Episode 9: Powerlessness to Passion in Relationships

Explicit

Welcome back to Breaking Free Authentically!

Today I have a special guest on the show. His name is Moritz Kerkmann Hood and he and his wife Sasha founded Kerkmann Hood Coaching. They are both experts on Human Sexuality.

We talk about how to move from that feeling of powerlessness to rekindling passion once again in a relationship. We take you through a bit of the male vs female perspective to show how we all feel a sense of powerlessness for different reasons.

Moritz has traveled the world to work on international photoshoots for Armani and Chanel with celebrities and top models like Naomi Campbell and Nicole Kidman. His artwork was published in Vogue magazine at a young age. He had a powerful experience that reshaped his perspective on what’s truly important to him and he dedicated his life to learning everything he could about intimacy in relationships and sexuality. He and his wife have created a family together while moving twice across the globe. Moritz is a visionary mentor for men and together they teach couples how to be empowered together and have passionate intimacy.

Click here to receive Moritz' 3 Questions to the Best Sex and Connection in Relationship along with his FREE Micro Training!

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. He is such a great person with such a passionate heart for people and their relationships. I so passionate about that as well so I truly enjoy whenever we get a chance to talk.

Enjoy!!

Love, Karine

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Well, hello, Moritz, it's so nice to have you. We've had the privilege of chatting before. And I've really, really enjoyed our talk. So I wanted to bring you on my podcast so that others could hear just some of the great things that you have to say. And I just feel like we're very aligned on a lot of things. And so I wanted to just have a great conversation, because this is what I've, I said I wanted to do, it's important to me to have sex positive conversations, conversations about relationships, conversations about sexuality, all these things are very important to me, and I don't think there's a lot, I don't think there's enough safe places to, to listen to these kinds of conversations, or to have these conversations in our lives in the world. You know, it's just, it's something that's frowned upon a lot, was talking openly about sexuality. So I'm really excited about this. So can you tell us a little bit about you, and where you're from and what you do?

Hey, thank you so much. And, likewise, I really enjoyed our conversation, too. And I'm super excited to be here with you. And yeah, so I have been working with my wife, actually, we have a combined 20 years of experience working with couples and individuals on increasing intimacy and connection and, and really having a having the right foundation from where you can have great sex and relationships. And we both met each other as teachers, for we used to practice orgasmic meditation, which is still a huge part of, of what we are teaching and what we are deriving our philosophy and our way of relationship from. And this all kind of started for me, I used to work in the fashion world, I used to live in Paris and in London for around nine years, working for on photo shoots for Vogue, and with, for Chanel, and all those kind of like, fashion brands, which was really amazing. It was like an awesome part of my life. And, but there was like always something something missing. Like I was always someone in relationship. I think I sometimes people always look at me, because I'm like, Yeah, I had never really been single for really long periods of time. I always found myself in relationships, and, but at that period of my life, there was always something missing for me. And I didn't know what it was. And I ended up being really depressed. And I struggled with addiction. And with bipolar, and I made a huge shift at some point of my life. And yeah, kind of like exited that, that fashion world and started started really going more deeply into figuring out what was going on and, and learning everything about intimacy and connection and relationships and how to really go after that. Yeah, that that little glimpse of connection that I could feel was missing in my life.

How do you find that affected your life?

Man, this is I would say like, it affected everything in my life. Because these days, I was definitely someone who used to believe that it was all about career and, and chasing your, your, your goal. Like for me, my goal was like to have my name in Vogue magazine, which I achieved really early on and have my work published there. And that was kind of like one of the one of the major moments where I was like, I saw my I saw my name in there and I was like, Oh, I'm still not happy. Like I kept having the repeated experience of like achieving a certain goal but then realizing like, Oh, my happiness was actually not at the end of that rainbow and and that would basically just continue to fuel like more and more dissatisfaction and disappointment because I was like, so how do I have a fulfilling life? How do I have happiness in my life? And

it's such a common issue. I mean, it's like, I think that we're all looking for that in some way or another you know, and we are beings that desire connection and often is said that women want connection more than men. But I would disagree with that. What do you think? I mean,

I also disagree with that, I think sometimes either doesn't matter from gender, sometimes people aren't aware of it. And I was definitely not aware at some, some point of my life. Like, I remember that the first long term relationship that I had, which lasted for a few years. That woman, very young woman at that point in my life, she had to convince me to be in relationship with her like, that wasn't like, I wasn't really chasing that, like I was chasing, I was chasing sex. And mostly just because I wanted to. I wanted to have that experience, and I wanted to get it over with so I wouldn't be a virgin anymore, you know? And I wanted to like see, how can I? How can I have success? How can I be someone in life?

What I would say, I would imagine that society and the cultural view of what power is or what what's important, had a huge impact on that. Would you say that? That's the case?

I would say so I would say so. And I think it continues, it continues to have an influence. It's like still, still to this day. It's like, I don't know how that's for you. But I wake I wake up with a sense of restlessness, irritability and a disconnect. discontentment, right. Like, like a sense of like, Oh, what is wrong today? What's not? What is not working yet? Or what's not good enough yet? And I think a lot of that stems from Yeah, from from conditioning, I mean, like, like, these days as an intrapreneur. Even, you're like, are you yet having enough clients? Are you yet having that? I remember, like, I think like five or eight years ago, everyone wanted to be like, on attached and like, working from a laptop in the Bahamas, or songs or, or God knows what, right? Like, where did that little dream go to? Like, it was so important. At some point. Now, it's not. Now it's something else. Like, I don't know what it is. What is it? What is it right now? It's like, have the followers or something.

