212. The Edginess of Unconditional Love and Sexual Empathy with Bear Phillips

Nicole: [00:00:00] Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Nicole.

I try to keep quiet, but she's screaming inside at me. Try hiding.

She's on today's episode. We have Bear. Join us for a conversation about the journey to reclaiming our whole humanity. Together. We talk about how everything we have learned about sex is wrong, the courage of vulnerability, and how feminism is about liberating all of us. Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Modern Anarchy.

I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world [00:01:00] tuning in for another episode each Wednesday. My name is Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy, and I am also the founder of the Pleasure Practice supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.

Dear listener, I am so grateful, so grateful to be sharing this conversation with you. Bayer is so incredibly vulnerable and raw and authentic about their journey. And dear listener, you know that these sorts of conversations are what we need in the world. Authentic conversations about the mess, the joy, the pain, the pleasure of sexuality and relating, because we often just don't have the language to communicate about these things.

And you know, I have talked so much about [00:02:00] my, my big dream goals of my career, which is to end rape culture, right? And we end rape culture through conversations like this, through conversations in our community and. We develop more language and more safety in our nervous systems and with other people, and we then develop communication to step into our pleasures, into our desires, to make our fantasies realities.

And that is how we end rape culture. One conversation at a time, one vulnerable story at a time. And I am so, so, so, so grateful to be sharing another one of those conversations with you today.

Alright, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you could explore my offerings and resources@modernanarchypodcast.com, linked in the show notes below. And I wanna say the biggest thank you to all of my [00:03:00] Patreon supporters, you are supporting the long-term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people.

So thank you. If you wanna join the Patreon community, get exclusive access into my research and personal exploration, and you can add it over to patreon.com/modern Anarchy podcast. Also linked in the shout notes below. And with that, dear listener, please know that I am sending you all my love and let's tune in to today's episode.

Okay. So the first question that I ask each guest is how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Bear: Hmm. Thank you.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: A good one to start with. Um, so I'm Bear Phillips. I am a dating intimacy and relationship coach, and I'm also [00:04:00] trauma informed body worker. I'm really a sex worker. If I'm wanting to to shop people, I just kind of come straight out with sure I'm a sex worker, but for me, that involves working.

With sexual trauma? Uh, primarily working with consent, working with communication, um, working with people to, to build safety in how they might be with me and then how they might be with others

Nicole: mm-hmm.

Bear: In the world at large. So that's the work I do. I used to be an architect, a designer for, for 30 years.

Wow. And kind of gave that all up to, to do this work. Um, don't regret a single moment like that.

Nicole: Yeah. I'm so excited to have you here and get to hold space for your story and your work and, and really dive in deep here.

Bear: Oh, thank you.

Nicole: Yeah. I know you mentioned that there's a very personal connection to this work and mm-hmm.

Where would you wanna start? Me and the listeners on, on [00:05:00] that story? Mm-hmm. Where does it begin?

Bear: Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. Mm-hmm. So. Yeah, I, I forgot to mention in my initial intro that I've been writing a book, it's called Feminism Will Make a Man Out of You. And it really charts my own journey and my own history, which starts way back, begins with CSA, um, with childhood sexual abuse as a young boy.

And something that I, I grew up with, with then this understanding that, that men are perpetrators.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: That was my experience from a very young age. And then growing into manhood, having to make sense of, but wait, if, if I'm a man, what does, what does that make me? And then finding myself going through a really interesting process, which also involves personal healing therapy, uh, different modalities of dance movement, embodiment.

Kink. Kink was a really big part journey. Sure. To really take [00:06:00] apart everything that I thought. I knew and understood around what masculinity is, what being a man is, in order to put it back together in a way that actually made sense, made sense to me, was aligned with my values, with who I am and how I wanna be in the world.

So that's, that's what the book's trying to, to speak to, kind of written to a 30-year-old me, you know, a long time ago. Sure. Yeah. The book that I wish I'd had, the support I wish I'd had at that time.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: There are different ways of being a man. Yeah. Um, dealing with this issue of toxic masculinity, which is just so rife at the moment in so many spheres of life.

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for opening up and trusting me and, and sharing that with all the listeners. Right. Your story, the, the personal connections, the roots to this work that you do.

