The Art Of Sacred Intimacy | 074
Want to feel more connected in your relationship and have mind-blowing sex that keeps getting better? Justin Patrick Pierce and Londin Angel Winters—life partners, authors, and intimacy teachers—give us a masterclass.
After enduring the usual relationship disappointments in her 20’s and 30’s, Londin wasn’t settling, and got into sacred sexuality. At 24, Justin was on a very different path, albeit a spiritual one. In becoming a couple, they embraced the study and practice together. Then, over a decade, developed their signature system—Yoga Of Intimacy—which they share through private consultations and workshops.
In our conversation, we hear male and female perspectives on what gets in the way of experiencing the love and sex we want. Starting with the traits of an unconscious lover—unaware, reactive, distracted, selfish—we learn how to be more conscious lovers, and seek partners who want to cultivate similar values. Building a relationship this way, you keep attraction and passion alive and growing.
Londin and Justin demonstrate some of the foundational practices they use with their clients to balance expectations, and soften fear and resentment. Then share how to open more trust and intimacy, reignite the fire when the spark dies out, and create the hottest moments of ecstasy.
We get practical tools for communicating what we want without shutting our partner down, celebrating desires that are different, and finding the bridge to meet with excitement.
This episode is about surrendering and showing up fully, moment by moment, and listening to our hearts in the interactions that most of us find the hardest.
Justin and Londin invite us to love like we’re never been hurt, and see how we deny others the things we don’t know how to give ourselves.
TESS’S TAKEAWAYS:
- We attract partners who deny us love as much as we deny them.
- Surrendering enables deeper love that’s free from attachment to external outcomes.
- Avoid expectation and resentment. Meet your lover each time as if for the first time.
- The “I See / I Feel” practice helps partners share and grow without reactivity.
- Consciously cultivate polarity to enhance attraction, desire, and passion.
- Balancing desire and equanimity helps us want and allow at the same time.
- The Yoga Of Intimacy provides a blueprint to be a masterful lover.
- Mastery is not a destination, but a commitment to a path that has no end.
ABOUT JUSTIN AND LONDIN
Co-authors of Playing With Fire and The Awakened Woman's Guide to Everlasting Love, Justin Patrick Pierce and Londin Angel Winters are business and life partners, and relationship coaches who teach sacred sexuality with their signature training, Yoga Of Intimacy.
Having studied and practiced sacred intimacy for more than a decade under the tutelage of renowned teachers, Justin and Londin’s system prioritizes practicality over theory. Using a hands-on approach, and incorporating their personal stories, Justin and Londin educate men and women on spiritual and intimate development.
Their students learn to create tangible change in their lives from a couple dedicated to understanding the complex dynamics of modern relationships.
CONNECT WITH JUSTIN AND LONDIN
Yoga Of Intimacy: https://www.patreon.com/yogaofintimacy
Website: https://www.justinpatrickpierce.com/
Website: https://www.londinangelwinters.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinpatrickpierce/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/londinawinters/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/yogaofintimacy
MEET TESS MASTERS:
Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of the Skinny60® health programs.
Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others.
Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com.
CONNECT WITH TESS:
Website: https://tessmasters.com/
Podcast: https://ithastobeme.com/
Health Programs: https://www.skinny60.com/
Delicious Recipes: https://www.theblendergirl.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theblendergirl/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmasters/
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Oh, Justin and London, thank you for holding space with me. I love your books so much, and the work that you're doing is so important. I love how you refer to yourselves as students and teachers of love. So one of the things that resonated so deeply with me in the books was you said we
Tess Masters:attract partners who deny us love as much as we deny them love. And it really pierced my soul and really resonated with me so London, I want to ask you what your life was like in terms of your relationship with self and relationship with others, and what brought you into this more conscious way of living
Tess Masters:with that.
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: I found this work pretty late in life, almost 40 and prior to that, I was a manifestation, Mama, you know, it might as touch. I think I had like, six different careers, because I would just decide what I was interested in, and then I would win an Emmy. You know, I won an Emmy, like,
Tess Masters:in my early 20s, I I just achieved crazy accomplishments because I just knew how to manifest. I studied it. I was into it, and I loved being able to just take a bite out of the ass of life and create whatever I wanted. There was only one area where it really didn't work so hot, you know, and that was
Tess Masters:in relationship, just kind of a miserable string of failures. You know, always wanted love, always gave in love, always cared about love, but just ended up in disasters or mundane or I was the breadwinner, carrying the person on my back. I even got into a marriage and ended up divorced, you know, I told the
Tess Masters:person, it's me or the drugs. And they were like, great, it's the drugs. And we divorced, you know? I mean, and it was just like, wow, why am I having such a hard time in intimate love and so at one point in my life, like around 39 I think 38 No, 37 I just decided, You know what, I don't need another
Tess Masters:accomplishment. It like, doesn't feel any different than the last one and what I really want to experience next out of this life is epic love, and I'm I'm going to do it, and I was really gifted to end up in a room unlike I had been in any other, which was a sacred sexuality room, Where instead of the name
Tess Masters:of the game being, Create, Create, Create, Create. The name of the game was surrender. The name of the game was surrender, trust, soften, whoa. Like not my forte. And then what I found out is I had been denying my partners the gift of my own trust and softness and surrender and willingness to relax into as
Tess Masters:they had been denying me their leadership, their consistency, their penetrate penetrative ravishment. You know it was like really true that how you deny your lover is the reciprocal of how they deny you. And it was my own inability to actually like meet someone in the moment in full surrender was their
Tess Masters:inability to be worthy of that surrender. And, you know, it's easy when you're in that boat to be like, there's no good man, or like, nobody's worth you know, I'm I lead myself better than they could ever lead me. Like, why would I put myself in anyone else's lame hands? You know? And it's all very believable when
Tess Masters:you're manifest, when you're actually, like, actively creating the denial of love because they aren't trustworthy. But what I found is when just speaking to myself as a woman, when a woman finds the ability to express and surrender and be deep in a moment like deeply connected to her body's wisdom
Tess Masters:and unafraid to reveal that across her body and her feelings and her expression, it inspires a kind of partner that. What actually makes that possible? And this was my experience, and I immediately became very deeply committed to the work. Really shifted my gears. At first I thought, Oh, I got to give up
Tess Masters:the career. And that was such that was such a bad idea. It was such a misunderstanding of the work, I later reclaimed the career, and my first book, The Awakened Woman's Guide to everlasting love, is truly about, how do you kick ass by day and throw your head back and wild surrender by night? And
Tess Masters:that was when I really found the Holy Grail, because I got to be the badass that I am, and I also got to be this, like, wild lover with a man that I just like would lay my life down for. And that's truly the life that this work has given me, and it's never I've never gone back. Now I'm now, I'm in my mid 50s, and
Tess Masters:it hasn't slowed down for a second.
Tess Masters:Oh, and it's just gonna keep opening, which is what you both teach so beautifully. So tell me about manifesting, Justin into your life and when you met each other, what that looked like for you, and then I went on
Unknown:you Justin, what that was like for you.
Unknown:Londin Angel Winters: I love the way you phrased that question, because manifesting Justin in my life, you know, you would think that's what I did, and that's what it sounds like I did, and that's not even remotely what I did. Because if you look at where Justin and I were at the day we met, I would have never
Unknown:manifested
Unknown:that in a million years,
Unknown:Londin Angel Winters: not even a million years. I mean, like we were 14 years age difference. I was 14 years older than him. He was 24 four and dating and like, just pick of the litter guy, you know, like anyone he wanted. And when I sat down with him and met him for the first time as his friend, I just made a like, a
Unknown:promise to myself that I would never even get near that guy. No, that's like nothing I'm interested in. And the irony of the whole thing is that I wasn't manifesting love at that point. I was surrendering into the big fuck between me and God, you know, like I had found, I had found the ability to surrender
Unknown:to creation. And I was so turned on by that, and so deeply fulfilled that it really took me out of this idea of, like, manifesting a man. I wanted a man, but I didn't, like need Him. And so when Justin I met I was totally cool with them. I was just like, Yeah, this guy's doing his thing. You know, this
Unknown:is probably what I was like at 24 you know what I mean? Now I'm like, almost 40 like, I'm not in that place at all, and I didn't even judge him. But I definitely was like, Don't get near this guy. Well, we ended up being in an environment where we saw each other a lot, and we would just end up having these deep soul
Unknown:talks. And I saw this side of Justin. It was very different than the one, the like peacock that was cruising around LA, you know, I saw this side of him. That was the guy who'd been meditating since 11 years, or since what year he's been heading since he was a small child. Just found it on his own.