Yeah. And I think we're in such a driven society. And I know that you really talked about in our conversation last time about just taking time to like, be and still and you know, meditate and just be in the flow of life and who you are. And I think that's so important, because we're in such a hustle society, you know, even like, ah, can make six figures as a coach and edit it. And it's like, yeah, that's great. But then we just seem to be in this cycle of discontentment. And so I kind of want to talk about that today. We had come up with a really great title last time, and I was like, okay, yeah, that's a good one. So we want to talk about powerlessness to passion in a relationship. And I'm all about empowerment, and, and sex positive relationships, right? So I'm an empowerment sex positive relationship coach, I'm an elite relationship designer. And I work with couples and individuals, but to work on setting the stage to have an empowered relationship, whether that's redesigning it, whether that's redesigning your mindset, so that you can be authentic and all these things, but I think this we struggle to live our truth and to be authentic. And I'm gonna say, especially as women we were talking earlier, it might be kind of cool to, like, have, like, I could speak from the woman's perspective, and you could speak from a man's perspective, just to kind of give a little back and forth. But I think that the experience for a woman is very different than than a man, whether you whatever your your sexuality is, whatever your the spectrum is, there's some universal kind of just stereotypes and things that we've been conditioned as men and women, whether we fall into those boxes or not. We've been conditioned to think of things a certain way, you know, and, and one of the first ones for women, you know, this is this fairy tale of like happily ever after and meeting your prince and being rescued and saved and there's some that balk at that system. And there's some that are like, Yeah, I need to be rescued and I For me as a Christian woman, so I was very fundamentalist evangelical Christian went to Bible school for those of you who don't know that if you if you want to hear my story, go to Episode one Bible School graduate turned to Playboy enthusiast just to hear that story, but as a Christian woman submission was everything like to be a good submissive wife, which doesn't have to mean powerlessness. Because the way I looked at it didn't mean powerlessness, but it easily, easily can be, if you forget that you have intrinsic worth, and that you get to have your own life and see the richness of who you are. And I think in a lot of Christian culture, we are told from from a young age men and women, you know, you are nothing without Christ. He had to come and die for our sins, and we had to be forgiven, or we're gonna have eternity in hell. Like we're nothing you know, he's made as clean as blood is made us wait a snow, all these kinds of things that really indicate and for so long, I was like, I, I couldn't live without Christ, you know. And I was told there's no love outside of the church, there's no love in the world, and people don't have joy and all this kind of stuff. And so I was in a cycle of people pleasing and giving up who I am and turning the other cheek, you know, that was the Christian foundation. And then on top of that, like, what is the perfect Christian wife? Or what is the Christian wife look like? And what are these relationship dynamics, and the patriarchy is very strong, even now in our relationships, and how relationships structures are set up in today's society. And I'm really about breaking the programming, like, what is the programming? What's the religious and societal programming that we have? And how do we shift that and reprogram, so that we can create the lives that we want, without feeling guilty about it without having shame about it? So, with that in mind, I don't remember what I asked, you

know, I actually, I have a question for you. Okay. Um, so, just to be like, clear, there's like, I'm not against someone who has, or I'm not against having a purpose, or having a thriving career or following or even like being successful at what the society what the society's games are. But I think some of them are really fun, right? But it's like, it's like, there is an underlying component that I think is missing for many people. And when I think of powerlessness, right, so, here's the, here's a question that I have for you, for you as a woman, like, what does it feel like, if you are in relationship with a man who wakes up wakes up in the morning and he is driven by the anxiety to perform and rushes into the office or into his whether that's a home office, or that's the office somewhere else right? follows this kind of like, path to make a living and save the princess Right? Like, like, create the creative castle for his little for his little queen, but, and then comes home in the evening. And whether or not he expects food on the table doesn't really matter. You may be like, that far, deeply into the material or not. And then it's sort of like, tired, and maybe watch us Netflix. That's kind of like becoming the routine and then eventually falling asleep on the couch right? And then and then rinse and repeat right for the next 30 years or 50 years. Oh, god knows how long how does that make you feel as a as a woman? That's, that is basically the question.