Bear: Thank you. Thank you for the space so beautifully. [00:07:00]

Nicole: Yeah. I know this is a big question and and hard to answer, but I'd be curious if there's anything you could say to your younger self sitting where you're at with your current consciousness.

I know the book is saying everything you'd wanna say, but right now in this conversation, yeah. Mm-hmm. Is there anything that you'd wanna say to your younger self?

Bear: I think I'd wanna say it'll be okay.

Nicole: Mm.

Bear: It'll be okay. Just as simple as that. I think that's where a lot of the, the research I've been doing and a lot of the thinking I've been doing around the nature of, of patriarchy and thinking of patriarchy is a trauma.

It's the trauma we're all living with, but it's a particular trauma inflicted on boys and men.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: And it's one of the reasons why so many men grow up with the sense of of loneliness, isolation, [00:08:00] um, why the suicide rate for men is yes. So times that as it is for, for women. And just recognizing and remembering just how lonely I felt for most of my life growing up.

And just to like have a sense of, because there's that thing with, with men and inability to reach out and ability to ask for help when it's needed. A difficulty around asking for support, um, how challenging it can be to make connections, like real intimate, authentic connections that, yeah, that's such a common experience.

Of the sense of, of loneliness and isolation. And I think that's, I was very much feeling that in my thirties for sure.

Nicole: Mm, mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. It's so widespread. I think sometimes people don't even realize it. It's, it's, it's this normalized, oh, he's just a guy, that's how men are. Mm-hmm. If that [00:09:00] kills me

Bear: and we're, you know, we're, we're taught that we, we need to project exactly the opposite of what we're actually feeling.

You know, that classic thing of being stoic and independent and having all the answers and not needing anything, not needing anyone. It's a little bit of, um, you know, the difference between the face we're putting onto the world and, and the reality of what we're. Feeling behind it.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: It's having those vulnerability is a, is a weakness to be avoided at all costs.

Right. That's what, when it's the complete opposite

Nicole: and the pleasure. That's on the other side of that too, when you, when you can truly be vulnerable and present Oh wow. I mean mm-hmm.

There's a whole world that is being missed out on.

Bear: Mm. The pleasure is just the thing really on so many levels.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: And it's one of the reasons I do the work that I do.

For me, it's been that thing on a personal level of, of being able to [00:10:00] discover my own narrative in life. Right. My scripts live in a way that feels true to me. That then leaves me with that sense of, I. When I take my last breath, I will feel like this was a life well lived.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: I really followed through with the things that were most important to me and with the people that were most important to me.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Beautiful.

Bear: I believe that's, I think that's the number one regret of the dying, I think Bro Way wrote that wonderful book.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: You know, the number one regret I wish I'd lived the life that, that I'd wanted for myself, not the life other people wanted for me. Something along those lines. So paraphrase.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the power of relationships when you get to that dead, you know, deathbed where people look back and reflect on how relationships have been the most important thing all along. Right. And even from the psychology side, I'm always holding [00:11:00] how our sense of self is created in relationships.

Of course there is the, the self. Mm-hmm. But it's a self in relation and so. Just how large relationships are in our world. And often one of the things that we don't get any education on formally, right? Mm-hmm. One of the most crucial pieces to our mental health, our wellbeing, our pleasure, and yet nothing.

And particularly men suffering so deeply in this, that, like you mentioned, the suicide rates, right? Mm-hmm. Because isolation, and we know even in the research from childhood, how, um, an infancy. How crucial it is to be connected and like infants that are left alone will die. And, and that doesn't change as we get older, right?

Is, is we're social beings needing relationships, but men particularly have this, like you mentioned, the, the patriarchal influence of independence and that's what it means to be a man. And then, yeah, when you add something like [00:12:00] sexual abuse, sexual violence on top of that, I mean now we're really in a zone that you cannot talk about.

And yet the numbers of occurrences and, and obviously I'm biased 'cause I'm a therapist, so I hear a lot of it myself, right? So my per, but it happens so often and yet it's such a difficult conversation for most men to, to, to start.

Bear: Huge, huge. I'm not sure if it's still the most up to date figure, but the last thing I I saw was that one in six men has experienced some kind of, of sexual abuse or transgression.

