Creating a HELL YES Marriage: Deep Connection, Incredible Sex, & Making Your Wife Feel Amazing

Ear muffs kids, this show gets real.   When I started Front Row Dads, I thought our conversations were going to mainly be about parenting, but quickly realized the need within our brotherhood to focus on marriage.   When your #1 relationship is solid, the impact on your kids is profound.   On this episode, Allana Pratt and I have some real talk about love.   In this show we’re going to dig into…

• Why the more you speak, the worse things get  
• How to be a “noble badass”  
• Nipples or Not?   
• Should you tell your partner EVERYTHING?  
• The power of touch  
• Why intimacy doesn’t always equal sex  
• The dangers of resisting what’s real  

More about Allana Pratt … 

My friend Allana Pratt is an intimacy Expert who inspires open-hearted living and helps guys become “Noble Badass Men”.   Her inspiring vulnerability and courage has landed her a featured weekly column on the GoodMenProject, featured as an Icon of Influence, and as guest expert on CBS, TLC, FOX, Forbes, People Magazine and Huffington Post.   This cum laude graduate of Columbia University is the author of 4 books and hosts the empowering Podcast “Intimate Conversations” to guests like Grammy Award winning Alanis Morissette.   A certified coach, Allana was asked by Leeza Gibbons to coach her during Dancing with the Stars.   With close to 4 million viewers on YouTube Allana is the go-to authority for hot, healthy, thriving intimate relationships.  

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Read The Transcript

[read more]   [INTRODUCTION]   Allana: I have tasted shame, pain, fury, range. I have tasted bliss and care and kindness, and this altruistic. I am everything. Who do I choose to be right now? That’s free.   Jon: All right, guys. As you know, most of our guests here are men and we are talking about family life, usually getting into one of five subjects, right, vibrant health, physical, mental, spiritual, emotional mastery, self-awareness, self-control, thriving relationships, what is an awesome marriage look like for you, intentional parenting, how we are educating our kids, and integrated living, how are we working this work-life harmony, how are we managing our calendars. And occasionally, we throw in a female guest expert, which I think it’s really important to get the female perspective. My guest today. Allana Pratt, is offering an awesome perspective on intimacy. She is an expert in that space. She is on this quest to inspire this openhearted unapologetic living she calls helping these guys become noble badass men. She actually writes for the weekly column on The Good Men Project and she’s been seen on Fox and Forbes and People Magazine and all these other places. Her YouTube channel has over 4 million viewers. Pretty darn awesome.   She’s authored a couple of books. She hosts a podcast called Intimate Conversations and our conversation today is about intimacy and we’re all over the place. It’s pretty fun. Now, listen, there’s some colorful language here. For sure not one that you probably want to have on speakerphone with unless you’ve heard the show first then you can determine who you want to listen to it but this is an earbuds type of conversation that we’re about to have. And we’re all over the place. We’re talking about lots of different stuff but I think you’re going to see the depth of her wisdom and her coaching. I asked some pretty direct questions and we talk about it all and I think you guys are going to really enjoy the show.   If you’re new to the Front Row Dads podcast, welcome. Glad you’re here. We are creating this platform, this space, this conversation for guys who value being family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. A small shift in words there, huge distinction in how you live your life. Guys, this is going to be an awesome conversation. Thanks again for tuning in. Enjoy your front row seat to my new friend, Alanna Pratt.   [INTERVIEW]   Jon: Alanna, welcome the Front Row Dads. I have been looking forward to this for weeks so really glad you’re here.   Allana: I’m glad you and Tatyana were stalking me in my video so I’m prepared for this conversation. Good.   Jon: That’s right. Yeah. So, when you meet people, what do you tell them that you do in your words?   Allana: I just launch straight into vagina talk. No, I don’t. I kind of sense like how playful they are actually and what I can say to them.   Jon: All right. Let’s go with the super playful.   Allana: The super playful is I would be like, “Have you ever heard of a Kegel?” or what have you or, “Intimacy, and what does that mean to you?” But in all reality, people generally don’t ask me what I do. They generally start telling me things. They’ve never told anyone else and all of a sudden, within a couple of minutes they’re like, “I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” where they start to cry or they’re sharing something and they’re having revelations, that things they haven’t even told themselves in my space of listening. There’s just something about me whether I’m going furniture shopping and I’m in the back room within 20 minutes drinking scotch with the owner of the place showing me his tattered photo of the 13-year-old girl who’s now been his wife for 60 years like people just tell me stuff. And so, I get really intimate really fast and, on this space, where to me nothing is taboo like why in this beautiful world of dark and light, up and down, good and bad, right and wrong, like why do we have to judge? What if it’s just all good shit to experience?   So, they start to tell me their sexual desires, they start to tell me their greatest fears, their most horrendous shames, their fantasies, and I just go, “Uh-huh,” and they’re like, “Oh my God, it’s safe,” and so they keep telling me. And so, yeah, I’m an intimacy expert, and I make it okay to dive into the darkness of yourself and find the light.   Jon: Are most of your clients females? Has a mixture of female/male?   Allana: It’s really funny. I believe my job is my way to heal and like I’m here to teach what I’m here to learn. So, when I had issues around my sensuality, I got a lot of female clients wanting to talk about sacred sex. When I was really wobbling as a single mother, I got all these people that were actually parenting experts that I got to interview so that I would learn and become a better mother. When I was getting really bitter during the custody battle and I was starting, I was on that teetering edge of hating men. I got all these beautiful male clients who had these humongous hearts the size of Jupiter for me to believe in men again. And so, I seem to get what I need and right now I’ve got about 60% women, 40% men, maybe only 10% couples and it’s really people who have been so wounded in heartbreak, the trail abandonment. They just don’t know how to open their heart and live free in relationship, whether it’s dating, whether it’s 20-year marriage like how do I be me? How do I unfurl me?   Jon: Yeah. What are the major challenges that people struggle with in this area? If you had to categorize them or generalize the challenges most men face, what do you find?   Allana: Well, they’re scared like they don’t want to say the truth. They’re like, “I’ll get rejected. I’ll look like an idiot. It won’t go well.”   Jon: You’re talking about to their spouses, to their friends?   Allana: Yeah. Well, it could be really anywhere especially to themselves, really, I think that’s where we need to start first.   