394: Why is polarity so critical for attraction? | Dear Men

Jason Lange: Continually have to practice too. It's not like, oh, I did it once, we're good to go. It's no, I have to keep bringing this back in my nervous system, in my body, learning to work these different energies and learning honestly when it's appropriate even to polarize, and when it's not.

Melanie Curtin: Hi everyone. Happy New Year. Very exciting to be striding into 2026 with you. Thank you for being a listener. I wanted to mention that I make a mistake at the end of this episode and I tell you the wrong time for our upcoming masterclass on Polari. So if you are interested in that, the correct time is actually to 7pm Pacific Time next Thursday, January 7th and you can sign up for that at melaniecurtain.com masterclass sorry, slash polaritymasterclass. That's polarity masterclass. And if you're interested in supporting the podcast, you can also become a patron. You just go to Patreon Dear Men podcast. It'll come up right away and if you join at a 10amonth level or more, then you will get access, access to our live Q&As every month. And I wanted to mention that I'm going to be emailing all of you patrons about this month and next month's Patreon calls. This month will be, I believe the same date as usual of the third Wednesday and the next month might shift. So look out for that if you are a patron. And you can always get me@dearmen podcastmail.com and if you're new to the podcast, I'm planning on doing a little bit of a summary, a kind of hey, here's what's offered in this podcast and here are some, some gen genres, some, some places to start so you can look out for that. That'll be coming up soon. And polarity is definitely one of those big topics that we've tended to cover quite a bit. So I'm going to be putting together a few notes and a sort of summary overview of the podcast since we've been going for a while now and I think it'd be nice to have that for for new listeners. So thank you for listening. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on this and other episodes. You can always get me@dearman podcastmail.com hi everyone. Welcome to another Jason Lange episode and welcome to 2026. We are very excited that this is our first episode of the year and it's, it's a little bit personal. I think this one's a little bit personal. So thanks for being here with us. And welcome back to the podcast, Jason.

Jason Lange: Yeah, super stoked to be here. Here we go again.

Melanie Curtin: All right, so today we're talking about polarity. Why is polarity so critical to attraction? And we've done a number of episodes on polarity, which I will drop in the show notes. So don't worry, you don't have to remember all of them. But today we're going to be talking a little bit about things we've discussed in the past. And we're also going to be covering the three different types of polarity. I put types in quotes, but the three different genres of polarity that are pretty common in dating and long term relationships. And when we talk about attraction, when we're saying critical to attraction, we mean attraction both at the beginning of dating as well as in long term relationships. So wherever you are on the relationship spectrum, this will definitely be relevant to you. And let's get started. So, yeah, I thought before we kind of went into everything, it would be kind of fun to hear about where you learned about polarity first and how your grasp of it has shifted over the years. You, Jason?

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. So when I first learned about it, I didn't even really necessarily associate it with the word polarity. But I was a student of Ken Wilbur and studied heavy philosophy in my mid-20s. And it was through his community I got exposed to David Data, who was deeply involved at the time, and read my first David Data books, particularly Way of the Superior Man, Intimate Communion, Enlightened Sex Manual. And it's all laid out right there. You know, essentially his. His teachings from. Started in the 90s, in a sense. And so this was an interesting time in my life because I was reading about all this stuff. And, you know, I was 24, 25, I think, probably when I first started reading him. And at that point I had never been in a relationship. I think I had maybe kissed two girls. So it was pretty much all theoretical, right. I had these longtime listeners know I had these kind of super crushes and sometimes these short, very short kind of like things almost worked. And then all my kind of somatic wackery would come into play and I. I couldn't move things forward. But so I was reading about all this stuff and learning about it conceptually, and I was really attracted to the ideas of it, but I didn't know how to do any of it. I didn't have the practice. I had never been to therapy. I was mostly numbed out, overweight, jerking off, too much porn, didn't have A lot of direction necessarily in my life. So it was all conceptual, like, it all made sense to me in my head. And I think for a lot of guys when they start to learn about polarity, it's like, oh, yeah, great, okay, totally. But in a lot of ways, as you know, I think most men discover that's the easy part, right? And it was, for me, the information, understanding the concept was way easier than, oh my God, okay, now is the actual time where I have to bring it forward, right? I have to still my nervous system, I have to bring direction, I have to take action even in, in, in, in certain ways. And that it took me, right, you know, really another five, ten years to start to integrate it in a more embodied way. And then, you know, another couple years of some, like, pretty significant training with teachers in the space to really feel comfortable polarizing my, my marriage, my relationship and building those skills. Where one thing I did notice as I started to get into relationships, I have some longer term experiences, was it was easier for me really early in the relationship, like to when it was just dates and I was like driving towards, you know, intimacy. But then with, you know, my three real major partners, this thing would happen where once we kind of got into more of a secure place, all of my attachment would come out and I would kind of dissociate and not really come forward with my desire. And it got into some really weird spaces that, you know, really very much manifested in my marriage. And I, you know, luckily I was going into these trainings right around then and kind of saved my ass and I think really shifted the direction of where that would have gone otherwise, of, okay, I gotta really practice this stuff. Polarity is a practice, not just a concept, right. It's something you continually have to practice too. It's not like, oh, I did it once, we're good to go. It's no, I have to keep bringing this back in my nervous system, in, in my body, learning to work these different energies and learning honestly when it's appropriate even to polarize and when it's not. Because like everything else, you know, we'll probably get into this a little bit later. There's a developmental journey of polarity, of how we learn about it, how we first implement it, what we think it means, and then what actually progresses as we learn what I would say are the more mature versions of it.