Unknown:This guy's consciousness was mind blowing. And when we would sit down and talk, he could feel that I could see him. So he showed himself to me, and I was dating the amazing men of my age, you know, very successful, like, I remember, at the time I met Justin, some guy was trying to invite me to quit my job and
Unknown:go hang out with him on his 64 foot yacht, you know. Like, come on, just give it all up and just come travel with me. You know, I'm not even committing to be your boyfriend, but let's just go have a good time, you know. And I had all of this stuff going on, but because I wasn't manifesting the man on paper,
Unknown:creating the life I wanted, I was listening. I was just listening, and the listening kept bringing me back to this guy. This guy was the one that really put me back in my heels and melted my spine because his consciousness was huge. I mean, just like gravity itself and I just went heart, heartbeat by
Unknown:heartbeat, breath by breath. What? What my heart was saying. My mind was screaming like, What in the world? This could never work. What are you thinking? How are you even going to meet his family? What are they going to think of this like elderly woman showing up at the family dinner? You know? I mean, nothing made
Unknown:sense, but my heart knew something, and after a whole bunch of rigmarole that we went through, that I describe in detail in the book, we ended up together, and we couldn't be more suited for each other. And the reason why I say like I love that you asked me how I manifested him is if I had been
Unknown:in any headspace of manifesting, I wouldn't have even remotely given him the time of day, nor would I have put up with all it took for us to end up together, like we went through a lot just to end up together. And because I was breath by breath with it all, it was just an it was just what it needed to be, one moment
Unknown:to the next. And in hindsight, we, like ran an Iron Man, you know what I mean. But in the moment, it just felt like both of us just listening, just listening, just listening,
Tess Masters:and living in surrender, totally 100%
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: and the moment being because I was living in surrender, the moment was so full I had, like, a patience that I wouldn't have had if I needed to get to an outcome and that. And then I'll just even say this, like, you know, I I didn't know what was going to happen around
Tess Masters:motherhood and all of that. And when I was hanging out with this guy was almost 40, I could have been panicking that I didn't have a kid. And you know, how could we ever like do a life? I just really trusted my heart. And you know, I think women in their 40s can really relate to what I'm saying. It's like, you
Tess Masters:feel like dating needs to become very utilitarian. Gotta find the guy that I can have a kid with. This is my last chance. I just let it all go. And then I got pregnant naturally at 47 had a home birth at 48 I mean, you can't write this stuff. You can only surrender into it, you know what I mean?
Tess Masters:Oh, yeah, so Justin, tell me about your path to surrendering. And moving into a different way of being in your 20s, as you moved with Justin with London, pardon me, in this journey,
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: surrender didn't become a real aspect of my life until much later, when
Tess Masters:London and I first met and we spent time together. We decided to date early on, and she was a master manifester, and so she had more money than me. She had so many more accomplishments than me. I was just like playing in bands and a personal trainer. I had nothing to show for my life. I had literally, not too
Tess Masters:long before meeting her, I was living on someone's couch in LA. I had, like, just gotten my own dumpy apartment with my roommate. We couldn't have been in more different phases of life. And so I met London, and once we decided to, like, explore relationship together, we started studying polarity,
Tess Masters:sacred, intimacy, all of that. And one of the first things that I had learned there was just like, oh, you need to be masculine. And to be masculine, you better, you know, pull yourself up, you better. Get a job, earn more money than her, start producing, start providing the whole nine. So I was like,
Tess Masters:Oh, I'd never heard of that before. That's an interesting idea. Let's do it. And so I made a commitment, because I love those kinds of challenges. I was just like, Yeah, I'm up for it. Let's do it. So over the course of maybe three years, I started manifesting jobs, creating jobs. I created a private training
Tess Masters:business high end clientele. I manifested a job that didn't even exist before, in a luxury real estate company in Southern California, and I had become the lead Social Media Marketing Director for three locations which that Job didn't even exist. I just kind of walked in. I was like, This is what I want
Tess Masters:to do here. Got the gig. So I was like, traveling in a band performing. I had all these different jobs that I was doing at 1.4 or five different jobs. Eventually I got to the point of earning more. Money than London. And I was like, Yeah, I'm doing it. I'm becoming masculine, and so we're we got all into this
Tess Masters:momentum of life together. And I had this vision of just like, meanwhile, we are practicing sacred intimacy. But we never imagined doing this for our career. We never imagined this would become, we were like, in a different track, but we had our practice which we loved. So all the while, while this is
Tess Masters:happening, London gets pregnant at a certain point. Maybe this is four years into our relationship, three years somewhere around there, and suddenly I'm like, Okay, I know what I need to do. I need to move us to Westlake Village. We're going to buy a house. I'm going to be your real estate
Tess Masters:guy. I'll get into the brokerage. This is going to be my life path, you know, all right, I'm ready. Let's do this. And we had a house set up. We had already been given the green light to go ahead on the house. Contracts were almost in place, and then suddenly devastating news we had lost the baby. And
Tess Masters:once we found out we lost the baby, it was a very startling, life shaking moment, because we had so much momentum imagining this life we're about to go create together, and we lost the baby deep into it. It wasn't only a couple of weeks like we were some time where we really expected this to happen, and
Tess Masters:then suddenly I'm driving home on my hour long commute through the canyons of California, and I'm feeling broken, but I also realize I'm miserable. I am completely depressed, and as I'm driving through the canyons, I had the vision of just tugging the wheel and driving off of the canyon. I was in that type of
Tess Masters:state of mind. By the time I got home, I looked hard at myself and I said, How is this possible? I'd set out to manifest all of these things. I did it, but I'm actually utterly miserable, and not only because the momentum was broken through the losing the baby, but it was a wake up call, as if to say,
Tess Masters:Justin, are you seriously going to do this for the rest of your life? Is this your calling? Is this your purpose? And in that moment, I realized, no. I was caught up in the momentum of ideas and things that my mind thought I should be doing, but I wasn't listening. And so shortly thereafter, I quit all the jobs.
Tess Masters:I kept one client that I would continue to work with, and I told this client, I said, Look, he was a wealthy man. And I said, Look, if you can pay me just this amount of money a month, it'll be enough for me to survive, and I'll work with you on a daily basis. I'll be here. And he committed. He said, Yeah,
Tess Masters:I'll do that. So I would work with him only, and I spent about a year doing this. And the rest of my time, I would meditate, I'd become still, and I would listen, and I started to differentiate what were my fear driven thoughts that were telling me I need to do this or need to do that, and what was my
Tess Masters:heart telling me I needed to do? What direction was my heart actually calling and so when we talk about manifestation, what I'd learned in that period of time is the different places within us that we can manifest from. We could manifest from our survival fears, our sense that we don't have enough, or we
Tess Masters:aren't enough, and we need to prove ourselves and gain some sense of significance. Or we could listen to something deeper that is not coming from the fear of survival or trying to run away from what we're scared of. But instead, it's that thing that if we were to take that step and listen to that little
Tess Masters:voice telling us to move in that direction, it would be us living the life we're really here to live. But at the same time, it's the scariest option. It's the option that actually terrifies us, the option to go this job, that job, gain this none of those are actually scary, because they're there to fight
Tess Masters:the fear, but listening to the heart. And so from that moment on, I made a commitment that I'm no longer here to tell the world what I'm going to do. I'm going to listen and see what is it that the world really wants from me truly. And it was from that point forward that we began shifting from fitness into
Tess Masters:including. All of the work that we had been doing around intimacy, around relationship, and noticing more and more people were asking that of us, that of me and we, we started that together, and that was now that must have been about, you know, 13 years ago at this point, 12 years ago at this
Tess Masters:point, somewhere around there, and our life has just unfolded, and it's been a process of surrender ever since that point.
