Take Charge of Your Sexual Charge (with Luke Adler)

Jason Lange: Luke Adler: I am so stoked to be back with my co facilitator and teaching partner, Jason Lange, in our Heart of Shadow program focusing on male development, male brotherhood, men's work, our deep dive into deep connection, and in a certain sense, world work, working with men, with women to evolve, to grow, and to heal. And Jason and I have. This is one of the topics we work with in Heart of Shadow is sex and sexuality. And today we're going to be looking at taking charge of your sexual charge. And this is something Jason and I have done a lot of personal work on, and we've worked on it with each other in our men's group, and we're just going to jump right in. Jason, is there someplace you want to kind of lead or start with on this topic?

Jason Lange: Yeah, the, the first thing I'll say is it's just so important. Right. I think certainly part of my journey in the personal growth and spiritual world the last decades is like, this will bite you in the ass if, if you don't do work on it. If literally if you don't work on it, you know, and we're just kind of rounding out peak of the MeToo movement. And a lot of what we're going to talk about today, you know, relates to that in terms of this is work. I think every human being, particularly us men, that are wanting to, you know, champion a healthier, more integrated version of, of masculinity moving forward. It's really important to do this work.

Luke Adler: Yeah, I just. You saying that makes me immediately think of mentors and teachers that I've had in the personal growth world and in the spiritual world who, you know, part of that teaching didn't really include sexuality. In fact, it was like, this is a little like, too personal. So we're not going to look at it or talk about it publicly in any kind of way. And then inevitably, literally, the teachers get caught with their pants down doing something sexually inappropriate with a, with student, usually, and the whole organization implodes and, and faith is lost in the leader and the teachings and the sensibility of, hey, we need to talk about our sexual development and our sexual healing and that that's part of the whole growth, healing process.

Jason Lange: Totally. And I think where, you know, historically, at least Some of the major spiritual traditions and whatnot just tried to stuff sex and ignore it, you know, not talk about it or shame it or whatever. And you know, our program's about this idea of shadow. And the thing about shadow is it doesn't go anywhere. So if you're not engaging with it consciously, it's going to work its way through your body unconsciously. And so what we're talking about here with this topic of taking charge of your sexual charge is, you know, certainly there are some, I think, just kind of asexual people, but most people get sexual charge, right? They, they, they have a response in their body, mind. And we have to learn to work with that consciously. I think that's what we're really talking about here to, to take charge of that charge. So it's not running us, but we're able to consciously engage with it in a way that supports a whole and healthy life rather than, you know, destroying it.

Luke Adler: Yeah, and what's, what's. I think what's not necessarily in the milio of awareness is that if you're coming from a spiritual tradition, in some, some sense there's the teaching of sexes, sex, sexuality is, is this is maybe bad, it's a distraction, you should maybe just use it in a very, very sacred way and, or not at all. And so this energy is, is usually suppressed or kind of put in this very narrow corner of existence or the other side of society is like, you know, lasciviously give in to all of your sexual desires, pornography, sex, whenever, wherever, however, just totally free and open. And there's not necessarily this awareness of more of a consciousness or just being aware of the energy itself and how to work with it in a, in a healthy way, a life affirming way, an honoring an honorable way, in a, in a way that brings kind of generative energy, body and, and both partners. And I think that's, that's kind of the edge that we're. Well, in a certain sense that's a description of the edge you and I are, are kind of putting out there.

Jason Lange: Absolutely. And I love that word you use there. Generative is. I think this is part of what's kind of coming back online in the men's work world right now. And there's a book that's been getting certainly a lot of attention in my circles called the Flowering Wand, the Rewilding the Sacred Masculine, which is all about reclaiming the generative aspect of masculine sexuality. How, you know, at some point back in the day, men were depicted as having wands which were actually life giving. I would create life. And it got turned into a sword. Right. Which was cutting, dissecting, separating, destroying in a lot of ways a couple of thousand years ago. And this idea that masculine sexuality and sexuality in general can be generative, I think is so, so important to bring back. And particularly for us guys that have, most of us at this point, our generation, you know, raised in a world of on demand pornography and consumption and the, the taking aspect of sexuality versus what we're going to be kind of exploring here of. Yeah. How can we use. You know, sex is such a, such a fascinating thing.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: Because it's such a. It's like a base part of our evolutionary biology. You know, it goes right to the root of the brainstem and it can be one of the most conscious endeavors there is at the same time. So I think it's one of the ultimate practice grounds for bringing more awareness and consciousness into our life is this part of us that really runs the gamut.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: It's like we've inherited evolutionarily from just this desire to procreate, to pass on our genes to. And it can also be one of the most sacred, healing, conscious, spiritual things you can do that make it generative. But that requires this, this learning to take charge of our charge thing we're going to be talking about here.

