00:00:02.92
fsb
Today's episode of the post game is about being comfortable in the darkness. Welcome to the father son's brothers podcast. That's Gareth. Today's episode is a post game of an experience that I went through last week, which was spending five days and five nights in what's called a darkness retreat, going into a completely dark space by myself, spending five days and five nights there. And Using this opportunity to reflect on my experience there and hopefully share some of the magic of what I learned and to share a little bit more about this medicine of a solo dark retreat. Why you might be interested in doing it, why it doesn't sound like collegeliary solitary confinement even though that's what it is in some ways and
00:00:49.19
fsb
Kicking today's show off, I am going to be introducing somebody who you've seen on the podcast before, Mr. Leonard Lowe. And one of the most beautiful things about this podcast that I needed to get over for myself was the idea that it needed to be perfect or to look a specific way. So when we first started the Father's Sons Brothers podcast, we had an agreement that we would do one episode a week for 12 weeks. And something about that rigid structure was important for us to get the show out.
00:01:16.08
fsb
But when I did a post game of the first season, the first 12 episodes of the podcast, I noticed what made me feel a lot more comfortable was just being like, it doesn't have to look anyway. Let out short versions of the podcast, long form conversations, co-create with Matt, co-create by myself, co-create with other men inside the tribe. And today's one of those opportunities where Since I got out of the dog retreat, Leonard has been asking some amazing questions about yeah my experience and lots of people have been asking me, how was it? Share what was going on there. And so we knew there was going to be a post game about the dog retreat. Matt happens to be really busy in his life in in Spain. So ah it's with great pleasure that I bring back onto the show Mr. Leonard Lowe from Cape Town. How's it brother?
00:01:58.83
Lenerd Louw
Hey Gareth, it's great talking to you again. I always love our chats. Good seeing you, man.
00:02:04.63
fsb
Yeah, thank you for your your interest and your support, not only leading up to the dark retreat, but also your thoughts. I know you said a few times you were like living your life during those five days going like, shit, Gareth's still in the dark.
00:02:16.46
fsb
And I realized that I had that before when I had a friend who did a 10-day silent retreat. And I was like, fuck, I'd been living my life. And every time I reflected on where he was, I was like, wow, he's still in silence. And so I know that feeling of having a mate inside a container and then reflecting on where they are. And so, yeah, we're gonna be using this post-game format for Leonard to ask some of the questions that he had around the doc retreat. This is my second time going into the doc.
00:02:43.21
fsb
and Leonard has an interest in it. And so we thought we'd record our conversation. He has a few questions about the dark retreats. I have a few experiences that I'd like to share and um yeah, super jazz to be having this conversation with you, bro.
00:02:56.12
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, that's so cool chatting and you you said you had, this is the second time, how long was the previous one? Also five days or three days or different?
00:03:04.74
fsb
It was the same. The first time was the same amount of time. Uh, obviously the difference between the first and the second time is the second time you've done one before. So you sort of know what's coming.
00:03:14.19
Lenerd Louw
ah Awesome, man. Now listen, this has always called me. I haven't done it yet, but now that you've done it, I think that's calling me stronger and the hearing some of some of my questions answered maybe even stronger.
00:03:25.85
fsb
Uh-huh.
00:03:30.41
fsb
Mhmm.
00:03:30.46
Lenerd Louw
So the first first question is, why the hell would you do it?
00:03:36.72
Lenerd Louw
And what was your intention? ah Yeah, just broadly speaking, but wait what what made you jump?
00:03:44.25
fsb
um from the man who wrote the book called jump um this is ah you know I've always had this practice in my life over the last few years of being really focused on my personal development. I recognize in my own life that The more that I improve the relationship that I have with myself, the better I am with all the other things in my life. Meaning, when I show up and do the work for me, I'm a better lover, I'm a better leader in my business, I feel more comfortable with my money game. All the things that tend to draw my attention and my energy tend to be a reflection of of the stability that I create with myself. And so there's a part of me
00:04:20.75
fsb
that has this lack strong, I call him my drill sergeant. He's the oak who makes me get out there and get into the ice bath every day and move my body and exercise. In that, I know that doing those hard things makes my life easier somehow. And I think there's a part of me that wants to just live an easy, abundant, carefree life. And so I continually say yes to these personal development challenges. And what I notice is often when something comes into my awareness and I feel contraction or a bit of like fear around it,
00:04:48.91
fsb
I've recognized that there's magic there for me. So the first time I heard about a 10-day silent retreat, I was like, not a fuck, why would you want to do that? I then went through the process of sitting through that 10-day silent retreat and noticed how much magic there was for me in doing that.
00:05:02.11
fsb
And so the dark retreat the first time was the same thing. I was like, why on earth would you do that? That sounds scary as hell.
00:05:08.86
Lenerd Louw
Mm.
00:05:09.02
fsb
And then I'm like, well, there's probably some magic in there for me. And so anchored in this continual life practice that I have for myself, but also what we bring to the tribe. Leonard is part of the Father, Son, Brother's tribe is going through these, call them initiations, where the version of you that goes into the thing whether it's a vision quest or a Vipassana or a ISTE training or something like this, you come out the other side a different person because you've been through some transformational experience that is held in a specific way that allows you to reconnect with certain parts of yourself or identify or recognize that there's stories running. And so my my main intention going in this time was to sit and to make sure that I'm listening to the parts of myself that I don't always listen to.
00:05:58.06
fsb
You and I have spoken about this before, this analogy of the inner kingdom. Like, I see my world and my being as a kingdom. And the voices in my head are all different characters. They've all got the microphone from time to time.
00:06:08.35
fsb
And the drill sergeants are saying, go and do VPassana, go and do pushups. go yeah The CEO is like, make sure you create podcasts and make offers to make money. And so all these different voices come at various times.
00:06:19.09
Lenerd Louw
Mm.
00:06:19.66
fsb
And I think these are what develop the strategies in my life that support the decisions that I make. So when the decisions that I make are a function of all of these voices, And some of these voices are wounded. There's some there's ah there's a pal polite boy that exists inside me that's always people pleasing the world. And so five days and five nights without any distraction, no lights, no mobile phone, no connection to the outside world is really just a chance for me to sit and to be with myself. And but my desire was to sit and see the voices that I'm not listening to in my everyday life because I'm busy.
00:06:53.18
fsb
You can't avoid those those voices when you're alone in the dark for five days. So yeah, that was that was one of my main intentions going into into the dark.
00:07:03.22
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, I must say it was a challenge. Challenging Gareth was a tough, you know, because I was thinking I just, you know, last week I was here in Scarborough and kept on it from walking.
00:07:14.72
Lenerd Louw
I went, oh, Gareth is in the dark room now. You popped into my mind, you know, I'll see you in the middle of your journey. And I went and I had a sort back when I
00:07:20.88
fsb
ah
00:07:24.76
Lenerd Louw
I was in Copenhagen, did a month-long tantra training. um And then after that month, I had had another month where I was just on the on the beach, of but hat on the beach that I lived in.
00:07:36.53
Lenerd Louw
And I decided I'm not going to do anything for a month. I tell you, that second month was much more challenging than the first month with all the vulnerability and all the tough exercises that you do in this month-long tantra workshop.
00:07:48.71
Lenerd Louw
Just being, not doing anything was for me much more challenging.
00:07:49.64
fsb
Uh
00:07:53.14
Lenerd Louw
And there you could go and you could go and get breakfast.
00:07:53.65
fsb
-huh.
00:07:56.22
Lenerd Louw
You could jump in and see. But still, I tell you, it was super challenging. And after the months of not doing anything, I learned a lot. um But it was challenging. you know And as I say, there's a lot of other stuff to do.
00:08:06.47
Lenerd Louw
You go and you drive around and you can go for dances and stuff.
00:08:07.28
fsb
Uh
00:08:11.00
Lenerd Louw
um So yeah, ah you were in my thoughts, man.
