Speaker 0 00:00:00 Wait, wait, stop.
Speaker 0 00:00:11 Welcome to Zen. 10 speaks a show where I make new friends and reconnect with old ones. A show where everyone's stories may inspire you to tell your own story. In this podcast, we encourage everyone to get rid of shame, guilt, fear, doubt, and judgments for themselves and for others and replace those with love, empathy, compassion, understanding, kindness, and to do your best at everything that you do in essence, to get rid of things that no longer serve your wellbeing, to be true to yourself, and be honest with others. No need to be politically correct. That's out the window with 2020 here we tell the raw uncensored story, your story, and tell the truth as you see it, make sure you live your fulfilled life without permission or apologies. So if you have a juicy, interesting, raw unapologetic story and inspiring, please make sure to contact
[email protected].
Speaker 0 00:01:36 It is Z N T E N
[email protected]. Or you can find me on most social media platforms. You know, it, the, I G Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, uh, only fans. I mean, not really. Uh, but yeah, so let me finish. Just kidding. Um, not as you may have guessed it. My name is Zen and welcome to the show today. We have a guest. Our guest today is ed <inaudible>. Ed <inaudible> has been a clinical psychol therapist since 1987. He has been counseling, many single individuals, including couples to overcome depression, anxiety, addiction, including sexual addiction, and that addiction and eating disorders Ed's mentorship can enhance one's well as being so he's worked, can be found at ed <inaudible> dot com and also is an author of the sex death in tantra. How sex changed my life after death, his book can also be found on Amazon we'll shop in the link in the description below. So he was compelled to write the book after his husband, Zachary of 15 years was killed by a car and sex death. And tantra is not on the, a story about love and loss, but one optimism in healing. I'm very curious to hear as story. So thank you ed, for being on the show today.
Speaker 2 00:03:16 My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 0 00:03:20 Thank you. So tell us a bit about who you are and what brings you joy.
Speaker 2 00:03:26 What brings me joy? Okay. Um, let's see. I am a parent. I have a 19 year old daughter. That's been a fun journey. Um, adopted her when she was born. And that's also a theme in the book as well. Um, how she fits into this. Um, I am a psychologist. That's like a therapist in private practice up in Seattle, Washington. That brings me joy. Um, I am married again to a lovely man and that relationship brings me joy. And right now I am vacationing in Palm Springs and so sun and pool and, uh, food and drink to enjoy this week and some time off. So I'm enjoying that as well.
Speaker 0 00:04:14 Well, thank you so much for spending our time with us in your vacation. I appreciate your time very
Speaker 2 00:04:20 Much. Thank you. Pleasure, pleasure.
Speaker 0 00:04:24 So, uh, how has your journey of counseling others been?
Speaker 2 00:04:30 It's been, um, it's been really good. I started as a high school teacher, but working in a school where, um, we got the kids that the conventional classrooms couldn't didn't know what to do with, and those kids ended up being, um, mostly high or drunk and from dysfunctional families. And so we didn't know what to do with them. And then we started learning about how to create a school program that was half counseling and half teaching. And we did that for a couple of years and I've found that I liked the counseling part better than I did the teaching parts. That's when I got my master's in counseling. And then for some reason, I don't know, I really can't remember how or why I've always been interested in the marriage of sex and spirituality and tantra was the marriage of sex and spirituality. And for years, years, everything I read about it was always about males matching melding with females and, and everything was just about male and female sex.
Speaker 2 00:05:37 And that as a gay man that did not speak to me. And, um, so I was just frustrated. And then all of a sudden I found somebody in Seattle that was, uh, teaching the tantrum to queer men and queer women. And, um, my late husband and I started to study with him for about a year before he was killed by Monday, he was hit by this car and killed when he was walking our dog. So that, and then it was the year after that, that I did this incredible journey with my teacher around using erotic practices and sex and sexuality, um, to heal from a traumatic loss of my husband.
Speaker 0 00:06:21 Wow. So what joy has it brought to the people that you counsel, if they give you any feedback?
Speaker 2 00:06:30 You know, that's a great question. I don't know. I don't want to speak for them or, you know, too much for people say that their lives have, they have more options, more choice, more freedom in their lives. And that is for me, the goal of, of counseling as it's also to, um, to clean up whatever's going on inside of your brain and body around. So you have more options in your life. So psychotherapy and tantra, um, sit right well together, do both of those things. So I think people who have experienced more freedom, a little less, uh, constriction by pain and, um, and more options in their lives.
Speaker 0 00:07:09 Um, so, uh, tell us the process of writing your book, sex, death, and Tundra, how sex change in our life after death.
