that and the ways that I'd like just disowned it and kind of like repressed it and suppressed it.

Speaker 3:

And so as soon as I kind of got contact with that you know, I was aware of a lot of my other mechanisms and internal ways of operating and I realized as soon as I got contact with that that it was really sitting at like the core of me, it was deep down inside, and a lot of things stemmed back to those places around my masculinity, my sexuality and.

Speaker 3:

And as soon as I discovered that I was like all right, this is like this has got to be my path.

Speaker 3:

You know, I'm going here now and discovered that I was like all right, this is like this has got to be my path. You know, I'm going here now and through that personal journey within a matter of like six months I was studying basically to be a sexuality professional because I was like this is so exciting to me and a change I'm witnessing in myself, the liberation I'm experiencing, the freedom, the alignment, the sense of empowerment and like wow, there's a whole other world here that's possible inside me and outside of me. When I create from that place, I was like what else would I want to offer human beings at this point in my life at least you know. So that's really what took me on this path, and I've been supporting men and couples, you know, and community, in workshop spaces. I run a festival called the Festival of Embodiment and Sexual Transformation, and so I like to wear lots of different hats. But that's, you know, the essence of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it essentially.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, amazing brother, and I really just wanted to. I guess what was coming up for me there is what a transformation that must have been for you to drop into this world where typically it's dominated by women who are educating in sexuality and and uh, and so for you was that. Was that scary to really take that leap?

Speaker 3:

yeah, it's funny, it wasn't in many ways like the actual leap itself wasn't that scary. I mean, it took me some time to come into confidence around actually delivering the work. I did my first training and then I just kind of sat back for a bit and then I did my second training. I was like all right, you know, get on with it. Jordan, and the relationship that I was in at the time that I'm still in right now. You know my life partnership. She was Tamika, was doing similar studies at the same time as me and she's 10 years older than me. She's done a lot of other practitioner-based work and facilitation for years.

Speaker 3:

So, more so than scary, what came up for me was my, my issues around comparison and how much I compared myself to other people at that particular time in my journey, and particularly to women, actually, because that was who I was surrounded by and they did, in my experience, you know, receive easier success because it's a it's a softer, more approachable um space and just way more practitioners in all you know, helping and healing modalities are women at this time, um, and so I faced that issue. I faced that gender issue and I think I had to move through a lot of my own kind of internal wounding around, not enoughness around, you know, not doing it right, not being good enough, and in reality, it's like it continues to this day to be more about the context that I'm in, actually and, yeah, I need to keep clarifying the inner space that I'm delivering from, but I'm also sitting in a context where it's like there's way more women and women are far more approachable socially at this particular time for these kinds of things yeah for sure.

Speaker 1:

And and when I was at the gathering of men, one thing that I really noticed was that what you really got us to do was super confronting, I gotta say, and and that's probably why I was drawn to your workshop. But I would say it was confronting because I never thought that I would see what I saw and what I was involved in in terms of, like men all together kind of looking to drop into a new level of experience which would, from the outside, look insane and really weird and probably gay and like you know. So for you to lead a group of men through that it must have been and it must be for you, super, I don't know like enlivening to witness guys actually breaking through comfort zones in order to kind of connect with themselves at a deeper level yeah, yeah, it is man.

Speaker 3:

It is really enlivening that's a great word for it and I guess the picture I like to paint is like you're right it is confronting for people that haven't approached that space and I guess, for people that are listening, like, the context of the workshop and the journey we went through because I've run this in other spaces so I feel comfortable sharing is we essentially went on a journey on the land, like we walked across the land. We connected with different elements fire, water, earth, air and we learned different ways to like breathe, to touch our bodies in simple ways, to move our bodies in simple ways, um, to our bodies in simple ways, to make sound in simple ways. And yeah, it looked a bit weird but it's like, aside from that, there wasn't actually that much happening that was super explicit, but people were in this deep space of internal connection with themselves and I think one of the biggest issues that men and couples face around sexual intimacy is that guys have this whole association with like sex happens outside of me with another person and it's all about what's happening with that person and it's all about performance and as soon as we're in that frame, we've already lost presence because we're concerned about how it looks, how it seems to the other person, so we've lost connection with ourselves, we've lost feeling, we're not even really being receptive as men in those moments and there's often a lot of worry and, you know, overthinking or concern happening. And so you know the workshop is really targeted at giving men an experience of what's it like to connect with my own body, what's it like to be actually in a intimate or, you know, mildly erotic experience with my own body. And yeah, it's confronting to do that with other men, but it's also liberating and you know it's so beautiful to see like 40 guys in that space just being present with themselves, like really inspiring, you know. As you say, yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can't imagine what that would look like from the outside, but I don't need to, so it's really amazing that, yeah, like you said, you're able to facilitate that for men and the importance of that, I think, for society and for our generation moving forward to get more comfort in their own bodies and actually connecting more deeply with that. I do want to ask, though Jordan there was a part just for our listeners. I think they would like to understand as well. You said something about you had this sexual power that you were worried that you could do harm with earlier in your little story, and I'm curious to know actually more about that. What are you meaning there? And, yeah, share that with us and what you see.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, I guess, like a warning to anyone that's listening, like I'll, I'm not going to use like super explicit language, but I'm going to talk about themes that are upsetting, like that's the reality of it, you know. I guess what I'm talking about is like men across history have been dominant in war, in, in colonization, whatever aspects of it. There's histories of rape, there's histories of murder, there's histories of sexual violence, there's histories of um going beyond another human being's wanted boundary and and a disregard and disrespect and, on lower levels of intensity, I guess there's a general social um cohort of thought that's been existing for many decades now around like just pushing the boundary. It's like, oh, if she says no, I can convince her otherwise. Or you know, if she says no in this way, it doesn't really mean it. And you know there's a lot more to sex than just boundaries and consent.

Speaker 3:

There's been a bit too much focus on boundaries and consent sometimes because it creates even more space and doesn't give the people the tools to actually connect. It's like, well, is everything perfect? But I guess when I'm talking about sexual power, it's like that's the power. Like a man is a penetrative being because he has that kind of genitalia that is designed to penetrate physically and so he has the capacity to to do that. And if it's not done with love, if it's not done with awareness, then it can create harm.

Speaker 3:

And I guess I had to, on my personal journey, come to terms with that, recognize that I was capable of that, like if I was connected to a different part of myself or not in my right mind. I'm capable of doing harm in those ways, and recognize that choosing to come into more awareness with it, to be in more conscious relationship with that capacity in myself, is going to be the best chance of me being the healthiest, kindest, most loving version of myself to me and to others. Where you know, a common kind of piece of knowledge in the coaching and spirituality industry is if we repress something, if we suppress it and leave it out of awareness, it comes back to bite us. You know it's like it comes out in unconscious ways and controls us.

Speaker 1:

So, um, yeah, great explanation, yeah, and thank you and I also want to look at the flip side of that, because I think I sensed in some of your story that you like kind of flipped back and um into this pleasing type state at one stage in your life. And I know for me, like I'm, I'm a recovering people pleaser, so I've been working through a lot of stuff over the last few years, um, and I think for me and I'm just reflecting in my experiences sexually, like in my young adult years, I would be concerned about being that guy that's going to inflict pain or do the wrong thing or maybe go too far. And then she said no, and maybe I didn't hear it and whatever. So I think just creating the identity that I'll just be what I think she wants me to be led me to being more passive and led me to being less penetrative and and so like, how does that affect the sexual energy in a partnership?

Speaker 3:

yeah, it's huge man and it's like, that's the exact archetype I was in. That's the exact same way of being I was in. I was like, I'm the nice guy you know, like, and I had so many friendships with women as a teenager and a young adult because it was so safe for them, because I never wanted sex from them, you know. But it's like, when I did experience attraction, it often took me ages to express it because I was so afraid of, like, I don't know, making someone uncomfortable. It's like, you know. So, yeah, and there's a whole body of people, of men now, that are in this more sensitivity, like they're. They're seeing the past, they're feeling their hearts more, but with it, it's like they're living in the fear of, well, what happens if I hurt someone, and so you know, if somebody remains in that state, absolutely like, it dilutes their sexual potency. It dilutes their capacity to create close erotic connections with their partners. It dilutes their capacity to be close erotic connections with their partners. It dilutes their capacity to be a strong, confident man in the world.