Wow, that's that's loaded and I can feel that in my body. So I tell my clients like where do you feel things in your body when and I feel this huge lump in my, in my my stomach at the top of my stomach and I can feel this weight on my chest. And that was my experience for I just had my 25 year wedding anniversary. I'm separated but I'm counting it because we still live together. But 25 years of living with A wonderful man, but someone who's very driven. He's American on top of things, right? I'm Canadian, American. And then I'm French, which is a much more laid back culture, then the US US is a very independent. And so, you know, you're taught productivity, this Go, go go. And basically rest and relaxation is wasting time. Right? It's, it's not hustle. So yeah, every morning to watch the person you love that you just want to spend some time with and connect with, watch them get up there on a schedule, they get up, they do their thing, they have the morning routine, did it up, leave the house, go to the office, and for me, barely a word spoken to me. It's just like, that's the drive, right? Get there, get to work and do your thing. And then not being a super people person. Being on the phone with people all day is very draining, giving all your energy away at work, coming home, coming in the door, going upstairs to the bedroom and shutting the door. Right. And, and while I'm making supper, and then when separate is ready, call them down, and they come and the whole family comes. And then after supper, they either go back to the office, or it's you know, time for reading alone time for them to just kind of recharge your or something or watching TV or Netflix or whatever it may be. And then it's bedtime. And I basically had to schedule time. If I wanted time, and I'm not a schedule person, I'm kind of, uh, you know, fly by the seat of my pants, I'm very creative. And again, like, I couldn't understand why I was so why I was struggling so much, because he was a good guy, you know, like he, he worked hard, he had integrity, and he's all these wonderful things as a person. But I completely felt alone and ignored. And the only time we really saw him was dinner time, and I treasured that. And now the kids slip away. And, and now we don't even eat together. Like we just do our own thing. And it's fine now because there's not the expectation of like, you're in a relationship. So there's that. So it's much, much easier to it doesn't feel much different, but my feeling is completely different. Because I don't have that societal expectation of this is what marriage is supposed to be. And this is what it looks like. And, and I realized now that I was very codependent in so many ways, because I was looking for my marriage to validate my worth, I guess, and validate my, my worthiness and and to me worthiness is is valued on how much someone touches me physically tells me I am loved, tells me wonderful things about me and wants to spend time with me. And when those three things aren't happening, I don't take it,

who are you but you become part in Who do you become then

you become someone who does everything to try to become the person that you think that they want you to be so that they'll notice you.

Right? But like, like my, in my experience what I what I observed is that goes for a while and even if like the front is still like the front of have a nice woman who's like, in stuck in her people, right? The people pleaser. I'm having this nice from and but then it's like, underneath builds a certain rage. And

every month, every month I'd have this huge breakdown and I just ball and cry and I felt so disconnected and lonely. But I then I also didn't feel like I had a right to feel that way because I had so many wonderful things and wonderful children and you're taught to be grateful and just be positive and happy and this and that.

Well spiritual visioning comes on top now.

Yes, but also like this toxic positivity culture to comes into play where you're like, Just be happy and just be grateful and it's like, okay, but can we actually really look at how we're feeling and I think that powerlessness, it that is the that is right there sort of the the powerlessness, right, like I I'm such a strong woman, I'm independent, but I didn't feel like I was number one allowed to because I kept giving that role to him to make the decisions and I'm not a very good decision maker. So the just decisions I could make, I would tend to not make because I would be trying to let Him lead. But he didn't want to, he wanted me to make decisions. And that was fine with him. He wanted me to be my own person. But I wanted us to do things connected, it was just a very unclear set of rurals. And, for me, it was very confusing. And I remember walking on eggshells all the time, because I'm very much a Face Reader. And, and he's very serious person. And so if the house wasn't tidy, or this or that, like he would be stressed, and I could tell if he was stressed, when he came home, he wouldn't say hi to anyone, he would just like walk away. And I knew that he needed a space and I need he needed to decompress. So I'd give that to him. But I never felt like I could ask for what I wanted. And I never felt like what I needed was valid. And what I needed was important, because he was the most important like in a relationship, your partner, so it should be the most important thing, not you. And so

he's the he's the breadwinner, right? Yeah. Certain position of power, because if he is, if he gets knocked off, like we perceive the financial inflow into the household as the thing that is the most important thing on the forefront, at least, and I think some case, yeah. And subconsciously, I don't know if you've ever tried to break out of that one like, that is like, that is one of the heaviest conditionings to let go off, I think, looking at society at the moment, and we have like, even if you look in the into the conscious community bubble, right, like, so many people are talking about, like waking up waking up to like their full potential and like, being more conscious and being more free and being empowered. Well, what's the what's the one thing that like, everybody is like raging ly addicted to at the moment, it's efforting. It's like making money. It's like trying to trying to financially win the upper hand, right? I think like this, like one of the I'm not a financial person. I'm not a financial like coach or anything. But I think that like that pressure is one of the most intense one that wears on relationships, because that power dynamic is really difficult to

Yeah, it definitely can be hard, especially when you've like I chose to be a stay at home mom. So I always did things like I, a voice teacher and a piano teacher. And I always did. Job, beauty consultant, and I did makeup artists. So I did all these things that I could do with a family with kids that was more important. So I never really had a career. And so now fast forward, I wasn't we separate. And now the financial responsibility becomes mine for myself. And I've never been in that position before I was 22 when I got married, right? Oh, I was in college. So I moved out of the house, to college, to a married home, and I always had someone a breadwinner, taking care of me, you know. So this is like a huge wake up call. And like, I wasn't prepared for that. Because I had made that something that I shouldn't do or shouldn't want. And yeah, that's that's been a challenge. But at the same time, like, Wow, what an experience of a powerful growth to, to become to be an entrepreneur, I've always been an entrepreneur. But again, I didn't have to rely on that so much. It was more like fun money or extra money for the family. But now it's like, oh, oh, there's bills to pay and things like that. And this is what these are the pressures outside that are there to get in the way of things. But in terms of relationship, you know, I think it's so easy to fall into a pattern. If it's not the woman, it's one person in the relationship. There's always probably a more dominant person than then the other and one who's usually more of a giver more of a people pleaser than the other. But at the end of the day, it comes down to what do you think your roles are? And what's your what's your belief systems and what's your programming about? What relationships should be or shouldn't be? Right? Well?