Speaker 2 00:07:20 The title is actually how sex saved my life after death. Now that changed how it saved my life. Cause I, I credit this work with saving my life after my husband was killed. Um, the writing process, well, this was such an interesting journey and so many, not, not all, many of my friends did not understand how I could be delving into eroticism and sexuality. Uh, so soon after my husband was killed, um, and some, some people didn't understand it. Some people did understand that. So it was, it was just very clear to me that this story has never been told before. And that's what propelled ma'am, I'm not, I mean, I like to write, but it's not, I'm not a writer. I guess I am a writer now I wrote a book for God's sakes. Um, so, but I, you know, that's, that's the first big piece of writing I've done. And I just knew that I wanted to tell the story because that work, this journey I took, um, I credit with saving my life after, um, a sudden dramatic loss of my, uh, my husband at 15 years. And then I became a single parent at the same moment that it was just overwhelming and obviously the worst thing I'd ever experienced. And, um, this journey, I think threw me a life preserver that I needed.
Speaker 0 00:08:47 So can you tell the audience kind of like a little summary of the sex part, the death part and the Tundra? What other connections sounds like a trilogy?
Speaker 2 00:09:03 Well, most people when they hear Tondra think of sex. So, um, Tom DRA is about, you can have great sex as part of tantra, but some part of tantra is also just about psychology and meditation and movement and nutrition, all those things. But, um, sex is definitely a way in which it's a shortcut to get into your body, to be present in your body. The death part of the book is, is Zachary's death of how that
Speaker 0 00:09:38 Thereafter he's death, like how did you cope or were you using your skills to, uh, to help you couple along? Or did it take time,
Speaker 2 00:09:51 Time? I mean the first, probably month or six weeks after his death, all my times with teacher could do with me is hold me as I cried. I just cried and cried enough to be able to get my daughter awake and get her to school and came back and cried. I couldn't work. I didn't see clients for six months and at six months, I very slowly took the next six months to rebuild my practice and go back to full-time. But I didn't, I couldn't work. I couldn't really, it was really just enough to get myself awake and being able to parent the six and a half year old child who was grieving also, and, um, just taking care of our house and the two of us and keeping us going. Um, so it was again, Zachary and I studied the year before he died. And so there's a lot about how, what we learned, what we discovered about ourselves psychologically and erotically and all that stuff in that year prior to his death. And then, uh, the night he died, I was in the hot call was, um, when I talked to her teacher and he came up to the hospital and we just sort of started this journey together. And again, the first six weeks were really just him holding me while I cried and cried. Um, and then very, very, very slowly, you know, my sort of engaging, uh, ironically and using the skills and the principles and practices that we learned that your prior to see how we could bring those to bear to my grief.
Speaker 0 00:11:25 Uh, so you mentioned the kind of like misconception of tantra. Can you give someone who have that different ideas? Tantra, can you, how can you, can you give an explanation of how you fit? You can change their minds about what soundtrack actually is.
Speaker 2 00:11:44 Uh, this is where I say you have to read my book. Um, I don't, I don't, I mean, well, as there are, as many, if you tantra, you will find, again, mostly, mostly, um, heterosexual, uh, Tom Turner referenced with the women who had long flowing air in the lighting. And, you know, it looks like it's very spiritual and it's got all the trappings of spirituality. Um, but there are as many, um, as many, as many ways of practicing tantra as there are people everyone's got a different lineage. The lineage that I studied was, uh, from, uh, actually a psychiatrist who lived in India for 30 years and studied. And, um, you know, we've got an old lineage that goes back, but this is a very different lineage of tantra for then another friend of mine, um, has studied for her whole life with hers. It is not very sexual or is a very internally, uh, marrying the masculine and feminine energies inside of her. That's the way she describes it. Um, in my book, I don't like using the terms masculine and feminine for energy because to me, energy is not gender. Um, and there's energy, there's young energy that works, but it is not, I think when we gender energy or behavior or actions in terms of that's masculine behavior, that's feminine or behavior. I think that gets us into a, a place that I am not comfortable going. Cause I don't think that stuff is served well by being gendered.
Speaker 0 00:13:22 Right. Totally makes sense. I agree. How has Tung tra transform your life?
Speaker 2 00:13:29 Um, it has allowed me to be more present than my body. It has deepened my, uh, my meditation practice. Um, it has brought me, um, it brought me to be back into my body and my life in a very solid way after I fuck, like I got kicked in the stomach and kicked him out in the, in the heart by his death. Um, so it's really changed my life in terms of that in another way it did because of the sex part is, um, it has allowed me to really work on any shame around sex around so many of us carry around shame about any kind of sex that we like or, or, you know, or fantasize about. And it's really helped me to like, no, just try everything and see what, what speaks to you and see what turns you on psychologically, physically, spiritually, and pursue that. Um, so that's, that's some of the ways it's really changed my life.
Speaker 0 00:14:36 Yeah. So would you recommend, is it recommended to everyone or a specific type of people psychologically?
Speaker 2 00:14:45 Well, uh, we, that's a really good question in my lineage. We don't teach people who are mostly, this is more under 40 because we really want people to be solidly in their lives and lean at good life. People who are more trying to figure things out, um, or haven't really learned how to be in their lives in a way that makes sense. Then it's, the energy is generated through the erotic practices can be too much in short circuit people. So we really want people to learn how to be in the world, how to take care of themselves. If they're under sitting, having families, how to raise families, how to be in the world, then you can look at how to let some of that go and, and experience, um, modern forms of pleasure and, and things like that. But in general, that's this linear, it doesn't teach people who are under 40.