In their lives, one in six. And it's yet, as you say, so rarely talked about, so rarely touched on.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: And of course it is again, the majority of it is, um, from other men, right? It's other men that are, that are in that world of, of transgressive behavior. But I love also what you are, what you're touching on there.

I [00:13:00] just recently finished the training with GBO Mate and Compassionate. Great. And I love how GBO talks about this thing that our, our wounds are relational wounds, and it's only through relationships that we get to heal them.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: And that's a big thing to even get to the point then in working with men around how do we open ourselves up to even be in a relationship in the first place?

How do we find the wherewithal to discover intimacy and authenticity when we meet each other? And I think that's really the, the thing for me around this idea of the, the trauma of patriarchy is that, you know, it's, I'm not saying anything new here, but it's really crystallized for me around all of the messages that boys get to, to pull yourself together.

Pull your socks, boys. Don't cry. Don't be a pussy. That one's a, that one's a, a real, a really kind of knife edge. One, like the worst thing for our [00:14:00] boys to be compared to

Nicole: Right.

Bear: To women in any way. Every time that shame is used as a tool against us to, to shame us. We, we learn to cut off from our feelings.

We learned to dissociate from our felt emotional bodies. We become less connected to our connection to empathy. So what happens is that we become less whole, less human. That's the big thing for me in writing. The book has been this thing of. The journey to reclaim our whole humanity and what that looks like and how difficult it is and how much effort it takes.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: Beginning that engaging with that, then just naturally through its through doing that opens ourselves up to the intimacy that we might be needing and wanting from others.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking about the difficulty of [00:15:00] that first time of opening up to talk about it. Right. So many people are holding this, and when I think about that journey of opening up to more and more vulnerability, authenticity, pleasure.

It starts with taking that leap of someone that's safe enough to trust. And I think it begins that journey of, of, of truly expanding into presence, right? Over different relationships that help you expand into that. Sometimes it's a therapeutic relationship, sometimes it's a friend, but often that first time of opening up to be vulnerable is, is so scary, so terrifying.

Particularly because of what you mentioned. What does it mean if this person sees me cry? If they know this has happened to me, will they still respect me? Will I still be loved? And, and that's the relational paradox right there of being that we are social creatures, we need to stay in connection. And so if there's a potential threat to that mm-hmm.

If I disclose my cr, if I cry [00:16:00] here, this my wife might leave me. I mean, yeah. So the weight of all of that is so heavy and I'm, I'm curious, how did you first take that leap into the vulnerability? Into the authentic

Bear: mm-hmm. Mm. Thank you. I think it, for me, it started in, in my twenties when I woke up one day with a, with a certain numbness.

Nicole: Mm.

Bear: In my body, a certain sense of I was, I was floating a little through the world

Nicole: Sure.

Bear: And some recognition somewhere in my mind, this, this idea came in that, oh, this is where it's really easy to hurt myself. This is where I could really do myself some damage without, because there was so little feeling, not because I was so depressed and so anxious, and so kind of lost in that, you know, the, the churn of big feelings.

It was like the absolute opposite of that.

Nicole: [00:17:00] Yeah.

Bear: Was, was just a recognition of the numbness, the dissociation that I was feeling. I didn't have the language for it back then.

Nicole: Sure.

Bear: But it was like a really interesting inner impulse of, oh, I need help. But there was something inside me, and I think we all have it.

This kind of natural innate, I'd say it's biological, evolutionary, even movement towards becoming whole, becoming healing, becoming whole, becoming the version of ourselves we're meant to be.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: That led me to find a therapist and that led me to find someone who. I remember going to see a, a psychoanalyst without really knowing anything about it.

Oh, no. Pretty much in a classic way sat behind me sitting nothing the whole gosh hour I left practically shaking the activation. Activation, and, [00:18:00] um, knew that wasn't that way. I don't that I don't do that. Right, right. Like, that's so clear. You're so engaged. You're so engaging with me as a human being.

That's what I, that's what I needed to find, was a therapist, which was someone, again, I didn't really understand the terms, who was humanistic in training centered and just like someone I felt like comfortable enough with to talk to and talk to for a long time before I really started to feel safe enough to.