Luke Adler: Yeah. One of our shared mentors talks about, you know, when you're not taking charge of your charge, in a certain sense, your charge has taken charge of you. There's these kind of common things we hear men say. Like, you know, she, she brought out the animal in me. Or, you know, more, more kind of extreme, controlling societies. Let's keep women covered. Let's cover really them from head to toe because women are distracting. Women have a power over men. Their, their sensuality, their beauty, you know, brings out a side of men that men can't control. Men have no control over their charge. So women should cover up. Women should be conservative in their. I remember dating. I remember dating someone in my 20s and she had a short shirt on, so her like, you know, her belly button was showing in her. Her father's like a traditional family from Eastern Europe said, you know, your midriff is showing, honey, you need to cover up. And this was like in Los angeles in the 2000s. And I was like, what, what's going, what's going on? This is, this is kind of extreme in a certain sense from the culture I was raised in, in Southern California. But these are some of the beliefs that are still very Much out there of, you know, cover yourself up or, you know, if, if you're, you know, like, like an extreme example of. She was. She's asking for it, she really wants it. You hear these.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Luke Adler: This kind of language for men when women dress in a certain way where they're showing their curves, they're showing their skin. And that's, that's kind of the, the, the default message, if you will, around sex and sexuality in, in or at least part of the message.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think that's right. The idea is like, it creates this weird kind of victim narrative for men. Right. That we're helpless, we're overpowered, there's nothing we can do about it. And you know, it can be intense and real. Certainly I've absolutely had the experience in my life of, you know, what happens when we switch from the prefrontal cortex there to the more kind of reptilian brain stem and like, oh, how did I get myself in this situation? Like, was I, was I fully online for the experience? I just had definitely had a few of those moments. Like, so I get it, but that doesn't mean we can't take responsibility for it. And that's what we're really talking about here is we're not helpless as men. And you know, I think part of what we're going to explore today, you and I in particular, is as, you know, spiritual growth oriented men who like all the wild stuff that's possible in that world and want to be anchored in like the real world of.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: How do we live healthy lives of integrity with families and spouses and long term partnerships at the same time. And I think that's going to be a unique thing. You know, we can talk about here of. Yeah. You know, as men who are in committed long term marriages, how do we work, you know, literally, how do we work with that energy of feeling, attraction for someone else and what does that mean for our relationship? And I think that's part of what the healthy masculine is having to negotiate here and figure out of. Yeah. How do I not cut it off and dissociate and how do I not become overwhelmed by it? Right. And totally fused by it. But what's that sweet spot in the middle of being in contact with it and still being able to consciously respond?

Luke Adler: Yeah. This image is coming to mind of I was raised in kind of a Hindu mystical tradition, meditative tradition, and so these images of different Hindu gods in their kind of mystical interpretation. And there's this image of Ram and Sita, the, the lover and the Beloved male and female, consort of. Of the divine. And there's this image of Ram here, his hat. He has his hands around Sita's breast. But the teaching is, if you look at Ram's face, he has no affect. So he's not aroused at all by this. And he's not, you see, no kind of interest in his face at all. It's just like this detachment that he can be, you know, physically, you know, embracing his beloved and have no sexual charge that's visible in this. This depiction. And of course, being raised in that kind of environment, it was very confusing. I was kind of taught in a certain sense to renounce sexuality and to just be anchored in God's love and the divine source of consciousness. And, you know, personally, my journey has been to. Awakened to my sexuality. You know, I certainly had experiences as a young teenager wanting to find porn. At that age, there was no Internet, so it was trying to find Playboy magazines and that kind of thing. But as an adult man, I've had to kind of awaken my sexuality again because I've done so much meditative work that I largely have had it shut down and, you know, getting married and having children, how. How to get into relationship with my sexuality in a healthy way and in some ways being afraid of its power, really. And so I've had this journey of. Of like, okay, how do I find. How do I step towards that edge and discovery?

Jason Lange: Wow.

Luke Adler: This is probably the most powerful energy in the physical realm that a human being can interact with, you know, mediated through the body. In a certain sense, all of the spiritual power that moves through a body, it is. It largely moves through this, the sexual expression, if we want to name it something. It is so powerful and challenging to, you know, to. To. To stay with and to not lose consciousness or to not, you know, for my case, to kind of go into a dissociative state, a number state around it, because I. I guess I'm afraid. I'm afraid to have been afraid to really embody that. And like this. I'm naming it. This is hard. This is a challenging domain. It's not just like, oh, nailed it, got that one. It's online, easy, done, you know, and off I go.

Jason Lange: Yeah, it's. I think this is why it's so foundational and why it can, you know, destroy the most practiced teachers and leaders in the world. Because, yeah, there's so much power. I. I agree. I don't think there's anything quite as energizing as the power of, you know, generative sexual Energy in. I think this is making me realize, I want to take a moment to actually talk about this idea of what we mean by charge. So taking charge of your charge. And I work with a lot of men, right? So how I see this show up in my body and in the body of many men is sexual energy actually shows up as tension in our bodies. So it's like. Right. It's actually a tension in our bodies. And, you know, you can think of like electricity or static, right? When that tension is there, it wants to be released, right? So we. We. We've got static on ourselves. We touch something, there's a big shock and release, or electricity wants to flow, flow out. So taking charge of our sexual charge is this. As we interact with people and there's an exchange of sexual energy, there's often a building up of a type of tension. And when we're not bringing consciousness to it, the default is we want to release the tension. We want to get the tension out of our bodies. And I think this is where we can sometimes feel overwhelmed as men or just have this drive to ejaculate off the attention, the tension through whether that's masturbation, whether that's what with a. With a partner, whatever that might be. So what we're talking about is what does it mean to bring awareness and consciousness into that tension, right? Into that buildup of energy. And instead of just getting rid of it, discharging it through the body, how do we consciously use that in our lives? Right? And when I say consciously used, that could be bringing that sexual energy back to our intimate partner. If we're in a committed relationship, that could be through work or sports or achievement or as I work with a lot of my men, around creativity, like actually creating something that's, you know, our sexual energy is a creative energy. And so the idea with taking charge of that charge is instead of that tension just overwhelming us and us doing whatever it takes to get out of our bodies, we're slowing things down and we're choosing, okay, what do I want to use this? And literally this energy of creation, this manifestation for where do I want to. Where do I want to bring it, apply it in my life? And it takes hard work. There's no easy solutions to these things. But step one for a lot of men that we work with and we do in our shadow program is to. To get in touch with it and start to acknowledge it and to not shame it or dissociate from it, but to actually come into deeper intimacy with it of, oh, yeah, There's a part of me, right, I have this animal inside of me that just wants desires, wants to procreate, wants to, you know, sleep with as many partners as I can and pass on my genes. Like, I can't ignore that. I don't have to be run by it, but I can't ignore it. So coming into contact with it, I think, is step one. Right.