Melanie Curtin: Ooh, I'm intrigued. I will also answer this question briefly, which is I also learned about polarity originally from David Data, and I will drop that into the show Notes. And then my understanding of it evolved, particularly when I started to study with Justin Patrick Pierce and London Angel Winters. And I really, really like their stuff on polarity. They are my preferred teachers. And we will be using the words alpha and omega for this episode, which I have used because of their work, instead of the words masculine and feminine. And part of the reason for that is that masculine and feminine come loaded up with a lot of other cultural associations, and alpha and Omega are less that way. They still have them, but less so. So for those tracking, Alpha will track to masculine, and Omega will track to feminine. And one of the things that I really resonated with in Justin and London's work, particularly in London's work, was that she was a boss bitch, powerful woman doing her thing and succeeding in. In professionally. And polarity was something that she leaned into and became very skillful at in relationships, in. In love relationships. That was different than the professional world. And the ways that she talks about, particularly women having a strong Alpha and also having a strong Omega and being able to drop into Omega was something that really resonated for me. So I do think that having a woman teacher, having a woman teaching about polarity and living the concepts in relationship with a man was helpful for me as a role model and as expanding the concepts and speaking in a way that felt really resonant with me, I think was. Was. Was a big deal. And I will say that in particular Way of the Superior man was a book that I read and felt like this is describing things I've never been able to put into words. There's a deep truth here that is that he's painting a picture of a deep truth about what I crave from a partner with a partner that I wouldn't have been able to state in the same ways. So I do think there's something magical about that. And we have also talked about that book in particular, I think creates a. What is the word? An impossibly high standard for people holding Alpha for. For, let's say, for men. And for the majority of this episode, we're going to be talking about men holding Alpha, women holding Omega in general, because this is mostly a podcast for men who are attracted to women. And that is these concepts are universal and they apply in all kinds of relationships, including queer relationships. Everyone with any body type, any genitalia can embody these. And they tend to. Right. In relationships, you tend to see that there is a partner who embodies Alpha more of the time, and in a partner who embodies Omega more of the time, it's just part of, there's just a kind of universal truth about that. But for the purpose of this episode, you're going to hear us saying that. I want to be clear that these are not the only ways that these can show up. These are universal energies and they show up in everyone. But I really feel like that was, it was, it was almost an embodied experience for me, reading, reading that book, and especially reading some of Justin and London's books, where I can feel myself melt when, when the concepts are, are, are introduced, or when there's stuff about someone holding Alpha, creating a space for me, creating an experience for me, holding this hold, being spacious. We're going to talk about all these things. I actually feel my stomach relax. I feel my shoulders relax. I feel my heart. I feel the longing in my heart of. I really want to be with someone. I want to be with a man who can do this. I want to be with a man who can provide this. I want to be with a man who can embody this. So I, I, that's part of why we keep coming back to this concept, because there's, it, there's something magnetic about polarity. When it's activated, it's, it's magnetic. I want to be around him, I'm drawn to him and vice versa. He wants to be around me, he's drawn to me. It's what we're talking about when we're talking about sparks, when we're talking about chemistry, when we're talking about all of those things. It's, it's polarity. And for a lot of folks, it's polarizing, completely mysterious. It's sometimes there, it's sometimes not. It's, you know, it's unpredictable. And for me, the concepts of polarity are helpful in outlining. Here's why that works. Here's, here's why attraction works. Here's what polarity is and how you can be more skillful with it and how you can actually learn to build polarity. And I want to be clear, it's not easy in the sense of, oh, just say these words in this way. And it's not, it's not like a magic spell, right? It's an embodied felt experience. But it is helpful. I have found it very helpful, and I think our clients have as well to understand more about the concept and how to move towards what you were talking about, Jason, of being able to apply it in your relationships in a skillful way. And I want to come back to what you said about when is it appropriate to polarize and when is it not? I think that's a really interesting question. But first I just want to go into kind of what is polarity? For those that are listening that maybe haven't heard the concept before, we have done other episodes on it, which I will drop into the show notes. But just as a basic overview, can you take us through. If someone were to say, what is polarity? How would you answer that?

