Relationship Breakups, Grief & Letting Go: A Man’s Journey Through Heartache | Shakti Sundari

Shakti Sundari offers practical tools for reconnecting with your emotional world, including meditation, breathwork, somatic practices, and conscious movement. They dive into why many men suppress anger and grief, and how those emotions—when properly understood—can actually fuel truth, purpose, and healthy boundaries.

They also explore the masculine path of letting go, heartbreak and healing, and how to use emotional triggers as tools for inner transformation. Dating, rejection, and polarity are unpacked in raw and honest ways—plus the importance of playfulness, curiosity, and not taking yourself too seriously.

Whether you're navigating a breakup, feeling disconnected from your emotions, or simply want to build healthier relationships, this episode is packed with wisdom and real talk to help you step into the man you're meant to be.

Key Takeaways

• Why men suppress emotions—and how to reconnect with your emotional body
• How to use anger as a force for truth and inner power
• Grief as a sacred gateway to growth and heart expansion
• The importance of self-compassion and slowing down
• Dating with self-awareness and curiosity (not shame or fear)
• What creates true masculine/feminine polarity
• How playfulness helps men reconnect with joy and presence

🚀 If you’re struggling with dating, emotional connection, or feeling stuck in life, this episode is for you!

🎧 Listen now to gain practical tools to break free from self-doubt, build healthy relationships, and start living with purpose.

About Shakti Sundari:

Shakti Sundari is a love coach, writer, trailblazing wise woman & skilful curator of embodied awakening with a mission to bring more love, awareness and unity to life through the teaching & embodiment of tantric principles.
She published her first book - RAPTURE: A Guide to Sexual & Spiritual Awakening for Women - in 2020 and founded the Conscious Dating Collective at the start of 2025.

www.shaktisundari.com

Instagram: @shaktisundari

Transcript

James: 0:00

In this week's episode, I have a conversation with Shaq Ti Sundre about why feeling not good enough keeps men stuck, and how compassion. Opens a door to growth. We talk about grief, heartbreak, and the masculine path of letting go. How to use anger as a force for truth, boundaries, and passion. And we look at dating, rejection, and inner growth.

0:37

Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights. Struggling with career, relationships or personal growth? We've got you covered. Join us on Man Quest to Find Meaning. Now, let's dive in.

James: 1:14

Last time we talked about the root of disconnection in men and why men often feel isolated and lonely. We also looked at porn, loneliness, and the search for real intimacy and how. The disconnection from the body and the heart can lead to objectifying women and detaching ourselves from real relationships. We also looked at embodiment, conscious dance, and in popularity, modern masculinity and relationships, what a healthy masculine can look like in regards to present purpose. And I. Projection, self ownership and inner work. Yeah. Good morning, Shati, you, you, you are not only the first woman, but you're the first person to have done it twice.

Shakti: 2:12

Thank you. It's such an honor and I'm really excited. And again, like I think I said this at the beginning of the last one, it's like I feel really honored. I feel really excited. I also feel like this little bit of, it doesn't feel like a weight, but like, oh, responsibility. But I don't wanna kind of feel any pressure. I just wanna be like completely authentic and just do my best, you know? So, but thank you. It's great to be back and I'm excited.

James: 2:37

Yeah. I always tend to feel, when I first start, do a podcast, I always have, have this little bit of apprehension or this little bit of nervousness within me, but then as soon as the conversation starts, it kind of sinks away and you kind of. The flow of things. Yeah. So let's just start off. We've talked about emotional depth and inner healing, and we also let talked about how men tend to oppress emotion, uh, emotions. What practices can help men to begin become to feel safe, to be able to access their own emotional world without shame?

Shakti: 3:16

Right. Um, right. We've gone straight in there.

James: 3:19

We have gone straight in there. Why not?