Tess Masters:I also love what you're talking about, having the courage to accept the consequences of your intuition and moving into a conscious place. What are the everyday blocks that you see in your work that we're putting up you spoke about some of them within your personal story that we're
Tess Masters:putting up that get in the way of us holding our intuition with courage
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: through that period of time, I created something called the purpose compass, and I use it to teach clients, often this skill and a simple practice. So everyone could kind of imagine this, as you imagine sitting in the center of a compass, and the point behind you is your south,
Tess Masters:and then the point in front of you is your true north, so to speak. Okay. As you imagine sitting in the center of this compass, you become quiet and you just kind of feel and inquire like, what is my life purpose? What am I here to do? And as thoughts and feelings start to come up, if anything
Tess Masters:starts to come up with the flavor of survival fear, I don't have enough. I'm not enough. Anything like that. We take those thoughts and feelings and we push them behind us, right? What are the fears that of lack that we're trying to escape anything that comes up you put it behind you. Okay, then to
Tess Masters:your left would be the West. This is the domain of complacence. This is security, comfort, those kind of goals, those ambitions. So as I feel like, what do I desire? What do I need to give or do? Anything that's coming up in the vein of trying to grasp that security or comfort, we actually put them
Tess Masters:over there to our left in that domain of complacence, right, any feelings or ideas that come up around resentment or apathy, right? These are impotent thoughts that prevent us from actually pursuing our deepest purpose in the world, we put those over to our right, resentful or feeling apathetic
Tess Masters:like I don't care. It doesn't matter. I don't deserve it. Any feelings or I can't do this because x and x, all of that would go off to one side, and then what that does is, right in front of us, it clears this path for us to consider. What are the fears that I am inspired to step into? Not the fears I'm running
Tess Masters:from, but the fears where, if I actually pursued this fully, I'd be scared to death, but nothing would be more exhilarating. For example, if I could stand on this stage and speak to 10,000 people at an event, if I can have, you know, like, if I could, if, and it's anything. Sometimes for me, at a point in
Tess Masters:my life, it was skydiving. It wasn't connected to a career or anything. It was just like, This is terrifying, but it's something that, if I were to experience this, I would overcome something know myself better and liberate a part of me, it's that type of thing. How do I need to move through the
Tess Masters:world where I feel like I'm living on my edge, but it's in a way where I'm not running from fear, I'm stepping into it. And so as we meditate from this place, we start to clarify and find out, whoa, if I had a book, right, if I were willing to go out in the world and start dating again, or when I'm at the
Tess Masters:gym, talk to that person that I find attractive, right? Like little things where you're finding your fear that if you were to step into and this becomes the purpose compass. And so what i i designed that for myself, when I was going through that process, I described to you. And I would wake up every
Tess Masters:day, and I would notice, what am I stepping into today that terrifies me, and it became my compass, and I started to live in a way, as we started to teach this work, it was the most vulnerable thing for me to give. It was the scariest thing, most vulnerable. Thing for me, just I when I do group calls, we've
Tess Masters:been doing this now for a long time. When I teach and do group calls, I'm still nervous, terrified, feel sick to my stomach right when I'm done with the call, I'm like, oh, you know, like you can, but it's, it's, it's a sign that you're giving at a level of depth and vulnerability, which means
Tess Masters:you're allowing something so profound to come through you, and that's what it feels like to live at that edge. And I think when we discover that for ourselves, whatever it looks like, it doesn't have to look like anything other than what is true for you, but we start living that way, and that
Tess Masters:becomes our new guide or compass that continues to pull some direction of our deepest purpose.
Tess Masters:Oh, I love something that we were speaking about last time we spoke, which was, if we accept that we're all failing all the time, then it actually becomes this very liberating truth, An Inconvenient Truth, but something we can step into, we can surrender, we can explore.
Tess Masters:So until we can really get to this place, this beautiful path that you take people on, I want to start with what the traits are of an unconscious lover. I found some of them very confronting,
Unknown:as I was reading your books, because, you know, I'm thinking, you know, I'm in my early 50s. I've been around the block. I've had some great sex, you know,
Unknown:I'm a giver, I'm I'm a listener, I'm into the rhythm, I'm intuitive,
Unknown:you know, oh yeah. And then I read some of these, and I went, Oh, okay, by their standard, I'm an unconscious lover. So take us through these traits, and then I want to walk the path with you to how we can start being a Fire Keeper.
Unknown:Justin Patrick Pierce: Yeah. Well, I'll start. I know London's got a lot to add on this as well, but to summarize it, for everyone listening within the book, Playing with fire, you'll find that these traits we've identified is someone who's unaware, insensitive, reactive,
Unknown:unskillful when it comes to polarity, passionless, constantly distracted and selfish. And so we examine each one of these qualities, and we find, well, what is the teaching that we need to know so that we begin cultivating each and every one of these skills that we become more aware, aware of
Unknown:ourself, aware of our partner. We become more sensitive, sensitive to our own experience, sensitive to the experience of another. We become non reactive, where we stop just bursting and shouting and constantly defending ourselves, but actually can kind of allow the moment to breathe and be as it
Unknown:is moment to moment, which prevents a lot of fights. So as we go on this journey of cultivating each one of these skills, we call that the spiritual path of intimate relationship. And anyone who commits to walking that path and begins to cultivate these skills, we call them a Fire
Unknown:Keeper, someone who understands that the fire you share with your intimate partner is something that is sacred, and if you treat it as sacred, those flames will continue to warm your relationship for as long as you're together. But you need each one of these skills to keep that flame. You need a hearth,
Unknown:for example, as we talk about in the book, a hearth for the flames. Because if you don't have awareness, sensitivity and equanimity and intimate relationship, that fire between you will rage out of control. It'll burn outside, and it'll just consume the house, metaphorically, but consume your
Unknown:relationship, because the passion and desires are too much. Other couples, they have no fire at all. They can function really well. They get along really well, but there's simply no passion. And those couples can suffer just as much because they're like, I love this person so much. Our life
Unknown:works so well, but I'm not met. I'm not fulfilled intimately, sexually. There's something missing or has faded away. I don't know where it is. And what's missing is the fire. So in playing with fire, we teach you how to gain that fire of attraction back and hold it as something sacred. Now one other
Unknown:piece I want to mention in this is as you read the book as you had those chapters were written very intentionally to be like a difficult, cathartic experience that you would go through as you
Unknown:read. Oh, you succeeded. I felt it like, are you? Are you? This? You may think this doesn't apply to you, but didn't you? And I went. Oh shit, I'm that. Okay, then I would get to the next Oh no, no. And then by the time I made my way through, I'm like, Okay, well, I'm that. Let me just let
Unknown:that. Let me tell I'm gonna. Let them tell me how I'm doing that
Unknown:Justin Patrick Pierce: and and what I want to share is we have students and clients as they're reading that some of them have told us that they literally take the book and throw it against the wall, screw you London and
Unknown:Justin, I would just get my Tibetan bowl out.
Unknown:Justin Patrick Pierce: And something that I want everyone to know that might not be obvious in the book, because we had editors come in, they said, you need to write it like this to make a good writing we're like, fine, fine, fine. But that inquiry came from London, and I looking at these principles and
Unknown:teachings and saying to ourself, I'm unaware, I'm insensitive, I'm reactive, I'm untrustworthy, I'm unloving, I'm passionless, I'm so distracted and I'm selfish. Now that's not a way to condemn ourselves or shame ourselves. That's not how I'm describing this. Instead, it's an inquiry into considering as a
Unknown:human being, I am incredibly limited, and my interest is to become a more aware, sensitive, non reactive, conscious and loving human being. And if I'm on that path of cultivating any one of those skills, I'm confessing to myself that I'm unaware, still I'm insensitive, still I'm reactive still, and
Unknown:that's what we define as mastery. We don't claim to be masters, and we don't believe that mastery is a destination. Mastery is a commitment to a path that has no end. It's the constant pursuit of cultivating these skills within ourselves and side by side along our partner as their champion,
Unknown:helping them develop each one of these skills as we do it, as they help us. But it's that process and inquiry of always considering, what can I do next? To be more aware, what can I do now? To be more sensitive, to be more non reactive, to be present, to bring passion to my partner, my relationship, and
Unknown:that becomes our inquiry and our compass for intimate relationship. And that's the intention of the book.
Tess Masters:Oh, and I love how you invite us to come to relationship with self and others in the present moment with a beginner's mindset, so that we cannot be a victim of our feelings, but an artist of them. So London, tell me about the foundation of the hearth. Take Take us through this path
Tess Masters:that you beautifully set out these principles and these skills that we can cultivate, sure.
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: So just speaking of my own experience as a woman, mid 50s, right? Like, how could I be a masterful lover? Like, it would be tempting to think like, you know, everything I've been taught through culture like, it's my surface. I gotta make sure that, you know, he can't
Tess Masters:see my jowls that are quickly increasing by the day, you know, I need to do something about the crow's feet. I've gotta get like, you know, it's like, you want to just get dolled up and don't dolling yourself up is really fun. No one's taking that away. But when you identify your ability to be a lover by things
Tess Masters:that are fleeting, it can have such a disempowering. I mean, truly, like, you can start to feel like there's a clock that's ticking, there's a set of shoulds that are, you know, being checked off and then, and this is the experience of my clients when they first meet me. Is like, I'm failing. I'm not
Tess Masters:enough. Like, how could I ever compete? Especially now, like, you know, people are just swiping, you know? And it's like, how could I ever get anyone's attention? And the thing I love so much about playing with fire is you realize none of that is what makes you a masterful lover. None of it.