Jon: Being honest with yourself about.   Allana: Yeah. Being honest with yourself that this is what I desire in life like I’ve accomplished this and I got the money here and I got this here, but it’s not enough. I mean, you go inside and you’re like, “Why?” and then there’s this little voice and it’s quiet and sometimes it’s been so shut down for so long that it doesn’t even speak up in the form of an emotion anymore. It’s just this like numb quiet but I really want this and it could be sexually, it could be a difference you want to make on the planet. It could be a level of intimacy and being seen in safe and gotten. It could just be safety to not have it all together or to be down in the ditch one day and not be fixed and told you have to have a positive attitude and it’s like work them. Like, can you sit with me in the ditch and not fix me and just drink tequila? Can we just sit here please? And can I still be enough? Like, can I just not be on all the time? It could be a variety of these things. It’s just a freedom to be human and not to have to have it all together.   Jon: Is intimacy always sex?   Allana: No. Intimacy is not always sex. Sex is included in the umbrella of intimacy, but to me, intimacy is being vulnerable, transparent, raw, real, honest, without the need to fix or change anything and just be. Because we think, well, I don’t know what you think but I was brought up that we’re supposed to be successful and happy and it’s all this one side of the spectrum, and there’s this whole other side of life. In reality, there is always equal support and challenge, always equal pleasure and pain. That’s actually reality. It’s always balanced but we tend to be addicted to pleasure and the accomplishment and the good and the happy and resist and stay far away from the sad and the mad and the angry and the shameful, which is really out of balanced and f**ked up. And eventually, it’s going to catch up with you and smack you across the face in the form of a bankruptcy, a divorce, a cancer, something. Something’s going to wake you up to go, “Oh, I’m out of balance here.”   So, intimacy is how do we be with, generally, the other half that we don’t know how to navigate that we can come into presence, we can come into that moment of grace where true choice and true oneness with the divine happens. It’s our true superpower. The rest is really just our will pushing and creating great results but it’s not actually our magic.   Jon: When you think of transformational stories of people that you’ve worked with, somebody comes to work with you, and they have a problem. They’re hung up somewhere for whatever reason whatever it might be and then have a breakthrough. When you look back on your journey being a coach, an expert in the space, do any stories come to mind that you could share with us today that, “Hey, that’s how I like to learn,” knowing somebody went through something and this is how they found their way through the darkness to the other side?   Allana: Yeah. And quite a few like for popping up as you’re asking me and it’s like I get the privilege of being in these dark, dark spaces with people and to wrap my legs around my client. Moments are coming to mind, which is not normally what I do. I normally work on Zoom but I do these intensives and I do retreats and so there’s one, two moments where I don’t know why. I just feel like I am the surrogate of the divine mother and I’m supposed to hold them. So, one moment a woman tragically lost her husband. He was a firefighter and gently pulled the plug and she’s pretty young. They’ve been together 10 years, but he was her soulmate and she didn’t know how to let go and she was wearing his ring, the wedding ring around her neck. And came to me after about a year-and-a-half of, can you imagine, like another ceremony where you get the flag from the president and like this kind of idea.   So, she had like maybe 10 American flags and she had to keep reliving his death over and over and she wasn’t healing so she came to me and she came out to LA. It was a full moon for some reason and we were out in my backyard under this full moon and I just said, “Can I hold you from behind? Can I give you the experience where you can let go and be held?” And so there we were and we had champagne and we had like the silver bull because she wrote down everything, she wanted to say to him and she read it, she burned it, and we lit it on fire. Under the full moon, we drank champagne and we took off the necklace of the wedding ring and we put it down. And she sobbed in my arms. She just needed to totally let go, but not be alone like literally be held. It was profound. Four years later, she’s in a new relationship and he just moved in last month and she’s moving on. So, I have a blessing of those kinds of experiences.   And then just as recent as over the holiday break, I did a retreat in Sedona with a bunch of my inner circle clients and we’re sitting in a circle doing sort of the morning practice and this one dude it’s just really triggered and he can’t look the group in the eye and he just really yearns for connection, but he was horrendously abused growing up, super successful as a man now, but can’t feel. Since he started to feel, it’s just like too much so he just goes back into his really smart head. And I said, “Aww, s**t.” See these moments happen, Jon, where I’m just like, “Aww, s**t. I’ve got to do it.” It’s like I just get this massive amount of energy, insight download, like I go, “Okay. Can I hug you?” So, I come over and I go, “Can I just sit behind you?” and so I just put my two hands on his heart and I said just lean back into me. And this isn’t in front of like another eight people. We kind of just met and I just said to the group, “Finish the sentence for me. The magnificence I see in you is…” And I go, “And your job is to receive it and let it f**king blast your heart open and I got you. I got you.”   And she sobbed happy tears, sad tears, happy tears, sad tears. And he came into his body. He actually relaxed into the moment and the gift it was to everyone else to watch someone that brave crack open and receive, he was never the same again. He was present from that moment onward. He since expressed his love for somebody that he hasn’t had the courage to do. They’re having hot sex. He hadn’t had hot sex in so long. He’s alive and juicy and like literally the color came back into his skin again. So, it’s kind of funny. Those are the two moments I thought of, but there is something about touch that so, oh, and general inappropriate let’s sit on this therapy couch and just talk about f**k. But what I’ve learned the way the brain works and you probably know this, it imprints into our being an image and a motion, a thought and a body sensation. And a lot of times when therapy doesn’t work, it’s because we do one layer. We just talk and talk and talk but in order to really have it shift, transform into a new reality, we need to hit all of those four levels, and touch is important.   Jon: So important. This may be a stretch to relate these two things together but if we just are talking about the power of physical touch, the intimacy is way more than sex, right? Because you can be intimate with another friend, right?   Allana: Oh yes, with your children.   