Shakti: 3:23

Um, so the first thing I wanna say in response to that is, um, I would hate for men to be judging themselves for this. You know, it is, it's, it's not like you are bad if this is how you've been operating. So, because I think there's so much, um. I think there's a lot of self-judgment amongst men at the moment, or a lot of sense of like, I'm not good enough. So we don't wanna add to that. It's just a case of, of recognizing, um, for our parents' generation and the generation before that, you know, things were different and it wasn't normal in those days to show your emotions, to talk about emotions. And so this is how we've been brought up and it's just a case of like, that's how it was. This is, this is the impact it's had. Just seeing this has had an impact and it can be, um, detrimental to your capacity to relate and to make love and to form really healthy connections. So then, right, how do we, you know, what are the ways, like practical ways, I really like the way that your questions are, are sort of practical that we can begin to access this. So these all seem quite simple, but they all take. A level of commitment and discipline to do regularly. So the things that I've, that I would say are one, meditation, because any practice like that, which is a way of cultivating inner presence and stillness and. Meditation is a way to begin to build your inner resilience, your inner capacity to not react it. It cultivates your capacity to witness what's going on rather than be identified with it, which is huge.'cause normally when you get triggered you get reactive and like something kicks off and you feel fully identified with what's happening. Whereas if you begin to meditate and make that a daily practice, you'll begin to watch what's happening. So you're still, you know, you're feeling it, you're not repressing it, but there's a bit of a gap. There's a, the, the gap will grow in terms of like, oh, I noticed this is happening. So meditation I think is essential. Breath work is another really great one, and I think some of your other guests have mentioned that. Um, and breath work. There's many different forms, there's many different ways and it can be activating. So depending upon what the practice is, it can be soothing to your nervous system and to um, you know, either ways we'll connect you more with your somatic experience, which is what we want because emotion is energy in motion. Right. So energy is in and around the body. It's not in the head. So to connect with that, you need to be more connected to what you are feeling somatically in the body. So breath and breath awareness helps you with that. And so, for example, calming ways of breathing would be the box. Breath. Breath, which probably other people have also spoken about. Breathe in. Hold before, hold the breath before breathe out, before hold the breath out for four. That's one way or what in yoga. I just taught a yoga class this morning. Slow long breathing where you, um, train your body to lengthen the in breath and balance that with the out breath. So both parts of the breath are completely equal in length and you gradually train your body to take a longer time. To breathe in and a longer time to breathe out. So those practices are gonna be really helpful. Um, again, for connecting to your body, the energy in your body and for when you get triggered. Um, any conscious movement practice, not just dance.'cause dance isn't everybody's cup of tea, right? So anything that combines moving and being in the body with being aware of what's happening rather than just sort of numbing out, which is different. And then somatic practices, like, and, and I think this would be really useful for a lot of guys. Um, so if something happens where, because I think there's like, women are more skillful in dealing with emotions. Men are less skillful because it's not the norm, you know, it's not like one's better or one's worse, but, so it can begin with like, you might notice that there's an emotion. So it's like, oh, I notice, I feel, and you might not even know what the word is, but ask yourself if you can find a word to describe the emotion that you're feeling currently. And you can look up, you can get, like, um, you go online, you can get like a whole list of different emotions. So you begin to see the range.'cause for a lot of people, it, it, and especially for men, it sort of simplifies itself down to anger, fear, happiness. Something like that. But there is like hundreds of different emotions. So what am I feeling right now emotionally? What is the sensation in my body that goes along with that? So then that begins to connect you with the name of the emotion and the sensation. So it's kind of building your vocabulary in a way. Um, I've got a couple more things I feel.

James: 8:35

Keep going, keep going,

Shakti: 8:36

keep going. All right, so there's a couple, I mean, there's, there's so much free information, but like I would recommend Brene Brown, who's a female author who's written several books about the power of vulnerability, including the gift of imperfection. Um, and then a really famous book called Emotional Intelligence by a man called Daniel Goldman. And they'll, they'll have free podcasts on YouTube and all kinds of stuff. If you, if you're not a reader and you just wanna listen to something instead, go, go, go look up that sort of thing. Men's groups and then men's leaders, teachers who are embodying it, who have already done the work. So these are all the things I think would really be, be helpful so that when an emotional surge comes. Rather than just like, um, projecting it out or numbing yourself out or seeking to avoid it, you slowly, over time, it's not gonna happen overnight. You are able to stay with what is happening with your breath, with your presence, with your awareness, and just give it your attention.'cause that's all it's asking for. It's just asking for your attention.

James: 9:47

It almost wants, uh, an internal dialogue. I, I feel, um, I'll quite often, my te my emotion it tends to keep coming up for me is anxiousness. Okay. Which I assume came from childhood. So you could include inner C child healing as well, but there's a sense of anxiousness that just keeps coming up. But when I kind of, I'm, I. I've done this for years, so I know how to feel emotion and I know how to distinguish it. But what I found really powerful, and I don't know if everybody could do this, is having an internal dialogue with it. So for example, the other day I was feeling anger. I had. This is a part of myself that I'd been suppressing, and so, okay. I decided to have an internal dialogue with my anger, and what came up was that it needs to be acknowledged, accepted, and loved. And then once it'd been acknowledged, accepted and loved, it was asking me then to go out and embody it, whether that's with regards to. Um, training, so like CrossFit or to go out onto d use it as, um, dance to help me to transfer, transmute it and to feel it. Or it could be going out in nature. And sometimes I can talk about, um, this out loud. If you see me by myself and I'm talking by myself, it's not because I'm, um, a weirdo over there. It's because I allow myself to have an internal dialogue of part of myself. And one other thing you've mentioned about somatic breathing, I've heard it everywhere. What is it?

Shakti: 11:37

So sematic just means body. Anything to do with body. Um, and what I mean, what I mean by that, when I, when I say it is simply like if you. Are paying attention to the sensation of breathing. This will bring you present into the moment and it will bring you into your body because the tendency is to flip up into the head and get caught in thinking, and that's what you wanna move away from.'cause thinking about it isn't gonna change anything. Feeling it is what's gonna change it. So. For a lot of men, um, you know, I'm, I am generalizing. There's a fear of feeling emotion. There's a fear that it's gonna be overwhelming. There's a fear, like it's gonna be too much, it's not familiar. So all these practice of, of calming the nervous system and being with, with the sensation and getting out of the head.'cause the head goes into stories like la la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Drop all that come into the body. Focus on your breath. I notice I'm feeling tightness in my chest. Like, so when you were feeling anger, you know, where did you feel it in your body? Can you remember what it felt like in your body? Like maybe it's a clenching in the, so in the, in your belly, or maybe it's like this heat in your cheeks, or like a tensing in the jaw, right? It could show us all these things. So you notice these things and you presence them, which just means noticing and being, like being alongside, being with with your awareness. And then actually you notice you can, you can hold more. It's not gonna kill you, it's not gonna overwhelm you, but it takes a bit of courage the first few times to really be with it. Um, and you know, anger is a really important and powerful emotion. It means your boundaries have been overstepped in some way. It's showing you something, so it's giving you information. Uh, so like you said, it needed, you found a way to give it outlet, but it might eventually also be, I need to have a con, a difficult conversation with my boss. I need to, you know,'cause it's showing you something about your boundaries and maybe in that moment you didn't feel able to speak up for yourself or articulate something that didn't feel right for you. So it's really important, like, as part of the growth process. Okay. That felt off, I need to voice this, but you wait until you've integrated that sort of surge of anger, so you're not shouting your mouth off at someone, but you're coming from a more grounded place.