Speaker 3 00:15:58 Uh,
Speaker 0 00:16:04 Okay. And who can you select specific people for tantra activities? First of all, can you do it by yourself and does your partner, can your partner be just anybody?
Speaker 2 00:16:21 So yes, you can do it yourself. There's any it's for me, one of the, uh, one of the simplest ways to describe the, the sexual practices is how do you move that when you get, when you play with your ex, when you masturbate you're, you're, you're generating sexual energy by yourself. And when you were the partner you're generating sexual energy, often that's using our genitals and whatever else, whatever else, we'd like, some people it's their elbow, their ears, their nipples, whatever. But how do you take that extra energy and be able to move it in your body? How do you move it up and down the chakra system of your body? Because that's where some of the magic can happen. And you can do that in a solo practice. People, again, that friend of mine, her practice deserved or solo or not with people. Um, and I mentioned her earlier, um, you can't, when I'm sexual with, uh, with a stranger, with my partner, with whomever, I am practicing Tom for, because I'm moving that sexual energy around in ways that isn't visible.
Speaker 2 00:17:34 Um, you know, if you look at me through the window having sex, you'd like, oh, he's having sex. Um, but what's going on in my body is very different. It's really about taking that erotic energy and moving it up, my, my system and, uh, you know, out my crown shocker or down my, the shocker system and into the ground. And so it's, it's something that you can't see if you're just looking at me through the window, but it's happening inside of me. And so by, you know, mark, I don't, so later you'd come teach with me, you come study with me. It's more like if we're having sex, this is what I'm doing. And if someone's interested, I'm happy to play with them, but it's not something it's not like you do a move here and a move here in a breath here. And today you have, you know, the four hour orgasms people talk about, that's not how it works. It's, it's a practice and keep practicing and practicing and, um, and you hold more and more erotic energy in your body.
Speaker 0 00:18:34 Okay. So, uh, can you tell us more about your psychotherapist practice? So when, when you counsel couples, is, does your book relate to your work as well? Or you just do to treat a dude to teach people tantra as well, or you just do your
Speaker 2 00:18:56 Well, because I'm a, I'm a licensed psychotherapist. I don't do any erotic work, any hands-on work in my practice. Um, what I can do is coach you, I, if it's a cup, like a, Hey YouTube could go home and try this. Um, but also one of the, one of the, um, principles of my lineage of tantra is that everything is an experiment. And that sounds like such a simple, simple principle, right? But what it teaches us and the more we do it, the more profound it gets is that there is no right and wrong answer to anything, everything we do as an experiment, as I told you, I'm on vacation this week. So I'm doing an experiment of coming inside of three o'clock from the pool, putting on clothes and having this meeting with you. That's an experiment and you and I will both get data from this experiment.
Speaker 2 00:19:50 We'll see, was that a good idea? Oh my God, it was a disaster. He was boring. He was great at whatever, but we get to get data. There's no right or wrong answer to it. And so we do experiments. So I teach that a lot in my therapy practice, which is everyone's like, I want to figure out what the healthy thing is to do here. I want to figure out what the right thing to do with the best thing to do. And I always say there isn't a right thing to do. There. Isn't a best thing. There, isn't a healthy thing. It's what experience do you want? If you want to have the experience of not speaking to your partner for three days, don't speak to him, but you're going to get data from that. Does it bring you closer? Does it bring you further away?
Speaker 2 00:20:33 Does it make the home better? Does it make you feel like you want to be more close? I mean, you get data from it. There's not a healthy way to do things. And so this really allows people, okay, what experiences do I want? What do I want to try? What do to learn about, um, you know, I want to try to learn to fight with you differently. I want to try to learn to fight without yelling at you. Let's see how that goes. I mean, it just scream at you and just try that and see if that gets me to be heard and understood more. So it's, everything's an experiment. And I really coach people to say, what do you want to learn, but how do you want your life to be? Um, so that that's somehow use one of the principles of tantra in my psychotherapy practice.
Speaker 0 00:21:17 Nice. And I like from what I get from that is, there's not one way to keep doing things with different people, because everyone will have a different ways of dealing with also the way you deal with life every day or different circumstances will have different ways. So if you're just stuck in one kind of a, let's see if you have a list of what to do for that day, and it's different than you just going to be thrown off. So you have to with a flow and, and live in the present. That's awesome. So I've never experienced, uh, I have not experienced death in my immediate family or life yet. So anyone, what, what would you tell someone who has a spouse or a child or anyone that has died in their family, or even a friend? What did you go through that you didn't know before the death and after the death you see in hindsight?