Jon: Two men could have intimacy that has nothing to do with sex and they’re totally straight guys. I remember my friend Matthew Kelly wrote a book called The Seven Levels of Intimacy and his whole point was like this is a deep connection. That’s what that is, right? Like, in some cases, it might relate to that. So, I think about physical touch. I think about the power of that one of my favorite moments of being a dad was when my nine-year-old was fighting with mom and I said, “Hey, buddy. Here’s what you’re going to do,” and I shared this not too long on another show. I think this is worth repeating many times.   Allana: Yeah.   Jon: I said, “You got to walk up to mom and you got to give her a hug like a good hug and don’t let go until she does one of two things. You either feel her take a really deep breath and release it all or she lets go of you. And when one of those two things happen, you can let go.” And I watched him do this and he was committed. It took her like 45 seconds. If you like really go 45 seconds and you really think about that, it was a long time. And then she like got a smile and she started rubbing his back she took a big breath and then she kissed him on the cheek and he walked away looking at me like I just gave him the keys to the kingdom. I was like, “Buddy, that’s a very important move.” Because for a lot of years, Allana, like I thought I was going to talk my way into more intimacy with my wife until I realized that almost nothing I was ever going to say was going to fix something that a solid present loving hug at the deepest level would solve. It was actually my words were hurting me more than helping me.   Jon: That’s so humble and so true though. I love this and in one of my books, Chapter 5: Rituals of Intimacy, I call it the six-second hug. Now, 45 is like rock star bonus level but the idea of how we just go in for the peck, in for the hug, like we don’t even like connect bodies. We just sort of go pat, pat on the back and off we go for the day. But if you really start with a full body hug, six seconds, one potato, two potato, three potato, what’s real gets flushed out, four potato, five potato, you can’t run, but 45 seconds, how brilliant and to really recognize there’s so much being communicated in the energy, in the breath, in just surrendering to one another. I love that. I love that. On my Instagram, there’s a photo of me and my son and my cat in bed, and there’s been a long custody battle and he’s choosing to live with his dad right now and it can be months in between hearing from him and it’s just really torturous right now to ask him to have common decency to let your mother know you’re alive while honoring his exploration of manhood and figuring himself out and recognizing this is creating peace because mom’s not around. Look at that. No more custody battle. Unfortunately, that’s the way he’s creating it and just to have this morning snuggle with my cat and my son and capturing that moment is like bliss for me, just healing bliss.   Jon: So powerful. Tatyana and I this morning were meditating. We did an hour-long meditation started at five and right about 50 minutes in, my four-year-old comes in but he comes in and he’s totally quiet. He comes up and he sits on me and I hold him and I’m just like tickling his back. I was like this is the best part of the meditation. I’m not really meditating at that moment but I try to be present in the process but, yeah, I mean, we can go back and forth I’m sure with example after example. Very, very powerful. It’s something for all you guys out there listening to think about is that really not every one of your spouses or people in your life is physical touch is their number one love language if you will. But I think for a lot of people, it’d be hard to say that there’s not some form of that touch at some level that’s a very human need that we have. It shows up differently. People like to be touched in different ways and we have to read your partner but most important thing is to know that that it’s likely a critical factor for everybody listening.   Allana: No. It’s a great thing to bring into communication with your partner too whether you’re just driving to the grocery store, if you want the kids necessarily to hear or not, or if you’re going out on a date, or if it’s at the completion of one of these meditation moments. Just to ask the question, tell me something about you and touch, and to go back and forth and just let each of you speak what’s true and then just say thank you. You don’t have to fix it. You don’t have to go, “Oh yeah, remember when, no rebuttals, no justification, just tell me something about you and touch.” Because some people are more energetic. The softest touch can bring them to tears. Others are very sexual like, “Why aren’t you touching my nipples? Now,” like they want that and other ones are like, “Get away from my nipples,” for at least 20 minutes of sensual touch like, “Just stroke the side of my breasts,” just some need the safety of like, “I just need you to hold firm the small of my back. Why aren’t you touching stronger?”   Everybody has a little bit different of what works but if you can get into the nuances and even the nuances different times of the month. Right now, when I’m so close to my cycle, I just feel like a whale. I just need a different kind of touch than when I finished working out or when we had a weekend away like this so beautiful to really honor this component of touch the way your partner wants it and to be able to communicate it, the man to the woman and the woman to the man and ask and play and explore. Maybe you don’t even know how you like to be touched. What if there’s a whole other world out there that can bring more intimacy?   Jon: What about the guys that are thinking right now, “Yeah. That sounds great, to be honest, but I can’t be honest with my partner?” Like, if I went and I, “Either, A, my partner’s not listening to me or my partner’s going to judge me or this isn’t going to end well,” because maybe they’re just too afraid that their partner’s not going to be able to handle whatever their truth is for whatever reason.   Allana: Yeah. This is more the norm. I mean, people that have this level of relationship that obviously you do and you can talk about this and meditate is beautiful. But to me, it’s like what the f**k are you doing in a relationship if you can’t be yourself? Like literally, what the f**k are you doing in life if you can’t tell yourself the truth and tell your partners and best friends the truth? Now, of course, you can’t tell everybody but in our intimate circle, this is the privilege of being able to be in a relationship with someone who’s cultivating that level of transparency and safety. To maybe not be agreed with but to be understood and heard and honored for your truth and not to be judged or fixed. That’s f**king fundamental of, to me, a marriage, a relationship.   Jon: So, when I hear that though there’s a part of me that goes, “Yes,” like totally agree and is it everything? Like even in a marriage let’s say. Would you argue that you should tell your partner everything?   Allana: No.   Jon: Look, there’s going to be – you have to use your discretion here. There are going to be things where you go, “You should be really open and honest with your partner.” But, yeah, there’s going to be moments when you might want to bite your tongue. Maybe that’s because you want to trickle out the information. You don’t want to go if you’ve never shared say your wildest fantasy, you might not want to go from 0 to 100 like that. Let’s start with fantasy number one.   