James: 14:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, um, when I find with anger especially, is that it can be utilized as passion. So if, obviously it's not about having, letting emotions control you. It's about allowing yourself to, I suppose, not control, but work with the emotions to express it in a way that's healthy. But with anger, what I've noticed is that anger can be the fire within your heart, which can take you to your passion to a whole new level.

Shakti: 14:45

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is, it's, it's, it's, it's life force. It, it's fire energy and fire energy is necessary to be motivated, to have purpose, to move towards your goals, to get things done. You know, like depression is when you've been repressing your anger so much that it's. Kind of, it's there somewhere and it will probably come out in a really distorted way if you don't own it. So any things of depression or demotivation or victimhood, you know, getting in touch with your anger in a healthy way is actually great.

James: 15:21

Yeah, I used, uh, so probably about, I think it was probably about six, seven years ago. Whenever I used to drink, the anger used to come out. So when I was, when I'm sober, when I was sober, I was able to suppress the anger and it wouldn't come out in a, in a, in the wrong way. But then when I would go out drinking or I'd be around somebody drinking, I would get aggressive. I would get to, um,'cause I could no longer suppress it. Right. So it would find an avenue to come out and that's when it would come out.

Shakti: 15:52

Right? Yeah. So it's gonna, it is gonna. This is the thing, if you repress it, it's gonna make you ill physically and or it's gonna come out in unhealthy ways. And particularly with anger, that's when it can become violent and destructive. But anger itself is not bad or unhealthy. It's, it's, it's an emotion. All emotions have a reason. They have a purpose. And anger is about self-protection. It's about your boundaries. It's about justice, and so in a healthy way, acknowledged it's a really great emotion to be in connection with.

James: 16:29

Let's talk about grief.

Shakti: 16:31

Okay.

James: 16:32

So grief, I know from my own experiences and been through at, I think it's about four breakups, how much grief I've had built up in me. What is your perspective on grief and how can men consciously process grief without shutting it down or and burying it?

Shakti: 16:57

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, thank you for sharing that, first of all, and just kind of owning, uh, that experience of yours. You know, I think even for a man to say that can be quite a big thing, like my heart was broken, I felt grief about a breakup. Um. So like, yeah, as I'm hearing that, you know, like, I wanna respond, but just, I'm just taking a moment and just actually feeling that in my own heart because I feel a response to, to your words and to your experience. It's like, oh yeah, I, I feel that. Mm. And that's, yeah. I feel my heart, my, I go straight into my heart In response to what you've just shared. Um, I think that it's impossible to live life as a human being. Without disappointment, uh, without grief, without loss, whether it's a heartbreak or something else. So it's first kind of, you know, if it's helpful to put it into that context is this is part of the human experience. Um, the first thing that we spoke about earlier in terms of being in contact with your emotions is gonna help. So it is gonna feel worse potentially if you haven't already. Cultivated a way of being in connection with your emotions and your body because you know what I'm gonna say? The way to heal it is feeling it. You can't really, you know, what's that? The, the children's story. You can't go around it. You can't go over it. You can't go under it. You've gotta go through it. So there's gonna be discomfort, there's gonna be discomfort. If you wanna heal and grow and learn, like you can avoid it, you can repress it, you can shut yourself off. What's then gonna happen is your heart is gonna become armored. Your heart's gonna become guarded. Your body's gonna become less capable of sensing you. You're gonna shut down your capacity to feel sensation and emotion. That's gonna make it harder for you to connect and relate. Anyone, especially women, right? In future. So that's one way you could go. Uh, it's also probably gonna, if you do the repression thing, lead to repressed anger and things coming out sideways in unhealthy ways. It may also lead to resentment towards the feminine'cause you may be blaming her for your experience. The other way is to take full responsibility. Recognize this as painful. Recognize this is an opportunity for you to learn and to grow and to heal. There's, I mean, I've been through loads of heartbreaks and heartaches, like I felt I was gonna die so many times, so I know what it is. Like it is not easy even after doing it loads of times, times I know. So I'm talking from experience. Um, but I also know that if I allow myself to feel. And I meet that feeling with the breath, with the meditation, with the somatic practice, with movement, uh, with curiosity, with compassion, and getting a bit of a balance so as not to go completely into a wallowing, self wallowing slump of like, you know, I'm gonna be in bed for the next two weeks doing nothing. Um, there's, there's growth there. Your heart has actually can grow bigger. Your heart can, if you allow it open to feel more. I. Um, you might see like childhood patterns of attachment. Like what's my attachment, um, pattern here? Oh, I noticed that I am anxious or avoidant in my attachment. There's something for me to heal here. You know, what have I received from this beautiful relationship? And to also recognize if it were meant for you, it would still be here. So it's, it's very painful to let it go, but it's not meant to be because it's not. So the only way that you can continue to move forward is to to to do the healing, to do the feeling, which will take a while to take the gifts and keep on moving through your life with a bigger heart and a bigger awareness and a deeper level of wisdom and self-awareness.'cause you've learned something about yourself and, um, you know, cultivated a level of resilience that you maybe didn't have before.