To open up. Yeah. But already I had that in me that, you know, there is a point to this. I just have to trust that just by showing up each week, something over time will start to, to unlock itself.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. When you were speaking, it was reminding me of the work I've done in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy where we often talk about the inner healing [00:19:00] metaphor and the ways that, you know, we invite people when they're going into the psychedelic experience to trust their inner healing to come forward and to bring up what needs to be processed in the session.

Mm-hmm. And sometimes we talk about that inner healing as. Uh, the same way that a plant, you know, you put it outside and it will naturally turn towards the sun or thinking about a scar, right? The ways that if you have a cut on your hand, it will naturally form that. I'm thinking of our psyche in the same way.

If we have these pain points and our body souls mind is trying to bring it forward. Right. And so speaking to that, and yeah, for me, I just, I hear the ways in which the numbness, so many people are in that space still even having sex in that space with such numbness. Right? And I think about the pleasure that is possible on the other side with full embodiment.

Oh, like what? That's such a journey. And I, I wanna help so many people get to that space. [00:20:00] But getting there often is, is a messy, painful when you start to really tune into the body again, there's often a lot of pain that hasn't been acknowledged.

Bear: Hugely so, and the compassion that we need to, to have for ourselves to be able to see that pain and hold up and make sense of that.

Yeah. I love how you brought pleasure back into Yeah. Here as well. 'cause that was really significant part for me. I had,

I had parents one, you know, on the one side my father was not good with, with boundaries, with his, with his own sexuality. He was atheist as well. My mother on the other side was highly religious and I found myself caught in that kind of very classic Catholic, with a little c place of, you know, oh, I, I, I'm, I'm somehow broken.

Um, and that God is somehow out there and can see me, can see [00:21:00] through me, can, can hear all of my thoughts. Yeah. Pleasure was the place through Conscious King contempt where. For the first time, I found the most exquisite, extraordinary pleasure in my own body and had this like almost a moment of epiphany.

It's like, if my body can give me this much pleasure, how can it possibly be wrong? And that was that my first sense of, oh, maybe that divinity that I thought was out there is actually in here inside me. Mm-hmm. That was like a really transformative moment.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: And also when you talk about about psychedelics, that was actually what drew me to do this work.

Was a really beautiful moment for me, like never having done drugs mm-hmm. For most of my life. Afraid of drugs, knowing that if I went [00:22:00] there, if I found something that would take the pain away, I'd be fucked. Can I say?

Nicole: Yeah, you can cuss no rules.

Bear: Um, and having this experience through, through psychedelics of being able to take a step back, and I hear this is quite common for a lot of people, but to be able to see all of the points in my life and to connect all of those dots together and to recognize from that my purpose, what it is, that if I've been on this journey of my own healing, that I'm at a point now I can support other people on their journeys.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: So that, that thing of psychedelics. Has really has been really transformational in so many ways.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: I'm curious, did you have a moment like that yourself? Mm. Did you have a, where you tried something and it just like changed the way you see the world?

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can think of a lot of different moments.

I'm thinking about my first time exploring kink and [00:23:00] yeah, what it meant to be in bondage and having just these like ecstatic orgasms of, of screaming and just so much release of my shame in that and oh, it was so powerful. Or even one of my most recent psychedelic experiences. I think it was a group experience where my intention was to really think about the journey that I've gone on for myself with my own experiences with violence and purity culture and doing the work that I do to now be in this space.

And that was my intention. And there was this, um. Song that I put into the group playlist, which is, uh, the sacral root chakra song from beautiful chorus. Do you know, beautiful chorus? Damn highly recommend, you know, just these, these beautiful like sound bowls and humming voices and ugh. And it was just such a beautiful moment to like, have that song come on during, it was a ketamine experience in a group and it was so like, I just.

I felt this, this [00:24:00] overwhelm of similar to yours of like seeing your own journey and just the, the journey I've gone on to reconnect with pleasure for myself kind of laid out before me and I was just crying tears of joy to be where I'm at now, not, not where I was in the past, right? To be, to be here now and to feel such clear alignment of what I wanna do in the world of helping people get to this level of pleasure and liberation in their own bodies.