I think it's always I think it's always a dynamic. I think it's always a dynamic. I want to briefly like because we like illuminated what it's like for the world. Men, right? To like, see her man in this in this pattern? And then you just you described how, how she is basically activated into her own conditioning through them. Right? And I think like, for for the men, it's, we sort of like both looking at the same thing, which is like, how can the family sort of like survive? Or how can we make it, which I propels us into this, like, rinse and repeat cycle of the of the hamster wheel. And for the man, you know, it's like, because I definitely have a lot of people that I work with, when they beginning when they come at first to me, it's like, he doesn't have attention on me. He doesn't want to connect men are unable to connect men are unable to feel right. And then what do you said also like the, and then he comes home in the evening. And first of all, he needs to like go and isolate right now The Man Cave, like, all those, all of those things I really like when I started going into the whole coaching whirled around connection, those were all the things that were were thrown at my head, right, like, felt very Shamy. At first, it's like, the women have something like, in the realm of feelings and connections, they have like the upper hand, and the man is the one who is sort of like still the bewildered one. But here's the thing, it's like, he is just as much trapped in the same loop, right? Like, I don't know, like, right now, we are living in California, and we are paying four and a half 1000 every month just for a house, right? And then there's no schools, and there's no health insurance, and there's no car and there's no food, right? So it's like, the experience that most men have is that they are that they are responsible that they are carrying the weight of having, having the family survive. And so what you said in the beginning around the slowing down, like for me like like slowing down and meditating, it's really like the thing that that is, has become a daily routine for me. Why? Because the pressure, the pressure, and all of that that would set in naturally. Of course it does. It's like if you wake up and the first thing is like, how can I make this family survive by me, exerting energy literally, till the point of coming back home, eating some food, and then passing out. And a lot of people have been held off like some substances in order to just because they are, it creates this, like it creates an emptiness in a person, right, if that's all you do, is try to hustle and push. And so like the, I think the like sex positivity and like, like playing with the idea of like, what the possibilities of sexuality are, they're sort of almost like, luxury items. When you are in that, when you are in that place. And so, and then you you come home, and what you see is you're looking into the face of a woman who is massively dissatisfied and disappointed. Right, like, then you are not getting as a woman, you're not getting the acknowledgement and the approval for the work that you've done, because he's so exhausted that he can't give you anything. And so as a result, you are now mad at him, because he can't give you that. And so how does he feel in that moment? It's just like, all right, like, Why do I even do this? For a family? That's not even grateful for my work? Right, and then all the hopelessness kicks in. And from that hopelessness, you have I mean, it's self explanatory to me why there is such a high rate of suicide amongst men, you know, is a second then, like, have something happen? Have something happened, like a job loss or like a problem at work? So then everything just turns into hell?

Yeah. And

It's a predicament we're looking at really?

Yeah. And I think that I'm glad you're saying this, because like, I'm very big on this idea that, you know, I think women should be empowered and I think that there's so many beautiful things that we can do as women, and we can be super strong, but I think that there's a shift to like, give a big fuck you to men, for one, or to the rest of the world and be like, talk to the hand, I'm not going to tolerate disrespect, or whatever. And it's like, sometimes it's not disrespect, sometimes it's just survival. Right. And we, and I think that in order to have healthy relationships, it has to be, like you said, people understanding it, understanding the circumstance in which we're in. And the programming that we have, and the expectations that have been put on us, whether imposed by society, or whether it's what we have been brought up to believe or what we think like, and I like to check with my clients when we start like, what did you expect from marriage? Right? And is it meeting your expectations? Like, like, what did you imagine it would be? What's the reason why you thought one day you would want to get married? What did you think it would fulfill? And is that happening right now? And I think that's such an important question. Because, you know, we can come at, at a relationship thinking that it's supposed to be this way. And so, you know, a couple of podcasts ago, it was like, what are the relationship myths, and so many of them are, like, you know, that one partner can meet all your needs or that it's your partner's job to meet your needs, you know, or, I remember thinking as a woman that I was never gonna say no to my husband to sex, because that was my, you know, spiritual service of worship. Like that was important. Let's not get that wrong. I'm a sexual person. So that was something I was very excited to say yes to. But turns out that I was the one who had to initiate. He wasn't the sexual man that wanted me all the time. That was not a thing in my marriage. And no one had told me that the roles can be reversed. Sometimes, no one told me that men don't want sex all the time. You know, so I was sorely disappointed by that, because I'd waited 22 years to have sex. I was married. And then I was like, Oh, what, am I not attractive? Am I not? You know, am I not enough? Am I not worthy, am I and so we have all these ideas of what's tied into things and we give meaning to things that don't necessarily have that meaning.