James: 21:33

I know from, uh, grieving that I am somebody who I, I struggle to cry. I literally, I, I find it really hard to cry and I even sometimes I, I, I get to a point when I'm going through this grieving process of trying to cry and trying to force myself to cry, and I might cry for 30 seconds or 40 seconds or a minute, and then I'll stop. Literally, I, I feel probably there's almost, there's almost a block there. There's something underneath it, which is, um, just stopping me from properly letting go of all the grief. So I can imagine there's something in the, in the future's going to just do that and it's gonna be like,

Shakti: 22:13

yeah, yeah, yeah. I can actually relate to that, you know? Um,'cause we're all conditioned differently. And I, um. I've gotten a lot better, but I, I mean, so it's not always masculine, feminine thing. Like I had a dad who was very emotionally unavailable and you know, I was very much sort of conditioned to be self-reliant, so there was nobody really in my household I could go to when I was up upset. And um, so I learned to kind of squash my tears down and I was, I remember like, you know that feeling when you get that big lump in your throat? I get that feeling and I was like, I can't show I'm vulnerable. I can't show I'm vulnerable because it didn't feel safe to be vulnerable in my family environment. So I have to feel very safe to cry with other people, you know? So that's so, so I can relate to that myself. What I sometimes do is I watch, I watch, um, I put a movie on that's a tear jerker, that's does the trick for me sometimes

James: 23:23

or Titanic.

Shakti: 23:27

I can't remember Braveheart. It's so long ago I watched it. Um, yeah, probably Titanic would do. It's a bit long though.

James: 23:34

Or, uh, it's Gladiator or a, for me it's an a, any, a romance movie sometimes triggers it because obviously with going through this process of grieving quite a lot, I've also opened my heart a lot up a lot more,

Shakti (2): 23:50

right.

James: 23:50

So. Some scenes on romance films can literally trigger the tears. Yeah. Only temporarily, but they can trigger the The tears. The tears to come up.

Shakti: 24:01

Yeah. And it's so beautiful when you do have that release. It just feels so cleansing and like something has been released, you know, and they say that the chemicals in tears. Are different based on the emotion that you like.'cause you know, sometimes we cry with laughter or we cry for other reasons and they, I think they've analyzed the, the chemicals are different when we're crying tears of grief to tears of joy and happiness and all the rest of it. It's really interesting.

James: 24:29

It, um, what I was gonna say is that sometimes it's just infectious. It just happens. But it ha I suppose there has to be a trigger, so such as a film or something's happened where you've remember a past partner and then suddenly it's like,

Shakti: 24:51

hmm. Yeah. And it's not something to force, you know? It happens when it happens. Um, but I think again, generally the more. The more connected you become with your emotional body, with your physical body, um, the more you feel safe within yourself and you trust yourself, the more confident you become in who you are, probably the easier it is for the tears to come and for you to feel accepting, accepting of, and compassionate towards your own. Your own, you know, tears.

James: 25:27

Just before we actually label grief with crying. Mm-hmm. Do people have to, do people have to cry to grief?

Shakti: 25:39

What's your

James: 25:40

opinion there?

Shakti: 25:41

I don't think there's any have to about, I don't think there's any have to about anything. We're all different and how we feel things is different. Um. Tears are healthy, tears are beautiful, tears are normal. It is a biological human process. And if they're not coming, like again, you don't wanna be judging yourself or trying to make yourself like, oh, I can't cry and I really wanna cry. You know? Like, what if some, if I was working with a client and they said that to me. I would say, okay, so let's just sit with the feeling of I need to cry, or let's just sit with that desire to cry and then just breathe with that and feel that in your body. So you just start with what is present rather than trying to make yourself be something that isn't actually what's happening right now.'cause the healing process really, and the, the growth process is just about presencing whatever is. That's it. You just presence what is here now, and by presencing what is here now, you'll find that whatever is here now begins to shift and relax and then something else presents itself and then something else presents itself

James: 26:50

Because all, all emotions are energy. So it's been with that energy and moving it through your body.

Shakti: 26:57

Yeah, and again, nothing, there's nothing to force. You don't have to make anything. Happen. And there can be a connection, like, you know, going back to anger, anger, joy, um, grief, like, so the five rhythms is a dance practice and it takes you through, like each of the rhythms is connected to a different emotion. Um. I can't remember the order unfortunately, but fear and anger are in there. So it is a great practice to access those emotions. And it's not like you're thinking, oh, I need to feel angry now. It's just the music supports different movements. And I remember a few times I've been on the dance floor and I was laughing my head off hysterically, and then tears began to come down and it was like I tipped from like. What I thought was joy and I sort of suddenly tipped into grief, like with, there was no mental process. So this emotional range is, is there and sometimes one can be very close to the other.

James: 27:58

Yeah, it's almost like, um,'cause. Dancing myself, you're dancing to a certain sensation in the body and then suddenly it switches. So it might be a sensation here in the top of the chest on the shiver side, and it might shift down to here or down to the heart, or uh, down to the heart or into the head or into the legs. And it's almost, I feel, sometimes allowing yourself to. Not force yourself to stay in a Pacific place, but allow yourself to move around the body to wherever your attention goes to.

Shakti: 28:35

Yeah, yeah. Completely. The, I mean, that's the thing, the body has such an intelligence if, if you just allow it to do what it's doing and be present to what it's doing without, again, without the mental interpretation. That's why these practices of moving consciously are so help, like helpful. Um, because you find, you rewire yourself without having to do, like you, without having to sit in a chair and do any analysis at all. It just reconfigures itself through the movement. Emotion is, is energy and emotion. Mm-hmm. Right. And you know, in one of those dance experiences. You can go through so many different stages, like and, and stuff can move through your body without you having any idea that was gonna happen that night. You know, I can go to five rhythms and like, I'm ecstatic. I'm joyful, I'm crying, I'm sad, I'm shy, I'm confident, I'm sexy. I am an old hag. I'm, you know, like I just go through all these different stages of whatever is, and just allow it, you know, just allow it because it's a safe space.