Speaker 2 00:22:21 So there's one thing that I, and I did my master's degree in grief and loss. So this was, this is what I studied in, in my graduate program to be a therapist. And it's something that I never read about and didn't know, but when my husband died, every relationship in my life changed. Some people who are super, super close spirited away, some people who are surprisingly, just sort of on the outskirts of my came closer and surprise me. And I've talked to people, who've experienced death with a spouse and they've experienced the same thing. It's like every relationship changes. And, um, when they're changing that it's really hard. But if you can just go with it and see where, see where it takes you, because, you know, I don't want to force anyone to be close to me if they don't want to be, I don't want to force them to go away if they want to be close, whatever. And so, but every relationship changes. And that was the surprise that I didn't know, even though I studied grief and loss in, in my graduate program.
Speaker 0 00:23:32 And are you, I've read some books and listen to some podcasts where people say, especially a death of a child, they talked about the most that you never stopped grieving is that's the
Speaker 2 00:23:46 Thing, that's the thing I have not knocked good, lost the child. And I think that is the worst thing that one could ever experience. Um, but it just, it is, I'm not grieving everyday. I'm not crying. I'm not even crying at all, but there was some times I went back to the house, whereas Akron, I lived after, I haven't been there for 12 years and it was just, I wasn't crying, but it was like, oh, I'm having all these memories. And, and it's a different way of grieving. Again, not gut-wrenching nuts, not dripping crying, sad, but oh right. I remember that life and how different that life is from today's life. Um, so I think that is true. I don't know that you ever stop. Even I, again, Zachary and I had a daughter together. And so when she went off to college and I was like, oh, that's something he missed. And you know, when she third high school, I said that. And so I think at those milestones, I'll always be aware that, oh, he didn't, he's not been around for this. Oh, wow. You know,
Speaker 0 00:24:53 Another thing I'm curious about since you became a weed are single parent. Did you date again? I mean, you did it again cause you were married currently, but how did it happen or did you have to date many people first or the current person you did now is the guy, the person or how,
Speaker 2 00:25:17 Oh, it took me a while. It took me a while to find this guy. Um, I started dating a year and a half maybe after Zachary died one of my first couple of days. And I really was single for about seven years after that. And I wasn't expecting to be, I've always enjoyed being in a relationship and, um, always that was just an easy place for me to be, but it just didn't happen. I dated and met plenty of men and, um, but I was free. I was a fundraiser for, um, Lambda legal. Um, that's the gay and lesbian, um, volunteer it's for an organization. And I met him and we started dating and went really slowly. And that was about four years ago and we just got married a couple months ago. So that was, uh, thank you. Um, so yeah, I, but it took me probably a year and a half before I could even think about going on a date.
Speaker 2 00:26:13 Um, and I had just a couple of short relationships, not in the entrepreneur, nothing stuck. Well of course I want everyone to buy my boat, but I think particularly for gay men about other straight women have read it and told me really it's affected them very well, very positively. But if you're interested in bringing more consciousness to your sexual, play more pleasure to your sexual lives, um, and wondering how sexual pleasure interfaces with psychological wellbeing, this book goes into all that. And, um, and uh, hoping, I'm hoping to assuming that COVID can settle down here a bit hoping to gather people in person for hands-on workshops. Like I described in my book that are clothing, you know, close off workshops, many of them and, um, prescribed erotic activities together and, um, and actually fun and learning and, um, sexy times and psychologically challenging times. And, um, so I it's, I guess I would say tantra is not what you think it is.
Speaker 2 00:27:23 And if you want my story, which I think is interesting how I used, how I took me awhile to find gay tantra and then studied that with my husband for a year, then he died suddenly. And then the next year of my life of how using all that I learned and did this wild journey with my, with my toddler teacher to explore the depths of my grief and, and sort of the depths of my, of how I can bring pleasure to the parts of me that were broken. So that's what, that's the part I want people to get as you can, you can use pleasure to heal. And the other thing is in this culture, I can't think of any organization, any family, any, anybody that says to trust your pleasure, trust what you want. Everyone's said, be careful of what you want. Be careful of desire, desire. It's the devil's work. It's it's it's, you know, your, it, it's your internal model. It's like trust, pleasure and trust your desire. Cause it'll take you to pretty amazing places. So that's what I would say.
Speaker 0 00:28:33 And I'm, I'm very glad that you saw that there was something missing in the market for four gay men. Basically you created something that some S uh, they can use instead of just wait, wait, stop.
Speaker 0 00:28:58 Welcome to Zen. 10 speaks a show where I make new friends and reconnect with old ones, a show where everyone's stories may inspire you to tell your own story. In this podcast. We encourage everyone to get rid of shame, guilt, fear, doubt, and judgments for themselves and for others, and replace those with love, empathy, compassion, understanding, kindness, and to do your best in everything that you do in essence, to get rid of things that no longer serve your wellbeing, to be true to yourself, and be honest with others, no need to be politically correct. That's out the window with 2020 here. We tell the raw uncensored story, your story, and tell the truth as you see it, make sure you live your fulfilled life without permission or apologies. So if you have a juicy, interesting, raw unapologetic story and inspiring, please make sure to contact
[email protected].