Speaker 3:

It often changes their ability to actually not only create the things they want in their relationship but across all areas of their life, because they're in this dynamic with everyone, where they're like I don't want to be too much or I don't want to get in the way, and it's like, hey, this is a messy world here. Like if you want something, be heartfelt and go out and create it. Go out and, you know, ask for it. You know, like you don't need to be taking in your energy or your your way, but you can be assertive, you can be lovingly, dominant in different ways, and there's a whole bunch of, I guess, relational and communicative mechanisms that I started to develop that helped me not so much ask permission but like be in a conversation, you know. And so one of my mechanisms became just being super direct. If I was on a date with someone, I wanted to kiss them and I wasn't sure I'd be like, hey, I feel like kissing you, I'd really like to do that. Are you? Would that feel good for you? Are you comfortable with that?

Speaker 3:

and often they'll be like whoa, you're you're asking me that, like, that feels really cool, yes, like, let's go. And it's like then I could do that and not have any of this. Oh, I wonder if she's enjoying, is she okay with it? Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1:

But you know, our frameworks of masculinity can be so delicate sometimes that it's like, well then, I'm not the strong man because I asked, you know, and it's like this is where we start to divert into the, the crossover, the intersection between, you know, the emotional body and the sexual body, and the way having them disconnected is really unhelpful yeah, good point yeah, man, I reckon that so much plays into it from movies, and that's just coming to mind now, and actually it plays not only into the man's psyche in that moment, like you were just describing the kiss and how it should be, but it also plays into the woman's psyche of like I want him to just you know, just know that and sense that this moment is right.

Speaker 1:

And if he asks me, then that just you know, collapses my whole dream of what this could be. Yeah and yeah, just, it's just really interesting. I just had that thought then and how we can be socially molded into these kind of ideas and yeah, and we're co-creating this issue, we're co-creating this paradigm of funkiness and separation basically, it's normalized, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, one thing I want to go back to that. You mentioned that, um and I am sticking back with this but you were mentioning that you weren't in your right mind or you weren't aware. You know, uh, in these situations with women and stuff and uh, when we're talking about this sexual power, you know you were worried that maybe mentally or emotionally you weren't't in the right mind. Can you share, I guess, the difficulties or the challenges that that creates for men in particular, but also for women, I suppose, if they're not in the right mind or they're not having the awareness when in those intimate moments and things like that, and what issues that can cause for people?

Speaker 3:

yeah, sure I can speak to both sides, because I think like to offer clarity on what my experience was is that I was over cautious, like I was concerned that I would do damage, and so my not right mind in in avert commas, was like an over concern, basically in a lack of confidence, both in the lead up and sometimes in the early stages. What my pattern was often to develop enough emotional safety that I could bring my kind of lover online fully, and then once I was there, I was quite a different person. But it was about the emotional safety of trusting that the other person knew my intentions and knew the deeper aspects of me. Um, but yeah, to speak to the the larger dynamic at whole, I think there's a whole bunch of ways that we can be kind of off center and not in our right minds as men in sexual experiences. Um, and the biggest overall impact of that is a lack of presence.

Speaker 3:

And when you're not in presence which is something that gets thrown around a lot, but it basically means you're actually available, like you're receptive, you're noticing the other person, you're noticing yourself, rather than off in another place, thinking about another thing or worried about something. If there's something big taking up your attention. You're not present like you're with that other big thing. So the biggest outcome of that is actually mistakes. They're not even intentional harms, but it's like there can be a lack of sensitivity so a man doesn't notice when his partner is like not enjoying something or when something else is happening, or even sometimes if she's communicating and he can't hear her fully, like the words aren't actually getting through. All of that can be a byproduct of this this lack of presence, this lack of right mind, this lack of actually being available to the moment and rather being caught up in your insecurities, your doubts or, the other side of it, your arrogance. What you want?

Speaker 2:

only you know, like these kinds of things yeah, what I'm hearing you say is the importance of, I guess, presence, but also the ability to know yourself ultimately for this, for this beautiful deep connection of of what sex brings for people. And I guess this is a journey, like you know, we're we're in our forties, so it's a little bit easier for us to kind of be in that space, but I guess our audience is around this similar dynamic and age as well. But I also want to acknowledge that the difficulty of for young, you know, for these young 20 year olds exploring this, they're like gosh, how do I connect with myself? I'm too busy, like you said, like worrying about what this looks like and how this feels and is this right or is this wrong? Is this okay? Like all of those things that take up our emotional capacity or our mind yeah, and it's, you know, like.