James: 29:41

What creates true, um, magnetic polarity between the masculine and feminine.

Shakti (2): 29:48

Ooh. Right.

James: 29:50

Let's throw another angle.

Shakti: 29:54

Okay. Um, this is God, like so many things to say here. Um, and I, I, so I want, really wanna stress like whatever I'm saying. Okay. Please don't take it as the truth. Anyone who's listening to this, watching this, this is just my perspective. Uh, it's an informed perspective for sure. I've studied this stuff for a long time. I've been embodying it for a long time, and it's just my perspective. So I always wanna say that if something doesn't resonate for you, just doesn't resonate. Fine. Okay. So, uh, the question, what is it? What creates true polarity? Is that the question?

James: 30:33

So what creates true magnetic polarity between the masculine and feminine?

Shakti: 30:38

Yeah, there's a lot of talking about that online at the moment as well. I've noticed. It's really, really interesting and things can get a little bit rigid and there are some very sort of set perspectives. I can only speak from what I know and I've experienced. What I would say is it's when, um, a man and a woman or those who identifies that embody their authentic essence, we're all a unique composition of masculine and feminine. So everyone has masculine and feminine. So masculine is not the same as man. Feminine is not the same as woman. We all have a unique blend of these essences or energies, but most women have, will have more feminine essence and most men will have more masculine essence. But we're all U unique balance and there's a lot of distortion in how we have all been conditioned or socialized to be a girl and to be a boy. Um. That isn't actually connecting us with our true essence. It's kind of, a lot of men and women are performing masculinity or femininity, but they're not really embodying it. So there's a big difference. You know, like the way that you see a lot of women putting theirselves on social media with a big focus on physical appearance, for example. That's in some ways it can be a distorted version of what I would call the true feminine essence, because when, so I'll talk about the feminine and talk about the masculine. When a woman, you know, I've worked for 20 years with women around this kind of stuff, is truly in touch with her feminine essence and feminine qualities like her body. So the three qualities of feminine, to summarize it, body sexuality, sensuality. And emotions and those three qualities you will also have as part of your feminine as a man. Right. But for a woman. So when I work with women, we have to move through all the ways that she's being conditioned to hate her body. To use her body, to trade her body. The validation, you know, as a part of the the, um. Conditioning of patriarchy. Um, so most women are hate, hate their bodies. They're not at home in their bodies. They use their sexuality. They use their body rather than being fully at ease and at home and in love with, with their physical body, like genuinely not ashamed. And same with their sexuality. We have to heal the shame, the guilt, the trauma. Um, a lot of women have experienced sexual abuse or assault. We have to heal all of that until she's back in touch with her True sexual sensual essence, very different to the performative way that a lot of women are out in the world. So it's not about how much cleavage you show, it's not about. How many lovers you've had. It's just not about that at all. And then emotions again, a lot of women are out of touch with their emotions too. So there's a lot of healing to be done. So when a woman has done that in a work or is doing that in a work, she'll begin to show up in a very different way to how she's been taught by cult, by culture, by society, by media, to be a woman. You'll feel it. You'll feel her radiance. You'll feel her ease. You'll feel her magnetic energy. You'll feel her sensuality. You'll be drawn to it, but she's not doing anything to get something from you. It's just that's the feminine. The feminine is just that beautiful, radiant, creative, joyful, and light and dark, and the deep unconscious. The dark feminine is also. She can be a right fucking bitch

Shakti (2): 34:46

as

Shakti: 34:46

well, right? Dark, feminine. We all have light, light and dark. So she's the unconscious, like in the yin yang symbol. She's the, the black bit, the dark unconscious, and that's an important part of being human. Okay, so then there's the masculine again, there can be all these ways that men are performing masculinity, but they're not embodying masculinity and it is so different'cause you can feel the difference there. So what, what kinds of qualities? So masculine, so I said for, for, for feminine, it's like body, sexuality, emotions. For masculine, it's like consciousness. That's why meditation is so important. Not just, you know, some people make a joke and say, well, I've be dead if I wasn't conscious. So what I mean is like a higher level of awareness. Um, purpose drive, skillfulness. These are the kinds of qualities of masculine essence. It's like, again, if you look at our anatomy, one is round, one is straight, straight up, aligned. I'm aligned. I'm in my integrity. You know, things aren't out of integrity in my life. I do what I say I'm gonna do. I show up. I speak the truth. I stand for what is correct. You know, I'm unwavering like a tree. These are masculine qualities. And, you know, physically you have a penis that sticks out that wants to go forward. That is part of being masculine. It is forward driving. It has a goal, it has a purpose. And when all of these bits are aligned, it's beautiful. Um, it gets distorted when these things aren't aligned and you become, you know, like the archetype, tyrannical or controlling or, um. Ful in a way that's not integrated. You know, just examples. But again, this to, to, for men, they're gonna have to go through the same process as the women do to come to a place where the essence itself is truly embodied. So healing around your sexuality, healing around your heart, cultivation of your awareness. These same principle of like inner work needs to happen to embody it. Because it's one thing to know, oh, I know the archetype. You know, king, warrior, magician, lover. Great. Do you know? But it takes in the work to truly embody what is it to be a warrior? Well then you need to stand up when there's injustice in the world and be, you know, the one who speaks truth. Even when everyone's gonna hate you. You need to be the one to stand up and protect your friends, your family, your girlfriend, your children. Rather than sit back, you are the one who's gonna have to motivate yourself to take action. These are all qualities of like living rather than just thinking about what it is to be. So when we're embodying these, these aspects, then there is a natural polarity that begins to happen. Um, opposites attract. It's just, just, just how it works. Um, there's a beautiful, um, I guess the final piece I would say is part of that inner work is connecting with your own inner opposite. So for every woman to heal the father wound and to connect with her inner masculine, because a woman without an inner masculine is just collapsed.

