The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Have you been questioning how to live your dreams and enjoy greater happiness, health, and wellbeing? I'm James Granstrom, male model turned international speaker and wellbeing teacher. Join me every other week for new lessons, tips, and conversations on personal growth, health, healing and spirituality with my inspiring guests or straight talk from myself. I'm here to guide you to become your best self and enrich your life, so you can tune and tap into your own natural state of wellbeing.
The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Want Next Level Love? Understand This Energy First with Lorin Krenn
When Lorin Krenn heard “I love you” from his father for the first time — just moments before he passed — it cracked open a lifelong quest. That loss became Lorin’s greatest teacher, inspiring him to break the cycle of emotional disconnection and redefine what true masculinity means.
In this powerful episode, Lorin explores how many men unknowingly live out of alignment with their integrity — and how reclaiming that alignment unlocks freedom, presence, and personal power. He shares insights on the three core masculine archetypes, the shadow of hyper-independence in the feminine, and how sacred union becomes the ultimate spiritual practice.
This is a heart-opening conversation about love, truth, polarity, and the kind of relationships that evolve your soul.
You’ll hear about:
- The hidden cost of living out of integrity
- Masculine archetypes: the pleaser, the dominator & the awakened man
- Why the feminine is the Oracle, not the overachiever
- Sacred intimacy as embodied spirituality
- How presence, alignment & polarity create abundance and magnetism
If you're ready to embody your truth and deepen your relationships — this one’s for you.
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Most men don't realize the energetic and emotional and psychological impact of living out of alignment, of not saying what we're going to do, not keeping our promises. We don't understand how deeply that impacts us and it actually doesn't allow us to fully expand in the way we're meant to expand. It doesn't allow us to feel free, it doesn't allow us to have that sense of thrust, to have that sense of power in our presence. There is just something that's energetically holding us back. And when we reclaim integrity first, we feel shame very often because things have to be cleared up and we face that shame of having been out of integrity which every man, if he is honest with himself, will eventually face.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm James and you're listening to the Super Soul Model Series. Today, I'm joined by Lauren Krenn. Lauren is a globally sought-after coach, author, hypnotherapist and host of the Masculine Feminine Dynamics podcast. Lauren's work is known for being both spiritually deep and refreshingly real. Through his teachings on polarity, presence and intimacy, Lauren's helped countless individuals navigate the sometimes messy but magical terrain of conscious relationships. And he speaks the language of the heart without shying away from the shadow, and he helps guide men and women to greater truth, greater love and inner alignment. So it gives me great pleasure to welcome this week's guest, Lauren Krenp.
Speaker 1:I'm honored to be here. Thanks for that powerful introduction, james.
Speaker 2:So I guess I think the best place to begin is at the beginning. How did this journey of teaching the masculine and feminine dynamics sort of stir your soul? How, what was your calling?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great question and it makes sense to start at the beginning, as many teachings and sayings go that the medicine and the gift we bring to this world or our deepest service is often starts with a very strong wound, starts with a lot of pain. I lost my father very early in my life. He died of colon cancer and that was a really brutal battle. I mean, there were challenges in my childhood before that. But when he became ill, it was a three-year battle with cancer and almost four years, and in the end I was holding his hand and he took his last breath and that was the first time he said to me I love you. He couldn't say it properly anymore because he was already in a stage where his soul was about to leave his body, but I could read it from his lips and somehow I could hear it in my mind, almost like an echo in that moment. And that experience really did change everything for me, as painful and also traumatizing as it was, because the ground taken underneath my feet, my masculine role model disappeared from one day to the other and very soon realizing that the inevitability of death. So many of us are not aware that death is something that eventually will come, and I was very soon confronted with that. What I call a masterful teacher. Death that it is, and of course at the beginning I didn't see it that way. There was so much pain. Who am I as a man?
Speaker 1:Still, my father and I had a challenging relationship, although in my healing work I now have come to appreciate him much more now than I could appreciate him back then. But it was a very challenging relationship because his generational trauma, which for so many men was around emotional unavailability, being disconnected. I mean, he was there as a father and supportive, but emotionally he didn't really know what to do. And because his father didn't know what to do and his grandfather didn't know what to do, and because his father didn't know what to do and and his grandfather didn't know what to do and and so on and so on, right that generational trauma that is passed down from generation to generation.
Speaker 1:Um, long story short, all this pain and all this suffering about what it means to be a man led to a deep soul search and it made me realize that, instead of projecting onto the world, trying to look for a role model, I realized that perhaps I've been gifted with the gift of vision and seeing the gap I'm seeing in the world and the gap in my own life meant I had to learn how to embody this. I refer to it differently back then, but finding a place of internal security and safety and working for the trauma. So that was the beginning of everything, of course, many, many years of deep, deep soul searching and facing myself in nature, being alone and going deep, essentially this kind of laid laid down the path, and it was the beginning of everything thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2:I know it's it's, it's raw, but I think, you know, every human being can relate to those really tough emotions, because we all go through them and you can't, uh, shy away from the tough emotions that we all have to deal with from time to time. And death is a teacher, and I really liked what you said, that you had to find a security in a void, which wasn't really available, so it had to come from within, because sometimes we're gifted to have parents to guide us and give us that security, that home base, but when it's pulled from you by something like death, the only place you can go now is within, otherwise that just pain just continues and gets louder. So how did you deal with that? How did you, how did you find that piece? You mentioned nature, but you know what was.