Speaker 3:

That is definitely something that's a little bit more common in the earliest stages of life. But that same mechanism, when under, when not developed, when not addressed, I see showing up in my clients that are in their 40s, 50s, sometimes even sixties, where they still don't know, they still feel insecure because they're still waiting for that external affirmation from their partner or they're still, or, you know, instead of it being finding a sexual relationship, it's about keeping a sexual relationship now because they're having erectile challenges or they're having early ejaculation challenges, because the same mechanism of the mind overrunning their lives is showing up in the bedroom as it has for the past three decades, you know.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, it just shows up differently at different times. That's a really good point.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, yeah and um, a couple of things that you just mentioned there and and I think they're just byproducts of being in our mind again and outcomes and how I look and how I'm performing and all those kinds of things, like I mean, I've had trouble with premature ejaculation in the past and it's I think that again, like what we watch, you know, plays a part in that too, and how I should be doing this and you know pornography and you know, like, if we don't have any model of what's right or wrong, then we can only go off what we've seen and what we've witnessed or what we talk about with our mates and like is that really obscuring us like to a point where we're just blindly, just kind of going off?

Speaker 3:

you know what's selling, basically, absolutely man, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of coaches out there as well that are playing into that, that are like I'll teach you to be the sexual god, I'll teach you to be the sexual master, I'll teach you to, you know, bang it seven ways in the bedroom. And it's like, in my belief, as long as we're playing that game, we're set up for failure because we're never actually connecting on a deeper level, like most people that have sex with their partners are doing it because there's pleasure involved and there's a deeper intimacy and connection of their bodies and their, their beings, their hearts, you know their minds. Like it brings us close together, it helps us feel like we're a partnership. It it helps us feel like we're allies and we're there and we've got each other and we love each other, like it's an expression of so many of these things. And when we're in performance, when we're allies and we're there and we've got each other and we love each other, like it's an expression of so many of these things.

Speaker 3:

And when we're in performance, when we're playing into that narrative that we've just been absolutely jammed with, as you say, through Hollywood, through pornography, through pop music, it's all there and you know, in my experience, the real turning point is when a man and anyone has the courage to recognize that and go. There must be another way. I I can actually go on a journey of discovery with myself and my partner, rather than having to maintain this escalator of these four or five bases of sexual intensity that we rerun with minor satisfaction. You know, year in, year out, that's like kissing, oral penetration, like you know, like that's it often. Or you know just kissing and then penetration, even sometimes, and it's like they're the two, two factors and the rest is a mystery. And it's like the mystery holds a whole bunch of incredible connection and pleasure in it that doesn't have to involve ejaculation, it doesn't have to involve orgasm and it doesn't mean you can't enjoy these things, but it's like can you enjoy a whole bunch of other things as well?

Speaker 1:

that's so powerful man, because I think, like I was really always thinking that the ejaculation is the thing right, like, like, like we should come together or I if, if I come, you should come, and and so it's outcome focused. Yeah, just like it probably was when I was playing with myself when I was like a teenager. It's outcome focus. I've got to get this out before my mom catches me before something happens, right? So I guess I wanted to to speak a little bit about how well even for us like we've, you know, I think for two of us, like that was probably how we did it for so long and we both love that part of it we love that part of it, right, and we're talking about three seconds here.

Speaker 1:

But I think what we've learned to drop into are those moments of just gray. You know where it's like it's the, it's the presence that you spoke about, it's the feeling, the sensation and being. It's slowing things down has been so helpful, I think, for us just to connect at a deeper level, and I reckon it's those parts and learning to be in those moments for longer. That's been really helpful for us too. But I think there's an area where we can kind of get better, and I wanted to ask you this question specifically before I got you on the show Like, is there a better is? Like by using the breath, by using, you know, certain methods is, is there a better way of us actually practicing this and also speaking, like, actually asking, like having dialogue while you're having sex, like, is that something that you encourage?

Speaker 3:

yeah, it is totally and it's not like. Yeah, it's challenging for people because people when they talk, they disconnect from their bodies, like because we're not practiced at talking and being connected to ourselves, we, we, we go up into our heads and we start thinking and speaking comes from that place. So I guess, as a foundational point for any listeners that are like, oh, I don't like speaking during sex, be aware that there's a mechanism here that you can practice, where you can practice staying in the pleasure of your body and you can speak whilst doing that. And yeah, there might be distraction if you keep speaking for like minutes and minutes, but it's like you can communicate with language without disconnecting and you can also get way better at pausing, communicating and then going back to without it actually being an interruption.