Tess Masters:Now, is it fun? Yeah, do I love to like rock outfits for Justin? Yeah? Do I love to feel beautiful? Yes, but I don't confuse myself that that's what makes me a masterful lover. I'm focused on what you just described as the hearth, which is my ability to. To see him like an Oracle. So he gets home,
Tess Masters:and rather than me, like, you know, like trying to be loved through like perfect exterior and like I just did my workout, you know, is my ass sticking out, you know. Imagine he comes home, he had a rough day, and I take a deep breath like an Oracle, breath into my belly, and I say, I see your heart is
Tess Masters:heavy, and you gave everything today, and he just immediately feels met by my love and seen in his world. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that makes you epic in love, you know? And then he, he says, Hi, right? He, he's, like, completely met in love, and then I go into sensitivity, and I say, I feel
Tess Masters:so happy to be in your presence again. I missed you all day, you know. And I give him the gift of my feelings. So I've given him the gift of my seeing. Now I give him the gift of like full body feeling. And then he says, I'm exhausted. Instead of me being like, well, I made a dinner, and if you can't seem to
Tess Masters:find time for me, and it's all about work, you know, like, that's reactivity, right? You know, like, I wanted to give my love, and you're not letting me, you know, instead of going there, I just say, Oh, babe, I see you. You know, take a minute. I can get everything heated up in a second, and then
Tess Masters:he just comes over and grabs my waist and he's like, I fucking love you. You know, we've just created intimacy through simple seeing, feeling and allowing. And this is a relationship that has wild creativity, wild freedom, wild seeing and feeling like like in a relationship like that, you feel known. You feel
Tess Masters:like you're growing on your own path, but sexually and spiritually alongside of a lover. And that's just the hearth. That's just three skills you learn to see, feel and allow. I mean, that's ageless, that's timeless, and that's like a kind of glue that makes you a well woven rug, that is an
Tess Masters:unbreakable bond no matter what comes your way. You those three skills are like pretty much all you need. But then you add polarity on top of that, like knowing how to, like, move your body in a way that creates his straight spine, and now you can breathe in a way that has him breathe down your belly. You
Tess Masters:know, these are the skills of polarity, where you learn how to dance together as opposites. And we go into all of that. And then the skill of presence alone, you know, Justin mentioned of bad lovers distracted. Well, how many of you have been on a date and somebody's like, yeah, and then they look at like, you
Tess Masters:know, who else is here? And oh, yeah, you know. And you're just like, you know, you learn how to be present like nothing else on your mind, like lovership as a meditation, like I could I am so sensitive to who's in front of me, I'm seeing you like I've never seen you before. This is a practice. Just tonight. We've
Tess Masters:we've made love millions of times. We've been together for years. We raise a kid together. We have a business together. We are attached at the hip, and we work from home, and we spend all of our time together, but when we sit in front of each other, we have a practice to look with new eyes and see the person like
Tess Masters:you've never seen them before, and you wouldn't believe how it's what occurs like, it's like, I'm like, meeting this man over and over again, and he's evolving, and I'm seeing him evolve. And, you know, it gets very psychedelic in that, like I could see past lifetimes in his face. You know, you just learn
Tess Masters:how to become present in a way where the moment is pregnant with aliveness, no matter how many times you've sat together before that can become your reality if you just learn the skill of presence. It's not meet the perfect person. It's not find the twin flame. No, it's become present. We put strangers
Tess Masters:together in our workshops. When they become present, all of that's available, even though it's someone that way they would never agree to go on a date with in other circumstances. And then we haven't even touched the final piece, which is devotion, where you learn how to get out of this tit for tat. Well, if
Tess Masters:you blah, blah, blah, blah, then maybe I could. No, no, no, no, you know, like I want. I want, I want. And you learn how to be so full in yourself that you're overflowing and giving rather than getting where you're going first. Like, maybe he has a bad day. He's not present, but I'm not going alright. Well, if
Tess Masters:you're not present, I'm not present. I'm like, You know what? My cup is full. Let me offer you my presence. And by this, you're just leapfrogging with each other, like you're always pulling each other up. Somebody's always the strong one. And it's so beautiful, because you get into this thing
Tess Masters:where it's it's like a relationship that's noble. You know what I mean? It has honor. It has dignity and elegance, because you're rising into loving the way that you want to love before you die, and that makes you a great lover. And the irony is, you know, this isn't like neutered in the name of
Tess Masters:mindfulness. This isn't like we're being great and good night, honey, good night. No, it's like, deep fuck, wild sex, you know, because when you feel met at that level, your whole body dissolves, and you're like galaxies bumping into each other. I mean, it really does lead to hot, you know, but not
Tess Masters:hot from neediness and drama and makeup sex, where you're just kind of indulging in desire in its ugliest ways. It's hot from the point of view of union of two bodies dissolving into one, the thing that is the holy grail of sacred sexuality, like these seven traits deliver you into that kind of union, because
Tess Masters:you're literally experiencing ego death with each and every one. You're seeing beyond yourself, you're feeling beyond yourself, you're allowing beyond your survival. You're present beyond your distractions, you're devoted beyond your selfishness, and you know, these are the things that cause the sort of
Tess Masters:gentle ego death with your lover, that suddenly, before you know it, you can't tell the difference between your body and his in a wild, full body orgasm. And that's the promise of sacred sexuality. But what's so cool about playing with fire is it's actually a path for that.
Tess Masters:I love being love. How you invite us to be love no matter what? Because so often you get into that scorecard, the score keeping. Well, I'm always the one that does that. And so then you get into this withholding, or I'm going to withhold my love, my presence, because they're not XYZ. It's so
Tess Masters:beautiful. I want to ask you about the three ways of relating and your understanding of polarity, because I really love moving away from masculine and feminine and allowing ourselves to escape these patriarchal understandings. You were talking about this before, Justin about I've got to be masculine, you
Tess Masters:know, and how it's males, you know. And I've got to sit in my femaleness or my maleness. And you've really taken the teachings and crafted this own path and your understanding of it. I want to dive into this polarity, because it's such a key part of being able to find the fire. Because if we're
Tess Masters:omega, omega or alpha, alpha, I don't know about the fire, right, we're going to get burned, or there's going to be no not as you talk about, so can you, can you take us through that?