Luke Adler: As I've worked with that energy personally and that tension that you talk about and you know, what to do with it, how to discharge it. There's a few things. One is a mutual mentor of ours talks about, you know, relieving your sexuality from the burden of making you feel better or relieving sex the burden of making you feel better, which is what you alluded to ejaculating to discharge your shadow material or discharge your unfelt, unexpressed emotions or things you haven't had a chance to feel, to acknowledge during the day because the day is so busy and stacking up upon day after day. Sometimes sex really isn't about connection or expression or creativity, but literally, stress relief. Let me just relieve my stress. And nothing necessarily bad or wrong with it. It's just like you're saying, Jason, let's become aware of how we're using it.

Jason Lange: And.

Luke Adler: Why we're using it. And if we're, you know, it can get sticky if we're telling our partner, I want to connect to you, I want to connect with you. And you start to get needy and desirous. Not about connection. It's about, I want to discharge my pain, you know, with you as the object of that. And that kind of sex feels very different than a, you know, a sex that's born from an already established connection. And again, I'm not saying one's better. I'm just saying this is what happens relationally and how we. How we often use sex or masturbation. And masturbation can be used just for, you know, I just want to experience some pleasure and some relaxation. I don't necessarily need to discharge my pain, but just want to feel what my body can do. There's all kinds of intentionalities behind it. And that was leading me to. To another point that is currently eluding me.

Jason Lange: Yeah, well, I. I think that.

Luke Adler: This.

Jason Lange: Is where that awareness, the consciousness is so important because, yeah, right. Sometimes we are gonna move towards sex just as more of a stress relief. But there's a way to do that with an awareness that that in itself can be a game changer. And I think where men have dropped the ball Sometimes. And where some of the criticism and feedback of, you know, masculine relationships to sexualities, it is extraordinarily easy for us men to just make it about attention, release. And in the process of that, that's where objectification can really happen, right? Where this woman, her body is a means to an end for me to relieve tension in, in my body. And it's can be very easy to fall brave for that. And you know, even in loving relationships, I've seen that show up for guys of like, yeah, I need this to get this tension out of my body and I'm kind of dependent on it. You know, there can be like a little drug type thing to it. And what we're talking about is learning to, in some ways what makes this a hard practice is to be able to increase our capacity to be with the tension in our systems. So we're not just unconsciously ejaculating it out, right? But we're bringing more awareness into that process and how to play and move that energy and use it again in these more generative, restorative ways. And a lot of men, you know, whether it's religious or cultural or whatever that might be that I work with in particular these days, the pendulum has kind of swung, right, from the kind of macho jerk to more the nice guy of oh yeah, like I don't wanna, I've seen, you know, I've been told my whole life and shown evidence for how damaging male sexuality can be. So I, you know, I'm going to pull away from that a little bit. And that can also have, you know, destructive elements to it because then the men are kind of dissociating from something inside themselves.

Luke Adler: Right?

Jason Lange: And what we're talking about is learning to engage with the full spectrum of it, to be able to embrace it radically in the power of it and still, you know, connect it to an open, sensitive, loving heart where it doesn't overwhelm us, but we get to create with it, so to speak.

Luke Adler: Right, yeah. Brings to mind, you know, that that edge that you're, you and I are pointing to, of, of this place. It's not even really in between. It's this almost third state of consciousness where it's not so much that we're trying to penetrate our energy into something. Sometimes on the surface, well, men have this kind of phallic object and women have this receptive, you know, part. And so it's about men penetrating women. That's how it looks like at the level of anatomy. But energetically, really both energies are seeking to Merge in a certain sense, the full passion of the full. It's more than passion. The full. It's really longing, this longing to connect that's unbridled. Let me pull away all of the restraint. Let me take that restraint off the horse and let the full power of that energy meet full power of another energy in his full wild creativity. And I look at really the. The. The source of sexual energy. You take the idea of physical sex away. It's to me, this. It's where this longing becomes unrestrained, this longing to merge and. And to meet ourselves, to meet another. Another being in their fullness, whatever that state may be. And to me, that really defies the act of sex itself.

Jason Lange: It.

Luke Adler: It goes way beyond that. It's like, let me. Let me fully be with you in your sorrow. Let me fully be with you in your joy. Let me fully be with you in your rage, whatever that state is. I think the. My. My sense, my current edge around this is let me fully be there with you or whoever it is I'm with. With. With my daughter and her joy. Let me fully get to the edge of being present to her joy. And I think the metaphor of sexual energy is. It's like this physical. It's physical and energetic, but this physical representation of where we're longing to feel alive and to be fully restrained. And if you. It was one of the exercises that we. We do is if, if you want to learn about where your energy is at in your life, you can start to look at your. Literally your relationship to sex itself. Like, how do you approach it? How do you. How do you orgasm? What does that energy look like for you? Are you. Are you kind of tentative? Are you afraid when you're engaging with your partner? What. Or with yourself? Do you attack yourself? If you're masturbating? How do you. What. What's kind of the middle stage of sex? Like, what's that end stage? What's. What happens after sex is over? Is there a kind of a loving energy there or is there a dissociative energy? And we can learn a lot about ourselves in that full approach. How we think about it before, how we're approaching it in the moment. The middle stage of the interaction. Orgasm. And again, the ending as really a metaphor for how our. How our longing is currently being worked with in. In any moment. That's kind of my. My current take on. On the edge of it and, and how sex will completely reveal kind of where we're at.

Jason Lange: I think that's a. I was just thinking the Exact same thing. It's what's, what makes it such a potent energy to work with is it's often a direct reflection of how conscious we are.