Allana: Preschool fantasy moving up to, yeah, elementary school fantasy. Okay. So, to be super clear, you’re always at choice of what you share. I just don’t want you ever to not be able to share and have it be not safe. Yes, you don’t want to share everything with your partner. Some things are only between you and your body, you and your heart, you and your soul, you and God, you and the divine, or you and just the guys, or you and just the girls. If you don’t have the choice, you don’t have the freedom to be able to share what you choose is going to be a contribution to the relationship and you feel like you’re in a prison. That doesn’t fly for me but, yes, you want to always be discerning with what will uplift, what will contribute, what will be life force energy, wind in the wings of the marriage and what won’t, and that is discernment, intuition, instincts, that is presence, that is knowing yourself, and literally being at choice. If you need to be heard in order to be good enough, okay, you’re not coming from your power.   If you’re withholding out of fear, you’re not in your power. If you must tell her everything or this is not a safe relationship then you’re forcing something on it. Now, I’m not talking about any of those nuances. I’m talking about such a deep intimate relationship with yourself first. Having healed shame with self first, feeling totally at home, wobbly, wacky voice self first, then you actually have choice, then you’re actually present. Then you can ask the question before you open your mouth, “Will this communication now with this person be it your child, your lover, your best friend, whatever, be an uplifting contribution and an expansion of the possibility and energy. And if you don’t get light and expansive and a yes however you hear truth inside, then shut the f**k up. Don’t say anything. It’s not about being right or wearing your heart on your sleeve. It’s about what will create richer, deeper connection in that moment with another.   And if over time, you keep getting heavy or, “No, I can’t share this, I can’t share this, I can’t share this,” it starts to become painful. It starts to become an elephant in the living room. It starts to become a block or separation, then we need to work on it to be able to have that level of safety. You just want to be able to be yourself with another.   Jon: Do you find that people struggle with the double standard sometimes like they want their spouse to be honest, but yet they don’t necessarily want to tell the full truth. I feel like this comes up a lot. It’s shown up for me where I’ve actually like acknowledged of myself and like, “Wow. That’s unfair,” that you definitely want something from your partner you’re not willing to give fully yourself.   Allana: Oh, yes. Like, you don’t want them ever to be attracted to anyone else ever but I’m allowed to be attracted to other people all the time.   Jon: Yeah. Tell me I’m the only one, I’m the best one. I never thought about it. I was literally like, “Yeah.” But clearly…   Allana: I did not scroll Jason Momoa’s Instagram. No, I don’t. I really don’t. So, I think having some humor and levity when you have that deep inner connection with yourself, you come across this capacity of allowance. Allowance doesn’t mean we like it. Allowance doesn’t mean we prefer it but allowance means we don’t resist and that way our partner, we know we saw where their eyes went when that person walked by, but we have this allowance for them. We know that when we turn our back, they do the right thing and we give them this grace of being human and having these different attractions and do we actually want to hear about how it made them all titillated. Probably not. You know, have your time, but there’s a grace that we can provide another when we have that ability to be with ourselves and our humanity and our levels of attraction to other people.   It really just comes down to if you don’t resist what’s real within yourself, then it passes. You get the wisdom from it. You get the enlightenment from it. You get the lesson from it. But if you resist something inside of yourself, it’s going to start to grow. It’s going to start to expand and your worst case scenario is going to happen in the form of maybe like a total invitation for an affair or a total invitation for something that you feel out of integrity with. It never needs to get to that level if when the first thing bubbles up in the first place, the first attraction or the first thought like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m having this thought. I’m a totally happily married man. Why am I having this thought?” If you just welcome it, go sit in the fire with it, go for some scotch and sit down in the dark with this part of yourself and just go, “Hey, okay, tell me more.” You resist nothing of self and you do this own internal processing.   It works itself out most times, or you have these kind of conversations with somebody nonjudgmental and unconditionally loving, like myself, like a counselor or a therapist so that you can just be real and sometimes you never need to say a word to your partner but if you don’t, I promise you, what you resist will grow into a situation that could compromise the integrity of your relationship and you’re going to have a lot of cleaning up to do. It’s okay to be messy. It’s okay to sit in the dark, the taboo. It’s part of who you are. It starts to – I might even talk about it, the ayawaska that we briefly spoke of before the show began like those are great tools whether it’s therapy, spiritual medicines, or what have you. Just go sit with your darkness. It’s you too and it’s just as beautiful. It’s just a little crunchy around the edges or a little naughty or nasty.   Jon: Give definition If you wouldn’t mind to that term because I think that could bring up a lot of individual definitions.   Allana: Sure. Well, for me, the way darkness is as I am everything. I have the capacity to give birth and I have. I have the capacity to kill. I haven’t but I have the capacity like don’t f**k with me. And if somebody wants to like rape me, one will be standing at the end, and it will be me like I have this fierceness in me that I’ve allowed to be there and I didn’t like her in the beginning. I would suppress her and then she’d be a b**ch and she’d say something really passive aggressive because I didn’t know how to be with this veracity of my spirit like I have like a tsunami that can come through a gaze like it’s a lot of power and I don’t think we always know how to be with the immensity of our power. I have all sorts of different sexual energy. Sometimes they’re very tender, very healing, and those sexual life force healing energies I can use as a mother, or as a coach. Sometimes these sexual energies are very creative and I want to do a podcast, I want to write a book, and they’re very alive and bright and sunshiny.   Other times my sexual energy, my fears, this energy that could burst a star, blossom a flower, birth a planet that kind of thing. It can kill. Don’t mess with me. Other times it can be very erotic and kinky and wild and naughty and playful and all these things that I wouldn’t normally lead with my bio but if I’m in a sacred relationship, I’m like, “Yeah. I would love to try that.” I had no idea that turned me on like there’s so many flavors of ourselves. I think it’s our birthright to give ourselves permission to meet them all in a safe, healthy way, but so that we don’t resist anything and we have choice. That I think is our superpower. When we resist something, we don’t have choice. We’re reacting. It’s not choice but when we’re truly I am all, I have tasted shame, pain, fury, rage, I have tasted bliss and care and kindness and this altruistic. I am everything. Who do I choose to be right now? That’s free, hot, empowering, delicious to live that way.   [ANNOUNCEMENT]   Jon: Hey, guys, I want to take a second to tell you about our Front Row Dads Retreat. If you would value connecting with a brotherhood of like-minded and like-hearted guys who want to deepen their sense of purpose and meaning as fathers and within their families and to talk about and share the best practices and the strategies for ultimate family success, then this event might be for you. If you would value being around high performing guys without the big egos, guys that believe in being family men with businesses and not businessmen with families, you might enjoy our Front Row Dads Retreat twice a year. We’re getting together in person, small groups, cool locations, guest experts, and so much more for these events. We’ve now done these multiple times. It has sold out every single time. And If you’re excited about it, make sure to check it at FrontRowDads.com or you can apply for the next retreat.   Now, hey, one of the things you might be wondering is, “Does leaving my family make me a better dad or husband?” The answer is for many of you I know you travel a bunch, you do other things, and the idea for this one is you have to retreat to advance. You have to take a step back to gain the perspective so that we can go back and crush it within our families. This is the same concept that works in business where you take a moment, you think, you plan, you strategize, you work on your family so that you can be better in your family. If that all sounds good, check it out, FrontRowDads.com.   [INTERVIEW]   Jon: You think there’s a problem with men today being too in their feminine, something I’ve heard, experienced myself is like this, you know, somebody said it recently. They’re like, “I just got so far into the new AG, light, in touch with my emotions, that I think I lost like this masculine. I went too far to the Mr. Nice Guy side of life.” I don’t interpret that as like I need to be more of an a**hole. I interpret that as like, “Hey, there, I might’ve missed out on some of this masculine energy that is really a part of making this relationship work.” In the last couple of years, I’ve been witness to couples getting separated and my gut tells me I’m either guessing or somebody has told me directly that it was because this relationship was fizzling out and the guy would say, “I think I just lost my way. I stopped being a leader. I stopped being the guy that she was really attracted to in the beginning.”   And I don’t know if that’s actually what I would call the dark side but it does a little bit feel like that to me that there’s a little bit of this like rugged, tough, masculine, make stuff happen type of guy that they get too comfortable in a relationship. They’re like, “I’m married. She’s never leaving.” Because we talk about in our community that say, which we play this game, I go, “If you got divorced,” let’s play that out for a second. Like what would you do? Like, what would be some of the first things you do in the first three to six months? And for a lot of people, it’s like I’ve hit the gym. I probably get new clothes. I was like, “Oh, then why wouldn’t you do that now over your partner?” They’re life to you?   Allana: Yeah.   Jon: I’m just curious about and I don’t know if I’m articulating it well but I’m just wondering like what you see in that space of like guys losing their way because they’re losing their edge.   Allana: Yes. This is phenomenal and I have seen this and here’s what I said. There’s a couple different ways of looking at it. David Deida is a beautiful writer, Intimate Communion, great book, and he speaks up like first stage, second stage, third stage relationship. And the first stage is when the masculine energy is more unconscious. We’re going just like, “I’m just going to bolt through the china shop here. I don’t care who I hit because I’m on target. I’m a leader.” But he’s not like his heart isn’t in it and the same would be true for feminine shadow. So, this goes in both directions. And the second stage relationship is where we’re starting to really take responsibility for that. We’re starting to balance out our masculine and feminine energies but we come kind of neutered within ourselves like the women can now, you know, earn our own money and be directional and the men can go in the forest and dance around and play in the field. And so, we’re learning, “Oh my God, there’s this other aspect to self,” but it isn’t, it’s a stage. It’s not an end game. And I think the mistake is, the woman thinks it’s an endgame, “Well, I’m just going to run the household and run my job and run the finances,” and that’s all masculine energy actually and she isn’t being her juicy self. She isn’t spending a weekend with the girls.   She didn’t give the kids to the grandparents and she’s naked in the bed and there’s flower petals all the way into the bathtub and she’s waiting for you like she doesn’t do that anymore. She isn’t cultivating what brings us into the third stage, which is really cultivating our unique balance within ourselves, of our masculine and feminine, and cultivating that richness for self and for the upliftment of the other. What is it that I can be as a feminine being who knows that I’m motherf**king badass over here if I choose to be, but what can I be for self that will awaken the best in my partner? How can I be the noble badass whisperer in my marriage and vice versa with the men? Okay. So, I know how to feel. I’m not going to just tell my kid to shut up when he cries. I can be there with them and like, “Hey, you have every right to have these feelings,” and be there and not fix, and then get the kids through to the other side where they have their own inspiration and you’re like, “That’s it. You got this,” and be that way.   Show her so he can develop this capacity but what is the man doing in his relationship to be on his edge? Has he spent a weekend in the woods alone? No, I mean, like alone like has he really found his edge sexually and is he asking for that? Is he taking her there beyond these edges that he normally stops that for fear of rejection? What is he doing to be his best self and then to make her just melt the minute she walks the door because of his presence just f**king penetrated her with her eyes, her heart, and her pussy like just this energy and she’s like, “What, hi!” Like what is he doing for self and for the relationship? So, this is the next stage. This is the high-level people I get to work with that aren’t okay in this neutered second stage. They choose their third stage for themselves, for humanity, and for their relationships.   And they’re having nothing less than this like a soul-shaking conscious relationship. You never get there. You’re always a little uncertain like be the man that she would leave you for. Be the woman he would leave you for like why isn’t that your priority? Because it keeps you alive and twitterpated with just what it is to be a human and oh, by the way, it’s super sexy and, oh, by the way, they talk about you to their friends all the time, “Did you see my husband. Oh my God, he’s like so hot right now.” This is what keeps it fresh. It takes prioritizing. It often takes support, accountability, and it takes a choice. This is how I choose to live. This is how I choose to show my children what true love is. It’s not always easy. We argue, but we hit above the belt. We’re here for each other’s best self.   