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: Yes,
Tess Masters:the teachings of masculine and feminine were merely symbolic to try and tell a story, for example, like through Shiva and Shakti. And embedded in those stories, there's a deep esoteric wisdom, meaning there's a hidden knowledge that most individuals hearing these stories might not be aware of. In fact, most of
Tess Masters:them not necessarily aware of. But when you think about going back so many years to when these practices and stories really started to take root in culture, lot of people weren't writing and reading, and so you would tell stories around campfires and such to preserve these sacred teachings within your
Tess Masters:culture, so the stories would continue. So the genderization is there as more I see it as a metaphorical storytelling component. But what we're interested in is the deeper truth behind what it's trying to reveal to you, to us as sacred wisdom. You. Right? And so what we come to understand is that
Tess Masters:this masculine component is symbolic of consciousness itself, and consciousness itself is what you are. You're not separate from consciousness. You are 100% consciousness, whether you are man, woman or anything else. For that matter, you are consciousness. It is your nature. Now the other component
Tess Masters:of that the feminine principle is creative energy, or pure white light form. What that means is there's consciousness, and then there's literally everything else. If you can observe it, feel it, think it, dream it, touch it, taste it. It's all that feminine principle, anything. The only
Tess Masters:thing that is not the feminine principle is consciousness itself. Now, in these teachings, we look at that as the fundamental experience that we're all having right now. So the deeper esoteric wisdom is these aren't some ideals you have to chase or cultivate that are outside of you. No, it's
Tess Masters:describing your direct experience of this moment right now. There is your consciousness, the I Am Ness, and then there is everything you're aware of, your hands, your thoughts, your emotions, sensations, your perceptions, all those things you can observe is that feminine principle. You
Tess Masters:are that as well. You are the body, you are the mind, you are the emotions, you are the makeup of your perceptions. It makes your identity. And so when you come to understand polarity, the polarity teachings are actually applying to the relationship between consciousness and creative energy, formlessness
Tess Masters:and form. It's talking about that dynamic. And what's so amazing, the more we get away from the ideas of gender and masculine, feminine actually start ending them understanding those fundamental aspects of our own identity and nature, we can access parts of ourselves that create an effect and create
Tess Masters:polarity and healing in our relationship. So I'll give you one example, London and I have the I see, I feel practice in our body of work, the IC and I feel practice was born from this understanding. So when I'm the seer, I sit down in front of London, and I take my attention off of myself, and I place it
Tess Masters:entirely on her. So I'm not concerned with my thoughts, with my emotions, with myself. I'm offering my conscious awareness in service of her, and I'm seeing into her in that moment, I'm identifying with the aspect of me that is consciousness. So I may sit and say, I see how you tirelessly give to our family
Tess Masters:and the way you love us endlessly. I see the way you soften in my presence. I see how much you trust me. So in that moment, I'm giving the gift of consciousness without any reference of selfness, I'm embodying consciousness. And so rather than calling that masculine, because nothing do
Tess Masters:with being a man, London and I adopted the terms alpha and omega. So as I identify with my own consciousness, I'm identifying with the Alpha principle. Now London can do the same thing. She can identify as her consciousness and provide the Alpha principle as the seer, and serve me all the same,
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: I see the clarity of your still mind, the slowness
Tess Masters:of your feeling heart, I see how genuinely rooted you are in this moment,
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: and so by her seeing into me, I get the experience of being seen and at the end of the day, that's what we all want, whether we're searching for significance or appreciation or unconditional love in one. Form of another. What we're really aching for is someone to see us, to understand
Tess Masters:us, to appreciate us, to say, good job. I see you. You're important. We all want that at the most fundamental of our experience. So here, in this very initial practice, we're giving that gift to each other, and the only way we can give that gift is because each of us is consciousness, and it's from
Tess Masters:our consciousness that we give that gift. Now, if I want to move into the other polarity and identify with life, with form, with body, with mind, very simply, the way I'll do that is, instead of placing my attention on London, I draw my attention into myself, on my own emotions, on my own body, on my own
Tess Masters:feelings, and then I just reveal the truth of my own experience to her as a gift, to let her see me. I offer my emotions as a gift, and I would say, as the feeler now, I feel vulnerable because I'm giving so fully of myself and I care, And I want what I'm saying now to serve people.
Tess Masters:I feel delighted to be sitting here with you. I'm so grateful that we've been walking this path together for all these years. So now I'm giving her the gift of identifying with my own experience and sharing it with her. Now I'm in Omega nothing to do with man or woman. I am just as much Omega body mind as I am
Tess Masters:consciousness. The two are not separate. They're not two, which is the deeper teaching we may touch on in this call, but they're not two. They're one. They're one. So if we wanted to create polarity in this moment, I could be the feeler and London could be the seer. So I identify as omega, as form, as light, as
Tess Masters:body, mind, and she identifies as consciousness and offers me the gift of her seeing as I offer the gift of my feeling. So for example,
Tess Masters:I feel loved and trusted by the way you Look at me, because I could see relaxation.
Tess Masters:I feel. Are nervous, because I am loving this moment with you.
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: I see purity. Of your honest revelation, I see really good man
Tess Masters:doing his best to give the gift of woman wisdom,
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: I feel seen, and so in that moment, we create an infinity loop between consciousness and light that flows between our two experiences. In that moment, I'm omega, she's Alpha. I'm a feeler, she's a seer. And in our own practice, we will do this together for 10 minutes, and
Tess Masters:after 10 minutes, we'll switch partners. I'll be the seer, she'll be the feeler. That practice alone has changed the lives of countless people we've worked with over the years. Out of all the practices we teach, we find that that is the one that couples need most. And what's so beautiful is you learn
Tess Masters:how to develop love and trust, restore communication, but you do it as a form of meditation, not a form of dialog or conversation or therapy with minimal words. We find that a lot of words aren't needed. What's need is that both of us need to be seen and through this practice, not only are you able
Tess Masters:to do that and heal some challenging moments in your relationship, but you Pres. Of polarity. While you
Tess Masters:do it, tell me about maintaining eye contact. It's very, very hard for a lot of people to maintain eye contact, to sit and allow themselves to be seen. We know that's our core need is to be known and loved, seen, appreciated, as you were saying, but at the same time, we're so
Tess Masters:terrified of being seen, because of that fear of I'm not enough that you were speaking about. So when you're working with people, one on one or, you know, two to two, as you do or in a group setting. How do you help people sit in that place where they can allow themselves to be seen?
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: You know, it's an interesting thing that we chase love, and then when it's here, we run from it. I mean, it's just, it's, we chase orgasm, and then, you know, when you're standing at the precipice of a full body, release into a, you know, wild, mind blowing orgasm. You know, you'll,
Tess Masters:you'll, you'll opt out, you know, you'll tense up. And we see this all the time, and there's an element of eye contact. That's kind of the starting point for breaking that pattern, because what you learn how to do is catch the moment you want to look away and just keep looking. And sometimes
Tess Masters:people overdo it, and they they like. You know, you can make fun of eye gazing, you know where it's like, but that's not it either, because what we're really talking about with eye contact is, I'm here. It's a way of staying present. And what you'll notice is, when you want to duck out of the intensity,
Tess Masters:you look away. You know, it's it's a form of avoidance, really. And so what's so beautiful about the practice of eye contact is you could add, like, the silent mantra, I'm here. I'm willing to see this, I'm willing to be with this. I'm willing to feel this, I'm willing to stay here. I'm
Tess Masters:freaking out. All of my defense bells are going off, all of my survival fears. I'm like, freaking out, but I'm here, but I'm here, but I'm here, but I'm here, but I'm here, but I'm here. And you'll notice when we teach workshops, like in the first practice, people are like, giggling, and they're popping
Tess Masters:out, and they're looking around and, you know, and they think that if the impulse to look over there at that couple comes up that that's like a message, and you're supposed to look over or if the impulse to look away, you're supposed to lighten the moment. But what you find out is you kill your partner when you
Tess Masters:run from intensity, your partner feels how little capacity you have for their fullness, just none. You look away one time and that person's like, Yeah, I'm not really bringing myself, but you learn to very softly, stay rooted in I'm here, and you'll find that you invite your partner to show a little more
Tess Masters:and show a little more. I don't know if you've ever like babysat a young child, but if you, if you you know, children kind of suss out how present you are, and they and they will, like, not really engage with you if they think you that you're not really there. But if you show that child, I'm here, they start
Tess Masters:to show you things. Like, they sort of go, okay, game on. And then, if you, you're still here, they're like, game on. Well, we're all children at heart, and we're all sussing out of our partner. Like, do they really have the capacity for the full me? And I'm here to tell you, eye contact is the strongest
Tess Masters:signal there is to say I've got the capacity for your full you. And maybe I'm gonna freak out and I'm gonna itch in my pants, like, you know, you're bringing all of these feelings, and I'm just like, crawling out of my skin, but I'm here. I'm here. And you know, the truth is, you don't even care if they're
Tess Masters:squirming, if they stay there, if they keep looking. It's such a gift of love. It's a gift of love. And then that's the that's the that's over here. It's like the beginning level, and then the advanced level I spoke to earlier, which is like, imagine sitting down with your husband of 20 years, and one day he just
Tess Masters:pauses and thinks, I don't even know who you are, and he offers you the kind of eye contact where he's looking at you like it's the first time who's in. Front of me that's like, love making chefs kiss, you know what I'm saying? Like, you don't care what happens after that. You're just like because you can feel
Tess Masters:that he's not just here. He's here beyond, beyond habits of relating, presuppositions, you know, projections. He's here like fresh eyes ready for the imprint of the snowfall. Do you know what I mean? Just so simple, so unbiased, the amount of love we can give through eye contact alone is just mind
Tess Masters:blowing, especially soft gaze, not like I need something you know not are you looking back? No, just soft gaze. I'm here.
Tess Masters:I have to ask you about this fullness thing and desire and making it our ally, not our enemy, the desire that we have within ourselves and the desire of our partner that you teach so beautifully. Desire, you know, is
Unknown:the source of all suffering, isn't it, as you say, but then it can be the source of all of our joy, pleasure, ecstasy, etc.
Tess Masters:Take me inside how we can understand desire in a way that is beautiful, that wanting for more. You know, that yearning that we see as a as a curse? I want more. I want more.