Jason Lange: Yeah. So, you know, in my mind, polarity is erotic. Tension is one way to put it, right? So it's attraction towards another. And frankly, it doesn't even have to be people. We can get polarized by places, geography, animals, like, all the time. These things are real, and it's not necessarily just sexual. So that's an important thing to also say. Polarity is related often to sexuality and sensuality, but it's not just that we can be polarized in all kinds of ways. And so really, it's about what creates that arc of attraction that brings two people closer and creates a certain type of heat and energy, right? An actual flow of. Of. Of a. A charge, in a sense. And so it is like a bit of electricity moving between two people. Oftentimes, you know, when we talk about chemistry in intimate relationships, that's maybe a little broader term for what people are actually kind of talking about as polarity there. Like, we have a lot of chemistry. Like, there's a. There's a. This arc of something that feels really good and pulls us closer together. So polarity is really that, and how we create it is. The idea is to polarize. It's really just a play on some basic physics, right? So we all learned this in. In high school. Magnetism, right? There it is, that word. Oh, he's magnetic. She's magnetic. Like, what do people actually mean? Well, they're talking about this stuff in that to become magnetic from the polar side of things is basically to embody the opposite energy of whoever you're attracted to or trying to attract. And the main pole we're talking about here is this alpha and omega, or masculine and feminine kind of energetic pole. And you can use unlimited words to describe this polarity, right? Which is again, just this kind of dualism. And it goes back into all kinds of traditions. And the idea is when there's a difference of energies, it creates that attraction, just like two magnets. So you could say one's the positive end, one's the negative end. And as long as they're different, they pull, they. They come right together, right? It's just like, oh, yeah, okay, great. The problems which we'll get into are what happens when they're not different, right? When they're exactly the same or not polarized enough. And that's where a lot of guys these days struggle in terms of how to bring this forward in a way, a culture that's radically shifted, you know, back in the day. And, and, and David Data talks about, you know, he calls it stages of relationship in a sense, or kind of stages of polarity. There's different ways this stuff manifests, and there's a certain kind of just biological, physical kind of way that does, just with our hormones and. And the desire to reproduce and certain life circumstances that there used to be, you know, these equations we could just follow of, oh, as long as I make money as a man, I'm a good caregiver and I'm a desirable mate. And for a lot of women, it was as long as I can give him children. Like, that was kind of the deal for a long time. It was more of a transaction than anything else. And what's changed a lot is that just doesn't work anymore. I mean, certain parts of the world still orient around that. Certain cultures of people still orient around that. But if you're listening to this podcast, you're almost certainly not orienting around that. And you've bumped into the pain points of, well, what is. What does it mean these days to polarize a partner who sometimes is making more money than me? A common challenge a lot of men these days face, right? Or doesn't need me to take care of X, Y or Z, or sometimes it's even physically stronger than me. Like, this is all totally possible these days or is taller than me or all these different things. So how do I polarize from that place? So polarity is really that art of how do we create that arc of attraction? And for those that are wanting to attract a highly omega, highly feminine partner, that means we have to cultivate the skill of bringing masculine and alpha energy into our nervous system and into our presence. And it's basically a lifetime journey as to how to do that, in a sense. But it's something you actually have to do, right? You don't just think about. It's a way of being in your nervous system that takes practice to cultivate, but can actually be learned pretty quickly. That's the other thing. As I got deeper into the polarity world and, you know, went to weekend workshops and stuff, you can have state experience of state experiences of polarization really fast. The work Becomes everything that gets in the way of that, which is often our wounding, our attachment stuff, our relationship stuff, our habits, et cetera. And those kind of workshops are also really useful because you can actually have the embodied experience of. Oh, it doesn't really, as much as people think, have to do with what sex we're born into. Are we in a male body, a female body, whatever. Like you can go in and be highly polarized by another man. I've had that experience. Or by another woman and realize, oh, okay, these are all capacities and energies we have access to inside of us. Now for a lot of us, what we find is one tends to feel a little more restorative in like home. Just like, oh yeah, there's something about this one that brings a lot of peace to my nervous system and feels really good to offer to another partner. And it's not that we can't work the other side, but there's kind of a place that we just feel the most natural in that is often part of our work. And let me be super clear, just because you're born in a male body does not mean your home is going to feel like an alpha place. And as we get into the nuances of how the work has evolved, you know, we can talk about how even that idea of you're just alpha or just omega is just kind of so outdated and kind of an oversimplification of what actually shows up, particularly in long term relationships.