Jon: One of the things I think I’m learning is that in order to be close, you need to be apart. This idea of the ebb, the flow, together, the separate, the importance of that, the idea of absence makes the heart grow fonder. Where does that philosophy fit into our lives? You know, I think about when like if Tatyana’s flirting with somebody else, how that charges me.   Allana: Yeah.   Jon: And that there’s actually like I might say, “Well, I don’t want her flirting with other people,” but actually I do because it brings something really fresh and interesting to the relationship. That’s really exciting. I can see that from her side too but then I know there’s a fine line there. Like, for example, let’s talk about flirting for a moment, whether that’s with our partner or with other people but this idea of an energy, an intimacy how flirting both with your partner and with other people could potentially stir energy, good energy.   Allana: Yeah.   Jon: I don’t know if this is something that you agree with or not but I think there’s an element of that that is good for a relationship in general, but I also know there’s an element of flirting when it gets like you have to be careful because it gets creepy. It gets like, “Nah, you take that one step too far.”   Allana: It’s actually three steps too far and you’re in trouble.   Jon: Yeah. What is your thought about flirting within the relationship and outside the relationship?   Allana: I think we really need to define flirting and it’s super important that you know where you’re starting from. If you’re starting from empty and then you go out and “flirt” there’s a neediness, there’s a void that needs to be filled. There’s a question of worth, there’s a doubting. Do I have the edge? There’s an emptiness and you will have these slimy tendrils that are a little inappropriate and then you have the sense of relief. It’s like, “Oh, I got the drink. Oh, I got the hit.” Okay. You’re going to feel a bit of an addictive high and a little bit of ego at the end of it. Like, yeah, I still got this. That is going to lead down a very unhealthy tunnel. Why? Because the presupposition it of all was we started empty. Now, your job, our job in a healthy relationship is to come from fullness. So, what am doing so that I know my worth? I’m handling my own doubts. I’ve handled my own shame. I’ve gone to the gym. I’ve gone to my woman circle or my men circle. I’m working with my coach.   I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect but I’m pretty f**king solid. And now from fullness, I flirt. When you flirt from fullness, you flirt with little kids, you flirt with old people, you flirt with hot women, sexy men, you flirt with your friends’ partners. You flirt with everybody from this more of praising another, uplifting another because you’re coming from overflow. You’re not there to get anything. You’re there just to play and be a goofball or be a little sexier or whatever, but there’s no slimy energy to it because there’s no need attached to it. You don’t need the outcome. And yes, you still might be flirting with some really hot chick but there’s an energy that there’s – it’s not going to go any farther. And when a wife watches, the empty flirting, your tendrils go up and you are motherf**king bitch and you’re out to kill and you’re in trouble, by the way. It is not healthy but when you watch your partner from fullness, flirt with somebody, you can just see her come alive, and she’s even more radiant, and she’s just drinking it up because her empty husband isn’t doing it for her and she, you can just hear say, “Oh go, honey. Just talk to her more.”   There’s a generosity of spirit that happens when you know your husband, our partners flirting from fullness and vice versa. And I think it’s your job as a couple, one, always take responsibility for youself. “I’m noticing that you’re flirting from empty. I’m just going to let you know that doesn’t work for our relationship and I love you and I dare you to go spend a weekend with the guys. Get it f**king together. I love you. Go.”  Like it’s fierce love, not angry bitchy or the comment is, “Oh my God, I totally watched you flirt with Veronica the other day. She really needed it. I really wished George could like pay a little more attention to her. Thank you for sensing that’s what she required. Come here. I want to f**k your brains out. I love you.” It can create that bond so you really want to take the time in your morning practice or with your coach or your meditation slowdown check-in. Am I full? Coming from full or coming from empty? Because it will flourish the relationship or bring it down.   Jon: So, this might be even pre-shot. I don’t think you said this during the show or maybe you did but about the taboo part of it. I’m thinking about the things that we don’t get a chance to talk about a lot and things that are like, “Ooh, that’s a subject that has some energy around it.” I think about the divorce statistics and I think about even some divorces I’ve been witnessed to and also relationships in my line of work too with these men I’m privileged to be able to have this inside look into some lives where some of them are just truly like they’ve got it dialed in and they’ve really been working on it and because of that work, it’s in a great spot and I see some other ones, marriages, that are hanging on by a thread. And one of the things that I think is really interesting thing to talk about with intimacy is how to make a relationship work in general, because I think people are like it’s either going to work this way or it doesn’t.   Like it’s either going to work like a relationship like it should like in my mind or we’re getting a divorce and I see people go from like, “This isn’t working. I’m getting a divorce,” and I’m like, “Oh, there’s option A, B, C, D, E like there’s a ton of options in there about how to work your relationship.” And so, this is a big one like what do you think about the idea of creative relationships, open relationships, exploring that for a marriage or like in your work with men and women, is this something that comes up? Is it common? Is it uncommon? But the idea of in an open relationship you almost have to define that too like how that works and there’s 100,000 ways that you could define that clearly. But what I mean by that is like when I think about intimacy, I think of openness and I think about being open and vulnerable, and like intimacy is like sharing those fantasies or those wishes or those desires.   And I know there’s a lot of options in a relationship that can work. What’s your experience with that and what have you seen? What have you seen working or not working or like what advice? Because I know there’s guys out there that are like first of all, I’m crushing it in my relationship. We’re at level 10. There’s also guys that they’re listening right now they’re like, we’re hanging on by a thread. I’ll try anything and everything in between.   