Speaker 2:You know, lauren was a young boy when that happened. So how did he come back to find his center? And sure, it might have taken some time, but I think this is the thing that we all need to learn and we can learn from you and your story.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that. Yeah, it took many years and there was a lot of suffering and I also, after his death, I had this reoccurring intrusive thoughts about what if I'm going to die and the fear of death crept in. So there was a lot at play there, not just losing my role model, but also what does it mean to be a man afraid of death and the inevitability of death. There was a lot going on and there wasn't necessarily just one specific practice that helped me. It was many different things. I would spend a lot of time in nature, but I would use this time very intentionally. It wasn't just me being in nature and being distracted. It was me walking for hours and hours and hours in deep nature and also specifically stopping in certain spots in nature, like a beautiful lake or a beautiful tree, and sitting down and meditating. And another thing I did a lot was breath work. I trained myself with my breath and many, many different modalities and specifically breathing methods around. Holding my breath I found found extremely powerful, because in these moments of being able to hold my breath for, let's say, two, three minutes or so, I would notice for a short moment that suffering and that pain and these intrusive thoughts. For two minutes it was gone and that was enough. Or sitting in nature and just closing my eyes, or just looking at nature and becoming still For a short moment. I would experience these moments of, I could say, feeling myself as consciousness, but without even putting too much abstract spiritual language to it. I would just experience moments of non-suffering, the opposite of what I was experiencing, moments of freedom. And even though it was only for a brief moment, it was enough, like 24 hours of suffering, or let's say, 16 hours of suffering and two minutes of short, very short peace and freedom. But I was enough because I realized that was so sweet, that was so, so powerful and so divine and sacred in a sense, that it just kept me going and kept me going.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of releasing of trauma, specifically through breath work. I took this to an extreme. So there were moments where I did breath work for three, four hours. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that to everyone. I took it to an extreme, but I felt called and guided and at all times I felt the guidance to this train with this didn't always make sense to me, but I just went deep into it and in all of this, after many years of trauma releasing, so to speak. At some point I started to feel more safe, more secure. And in all of this I found my purpose as well, my calling, my service in this life. And as painful as it all was, I wouldn't change anything now because it was exactly the path I had to go. It forced me, like you said powerfully before, james. You said I had to go within because there was no alternative felt too unbearable the pain, so either go within or endure unbearable suffering.
Speaker 2:I I love what you've just shared there, because when we can all look at our own stories, there is a there's this beautiful relatability in our pain and in our struggle and in our awareness of, like, how we move through it. In my case, you know, I began a daily meditation practice, amongst other things, but that was the first thing and my audience knows this because I share it pretty much all the time but it was the bit that allowed that peace for 10 seconds or a minute in a 20 minute meditation. Like, oh, I've got silence for one minute, wow. And I was sharing something with a client the other day. I was like, look how, how's your meditation going? And it's like, well, it's messy, it's not always perfect, it's not always quiet, it's not always still, but if there's 10 seconds or a minute of silence, there's no thought and with no thought there's peace, there's silence. And then suddenly, uh, you experience that lovely, that lovely moment of where everything's right again and you're not battling with the day and this becomes fun and I call this the green light zone where all the good stuff happens. So thank you for sharing, because there's this lovely relatability on that silence that you had or that space, because that just makes you feel like, wow, I'm tuning back into Lauren.
Speaker 2:What do you believe is the most misunderstood thing about that masculine energy? Because you've talked a little bit briefly about the generational emotional unavailability. You know, if we're men in this, this world, and even the feminine in this world, how can we show up to have more beautiful relationships? And often it seems quite misunderstood. Yeah, what's your take on that? Because this is really powerful. I've come from a modeling industry where I've been a male model for 20 years and you're judged on the way you look, but it's also the dynamics of what's happening on the inside, and if we can balance this out or learn from some of your work, then we can actually function beautifully with our partners and and our relationships I think that it's a great question.
Speaker 1:I think the confusion is very much related to that. We haven't yet seen and experienced many men who actually model what we can call deep masculine or healthy masculine, or I like to call it awakened masculine energy, simply because the models we're seeing right now are, in a way, outdated and also they're unconscious models of what it means to embody masculine energy. That's where the confusion comes from. Let's talk about what we're seeing in today's world and what I believe is actually going to happen more and more unless a man does the deep inner work. One thing we're seeing more and more is the pleaser archetype, right, or in other words, the nice guy archetype, which I believe is actually becoming more and more so.