Shakti (2): 38:26

Mm.

Shakti: 38:26

Or, or at the whim of her desires, or, you know, she's just gonna go into one extreme expression. Of the feminine. You need a masculine to be a woman in her radiance. A man needs his to be in contact with his inner feminine, to be in touch with his full essence. You can't. You can't. Otherwise, it's just not gonna work. It would be completely imbalanced. So both have to do that. Then there can be the polarity because he's not afraid of her dark feminine, he's not afraid of her emotions. He knows how to lead. Sexually, spiritually, whatever, and there can then become this beautiful dance and both can switch as well. You know, it's not like you have to be rigidly in one thing all the time, but I think the more ease you are in who you are, the more you're in touch with the, with your internal other, um, the more easily that switching can happen. Um, what I was gonna say. I just know for me, like as a woman who's done so much of this inner work, there's nothing more beautiful for me than being with a man who's embodying, you know, what I would call his masculine essence. It's, it's just beautiful. My heart opens, my body wants to open. I can surrender, I can trust, I can just, you know, my whole nervous system just goes, oh, you know, I breathe a sigh of relief. I feel safe. Um, it's, it's just so beautiful. Uh, to experience that. And I'm obviously not a man, so I don't know how it is for a man to experience that with a woman. Um, but yeah.

James: 40:14

So with regards to this man who would obviously embody these healthy traits, what kind of traits are you talking about?

Shakti: 40:26

Healthy masculine traits?

James: 40:28

Yeah. So you are just talking about you as, um. As a healthy feminine, and you are kind of attracted to this healthy masculine. Okay. What particular traits is it that, uh, actually, um, align with yourself?

Shakti: 40:46

Okay. Rounded, present. Confident, relaxed, purposeful in integrity. Honest, reliable, consistent, sexually integrated, those kinds of things.

James: 41:17

Nice. Okay. Okay.

Shakti: 41:19

Yeah, I

James: 41:20

mean it's um, with been 10 years on my, on my journey, it's going through the journey. I would never go back. Because what you realize, even though every, even though it's hard and there's always more and more work to be done is is never an end. It's that idea of becoming more conscious, of being able to observe the moment and being able to be in your own frame. To have self love, self-worth, self respect. And what's the other one is self value. And what you come to realize is that actually when you start to go on this path, you start to realize that, oh, this may be my purpose is actually to help other people to integrate what I'm doing, but with others. And that's, that for me has been a special gift. But I'm continually changing. So what I offer quite often changes, but it's almost like it's evolving.

Shakti: 42:30

Yes. Of what

James: 42:31

you can, you can give.

Shakti: 42:33

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, um, yeah, that's really important. I was gonna write a blog about this actually. I mean, this is just me personally. This isn't every woman, so I wanna make that distinction. But for me, like I've been so devoted to growth for over 20 years. Personally, I wouldn't be attracted to a man who's not equally committed to growth, and I think there may be some kind of, is that true? I'm not sure. I was wondering if there's a gender difference. I'm not sure in terms of kind of growth orientation, because there can be this tenancy well, in humans, let's not make it gender specific or sex specific to kind of stay where you are, where it's cozy, where it's comfortable. Where, you know, the lay of the land, right? There is something about the feminine. This is true, that always wants more. She's always gonna want more. She's always gonna want to explore what's next, what's, what's more, it's like it because the feminine energy is a, it's a creative energy. It's, it's a life energy. So life is moving. It's not stuck. It's never the same like a woman. Changes 50,000 times during one day, right? That's not bad. You know, it can be confusing for a man who doesn't understand his feminine. That's just a woman being herself. Just like life, just like nature. Changing, changing, changing. That's life. So, um, when these difficulties come, when these challenges come, it's not like, you know, something's wrong, something's bad. This is. I don't like this, you know? Instead it's like, oh, this is an opportunity. What can I discover? How can I grow through this? What's next? Like, how can I become a better person through this? You know? That's the exciting flip side of it. Like you, you, like you're saying, like constantly evolving, right? Becoming a better version of yourself and getting curious, you know, I see a lot of, um.'cause I'm kind of studying at the moment, like what's going on in the dating and relating world especially, and I see quite a lot of judgment, like from both men of women, women of men. I see judgment and I'm like, well, that's gonna keep you stuck. It's probably not gonna improve your chances at all. You're gonna stay stuck in resentment. You're gonna stay stuck in judgment. You're gonna stay stuck in bitterness. Like how about getting curious? Why are they saying this? Why do I feel this? Are women different? If they're different, how are they different? Are men different? If so, how? You know, like rather than judging, like get curious. What can I learn here? Because there are differences and understanding those can be really helpful. You know? It can make your life more successful. It can make you more successful. So why wouldn't you wanna learn? I think there can be a bit of resistance to. Learning sometimes.