And for me it was just, ugh, I'm, I'm still simmering in that space and it brings me so much joy to have these more tender conversations because I know what kind of pleasure is possible and I know how many people are suffering. I see it in my office, I see it in my communities and it like. There's so much weight to that.

Yes. I have a long career ahead of me, as you do too, of like supporting people to get to that sort of liberation. Or even my first time, um, having like breath orgasms with psychedelics in my own space. That was a really radical experience where [00:25:00] I have the joy of living in my own studio apartment and it took that level of set and setting to be alone with myself naked with my body on a psychedelic and to sit in it and say, why am I still scared?

Why is there still tension in my body? No one is around me. I am safe right here. Why is that? And that level of opening up and that sort of psychedelic space, oh my God, that changed my life.

Bear: Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I, I resonate with that a lot. And I love that thing you were saying about.

That I recognize around the importance of present, the importance of coming into the present moment, coming into the void of any imaginings of thoughts about the past to the future. What sensation is there right now? What does that feel like? And just getting rid of all of that other chatter. Yeah.

Beliefs, the self-limiting beliefs that we've had [00:26:00] about ourselves or the worries about the, the future going forward. It's all, it all disappears when we can learn how to breathe and be present and feel. Hmm. It's beautiful.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. We're just often so holding so much, you know? Yeah. I think sometimes people don't, myself included, we don't realize our shoulders are up here and we're moving through the world in this state, or mm-hmm.

We're holding tension in our body somewhere and Yeah. The amount of time it takes, or even for me the years. It has taken to get to my current level embodiment, super stoked for where I'm gonna be in a couple of years. You know, like those orgasms are gonna hit even harder. But, but that's taken so long to even realize, I remember, like, I would, uh, my toes would always be crunched.

Mm-hmm. And it would take partners who would realize, be like, Hey Nicole, your like toes are clenched. And I was like, oh, I had no idea. [00:27:00] You know, I had no idea for years it was just holding right. And mm-hmm. So many of us are functioning in the world not knowing how much tension is actually running through our bodies.

Bear: Right. So true. I've long been of the belief that the secret to the, the best sex we'll ever have is safety.

Nicole: Yes.

Bear: Safety with each other. Safety with ourselves. And I mean that differently from the kind of. Safety and like air quotes, the safety that we get in long-term relationships, which can so easily shift into a different thing where we lose a sense of really seeing each other.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: And we can really see each other when we're really emotionally in tuned. When you have a partner that's saying, yeah, I can, I can see your to are clenched, is kind of present enough to ask you about that and hold you in the answer like

Nicole: mm-hmm.

Bear: To be able to create that kind of safe container for ourselves and [00:28:00] for each other is huge.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I just did a training on combining the worlds of psychedelic therapy and sex therapy, and when we think about psychedelics, it's so very clear. We talk about the set and setting right. The setting being, you know, where are you at? Are you feeling safe with the people around you? And particularly in the therapeutic work we do with, you know, specifically ketamine is what's legal right now.

I've had clients who have done hundreds of ketamine experiences in their lifetime. Lots of different parties, lots of different burning man, you know, the whole thing. And then they'll sit in a therapeutic office where the, you know, the setting is so much more calm. Mm-hmm. Say, oh my God, these people will say this.

That was the most radical experience at a low dose. I've felt so much more than I've ever felt in other settings. Sex being very similar. Right. You can have an orgasm somewhere, but when you have it with someone where you actually feel safe, [00:29:00] present, held, it's radical. Yeah.

Bear: Yeah. It really is. And there's something to, to add to that, if I may.

Yeah. Which is, yes, please. Of how important it is to be witnessed.

Nicole: Yes.

Bear: In that, like, that goes back to the, that first transformative experience I had with Conscious King.

Nicole: Sure.

Bear: Where it wasn't just the, the pleasure that I was feeling, but it was noticing and seeing, and the person who I'd only just met like an hour before a level of holding and awareness and attunement.

To me, that felt about as close to love as I'd ever experienced. And that sense of like the, the total acceptance of who I was in that moment, which kind of goes back to that thing you touched on earlier. It's that, that as, as kids, we, we know from, [00:30:00] from infants, we know when our, when our parents and our caregivers.