Luke Adler: Yeah, right.

Jason Lange: Like if you want to see how conscious you actually are in life, start to look at your sexuality.

Luke Adler: Yeah, right.

Jason Lange: How's it showing up, how your fantasies showing up, how's your masturbation showing up? How do you, how do you, you know, talk to women in the world?

Luke Adler: Yeah, right.

Jason Lange: Becomes pretty clear as we put a little bit of tension on it. And that's where as men we get to then know. And I'm not here to say, you know, every man has to be in a long term, committed, monogamous relationship. You get to create whatever containers you want and you know, I'm fully in support of that. But again, you have to do it consciously. That that's what we're pushing for here, to bring real intention and consciousness to why you want the container, how it might be, you know, life giving and generative in that sense that I think is, is such a game changer and for us men to kind of do this audit like you said of, yeah, how's it showing up in my sex as is, how's it showing up in my body as I move through the world is really important. Is, you know, in some sense I don't think it's ever been harder and, and this moment in time to take charge of our sexual charge. As you know, we live in a hyper commercialized, advertising driven, sexualized world where, you know, social media and mobile phones have only accelerated that or you know, really at any point on demand anywhere in the world. You can have like an endless stream of the most attractive people in the world coming at you.

Luke Adler: Right, right.

Jason Lange: And yeah, you know, as men and as humans, we're, we haven't really developed the antibodies for that. Right. It's like we don't have that mechanism online. So men were really having to figure it out. You know, as someone who dealt with porn addiction in, in my teens and twenties, like it's a real thing. Right. It's. And it happens to a lot of men now. Right. And that's another version of this, this taking charge of our charge where the charge can really easily overwhelm you in your life and bringing consciousness to it, doing, doing the hard work of really kind of digging in. It can be a little uncomfortable. It's not necessarily easy. Right.

Luke Adler: I think on that note, Jason, the, you know, this is one of the topics that's, that's kept largely in the shadow of the social environment. And when it does get talked about, it's whispered about. Do you look at porn? Like, what do you. It's not something that's, that's open because there's shame around it, because there's so much judgment around it. And again, why a men's group that is rooted in transparency, vulnerability, honoring your edge, honoring each other's edges, confidentiality is so important for deep healing and integration is that a men's group or a women's group can be a safe place where this deep core level content can come forward and it's honored with curiosity, a full relating. I mean, in all the men's group that we've been a part of, that we've led, men will talk about pornography, they'll talk about their sexual experiences, they'll talk about their shame around sex, their embarrassment around it, and it's just fully welcomed and honored. And then you and I would come in and offer some facilitation to get some of the deeper nuances around it. But again, the, the. Another reason why a deep men's work, a deep men's group, is such a crucial life tool is this is a place where we can bring our sex, our sexuality and our development here and not kind of like pretend that it's all buttoned up or, you know, just kind of hide it because there's, you know, in a certain sense, some frozen energy, some trauma around it. So it's such a great topic to look at. And, you know, at this point, gosh, we've been working together for six and a half, seven years. You know, when men bring this up in the group, it's not. I think in the beginning it was really exciting and thrilling because it's something that I've never experienced talk about so openly. But now it's like, oh, yeah, you're looking at porting it.

Jason Lange: Okay, what were you looking for?

Luke Adler: It's more mundane. It's just part of what we talk about. And it's. Yeah, you know, it's not so hidden.

Jason Lange: So, yeah, we're bringing it into the light.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: In a, in a big way. And that's, I think, what a big challenge for a lot of men is, is, yeah, there, there aren't safe spaces to talk about this. And how do we, how do we healthily engage with these things? Right. Some people, you know, total sobriety and prohibition kind of work. For some people, they don't. And it's more learning. Okay, what's the middle ground here? How do I actually actively engage in a way that's gonna bring me closer to the life I want to be leading. And I think that's the. Such a key piece in terms of how we use our sexuality in general and that, you know, it's. It's just such a deep place of practice, of learning how to literally work with the energy in our bodies. It was something you and I have talked about of, you know, how incredible it can be. You know, I tell this joke a lot of times that one of the main places I work with men is around dating, relationships, sexuality. It's kind of where I got my start here in the. In the men's work world. And one of the reasons is because it. It's one of the only things I have found that'll get a man off his ass, off the couch to change his life. Because there's some kind of pain around sexuality. And it's one of the only things I've seen for so many men. You know, we'll be, like, stuck in our. Our burdened, tired and weary minds, grumpy about life and how we're losing or things aren't going right or, you know, whatever. It's like we're walking down the street and then a beautiful woman walks by, and it's like, you know, it's just like, suddenly life is good for, like, 20 seconds. There's just, like burst of love and energy in our bodies, and it's like, it's that powerful. And I'm not even saying that it's like a joke, but it. It'll literally rip us out of our heads into the moment. Like, that's the power of sexuality. And what we then do with that energy when it hits our nervous system, that's the important part.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: I don't care who you are, you're going to be impacted by sexual energy out in the world. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's literally no shame in that. In the work we do. Even if you're happily married, man, it's going to hit your nervous system, but then the responsibility is. And what do I do with that? Right, right. Am I clinging onto this? Am I fantasizing about it? Am I secretly changing my walk so I can see this woman, you know, every week or something like that? Those are the places we want to then kind of dig in a little bit and find out. Yeah.

Luke Adler: Is it.

Jason Lange: Is. Is this a constructive use of this charge, or is this some shadow element here of I have a need and I'm not getting it met in some way? So I'm Going to kind of try to legally get it outside or in a different way. And that's where, again, the power of a men's group can be so important and so transformative to. To have men help you kind of just dig into all that and find that place of integrity for yourself so that you can move through the world fully able to engage with your sexuality without shame. Right. And still being in integrity with whatever life you're living.