Speaker 3:

You know, we're very delicate often in our sexual relationships. It's like the flow and the, the kind of pleasure is very tentative and and interrupting it is risky because we don't know how to get back there. It's kind of mysterious, you know. So when you explore this space, you get better at actually knowing where the doorways are and you can step out for a moment and go hey, how are we going? What are you experiencing Like are you enjoying this? Do you want more of that? I actually want more of this. Can we do this for a second, and then you can pause again and look at each other and you're like, boom, there's the sexual energy again. We just walk straight back through this doorway and find pleasure because we're in presence. We're not trying to get it right.

Speaker 1:

Um, can you repeat your question, though, so I can answer it properly you've basically answered it like it's wonderful to hear that you know that it's okay to have dialogue. Yeah, however, it's also got its risk to it that it can disconnect from the moment. Yeah, so can you either remain present or move back into presence like shortly after and actually resume?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So what that to me? What I'm hearing is that it's really helpful to kind of find if is this good for you, because for me this is really good and I just want to see if there's you know, anything that you would like to explore from here and actually like speaking using our voice more.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So a big piece of this that I wanted to add that I would have missed if you didn't say that is it's what you communicate. That makes a big difference. You know, like a really common question in sex is like is this okay for you? And it's like do you really want to know if that's okay for them? Like is that all you're asking? Don't you want to know if that's okay for them? Like is that all you're asking? Don't you want to ask is this, like good for you or is this great for you?

Speaker 3:

But when we change our communication, we can unconsciously feel that it opens us up to vulnerability. Right, so is this okay for you is a much less vulnerable question than is this great for you? Because if they're like, no, this isn't great for me, you're like oh shit, and we automatically assume it's our fault. But it's like part of this practice as well is don't take things personally. It's their experience. They're just as responsible as you are for changing it. You're helping them change it by ask the question. So hold your horses, calm down a moment. The communication offers you the direct instruction of how you can help change the scenario, which is the next question like awesome, so what would feel really good for you right now, what do you want to receive? And if we start to take our communications from this place of like mediocrity to actually setting the bar for like awesome pleasure, then we automatically stretch ourselves towards that possibility and start meeting it. One of my favorite questions that I ever learned in my training it's just like an absolute godsend is how can this be even better?

Speaker 3:

like it's just like a pleasure stacker. It's like great, I've done this. How can this even be even better? Let's add this, let's you know.

Speaker 3:

It's like we don't dare to ask those questions at all. Often you know so it's also about what you communicate and and to inside yourself. If you're feeling insecure and you're communicating from that insecurity without taking responsibility for it, then it's likely your partner is going to react to that insecurity. Mental bodies and actually knowing that landscape, having emotional intelligence, knowing how we feel becomes absolutely essential, and having healthy ways to express and communicate it responsibly, you know, in a way that doesn't land it in the lap of our partners to deal with, makes a big difference for the ease of sexual relating.

Speaker 1:

All right, tell me about that training. Then how the hell do you get better at being in your body, in the presence, in the awareness of self, all that sort of stuff? Because for me, like I know, for years I was in my head and so like, literally shoulders up and, and so I found it really hard to kind of experience emotion because I'd shut that part of myself down, um, I found it really hard to experience certain sensations or even identify what emotion I was in, um, and so therefore presence was such a far-fetched thing for me in terms of like, embodied presence, like feeling the feels right now, feeling my partner's sadness with her, like was not a concept that I could grasp. So I just wanted to know, like, if you've got anything that is really helpful for our listeners to get better at that? Is that something you can click your fingers and just go cool, here's the pill?

Speaker 3:

absolutely not like going to gym. You got to do reps, like it's that simple, and the the thing is that people don't know what the weights are to lift. So that's the question you're really asking is like, what weights do I lift to work on this muscle of my body? You know? And the first step is to really acknowledge that it is a practice, because it's not going to feel awesome the first time. Maybe you're not going to get awesome at it the first time, but if you're rigorous with it, just like the gym, if you go to the gym four days a week for four weeks, you're going to be a whole lot of a different person in a month's time. You know, if you go to it once a week for four weeks, it's like cool, you might feel a little bit stronger, but there's not going to be a significant change. That's happened. And so we have to recognize that it's exactly the same with our presence, with our connection to our physical bodies and to our physical bodies.