Aren't fully attuned to us. Yeah, that's the wonderful experiment. You can probably remember the name of that. I can't, I can never remember the name, but it's one where an infant faces a a TV monitor. And on the monitor is, is the mother in real time engaging with the infants. And there's lots of cooing and gurgling and laughter and it's beautiful.

And then the researchers flip the switch and it goes from a live recording to a recorded, uh, loop of the mother doing exactly the same thing, engaging at, at one level with the baby. And the baby knows instantly that this isn't real. And I think it's fascinating how later in life it's still possible to create these experiences where we can reclaim in a way that sense of being genuinely, fully, wholly [00:31:00] seen and accepted without judgment for who we are.

I think that's where psychedelics can help us open up. Sure. And where your role as a therapist or if I'm working with people that to be able to really be there with them, that's, that's also magic in its own way.

Nicole: Absolutely. Yeah. I feel like I studied five years of therapy to learn that being with mm-hmm.

Someone is the most powerful part. Right. That psychoanalyst that put you behind the chair. I'm, you're doing more powerful work than that. Let me tell you when you are with someone rather than putting them behind a chair, man. But yeah, the research shows how important that is from childhood, right. The baby.

Mm-hmm. And, um, in that video and, and just that noticing moment of it being off, um, I've seen other research where, yeah, they have the baby and the mom will just stop cooing. And stop and give a flat face, AKA [00:32:00] also psychoanalytic theory where they're like, you should be the tableau Rossa flat face and let your client project onto you.

Like, it's like clowns. That's why clowns are scary, right? That's why clowns are scary. Um, but yeah, the baby starts to cry, continues to try and get the attention of the mom, and then starts to panic and, and again goes through very similar dysregulation. And I think what breaks my heart is, and I know you mentioned this in your work when you wrote the, that the people who like really like cry into your arms of never having experienced this level of presence when they work with you, right?

Mm-hmm. Depending on your caregivers, your community, your parents, the level of attunement that you experienced in childhood sets you up for expectations for the rest of your relational life. And we can absolutely change that. Let's be clear, I believe in change, but the reality is so many people, if you had a parent that wasn't attuned to you.

You learn to expect that as the [00:33:00] norm of what love is. Yes. And then you can go through the rest of your life expecting this level of crumbs, and then you get such presence. Mm-hmm. Where you're just so shook. This is often also where, um, sexual erotic feelings come up in therapeutic relationships and therapy where someone's never had someone who's so fully present with them to say, hello, I see you.

And it makes sense that that's erotic. Right. That's one of the most powerful things is to be seen like that. But so many people have never had that before. Mm-hmm. Oof. You get a touch of that, a taste of that like you did from that person who was doing kink with you, who I remember one of my past guests talking about their, they had described their journey of saying, you know, they met someone who was kinky and the divine cosmic of that angel.

Right. Of just what that meant for their life. Beautiful. It changed everything. Right. To meet someone that present who said, I see you.

Bear: Yeah. [00:34:00] 

Nicole: Yes. Yeah. That's hot.

Bear: Really hot. I was just noticing as you were speaking, I had, I had like a real flush of, of kind of tearful energy come up for me. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Because it's, you know, going back to this thing of, of it's, it's an ongoing journey around how to, how to really feel everything again, how to really kind of embody our full humanity. That it was just a feeling around the experience I'm having currently with my younger partner.

Nicole: Mm.

Bear: That we're, we're three years, three and a half years into relationship, and it's only now in my early fifties that I'm discovering the depths of intimacy that are possible depths that I, I, I didn't know.

I didn't know he existed. And it's only through staying with each other and doing that thing of, you know, supporting each other and, and healing from our respective traumas, which are always so perfectly [00:35:00] complimentary. Right.

Nicole: Oh yeah. It always is, isn't it?

Bear: It just, yeah. It brings up so much for me around we, we don't know what we don't know.

Right. And it's just like trusting that when we can feel safe with someone, we can go to these new places. We can now allow ourselves to surrender. It's that thing where the, that the safety translates into the calming of our, of our nervous system. And it's like from that place that we can see new things and experience new things, we kind of let go of, of all the tension that you were referring to earlier.