Melanie Curtin: Yes, I'm glad you spoke to that because one of the episodes that I basically, we have a series on polarity and I'm gonna drop that in the show notes and one of them is called the Problems with Polarity. And again, we're not gonna redo that episode right now, but I do recommend that because I think that my own sexist consciousness, my own patriarchy consciousness, all of the things that run in my system because of the culture I grew up in that runs in this conversation. There's no way around that. It's the water we swim in. We do our best to be as conscious as we can be, but I wanna be upfront about all that stuff shows up here in this conversation. It's, it's, it's here in the room. It's still useful to talk about, but it's helpful to know that that's part of the truth of what's so for all of us that grow up in cultures like the ones that we're in. And I also feel like there's, I want to go through the, the kind of explanation Explicit explanation of what alpha and Omega energies are. Because to your point, Jason, we all run both of these energies. We all have both of these energies inside of us. We all run both of these energies. And I will say explicitly that in general, in our culture, Omega energy is looked down upon. And we emphasize Alpha energy in our culture more than we do Omega. There's less respect for Omega overall. It's something unspoken, but it's true. So I'm going to go through what those energies are and these maps, you know, they kind of map to yin and yang energies. So those of you that are familiar with those, you will hear that in these. But here we go. So Alpha energy is consciousness, thinking, holding space, driving, leading, stillness, a straight spine, relaxed. The sun. It's more associated with the sun. Omega energy is flow, allowing, receiving, expressiveness, expression, mystery, movement, relaxed. The moon. So there's a flow, there's a. There's. There's difference there. Right? You can hear the difference there. And one of the metaphors we use is the banks of the river and the flow of the water. So the banks of the river holds the structure of the river. It is the structure. And the flow of the water is the movement. It's the life force. It's what flows through it. You don't have a river without both of those. If you don't have the banks of the river, you have a delta. If you don't have the flow of the water, you have a dry river bed, you don't have a river. You need both of them to have the river, to have the highest, the most. The expression of life includes both alpha and omega energies. It is how life happens. It is life, right? It's the flow of both of those. And I want to make the point that the opposite of both of these in human beings is tightness, contraction, breathing shallowly. If you're tight and contracted in your body, then that flow has been blocked. And I think part of what's confusing in this conversation is that we have a lot of examples of masculinity in our culture that are really expressions of the chaotic feminine or chaotic Omega. So, for example, men that. That yell and get upset or harm other people or are very, what's the word? I guess, out of control with their emotions. That is chaotic Omega. That is not Alpha energy. Alpha energy is stillness. It's action, it's movement, it's driving forward. But it's not out of control. It's not expressive in the way of moving anger through the body and expressing it out towards someone. That is not healthy Alpha energy. That is chaotic Omega energy. And so I think there's some confusion in the culture and in the conversation about what is Alpha, what is Omega. And I want to be very clear that healthy, flowing Alpha and Omega energy is always relaxed. There's a. There's a sense of relaxation and. What's the word? Not exactly nature, but sort of intuition. That intuition is what is informing the movements of Alpha and the movements of Omega. When it's in flow, it's intuition. It's not trying to control someone else. There's not that sense of domination in either category. That's kind of the shadow side. Right. The flip side, the dark side of each of these, of which there are the chaotic Alpha, the chaotic Omega. And we're not going to be focusing on that in this episode. It's an interesting topic, but I wanted to be explicit about that because physically, when we're talking about physical embodiments of these states, it's always based on relaxation in the body. And what I have seen again and again and again is that for men that want to embody Alpha more, one of the things that gets in the way is trauma. And part of the way that trauma shows up in the body is tightness, shallow breathing, contraction. And a lot of men are going around in that state all the time. They're actually not comfortable or safe or relaxed in their bodies almost ever. And I'm curious if you can share a little bit about your own journey with respect to that, because it's really hard to polarize and hold healthy Alpha when you're tight or constricted or stressed out in your body all the time. Can you share a little bit about your experience of that?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, in. Right. Another way, when. When she says. When you say consciousness. Right. What we're really talking about is awareness. So another way to think about Alpha masculine Shiva energy is the witness. It's witnessing, it's awareness. It's just that which is aware and it doesn't change, it doesn't move. It's just pure presence, in a sense. And so the challenge I had and a lot of men have is, well, it's actually hard for us to be fully present in the moment because there's all this junk intention in the way. You know, a very simple kind of manifestation of this, just to start to connect the dots, is the feeling of being sick and not being sick. Right. So every time when we get sick, it's like all of our attention is there. It's hard to feel past it, be Relaxed, our locus of awareness comes in really close. And if you're like me, one of the first things you think is, oh my God, it sucks being sick. I can't wait to be healthy again and to appreciate it, right? And then you get to that state and you're not often appreciating it because you just, you're not thinking about it. But there's a. It takes part of your awareness when you're sick. Your presence is going towards the tension, the imbalance, the discomfort in your body. And that same thing happens with our tensions, particularly as the masculine. Our physical tensions in our body, our emotional tensions, and yes, our mental tension, our ruminations are all places that actually take our presence. So if my presence is in the tension of my body, heart or mind, it's not with the person I'm trying to polarize in the same way, right? There's a little bit of my mind is actually elsewhere. And you know, for anyone here listening, whether you're male or female, you know, like we can all think of being present with someone. You could tell they're just not there. Their, their mind is somewhere else. That's part of kind of what we're talking about here. So for me, my first version, you know, where I had to work was I was mostly just dissociated from my body. I couldn't feel it or be present in it. So I wasn't actually present in my body, which made it very hard to be present for a partner because I wasn't really here. I was kind of ping ponging around in my head wondering what's the right thing to say or do. And not at all connected to my desire, my turn on, my breath. And my body was full of quite a bit of tension in those early years. Lots of unfelt emotional stuff and lots of just physical discomfort as I wasn't taking great care of my body. And so it was a practice of learning to kind of in a sense clear some of that out. And this is where what a lot of the work, oddly enough is, is presence often just comes naturally when we're in balance. And so the work is cultivating that balance. What's in the way of me being present right now. And that is often these different kinds of, of tension that we're talking about. And that it can be a lifetime journey unwinding and coming into contact with and learning to work differently like I did, where I had to come into my body. And then it was very clear, right. I got literally getting feedback in my case from women of when they could feel me in my body and when they couldn't, and the difference it had on how they felt in my presence. Right. Just that. That simple. And it's still a journey. It's not like, crack the code and, hey, I'm good at this all the time. It's. Yeah, I drift. Sometimes my wife has to call me back or my men have to call me back, or I have to go out and do practice. But it's really key that it is an embodied consciousness. That's the other really important thing these days. Right. And there's all kinds of practices we can start to cultivate to do these things. And in a lot of ways, you know, Alpha energy is kind of super simple and boring because it's just very still, pure presence. Like, that's it. There's not like a whole lot to it. The practice is, can I call that into my actual. This body mind and hold it in, in a way? And that takes. That does take like, endurance and practice and cultivation that I've had to do. It could be pretty intense. And that you do build capacity for that, then makes it easier to bring it into. Into life.