00:08:11.24
fsb
-huh.
00:08:14.48
Lenerd Louw
that what What happens? What comes up? the you know How doubt tough is it? How difficult is it? um
00:08:23.85
fsb
You know that I want to come back and ask you a question about the why that second month is so tough. But I notice and this is true. I think most people listening to this will agree we're living in a world where we're continually more and more busy.
00:08:35.95
fsb
The technology is continually calling for our attention in a way that we've we've never had this before. And it continues to get stronger and stronger the more we move more of our life onto our devices.
00:08:46.48
fsb
You know, I want to set it
00:08:47.68
Lenerd Louw
Ha,
00:08:48.51
fsb
an alarm. I want to play music. I want to check my bank. I need to send a message to Leonard. All of that stuff is happening through this device.
00:08:53.02
Lenerd Louw
ha, ha.
00:08:53.64
fsb
And so I believe that our attention is the most precious thing we have. I think it's more it's more precious than time. And the reason is, is that you can waste time putting your attention on stuff that doesn't matter.
00:09:05.82
fsb
But when you're conscious of where you place your attention, these are the the time spent under attention is what manifests into your world. And so Yeah, going to these places where you can genuinely be by yourself and tune into...
00:09:20.71
fsb
Where am I placing my attention? Oh, look at that. I'm running a story about an ex-lover from 25 years ago, or I'm worried about the conversation I had yesterday, which in the scheme of things makes no fucking difference. I'm not in the present moment. And I think that's, I've been getting to these places of wanting to cultivate more present moment awareness, because this is our point of power. It doesn't matter the story I tell about last week, or what I think might happen tomorrow now is my point of power. And so that's, that's like a strong desire. And so,
00:09:49.40
fsb
By the nature of these initiations, it's different for everybody. It depends on what shit you're carrying. It depends where you what your state of mind is going in. I think it depends on your personal practices.
00:09:59.24
Lenerd Louw
That's true.
00:09:59.85
fsb
I went in feeling super strong. I've been over the last few months really focusing on my meditation morning and evening, being super grounded, super present in my life and feeling pretty good. So I was like, this should be easy.
00:10:11.86
fsb
I got in there on the first day, I was just settling in, getting set up on my in my flow, finding my way around the room because you can't see anything in this room.
00:10:12.11
Lenerd Louw
Mm.
00:10:20.11
fsb
um I'll actually edit it a little piece over this of this video so you can see the size of the room. but It's basically four by four. It's got a bed, it's got a small little bench, a shelf to put your clothes, a basin to wash your hands, a composting toilet and a shower.
00:10:35.16
fsb
And you've just got to navigate yourself around that space. I've taken a yoga mat and That was pretty much it. And so the first day was good, sitting there by myself just settling in.
00:10:46.88
fsb
And then the second day came and I was like, whoa, I could not get away from thoughts of sexual fantasies from our past and future projected sexual fantasies of things that I still want to do in my life.
00:11:00.22
fsb
And I was sitting there, I was sitting there going like, hold on a second.
00:11:00.72
Lenerd Louw
Perfect.
00:11:05.07
fsb
I've been meditating. I know that I'm not my thoughts. I can watch them and let them go. And I think I've been pretty good at that. Day two in the dark, I was like, OK, there's a story. I let it go. Not five seconds later, I realized I'm stuck in another timeline thinking about something from the past. And for the entire the entire second day, I could not find ease in this inner kingdom. Some part of me was continually like looking for it for stories or running stories around intimacy. And yeah, I got into I got into bed that night and I was like, I don't ah
00:11:39.12
fsb
I don't know if I can do another four days of this, just this continual bombardment of of intimacy and and stuff like that. And so, yeah, it got me to this place of tuning in. And I think this the third day was really the one of the important days on this experience for me, which was checking in with my inner kingdom, like, what is going on? Why why is this coming up in this way? And um when I tune into what was what was coming up for me,
00:12:07.80
fsb
The voices that i that I heard were the three characters or citizens in my inner kingdom that don't have a voice. It's the animal, my bull, who likes to be in the body, who likes to have sex, who likes to eat food, who likes to be in the world. It's the tiger and it's the dragon, the dark masculine energy, and all of those are connected to intimacy.
00:12:30.73
fsb
And myself and my partner Araminta, Leonard, you know this, and we have spoken about it before on the pod, are in a place in our relationship where our intimacy has taken a different rhythm as she's going through perimenopause, not feeling super connected to her body.
00:12:45.23
fsb
And so we've been navigating how do we cultivate intimacy in our connection, still move sexual energy between us when she's not feeling it and we're in a monogamous container. And so what I recognized is on day two, as soon as I wasn't distracting myself, these three parts that love to run intimacy to feel wanted to move sexual energy were in the corner of the kingdom just going like, ahm making a huge amount of noise. Like they haven't been seen over the last few months.
00:13:14.98
Lenerd Louw
Okay.
00:13:15.32
fsb
and And some part of me has been like stoically showing up for my relationship, like, I'm here for this, I'm i'm here for this no matter what. And I'm gonna be with this and, you know, Mint and I are gonna spend our lives together, which I'm clear about. And the animals are like, when are we gonna fuck again? Like, what is going on? Like, I just wanna, they wanna move this energy. and And so, yeah, this is like one of them the things that comes from this is just,
00:13:43.02
fsb
What was also super interesting is on day two, realizing immediately when these uncomfortable feelings came, I had a strong hit to have cannabis. And I think that's what's come up in my life in the past has been like, when those parts feel uncomfortable, cannabis makes the whole kingdom just go like, oh, yeah, we're okay for now. Things are good. The animals calm down and just chill in the corner for a bit.
00:14:06.87
fsb
but it's not getting to the root of the problem. It's not a healthy expression of actually letting that energy run and move, it's more masking it. And so, yeah, those I think those were two pieces of absolute gold that came from from the time there, but ah it was more difficult on those two days than I than i had anticipated it would be.
00:14:24.40
Lenerd Louw
Once we're following that, I've got a few other questions, but once we're following that role, that that that timeline, and then day three, four, five, a brief summary of how you your five days went.
00:14:30.23
fsb
Mm-hmm.
00:14:35.86
fsb
So the day they all fucking merge into each other to be honest because you're in complete darkness. You can hear you can hear the birds outside and you get a a meal through the door in the morning at 9 30 and then another one at at around 4 30. I chose to fast the last two days so I wrote a little note in the dark and I put into the little box where they deliver the food and I said I i just want tea for the last two days.
00:15:00.96
fsb
You know, the last two days, I think what I really noticed was I could just the fact that these three parts of myself were seen and I was like, okay, I see what this is now.
00:15:07.75
Lenerd Louw
Hmm.
00:15:09.83
fsb
Fuck, it felt like so much of the energy just dissipated. I didn't almost have to do anything. It was just like that they were seen was important.
00:15:14.51
Lenerd Louw
Right.
00:15:16.84
fsb
So I really found my flow in the last two days and it was about really integrating some of that stuff. I did a lot of emotional release and a lot of self pleasure around around this theme, just being with myself and moving my sexual energy and moving my emotional energy, there the rage and frustration. But I also then noticed that my meditations were a lot more calm and the days are still long. You know you sit in that dark room by yourself and you lie around and just stare up at the wall and you know just wait for the the time to pass, which is the nature of being alone by yourself. Like you said, a month just sitting on the beach by yourself. It's it's surprisingly hard to do. We find ourselves, I find myself
00:15:56.68
fsb
always doing. There's always something to do. There's a to do list. There's another thing to record. I've got a meeting to have someone I want to hang out with. Oh, I haven't moved my body today. There's always something to do. And we don't spend a lot of time just being so. Yeah, once I've moved through these pieces, it it felt like it was a little bit more flow. And it really felt like those last few days with the integration of that, of that strong lesson through, through the emotional release and aspecting and self pleasuring.