Allana: Yeah. I like what you’re saying that there’s A, B, C, D, E because there are and I don’t believe there is a quick fix or the right way or this is how you do it if you’re open and this is how you do it if you’re monogamous like there is no right answer. It always, always, always, always, always comes down to what’s true for you now. And what’s true for you now is not what was true for you a year ago or five years ago or any year or in 10 years, so it’s really about being present to what I require right now. What’s missing right now? Where do I need life force energy now? And be willing to tell the truth to yourself first. That’s like stage one. From that, you can actually start to create different scenarios in your relationship to fulfill that. One of the crazy s**t things I’ve been experiencing in some of my couples relationships when I do a single session is there is a massive fantasy, a massive missing, that they know their intuition says there’s just no way my partner would ever be into this.   And it’s become such a building need and void and mixing that it’s starting to negatively affect the relationship and they just want to give up. I have had and it’s got hot sessions, but these sessions where I create in the brain because the brain doesn’t know any difference, the quantum field in brain doesn’t know any different. In this experience of image, thought, emotion and body sensation, the full goal achievement of that fantasy and then what’s next? We ask the soul. Oh, then such and such. Then we create that goal and then fully realize it. Then what’s next? Then I get them to this place of like pleroma like total oneness with the universe and then expand them into all dimensions and then I bring them back down this gold chain. It’s a process called the spectics and they get back down and so far, 100% of the time, but that doesn’t mean that’s right. It’s just who I’ve been working with. They get back on the gold chain and they have no more desire for that fantasy anymore. It’s been fulfilled. They are full and home.   But they had to go there and I make it intense and I go, intensify, magnify, no, take it to a 10 or you get a 10, 9 isn’t good enough. Like we have to give ourselves this experience. And once they do, they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know what I choose now but I’m good. Everything’s fine now.” And they then create something different in their relationship, they have the capacity to ask for or receive something that’s been there all along but because this thing was in the way we had to deal with it. Would I ever tell the partner what we did? Never. Never. But it’s not required. That’s one of those things that you don’t need to tell your partner everything. So, to be willing to honor these taboos, to be willing to honor these voids, sometimes and I’ll be, I’m always honest, but whatever, sometimes they want to kill their partner. It’s a lovely one. I’m like, “Okay. Here we go,” and we chop them into little pieces and we do a theater of redemption and we feed them to the sharks or we tie them up and send them off with alien abduction like we get, “How dare you? How dare you?”   Sometimes it’s anger and you just need to mutilate your partner until they’re their dead. Burn them. Are they dead? Burn them. And then I take them through the process of sitting in their throne. Okay. So, no victims here. Why did you choose that experience about abandonment, that portrayal, that whatever happened in the marriage? Why did you choose that for your growth? And I do all these visualizations and I’m really good with these sorts of processes and they’re like, “Oh my God, I chose that experience for my soul’s evolution. My partner was just acting a role. I’m better now because of this,” and they somehow integrate this horrible thing they haven’t been able to let go of in the relationship and again they’re home. And I’m like, “So, do you now need to divorce your partner or kill them?” “No, I’m good. That was really good. I really enjoyed killing them. That was great. Okay. Now, I’m good now.” And they come back into the relationship.   Jon: Do you know how many lives you’ve saved, Allana?   Allana: No. I mean, I have a deep privilege. I’m a very high-level coach. This is not like don’t try this at home, listeners. I’ve been highly trained for almost 20 years now of these quantum psychology processes. Some I’ve developed on my own. Some I’ve been taught and woven them together. All I know is this s**t works. The s**t saves marriages. I mean, sometimes there’s like a death of a child or incarceration. There’s just like, “How do you get past this thing?” And like traditional therapy just doesn’t work so there’s this other way to get through it and then when you go and you want to create an open relationship or you want to create, you just want to create what’s true for you. You’re not running from what you’re not getting and overcompensating and then you’re like these two polarities are just bashing against one another. No, we want to always do our work to come home to choice, presence, what’s true for you.   And then there’s this, remember I said allowance, if really who you are is not an allowance of your partner, okay, I bless you and release you but it’s not this horrible divorce. And then this last thing I’ll say because I don’t judge, I’m not perfect, of course, but I’m really a safe space. I have other couples where there is lovemaking with another once every two, three years, not spoken to the other partner and it’s not slimy. It’s so sacred like this soulmate person and it’s not turned into anything else and there’s really no texting or anything else that goes on afterwards. It’s just this angel person that arrives in the relationship and they were, “Huh, I need to tell my partner. This is out of integrity. This is against my vows and everything,” and I go, “Hang on. Hang on. Let’s just process this.” And all of a sudden, the marriage is improving and the intimacy with the marriage is improving and the parenting is improving and the money generation is improving.   And this was just an experience required for that soul that wasn’t met by the partner but they love their partner even more and does this make sense? No. And if the partner was told, would it destroy the marriage? Yes. But they just needed someone to tell, process it with me and everything’s fine and everything’s better. And is that traditional? No. Does that make logical sense? No. But is it real? Yes. Was it a gift? Yes. Is everybody better now because of it? Yes. So, sometimes I help a person through that and it never needs to be spoken to the partner and everything’s on track again because of it. So, I don’t get it. I’m just this nonjudgmental space to be with people and get them home.   Jon: Yeah. That’s cool. Allana, we could travel still so far down any of these roads. I’ve so enjoyed this conversation and I’m grateful for the honesty and the openness on your side. Is there anything that I just didn’t ask about that in the last couple minutes you want to share with the guys something to consider, questions to consider, ideas, resources, whatever it might be? Just open space here for you to communicate anything to these men and I know you’re guided. I know that you can trust your heart here and what these guys who were listening might need but I know these guys want to do well in life, not just in their businesses. We say here that we’re family men with businesses, not businessmen with family. So, we want to create intimacy with everybody in our lives and have that openness and honesty. We want to create that with our spouses as a primary partner in life. That’s the place somebody’s in but open floor here for you to take this anywhere you want to go.   