Luke Adler: Yes. You're kind of leaning into a more apropos topic of, you and I are married, we have kids, and we're. We deeply love our wives and we're leading men's work and we're. We're leaders in the world of. Of development, healing, sexuality, kind of an integral model of health, and we can appreciate a beautiful woman and the energy she brings. And how do we. How do we work with that? It's kind of what you're looking at. And there's the temptation here to prescribe a formula or to kind of recommend an appropriate dosage, which I think in more of like a pop prescription, you know, would make sense. But what you and I are really pointing to is how. How do you work with it in any moment? And, you know, what are some of the red flags that you might be taking it a little too far simultaneously. What are some of the red flags? You might not be engaging with it enough. You know, like, if you're not. If you don't engage with it, you. The tendency is to become deadened.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Luke Adler: You ignore a woman and her beauty. If you ignore your wife's beauty, if you ignore. If you ignore beauty, period, it's deadening. I remember for. Not recently, but maybe two, three years ago, that was part of my inner work, is just to kind of see beauty again, not just in women, but in life. Because I just my. In my healing work, I give so much that I really needed more generative energy. Like, how do I, like, just get into nature more and feed myself more and get that cyclical energy moving so that I can keep doing the work I love to do? I think that that's good for us to look at is what. What are some of the red flags of, like, you know, not looking at the energy, not drinking it in, and where can we take it too far? Like, I think you mentioned, you know, am I changing. Am I changing my walk? Am I perseverating on this woman and her. Her body parts for hours after I interact with her?

Jason Lange: Yeah, I think those are two key things. And I mean, certainly on the more disengaged side, you know it. Yeah. I think it's just lack of energy.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Lack of motivation, lack of drive, lack of creativity. Kind of a malaise and depression. I've. I've seen, you know, come over men before in, you know, in particular for the kind of nice guys. I tend to work with a disconnection from just some of our vitality, life force and power. Like, it's just feeling of like.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Like kind of, you know, diving into life when we're disconnected from that. There's. There's kind of just like a flatness.

Luke Adler: Yeah, right.

Jason Lange: Like everything's kind of okay. Maybe a little, literally, like a little soft. Life might feel a little soft in a way of just like, yeah, it's okay, it's easy. But I'm not like, inspired.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Or, you know, feeling, you know, my heart beat literally in some deep ways. Not feeling alive is something I've really noticed with a lot of men.

Luke Adler: I think as men, you know, this is generally true. As men approach latter 30s, early 40s, there is this kind of mid ground of life where we have to decide, are we going to start to give in to the inertia, the gravity and oxidation of life? Are we going to kind of slowly walk towards the end of our physical life or are we going to regenerate our lives? And this is where we would see like a midlife crisis where you get the sports car, you get divorced and get the younger wife, like, you kind of justly will search for that vitality again, but have a really destructive, creative, destructive wake in the process. And, you know, part of our work is to say, let's catch that pattern and let's move through that initiation more consciously. Whether it's in midlife or any period of life where that dullness kind of your depressive energy comes in. And we're just, you know, I think the question is, like, when you see a beautiful woman. So we'll just keep it a little more focused. You see a beautiful woman, something about her is energizing. And there's, there's the rule. Well, don't, don't objectify woman. Don't, don't be part of rape culture at all. You know, don't, don't look at her with any desire. You know, see her like you would your own mother. You know, how do we work with that, all of that programming as a nice guy to go, I have to be. I have to restrain myself and neutralize my balls and my penis and not, not let myself feel any attraction. I don't want to be a dangerous man. There's. There's a whole belief that creeps in there. Yeah.

Jason Lange: And I. This is definitely something I work with men around and have gotten to talk to women around. And when. When we disengage in that way, or we stuff it or we numb out to it or we pretend it's not there, that's often actually in an odd way, what can cause some of the biggest creep factor. Yeah, Right. Like, because there's. There's a. A divergence between what's happening in our body and how we're showing up. And it can be uncomfortable. It can actually be uncomfortable for. For women when they can feel less men not engaging with it. It's like. It just feels like something's off. Right. It's like, yeah, I don't know. For some reason, I don't trust this man. And usually the solution to that for a lot of us men is to go up into our heads. Right. To disengage from the body and go up into our heads and ruminate and perseverate. And so for us, it's just not particularly pleasant because suddenly we're not in the moment, we're not in our body, and then there's. Yeah. The. The deadening of this life force where we're actually in some ways making our body wrong. Right. So I think it create a lot of shame for us men and a lot of tension and in different ways in our body of. Well, there's a. There's a way I have to be. And I. I can't actually be authentic in myself. You know, I've definitely worked with a lot of guys who have come out of some pretty heavy religious backgrounds. You know, churches were just sexist, yet you cannot do that. And that programming goes in deep.

Luke Adler: Deep.

Jason Lange: Right. Takes a long time to unwind that and to. To come back more into that integrity of like, oh, actually, this is just. This is just natural. And I think the thing I want to name that I often talk about with men about is. It's. It's. It's not the attraction that's the problem. It's when the attraction is disconnected from our hearts.

Luke Adler: There it is.

Jason Lange: Right. Because that's when we can objectify. That's when we can rape. That's when we can cause damage. That's when we can destroy our marriage. But when the heart's online, it's a whole different ball game of like, wow, this woman, you know, is gorgeous. And I'm feeling an incredible blessing of energy in my body. Right now or. Right. So it's feeling. That is how I tend to work with men around it. It's feeling that energy, acknowledging it, breathing it, and then also realizing there's a human being attached to that body. You know, in the case we're talking about here, kind of the hetero side of that's a woman who has hopes and dreams and has had her heart broken and wants things and has good days and bad days. You know, she's just a genuine human being. So remember that. Right. Just remember she's a human being and who's got her own life going on. And when we can remember both of those, you know, I tend to work with it myself is like to literally take it as a blessing and offer it back of just like, wow, thank you. Just thank you for blessing me with that energy. Like, I hope your day is awesome. You know, just might, might happen in a couple seconds in my, in my head, but there's like an acknowledgment of the gift that's been brought to me of literally energy in my body, which is a, you know, near 43 year old man. Like that's becoming more sacred by the day.