Tess Masters:Yeah, this idea was really born through the Tantras, and it was the considerationthat we don't necessarily have to completely rid ourselves of desire. We don't have to all put on robes, become celibates, shave our heads and never have a thought about sex or ever again to be awakened, to be liberated. But
Tess Masters:there's another way to work with these things in our lives. And so some of the most common poisons of mind that are worked with are desire, anger and ignorance. And each of them mean a unique thing. And each of them have a whole body of practices that surround the exploration of, how do we work with each one
Tess Masters:of these poisons and alchemize them into something that is medicinal, healing, beautiful. Alchemize it into conscious love. And so in this body of work, as we explore the sexual yogas or sacred intimacy, it's focusing on desire specifically, because this body of work, its deeper meaning is this isn't
Tess Masters:about self development. This isn't about just dating tricks and tips. This is about waking up through desire, about transforming relationship to desire such that it stops becoming a source of suffering and it becomes a vehicle for liberation itself. That's the inquiry that we're inside of
Tess Masters:with this body of work.
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: How we go about all of that can be tricky business.
Tess Masters:That's where we get into all of our problems when your desire and my desire collide.
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: And it gets even trickier when commonly you might run into the problem of I desire to not desire anymore. Now you're really stuck in a tricky place. What do you do with that? And so this is why, in this body of work, there's this beautiful paradox, which I think is one of the most
Tess Masters:interesting and fascinating things about this body of work, and it's the paradox of equanimity and desire. If you notice, in the middle circle of our path, there's equanimity at the bottom, there's desire at the top, and alpha and omega to the left and right. And if we can really understand the
Tess Masters:significance of that middle circle, we really start to grasp the heart and soul of what sacred sexuality is as a vehicle for spiritual awakening, not as a self development tool or a trick or tip to fix your marriage, but as a vehicle for spiritual awakening. It's right that. There in the symbol in the
Tess Masters:middle circle, and for everyone to simply understand what equanimity means is, equanimity is the direct experience that you need nothing to change. It's the experience of allowing yourself, the moment, your partner, the world to be just as it is, and nothing needs to change. Now, some people because
Tess Masters:that can create a state of peace or bliss within us. Some people imagine that equanimity means peace or bliss. Or some people imagine equanimity is okay. What my partner is saying to me is really making me mad, but I'll just bite my tongue and sit on my hands and I'll just be in equanimity with it, right?
Tess Masters:That's not equanimity. Equanimity can't be faked. You either do not need the moment to be different than it is, or you need the moment to be different than it is. So what we're cultivating in equanimity is truly the capacity to be with the intensity of the present moment without reacting to it.
Tess Masters:And that takes training. And these practices train us in that way. So as we sit here and we do the I see in the I feel practice. One of the things we're practicing here as well is not just seeing and feeling anything we want, because the practice alone isn't going to fix it's going to reveal your
Tess Masters:dynamic. So you sit there in the I see a fail practice, and you go, I see your clothes right now. I see you're in your childhood wound. I feel abandoned. I feel like you don't love me. You could just as easily sit down and do that in a practice, and that's going to go nowhere fast, right? As we start
Tess Masters:to gain some skill and equanimity, we can say things like, I see I feel, and we could notice that some things we're seeing or feeling could feel hurtful or scary. But what we cultivate in the practice is I allow you to feel exactly as you're feeling. I allow me to feel exactly as I'm feeling. I
Tess Masters:allow you to see as exactly as you're seeing. I don't need it to change. And through that repetition of seeing and feeling without reacting, we start to cultivate equanimity, which is the ability to meet the intensity of the moment as it is as it is.
Tess Masters:So in one hand, we're practicing I allow. I allow.
Tess Masters:Now desire is the polar opposite of that. Desire is not I allow. Desire is I want. Desire is the impulse for something to be different than it is, and at the fundamental level, whether we want to call it a need or a want, at the fundamental level, what's happening within your experience is the urge for
Tess Masters:something to be different than it is for you to be different, for the room to be different, for the person you're next to to be different. That agitation creates a lot of suffering, because that presence of that feeling is your confession that you are dissatisfied, that you are dissatisfied with whatever
Tess Masters:this moment is, and living in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction is absolute suffering. What else could it be, right? So this is why most of the ancient traditions will say, we're going to pull that out by the root. Let's get rid of that. There's nothing wrong with that approach. It's wise.
Tess Masters:It just doesn't happen to work for everybody, especially if we want to be passionate lovers and intimate relationship. And this is the unique feature about intimate relationship as it becomes a vehicle for awakening. Because when I turn and I look at my partner, if I was just here with no desire, I could be
Tess Masters:like, Hmm, I love you. Yes, everything's fine. I love you unconditionally. Yes. But there's not the charge to touch, to come together, to penetrate, to wrestle, to play. It's not there. And so if you want a relationship where there's not that level of passion or desire, you can have that if that's what
Tess Masters:you enjoy, but if you're looking for a life that's filled with passion, that desire we recognize is actually a critical component in intimate love, because intimacy itself is I want to kiss you. I want you to come closer. I. You. I want to touch you. I want to protect you. And so in these ways, the
Tess Masters:communication of my want is actually serving love. It's generating the experience of more love, of more trust, of more passion in this moment, not creating pain, sin, destruction, it's so we alchemize it to become a tool in service of our partner. We use our I want to actually serve this experience.
Tess Masters:So how do we do all of that without burning down the relationship, without causing massive losses of trust and heartache and all of that. We do it through awareness, through sensitivity, through equanimity. We do it through presence, through selfless devotion, through love, through trust. And
Tess Masters:so that's why all the pieces we've taught are so critical in this process, because to wield fire in that way. What we ultimately end up with is it's not that sometimes we're allowing and sometimes we're wanting. The secret is to be in complete equanimity, absolute equanimity, I allow and I want
Tess Masters:at the same time, full intensity, and that's what we start to wake up to as our direct experience. Because the flow of wanting and desire is our nature. It is the urge that impels life to show itself and shine. It is the fundamental desire of the grass to grow and the sun to shine. When we start
Tess Masters:to understand desire at that fundamental level and let that move through us. It comes through our intimate connection and our sexing, and in that way, we liberate through desire.
Tess Masters:Alright, let's come into the real world down from the monk mountain for a second. Okay, let I want you to give me a real life example of when I express my desire to my partner. My partner's just not quite there yet, and receives a bit of it, but I'm not quite ready to, you know, go and dress
Tess Masters:like a little full kitten or something, or not ready to touch you there or whatever, take me through that I would need exercise which is so powerful, so that we can meet in a mutual place of comfort or desire. Is that the right way to say it or presence?
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: So quickly, painting a picture of what in a female like in my female body, equanimity and desire looks like we will be, yeah. So let's say that Justin's on a trip, and he's been gone for a while, and I'm, I'm really, I'm really yearning for him. I'm dying for the call, I'm
Tess Masters:dying for the text, I'm dying for his attention. And I think whether you're single or in a relationship, you can relate to that moment when you are yearning for connection, almost to the point where you're getting cranky about it, you know, where you almost just either want to, like, lash out
Tess Masters:or shut down or just like, the desire for that attention from him is so much it almost like brings out your worst behavior. Do you know what I mean by that? Like, you know, like, you just want to be mad at him because he took too long to call, or you want to give up on the relationship because it hurts
Tess Masters:too bad to want it anymore. Or you create stories in your head about why you haven't heard from him and what that means. And then you call your girlfriend, and you spin a tail, and then you're in a tail spin, and then by the time he calls, you've accused him of cheating. You know what I mean? That's what
Tess Masters:desire out of control looks like. So equanimity would be like, I don't, you know, not real equanimity, but like, fake equanimity be like, I'm fine with whenever he calls, like, I'm cool. You know, desire out of control would be like, you know, what have you been doing? You know? And he's like,
Tess Masters:shooting a scene, and it went bad, and then we had 15 takes. Like, what? So, what does it look like when you're doing the yoga around a moment like this? Well, you don't shut the desire down, you know? You don't go like, I don't want to be dramatic, I'm just going to not care. And you don't run away
Tess Masters:with the desire where now you've spinned the tail. Instead, you feel the yearning for him in your body. It, and you allow that yearning so it's not a hot potato. You're going to throw into a story and a call with your girlfriend, and it's not a hot potato, you're going to be like, screw that. I don't want
Tess Masters:to feel that vulnerable. You're going to cook in it. You're going to bake in it. You're going to simmer in it, and you're going to literally let that desire make love to you while you make love to that desire, so much so that at one point you just imagining that moment of connection with him,
Tess Masters:and it's as if it's happening right now, and then you're saying yes, and you're saying yes again, and you're saying yes again, until you're so fulfilled in how much you want him, and you love being that alive, and loving being that alive makes you more alive until you are in a complete and total love making
Tess Masters:state, and he hasn't even called yet. And then by the time he calls, you're just like, Oh, hi, yeah, I'm over here having a great time. What are you doing? Do you get it? It's like you're literally allowing desire, the intensity of desire, to give you your best life to You know, like you could write a song with
Tess Masters:this. This does you could write a poem. You could make performance art, you could dance to four songs, and it'd be the best dancing you've ever done. So this is what Justin's talking about. Is like finding the willingness to want but also allow and in every way being willing to circulate that
Tess Masters:intensity unrelated to an exterior outcome, unrelated to a change of any kind, nothing in your situation changes, except that you become absolutely awakened by your own desire. Can you feel what I'm saying?