Speaker 0 00:30:23 It is Z N T E N N two one at g-mail dot com. Or you can find me on most social media platforms. You know, it, the, I G Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, uh, only fans. I mean, not really. Uh, but yeah, so let me just kidding. I'm not, as you may have guessed it. My name is Zen and welcome to the show today. We have a guest. Our guest today is ed <inaudible>. Ed <inaudible> has been a clinical cycle therapist since 1987. He has been counseling, many single individuals, including couples to overcome depression, anxiety, addiction, including sexual addiction and addiction and eating disorders. Ed's mentorship can enhance one's well as being so he's worked, can be
[email protected] and also is an author of the sex death in tantra. How sex change my life after death, his book can also be found on Amazon we'll shop person link in the description below. So he was compelled to write the book after his husband, Zachary of 15 years was killed by a car and sex death. And tantra is not only a story about love and loss, but one optimism in healing. I'm very curious to hear as story. So thank you, ed, for being on the show today.
Speaker 2 00:32:04 My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Definitely.
Speaker 0 00:32:07 Thank you. So tell us a bit about who you are and what brings you joy.
Speaker 2 00:32:13 What brings me joy? Okay. Um, let's see. I am a parent. I have a 19 year old daughter. That's been a fun journey. Um, adopted her when she was born. And that's also a theme in the book as well. Um, how she fits into this. Um, I am a psychologist. That's like a therapist in private practice up in Seattle, Washington. That brings me joy. Um, I am married again to a lovely man and that relationship brings me joy. And right now I am vacationing in Palm Springs and so sun and pool, and a drink to enjoy this week and some time off. So I'm enjoying that as well.
Speaker 0 00:33:01 Well, thank you so much for spending our time with us in your vacation. I appreciate your time very
Speaker 2 00:33:07 Much. Thank you. Pleasure, pleasure.
Speaker 0 00:33:11 So, uh, how has your journey of counseling others been?
Speaker 2 00:33:17 It's been, um, it's been really good. I started as a high school teacher, but working in a school where, um, we got the kids that the conventional classrooms couldn't didn't know what to do with, and those kids ended up being, um, mostly high or drunk and from dysfunctional families. And so we didn't know what to do with them. And then we started learning about how to create a school program that was half counseling and half teaching. And we did that for a couple of years, and I found that I liked the counseling part better than I did the teaching parts. That's when I got my master's in counseling. And then for some reason, I don't know, I really can't remember how or why I've always been interested in the marriage of sex and spirituality and tantra was the marriage of sex and spirituality. And for years, years, everything I read about it was always about males matching melding with females and, and everything was just about male and female sex.
Speaker 2 00:34:25 And that as a gay man that did not speak to me. And, um, so I was just frustrated. And then all of a sudden I found somebody in Seattle that was, uh, teaching a tantrum to queer men and queer women. And, um, my late husband and I started to study with him for about a year before he was killed by, he was hit by this car and killed when he was walking our dog. So that, and then it was the year after that, that I did this incredible journey with my teacher around using erotic practices and sex and sexuality, um, to heal from a traumatic loss of my husband. Wow.
Speaker 0 00:35:09 So what joy has it brought to the people that you counsel, if they give you any feedback?
Speaker 2 00:35:17 You know, that's a great question. I don't know. I don't want to speak for them or, you know, too much for people say that their lives have, they have more options, more choice, more freedom in their lives. And that is for me, the goal of, of counseling as it's also to, um, to clean up whatever's going on inside of your brain and body around. So you have more options in your life. So psychotherapy and tantra, um, sit very well together, do both of those things. So I think people who have experienced more freedom, a little less, uh, constriction by pain and, um, they have more options in their lives. Right.
Speaker 0 00:35:56 Um, so, uh, tell us the process of writing your book, sex, death, and Tundra, house sex change my life after death.
Speaker 2 00:36:08 The title is actually how sex saved my life after death. Now that's how it saved my life. Cause I, I credit this work with saving my life after my husband was killed. Um, the writing process, well, this was such an interesting journey and so many, not, not all, many of my friends did not understand how I could be delving into eroticism and sexuality. Uh, so soon after my husband was killed, um, and some, some people did not understand that. Some people did understand that. So it was, it was just very clear to me that this story has never been told before. And that's what propelled ma'am, I'm not, I'm not like to write, but it's not, I'm not a writer. I guess I am a writer now I wrote a book for God's sakes. Um, so, but I, you know, that's, that's the first big piece of writing I've done. And I just knew that I wanted to tell the story because in that work, this journey I took, um, I credit with saving my life after, um, the Southern traumatic loss of my, uh, my husband at 15 years. And then I became a single parent at the same moment that it was just overwhelming and obviously the worst thing I'd ever experienced. And, um, this journey, I think threw me a life preserver that I needed.
Speaker 0 00:37:34 So can you tell the audience kind of like a little summary of the sex part, the death part and the Tundra? What other connections sounds like a trilogy?