00:16:20.81
Lenerd Louw
I'm happy to hear that you were not stopping your self-pleasing practice whilst you were there.
00:16:25.91
fsb
No, bro.
00:16:25.87
Lenerd Louw
and
00:16:26.27
fsb
And also, in some ways, I i saw this as a... I saw this as a bit of a honeymoon. Well, that's not really a honeymoon, but like a time to be with myself. And these practices are ah something that I'm cultivating, but when you have nothing else to do, it's like, okay, I don't do as much emotional release as I think would serve me.
00:16:44.10
fsb
Meaning, I know it's good for me to move my emotional body, but to just go and bang pillows and fucking rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. I tend to only do that when I'm feeling that I'm really triggered, but I think it's good luck going to the gym to move your body even when you don't feel like it.
00:16:59.16
fsb
I don't always do that.
00:16:59.41
Lenerd Louw
You know,
00:17:00.02
fsb
So a part of it is like, okay, I'm gonna go into the dark for five days. I'm gonna make space for all of these practices, self-pleasuring, aspecting, and emotional release. We're definitely part of that too.
00:17:10.65
Lenerd Louw
when are we talking self-pleasuring, you know, we mean masturbation, without, with ejaculation, without, but yeah, just enjoying your body and enjoying the, you know, the Tom, I like that, you know, anyone with yourself, that's beautiful actually.
00:17:14.91
fsb
Yes.
00:17:29.09
Lenerd Louw
um
00:17:29.22
fsb
Yeah.
00:17:29.94
Lenerd Louw
yeah Yeah, the other question has I think you've answered was the, because that was something that came up for me is that, okay, so how long do you know you're there?
00:17:39.91
Lenerd Louw
You know, because there's not, I take it there's no clock or whatever, obviously it's pitch dark, there's no nothing else, terms of time.
00:17:45.16
fsb
No.
00:17:47.90
Lenerd Louw
So there's no day and night. And and then, You know, sometimes what came up for me was thinking that you may be there for a for only a day, but it could feel like five days and you're waiting for the guys to open the door.
00:18:02.21
Lenerd Louw
Or you could be, feel like a day or two and it's already five days and then all of a sudden the guys come.
00:18:08.92
fsb
No, it's the first one. It's the first one.
00:18:12.79
Lenerd Louw
Okay.
00:18:13.12
fsb
It doesn't suddenly speed past.
00:18:13.83
Lenerd Louw
Okay.
00:18:14.92
fsb
It's like, it's it time stretches out in a way that I don't experience it anywhere else. Five days feels really long because, you know, what else happens is as soon as you get into the dark, your natural synchronization with your circadian rhythms is gone because you don't see light.
00:18:19.85
Lenerd Louw
Okay.
00:18:30.01
fsb
And so what happens there is that, and from what I understand is that the body takes rest on the first few days. I slept super well, super long, like 12 hours or something. that my sleep cycle at night becomes shorter and shorter. It's like the body is feeling rested and because it's in a state of meditation and relaxation all the time, the emotional state between sleep and awake feels like it's quite close to one another, meaning like I'm just chilling and meditating in the dark most of the day. That's not dissimilar to lying down in my bed and being asleep for that time. And so when I decide I want to sleep in inverted commas and I lie in my bed,
00:19:03.34
fsb
It's like, oh, I just lie awake for hours and hours and hours, not able to fall asleep. So again, there's that like time stretch where you would normally sleep for eight hours. I think the last night I slept for maybe three.
00:19:14.45
fsb
And yeah, and because you don't know what the time is, the only way you can tell what the time is, is if there's birds outside or not. But that's also that's also a mind fuck because on the last night I go to sleep and I'm like, oh, sweet, I'm coming out tomorrow morning at 5 a.m.
00:19:22.87
Lenerd Louw
All
00:19:29.98
fsb
So I hear the birds sort of starting to quieten down the in the evening before. And I'm like, I'm wanting to get out now. So obviously there's a part of me that's like, fuck, I'm done with this. I'm well done. You've completed it.
00:19:40.12
fsb
i Let's get out.
00:19:41.15
Lenerd Louw
right.
00:19:41.67
fsb
So I'm sitting there in meditation in the afternoon, again, not sure what the time is because it's complete darkness. And I hear the birds starting to quieten down. And then there's no birds. And I'm like, cool. It's nighttime now.
00:19:52.02
fsb
And then suddenly they'll start up again. I'll be like, oh no, not nighttime yet. And then they carry on for like another hour or two hours.
00:19:55.42
Lenerd Louw
Yeah.
00:19:57.55
fsb
And I'm like, you have no idea what time is. Eventually it starts to stop. And then there's complete silence for a decent amount of time. And I'm like, okay, so now it must be nighttime. All I need to do is go to sleep and then I'll wake up tomorrow and then I'm done with this whole experience.
00:20:09.95
fsb
And I'm feeling excited about getting out. Anyway, I lie in bed for a good few hours. Don't fall asleep. Then fall asleep. And I don't know how long I'll fall asleep for. And I wake up and I'm like, okay.
00:20:21.03
fsb
Is it 10.30 at night or is it 4.30 in the morning? I have no idea where I'm at. So should I be trying to go back to sleep or should I be getting up and getting ready to go?
00:20:27.38
Lenerd Louw
Mm.
00:20:28.79
fsb
And so you lie around waiting for the birds to come again and nothing. So you're in this like liminal space where you genuinely have no idea what time it is and you're just having to sit with that. today
00:20:39.15
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, and I can just imagine that you could also lose track of count because I get it, you know, it's five days. So after one, you know, you hear the birds and know whatever the next day and the food, maybe two meals a day, I think you said, you know, so maybe you can count there.
00:20:54.68
Lenerd Louw
But you can also, you know, by two or three or four, My understanding is you get can get a bit disorientated. You may lose track of of of time. That's just a thought I had. And you may think you are tomorrow, but you actually missed a day, you either added today or subtracted today.
00:21:09.15
Lenerd Louw
So it can be ah quite a bit of a mindful.
00:21:10.06
fsb
That happened on my first one.
00:21:11.76
Lenerd Louw
ah
00:21:11.83
fsb
and That happened on my first one where I was like, yeah, where i where I was like, am I coming out tomorrow or the next day?
00:21:12.62
Lenerd Louw
and
00:21:17.29
fsb
I eventually had to write on the thing and say, am I coming out in two days time or one day time? Because that's exactly that I was like, It just blows into each other. there's no There's no real distinction except for some birds in the box where the food comes through.
00:21:28.35
fsb
You have no idea what's what time it is there.
00:21:30.31
Lenerd Louw
Okay, so you're expert now, your second time around. No, I promise you, that's what I thought.
00:21:34.83
fsb
No.
00:21:36.01
Lenerd Louw
I thought that could happen. I mean, I know of a guy, I don't know if you can come across as a guy that, a teacher in India, in a Dalai Lama village, where he, Siddharth Kundalini, second geometry, Siddharth Kundalini initiation.
00:21:50.37
Lenerd Louw
And this guy, this crazy Australian guy, went in for three months, Garth.
00:21:55.39
fsb
Yeah, that's the, it's the the normal cycle for this practice, the Buddhist, the Buddhist temple, or the Buddhist tradition of this is seven cycles of seven.
00:21:55.97
Lenerd Louw
Three months? That's crazy. Okay.
00:22:04.74
fsb
So it's ah seven weeks, 49, 49 days.
00:22:05.22
Lenerd Louw
Okay.
00:22:08.72
fsb
So I think that's a little shorter than what you're talking about. But the same thing.
00:22:12.67
Lenerd Louw
Well, it's like, right ah so I'll sort of ask you because, I mean, obviously trusted guy, you're actually an amazing, amazing guy.
00:22:13.15
fsb
It's, it's a lot.