Tess Masters:Oh, I love it. No, I love it. Yeah, I love it. No, I understood what you were saying. Justin, I wanted an everyday example of,
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: well, I wanted to just paint that picture, because now I'm going to give you an everyday example.
Tess Masters:It was so great. No, no, it's so great.
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: Yeah, so imagine two people are doing this together. Okay, it gets more complicated, because your partner might sit down. So, you know, in the book, we talk about we do formal practice, and sometimes I wear some crazy outfit, you know, and it doesn't mean I'm, like, already there.
Tess Masters:It means, like, I'm, like, a Nordic priestess, like putting the ceremony together, and then I sit down, but I'm in some crazy outfit, and Justin will immediately feel that desire, like he's 200 steps ahead of me, and he can feel that desire. And he might say something like, I want your mouth around my cock.
Tess Masters:And I'll be like, I just got here, you know? And if I wasn't in allowing I would either need to shut him down or or speed myself up. I'd either be like what I just got here. God, if you ever want me to wear an outfit like this again, you should really just rest back for a second. Okay? I want some
Tess Masters:foreplay, you know? Or I might be like, Oh my God, what's wrong with me? I don't feel it. He's feeling it so much. I'm not feeling it. Am I frigid? Am I getting old? Is this menopause? What's going on? You know? Like, you could see reactivity in either direction, right? But what if I was to a practice
Tess Masters:allowing so he's got this 10 foot wave of desire, and I've got maybe a one footer at this point. But if I'm an allowing, I'm like, Okay, I see your 10 footer. I see but I also see my one footer, and I see that we're different here, and that's cool. And, huh, alright, what could he bring that might turn my one
Tess Masters:footer into a 10 footer? And so then I go, okay, okay, I hear you, and then I bring a what I would need. So I really, truly feel in my body like what might take me to the place that he's in. And this comes from practice, because I know myself really well. I have explored my wants in my private time. I'm
Tess Masters:connected to my body. I know what my body likes, I know what my body needs, I know what my body's interested in. So I tap into that well of solo practice that I've done, and I go like if I was to do it right now, what I would need is for you to undress me with your eyes and breathe so deep into my belly that I
Tess Masters:couldn't help but cry. Roll over and wrap my lips around your cock, right? Like I just named what I would need to get over there. I'm not shutting his desire down. I'm not judging mine, but I am giving him the bridge into me. I'm giving him sort of what I call the keys, like, here's what I would need
Tess Masters:to get there. And this is what we're doing all the time. And he's kind of like, okay, and then he starts doing it, and then we go from there. And it ends up being this incredible, because one of the number one things we see around sexuality in couples is the they're just in two polar opposite universes.
Tess Masters:You know, he wants an orgy and she wants him to empty the dishwasher. Like their desires don't even live in the same universe. And it's like, how do we end up getting into a fun tussle with that. This is how, this is how, and it really works. And it really works not from forcing yourself to play
Tess Masters:games that you're not even enjoying. It works through true self revelation, just bringing the union genuinely online, such that by the time you arrive there, both of your bodies are all in. And that's what's special, is when both bodies are all in, there's not one partner counting the minutes until he
Tess Masters:comes, or another partner like, you know, closing his eyes and fantasizing about his latest porn clip. You know, just happy to get access to a human body. You know, we see this, and nobody wants that, really. You know, nobody, neither partner wants that. They want union. And union involves some skills, and
Tess Masters:they're all available in the path, make sense?
Tess Masters:Yes, Justin, I have to ask you from a male perspective, because what you're describing is the dynamic that so many women moan about, which is that what you were saying about the man being 100 steps ahead, and he's got a 10 foot wave of desire and wants to go straight into the fucking. And
Tess Masters:you're just you need some you need some enticement. You need some ravishing before that. You need some love and tenderness and whatever you know. So from a male's perspective, how can you move with your waves of desire and at the same time catch hers?
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: That's what creates the hottest sexual moments. Is the full embodiment of equanimity and desire at the same time. So what I mean by that is, if I'm turned towards her, and she's wearing something sexy, and I'm turned on. Take a breath with my desire. I feel my desire, and I might say I want
Tess Masters:your mouth around my cock. So I'm feeling my desire fully. I express my desire in a way that's loving to her. I'm not being inconsiderate or controlling. I'm loving her as I do this, but I'm in full equanimity with my desire. That's there. Now she hears that, and she responds with
Tess Masters:something to the effect of not yet, because she's in equanimity with my desire and her own desire. You see it, as she said before, if she was an equanimity, she'd shut me down or speed herself up. But because she's practicing equanimity with my desire and hers at the same time, both our desires coexist
Tess Masters:harmoniously, even though they're radically different, right? So I'm in this moment now. She says, Not yet. Hmm, is that more interesting than her doing what I want. It's more interesting because getting your desire fulfilled is not the peak of ecstasy. Desire is the tension point that exists
Tess Masters:between you wanting something in the distance, between it and you want it to get close, close, close, close, close, but actually to touch it fully, would be to to for the desire to disappear. It's to sustain that desire and hang out in there, and that creates the most ecstatic sexual moments. So I'm
Tess Masters:with her, and I say, I want this. She says, Not yet. Now I'm even more interested. Now I'm like wanting it more badly, so I'm in equanimity with that desire. Now, if I wasn't in equanimity with my own desire, two things could happen in that moment. She says, Not yet. And I go, Oh, my desire is bad. It was
Tess Masters:too much. I came on too strong. I knew I shouldn't have said that. Let me shrink down and hide and feel ashamed for what I was feeling, not equanimity with desire, right? So I'm allowing that to be here. But the other direction it could go is, well, forget you're not yet. I need this now and just start touching
Tess Masters:her and jump on her and totally ignore what's happening inside of her, right? So what it looks like is she says, Not yet, I keep feeling my desire, but I'm in perfect equanimity with my desire. I don't need her to actually do what I said I desired. My Love and My presence and my connection with her
Tess Masters:aren't dependent upon her doing the thing that I said. I'm revealing my desire as a way to invite her into my world experience with complete equanimity for what is there and what is wanting, and at the same time, I am completely unattached to anything that I say coming forward, because my primary
Tess Masters:interest is to love this woman. That's what we're here to do, to ecstatically experience love, not just in kind of like a gushy way, but I mean a full body rapture, ecstasy of love, like when some people do it through peak psychedelic experiences, other people do it through skydiving. You know, there's a
Tess Masters:million ways to do it, but it's that peak life experience that we're creating here through our sexuality, and that's how it's done. It's through the simultaneous embodiment of both desire and equanimity at once. Now when she, when I when she can feel my full desire flowing and also feel that I have the
Tess Masters:discipline to rest back and stay here as I feel my desire, does that create more turn on or less? That's what I'm talking about. So So while these principles are so esoteric, we can play with them and actually measure and experience directly the profound effect they have on our lives, and once you learn
Tess Masters:how to integrate that into your life, it's like seeing the matrix. You can't go back, and now you have this powerful tool that will serve you every day of your relationship for the rest of your life.