Allana: First, I just so honor you and the space you’re creating and the human being that you are. This is like a rare, rich conversation. Normally, I don’t get to go to this deep on podcasts so, first, thank you for the space to be even more of me and to be received. Thank you. There is a direct experience I had. It was like a five-day illumination intensive where all the person ask you is tell me who you are. You take in the question and you communicate it and they say thank you and you go back and forth for five f**king days. You can’t talk at lunch. You can’t talk going back to your room. It’s like super intense that you have these direct experiences and when someone asked me this, what I got was, “Oh, s**t.” What I rose was straddle the earth with your vagina. I’m like, “Ooh, God. That’s going to be crazy to say that to this guy. Fine.” So, I pushed back my chair I get down on the ground. I sort of splay my knees a little bit. I start sit on the ground and I’m like, “Tell me who you are.” “I am someone who is splaying the earth with my vagina,” and he like smirks. He’s like thank you.   So, I just like let the experience happen and all of a sudden, I get filled with so much energy that I have not been receiving. I’ve been in my head being a little miss cum laude graduate at Columbia like little miss smart girl. I’m like, “Wait a minute. I only do the sensual thing in dance class. I don’t the sensual thing like walking around all the time.” So, all of a sudden, “I could be a tsunami. I could be this little thing of water on a leaf in a jungle with a little bit of ray of sunlight touching it. I could be the breeze over a wheat field at sunset. I could be the grand canyon. I could be all these energies,” and I was saying this to him and he was like, “Thank you. Thank you.” And then I said, “And there is this chasm in between me and you and if you try to impress me, you will fall down in the chasm forever,” and he’s like, “Thank you,” and I go, “But, if you claim me with your heart, if you live your purposefully and if you let go of all doubt and you just move towards me and I dare you if you could, the chasm will close and we will become one and I will feel your purpose.”   I was talking all this like crazy bullshit talking stuff and he was like getting so super turned on and we were doing our little process here and I realized something that there is an aspect of the masculine that wants to die for the feminine, live for the feminine, there’s a nobility in him that I don’t believe other men can wake up in men, that I believe the feminine wakes up in men. And it’s from fullness and it’s daring and alluring and it’s like edgy because you could fall to your death forever down the chasm and it’s a gift that I charge all women listening to cultivate within themselves and awaken within their son, their lover, their client, even the masculine was in their girlfriends like there’s something in the feminine that is magic. So, I would just end this energy with what would it take to cultivate even if you have to just imagine her like she’s a being of light in your meditation like stand before the divine feminine and like f**king cross the chasm and be your noble self like that’s your job as incarnation on the planet just go around.   Play with that in the bedroom, play with that in your parenting, play with that with your clients, play with this energy because it’s real and we don’t normally get that edgy or that deeper that real, or that raw but it’s part of who we are and it is sacred. It is connected to the heart when you choose it to be and I think it’s what makes the world go round and we can share this with our beloveds.   Jon: Yeah. Perfect. I love it.   Allana: Booyah.   Jon: I love it. That’s so much fun. I want to thank you for taking time to be with us today. For guys out there listening, if they want to connect with you, if they want to, hey, if they’ve got something on their mind and they want to talk it out, I value my coaches, my counselors, the people, even this last year Tatyana and I had a really tough time in our relationship. I’ve told the guys on the podcasts in our group and I went to a counselor multiple times and we saw her. I saw her. I did so much work, read so many books. It’s so much thinking. I’m so grateful for that experience because we definitely came through the other side like more connected, everything is better. But boy was it dark? It was dark.   Allana: Touch and go there. Yeah.   Jon: Yeah. It was really touch and go.   Allana: Aw, good for you. I honor you.   Jon: I think it’s so nice to be on the other side of that and so much of what you say I feel is truth and whether or not somebody else agrees with that, we’ll leave it to them. We’re not here for everyone, but we are here for someone and I just honor the work that you’re doing. I’m so grateful that you’re taking the time to hold that space because I believe the work we’re doing at Front Row Dads is meant to save the world. Now, I don’t mean that dramatically. I mean, that I really do believe that if we can raise our kids, if we can have an amazing family, that is the starting point of all big change in the world because those little kids that you instill values and show love to, grow up to have big corporations that are at lead countries and do the things that ultimately are going to change the world. And I think this starts with yourself. I think this starts with our partnership. I think this starts with intimacy and openness, and that leads to great kids.   And somebody once told me, they said, “Don’t worry about leaving a better world for your kids. Worry about leaving better kids for the world,” and I said, “I think both are important. I’d like to do both.” Allana, this is beautiful. It’s wonderful. I know you’ve got a client right now. So, thank you. We will catch up again hopefully real soon to continue our dialogue.   Allana: Thank you so much for the honor. Mwah. Much love to you all.   Jon: And, Allana, where people go by the way? I forget to ask. Where do they go?   Allana: Yes, my website. AllanaPratt.com and it’ll take you down the path to wherever you need to go.   Jon: Thanks, Allana.   Allana: You’re welcome. Thank you.   [CLOSING]   Jon: Hey, guys, if you haven’t already done so, go right now to FrontRowDads.com/Facebook and join the conversation that’s happening right now online. We designed this group for guys who are entrepreneurial in their thinking, that are high-performing guys, with low egos. We’re looking for the dads that believe in teaching their kids how to think, solve problems, and be real leaders. We’re looking for guys who believe in being family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. We’re looking for the fathers who have great knowledge but also believe that they have so much more to learn. And we’re looking for men who want to add value by sharing their wisdom and those that are willing to ask the questions that we all need and want answers to. That’s FrontRowDads.com/Facebook or simply go to Facebook, type in Front Row Dads and you’ll get to our group.   And what we put in there links to all the podcasts and videos and other resources that you can’t get access to anywhere else except for in this group. We want to give you the best ideas to help you with your marriage, balancing work and family life, communication strategies with your spouse and also your children, travel ideas, and even suggestions on the latest gear that would save you time and help you be more effective. We’ve got updates on upcoming events and so much more. Go right now to FrontRowDads.com/Facebook and join the conversation. I’ll look forward to connecting with you there. [END] [/read]