Nicole: Yeah. I just had a conversation like that last night with one of my partners and. I feel like one of the important things I try to practice in those conversations is curiosity. Mm-hmm. I'm noticing this dynamic, this pattern. Can we get curious about it together?

Bear: Can we see each other like [00:36:00] beyond who's here in this moment?

Mm. If the activation we might experience today, or the triggering we might experience today is somehow linked back to some part of our distant past, can we hold that younger version of ourselves at the same time and be like, oh yeah, I see you. This isn't, yeah. This is as much to do with what happened in the past as what's happened in the moment, or actually maybe more so.

Right?

Nicole: Yeah. And then holding the reality that everything we do is for a reason, right? There's reasons why we do things, and one of the biggest reasons being to keep us safe. Right. And so I might be pushing you out saying whatever slew of words, because that's how I've kept myself safe in the past. I might be avoidant and pulling back because that's what has kept me safe in the past.

You know, if you've been kicked before, you're [00:37:00] going to bite back, right? And so I think holding that sort of dynamic with partners too, of understanding that, yeah, it's so much easier when you can tune into that, that image of them as their younger inner child and what it means to have compassion for that.

That often feels easier and sometimes something that can be helpful to tune into in these relationships. When you see someone coming at you, it's like, okay, they're trying to stay safe. Where is this coming from? Let's get curious together.

Bear: Yeah, I have, I sometimes find myself just holding onto the image with my partner of the two of us as five year olds.

Mm-hmm. Like together in a sun put,

Nicole: just holding hands,

Bear: just like being, being safe enough and playful and just. Yeah, it's, uh, it can be really beautiful, but it's also surprisingly difficult to have that same level of compassion for ourselves. Oh yeah. Younger plants be able to see ourselves. Mm-hmm. See our own hurt through someone else's eyes [00:38:00] is such an important part of the process.

Nicole: Yeah. And like you said, we don't know it until we do, you know, so you think I'm doing great, I'm doing my best. And then someone says, mm-hmm. Well, I mean, you're kind of doing this. And then depending on how defensive we are, we might, no, I'm die. You know? And then you realize when you look back, you're like, oh no, it was all there, all along, you know?

But now you're here, you know? And so that, I think that's always my point too, where I'm like, what do I not see right now? What am I doing now that I don't even recognize? And, and keeping a large dose of humility in that journey as you keep going, you know? I am curious too, in your journey with kink, the things that have been spicy for you, have they changed over the years?

Bear: Things that have been spicy?

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: Oh, interesting. Yes and no.

Nicole: Right, of course. Yeah.

Bear: Because when I, when I think back to it, the, [00:39:00] the range of things I experienced in a really short period of time were really significant, actually. Like, there was all kinds of things from rope to, to pegging, to wrestling, to a fire ritual, which was, which was also a, a huge thing for me.

It included? Mm-hmm. Uh, scarification, which wasn't something I was particularly drawn to, but felt important as a ritual at a certain point in my journey. So, like, I I, when I look back, it's like, wow, I did a lot of serious shit in mm-hmm. A very short period of time. At one level it feels like I'm, I am, I'm not pushing the, the boundaries or limits around, around those sorts of more spicy things as much as I did back then.

But on another level, I've also discovered this thing of a kind of a sexual empathy

Nicole: mm-hmm. [00:40:00] 

Bear: Where other people's turn on becomes my turn on. Sure. And so it's, it's, it's less about being, discovering more spicy things than I used to, but just a broader range of things.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: Things that I didn't imagine I would be drawn to or didn't really understand, but then through discovering someone else's turn on.

I just felt that, whoa. Sure. I'm like, oh, I get it now. Oh, I get it. I wanna take, um,

Nicole: for sure.

Bear: So I've really enjoyed that. That part of the, the kind of more expanded, so I guess my experience is more breadth and depth.

Nicole: Sure. Yeah.

Bear: Try everything

Nicole: right. I, yeah, I'm hearing out of that too, like the connection. I imagine as you continue to go into deeper and deeper presence, the more we can be.

With other people's experience. Right. And so the, the beauty of that, and again, it also is reminding me of psychedelics again too, where people [00:41:00] start to do psychedelics and they're like, I wanna do all of it. I wanna do the high dose. Let's keep going. The high dose. What about even higher? Where's the ego death?