That like, there is a, I like to distance myself completely there from like, from, from the gender stereotype, because I think there is there is a sexual, there's a very high, high sexual person, like it's like, it's usually a person that has a lot of sexual energy that needs to work with it. It's it's literally a need. It's not just it's not just like a lusty kind of like thing that you can turn off. It's a need for certain people. And I think I bet that like when, if you have that experience, it's very, the thought, right? Just the thought pattern of whenever you meet another person that has a sexual high sexual drive, it's like, oh, wouldn't relationship with that person be so much easier? Because I don't have to initiate right? It's, for me the same thing, like I would say I am, the more I have I have the higher sex drive than than my wife. And we've done so much work on on our relationship to come to a place where it's like, Oh, this isn't like this has at some point, nothing to do any more with whether you how connected you are, how loving you are, whether you are no, it's actually like, there is an actual real thing where like, her body requires less than my body.

Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I have, I have a partner now that I've been together with for long and he has, he has a high drive, like ideally. And so when we first met, it was like, really like, really cool because we both initiated the same. But you notice that even though we have same drives, his need is very different than mine, even in that and so he's he's much more sexually driven like, like, that energy needs to come out of his body. And for me, it's more of wanting a connected energy, a connected such sexual emotional energy is more where I felt the like if I'm if I'm sad, like I'm at the point where I'm finally satisfied physically enough that I actually can figure out how often I actually do want it. Like, how much is it sexual? And how much is it connection that I wanted. And I was under the wrong impression that I just wanted sex all the time. But that's actually not the truth. I wanted connection all the time. And I thought that sex was that connection. So now having a healthy amount of it. I'm like, Oh, I don't I'm not the one always initiating and it's really interesting to like, have the table's turned and now I can kind of put myself in the other shoes and go, Oh, okay. So when you don't feel like it doesn't mean you don't love that person. It doesn't mean that they're not attractive to you, it doesn't mean any of that. And sometimes you just need time to yourself, you need to recoup you need to, you know, like, it's 100 different things. When if you haven't been on the other side, you don't know.

And that's what you're describing. It's like, that is really such a like, you have such an advanced level of experience there that you can make these distinction that you can be like, connected to your body and you know, need like, oh, I need some touch or oh, I need to go over and have a climax right now. Or to like, take it easy or I need to have a certain food right? That is really the high level. That is really the high level skill where you can now you're earning the fruits of the work that you have done. But where most people are is I just feel irritated. And I am upset at my partner and I don't even know why like he's just a fucking irritation right now. You No and, and I have been there myself, you know, like for we always like, it's always like, a thing for like a long time I heard like, oh, women have so much sexual shame. I think that's actually as well like a gender stereotype like everything both actual shame. And any person who is a high sexual energy person will be confronted with shame, right? Like, yeah, sometimes I would pick a fight in my relationship about something in the kitchen. And then we wouldn't be disconnected for days. Until eventually I started realizing it wasn't about the kitchen. It was about me not expressing what I wanted in that moment, which was like, Hey, would you would you have sex with me, right? And then we pick these fights. So much. Like we pick the distraction, because that's the thing. It's like, our minds distract us in order to not having to penetrate the shame because that's literally the most uncomfortable spot for most people to, to live in is like in the truth of who you are. Yeah. And so most people blame and bicker and argue with each other over the most ridiculous things completely unaware what it's actually about. And I'm not saying it's all just about sex, but it's really just creates, like, when there is a repeating pattern off fighting about arbitrary things. And you catch yourself actually, like, I think a lot of people have a little bit of awareness that they're like, Oh, my God, why am I again, find out this right, like you had? Like, chances are there's there's a lot going on that is unexplored.

And I think a lot of it is unmet needs at the end of the day, what whether it's a sexual need or not, and I think that it's important to recognize that it's not your partner's job to meet that need. It's your, it's your responsibility to communicate that need, it's your responsibility to know how to fulfill that need, whether it's yourself like if, if, if you just need a release, and it's not necessarily about connection, and your partner is not in that place, or whatever, like it, if you're not full of shame, you can go you can communicate that need and ask, do you want to participate? Or shall I go take care of it myself, because I should be able to take care of my own need, you know, whether if I need a hug, and there's nobody around, I can sit there and cry about it. Or I can, you know, hold myself massage myself or, or cuddle with my puppy or have a friend and cuddle them like, figure out? How are some of the things that you can meet your needs on your own? And then what do you absolutely need someone else to fulfill that need for? And I do I have my clients do like a need assessment? And then right how, you know, how can I fill fulfill this myself? And what do I absolutely need someone else to fulfill, you know, and there's a lot of sexual needs that you can fill by yourself. But you can't fill the need of like, skin to skin body contact, emotional energetic connection with just yourself. So you get to evaluate what it is that it is that that you need. And be really clear and communicate that to yourself first without shame, right and then be able to communicate it to your partner and that that's your responsibility. It's not your partner's responsibility to try to read your mind and meet that need. And it's you can't get frustrated if they're never meeting that meet need when you don't even realize what it is that you need. I think that's important because we do put a lot of responsibility on our partner sometimes. And that falls into sort of that powerlessness. It's easy to do that right? Like if I feel powerless in myself, if I don't love who I am, if I don't feel like I'm worthy, I need them to initiate that in order for my worth to be validated or I need them to tell me I'm beautiful or that I'm sexy in order to feel validated. But if I start with that with myself, they get to say those things. Those things don't just keep me stuck in survival. They're like, you know, whipped cream on top, they get to add to my, to my joy in life rather than just being upset that they never notice.