Speaker 3:

And through my journey I've learned. I've developed hugely significant and deep relationship with my body and then I've had times of intense challenge where I've been quite in my head and it's a living relationship. It can disappear again, just like going to the gym. You know you can lose that fit body, so it's like it's something we have to maintain. And this is the challenge of being a man in particular in this world but any human being in this world is. We're up against the structure of our society. Our society is not very supportive to being in our feeling bodies, to being emotional creatures, because there's this hyper kind of performance just get shit done, get on with it kind of mentality of western culture, and it doesn't allow heaps of space.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, to get back to the practices, it's about bringing your awareness into your body. So often we're up in our heads, we're spending time thinking. It's literally sometimes as simple as like. Can I actually interrupt that and just take three deep breaths and put my hand on my belly and feel my belly as I'm breathing? Like that is a moment where you've utilized different neurological wiring in your system to be feeling your stomach, feeling the physical sensations and any other qualities that in that part of your body, and so if we can do this practice inside and outside of sexual experiences, it's super beneficial. Naturally, I think more awareness comes from of the emotional body when you're connecting to the physical one too. But if you only do that, it doesn't necessarily develop your ability to speak about your emotional body or be particularly articulate or expressive around it. To do that I really encourage, like going to men's circles or doing some reading on emotional intelligence, or practicing. You know, the easiest practice is like tell your partner how you felt today, like what feelings did you experience?

Speaker 3:

and maybe you've only got two words for the first two weeks that you do it, but then you might find some other textures, some other qualities, you know.

Speaker 3:

So it's being in this practice. One more thing I guess I'll offer, because it's a big it's a big subject is the foundation of my work is teaching men to transform their masturbation habits into intentional self-pleasure practices, and that, for me, is the most effective, the most efficient and the most enjoyable way to form deep relationship with your body, to get to know your own pleasure structures and to be in touch with yourself. Like it's a really enjoyable way to do it. It tips over old habits that you want to get rid of, like using porn anyway, and it gives you a whole bunch of awareness and confidence that's super grounded and available in your own body for your sexual relating beautiful and I think you know, on women it'd be just the same too, right like just practice that themselves and be able to get in, in tune and in touch with themselves more so, then they can bring that awareness into into the relationship space as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I get that, yeah, and I think, um, I don't know, when you were speaking before about this stuff, I really noticed in myself, like tuning into our audience and I can feel the uncomfortable, comfortable uncomfortableness in them as well. And and if you're listening to this, you're probably like, oh, this is kind of edgy stuff, right, because I think it is. But what I love and what I want to highlight, that our work kind of does, is deepen into the relationship. You know, like there's this level of we were listening to a podcast the other day and it's this level of like roommates or role mates, you're just in your roles, you're doing your thing.

Speaker 2:

But what we're speaking about here in this episode is really deepening on this next layer, to experience your partner on a whole different realm. And this is the excitement of relationships, right, because this is what we get to. For me, and in my experience anyway, this is what I get to experience in the wholeness of life, and there's nothing more for me rewarding or nourishing or soul connecting than this intimate space with your lover. So, yeah, I love that. It is uncomfortable and the listeners will be squirming, but I hope that they're able to kind of drop into that uncomfortableness and just inquire and peek in with some of these things that you're sharing, because they're so valuable. I think they're really powerful just to remind ourselves how to connect with our bodies alone. You know, before we even get into that, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And like on a relational level. It's probably examples you guys have given before in other episodes or your work, but it's like the, the, you know. The relational side of this is like, rather than giving your partner a rushed kiss, goodbye every day, or, you know, rolling over at night and going to sleep, rather than trying to leap from that place to where having great sex like, offer yourself some layers. Dare to grab her in the morning, you know, and look her in the eye and be like, hey, thank you for what you did earlier, or thank you for doing this, or thank you for making breakfast. I love you. I hope you have a great day. Kiss her passionately.