Melanie Curtin: I have two stories about this. As a woman, as someone who holds Omega more of the time or wants to, I guess so. There was a polarity teacher in Southern California, and I became friends with him, basically. And I remember we went to an event that was not a polarity event. It was just a community event. And he was standing in the back of the room, and we were all facing the stage. And this man was very practiced. So he. He taught polarity. He meditated a lot. He did a lot of presence practice. He did a lot of physical practice. He was very practiced. So when he wanted to, he could become this pillar. And I'm using that word mindfully because our program is pillars of presence, but he could become a pillar of presence. And I remember standing in the back of the room and. And my body actually started physically turning towards him like a sunflower to the sun. And it wasn't intentional, but it was like, oh, that over there, right? That. That feels really good. That feels really solid. That feels comforting, that feels safe, that feels exciting. It feels like all of that wrapped into one. I've never had that experience ever again. That was a singular experience. But I want to make the point that he wasn't, quote, doing anything. He wasn't saying anything. He wasn't describing anything. He was just being embodied presence. And it was attractive. It was magnetic. It was what we're talking about. And My body, right, was like, oh, that, that feels really good to be around. I want to go be around that. So there's a responsive quality in Omega of ooh, that feels really good. I'm, I'm attracted to that. I want to go over there. I want to go be with that. And I think that the point that I want to make is that if I'm tight and contracted and not breathing in my body as an embodiment of Omega, I'm not going to make that movement, right? If I'm distracted and I'm in my head, if I'm not, if I don't have a certain amount of presence, I'm not going to make that movement. I'm not going to be swayable. I'm not going to be swayable. I think one of the, you, you, if you're listening, you can't see me, but I like. One of the images that I have of Omega energy is kelp in the ocean. So it's flexible, it's swaying with the current. It's. It's relaxed, it's able to be moved. It's, you know, it's in flow, it's gentle. You know, there's just this movement. To me, that's, that's Omega energy, right? It's responsive, it's allowing, it's receiving, it's movement. It's, you know, that, that energy, that quality. And so a lot of the things that we're saying about alpha are also true for Omega, right? If, let's say, a woman again, you can be any sex or gender, but if a woman is, you know, has a lot of trauma in her background and is tight and tense in her physical body, in her mind and her heart, there's going to be less availability for polarity because there's less. It's just. She's less movable, right? There's less. There's less Omega flow available in the system. So there's an interaction between these. It's not just one person or the other person. There's a flow, there's a dance. The dance of polarity is something that we say sometimes and very much like tango or any other partner dance, but I especially think of tango. I think tango is a really good embodiment of polarity. For a really good dance, you have to have a strong lead and a strong follow, meaning you have to have someone who is leading with his or her, leading with their core, leading with their core, has a strong sense of direction, knows where they're going and is leading their partner there while Giving their partner the space to be on their axis, which is the up and down, ability to stay up and down, basically their core. So you're not pushing or pulling, you're allowing them to move. And then the follow needs to be deeply present, listening to every movement of what's happening and allowing. Allowing their body to be moved, allowing the motions to happen and in tune in intuition, all of that. So the relaxation in the body is critical for polarity. And that is one of the major things that we see as missing or difficult for people to a state that's difficult to get to. And if you're holding a lot of tension, if you have a lot of unprocessed material, unprocessed trauma in the system, it's really hard to get to those states. So like you said, Jason, there's polarity and there's what's in the way of polarity. And I think that's part of why it's so important to do the work. Because what we often find is that in particular with the men we work with, once men do the work, they naturally polarize. You know, they don't have to try as hard, they just are. They are polarizing as they walk around in the world because they're more relaxed than themselves, because their spine is up and down. You know, when they process shame, there's a lot of work we do in our programs around processing shame. As you process your shame and you step into yourself and you feel good about yourself and you feel proud, then you are naturally more polarized and you don't have to try to do something. It's not a doing something thing. It's a being. It's a way of being. So I want to transition now to the three types of polarity that we referenced at the beginning, because I think this will help kind of ground the conversation in actual lived experience of people's real life, dating and relationship lives, which is really where we're going. So why don't you outline for us what are the three sort of types of polarity?