Speaker 2 00:37:50 Well, most people when they hear Tondra think of sex. So, um, Tom DRA is about, you can have great sex as part of tantra, but some part of tantra is also just about psychology and meditation and movement and nutrition, all those things. But, um, sex is definitely a way in which it's a shortcut to get into your body, to be present in your body. The death part of the book is, is Zachary's death of how that
Speaker 0 00:38:26 After his death, like how did you cope or were you using your, the skills to, uh, to help you couple along? Or did it take time?
Speaker 2 00:38:37 So it took time. I mean the first, probably month or six weeks after his death, all my toddler teacher could do with me is hold me as I cried. I just cried and cried enough to be able to get my daughter awake and get her to school and came back and cried. I couldn't work. I didn't see clients for six months. And at six months, I very slowly took the next six months to rebuild my practice and go back to full-time. But I didn't, um, I couldn't work. I couldn't really, it was really just enough to get myself awake and being able to parent a six and a half year old child who is grieving also, and I'm just taking care of our house and the two of us and keeping us going. Um, so it was again, Zachary and I studied the year before he died.
Speaker 2 00:39:28 And so there's a lot about how, what we learned, what we discovered about ourselves psychologically and erotically and all that stuff in that year prior to his death. And then, uh, the night he died, I was in the hot call, was, um, my talker teacher. He came up to the hospital and we just sort of started this journey together. And again, the first six weeks were really just him holding me while I cried and cried. Um, and then very, very, very slowly, you know, my sort of engaging, uh, erotically and using the skills and the principles and practices that we learned that your prior to see how we could bring those to bear to migraine.
Speaker 0 00:40:12 Uh, so you mentioned the kind of like misconception of tantra. Can you give someone who have that different ideas on tracking? How can you, can you give an explanation of how you fit? You can change their minds about what tantra actually is.
Speaker 2 00:40:31 Uh, this is where I say you have to read my book. Um, I don't, I don't, I mean, well, as there are, as many, if you Google tantra, you will find again, mostly, mostly, um, heterosexual, uh, Tom Turner referenced with the women, had long flowing air in the back lighting and, you know, it looks like it's very spiritual and it's got all the trappings of spirituality. Um, but there are as many, um, as many, um, lineage, as many ways of practicing tantra as there are people everyone's got a different lineage lineage I studied was, uh, from, uh, actually a psychiatrist who lived in India for 30 years and studied. And, um, you know, we've got an old lineage that goes back, but this is a very different lineage of Tom for them. Another friend of mine, um, has studied for her whole life, but hers is not very sexual or is a very internally, uh, marrying the masculine and feminine energies inside of her. That's the way she describes it. Um, in my book, I don't like using the terms masculine and feminine for energy because to me, energy is not gender. Um, there's energy, there's young energy that works, but it is not, I think when we gender energy or behavior or actions in terms of that's masculine behavior, that's feminine behavior. I think that gets us into a, a place that I am not comfortable going, because I don't think that stuff is served well by being gendered.
Speaker 0 00:42:09 Right. Totally makes sense. I agree. How has Tung tra transform your life?
Speaker 2 00:42:16 Um, it has allowed me to be more present than my body. It has deepened my, uh, my meditation practice. Um, it has brought me, it brought me to be back into my body and my life in a very solid way after I felt like I got kicked in the stomach and kicked in the, in the, in the heart by his death. Um, so it's really changed my life in terms of that. And another way it did because of the sex part is, um, it has allowed me to really work on any shame around sex around so many of us carry around shame about any kind of sex that we like or, or, you know, or fantasize about. And it's really helped me to like, no, just try everything and see what speaks to you and see what turns you on psychologically, physically, spiritually, and pursue that. Um, so that's, that's some of the ways it's really changed my life.
Speaker 0 00:43:23 Yeah. So would you recommend, is it recommended to everyone or a specific type of people psychologically?
Speaker 2 00:43:32 Well, uh, we, that's a really good question in my lineage. We don't teach people who are mostly, this is more under 40 because we really want people to be solidly in their lives and lean and good life. People who are more trying to figure things out, um, or haven't really learned how to be in their lives in a way that makes sense. Then it's, the energy is generated through the erotic practices can be too much in short circuit people. So when we really want people to learn how to be in the world, how to take care of themselves, if they're under sitting, having families, how to raise families, how to be in the world, then you can look at how to let some of that stuff go and, and experience, um, modern forms of pleasure and, and things like that. But in general, this, this linear doesn't teach people who are under 40.
Speaker 0 00:44:51 Okay. And who can you select specific people for tantra activities? First of all, can you do it by yourself and does your partner, can your partner be just anybody?
Speaker 2 00:45:08 So yes, you can do it yourself. There's any it's for me, one of the, uh, one of the simplest ways to describe the sexual practices is how do you move that when you get, when you play with your, when you masturbate you're, you're, you're generating sexual energy by yourself. And when you were the partner, you're generating sexual energy, and often that's using our genitals and whatever else, whatever else, we'd like, some people it's their elbow, their ears, their nipples, whatever. But how do you take that extra energy and be able to move it in your body? How do you go up and down the chakra system of your body? Because that's where some of the magic can happen. And you can do that in a solo practice. People, again, that friend of mine, her practice deserved or solo, they're not with people. Um, and I mentioned her earlier, um, you can't, when I'm sexual with, uh, with a stranger, with my partner, with whomever, I am practicing topper because I'm moving that sexual energy around in ways that isn't visible.