Speaker 1:It's 20, 30 years ago it already existed the pleaser archetype, but I believe, actually because of the world we're in and the confusion that we experience and also the um, the kind of shift around, okay, men need to be more connected to their heart, for instance, in that we lose the primal. So I try to make this practical because there is a lot here, but I want to answer this question as powerfully as I can so we can see the pleaser archetype, a lot, which is all about not confronting, trying to accommodate, and that mindset of if I just does, let's say in a relationship, if I just does everything she or their partner wants, then I'm going to get my needs met right. It's also called covert contracts. In a sense I like that covert contracts.
Speaker 1:Covert contracts, because it's a contract that that hasn't been agreed upon. And yet it's okay. I'm gonna do all these things that no one necessarily asked me to do, yeah, in the hope that I'm gonna get x, y and z back. It's very transactional and then, if I don't get these things met, anger is gonna erupt, resentment or a sense of even passive aggressivity. Aggression makes sense. So we see that. And then we also see the other extreme.
Speaker 1:We see men who are overcompensating for the lack of safety and security they feel, whether it's father moon wounds or mother wounds. We've got the kind of man who tries to be this alpha but in this attempt is actually showing that it's a mask, it's an insecurity. There's a need to dominate others, there's a need to still be seen strong and I would say the man who's still trying to be seen as strong by others is still doing it for validation. So, whether it's the overcompensating, or whether through domination or aggression, or it is the people pleaser, it all comes down to that need for validation, that need to be validated, often through the feminine or other means, validated in one's masculinity, validated in one's manhood.
Speaker 1:And the third model is what I call the awakened man, which is the man who is not losing himself in just being vulnerable all the time. But you've got both. You've got a strong spine and you have an open heart. You've got what called in buddhism, I believe, the middle ground. You've got both. There is fierceness, there is openness, and the more we see that, the more it starts to make sense. What is real masculinity actually about?
Speaker 2:I love that there's. I had dan millman, who wrote the book where the peaceful warrior on the show a little while back it's a powerful book, by the way, yeah, yeah, and dan's a great guy and he is a fantastic teacher. And there was something that he wrote about in that book which really reminds and reminds me of what you were just saying. And I was taking a walk in the, the forest and around the lakes where I live, and a few weeks back, when we were supposed to have this interview, there was an outage, right. So instead of me having an outage, I did an image. So I went to go and tune myself back up. I thought, oh, there's no electricity, no wi-fi.
Speaker 2:So Lauren and I couldn't do this conversation, we couldn't have this podcast, so I wrote it wherever I could, hopefully that it would get through. We didn't know whether it was going to get to Lauren's team, but I decided there was nothing I could do. So I left my office. I left because there was nothing I could do. No electricity, no, nothing.
Speaker 2:And I decided, okay, let's reconnect with James, let's get back into his warrior spirit again. And what does that look like? What does that sound like? So I was like, right, I'm going to go for a hike and just go and lose myself and power up, and how this relates to what you just said about that middle ground, holding that fierceness whilst being an open heart.
Speaker 2:What I really love is how dan talked about.
Speaker 2:The peaceful warrior is a man who has strength and power and always has his blade sharpened, but it's always kept firmly in its sheath, never really to be used, but it's kept sharp through his discipline and he never really needs to use that blade, that warrior, because he recognizes his heart and his boundaries are so strong that he is always in this beautiful middle ground.
Speaker 2:And I really like the way you mentioned the buddhism and as well as that third archetype, the awakened man. I think that's really fantastic and, funnily enough, when I came out of that hike for a few hours, then the electricity gently came back on where I was. So I was really taken back by how you know, when we take care of our inner world, our outer world resets again or reboots, and I think that we can reboot society. We can reset the masculine energy that's within us, innate within every one of the men, which also is a guiding light for the feminine energy for them to feel safe. So that takes me into my next question. What is the misconception about feminine energy that we don't know about?
Speaker 1:it's a powerful question as well, and also I really like that metaphor of keeping the. No need to draw the blade, but to keep it sharpened at all times. Yeah, it's an incredible metaphor. I really liked that. Um, what? What is it about the feminine?
Speaker 1:I'd say um for the feminine, for so many women in today's world, what's happening?
Speaker 1:Actually, there's a, there's a leaning more now towards um, actually an avoidant attachment style for women.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot going on in today's world, right, where in the past, women would more and still, of course, but in the past maybe 20, 30 years ago women lean more towards overgiving and pleasing tendencies, whereas now you still have that and you have more and more women who find themselves in this state of hyper independence, a state of being where, um, and as it's so important, women empowerment is so important, but it's almost like it. It starts to get to an extreme, an extreme of we don't need men anymore, right, men are not important, the masculine is not important, you can do everything on your own, and that in itself leads to a different sense of wound, right, and I believe that's a big, big, big misconception that the idea of a, of a strong woman, is one who is hyper independent. I actually see strength in the feminine, as the woman who chooses to embody love, no matter what. It's what drew me to my wife. I would just feel in her presence this deep sense of love. I could just feel it in my heart.