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I thought this would be useful as we were talking about this, because it's kind of the nets people might come in through or to diagnose themselves. And so I'm going to start. You can think of this as a spectrum from the most imbalanced to the most optimal. Let's just say the most imbalanced is going to be reverse polarity. And this is a very common challenge these days for a lot of modern dating and couples and everything. The idea with reverse polarity is, let's say I'm in my essence actually. So my home state that is most nourishing to me and to my partner is when I'm in alpha and my partner is in omega. What happens when most of our interactions, my partner's in alpha and I'm in omega. So the polls are actually reversed where we're not in our kind of essence and flow. And again, this doesn't necessarily mean the male partner's alpha. Right. Every couple is going to constellate differently, but there's a, there's like an optimal flow and so when we're reversed against that. This is often the most painful state in a relationship where it's like grinding gears with each other. And often what this leads to long term is almost a type of disdain and resentment for your partner. And so this is a very common one we see with nice guys we often work with who have basically abdicated all alpha in their relationship. And so their partner is kind of driving everything, financially, romantically, decisions for the family. And it can create a lot of pain because when the polarity is reversed, guess what, there's no flow around sexual desire. So there's no pull towards each other. There's actually like a, oh my God, I want to get away from you. So it actually pushes you apart from each other. That's reverse polarity. And a lot of guys when they get really honest can feel that. It's, it's, there's actually a repulsion between my partner and I and it's very painful. Oftentimes then the kind of more middle ground is what we would call neutral. Right. So it's not that necessarily we're reversed, it's just we're not particularly charged so we're both kind of hanging out right in the middle. And this is also very common these days, particularly in long term relationships once the hormones have worn off. And all of if you don't have practice and skill, basically you can hear this time and time again. I have on the hundreds of calls I've done with guys, you kind of become roommates. We get along really well, we're great friends, we really like each other and we haven't had sex in two years. There's just no, there's no arc of attraction, there's no fire, there's no chemistry there. And often it comes from, we're just too, we're the same. And this is a challenging one because yeah, there has been a lot of evolution in culture and maybe it's not as extreme as reverse polarity but we're often more emotional as men. We're not necessarily dominating as much in the ways we used to. Women have a lot more agency. They know what they want. And so this is where a lot of couples kind of end up in this kind of like, it's just, it's kind of okay, it's neutral. Everything is neutral. It's friendly. But in a way it's like this could be my best friend and not in isn't really a sexual relationship. Right? That's where a lot of neutral relationships end up. And then there's the optimal, the other side, which is we're, we're a polarized couple. And what's key about this is it does not mean you're always 100% of the time polarizing each other. It means we know how to evoke these energies to create attraction, to keep the chemistry and often sexual connection alive between us. And it's an actual vital, alive force. Right? It generates heat, it generates energy like we talked about. And that's generally when each partner is kind of in their optimal state and really relaxing the other parts of themselves in these highly polarized moments. So I'm in a way a more exaggerated version of my alpha in these moments. And my partner really surrenders her alpha in those moments to really step into her Omega. And that's what creates the most polarity for those moments that we, when we want it or when we realize this would really bring us together right now and generate some energy to help keep our whole system vitalized and in particular, you know, keep attraction alive in the relationship long term. And this stuff is really important because as any long term couple knows, attraction changes over time. Right. A lot of times, particularly when we're young, it's kind of hormones and body shapes, particularly for men. And that, that all changes. My body changes, is the, the alpha partner. My wife's body is changing as the Omega partner. But what does not have to change is the energetic attraction underneath. And so it actually becomes more valuable as you go because you start to have the experience of, oh, it doesn't have so much to do with what body I'm in. It has to do with what I'm, how I'm being in that body. And if I know how to be in that body in a way that really polarizes my partner. You can be polarizing a partner, you know, if one year when you're in walkers, like, frankly, like that's, that's the kind of goal, you know, that, that's the end point. I'm certainly aiming for. And that's the state that a lot of men want to be able to evoke but don't know how. And this is a very common pain point for a lot of guys I talk to of I don't actually know how to polarize and open my omega partner. I want to sometimes even I know she wants me to, but there's like, how do I do that? I don't have the training, and it's very painful for her, and it's very painful for me. Or, you know, that's often in the kind of neutral sense. Or like, how do I start to right the ship of where we've been reversed for so long? Like, I don't even know is it possible? Is this just too ingrained? And these are real things that we have to then practice. And what's challenging sometimes about this work and so many guys I talk to about this is we can't control our partners. And so often what'll happen is whether it's the omega partner or the alpha partner, if we start getting more practiced in this, what it will often reveal is the limits of where our partner can go and where their attention in traumas might be that are getting in the way of them stepping more into that energy. And then it's it. You know, it can become a really clarifying tool for relationships too, because the more we take responsibility for our side and stepping into that, the more we get to see what's our partner actually capable of mirroring and matching in us in the polarized sense. And sometimes they can totally meet us right there. Sometimes we need to bring in extra help, and sometimes it's just pretty clear, wow, this is where they're at. Or their essence is less polarized than I want or maybe actually reversed. And no matter how hard we try, we're going to be kind of grinding each other because of this. And there can sometimes cause some pretty significant shifts in relationships or what we need to do in them.