Luke Adler: Yeah, right.

Jason Lange: Just to have energy and vitality in my body. So not disconnecting from it, but not also obsessing over it. Right, right. That would maybe be the other side of things, at least as I work with it and believe in it. It's like, what's the half life?

Luke Adler: There it is.

Jason Lange: Oh, right. What's the stickiness quotient? Like, can I just breathe that energy through in the moment and then, you know, let it pass? Or do I start to ruminate it about it and fantasize about it and think about body parts and things I would do and you know, there can be a time and place for that in a healthy consensual relationship. But this is where that half life piece, that stickiness piece of like, ooh, you know, what would my partner think if I was thinking about this right now? Or even if you're not in a partnership, like, you know, is this a moment I really want to be engaging with this energy or is it kind of colonizing me in the moment? Certainly it was something with me. You know, as I wrestled with pornography, was finding pornographic imagery coming into my mind and times I did not want it to come into my mind.

Luke Adler: Right.

Jason Lange: Like I have other things I want to be doing here or this doesn't feel appropriate. So that, that half life thing I think is the thing I just kind of want to point out.

Luke Adler: I love that. And how I think implicit in that you're pointing to where an energy that can be. Let's just keep this example, you know, a kind of sensual, sexual or just a beautiful woman. How that can be so generative to appreciate, to breathe that energy in. And then if we, if, if in the second moment we then attach. Yeah, that's it, we attach. And then we want to replay it over and over. It becomes more addictive. We get that, that dopamine hit and then we want it again and again. And it's not necessarily about the woman anymore. It's just about I want to feel good, I want to feel alive. And, and you get that diminishing returns of, of well being. And I think that the mixture here of you know, getting the sexual energy to be healthy, your purpose is on the line. You're satisfied with your work, your exercise routine is there, your, your diet routine is there. When all of these elements come together, then it's not so much. We're saying, what we're not saying is you're going to get all your energy from getting into more balance around sex and sexuality. We're saying that is one component of health and vitality. But when that's offline or that's there's some addiction around that, then it throws the whole balance off of, of your whole system. Whereas there's, there's either like a drag or there's a hyperactivity in the, in the realm of sex. Sexual energy that just makes all the other, you know, like you say it creeps into your purpose around your work.

Jason Lange: It creeps in.

Luke Adler: You're like, oh shit, I'm so hyper regulated around sex. I'm gonna, you know, have more sugar and, and ice cream breaking down. Or I'm so under regulated, I'm drink more caffeine. And so when that, you know, just like any of those arenas, whether offline or over hyperactive, it just, the whole system gets wonky and then we're exerting all this energy to, to kind of keep it in the shadow and it becomes problematic for our, our experience, our, our flow in life.

Jason Lange: Wow is a great word there. I think that's another way to talk about that moment of attachment is it's, you know, I think ideally when we're working with sexual energy, it's flowing through us. So it's like I'm, I'm in my day, something happens. I see a beautiful woman, like literally that word turn on, it turns on a part of my nervous system. Yeah, right. Like activates it. Yeah, but then I let the energy keep circulating through. I think where the fantasy, the kink, the attachment happens is, it's like, oh, I want to hold onto that, right? Like I, I gotta, I gotta clamp down and I want to hold that energy in my body right now. It's almost an addiction to the tension part versus just letting it move through. And I think there is a way we can do that, right, where we can use our turn on out in the world to just activate ourselves, get the energy flowing and then we, we can come back and we can express that energy with our partners. But it's about our relationship with our partner. It's not about the fantasy of that person if it makes sense. It's like that turn on can get us turned on, but then we're expressing that through the actual relationship we're in by centering that connection or whatever that might be rather than having part of our body, mind still be in the fantasy.

Luke Adler: I think that that mindset is what's not common out there, is to say, hey, I can appreciate the beauty of whether it's a man or woman or a trans person or non binary person. I can appreciate them and be turned on. Whatever turns you on, what we're saying is let it turn you on. It's life giving, it's life affirming. And take charge of your sexual charge. Don't kind of allow it to then take you over into place or scare you and then cause you to turn that off. And then there's this. You know, I think the other thing I'm, I'm feeling and experiencing is that there is an energy we get from whatever turns us on that we can't, necessarily, we don't necessarily get it from our, our career purpose or our time in nature. Those turn us on and those turn us on in different ways. Or exercise or eating a delicious meal. We get turned on in different ways. Our nervous system, our heart, our, our mind gets turned on in different ways. And this is a unique area. We get turned on. So let us be turned on in these particular ways and then bring in, in the case of relationship, let's bring that back to our partner and not get lost morally or ethically around. You know, I think you pointed out, you said something beautiful like, hey, this, this is a person who's had triumphs, who had, who's had difficulties, who has aspirations, still seeing the human being in front of us and, and the destruction that might move through our lives if we give in to, you know, something with someone else. Who's outside of our commitment in terms of our relationship at that time. And, you know, in a certain sense, the importance of keeping our word. And if we want to change our word, that we. We're upfront about that. Yeah. Not letting sexual energy just kind of take us over around the vows that we've made in our lives in a certain sense, to not create more work for us, more karma for us later, because we were just. The animal took over. You know, we gave in. I'm not saying it's easy, but I. But this is a place where. In a men's group, women's group, a group that's committed to growth and healing, where just bringing it out of the dark is like, okay, I can start to see this now and work with it. And it. I've already taken charge of my charge by sharing it, you know. Yeah. I'm not keeping it. I'm not keeping. I'm not allowing its power over me by keeping it hidden.