I agree. And I would add so I like to make the distinction between being responsible for or being responsible to like, because

Karine Bedard 9:49

Lets talk about that yes,

because a lot of men so like you say like, oh, I can cuddle my puppy or I can give my hug my friend a hug. Right? And I think A lot of men, when they come into this, a lot of men that I work with, they don't have a friend that they can hug. Or they don't have the luck of having a puppy, right? Because they're coming from the battlefield of isolation and lone wolf mentorship, right? Like, they didn't have the time to have a puppy, or they just never actually had the openness in their life, that they still manage to keep friends that they still hug, right? These days, I hug. I hug men every day, you know, like I have, I have my half my brothers around me, who, who keep me fuel, right? Like, that's the thing. But that's an alien concept to most men, they don't have that. And, and I have compassion for that. Because I've been, I've been in that place. Yeah. And so when you are in that place, and you run on the idea that your partner is your life's person that will provide for you, right? This is the old idea of what relationship is like, I am marrying this person. So I will be loved by this person. So I will be taken care of by this person. Then what happens is you feel entitled to it. Like there's a woman that's like, Well, my woman doesn't want to have sex with me, like, How dare she Right? Like, those are her marital responsibilities. Right? And where I am these days with my partner is she's absolutely not responsible to give me anything. But what we like to practice is we like to, and I think that's it goes very much along the lines, what you say is like we practice knowing what is my need, and then asking for it. And, and through that. Because most couples don't even know how to love their partner. They don't. They don't know how to love their partner. Well, so and then that happens. What do you say that, like, we expect that the partner reads our minds, which is impossible, like you're setting yourself up for the worst relationship full of expectations and disappointment. But now, I'm in a place where I'm like, I get to say, like, hey, sure, I'm gonna make an extreme example, Hey, would you Suck my cock for five minutes? And my wife gets to say, yes, I would like to, or No, not right now. And sometimes, you know, like, I have the risk that she may be in her people pleaser. Hmm, what my response, that's not my responsibility. And I actually provide her the experience where she can find out whether she's enjoying it or not.

And that's so important. And the other thing is that you can have a negotiation then Right? Like, if you made that known. Now, am I responsible to make you come? Like, is that part of the responsibility? Or do you just want that feeling? Do you want that connection with me? And do you want that to get you started? Can we clear that up? Because if it's a literal five minutes, I can probably do that. If it's to completion. I'm not sure if I can devote that much time and feel that kind of pressure.

Right? You don't know how long that even takes may take? Right? Like an hour.

Right? And everybody's different and every so I think it's like, once you start having the conversations you can you can decide like a no doesn't have to be a complete no and a yes doesn't have to be a giving up of yourself, right? Like it, it you can negotiate and I'm so about renegotiating things and let's negotiate the terms so that we can understand and back to your sent like, it's it's your responsibility to communicate your need. I just wrote like my first chapter in my book,

go there because I want to, I want to hand away like a little, a little practice exercise here, guys. What I would say to my clients at that spot is like, set a timer. Yeah, actually set a timer for five minutes. And agree to that. They call it a container. Yeah, I love that whole container and when the timer has gone off, because that way, like you have to remove the goal, because it's the goal is what what really kills it.

Yeah, yep. Absolutely. I love that idea. I love that idea. Because I think that, you know, some of us want to please our partners, but there's certain things we don't enjoy as much as others. And so, you know, even like setting a time limit, like I remember my ex husband wanted to set it sort of a time limit of how long you had to sit and talk with me. And I would feel also like, almost violated by that, because to me that was a value, like it was a determined my value whether he wanted to spend a long time with me or not a long time. But to him it was like, he couldn't relax unless he knew there was an end time. And then he could be fully in the moment. So it's just learning those kinds of things, right? Or like your blowjob examples. Perfect. I love that. Because sometimes that is a difficult task for women, right? Like, and, and,

and that safe word safety, there's like, it's so important. Like, if there is no events, no, if there's no clear container attached to certain things, we cannot actually let go and enjoy it same for the woman, right? Like she has to, if she has to work to make him come in that moment, then that's all that's on the mind on the mind, right. And then it's about speed. And it's about friction, it's about like harder. All of those things, when it's when that is all taken off the table. And you literally just like five minutes I get to do with this car, whatever I want, actually start to enjoy it in all different way.