James: 45:42

Mm-hmm. I, uh, recently got back on Bumble probably about two weeks ago, and it just, it wasn't necessarily because I, you know, I, I've always said that I'll find somebody go out in the world when I'm doing something. Yeah.

Shakti (2): 45:57

But it just

James: 45:57

suddenly just clicked to me. Something just happened, like getting Bumble.

Shakti (2): 46:02

Okay. Something

James: 46:02

internally said, getting bumble, and within the first day I matched somebody. Oh. This fear, a fear came up some of my old attachment wounds, fear and anxiety and feeling not good enough came up. Mm-hmm. And so I was kind of like, oh, do I message, do I not message? Mm-hmm. I, then I messaged in the end.'cause what I, what came up that same day was to about resistance. So if, if you feel resistance to something. Just go straight in, go in, straight into the resistance, because that's what you're meant to do.'cause in resistance, it comes change. Yes. And this idea that, yeah, okay. I matched, had a con great conversation, but what I, she kind of disappeared probably about eight days later, which is fine. So will it taught me.

Shakti (2): 46:52

Yeah.

James: 46:52

What it taught me really was that. I still got some of them lingering, um, things that I need to work through, but at the same time, I've come a thousand miles ahead of what I was.

Shakti (2): 47:10

Hmm.

James: 47:11

And that's, that's the thing because everything's everything I believe. If we see ourselves, if we see ourselves as the universe or as God, some people wanna use it or as whatever you wanna, whatever word you wanna use. Yeah. And you are the main character and you see everything in your life as a growth opportunity.

Shakti (2): 47:33

Yeah.

James: 47:33

Then you are gonna change it all. And what I kind of realized was that from, from that is that, yeah, it's great. I'm back on Bumble the confidence. And I still need this work for a couple of, uh, lingering things, and that's okay. And I'll carry on. Mm. But as you said, I don't know, with the, with the online world, it's difficult because you have in the back of your mind the person who you would like to attract.

Shakti (2): 48:04

Mm-hmm.

James: 48:06

But on things like Tinder, on Bumble, on, uh, other, uh, social media, um, data apps

Shakti (2): 48:15

mm-hmm.

James: 48:16

You get very little information.

Shakti (2): 48:18

Yeah.

James: 48:20

And so you aren't sure, you know, you, you, you have this idea of swiping, but it's almost, it's, we've got online, with online dating. It almost gives you this idea of, to judge somebody based on what they give you information, which is very little and on pictures.

Shakti: 48:39

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I so agree. Um. It is very difficult to, to make any kind of discernment with so little information. Um, and I think that's, that's a real problem with the, with the online. I mean, I'm on, I'm on two online days. I, it's just owning that. And for me, like, I wanna say a couple of things. So I, I agree with you. So I see every, in, like every interaction I have, I see it as an opportunity for growth and I see that person as a fellow soul. And I take full responsibility. So like full responsibility, everyone has a sole opportunity for growth. If I feel something that's for me to navigate, it's not their fault. It's for me to, to inquire into. Right. So I've done all kinds of crazy things.'cause I, when I first started doing it, I was like, I'm just gonna have fun with this. So it's like, also take the pressure off. Don't take it so seriously. Right. Don't take yourself so seriously and experiment. You know, like I've sexted with 20 year olds. Not quite, but like I've done, right? I've just tried out different things. I was like, if I don't judge myself and I just allow myself like literally like I'm the creator of the universe in that sense. Like what does it feel like to do this? And I did it and I was like, no, I don't like this. So I tried it and I was like, okay, I don't wanna do this again. I just wanna own that. I'm kind of playing with these things and like, I just kind of wanna open the the perspective to like playfulness. And, um, like, don't take it so seriously. Have fun. It's just a person. You don't know them, they can't hurt you. You might feel hurt by something, but how can someone you don't know possibly hurt you? They're just a reflection. They're just a mirror of something. And you know, I've, I've matched with plenty of people who've you've just like disappeared. It happens to all of us. It's not personal. In the old days, I would've taken it very personally. I know it's not personal. It's got nothing to do with me at all. They disappear great. Obviously they weren't meant for me otherwise. It'd still be there, you know. Um, I've got my other point. I was gonna say now what was the 0.0 about the sort of objectification thing that happens? Uh, it really brought it home to me'cause I went dancing last night. I love salsa dancing and so I had to. Great time. I dance for about three hours and it's a partner dance, men and women, right? And the two men that I had the best dances with, I don't fancy them, right? It's not about that. However, I had such beautiful dances with these two different men in the room. I wouldn't have looked at them on the street ever in terms of like physical attractiveness, but. The experience I have with them of dancing was so beautiful. They were great dancers. They were perfect gentlemen. I felt safe. I felt held, I felt guided. I felt led, and I came back and I, it was great because I said to myself, yeah, that's, that's kind of how you build a connection with someone that you, you like, you, you trust, you feel safe with. I wouldn't have given'em a certain look on the high street, but I. They might become a friend, they might become a dancing partner, you know, and it's like, it's just not then about like, like the physical configuration. It's about who they are when you actually are with them face to face, which is so different to behind a screen, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, and. Where there is so little to go on. I mean, when I, when I do it, I do try to feel like I look at the pictures and I really try to, I mean, I'm, I am, I do look at physical attractiveness, but I also wanna, I think I might have said it this last time, I really wanted to smell the myth that that's all women go for.'cause. I don't just go for that, and I don't know any woman who just goes for that, honestly. So I do think it's a myth that men perpetuate to be up on themselves. It is far more about how you show up because most women want a good kind man who's gonna be consistent, who's not gonna just wanna shag them basically. And, um, who they can build a meaningful connection with. So they're looking for signs of that in how you show up.