Speaker 2 00:46:21 Um, you know, if you look at me through the window having sex, you'd like, oh, he's having sex. Um, but what's going on in my body is very different. It's really about taking that erotic energy and moving it up, my, my system and, uh, you know, out my crown Shakur or down my, the Shakur system and into the ground. And so it's, it's something that you can't see if you're just looking at me through the window, but it's happening inside of me. And I, you know, I bark, I don't, so they have, you'd come teach with me. You come study with me. It's more like if we're having sex, this is what I'm doing. And if someone's interested, I'm happy to play with them, but it's not something it's not like you do a move here and a move here and a breath here. And today you have, you know, the four hour orgasms people talk about, that's not how it works. It's, it's a practice and keep practicing and practicing and, um, and you hold more and more erotic energy in your body.
Speaker 0 00:47:21 All right. So, uh, can you tell us more about your psychotherapist practice when you counsel couples, is, does your book relate to your work as well? Or you just do to treat dude to teach people tantra as well, or you just do your
Speaker 2 00:47:43 Well, because I'm a licensed psychotherapist. I don't do any erotic work, any hands-on work in my practice. Um, what I can do is coach you, if it's a cup, like, Hey, you two could go home and try this. Um, but also what are the, what are the, um, principles of my lineage of tantra is that everything is an experiment. And that sounds like such a simple, simple principle, right? But what it teaches us and the more we do it, the more profound it gets is that there is no right and wrong answer to anything. Everything we do as an experiment, as I told you, I'm on vacation this week. So I'm doing an experiment of coming inside of three o'clock from the pool, putting on clothes and having this meeting with you. That's an experiment and you and I will both get data from this experiment.
Speaker 2 00:48:37 We'll see, was that a good idea? Oh my God, it was a disaster. He was boring. He was great bit of whatever, but we get to get data. There's no right or wrong answer to it. And so we do experiments. So I teach that a lot in my therapy practice, which is everyone's like, I want to figure out what the healthy thing is to do here. I want to figure out what the right thing to do, what the best thing to do. And I always say there isn't a right thing to do. There. Isn't a best thing. There, isn't a healthy thing. It's what experience do you want? If you want to have the experience of not speaking to your partner for three days, don't speak to them, but you're going to get data from that. Does it bring you closer? Does it bring you further away?
Speaker 2 00:49:20 Does it make the home better? Does it make you feel like you want to be more close? I mean, you get data from it. There's not a healthy way to do things. And so this really allows people to, okay, what experiences do I want? What do I want to try? What do I want to learn about? Um, you know, I want to try to learn to fight with you differently. I want to try to learn to fight without yelling at you. Let's see how that goes. I mean, it just scream at you and just try that and see if that gets me to be heard and understood more. So it's, everything's an experiment. And I really coach people to say, what do you want to learn, but how do you want your life to be? Um, so that that's somehow use one of the principles of tantra in my psychotherapy practice.
Speaker 0 00:50:05 Nice. And I like from what I get from that is, there's not one way to keep doing things with different people, because everyone will have a different ways of dealing with also the way you deal with life every day or different circumstances will have different ways. So if you're just stuck in one kind of a, let's see if you have a list of what to do for that day, and it's different than you just going to be thrown off. So you have to give a flow and, and live in a present. That's awesome. So I've never experienced, uh, I have not experienced death in my immediate family or life yet. So what, what would you tell someone who has a spouse or a child or anyone that's died in their family, or even a friend? What did you go through that you didn't know before the death and after the death you see in hindsight?
Speaker 2 00:51:08 So there's one thing that I did my master's degree in grief and loss. So this was, this is what I studied in, in my graduate program to be a therapist. And it's something that I never read about and didn't know, but when my husband died, every relationship in my life changed. Some people who are super, super close spirited away, some people who are surprisingly, just sort of on the outskirts of mod came closer and surprise me. And I've talked to people, who've experienced death with a spouse and they've experienced the same thing. It's like every relationship changes. And, um, when they're changing that it's really hard. But if you can just go with it and see where, see where it takes you, because, you know, I don't want to force anyone to be close to me if they don't want to be, I don't want to force them to go away if they want to be close, whatever. And so, but every relationship, the changes, and that was the surprise that I didn't know, even though I studied grief and loss in my graduate program.