Speaker 2:This is really interesting because you know, having read some of your work and some of the things that you've been putting up on social and your newsletters, I think this is really interesting for the people who don't know you in the audience. You did have this very unusual attraction to your wife. Can you just tell us a little bit and and try and make it sort of in a way that they can be like, wow, okay, this is, this is how that magnetism came about, because I think it's a really beautiful story of how you've shared it. Have you shared it?
Speaker 1:thanks for that. Yeah, I I'd call it. My wife was drawn magnetically to my truth. I was drawn magnetically to her love and of course, truth and love are one and the same. At the end of the day, the one who seeks truth will always find love. The one who seeks or embodies love will always speak and embody their truth, but without getting too abstract here, when my, my wife and I knew or felt that there was something deeper awaiting us, like that same Were you friends before or how was it?
Speaker 2:you know, like in the relatability factor?
Speaker 1:you know what was the set we were friends before we met, okay, and in that moment our life changed. Okay, and we both felt before like that, that saying of the invisible thread that connects two souls. We felt it. It was a deep, deep knowing. It was incredibly intuitive, and when we met I could just feel she's different. She's different to anyone who I've ever seen or met in my life before. And I felt this deep knowing I am meant to be with this person. This is the one for me.
Speaker 1:And that wasn't a concept, it was even beyond the feeling, it was transcendental. That experience, a transcendental spiritual experience. I mean, in my case, I even heard a voice that said wherever you go, go with her, whatever you do, do it with her. So it was crystal clear for me and, um, one of the first things I actually said to her when I met her, I said to her here, this is my deepest purpose. And then I expressed to her what my deepest purpose in life was, and it was just everything was different and it was clear to us that we're meant to be together.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is a really interesting thing you've just said here, because I think this really goes into the next question I want to ask could you tell us a little bit about what makes the man magnetic and the right or the healthy feminine attract to the healthy male, so we can understand what the patterns we are in, or someone who's listening, so that they can then begin to change what needs to be changed if it's not healthy and messy?
Speaker 2:yeah and it's to do with purpose is where I'm sort of leading with this, because a man with a purpose is magnetic, but a man without any purpose is not magnetic, or at least not magnetic to the right type of person.
Speaker 1:We step even a level deeper. I would say there's even another word that kind of describes it all, and that is truth. A man who lives and follows his truth will number one naturally find in him and connect with his purpose and true soul's mission in this life. But it's that element of truth, a man who makes the decision that he will only follow the truth, speak his truth, and what this naturally means is that reclaiming of integrity, which is one of the key foundations of the work I do in my men's groups. Reclaiming integrity, I like to say a man who looks in the mirror and looks at himself. There are truths that haven't been spoken, lies have been said, things are built on illusions then he can never truly look in his eyes in the mirror and it's a man who reclaims integrity.
Speaker 1:He can face himself in the mirror because he knows he lives a life of truth. And that is what I believe not believe, that is what I know makes a man incredibly magnetic, that seeker of truth. There are no emotional games, there is no running, there is none of that. There is just truth. This is who I am, this is what I want and this is where I'm going. And that level of clarity, that level of presence, that level of direction, purpose and truth ultimately makes a man incredibly magnetic. And, of course, not every woman will be drawn to him. Because if a woman is coming from a deep place of trauma, she might still be attracted to a man who is emotionally unavailable and not her nervous system might confuse someone who is um, someone who is very unsafe with the familiar. But a woman who's done work on herself, that's the man she'll be drawn to oh, this is interesting to go really deep.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to just touch briefly back on integrity before we can go to the next question which I really wanted to go to. Like integrity, um, it was a little quote that I wrote today and I and I shared and posted. And for me, years ago, I didn't do what I said I was going to do. You know, I, I was the guy who I feel like wisdom has only come to me because I've made so many errors until I'm going. I'm not going to do that anymore. So I like to be grounded, have humor, still look back on that other aspect of myself that was just learning or remembering who I really was, and I like to be light on myself. But I can look back and go. Oh God, I caused myself unnecessary, unconscious suffering Until it becomes conscious to go. I'm not going to do that anymore.
Speaker 2:But with regards to integrity, when you can actually look yourself in the mirror and go, I do what I say I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:I keep my promises, I keep my words.
Speaker 2:Anything that I've got that's out of balance, I try to rectify, I try to put right, I try to bring back into balance again.