Tess Masters:Oh, I love how you talk about, yeah, psychedelics and drugs. Try sacred love, sacred sexuality people. So if we're holding our fullness, we've got polarity, we've got equanimity, and we've got our desire, let's go into the advanced part of the path that you were alluding to before, so
Tess Masters:that we do not burn the house down and everybody in it with our desire and our awareness and all the things this devotion piece is so beautiful. Let's move into the the top part of the path. Yeah,
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: well, we're a self development driven culture, and there's nothing wrong with self development. Self development is wonderful, but I think it's important for us to recognize in this body of work and why this is a spiritual path, as opposed to a path of self development, is because of
Tess Masters:this piece of devotion, because it's through devotion that we are practicing, cultivating these gifts in selfless service of love. And rather than it being let's develop ourselves and create the perfect self. It's the exploration. Let's transcend the self. Let's learn how to love beyond our self, not
Tess Masters:beyond the ego and actually love a human being. And one of the things I love when I'm teaching these workshops with couples is a lot of people will come with spiritual knowledge. You know, we attract an audience who understands spirituality, and we've all heard the idea, transcend your ego. Transcend
Tess Masters:the ego. No self, transcend your ego. Very rarely do we ever see anyone doing it in real time, or giving us a way to say, this is how you transcend your ego. And one of the things that I love is there'll be a couple in that workshop, and they have a hard moment and they're fighting, you know, there's just something
Tess Masters:happens. There's a rupture, or they came into the workshop with this rupture, and now it's like coming up in a moment, and I say, look, sit down with your partner, take a breath. See into their experience. See looking through their eyes, see what they just experienced, and how you might have affected them and
Tess Masters:caused that. And those people will sit there, they'll take a breath, and they'll say something like, I see your hearts broken because I lost your trust. I see you feel abandoned because I spoke on kind. To you earlier. Now, in that moment, they're overcoming this knot of self that is
Tess Masters:gripping, wanting to defend itself, wanting to justify it, does not want to say any of those things it wants to say, but you and no and so in that moment, they actually get the experience, and we all witness it. The room is so quiet, so still, as you could hear a pin drop in these moments, because
Tess Masters:everyone can see what's happening is so profound, but in that moment, they're actually transcending their selfishness in service of love, and that moment really represents why we cultivate these skills in service of other and service of world. So as we embark on this path, I think it's important for
Tess Masters:us to remember that self transcendence is kind of the crux and the key to it all, because you can develop all these polarity skills and all these distinctions and teachings and still be very selfish about it, because they're powerful tools. You can go out in the world and you can use these
Tess Masters:techniques, and you can manipulate people and get what you want. And there are people who do it, but if you are missing this devotion piece where it's not about you, but it's actually about cultivating, that is something that is truly of service of others. That's where this becomes a spiritual
Tess Masters:path.
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: And devotion. Devotion is the thing that creates the long term commitment, because Sometimes life hits you with a two by four. You know you might have the relationship on track be totally in love and in passion, and then something horrible happens that causes grief, and
Tess Masters:one partner has a rough span for a second. If everybody's there to get their own needs met, you know, one partner will be on the sidelines like so, when do I get this yumminess again, you know? Or, you know, I'm not sure this is what I signed up for, but when the devotion piece is strong, there's just an element
Tess Masters:of standing for your partner that has a generosity and a patience to it. You know, Justin mentioned we had some tough times. We had one miscarriage that was so bad, my milk came in. I was destroyed. I mean, just like flattened for a very long time. And in our first book, Justin wrote a chapter
Tess Masters:called shards of glass, because breathing me during that time felt like he was inhaling shards of glass. I mean, how does a couple make it through something like that? It's strictly an only devotion that allows you to stay together through such trying times, because you learn how to transcend your own neediness,
Tess Masters:and you learn how to really show up for somebody beyond even hidden agendas of like, okay, I'll show up for a couple weeks here, but then I'm going to need something back, you know? And the devotion really teaches you how to be together forever. And I'm so grateful that we have this devotion piece, because I
Tess Masters:feel like there's room for me to go through things, because there's also nothing worse than spiritually bypassing left, right and center, because you don't think your relationship is strong enough for you to have a bad moment. And you know, I've been able to, like, truly grieve some tough things, because
Tess Masters:Justin, Justin made space for me to really grieve. And I honestly, if I hadn't grieved that one miscarriage at the level that I did, I really don't think I would have my six and a half year old today, because I was able to get on the other side and, like, really find my exuberance for life again. And
Tess Masters:to we were able to get on the other side and have this, like, thriving sexual life again. And that thriving, to, you know, exuberance and yes and full body release led to a pregnancy at 47 you know. And so the devotion piece can't be stressed enough, because it creates the ground for everybody to truly meet this
Tess Masters:life on this life's terms and not avoid key things that are part of your incarnated path, key things that you're here to meet and would love to have support around you know you can have a partner supporting you as you genuinely meet the two by four.
Tess Masters:Something was kind. Up for me as I was reading your books, and as I'm talking to you now, was the difference between the dance of intimacy and the yoga of intimacy that you take people in that all these books I'd read about the dance of intimacy the conscious and unconscious, you know, fear
Tess Masters:of intimacy and abandonment that lives within each of us, conscious or unconscious, and it keeps the focus on you, as you were just saying Justin and reading those books kept the focus on me. And when I read your books and was speaking to you, that devotion piece really came into my heart and went it
Tess Masters:just took it into a whole other level of making it about love and the devotion. Isn't a codependent I'm going to give this my partner every single thing that they want, and sacrifice what I need, and this all or nothing, or one or the other, kind of of a toxic dance of going nowhere but trauma and
Tess Masters:disappointment, but this devotion to just showing up. I love what you were saying before. It's just, Oh God, I want to cry about thinking about being in the pregnancy of the moment that allows you to believe that this moment will give birth to something beautiful that's really going to
Tess Masters:stay with me. So thank you for that. Oh, God, I could talk to you about this forever. Truly, I always close every episode with the same question, which is, when you have a dream, I'm going to say desire. Within the context of our conversation today, and you don't feel like you have what it takes to make
Tess Masters:it happen, or you don't feel like life is going to meet you in a place where it will be answered. What do you say to yourself? I mean, you've been answering this for our whole conversation but, but I'd love to just close with with what's coming up for each of you with that, what do you say to
Tess Masters:yourself and you don't feel like the moment is going to have? What you need?
Tess Masters:Londin Angel Winters: What I say to myself is, if this moment feels insufficient in any way that's on me. And if I think that there's a future moment where life gets better than this moment, that's also my own mistake. And so my ever present practice is when I'm projecting into some futurely fulfilled
Tess Masters:moment. How can I love the desire for what I want to make, make manifest, right? How do I not let go of that desire, but experience that desire all the way right now? I mean, this is, this is like becoming your own lover. Like, how does that desire become deep fuck for me right now, not 30 seconds from
Tess Masters:now, but now, because a I'm recognizing that there is no future moment, and then the paradox that my fully receiving that desire and like being in full love making with it, is what creates that future moment to be my reality. So this is the intersection of surrender and manifestation that I'm currently
Tess Masters:in. And remember how I said originally I gave up my job, you know, I thought it was all now I'm in that marriage between the two. And so now you're in true magical creation, which is breathing it through your full love body here and now creates the molecules that make it something that is in form later.
Tess Masters:So I would say, be it, breathe it. Love it. Be Loved by it. Like so much so that it's as if it's already occurring, and it will not be long before it's occurring. Mm,
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: uh, when I look out and I experience it's just obvious that life is here to be seen, to be tasted, to be touched. And every moment, it's inviting us, whether we're lying in our bed or walking down the street, life is just a constant invitation. It's constantly inviting you. It's constantly
Tess Masters:here, saying, Look at me, see me, touch me, smell me, obviously.
Tess Masters:And when I had really come to see that and know that I.
Tess Masters:My purpose here became self evident. Purpose wasn't something I had to pursue or do. Purpose was self evident. It's in being itself that there's purpose. In being itself, there's love and being itself. There's real freedom and the fullness and richness of life. And I don't just say those
Tess Masters:words, I mean, it is my experience.
Tess Masters:It wasn't always my experience, but in that way, I always feel sustained.
Tess Masters:I always feel safe. That doesn't mean I don't have doubtful thoughts or fearful thoughts, but those just color the moment temporarily. But behind it all, there is a there is a being that has never let me down, that has always been there, no matter what sensation or experience that may have been present.
Tess Masters:There is a being that has never been touched or tainted or scarred by any experience, and knowing that resting in that is the greatest security, the deepest safety, the most profound gift, and that's that's not just Me, that's within all of us, we share that experience. It just takes some time to clear
Tess Masters:the cobwebs and settle the mind and remember that's who we are. It's always with us.
Tess Masters:Thank you for how you show up in the world and for the beautiful work that you're doing. It's just wonderful.
Tess Masters:Justin Patrick Pierce: Thank you. Tess, thank I'm.