00:22:19.79
Lenerd Louw
um But afterwards, I was thinking that I, when I repeated this to someone, that I hear wrong, you know, is it possible? So, so that was this, that must be, that must be just even, even more. So, yeah, I think he said you you basically there wasn't in his body anymore.
00:22:33.08
Lenerd Louw
him And then he was, he was in that room, but he wasn't in his body, him and his body were like, you know, two different things.
00:22:37.96
fsb
Mm hmm.
00:22:39.62
Lenerd Louw
um
00:22:40.32
fsb
I can't imagine. I mean, five days has been my longest. I can't imagine what it would be like to stay to stay longer. What I can share is what starts to happen is on day two, you start to get these like flashes of light that come into your experience.
00:22:52.67
fsb
So you're in the dark. but there's like a ah sort of a flashing light that comes. And so how I understand it to work is that the brain starts to create pre-DMT, DMT, and then full pineal gland activation that comes from being in the dark as a function of the time spent without access to light. And so that happened in the first one and it happened again, stronger this second time round, but I think that gets stronger and stronger the longer that you're in and There's often the sense of like being in the space with your eyes open or closed that actually makes no difference.
00:23:26.66
fsb
There's this general sense that, ah, I can feel some light coming in from here, even though you know him in complete darkness, it feels like there's light.
00:23:29.84
Lenerd Louw
All
00:23:32.14
fsb
But when you turn to look at it, that same light spot is now behind you again.
00:23:35.20
Lenerd Louw
right.
00:23:36.30
fsb
And so you're like, there's this feeling that there's light there, but it's actually just like a a trick of the brain that comes in.
00:23:38.56
Lenerd Louw
it
00:23:43.36
fsb
It started to get stronger and stronger to the point where I experienced the stronger on the second time, with it meaning this last retreat that I did, was that the mind then also starts to get, let me say this differently,
00:23:55.91
fsb
As you walk around the room, you have no clue where it is. You you go in with a candle. This is how it starts. You go in with a candle. You unpack your stuff. You see yourself around the room. You get orientated. And then you say, OK, I'm going in. You close the door. You have this candle. And you settle into the space. And when you're ready to start your dark retreat, you blow the candle out. And that's how the the retreat unfolds. That's how your time unfolds. So that's how you go into the darkness. So you have an idea where the bed is. And you have an idea where the shower is and stuff.
00:24:24.55
fsb
And so you blow the candle out and now you not need to remember where these things are.
00:24:24.73
Lenerd Louw
Yeah.
00:24:28.22
fsb
So you spent pretty much the whole five days walking super fucking slowly with your hand out in front of you, making sure that you know where the wall is and the toilets here. The first three times I took a piss, I was missing the toilet and I was like, okay, I'm just gonna pee standing down because I can feel, i don't I don't know where I'm going.
00:24:44.70
fsb
I can feel where I think it might be, but like, I don't wanna clean up every time I have a pee because I can't see where I'm peeing. So I'm always sitting down to pee.
00:24:51.10
Lenerd Louw
Uh.
00:24:52.70
fsb
and After five days, my mind is starting to make sense of where it thinks the world is. And this continual light source is actually getting stronger. And it became really sort of disorientating for me on the last day, the last sort of 48 hours, which was the mind is starting to make pictures of where it thinks things are in the room based on where I think they are. And this light that I think I can see, it's so and it's an illusion of light because there's no light in there.
00:25:20.93
Lenerd Louw
Mm.
00:25:20.98
fsb
And I know that, for example, there's like a, the whole thing is made of stone. So I'm like, I can see stone walls all around me. I sit down to have a pee and I look down and I can see my feet like as a ah ah shadow of my feet. But when I put my hand down there to touch them, that's not my feet. Like I'm starting to create pictures of what I think is in my world using this light and it it's fucking, this it's it's easier not being able to see because your brain doesn't think it knows what's there. It's just forcing its way around. But that was super challenging in the last 48 hours.
00:25:49.14
Lenerd Louw
Gareth, that's amazing. you know if I've had been having those experiences where I close my eyes. It's often when I go to sleep at night or in the morning. but like And I close my eyes and I can actually see things.
00:25:59.69
Lenerd Louw
But the you know as if there's stuff happening out of the window, lying where my eyes are closed and i but I see the trees and this and that and whatever, whatever. But if I open my eyes, they're actually not there.
00:26:08.78
fsb
Uh huh.
00:26:10.81
Lenerd Louw
It's dark woods or I wasn't looking at the wall.
00:26:11.21
fsb
Yeah. Mm hmm.
00:26:13.67
Lenerd Louw
Fascinating. Sounds like a little bit similar.
00:26:17.19
fsb
Yeah, you know, the there's something for me in One of the things I've been passionate about, we've spoken about this a few times, is reality creation, like reality hacking.
00:26:25.93
Lenerd Louw
Mm
00:26:26.32
fsb
What does what does it mean to live in reality? And most of us create a reality based on our stories, past and ah past and future, and what what unfolds. As a society specifically in the West, we've become disconnected from other realms of reality, meaning what makes your dream space less real than your everyday waking state in inverted commas?
00:26:50.22
fsb
The difference between the reality is that we as a species have prioritized our waking life as somewhat more important than our dream life.
00:26:51.13
Lenerd Louw
-hmm.
00:26:57.85
fsb
This is the this is the version that matters because I can hold up this water bottle and it's solid. But when I go to sleep tonight and I hold up the same water bottle, that reality is not much different to this.
00:27:08.58
fsb
It's just on a different vibrational frequency and there's not much difference. And a lot of the the dream yoga traditions and um the ability to be able to do astral travel and those sorts of things really give you an opportunity to access or to wake up into other states of reality through things like dreaming.
00:27:11.99
Lenerd Louw
Beautiful.
00:27:27.01
fsb
And that was one of my intentions going into the dark as well as to continue to deepen my practice with lucid dreaming. And while I didn't get lucid in the, in the dark retreats, I'll say you one thing, which is quite funny. It's like one of the ways to get lucid in a dream is to, first of all, set an intention that you're going to wake up in the dream.
00:27:46.48
fsb
And then have a plan of what you're going to do when you wake up in the dream. And so for anybody that's had a lucid dream before, it's the idea of waking up inside a dream so your body is asleep and a version of you knows that you're awake in your dream and you get to run opportunities, fantasies, um train, do all sorts of different things in the dream space.
00:28:07.11
fsb
free of the constraints of this reality meaning you could I could say okay I'm going to go and visit Leonard in Cape Town and suddenly I'm there because I don't have the constraints of Ashley having to move that reality doesn't have the the same constraints as the 3D realm in which I live when I'm awake. So I'm setting the intention in the dark room i'm and I'm got about to go to sleep and I say to myself the next time I see anything I'm going to know that I'm dreaming because I'm in darkness. So as soon as I see anything, I'm going to do a reality check. I will realize that it's a dream and then I'm going to be lucid and I'll wake up in my dream. And so that was the practice. The second, I think I'm over in the third night, I set this intention. I fall asleep at some point and then in my dream,
00:28:50.74
fsb
I dream that I break out of the dark room and I'm suddenly out in the light and I'm like, ah, I can see. And so I don't do a reality check because in my dream I'm like, oh, I've broken out of the dark. I'm free to just be myself again.
00:29:02.49
fsb
And then I wake up a couple hours later and I'm like, fuck, I'm back in the dark.
00:29:02.82
Lenerd Louw
Hm.
00:29:05.47
fsb
And that was a dream. But thela this line between awake and asleep and the reality of being in this body in a dark room versus the version of me that traveled in my dream space.
00:29:17.53
fsb
those veils become pretty thin in the dark. And I think, you know, this, I was only in for five days. I could imagine, you know, the type of person you're talking about who goes in forth for three months and is sitting there, you know, there's probably not much difference, you know, your body's there, but you're just continually journeying in these different realms as a function of sleep states and awake states. So yeah.