Speaker 2:This puts peace back in my masculine heart and then from that I feel like I gained this real power, because, in my own experience of coming from unconscious behavior to conscious behavior, it's just because I've experienced more peace in my heart, because I just keep it simple and I'm not saying that I'm perfect, but I am saying that I do what I say I'm going to do, and anybody that knows me, I do fulfill what I can say, and it also helps my mind believe that whatever goals I set, whatever it is that I'm drawn to, I know that it's possible for me, because my mind goes oh, he does do what he says he's going to do. And I think that this, this generates a power, an unseen power that you feel when you walk throughout your day if you're a man, and and I think that that's really important for the feminine energy as well so give me a little take on that, if possible, please, because I think that's you just spoke to the core of it very powerfully, james.
Speaker 1:You said it gives you that sense of power, and that's exactly what it is. Of course it's. It's what makes the feminine feel safe. But before we even go there, it's about what makes, what allows us to truly step in our power. We're not doing integrity for others because others feel safer with us. We're doing it for ourselves as well, because it frees up all of that unnecessary suffering.
Speaker 1:We don't realize most men don't realize the energetic and emotional and psychological impact of living out of alignment, of not saying what we're going to do, not keeping our promises. We don't understand how deeply that impacts us and it actually doesn't allow us to fully expand in the way we're meant to expand. It doesn't allow us to feel free. It doesn't allow us to have that sense of thrust, to have that sense of power in our presence. There is just something that's energetically holding us back. And when we reclaim integrity, first we feel shame very often because things have to be cleared up. And we face that shame of having been out of integrity which every man, if he is honest with himself, will eventually face. And at first it's not empowering. At first it's painful because you realize fuck's an incredible level of peace, oneself or to someone to get validation.
Speaker 2:How can you still remain in a healthy sense of self, a healthy masculinity in this case I'm just going to talk about men to still be a high achiever, yet still keep that, because there's still this wound where someone needs to prove themselves to somebody or something, or a lot of people. So what's your take on that?
Speaker 1:I think that we often like to put things into boxes in the sense of or someone who is a high achiever. They're just doing it to prove themselves, and then in that moment it's a very negative box, isn't it? It's like oh, look at that. Yeah, we've already established, look at that high achiever who is overworking himself, burning himself to the ground, just doing this because he wants to still prove to his father or to anyone else.
Speaker 1:And when we're honest. There might be an element of that in many overachievers, yet there is also a natural drive in many overachievers and there is beauty in ambition. There is power in a man who says I want to gain mastery in something. There is power in a man who says I want to create something big. I want to make a true impact in the world.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that. I love what you've just said there, because there's a couple of things where I've noticed sports men and women say particularly men where the father hasn't recognized the son who's now performing at a super high level in sports. I'll give you an example david beckham's father didn't give him any credit until he got his hundredth english cap in football and he's like, oh, he said, well done, son. He was like, wow, that was the first time I'd heard that after his hundredth english cap. And then when I've looked at you know different people either that I've worked with or studied. There's this similar thing. But I think what I really like that has made some clarity. You said there's beauty in ambition and I really really like that because that just makes it all clear.
Speaker 1:It's like it's good to want to succeed, it's natural for you to succeed, but you've got to have the want to have the drive, as long as you're using it for a force for good exactly, and that's the power of it, because, at the end of the day, if we were to say that having drive and ambition is solely trauma and unworthiness, it would mean no one would really make a big impact who steps in their power and truth.
Speaker 1:But we need people who make a big impact, who step in their power and truth. But we need people who make a big impact, who step in their power and truth, because the truth is, there are people who are not coming from a place of genuine intentions and who very much succeed in their life. So we do need ambition, we need people, and there is nothing wrong with with with being driven, with being driven and really wanting to succeed in life, and there's even that that, too, is part of healthy masculine energy. It's just when it's only about needing to prove. It leads to burnout. There is no moment of receiving, there is a sense of, well, I could burn myself to the ground and then I don't receive anything Like I push everyone away who wants to give me love. That is when it gets out of balance.
Speaker 2:I think it's those relationships that can be pulled, or very challenging at least for the clients that I have worked with is that they find it very challenging because they've succeeded in their work, succeeded in doing financially very well, but found it particularly challenging with their relationships because there's a pull on that and maybe it's to do with presence, or should I say a lack of presence, in relationships. But I really like the way you said that, because if you're using it for good, it's almost fueling back the heart, because I think it's a natural fuel for the heart to be open, for the man to be in his power. So what does it take for a woman to open her heart? Then? If the masculine seeks truth and the feminine seeks or is love, how does that feminine energy stay in her heart or love?
Speaker 1:as the feminine. I sometimes refer to it as the Oracle. The feminine has that intrinsic, deeper connection the more she awakens with an almost like a sense of internal guidance, which I call the mirror. It's a part inside her that is able to spot our blind spots as men in a way hardly anyone could ever do. That is why so much of our suffering and emotional suppression as men in relationships is being exposed. She doesn't do that consciously, but somehow it comes up in the relationship. We cannot get away with a lack of presence. We cannot get away with total disconnect. We cannot get away with emotional suppression, because in the relationship and in the mirror of the feminine it becomes exposed, it becomes revealed right. That is the mirror of the feminine. It becomes exposed, it becomes revealed right. That is the medicine of the feminine.