Jason Lange: I think that's so key in your part of what makes it just such potent work and this realization that, yeah, right, we're all going to have turn on and charge. That's natural, that's normal. And it's actually fucking awesome. Right. It's like such a gift. That's not the problem. It's what we do with it. Yeah. How do we choose to engage with it? And what do we. Where do we point that energy? In some ways, that's the thing that can really make you stand out as a human being and as a man in particular these days is learning to consciously work with that. Of not having to shut it down and not being run by it, but it. Finding this sweet space in the middle to really take charge of it and use it in a conscious way that can generate and create and express so much love and vitality and just, you know, one of the literally best parts of being alive. It's just the. The joy and the intimacy of a good sexual connection in my mind.

Luke Adler: There's so much for us to dive into. I want to touch on one more subject here, at least for me. You know, what happens when, let's say we. We become disconnected in our relationship or just disconnected and life. You don't feel a sense of purpose like I've. I've. You know, when things aren't necessarily connective in my. In my marriage, where does my mind go around? Where. Where am I then going for connection and the ways in which that obsessive kind of nature can come in. And historically, for me, you know, I come from like a long lineage of workaholics. So if I'm not feeling this, if I'm not feeling connected in my marriage, my, in the past, I just work harder, I just work more. Yeah. And in a certain sense I become more numb and there's a sense of, well, I don't, I don't need connection, I don't need sex. I, I'm just gonna serve, I'm gonna be a servant. And then you know, I just get have in the past has gotten kind of drier and I stay kind of spiritually inspired but my physiology gets, I get really exhausted and I found that allowing myself to wake up to sexual energy and to appreciate my wife and to get into a better sexual relationship with her, with myself, ultimately I feel so much more energy when I'm disconnected. That's been one of my patterns is to just bury myself at work, which is very common for, for men. And you know, I think, I think one of the other patterns can be you get disconnected from spouse that you start looking at other women. And one of my mentors says, well you can't get everything from your partner, but it's not so much, well then go get sex from another partner. It's like, well let's slow this process down a little bit and, and you know, this might be something of look, maybe I need to talk about this with my wife and really often our marriage that you know, where we disconnected. Why are we disconnected? Is she too busy? Am I too busy? And so this can be a place where we start to hide it a little bit like oh, my marriage isn't flowing so I'm going to start looking at other women, start, start talking with other women and maybe getting fulfilled in this way and starting to maybe create some energy out there that I really need to be putting into my marriage. But for whatever reason, I may not be circumstances, maybe I'm afraid to bring it up, etc, but, but this can kind of creep in through a long term relationship. It's not so much, hey, I've got it down, you know, it just, it, you gotta work it, you gotta work it.

Jason Lange: I think this is such an important topic. I mean for single guys out there. This is why I think something like the heart of shadow or doing some shadow work around your sexuality is so, can be such an investment in your future relationships because the clearer you are about your, your sexual life, your sexual expression, the easier it's going to be to find a partner. From the get go you have some shared reality around your values, around Sex, you know, that was something certainly my wife and I synced up on early on. She had been married before in a sexless marriage and she was like, I'm not doing anything unless there's a thriving sex life. Like this is a non negotiable for me.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: Like we have to have regular, you know, sex and I need a partner who values that. And that was something really important to me. So we have some shared reality around that. But sometimes, you know, I'll work with men who didn't have that and who have an awakening but their partner's not there. And that can be really painful.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: So point just being if you have the luxury, if you're not in a relationship yet, doing this work early can make it much easier to attract a partner. Partner who you're gonna have that similar set of values around. And then for those in long term relationships. Yeah. I consider sex like the canary in the coal mine. When that starts to go, that's the first sign that, you know, stuff often is, is not going well in the relationship in my mind because in my experience and my wife was here, she would agree. Like the difference between when we're sexually connecting and when we're not is extraordinary in our relationship. And what I mean by it is, is it just, it's like an, to use the, the right term here, it's kind of like an all purpose lube. Like it just gives us so much more breathing room in your relationship. Like all of our stresses and tensions and the ways we might nitpick each other, be unhappy. Like when we're connecting, we have so much more space around that. When our sex is online, we have so much more space. When it's not there, those issues become even more acute. It's like it just so much harder to deal with them. It puts a lot more stress on us. So it's like a, you know, something we work at. Like if, if one of us notices or we are disconnected in that sense to really prioritize it and center it and bring it back. Because if it's not there, then yeah. That is also where partners can start craving certain energies. And if we're not getting it in our relationship, our body will try to find it somewhere. Yeah, that's what makes this, you know, the shadow piece. It'll try to find it on Instagram, it'll try to find it with our co worker. It'll have certain fantasies and yeah, we can't get everything from our partner. But for people that are in, you know, committed monogamous Relationships, there's ways you can work with that. Right. If you notice you're craving a certain type of energy, it's extraordinarily vulnerable to lead the conversation in your relationship of I noticed this is something I'm, I'm feeling a desire for and wanting. How could we explore this or co create this in our relationship? Right. And that's going to be a negotiation. Right. Doesn't mean your partner is going to be a hell yes to every single thing you have. But a good partnership, you're going to want learn to work with each other, to offer each other that type of energy. It's the, you know, one of the generous things I think we can do in relationship so then we don't have to seek it outside of it. You know, it's that seeking it outside of it that that's worth, you know, it's just where all the problems can happen. Because again, if it's in the shadow and we're not conscious of it, how many men have fallen for the belief, oh, if I leave her for her and do this, it's all going to be magic and better and they do it. And then lo and behold, what happens? The same relationship patterns show up because there's unhealed, undealt with trauma or shadow in their body. So they're going to bring it to any relationship they get into. That's right.