It's so true. It's so true. I love that I wanted to go back to so I just started reading a book, and in the first chapter, so the book is about why why aren't we? Why don't we live in our authenticity? Like, what are the things holding us back from being authentic, you know, in our relationships and our sexuality, like, what are these things that are holding us back in the first chapters talking about, we don't even know what we want, or we don't even know our needs, you know, like. And so a lot of us have grown up, being told what to eat and how to eat, and what times to eat it, how long to sleep, how to think, who our friends should be, while we're going to study, I mean, we are kind of given that information. And a lot of times people haven't even really thought about what they really need or want in their lives, they haven't had that opportunity. And they've also been taught that other people's needs are more important than theirs. So they're much more aware of other people's needs than their own. So we can see that when we get in a relationship, how it feels so unempowered, because we don't even know how to ask for what we need, because we don't even know what we need. Right? You know, and there's so much shame about even needing something like you're needy, you don't want to be needy, you know, quote unquote, needy. And there's such a fear, especially as women, you do not want to be emotional, or needy or too much, because, you know, no man is going to want you. So if you do the things if you just do for them what they need. And I mean, how many women are, especially from like our parents generations are just in, in relationships, where they're just walking on eggshells all the time trying to appease their husbands so that they're not upset, and they don't feel like they're allowed to sit and rest. And here we are this new generation. And it's like, it's like the total opposite. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. My life is my own. And I think there's this nice in between balance where you said, you know, like, it's not my responsibility for your eat, like your happiness is not my responsibility. But here's the other thing. My your happiness gets to be my, like, I get to have joy in taking part in your happiness. Right? And if we think

of it that way, right? For rather than responsible to Yeah, and

I think that a lot of like, I know, one of the things that kind of went south with with my marriage was this whole idea that, you know, well, I'm not responsible for your happiness, you're responsible for your emotions, you're responsible for this, you're responsible for that. And that's all great. But if you're never even inputting into my happiness or my world, then I feel very isolated. And it's a very big challenge to try and be happy on my own when I'm constantly in anxiety and and not not knowing if I'm loved or if someone cares about me. And so I was I got into this very depression, anxious spiral. You know, I've never had addiction issues, but I could see in that moment how it would be so easy to want to numb that pain, of not feeling like you're living up to someone's standard or that you're not enough or that you're not able to be everything that someone expects you to be, and I know it's both sides. I don't feel this way. But like, in my moment, I just was spiraling down. And I felt so hopeless. And I think it's because I had devoted my whole life to someone else's needs rather than my own. Right. And I didn't feel I was allowed to ask for my own needs.

Yeah, and I think that's like, I see that happening a lot at the moment where I think a lot of people who are starting to see this swing in the opposite direction from being highly depending on their men or their partner, or God knows who, and then swing all the way into this into this hyper individualism hyper into hyper independence. And I mean, you will ask, like, what's wrong with that? Like, no, not nothing, necessarily. But again, I also work with women who are in this kind of face. I have one client was in this face for really many, many years. And I like to, I like to expand, I like to play little games, sometimes you like, so put yourself 30 years from now and you haven't changed this? Right? And you are approaching your 60s or 70s? And you're still this like, hyper individual person need? I need I need nobody. Then how will you how will you feel and I think there is a certain missing out because relationship holds a potential when we accept this extreme dependency. But also, when we don't swing on the other side. I like, well, he's doing his thing. I'm doing my thing. And we don't have any touching points. But when it becomes rather, a dance of connection, where we invite you, I like this, there's a meme with like, a bunch of really like boning people and they all have really long spoons. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Right. And they can really feed themselves, but they can feed each other. That's so true. Right? Like, like, there

was like they I would, I would call it interdependence. Would you agree?

Yeah, interdependence. And I, like, my aim with the people that I work with are the people that my my wife and I work with, because we coach them together, is actually tapping into the potential of, of entering flow together as a common entering, like we like to call it orgasm, right? Like, it's not the orgasm that that society has, which we call climax. But orgasm, as in, there is an energy, there's a desert, there's a telepathic field, a third that you create as a couple. And that, or if you talk in religious matters, okay? Like it has nothing to do with religion. But like if you are tapped into a higher consciousness together into God together, right? And you are starting to have a purpose and a shared energy bank account as you are trying to serve together, right? Because then you're starting to tap into other areas where you get to serve community together, where you get to raise children in a healthy way together, where you get to create the like, like, for us, it's like, a beautiful, healthy land and house around us that's like full of nourishment where other people can come in. And it's like a haven for other people where it's like, you know, like, where there's celebration that's really like, that's really where I like to head rather than just how do we, how do we fulfill our needs? How do you actually eventually get fooled together that it spills out onto others?