Speaker 1:And for a woman to open her heart, it's all about being able to give herself permission to fully become that, to become that oracle. To become that oracle, to become that oracle that is not afraid to choose love whatever the moment requires, and sometimes choosing love means being fierce. The way I like to put it is a very conscious woman will love in a very unconditional or as close as unconditional love as it gets, because she rather lose a man who is losing himself than keep him for her own selfish gain. What I mean by that is that if the moment requires it, and choosing love means choosing her own heart and being fierce, or guarding her own heart even for a moment, not from a place of hyper vigilance but from a place of truth. That is what choosing love means.
Speaker 1:It's not over giving, it's not over extending. It all depends on the moment and when a woman allows herself to fully become that, without shrinking, without bending, or without going into a state of hyper vigilance and all men are bad right or demanding men to compensate for the, the pain she experienced with the masculine many women with father wounding, they will demand an impossible level of safety from the masculine, for instance. But without going too deep into into these nuances, here it's really about the ability to become the oracle, fully and wholeheartedly, and such a woman. You can feel it in her presence. It's different.
Speaker 2:So what does her presence feel like that? So if a man meets a woman who's in her heart, who's in this oracle, is it an archetype or what would you call it?
Speaker 1:We can call it an archetype. That's fine. I love archetypes.
Speaker 2:If she's in the energy where her heart is open. What will an mass, what would? What will an unhealthy masculine feel and what would a healthy masculine feel?
Speaker 1:because that's probably that's a great question, I would say. The unhealthy masculine energy would feel that she's a threat. A threat to what? To her ego and to his ego and to his shadow.
Speaker 2:Love it Okay, and then the healthy masculine would feel. What would he feel?
Speaker 1:The healthy masculine would still perhaps feel challenged in that moment, which is a natural part of expansion for us men, but at the same time he will feel the power and the courage and warriorship in these moments to not run away, to shrink to um, close his heart and shut down, but instead to stay with an open heart in that storm, in the fire of love, to stay with the fire of love.
Speaker 2:This is a really interesting thing, right? So here's something that I think most men can relate to when men have a challenge with their partner, men tend to run away, but that's very, very hard for the feminine energy, because when the fire's there, the man just just naturally wants to draw back. It's a bit like you know, if we look at the biology of the man and the woman, the masculine gives and the feminine receives, but when, when the fire is happening, the men the men just tend to want I'm just going to get out of here. It's going to be way easier that I don't have to deal with this chaotic feminine energy. Right now, let me go to the bar or the pub or whatever. Tell me why that happens and why that energetically happens with regards to the masculine and feminine.
Speaker 1:What's so interesting in that moment is that a man who is unconscious he will blame her, he will say I'm feeling not good, right, she's chaotic, she's crazy, she is X, y, z, but the fundamental truth in this life remains no one can make you feel anything. In that sense, no one has the power to just place a feeling right now into your body. There is something inside us that is responding, something inside us that is becoming reactive, and it's that reactivity that we need to look at, because if a man says, okay, this relationship is really not in alignment, there is a sense of grounded energy around it, there is clarity is really not in alignment. There is a sense of grounded energy around it, there is clarity. This is not an alignment, but there is no running to the pub, there is no running to the bar, there is no need to escape that reactivity, and that escape reveals that something has been touched, and what has been touched? The things he most likely has been avoiding a lifetime.
Speaker 2:Love it. So it's basically true avoidance, right. So you're avoiding a difficult discussion, you're avoiding opening up, you're avoiding perhaps even speaking your truth, which is probably what the healthy masculine does. This is my truth. And then the feminine can open her heart if the man's speaking her truth. But if he's not speaking his truth, challenge. That makes total sense. Okay. So next question what about avoidance, not avoidance. Polarities, the polarities, so that the man can really really be strong in his polarity, the woman can be in her polarity. Have we discussed this properly or is there anything else that you could add so that people could understand what the polarity is and to be in that healthy polarity in a relationship?
Speaker 1:The biggest misconception people have about polarity is that they believe it means becoming something they're not. A man has to be masculine, a woman has to be feminine, but that has to be a certain way. It's just not a box, and the idea of polarity, or at least sacred polarity and these ancient teachings which are as old as time itself, is not to place someone in a box, but it's just a returning to our true essence. Many men have a masculine essence, which doesn't mean they don't have feminine energy, but the masculine energetic is the more dominant energetic. Many women have a more dominant feminine energetic, but that's not always the case. Either way, whatever one's core essence is, this work is about returning to our true essence.
Speaker 1:And when we return to our true essence, it's not that we try to mold ourselves to become something. It's that we become fully and wholeheartedly ourselves. And only when we become fully and wholeheartedly ourselves can the natural flow of intimacy and love actually be there, because love is not something we create. Love is not even something we do. Love is something that is already there. So it's a natural flow that is already there when we return to who we truly are.