Luke Adler: And implicit in what you're saying, you know, what you're pointing to here is that when we bring, you know, we're bringing something to our partner, craving this energy that we're engaging in a conversation, you said a negotiation of, you know, here's what I'm wanting, here's what I'm desiring. And there's also an openness to go and, you know, where's this coming from in me?

Jason Lange: Yep.

Luke Adler: What's this? Is this something that's like really kind of missing in my life or is there, you know, something I'm, I'm not looking at that I'm wanting to cover up again, try to discharge my pain through sexuality, through orgasm? Or is there just something that's not really flowing in my life or my marriage and I, you know, I'm in partnership. This one of the cliches that can show up in particularly New Age work, spiritual work, is that I am creating my reality. So if my partner doesn't want to have sex, I should just accept that and I'm creating that. And what we're saying is, no, no, you don't create everything in your life. You Co. Create. You generate things. There are certain things create. There's other things that other people are creating and they're interacting with your creation. And so this is a negotiation. You. We were part of deep shadow work and relational work is that you're, you're taking the risk. You said that's Jason. To be, to be vulnerable and to share and to say, I kind of like, I, I want it, I want to experience this energy. I've definitely worked with couples who, they've ended their relationship, their marriage, because they wanted some other element of sexuality, but they didn't want to talk about what was driving it. They didn't want to get into the. Which is always non sexual. Is like some of the classic examples is this exercise where you talk about your sexual fantasy and then when you take all the sexual elements out of it, you can see the deeply suppressed shadow material. Like my sexual fantasy is to be tied up, dominated, and to hit. Be hit, slapped. That really turns me on. And of course, if you take all that out, it's like you think back to your past. Sometimes there can be this. Well, I was dominated as a child. My father used to hit me. And that charge that's in our nervous system, you're like, how, how does that, how does that have to do with my sexuality? Well, it imprints so deeply in our nervous system that it's only through sex that we can kind of be, not necessarily become aware of it. But that charge mixes with the charge of sexuality. Now all of a sudden we're wanting an energy that might not ask, that might not actually be kind of healthy, but can in a certain sense help us become aware of some wounding. And we, you know, we're taking kind of a deeper slice there, but that's part of the invitation is sex asks us or invites us to look at our, our very. The deepest ways we've been molded and shaped. And as we face that, we become freed into a sexual relationship that's much more generative and healthy and expressive as opposed to kind of locking our wounds in place and moving us into these places that, you know, are in certain sense reenactments of our unprocessed adverse childhood experiences. So it's a big topic around what we're engaging in. And the biggest invitation is just awareness, talking about it, bringing it out of the shadow, being curious, not punishing ourselves or our partners for bringing something forward, but. But really approaching it softly because we're also bringing up our, our very deepest wounds when we talk about sexuality and sex.

Jason Lange: Yeah, really, it's a process of bringing it into the light. Yeah. Just acknowledging that it's there and it's beautiful and we need it. Right.

Luke Adler: Yeah.

Jason Lange: No, I, I work with. Tell a lot of my men, like, no male, male sexuality is important. Like, almost nothing in the world would happen if we didn't have that drive. Right. Like, it's actually the, the, the, the drive of creation and life force. And we just want to honor that and use it wisely and learn to engage with it in these more mature ways that it can be so much more conducive to connection and generative and life affirming and life giving. I think that's the other key thing that, you know, when we really learn to work with this. Sexuality can move from something that destroys or ruins relationships to something that deepens and fosters and helps them become even stronger. And it really starts with us men. Yeah. Getting in touch. Right. Digging in, getting clear about our charge. How does it show up in our body? When does it show up in our body? What's behind that? And then being able to engage with that and become intimate with it. So it's not running the show anymore, but it's part of our experience that we can, when we choose, you know, bring into the moment, so to speak.

Luke Adler: Yeah, it's powerful. We kind of, we kind of sent it on this one. There's some really good content in here. Anything else you want to touch into, Jason? I think that, that.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I feel like we covered quite a bit, actually. Yeah.

Luke Adler: Thorough.

Jason Lange: We have our next cohort of Heart of Shadow, which you can always check out when the next one's launching atheart of shadow.com. but at this moment in July of 2023, our next one is starting September 5th with a retreat in October.

Luke Adler: There it is.

Jason Lange: And all the information there is at heart of shadow.com.

Luke Adler: We have our early bird price up through the end of July. We have a couple scholarships for bipoc individuals. Our previous group is, is our current group is alive and strong. These guys meet. I think they meet weekly. Just a powerful inspiration to me. I, I check in on the group pretty regularly and. And I'm so heartened by their work. So if you're looking for deep community to support you, I'm talking to some men here in Eugene about the program. And like Jason and I said, this time they're just things that we won't bring forward in life because there's never really been permission to do so socially. In terms of our family of origin, it's hard to conceive but this program, this community that we're building is a place where things you couldn't even imagine talking about are invited to come forward. And not just talk. Felt and expressed. It's such a powerful offering. And if you're looking for a life tool to help you thrive in. In every arena, but particularly your. Your inner healing, sense of wholeness, connection, Heart of Shadow is. Is there for you. And we've got. I think we've got a few more spaces left for this next cohort. So. Heart of Shadow, I think it's hard. @hearteshadow.com you'll find the program. And you know, Jason and I are pumped to be a part of it and to have you join us. So again, Jason, thank you for your wise counsel and your guidance. It's been awesome.

Jason Lange: Always a pleasure, my friend.

Luke Adler: Yeah. Until next time. All right, brother. Take care.

Jason Lange: If you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to Evolutionary Men. Apply.