Yeah, like that. I think there's so much shame about needing anything, and being codependent and I think like, we are humans, we are beings that need connection. We need interconnection, and being not being solely dependent on someone but being dependent on and allowing yourself to be vulnerable with other people and allowing them to input into your life and you input into their life. It's like that's where passion comes from. Right like and we're talking about powerlessness to passion and it's like passion comes when you feel safe enough and connected enough to be your full self with that person that you love and, and you've let you can sink into their arm. comes in grief, sometimes you can sink in and be like, I can't carry this on my own. I'm not expecting you to carry it, but I know you're there. For me, that's beautiful. And when they choose to input into your life on a regular basis, and when you choose to. So when you choose to input into their life, I think the difference there is that it's no longer an expectation. It's something that you both daily choose. And it's, yeah, and I think like, like with my boyfriend, now, we don't, we live like two hours apart. And I really love the fact that we do in a lot of ways because, and you and like, we both have similar views on ethical non monogamy and just the beauty of having loving other people or or loving outside of our relationships is not necessarily a bad thing. But unless we have this, this, these relationships skills honed in, we're just going to make a massive other relationships, like another person is not going to fill a void that we don't know how to fill, or know how to access or talk about, right, so. So if we're not able to let to be vulnerable with our partner, or feel safe with our partner or create safety for them, we're certainly not going to be able to create safety for someone else, it's not going to get better unless we learn who we are, and what we bring to the table and that we have our own responsibilities in loving. And we get to choose so my boyfriend lives two hours away, I it's not an expectation that I go see him every two weeks, it's not an expectation that he comes see me, we choose that we choose to talk to each other daily, we choose to keep in touch and share. Because we want to and I love that there's no like contract making us do that, you know, and we continually choose each other. And that's beautiful. And I think that we should adopt this idea that someone could leave at any point, they are free to leave. But they choose to stay and I choose to stay because I value your input in my life I value giving into your life, I value what we create together. And I think that a lot of us are losing that with going into the opposite side of complete independence. We're losing community and just this sense of connection with people. And to me, that's just a travesty. Because I mean, connections are everything. I mean, even the conversation, we we've had one conversation together. And I feel like we're I could trust you to talk to you about things that are important in my life. And I barely know you, but we took time to connect. And, and my people, my community, the people in my world, that's who I have in my life. And those who I select are people that value me as a person that respect me, that I can coexist with and CO will co create with CO interact with, right? It's not just a one person thing, where it's like, well, I'll just do me and you just do you, you get to do you I get to do me, but we also get to be we

I agree. And I fully agree. And that's that's the thing that's like what I what I think what it touches back into that, like, when it starts to spill over, right? Like it is really it is really a work that like starts with myself. Like I can look at my patterns I can look at where even if I'm that man who's like still entangled in that, like, nine to five, right? Like and look at how do I show up here? How am I overspending my energy by chasing after the skulls? Like how can I start to bring some of that back and put it into the bank account of my own growth. And it's so I can start to come back home. And you know, now I know I understand like, You want my acknowledgement, right? That is something that's important to you. At that stage of your life, that is really what's needed. Right now at most at the stage that I'm in, though we do vary, we do go back and forth. It's it may not be as needed. My wife may have more self esteem, a stronger self esteem where she doesn't need me to acknowledge her as much anymore. But I still know I still know that and I still can work on that and bring that back home and slowly make a slowly make a move out of these things and build these kinds of like things that we're talking about which includes like community

build That's a word right there, right? Like, it's about building, building connections, little connections and staying connected and putting effort into building something. Right. And sometimes that's not always easy building isn't always a simple job. And I'm not always good at every part of building something. But I give it my best effort. And it doesn't have to be perfect. You know, and as the receiver, we need to acknowledge the imperfection, and we need to acknowledge the effort, or someone's not going to give the effort anymore, you know? So, we're running out of time, I can't believe how fast this is gone. Is there any, if someone wants to, would like to talk more with you or work with you? How can they get a hold of you?

Yeah. So at the moment, what I recommend is that you watch, I have just created a micro training for people. That's super fun, 30 minutes, with a few exercises where you can pinpoint where you are, where you are, and where you want to go. And it's the, it's called the three questions to have the best sex and connection and relationships. And as you probably just listen to everything, it's not so much about the goals of that, but it is about creating a life where you can have those naturally pour out of you. And you can find that on our website, and that is KerkmannHoodCoaching.com will be great. If you could put it out,

We'll put that in the show notes for sure. So we put them underneath.

Yeah, awesome. It's completely for free. And there is a little gift at the end of this micro training where you can find the next step.

Nice, very nice. Well, I, I love that you. You do this work with people and, and focus on intimacy and sexuality. And, and I, I do that as well, but in a different way. And so if someone's interested in, in coaching, in figuring out what's holding you back from your authenticity, or where your sexual shame is stuck, and all these kinds of things, like it's about shifting that program and getting to a place where you can really live in your authenticity. And that's just one of the things that I do and just redesigning relationships and I I know that we're we're hopefully going to work together in the future and create some really cool sort of meshed things. Especially, especially you guys you have to hear about this. Would you call it orgasmic meditation or orgasm? Was it orgasmic meditation?

Yeah, orgasmic meditation is a partner practice.

Yeah, and I don't know, some of you may have heard it, called the 15 Minute Orgasm. I have heard that on like swinger podcasts like way, way back when I started listening to Playboy radio and different things. I was like, What is this 15 Minute Orgasm? And then when I talked with him, I was like, you actually teach it? Oh, my God, I'm so excited. I wanted to, I want to learn all about it. So yeah, we definitely have more to talk about for sure.

Yeah, that's something that's interest you or for also, for sure, feel free to reach out. My wife and I both teach it. And she has been working actually with the with the founder of this practice for I think, like more than 10 years together,

may have to come to California and visit you.

Yeah, so we have a lot of space here for sure.

Or Canada, you know, you can come to Canada too. Anyways, thank you so much Moritz it's been great chatting with you. And hopefully, you guys have heard learned a little bit about powerlessness to passion. There's so much more we could say about this. We just sort of touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this. But we could talk all day and and never get to the bottom of it. So if you have any questions for either of us reach out, I'd love for you to join my community Breaking Free Authentically. And you can find all the links to my websites and my community in the show notes