Speaker 1:Already there, when we return to who we truly are, that flow of intimacy, the flow of love we can call it. We create intimacy effortlessly. Right, because it's not something we have to do. It's something that's naturally there when we return to who we truly are, and that's what this is about. So when a man has a masculine essence and he returns to who he truly is which means no longer avoiding or running, but facing himself in the fire of painful emotions or a painful conversation or something coming up in relationship to the feminine, for instance that naturally creates intimacy. And that is why so much of what we hear about masculinity is rooted in insecurity, because it's rooted in becoming something we are not. But when we return to who we truly are, that just flows effortlessly.
Speaker 2:I'm quite candid and happy to share. But when I look into my own experience and have challenges with my partner, it's always like I'm happy to share my feelings and I'm to share where I'm at and speak my truth. And I always find that in speaking the truth, whilst it's a storm and very uncomfortable, I always feel better knowing that I've been able to be direct, even though it's hard. But, yeah, what have you got to lose? Because death is the ultimate right. So if you think that death is the most scary and I've had plenty of death in my life, so I recognize well if that's as hard as it can be, when someone you love up, close and personal takes off from this world physically not not, uh, soulfully, but physically then what's left is really facing you.
Speaker 2:So I, I see, and I'd really like to to know, to know what your thoughts and feelings are with regards to your work. I see the relationships between two people, or any people for that matter, as an absolute mirror, total mirror. It's the most spiritual, strongest training you have to go through as a warrior to know yourself, to find peace with yourself, so that your mirror, or your partner, meaning your mirror, can be at peace too and can you be at peace and harmony and return to love time and time again when that mirror gets a little dirty or gets a bit messy? What's your take on that?
Speaker 1:I like to say relationships are spirituality, embodied. Love it. We're on the mat, we're doing a meditation, beautiful, but it's the preparation for the real dojo, for the real training ground, which is relationships, the art of relating. It's the place where we show to the universe and to ourselves. Can I actually bring this into the everyday? Can I bring it into the imperfect? Can I bring it to the mess that then turns into almost a form of divine mess? In all of this? I completely agree with that. That's the core of what my work is about, that I see the art of relating as perhaps even the highest spiritual path, because it is exactly what you said already.
Speaker 1:There is something in union and in relationships that is nowhere else. It's that constant mirror, that constant feedback. Where are you not showing up? Where are you not in integrity? How are you still closing your heart? How are you still projecting onto others? How are you still punishing others for not having unrealistic expectations met? How are you still going cold? All these things are revealed and then most people run away from that. And those who actually pause and face that, they will experience the highest spiritual, emotional expansion and maturity for relationships.
Speaker 2:So I've got a couple more questions, lauren and I. I really want people to to go, wow, this could really make my life so much better. The sacredness of, uh, or the sacred union between, let's just say, an instance in a same-sex relationship, a masculine and feminine. Let's talk about if that is a sacred union. How does that become sacred? Is that only when one has healed their wounds? Because people hear oh, what's a sacred union or a tantric union? You have this philosophy, but let's just put it in a grounded understanding. What does that actually mean? And then how would you step into that?
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean we have to become perfectly healed, because when are we ever perfectly healed? As long as we're here, there is healing to do. As long as we breathe, as long as we breathe, there is work to do. All it means is that two people make the choice to choose evolution over everything, the evolution of their soul, to choose growth, to choose expansion, to choose awakening and awareness and consciousness above everything. And it's that mutual choice and that coming together that then naturally brings the sacred into a relationship.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. So if one person seeks that but the other person don't, does that mean the parties will drift?
Speaker 1:Yes, they would. So eventually, what happens, I like to say, when we reach a certain level of awakening and spiritual expansion in our life? There are only two responses to us people fall away or people deepen with us. But there really isn't a third, because the third is still tied to us shrinking, playing small, not confronting and being afraid to live and embody our highest truth. So yes to your question it would drift and eventually it would get so challenging that either the party that is still hiding and running away makes the choice to shift or it would lead to parting of ways okay.
Speaker 2:So if a man is in his healthy, masculine, how does that affect abundance, the abundant, abundant, embodiment, and the same for the feminine.
Speaker 1:Now, there are two elements to this. There is the individual element and then there is the union element. Talking about the union element, when a conscious man or a man who chooses this work is to is together with a woman who also chooses this work from the depths of her heart, then there is a natural element of abundance that will enter. Why? Because I mean everyone listening, you can see it from, you can feel into this. From this perspective, if you feel deeply at home, if your heart feels so open and you're becoming more and more of yourself and and speaking your truth leads to you being seen and heard and deeper intimacy and love, then quite naturally in that energy we become more abundant, because our energy is abundant in that sense. An abundance of love, an abundance of safety, right, and then financial abundance is something that very often will naturally follow from that, because we're in such alignment.