Speaker 0 00:52:19 And are you, I've read some books and listen to some podcasts where people say, especially a death of a child being talked about the most that you never stop grieving is that's the thing,
Speaker 2 00:52:34 That's the thing I've not knocked good, lost the child. And I think that is the worst thing that one could ever experience. Um, but it just, it is. I don't, I'm not grieving every day. I'm not crying. I'm not even crying at all, but there are some times I went back to the house, whereas Akron, I lived after, I haven't been there for 12 years and it was just, I wasn't crying, but it was like, oh, I'm having all these memories. And, and it's a different way of grieving. Again, not gut-wrenching nuts, not drifting, crying, sad, but oh right. I remember that life and how different that life is from today's life. Um, so I think that is true. I don't know that you ever stopped grieving. I, again, Zachary and I had a daughter together. And so when she went off to college and I was like, oh, that's something he missed. And you know, when she started high school, I said that. And so I think at those milestones, I'll always be aware that, oh, he didn't, he's not been around for this. Wow.
Speaker 0 00:53:40 And another thing I'm curious about since you became a weed, our single parent, did you date again? I mean, you did it again cause you were married currently, but how did it happen or did you have to date many people first or the current person you did now is the guy, the person or how,
Speaker 2 00:54:04 Oh, it took me a while. It took me a while to find this guy. Um, I started dating a year and a half maybe after Zachary died, one of my first couple of days. And I really was single for about, uh, seven years after that. And I wasn't expecting to me, I've always enjoyed being in a relationship and, um, always that was just an easy place for me to be, but it just didn't happen. I dated and met plenty of men and, um, but I was fresh. I was a fundraiser for, um, Lambda legal. Um, that's getting lesbian, um, volunteer it's for the organization. And I met him and we started dating, went really slowly. And that was about four years ago and we just got married a couple months ago. So that was, uh, thank you. Um, so yeah, I, but it took me probably a year and a half before I could even think about going on a date.
Speaker 2 00:55:00 Um, and then I just a couple of short relationships now in the, but nothing stuck. Well of course I want everyone to buy my boat, but I think particularly for gain, I know other straight women have read it and told me really it's affected them very well, very positively. But if you're interested in bringing more consciousness to your sexual, play more pleasure to your sexual lives, um, and wondering how sexual pleasure interfaces with psychological wellbeing, this book goes into all that. And, um, and uh, hoping, I'm hoping to assuming that COVID can settle down here a bit hoping to gather people in person for hands-on workshops. Like I described in my book that are clothing, you know, close off workshops, many of them and, um, prescribed erotic activities together and, um, and actually fun and learning and, um, sexy times and psychologically challenging times. And, um, so I it's, I guess I would say tantra is not what you think it is and if you want my story, which I think is interesting and how I used, how I took me while at the fine gay tantra and then studied out with my husband for a year, then he died suddenly.
Speaker 2 00:56:23 And then the next year of my life of how using all that I learned and did this wild journey with my, with my toddler teacher to explore the depths of my grief and, and sort of the depths of my, of how I can bring pleasure to the parts of me that were broken. So that's what, that's the part I want people to get as you can, you can use pleasure to heal. And the other thing is in this culture, I can't think of any organization, any family, any, anybody that says to trust your pleasure, trust what you want. Everyone said, be careful of what you want. Be careful of desire, desire. It's the devil's work. It's it's it's, you know, you're it, it's your to run. That's like trust, pleasure and trust your desire. Cause it'll take you to pretty amazing places. So that's what I would say.
Speaker 0 00:57:20 And, um, I'm very glad that you saw that there was something missing in the market for four gay men. Basically you created something that some S uh, they can use instead of just like the prescribed straight relationship, male and female. So that's
Speaker 2 00:57:41 Very little written for gay men about tantra, about conscious sexuality, about there's nothing really written for using sex to heal from psychological stuff and pain and grief. So if you're curious about that journey, if you're just curious about a sexual journey, that is probably unlike anything you've read about this book would be something that you might find interesting.
Speaker 0 00:58:06 So where, where can someone buy the book?
Speaker 2 00:58:09 Even if you take the title in any books are ordered for you, it's available on Amazon and so on any of the online booksellers. So you can find it, uh, there, you know, I wasn't give a shout out to local bookstores, so support them, but they can order it for you. But if you're like many of us a click on online is easy to do and people do that, and it'll be in your mailbox in a couple of days.
Speaker 0 00:58:32 And how should someone listening to this who's in your area? Or do you do things online as well? Can they reach out to you to get,
Speaker 2 00:58:39 Can we jump on in the back cover of my book? There's a, um, there's an email address for me and I check it every day. It's sex, Steffens, entre, gmail.com, sex tantra at Gmail. And I'm hoping to do, as I say, in person, uh, you know, weekend long or explore this for the other men. And that's the plan for spring. Again, hoping that, uh, the crazy pandemic wardens settles down a bit and we can safely gather to do that. That's the plan. Yeah. Trust your pleasure, trust your desire. That's what I would add.
Speaker 0 00:59:15 Yes. And, and your, your pleasure and your desire on not shameful and just trust your intuition and do what feels good. And what is you, you will know what feels good in your heart. So, yeah. And everyone makes sure you go to Ed's sway out.com and I'll have a link on the description below. And thank you again, ed, for being here today to talk about your book
Speaker 2 00:59:42 For having me. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:59:46 Have a good one. Thank you. I appreciate you too.
Speaker 2 00:59:50 Bye-bye.