James: 53:11

You mentioned the word playfulness. Now playfulness is like third on my value list. So I've done some quite in depth, uh, looking at my values, but I find resistance around it. Why do, why do, I don't know if it's men generally, but let's say why do people find playfulness so difficult, and why is there so much resistance around playfulness?

Shakti: 53:37

Oh gosh. Um,

James: 53:39

that's out the blue. That's what I just throw in.

Shakti: 53:44

I think. Here's my top answer that's just come up. I think it's learned self-consciousness. That's my top answer, because children naturally, well, we're all different again, but children naturally. Playful and open and spontaneous and just follow and express. And then through growing up in a family and a culture where you're told to shut up and you shouldn't do this and not now, and you know, maybe you got a spank here and there, or slap somewhere, you know, you begin to contain yourself. And as you go to school, like. People go to school so young and like it's all about control and contain and like, you know, you are only supposed to like be playful in certain amounts of time, but it's like the most natural thing, right? So I think, I think then, and then you go into teenager years and everything is like, oh, I'm so self-conscious. Like what are people thinking of me? What people think of do, do I look stupid? Do you know, that sort of thinking comes online when we're teenagers, doesn't it? And um, I guess. For me, the process of, uh, awakening has been like a reversal. It's like you are born and you're awake and then you forget, and then you start to wake up hopefully, and it's like you roll back all of the layers. You peel them back one by one, and then the playfulness that was there, reemerges. Um, because I, you know, it might be hard for you to believe, I don't know, like I did, used to be painfully shy and really self-conscious. I thought I was dead ugly, like dead unattractive. Um, everyone was judging me, like really like self-conscious as a teenager and in my early twenties. And then, you know, this blossoming has happened. And honestly, now I don't even think. I don't even think what people, it just doesn't even enter into my head. I just do what I wanna do. Do what feels good, wear what, wear what feels good to express myself on the dance floors. It feels good. I don't, honestly, the thought doesn't enter in what, what are they thinking? So I think that's part of it. It's because playful is natural and, um, what would I say? So rigidity that comes in as we've become adults, like responsibilities and concerns and stress and. Just being silly can be such a great way, and I'm talking to myself now, actually.

James: 56:20

Well, it's funny you say that because uh, recently my nephew and Touchwood, none, nobody from the school hears this about anything but a nephew and his friend were. A, at the school, they've got a swimming, like a, they've got a little swimming pool brought in so they can go swimming. Yeah. And they've been messing around and diving in the pool when they should be listening. But they got told off and sent to the head teacher's office. But what it, what came up for me there really was that that was just a. As in schools, quite often in classes we get told we've got to be, you know, you only talk when you're being taught, uh, taught to, or you've got to do this, you've got to write it, you've gotta do all this kind of stuff. There's no playfulness. When as you, as you move up school levels, there's less and less playfulness. And so sometimes kids play play up. And do things, which probably they're not meant to do to disrupt the whole class, but it's just a playfulness side of themselves coming up out. And I feel in our society and in other societies, there's a lack of, there's a lack of playfulness that comes with the society as a whole.

Shakti (2): 57:42

Totally.

James: 57:43

Play playfulness allows us to. Express our creativity. It allows us to express our, I suppose, this idea of sexual energy, because that's creativity as well. Also allows us to, uh, relax, have fun, calm down, helps us to chill and it, yeah, it's just this idea that sometimes we almost, we get no, you can't play. Playfulness is not for you, but playfulness is probably one of the best things that we can do. In my eyes, it's

Shakti: 58:16

so like, just laughing is so healthy. It releases loads of endorphins and it can be such a great way to relieve stress and tension, like your whole body relaxes with a good belly laugh. Um. I just, I wrote down like, don't take yourself so seriously because it's like, it happens when we get older, doesn't it? We can take ourselves so bloody seriously. And so comedy is such a great way to laugh at yourself because we can get a little bit, um, what's the word? Like so over identify with all this problem and that problem and this thing, and it's like, just shake that all up a little bit and just remember, you know, you're just here for. Short span of time and like, let's not take it too seriously. Like it's a big cosmic joke. Come on. You know? Um, I was thinking of comedy improv, which I'm really shit at. I, but I just love it. I'm quite good at doing slapstick, but I'm really bad at, um, comedy improv. Um, I'm also thinking of a friend of mine, uh, who does clowning as. A playful way to, he kind of calls it conscious clowning or something like that. Yeah.

James: 59:33

But also laughter yoga. So I used to teach laughter yoga.

Shakti: 59:36

Oh, good.

James: 59:37

Uh, back in, back in the day, probably about three, four years ago. And it's just going like, ha It's just kind of like, yeah. So basically I've taught, I bri going through laughter yoga you can teach yourself just to randomly laugh for no apparent reason. And it's, it does feel good. It does feel really good. Unfortunately, time time's run like a, there's no tomorrow and it's the end of the session. But would you be willing to do a third session? There's so much we can chat about.

Shakti (2): 1:00:08

I'd love to,

James: 1:00:10

because I think the, I think the amount of content that we go through and talk about, I think is so important for men.

Shakti: 1:00:20

Okay. I hope so. I really hope so. James. You know, um. I really hope so. Yeah. And I love it. I love our conversations. They're great.

James: 1:00:29

Yeah, it's, it, this could become like a once and every three month kind of a occurrence. So thank you very much, Shati.

Shakti: 1:00:39

Oh, you're so, so welcome. Thank you. See you in three months or less.