Speaker 3:

Like, dare to do something that actually has you still for a moment with each other, even if it's only for 10 seconds. Like you layer some of those experiences over the top of each other and when you arrive in bed, your systems, your bodies, your minds, your hearts are going to have a whole library of pleasant, loving, pleasurable, connected, incidental moments to refer back to, rather than this void of where, like, we're housemates. It's like you don't generally tend to have sex with your housemate, do you? Like you don't go from zero to 100 with them. So why would you go to it with your partner, like soften the space for each other, you know.

Speaker 2:

Spot on.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And it would be weird if you did that with your housemate. So it's probably going to be weird for you if you haven't done those little micro moments of connection and, like you said, going from zero to 100, like the expectation there, like it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and the pressure man. It's like high pressure for both parties and if we know anything about sexual vitality and aliveness, it doesn't do well under pressure. It really doesn't. It wants room to breathe. It wants a lack of expectation. It wants to be allowed to do whatever it wants to do. You know, like that's what your sexual essence wants to do, that's what your sexual connection with your partner actually wants. It wants to be able to explore and duck and weave like a river. You know it doesn't just go bang like a grenade and then finish. It's like it's a very different kind of energy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and just like how you explained, how you reframed that question, how is this great for?

Speaker 1:

you that there is an element of risk there and potential rejection that you could experience in that moment. The same applies when you're looking to, like, sweep your partner off their feet unexpectedly and give them a passionate kiss and push them against the wall and really just kind of show them that real like energy and vitality and that love and that connectedness that you have for them with vibrancy. Yeah, but that's risky too. Yeah, and I think that that's an interesting theme that we've just stumbled across. Is that when it's risky too yeah, and I think that that's an interesting theme that we've just stumbled across is that when it's risky like that's probably when you're making inroads because you're risking something like it's a vulnerable moment, right, yeah, yeah, let's talk for a moment about something that I reckon is going to be like super relevant to a bunch of you guys that are listening and to both sides of the relationship.

Speaker 3:

Going to be like super relevant to a bunch of you guys that are listening and to both sides of the relationship. I think a really common dynamic, especially in like a lot of aussie couples, is the man wants to have sex and maybe the woman even wants to have sex too, but there's a lack of kind of connection and sensitivity and there can often be a sense of pressure from either party of like I want sex and you don't, and I'm telling you about it or I'm indicating it through this action, and that creates yeah, it creates pressure and it creates rejection often in the dynamic, because the other person isn't warmed up and the person that's wanting it isn't doing enough to warm the other person up. And there's a difference here between laying the foundations for this and making a move that says I want sex now. And what can often happen in this dynamic, particularly when it's a man that wants sex and a woman that doesn't is the woman can become used to a man's moves as an indication of I want sex now, and so she can often start to reject those minor moments because they feel like pressure, because he's unconsciously communicating and like give me what I want.

Speaker 3:

So if you're a man and you're trying to reconnect with your partner or your wife and you've been experiencing this dynamic, dare to let go of the expectation of sex for a moment. Just actually put it down like you're not going to get it tonight, so forget about it. You didn't get it last night, you didn't get it the night before, it's not happening tonight and it might not happen tomorrow or the next week if you keep going like you're going. So dare to put it down for a moment. Go up to your woman, hold her, look into her eyes and kiss her, and if she squirms, if she says like no, I don't want you to do this, hold her still, not in a, you know, aggressive or violent way, but firmly, and look at her and say I don't want anything from you in this moment.

Speaker 3:

I just wanted to tell you that I love you. I just wanted to give you a kiss because you're gorgeous or you're beautiful, or I find you so attractive, right. So there you're being penetrative with your love, not with your expectation and so often we're penetrative with our expectation, which is received as pressure, rather than with our love is experienced, as you know, beautiful and nourishing and supportive. So if you can flip that switch, if you can let go of the agenda and dare to be firm, to be masculine in that way, but from a sensitive place from you, from from a generous place in you, I guarantee that in a much faster time, something is going to unlock between you guys that previously has just been like shut down with iron gates behind it, and your lovemaking sex will become a genuine connection rather than a favor which feels super shit mostly yeah, what a gold nugget of wisdom right there.

Speaker 1:

That is massive and and I see that it's even if a man practices that, I can see how easy it could be for him to drop still into expecting some return for that Totally. And you know, like you know, we see this, we hear this so often, you know in our work too, and I think that what you've just offered there is such an inroad into that space and it is often the opposite of what we think intuitively we should do.