Speaker 1:But there is also, of course, the individual. For for the people who are still on the journey, which are many, many on the journey of attracting their, their divine counterpart or or the relationship that truly meets them in their heart's depth, and for them too, of course, this applies, because when we embody our healthy masculine or healthy feminine energy, then by nature we're in alignment. And when we're in alignment we just become much more powerful creators, because what we speak, as weight behind it, our energy, our presence, is different and people can can feel that. I mean everyone listening here or watching. When someone is in deep pain, they cannot really serve you and be there for you, or at least only to a certain degree. But if someone is truly in alignment, right, their presence has a completely different quality to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really like the way you've said that. That's really beautiful, and I just wanted to sort of just touch on something you said there, which was when you are speaking your truth, there's this security that you have. That security is like your root, that keeps you grounded. And then also, when you're speaking your truth and you're not afraid to speak it, you have incredible self-worth, all tied to financial abundance, so that energy is naturally aligned, which means you're magnetically sending out to life and the quantum field. Hey, I feel very comfortable with myself, I'm very proud of myself and I can be of service, which means that you are naturally magnetic and attract greater abundance, and it might be financial abundance that comes to you as a result. We can see that from this type of work of why it's so powerful.
Speaker 2:And leading into my last question, lauren, because this is so, uh, enlightening and interesting um is when we can have that sacred union and be with ourselves. How does our sexual relationship deepen? Because I think that this is really really important, that that men and women can recognize that sex can be even better when we do the work on ourselves. And I'm not saying you have to do any sort of strange sexual practices. What I'm trying to talk, talk, talk about really is talk about that set. We are sexual beings and you can't deny that. But when we understand ourselves and try and grow as into our healthy masculine or into our healthy feminine, what actually happens, I believe, is an absolute unfolding of a deepening sexual enjoyment and nourishment. What's your take on that?
Speaker 1:You said it already really well here, james sex is very much dependent on our state of consciousness, because if we're in a state of consciousness of complete avoidance and disconnect and being unconscious, then our sex life will resemble that. It will be just another mirror for that. So it might just be a transaction instead of something nourishing and enjoyable, or it might even be trauma, which I call eroticized wounds.
Speaker 2:Okay, fair.
Speaker 1:Where, not working through our trauma, becomes this strong sexual pull towards, for instance, someone who is emotionally unavailable or someone who is playing hot and cold dynamics right. That in itself resembles a very unconscious dynamic and, as you said, as we do the work, as we go deeper, there is a natural deepening in every dimension, whether it's relationships or sex or or business or even finances, in every dimension. And sex is a good example, because it's something where it's so tangible, because now there isn't just eroticized wounds or just fantasy or just transactional, as you said just now. There is some. There is a deeper component here. Now the heart is open and activated. In that moment the breath is deeper, there is this element of presence and the experience of sex becomes one that is so infinitely more nourishing than anything else before.
Speaker 2:Oh, I like that and I think that you know, if you want to enjoy life, I think you want to do the work, because then that aspect of yourself can be awakened and you'll have a level of deeper satisfaction that we're not always familiar with because we haven't been told, because it's generational or whatever you've been picked up, it's societal.
Speaker 2:But there's, like, this other level of energy that is now present, that wasn't present before, because you grew as an individual. You grew to heal the challenges that you've had, grew to heal the challenges that you've had to look at yourself and speak your truth If you're a male, and open your heart and be love if you're the female. So I'm really in awe of of your work and what you've you shared, and you know I've really enjoyed this conversation. Is there anything, lauren, that you would like you know I've really enjoyed this conversation? Is there anything, lauren, that you would like you know people to really sort of take away that maybe you hadn't touched on? That could be something for them to go. I could improve my life just by something that you could share now.
Speaker 1:One other thing I would give to everyone listening or watching this episode is that, at the end of the day, our journey of healing, what we desire in a relationship, what we desire in business, what we desire for ourselves, for our own individual goals, all is tied to our level of healing and our level of consciousness. So many times, specifically, men, there is this idea okay, I'm doing the work because of, but it's only when it becomes this choice that one says okay, okay, this now becomes the highest priority because everything else depends on it. That's where life just gains a much deeper vastness and depth. It's, it's the choice from we make from deep within, to not constantly need to face suffering and experience consequences to change things, but to decide, from this moment forward, that one chooses evolution and expansion and growth above all, and when that choice is made, then everything else naturally falls into place.
Speaker 2:Oh, lauren, thank you so much, and thank you for sharing your wisdom, your heart and your truth and your presence with us today. And if you've really enjoyed this conversation, I'm going to leave all the links for Lauren's work and his workshops. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:Really appreciate the conversation, james. Pretty powerful questions and you brought a lot of depth into this container. Thank you for that, lauren.
Speaker 2:Is this week's super soft model. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Your support helps us reach more people and create a ripple effect of positive change. Leave a review to help us continue uplifting and improving lives. Thank you for being part of this journey.