00:29:38.20
fsb
it's
00:29:38.86
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, my intuition and my gut feel says to me, I don't think it's, well, for me, my truth is a good thing to do three months. I definitely want to do the five days, maybe 10 days, but three, I don't know. I don't know. I think there's something there, but losing a total reality of this life.
00:29:53.66
fsb
ah
00:29:56.66
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, dreaming, that's super interesting. Yeah, I know. You said dreaming is, it's, yeah, that's an amazing experience.
00:30:01.81
fsb
Do you get lucid?
00:30:03.84
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, yeah. i i had yeah i the i never I never trained in it. ah I just started happening to me and then I was in London and a friend of mine said, to come to this to talk tonight.
00:30:17.35
Lenerd Louw
And I went to this talk and here's Charlie Morley talking about this thing. And I went, oh fuck, this is what I'm doing. And he's the lucid dreaming guy you know in the UK.
00:30:24.99
fsb
He's my teacher.
00:30:25.02
Lenerd Louw
and
00:30:26.01
fsb
I love him.
00:30:26.37
Lenerd Louw
Oh, wow.
00:30:26.57
fsb
He's so cool.
00:30:26.77
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, he's amazing. I met the guy. And I mean, I went, oh, fuck, I'm doing this thing. So it just started it happening to me, Gareth. But then I did actually, I signed up for a mentor's course.
00:30:37.33
Lenerd Louw
I know your partner does the lucid dreaming. I fortunately did.
00:30:39.87
fsb
Hmm.
00:30:40.79
Lenerd Louw
Of course, I still want to complete it. So it's definitely calling me. um Yeah, no, for me, it's I mean, I had one other day where I had a blowjob from the Queen of England, the young version, the early 20 year old younger version.
00:30:45.13
fsb
Wow.
00:30:56.23
Lenerd Louw
in the and this crazy room with his red colors and stuff. And I knew it was a dream because it was so surreal. And I went, oh fuck, this was a dream. So, and then I played around bit with that, but I didn't wake up out of the dream.
00:31:06.66
fsb
wow
00:31:10.34
Lenerd Louw
But yeah, yeah.
00:31:11.25
fsb
Talk about being in your king.
00:31:13.31
Lenerd Louw
ah ah Yeah, exactly. I knew it was absurd. All these high ceilings with the chandeliers and just this 22-year-old version and she was much more beautiful than she was at 21. So yeah, so it's ah it's amazing what one can do with this. um
00:31:27.23
fsb
fuck dude I'm actually just realizing now, this is mark for those of you that are watching on the video version, this is my notebook that I took in with me.
00:31:27.90
Lenerd Louw
yeah
00:31:36.16
fsb
Notice all of the writing is pretty messy and pretty sideways. But I noticed that I remember now that you're talking, Bruce. I was with Leonard. We had lost my bags. We were supposed to travel somewhere. This is one of the dreams that I had in the dark. I had a dream of you. I dreamt that we were traveling somewhere. I had lost my bags and I went to the airport without it. And you were going to bring them because you live close to the airport, but you didn't bring them. And then you came to me and we had a conversation where you said, listen, I'm feeling really swag because I had
00:32:10.43
fsb
lived so close and I didn't bring your bags and you just sort of wanted to apologize for me but I actually forgot that I'd had a dream of you inside the dock where ah yeah you didn't bring my bags even though you lived close to the airport I don't know what it signified but yeah it was interesting yeah that's okay you were busy getting a blowjob from the Queen no problem
00:32:23.33
Lenerd Louw
I'm sorry man.
00:32:29.79
Lenerd Louw
Oh, the queen kept me busy. Oh, that's amazing. go So that's actually cool. That's actually very clever. So you can obviously go and see what you're writing, but you have a book there. And that's actually very, I mean, that if I do it, that could be a good.
00:32:40.68
fsb
So the book the book in the pen, it was was a game changer for me the first time.
00:32:41.83
Lenerd Louw
ah
00:32:44.64
fsb
I noticed I didn't write so much this time. But the first time I went in, I was writing and writing and writing whatever came through. But you need to have a system because you can't see where you've written and you need to remember where you finished. Otherwise, you write over what you've already written if you don't put the pen in the right place and remember because you you don't know what you've written on the page.
00:33:00.61
fsb
so But that did create a lot of space.
00:33:01.54
Lenerd Louw
Yeah.
00:33:02.97
fsb
And as I'm reading this, I'm realizing there's another piece of gold here, which was
00:33:09.41
fsb
I also had a dream that that second night, which was before this like anxiety of all the sexual frustration, I had dreamt that I was in, I'd been thinking about South Africa as well. We spoke before we started recording here that I'm coming back to South Africa at some point. And I'm looking forward to coming back and seeing friends and family, but also I want to get back into the bush and see some some animals. And so I think that had been ah alive in my experience.
00:33:32.03
fsb
In my dream, I dream that I'm on a game drive, like on a safari drive, and I see a whole lot of animals that have been mauled, but not eaten. So like a whole line of elephants and all of them have got like something that's been mauled out of them, like ah something's attacked them, but not eaten them. So what ah what I took from that was like an animal that's just fucking angry, but not actually killing for the sake of food. It's just like running this, only to realize now that as I'm sitting with this, like that feels like Ivan, my tiger,
00:34:02.07
fsb
who was busy being anxious in the corner and perhaps not getting the space that he wants, I think in my dream space, he was the one, um my subconscious is projecting that into the the game drive where all of these animals have been mauled but not eaten, is the angry animal which was the tiger that sort of unfolded for me in the days afterwards, which is, I don't know, I find this stuff so interesting, like the projection of what happens in our dream space and what it could potentially unlock or be pointing to in my physical reality. But that was, I just realized that now as I'm reading through this, ah these notes that I made in the doc, that I think it was my tiger. I think some part of me was like fucking angry because of like, you know, this intimacy not moving in my world and just like, yeah, just creating havoc on this game drive or out in nature.
00:34:46.15
Lenerd Louw
You know, that's awesome. You know, I know it seems like an accelerated thing, you know, when you wake up in the middle of the night with, you know, just these emotions coming up and then putting it in a five days in a dark space, similar. You know, I almost had a boga journey also. There's only a day or two, but these things coming up, you know, this voice is coming up. Yes, Geras, that's inspiring, man. I think I'm going to do this thing and we'll just find a place.
00:35:11.80
fsb
I want to ask you something. I shared one of the themes which I've got written up on my whiteboard here, which was around fun. And I'll share how I got there. Did you have something that came up for you and I shared that? Or was it just a general inquiry around the theme?
00:35:23.26
Lenerd Louw
oh yes you did it yeah what you did that you posted posted on a father-son brothers group it was something how i actually could potentially remember the words how would it look like if it was fun or more fun something like that exactly i remember the words you mean i looked at it and i went fuck this is also a message for me and i know we
00:35:30.08
fsb
Yeah.
00:35:37.51
fsb
Exactly. how How would this look if it was fun?
00:35:50.06
Lenerd Louw
We have like, as it's amazing, we have this similar kind of strange thing happening in our lives, also and sometimes murder or reflection stuff. But yeah, definitely. I read that and I went, I think there's a message in for me.
00:36:03.75
Lenerd Louw
How can it be more fun?
00:36:04.17
fsb
What does it mean for you?
00:36:05.87
Lenerd Louw
I find myself I'm too... I could have more fun in my creation. Not not just a balance. I don't even want to call it work play or work life because work, I think, is also should be play.
00:36:19.11
Lenerd Louw
But actually, that's exactly it.
00:36:19.51
fsb
Yes.
00:36:20.99
Lenerd Louw
That's where I want to get to. I think I got to the last few weeks. I got the second edition of my book and then I was watching watching American ah master classes is two weekends in a row and it's like from five p.m.
00:36:33.99
Lenerd Louw
until three in the next morning.
00:36:35.90
fsb
Uh-huh, I remember.