Melanie Curtin: I'm glad that you spoke to that, because I actually had a success story that I wanted to share from a man that we worked with and then also wanted to say that this is not always the way that it goes. But we had a man that we worked with who I think it's significant because his wife actually started doing work before him, and he came to us because he basically felt like she's really making an effort. I think she's learning a lot. I feel like I'm a little behind, and I want to. I want to show up for Her I want to show up for her. I want to show up for us. And they were not in a great place. You know, I don't know if I'd say they were on the brink of divorce, but I would say they were not in a great place. And they had, you know, older children, let's say teenagers type things. So they were facing empty nest is going to happen to us in a few years, not that long. And what are we going to do? What's this going to be like? And I think that she. Her desire for more, her desire for more was part of what drove her to, to do work and to kind of demand that he did too. Right? She really wanted him to. To show up. And to his credit, he did. He did our program. And a lot changed. I mean, a lot changed. And one of the things that I found really endearing was that they had shared language around polarity and they had shared language around personal growth and all of this because they were both doing the work. And, man, their sex life really took off. And, you know, I. Part of why I want to tell that story is that I think that our culture, in addition to everything else, is pretty ageist. And, you know, I just want to say that there's really no upper limit to the kind of great sex that you can have over the course of your life. And we know that because we've. We've seen it over and over. And in this particular case, he was able to really show up, and so was she. And she learned how to soften and come into Omega and really surrender. Right? She learned how to do that in a way that felt good to her and felt safe to her, which involved growth. It involved growth. It's. It's not easy to surrender. There are reasons that we want to stay in control. And he learned how to step into his power. He learned how to authentically step into his power. Not forcing something or faking something or posing, but really his authentic power, his authentic truth, his authentic alpha. And man, they are having a lot of fun. I mean, they're having a lot of fun. And that's only one couple. I would say I can think of at least two others with a similar archetype. Not identical, but a similar archetype. And in all cases, I just want to emphasize that both partners were doing the work. And one thing that I've seen over the years is that if you're in a marriage or long term committed relationship with reverse polarity, and often it's going to take both partners doing the work, it's just part of it, because what happened is that you attracted this partner from a place. From a certain place, right? And there was some kind of familiarity and sense of safety that each of you had. Oh, great. I'll be with a partner who doesn't call me on my stuff, or I'll be with a partner who's kind of domineering, and that sort of reminds me of my childhood. And I'm not gonna rock the boat. I'm not gonna make waves. I'm not gonna set boundaries. I'm just gonna go along to get along. I'm just gonna keep my head down. I mean, I'm just gonna. Right. It's. It's all of that stuff which sort of kind of works. But it kills polarity. It kills polarity. You can't. You're not gonna be in polarized relationship, so then you're gonna be unhappy for other reasons. And so I feel like one of the big opportunities here is spiritual growth, personal growth. I like to use the term spiritual growth. I know that's triggering for some people, personal growth. That's fine. But there's a. There is a. I believe, an innate sense, like a seed within all of us that wants to grow, that wants us to evolve as human beings. And this is one of those places where we're willing to get uncomfortable.