Speaker 2:

There's nothing more attractive than that, you know, from your man, because we work with couples where, yeah, there is this like duty sex or feeling like I have to, that's my service, sort of thing. So if the man comes to their woman in this way, it's definitely, you know, I can speak into what that changes for them. So much, yeah, and, like you said, yeah, I can see the potential of it unlocking something really special.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And also physiologically you spoke about warming up. I think like for me, that was a massive aha moment for me, even though, like, yeah, you kind of taught it in some weird sex ed class in the 1990s.

Speaker 3:

The terrible cartoon video it's like horrendous.

Speaker 1:

I just remember how awkward this whole thing was, not just for the like my classmates, but for the teacher. I just remember like anyway, we won't go into that, but what I guess where I was going with. That is like actually taking time with that whole process is so important, particularly for a woman. It's just like a physiological difference.

Speaker 2:

It helps us to drop out of our heads right, it helps you guys too and to drop into the body. We can just take that time and slow things down, right, yeah?

Speaker 3:

yeah, and let's like, let's use really harsh marketing language for a moment. You know business marketing like language, like look at your return on investment, look at how much you're investing, when you're taking five seconds.

Speaker 3:

It's like giving five cents to crypto and then being saying, like give me a payout next month. Like I want to make millions and you know your crypto agents. Like are you kidding me? Like are you actually delusional here? And you're going up to your partner and you're like here's five seconds of my time, like warming us up. Now I want great sex and it's like you might get a bit of what you want, but I guarantee, guarantee, it's like a 5% you know, of what you're capable of. Some of the best sex that I've ever had.

Speaker 3:

I've spent like half an hour to 40 minutes massaging my partner's entire belly, pelvis, inner groin area and then actually mapping and touching the entire internal areas of her vaginal area so that I can make sure there's presence, there's blood flow, there's safety in all of those cells and it's like the level of openness, the level of receptivity and safety that we drop into is mind blowing and it's beautiful and it's like so many of our bodies have never experienced this kind of safety in our lives, because we live in a high stress world that pushes us to be things we don't want to be. So your intimate relationship is somewhere where you can harbor with one another and take rest and be genuinely like, kind and generous with one another. But if you constantly bring everything that you get in the world and the busyness of your day back into your room and do that at night, you're just getting the same as what you get out there. So you've got to find something inside yourself at some time or another to do it differently.

Speaker 1:

Otherwise you're going to keep getting the same results yeah, boom, yeah, I love it, yeah, yeah, it's so potent yeah, thank you, my man, and um, I think we've we've just extracted so much in this short period of time and I think, you know, there's value in just letting that sort of sit and just permeate and actually take some things away as well from what we've just undertaken.

Speaker 1:

And I'm going to take some things away from this too, and I like to think that I'm present and I, you, you know I do practice presence in a lot of the things that I do, but there's so many layers of presence that we can drop into.

Speaker 1:

And for me, what I'm taking away is the importance of, of, of really having this as my gym workout, you know, and having this as my gym workout, you know, and having this as, hey, I'm training my nervous system, I'm training my, my ability to observe myself, you know, to feel the fields even more and you know. So, for me, I think just taking that away has been huge in in just remembering the importance of that and to share that with my partner in in this physical realm as well, totally, man. So, thank you, my brother, thank you for coming on the show and we appreciate your work, and for the listeners who want to get in touch with you and if they want to connect with you in any way I know that you run workshops and festivals and, obviously, coaching how can they actually get in touch with you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you can jump on my website, which is jordanhackettcom, um. H-a-c-k-e-t-t. Or you can find me on instagram at the jordan hackett um. They're the two best places generally. And, yeah, just reach out, like I love you know, one of my favorite ways of working with people is is deeper mentorships. You know where we go on a journey over three or six months and just give you everything that you need that you've never received before, to actually have the sex life, the relationship that you want. You know and and address the underlying emotional challenges, the internal belief systems, but also give you the skill set, give you the toolkit that's going to make you a great lover, make you a great partner, and it's it's in your interests, you know for that. For that sake, it's like it gives you the life you want, not just your partner.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I love your work. It's really important work. I can see the potency of what you're delivering and sharing. So, yeah, thank you so much for sharing this with the world. It's really yeah, it's really powerful yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for having me on guys. Yeah, our pleasure.