00:36:35.93
Lenerd Louw
And I think I just lost a little bit the fun of life. you know And I started getting a bit tired and a bit almost exhausted and burnt out like ah the last few days, last week.
00:36:43.32
fsb
Mhm.
00:36:46.39
Lenerd Louw
And I just went, wow, man, there's a message for me. And and and and that's how in previous life, in business space, in corporate space, this is how I really created when I was in having fun. I was having fun creating stuff.
00:36:58.38
fsb
Mhm.
00:36:58.46
Lenerd Louw
And it was a warning signal for me to make sure that I still keep on having fun when I create and not going to this hard drive, masculine mode of reinforcing yourself and you're not loving or kind to yourself.
00:37:14.05
fsb
so good bro that's i mean that's a theme for me as well and that's why it came up because one of the days one of the things that i did was this process of aspecting you know what it is but for for everybody else it's basically an opportunity for you to use like some sense of um an opportunity to have a conversation or open a dialogue with a an inanimate object or somebody that's not actually there. So you can have an aspect in conversation with a past lover where you have you say what it is that you want to say to them and then you move into the space where they are and then just trust whatever comes through your experience as the words that may have come from them or the messages that may come from them. And so one of them for me was I took the opportunity to aspect with
00:37:57.45
fsb
the father son's brothers creation and my business and I was going through the process of moving my emotional energy and asking questions for it.
00:38:01.55
Lenerd Louw
but
00:38:05.76
fsb
And the themes that came up for me were, it's not about the money. So I was like, ah, the business told me this in this process of aspecting where it's like, it's, it's not about the money because there's,
00:38:14.70
Lenerd Louw
hmm
00:38:16.71
fsb
I have in the past held and do still have some threads of a story that somehow my success is a function of dollars in the in the bank or number of, you know, um the the success of a specific launch or something like that. And so you are already successful was one of them. It's not about the money and make sure that this is always fun. Like, cause those were the messages that came through for me around business. And it's this, it's the same theme that you're talking about the part of me that,
00:38:45.89
fsb
that knows what I like to do. And then perhaps from a wounded place, I'm like, all right, I now need to make sure I get the next thing going so that it makes money. And then somehow my success or happiness or validation is linked to the results of that particular campaign or that particular launch. And then the money will come and there'll be more money and then maybe I'll be happy. You know, it's like the message was so clear, dude, you're already successful. It's not about the money and keep having fun. And I was like, yes, I needed to hear it again. And, uh,
00:39:16.39
fsb
It's been so good just having this up on my whiteboard because I noticed that whenever, ah over the last, how long have I been out now? I got out on Friday, today's Tuesday. The last five days have really been like, wherever I feel contraction, I just go like, what would this look like if it was fun? You know, what would it look like if this pile of dishes that's now mine to do in the house look like fun? Next thing I've got some tunes on, I'm dancing in the kitchen, the dishes are doing themselves, I'm just having ah a fun time dancing and moving in the kitchen. It's like, that's what this would look like if it was fun.
00:39:46.72
fsb
And yeah, the same as you, I can feel a part of me that somehow takes the whole thing a bit too seriously. And it makes it takes any of the the the the juiciness of it.
00:39:57.60
fsb
It takes it out completely and makes it feel like work. And not only is it more difficult for me, but I feel less connected to my creativity.
00:40:00.53
Lenerd Louw
Okay. Okay.
00:40:05.51
fsb
The work's not as good or as inspiring. People want to be connected to people that have got a good vibe and fun seems to bring that excitement. to
00:40:13.23
Lenerd Louw
Exactly. And you just used the word creativity there. And on that same day that I saw your whiteboard note, I also looked at my one of my Osho cards, tarot cards, and it was a draw creativity. And I won't talk about how has to summarize the one line that that stood out. I mean, there was so much that was in that.
00:40:33.29
Lenerd Louw
two three paragraphs. But the one was, it's actually not what you do. It's with what feeling ah are you doing it? How how are you doing it? you know Are you being joyful?
00:40:42.89
fsb
Yes, yes.
00:40:43.91
Lenerd Louw
or you you know so And it just went, ah, yeah, you know that's that is so critical. And yeah now it's been very much relevant for me also. In the last few days, the weekend, I thought about exactly that.
00:40:58.29
Lenerd Louw
um Another message that came out, also similar to to this, was Do the things you you you like that light you up and you enjoy. The other stuff, delegate all of it or just don't do it.
00:41:11.54
Lenerd Louw
Because I've got a whiteboard here, probably see a bit of it there with the things to do and things there.
00:41:12.10
fsb
Yes.
00:41:15.97
Lenerd Louw
I think just those things are telling me all the stuff that's sitting there. So part of it I can just wipe out, others I can delegate. And the stuff that is a bit admin that I don't necessarily like doing, I can just change the feeling like you're talking about washing the dishes.
00:41:28.70
fsb
yes
00:41:29.48
Lenerd Louw
putting WhatsApp into business kind of thing is one of the study examples.
00:41:32.05
fsb
Uh-huh.
00:41:35.62
Lenerd Louw
I can actually just make it fun now rather than this admin task that is going to kill me. So I love that Gareth.
00:41:42.20
fsb
Yeah, bro. And that ah that's that's true for for life, I think, you know, the ability with which you you show up for the tasks that your life is calling you to do. knowing what it is that's yours to do and serving that purpose and showing up for it joyfully, even when it feels like doing a tax return or, you know, life's not always gonna be peaches.
00:42:00.72
fsb
But yeah, let go of the stuff that doesn't bring you joy.
00:42:00.95
Lenerd Louw
Sure.
00:42:03.69
fsb
And the things that you have to joy that you have to do that don't feel like they bring you joy, there is a choice. ah You can choose to just be fucking grateful for this pile of dishes that has created all this amazing food for myself.
00:42:12.34
Lenerd Louw
right
00:42:14.55
fsb
It's just a reframe.
00:42:16.28
Lenerd Louw
Sure, sure. No, exactly. I mean, even the tax example, when I, because I mean, I hate admin, but then that's the extreme example of admin. But when I did it, I actually did the last one, I actually enjoyed it, because I love spreadsheets also.
00:42:29.56
Lenerd Louw
So I thought, fuck, let me just enjoy the spreadsheet. And, and I actually got it done in a day. And I've been fucking sitting for six months wanting to do it. And I actually went to do it. And I actually had fun.
00:42:39.19
fsb
ahha Amazing.
00:42:41.04
Lenerd Louw
and i did And it went in and there was no problem with it coming back. So it was probably also with good energy.
00:42:47.26
fsb
Yeah, exactly.
00:42:47.27
Lenerd Louw
Yeah.
00:42:49.10
fsb
one of the One of the things that came through in the dark was some the excitement that I have around the co-creation that you and I have been speaking about at a high level. you know We've been talking about your work and Yeah, how we we can co-create something together. So before before I download that, because a lot of a lot of the creativity pieces and what I'm excited about that came from the doc was the exploration of what a co-creation between you and me could look like. Maybe you want to just share for those of you who haven't checked out the first podcast we had with Leonard. um I will link to that episode in the show notes.
00:43:21.71
fsb
of wherever you're watching this, if you want to hear the conversation where I was interviewing Leonard, as opposed to Leonard interviewing me, share with ah our audience what it is that you do, what lights you up, um what your journey's been and how you came to be doing the work that you're doing at the moment, brother.
00:43:37.87
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, Gareth, as you know, I'm just passionate about um lovemaking and I'm passionate about more people making love and making love more often. it's It's like almost a forgotten thing out there and so many people are disconnected from their sexual energy and and not really living their full potential in in connection, art connection, lovemaking connection, sexual mastery.
00:44:01.14
fsb
and
00:44:05.81
Lenerd Louw
So specifically, as far as men are concerned, you know, um so yeah, I'm just super, super stoked about that. I mean, I saw a stat the other day, I'm sure that with you, I think it came out in the UK, and it it was like men in the ages 18 to 30.