Jason Lange: Because.

Melanie Curtin: We really, really want more. We want more connection, we want more intimacy, we want more sex. We want more. And I would say that's. That's one of the reasons that a lot of our men come to us, because they're. They're. They want more. They want more in their relationships. They want more closeness. They want more aliveness. They want to feel more. And this is one of the ways that you feel more. Polarity is. Is life force. You know, when that flow is in place, when you've got that circuit going, whoa, you can blow the roof off the place. There's a lot of energy there, and it really is possible to transform. Like, we've seen it over and over and over. The. The neutralized polarity that you mentioned, I think is where most marriages live. I believe that most marriages are actually neutralized and activated. And part of it is because of exactly what you said, Jason, which is people just don't know about this. They don't know how to do it. They don't know how to cultivate it. They. They're. They're just kind of like, well, I guess this is how it is. I guess this is just how it's always going to be. And that's not the case. So I'm, I'm passionate about this topic because I think that it can really bring a lot of aliveness and glow and, and health and vitality and also evolve people, evolve people as human beings. Because the places that you gotta go to that, you know, you gotta face some stuff. What we would say I is you do that alone, you don't have to face that stuff alone. And actually if you look at the research, growth happens in community, growth happens with others. You know, whether it is a one on one therapist, coach, practitioner, or a group. I really believe that group work is critical in this in addition to other kinds of support. But this is a path that others have walked, I think is what I'm trying to say. You don't have to do it alone. You don't have to figure it out alone. And it, it involves more than just learning. So I think of it a little bit like sports. I myself played soccer. There's a lot of learning I can do about soccer. I can read a book about soccer. But I'm also gonna have to get out there on the field. I'm gonna have to do drills, I'm gonna have to practice, I'm gonna have to scrimmage in order to play soccer is kind of like that. And I'm going to need to deal with things that prevent me from being able to do drills smoothly. I'm going to have to do that if I want to be a really good player. And I think polarity has some, some similarities with that. Any comments on that section?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean these are real challenges that we're all modern humans are having to discover right now. And this is part of what, you know, the nuances and the evolution of the work in a sense is realizing, oh, okay, it doesn't mean I have to be way all the time. And a lot of the currency we talk about is capacity for fluidity and knowing when is the right time to bring each energy in our relationship and in our lives. Because we all actually need nourishment from both in a sense. And that, you know, in the ways we teach it, you know, the most whole version of these energies. What David would call stage three, I think requires you to be able to embody the opposite energy. So if you've never had the, if you don't have the capacity to step into your omega and surrender and feel deeply and be in flow, you can't really lead because you don't know what it takes to be on the other side. So you're Less sensitive to that person. And if you've never taken on the vulnerable risk of leading, here's what's happening. I think this should be going on now. Do this. And the risk, the very real risk that that entails. I don't know if you can fully appreciate what it means, right, to be a leader and then to surrender into that. And so the work is, you know, in some sense, increasing our capacity for both and then knowing how to bring forward the one that most nourishes us and nourishes our partner. And it's so nuanced these days. And, you know, we're here to tell you that in the work we do, it's. We mostly work with men who want to polarize women. But that doesn't mean you have to be in the alpha. I know a lot of guys in my men's groups, I've. I've told these stories before who emotionally have more of a natural kind of omega energy. It's just they have a lot of emotions. They feel very deeply. They often can get kind of uncontained and lost in them if they're not careful. And so they love dating female therapists who have no problem holding the alpha and holding their emotions and being very present for them in that. And guess what? It totally works. It totally works for them. And so our thing is not that it has to be a certain way, but you have to kind of know the ingredients for a good relationship so you can identify them in the find the right partner. If you're trying to attract a partner who you're asking them to be in a different essence than they are, it's just doomed to fail. Or if you're pretending to be in a different essence than you are, it's not going to work long term. So the work so many of us are doing these days, okay, is how do we live this in a mature fashion where we can call on these energies, where we need. Where, yes, you know, if we're just dealing with life, sometimes we're not polarized. Sometimes my wife's taking leads, sometimes she's holding a mask, and sometimes I'm just relaxing. And that's fine. That's what a lot of life is. Or sometimes we're just neutral. It's like, yeah, we're going to do this 50, 50. You cook these nights, I cook these nights. Totally fine, totally normal. But if it's a time that our relationship needs some juice, needs some connection, needs some eroticism, we know how to step into that. And for my particular relationship, and For a lot of guys. And that's the work these days that, that you know. In a lot of ways what we're talking about is you have to know yourself of okay, yeah, what does feel good to me, what do I actually want? And sometimes the guys are surprised. It's like, oh, wow. Actually I don't want a highly purely omega feminine partner because that takes a certain level of alpha you really have to bring all the time. And a lot of guys we've worked with are like, no, I actually really love it when my partner just sets up a date or an experience for us every now and again. And so it turns out I do want a partner who has a little bit of that. And again, it's about getting to know yourself in that these are actual energies that you have to learn to bring into your body in practice. And one of the fastest ways to do that is to be around other people who are doing it and see that transmission and get it in some pretty practiced ways or to be given the practices that really can evoke this in, in, in different ways. So whether you're in a, you know, reverse situation and it's really painful or a neutral situation, or you just really want to build that capacity for. I want to know how to create attraction in a modern day. That's not pickupy, scammy, line based, manipulative. None of this stuff is that. It's like you said, when, when it's natural, it's, it's a kind of physics. It's just, okay, I'm getting really present, really still, and you're turning towards me, right? That, that's kind of how it works. Or I'm really present and I'm still and I see you moving and whoa, I'm turning towards you now because whatever that energy is, is very attractive to me. And the idea is these, these energies can be a gift to the other side. They actually fuel and nourish. And when our partner feels gifted, turns out they gift us back more of the energy that nourishes us. And that's where about how healthy polarity can be so generative for energetics in a relationship where, oh, my relationship becomes an energy source for life, where we can step into these things, create an actual current. And guess what? That current doesn't just turn off immediately. It gives you some energy to go out and be with your kids, to be with life, to handle your community, whatever that might be. So it's a really powerful tool to have in the toolkit to be able to create the type of relationship you want.

Melanie Curtin: And if you are interested in learning more, we are teaching a masterclass on Polarity on January 7th. You can sign up for that at melaniecurtain.com polaritymasterclass. Polaritymasterclass. That's 90 minutes, right, Jason?

Jason Lange: Yes.

Melanie Curtin: Okay. Yeah. So next week, January 7th, we would love to have you. We're gonna be doing some more specific teach about polarity. We're going to be doing some fun exercises. Everyone is welcome. We would love to have you. Whether you are new to the podcast or you're one of our graduates, whoever you are, wherever you are, you are welcome. And I also wanted to say that, yeah, that sense of relaxing into an experience is one of the best ways to polarize someone, whoever they are, but especially if you're. If you're a man in relationship. And one quick example of that is we were on our weekly call for our program last night, and a man was talking about his perfect day, and he was describing being with his woman. And he said. And she said, what are our plans for the day? And he said, I have it all planned out. And I felt in that moment, oh, that is what I want. That is what I want in my relationship. I want a man who understands that that is polarizing. And that when I get to be on a ride with him, that he is taking me through, that he is guiding me on. I get to be my most radiant, excited, happ. Expressive self. And so that energy circuit you were talking about, Jason, I think is very relevant because the way that I show up there is different than when I'm thinking and I'm planning and I'm executing and I'm in my alpha. And when I'm in alpha, I'm in a different mode than when I'm in omega. So you can have the same person in different modes, and they're gonna look very different. And so what do you want to evoke in your partner? What do you want to. What do you want to have evoked in you? I think that's part of the. One of the central questions of polarity and one of the things that we will talk about in the master class. So we hope to see you there, and Happy New Year.

Jason Lange: D.