00:44:19.20
Lenerd Louw
And a third of them haven't had sex in the last 12 months. you know, these are guys in their 20s. And then i i see that i i I see that in exactly that same reaction you had then, you know, like it breaks my heart.
00:44:28.57
fsb
What do you think that is?
00:44:34.50
Lenerd Louw
I mean, I can see you had the same result. It really breaks my heart, you know, because I just go like, that is super sad, do you know, they're not experiencing so much of what's Yeah, on this planet, you know, maybe when we finish here, we go to other planets and we like bodies and we saw advance and we don't often eat food and sex, but on this but planet, food and nature and lovemaking is part on us on the menu.
00:45:01.13
Lenerd Louw
Now, why wouldn't you want to do it?
00:45:01.65
fsb
Yeah.
00:45:03.05
Lenerd Louw
You know, so I feel ah feel so sad if I see people and I know what it has done for me in my life, you know, lovemaking, you know,
00:45:03.36
fsb
Yes.
00:45:11.46
Lenerd Louw
the connection of intimacy with someone. um And you ask what I think it is, I think a big part of it is, um I think the screen thing, you know, getting on the screen, I think porn plays a big role, you know,
00:45:27.21
Lenerd Louw
It takes the incentive for away for guys the next day to go and talk to a beautiful woman because watch porn last night and ejaculate it to it so that, you know, that hungriness isn't there the next day. And then it's, you know, it's difficult to approach a beautiful woman or any woman.
00:45:37.43
fsb
Right.
00:45:40.30
Lenerd Louw
So now you're not doing it and then you don't have the opportunity to, to make love. So, so I think it's, I think there's so much, there's there's so many reasons for that. um So yeah, so I'm just super passionate of bringing that, you know,
00:45:55.19
Lenerd Louw
without guilt, shame, and fear ah to the world. And for people just to drop into their sexuality and to understand it better and to master it, and especially for men, and know that that seems to be what's what's driving me at the moment. so
00:46:11.36
fsb
Hmm. Bro, I'm really stoked that you're doing this work. um You have been an inspiration for me on this journey as well. um Ejaculatory Choice, ah for those who haven't checked out that first episode with Leonard, is really the recognition that lovemaking is and experience in and of itself. It's not specifically a goal towards getting to an ejaculation, which I think is where I had my programming for most of my life. My masturbation practice and having sex with somebody was really about a finish, making sure that I ejaculate at the end. And I didn't realize that there was even a thing called ejaculatory choice, meaning you could make love and can make love
00:46:50.40
fsb
for countless hours while not ejaculating. And that brings you back into the body in a different way. It also helps you reclaim and re-harness that energy rather than ejaculating it out. And yeah, I had a relationship with with masturbation for most of my life, which looked like a couple of minutes by myself almost every single day. I didn't realize how depleted I felt until I went on Leonard's 21-day ejaculatory choice journey, which is,
00:47:17.76
fsb
21 days of cultivating these practices of harnessing that seed. That doesn't mean not making love. That doesn't mean no masturbation. It means really coming back into the body and being connected to the sexual energy, but not ejaculating it out. And yeah, I'd love to hear your yeah your experience of um yeah what you've seen, like results that you've seen through the community of men that have been through your 21 day program.
00:47:41.65
Lenerd Louw
Oh, it's been amazing guys, you know, the testimonials I got getting getting out of that is just mind blowing, you know, guys are dropping into, sure, things that that the course is not, e you know, that's that you can't even.
00:47:54.01
Lenerd Louw
put on a webinar or a sales page, you know, things like the one guy just found his inner boy, you know, and he was just, wow, walking around and seeing nature around him. You know, this is not something that you would think you would learn from a sexual mastery course, but it is because you become so aware of his body and then you become aware of everything around him and it flowers in ah in a garden.
00:48:08.54
fsb
Uh huh.
00:48:14.54
fsb
Hmm.
00:48:15.41
Lenerd Louw
um And the same guy Also, he repeated the 21 day and he had this, he shared with us, he made love to his wife three times the night before and he, she, climax every time and he didn't ejaculate and he said he's never thought that possible at all.
00:48:33.99
Lenerd Louw
You know, so it's from this practical part of lovemaking longer, but it's also then to this other more mystical part of
00:48:34.08
fsb
Wow.
00:48:42.32
Lenerd Louw
you know, awareness that that but just becomes bigger. And as you say, your energy that just people have so much more energy, people get, you know, it sounds like woohoo, but you know, people, the guys, after 14 days or 21 days, they start glowing.
00:48:59.05
Lenerd Louw
So women start talking to them in the street, come and talk to them in a coffee shop.
00:49:01.58
fsb
Mmhmm.
00:49:03.29
Lenerd Louw
You know, guys get work offers.
00:49:03.48
fsb
Mmhmm. Mmhmm.
00:49:05.31
Lenerd Louw
ah Yeah, and it's quite magic that comes out of this.
00:49:09.92
fsb
Bro, you know what I started this thing off this conversation off by saying is that I believe that everything else is a relationship that I have with myself. And I have, since understanding this type of practice, been living with this phrase of that I am my own best lover, meaning that I cultivate my own life force energy, that I get self-activated.
00:49:25.21
Lenerd Louw
But.
00:49:28.27
fsb
I don't need porn or fantasies or all my partner to be the one to get me off. I am doing that by myself by using the practices that you teach in this 21-day program And it's obviously fucking magnetic because people want to be with people that are together and grounded and centered in their own clean energy. And when you spend 21 days cultivating that energy with yourself, you then arrive to your life, your relationships, to lovemaking, to your job.
00:49:55.64
fsb
feeling more in your own power because you're like I fucking got this I don't need you to validate me I don't need to have sex to feel good about myself if I choose to have sex and we make love fucking epic but I don't have to I don't know I'm not I'm not constantly hooking in my life for for connections or for validation or whatever and I know this in my own life to be true and so as soon as I'm cultivating that sexual energy with myself I am becoming my own best lover and there's something so fucking sexy about that for me with myself which is like You're fucking delicious, brother.
00:50:23.73
Lenerd Louw
Mmhmm.
00:50:24.98
fsb
Look at this meat suit that I've been blessed to live in, this cock that I get to activate myself with without running fantasies, without any of that stuff, and just really tuning in and developing and falling deeply in love with myself, only to realize that, you know, suddenly I'm more attractive, I feel better in my life.
00:50:40.59
fsb
And so, yeah, bro, it's such such important work.
00:50:44.23
Lenerd Louw
Yes, Garrison, that's why I'm so excited you know to about but our collaboration there, you're using the word relationships. So out of that, so that's the thing, I just do this 21 days and their relationships and with with everything around them changes.
00:50:58.61
Lenerd Louw
And then you know what you we're talking about, you and I, about your um you know, running from there into, I don't know whether it's the right place to talk about it here now, but running into it from the, from the sexuality pod into the relationships pod, you know, that that you offer your, your beautiful soda to sell my thing.
00:51:13.98
Lenerd Louw
It's because then you like almost get all of this energies building up. And then you go, you get to know your own relationship, but tie so nicely together.
00:51:18.03
fsb
Mm
00:51:20.90
Lenerd Louw
So I'm super excited about that.
00:51:22.74
fsb
hmm. Me too. So let's give a little high level of what we're wanting to co-create. Leonard and I are going to be co-creating a sort of a ah relationship mastery, sexual mastery program.
00:51:35.79
fsb
The name is still to be decided, but it's basically going to be a combination of Leonard's 21-day journey that I'm going to go through with him again. He's gonna hold point for a group of men to go through his 21 day program, which is what we've been talking about now, to reconnect with their body, reconnect with their sexual life force, understand these practices and principles of lovemaking without ejaculation, falling more deeply in love with yourself, harnessing the sexual energy and not just wasting it out through ejaculation every single day.
00:52:05.92
fsb
At the end of that, we're going to be running the program that we ran probably about a year ago called From Solo to Soulmate. And this is really a relationship container for men that are looking to call partnership in or in a partnership, but feel like they need some additional tools to help the relationship that they've got. And so Solo to Soulmate is a six week container with one call per week, looking at different themes of dating and relating. So it has to do with getting clear on the type of partner that you want to call in, like really owning the desire of the type of relationship that you want.
00:52:36.29
fsb
and the type of relationship that you don't want. to this these These things seem pretty evident, but many people fall into a relationship without taking the time to get clear on what it is exactly that I want in partnership. The next week we talk about decluttering and some freedom from the past, meaning if you haven't done the cleanup work of your last few relationships, it's very possible that you're going to bring some of that messy energy into your new partnership and it's going to make a mess with that. We talk about dating and relating and we talk about becoming your own best lover and so we're going to really flow with some of the power that you build from the first 21 days with Leonard into a plan that's going to really support you including practical things like communication frameworks both to have difficult conversations with your current partner
00:53:19.96
fsb
But also, how do you have that conversation when you go on a first date with somebody or before you connect sexually with a partner? What's the best way to have a conversation that makes both of you feel safe so that you can move in the intimacy? Because I know in my past, most of my intimate connections look like, ah, there's some energy with those women at the bar. Let's have a few tequilas and then end up back at my house. That actually sounds something like, do you want to come back for coffee?
00:53:45.68
fsb
complete bullshit. None of us are there for coffee. It's not nothing to do with coffee, but I'm not grown up enough to say, do you want to come back to my place and make love? So we do that. And then we get back home and then we're suddenly like fucking all into each other. Clothes are coming off, nail marks on the back. And then you're in that moment of about to maybe make love. And we haven't taken a moment to talk about like, what do you want? How do you like to be touched? You know, what are we going to do about protection? What's your sexual health status? And so in the heat of the moment, we're sort of winging it.
00:54:14.38
fsb
But those engagements can be so much more gentle and so much more relaxing if you have an adult conversation beforehand, where you have a simple framework that allows you to be able to check in with what are your desires? What does this connection even mean? What does aftercare look like? So we're gonna be sharing some of that stuff.
00:54:31.85
fsb
for six weeks. And then at the end of that, with all of that in, Leonard's going to come back and share something around sort of a level two around lovemaking. So once you've understood these practices of your personal lovemaking, Leonard's got some some additional tools. Maybe you just want to touch on some of that, brother. What do you want to talk about there specifically in the in the second phase of your part of the of the creation?
00:54:55.26
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, there's quite a number of things there, but for example, yeah, just dropping into lovemaking, you know, practical practical things, um like knowing how to read the ah your partner, the woman you were, you know, dropping into your masculine feminine energy so you integrate it so you can feel the to your your partner better when it's the right time to penetrate, you know, these things aren't, like there's not a,
00:55:11.82
fsb
Mm hmm.
00:55:22.40
fsb
Mm hmm.
00:55:24.49
Lenerd Louw
point one, two, three, but it's intuitive. So we're dropping into intuitive lovemaking.
00:55:28.46
fsb
Mm hmm.
00:55:28.45
Lenerd Louw
There's there's so much there. um been um yeah It's it's it's ah what's the one thing that I just forgot about, I don't want to mention here.
00:55:40.96
Lenerd Louw
Oh, yes, yes, the range of lovemaking, you know, there's the slow sensual, but then it's also ravishing and hot fucking and there's this range and a lot of people feel there's no permission to do the ravishing.
00:55:49.24
fsb
Mm-hmm.
00:55:52.17
Lenerd Louw
You know, there's just two of the themes and we will cover quite a number of themes because, you know,
00:55:52.72
fsb
Yes.
00:55:58.62
Lenerd Louw
It's cool, we learn how to play rugby, we learn how to play football and we determine what is the good form to have in a gym. No one talks of tracks about sexuality and some tips and some insights about it.
00:56:08.07
fsb
Exactly.
00:56:09.98
Lenerd Louw
So it's really just to give you just a bit of background and yeah, just a bit of mastery in that space. And two it's going to be very fun and light.
00:56:19.72
fsb
Yeah. What would this look like if it was fun? Join us and you will see.
00:56:22.64
Lenerd Louw
Yeah.
00:56:23.74
fsb
I want to just say one one final piece around this and that is, you know, we talk about these connections of masculine and feminine and we talk about, you know, our partners being potentially monogamous, sorry, heterosexual, but this this work extends beyond your ability to connect with women or with men.
00:56:39.48
fsb
It doesn't really matter whether you live in a male body or a female body, we both have access to masculine and feminine energies. and the ability to be able to move between these is what we're going to be cultivating in this course. And so it doesn't matter whether you're connecting, the container is for men, people who identify as men, but if you're bisexual or gay or it doesn't matter how you relate, these tools and techniques, as Leonard said, is more to do with intuition and the feeling of the energy of the other person, irrespective of what body they're in or how you're connecting physically. So yeah, this is not just for heterosexual men, it's for men who
00:57:14.93
fsb
Yeah, or back curious, whatever your your sexual orientation is, this program is going to have a lot of ability for you to be able to connect to these energies and support you, irrespective of how you identify and move sexually.
00:57:26.00
Lenerd Louw
Yeah, so spot on Gareth. I mean, I will often use this heteronormative language. But yeah, my 21 day calls that quite a few ah bisexual and gay guys on it. It doesn't matter.
00:57:36.48
fsb
Yeah.
00:57:37.18
Lenerd Louw
So yeah, I agree.
00:57:38.91
fsb
Yeah. Brother, I'm so stoked to have you in my life. I really love how we've been flowing since our paths crossed. I'm looking forward to seeing you in South Africa. um We're going to get off this call and in the next few days going to have a another call to really dial in exactly what this program is going to do, what's going to be about and some of the specifics around it. But when we release this episode, we'll probably put a link to ah more information about this program in the show notes so if that's interesting for you jump in. Where can people get hold of you brother if they want to find out more about Leonard Lowe?
00:58:13.57
Lenerd Louw
The fastest, the best is leonardlow.com. If you can put it in the show notes, it's quite a spelling, but leonardlow.com and on that is, can book a call there or WhatsApp, social medias there, a lot of free resources also. Yeah, the website's the best, guys.
00:58:30.67
fsb
Nice one, brother. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this postgame. It really has helped Matt. We really wanted to have this conversation and Matt is busy um supporting his partner who's an air hostess. And so she's in the moment in a flying phase and he's at home playing super dad. And yeah, podcast co-creation didn't feel like it was in his flow. So yeah, this feels like a ah really good opportunity for us to jump on here and have this conversation. And I appreciate you taking the time to do it, my brother.
00:58:57.19
Lenerd Louw
big pleasure i really enjoyed it thanks thanks bre
00:59:00.85
fsb
And for those of you brothers who want to see Leonard and myself, the last Sunday of every single month is our free online men's circle called the King's Circle. It's an opportunity for you to sit in circle with other courageous and open-hearted men that are practicing, having difficult conversations and using some tools and frameworks to be able to better describe your inner world.
00:59:17.73
Lenerd Louw
A
00:59:21.45
fsb
And when you are able to articulate and describe your inner worlds, you really start to build strong trust with yourself.
00:59:21.57
Lenerd Louw
big pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Thanks. Thanks.
00:59:29.15
fsb
When you take those tools and conversations and describe your inner worlds to the people around you, you build trust in your relationship. So if you're interested in that as well, I'll put links to the show notes um in the show notes for the King's circle.
00:59:41.61
fsb
Leonard's there every month. I'm going to be there this month. And if you feel like it, it would be great to see you there in person. Thanks again, Leonard.
00:59:48.95
Lenerd Louw
just just brother
00:59:50.57
fsb
See you next time. Ciao.
01:00:16.19
Lenerd Louw
Cheers, brother.