You know, versus like, oh, wow. Like, what if I actually take a smaller dose and really feel my surroundings, whether it's a relationship or nature, all of this, and the depth to that, right? There's a lot of similarities, I think, between kink and psychedelics these, um, expanded states of consciousness, whether it's created through the flogging or through the drug, right?

But the neurochemicals as well as the opening up of intimacy and vulnerability that we feel, I mean, I feel so many parallels. So, yeah, to hear that your, your practice has deepened in this way of being able to feel the turn on of other people and maybe ways that weren't as accessible when it was more that edging of, I want the more, the more, and the more.

Bear: Yeah.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: Yeah. You've nailed it. It's, it's the, it's the intensity of the connection, and I see that in a lot of pink play. Anyway. It's like the, the [00:42:00] spicier, it gets, another way of looking at it is the spicier. It gets the, the greater the tune that needs to be between two people. Sure. The more presences required.

'cause the risk profile just like, goes up massively. Right. But it doesn't need to be that way either. It's like, if the awareness of the connection is there, it's like that's what the intensity is about. That's where the pleasure comes into play.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: That's what the delicious, juicy stuff happens.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: I guess the spiciest thing that I do is, is more around age play.

Mm.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: I think of myself as a daddy. I think a lot of clients come to me without necessarily having the vocabulary around it. But, and, and I mean this initially from a non-sexual perspective, just being able to be present with someone without caregiving, nurturing, loving acceptance.

It, we were touching on this, I guess just a, a few minutes ago, about how to [00:43:00] just hold someone in that, that kind of unconditional love. Yeah. Um, but it's, I'm really aware of how edgy that can be for a lot of people. That whole kind of, where some people don't fully appreciate the clarity of, of a, of h play.

Being a way of playing, which is really clearly consensual role play between adults who know exactly what they're doing.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: Allowing ourselves to discover parts of ourselves that may have been exiled or lost along the way, I think is really beautiful.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I think people forget the large piece of, like you mentioned, the consensual adults.

Yes. Doing this, that's step one. Mm-hmm. And under that paradigm play, right. And then the level of intimacy, you need to be able to feel comfortable with someone to even explore those parts of [00:44:00] yourself. Right. If that's something that's calling to you, there's so much vulnerability there for people to experience that.

And then I think about even the ways that often gender dynamics put us into something very similar that most people don't even consciously know they're playing with of the like, oh, he's the man. Let me hold. He's gonna hold me and keep me together and I can just like fall apart in his arms. It's very similar when you think about it like, but that's like just the normal trope of romance in our like patriarchal world.

That power dynamic. I think, you know, I've definitely been there in my past, you know, so. It's very similar in a lot of different ways,

Bear: right? Yes. And it's interesting that, that you say that, 'cause it's my experience, at least in the work that I'm doing as being kind of the opposite, it's where where women will come to spend time with me and are expecting to receive a certain kind of sexual service.

Yeah. They'll spend three hours crying in my arms being like, I didn't know it was possible to feel so safe [00:45:00] in man's arms or in man's presence. And it's like, wow, that blows my mind that actually there is so little safety that we experience on a day-to-day basis. Back to safety. Yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. And I think about the historical context of, it wasn't until 1993, so it's been 31, 32 years that marital rape was outlawed in all 50 states.

Yeah. Prior to that, a man could rape his wife legally because she was property. And so that's just 32 years ago, let alone the history of the rest of it all. And so, yes, as a society, we are absolutely healing from the ripples of that violence. And so, yeah, for a woman to [00:46:00] feel safe and seen, of course that's gonna bring her to tears.

That's not often what we experience on the streets, which is why I love being in a dungeon and being like, look at me now. I'll, I'll take the stage here. Don't do it to me on the streets. Right? Like there's so many other ways that we are now healing from that violence collectively. And I think some people say, oh, I, I haven't experienced capital T trauma.

Yeah, I think we've all experienced that trauma. Collectively, it's in our collective consciousness. It's in the ways we move about through the world.

Bear: Mm-hmm. And how trauma can even be, and the, the way we were talking about it earlier, how trauma can, can even be the things that should have happened, but didn't make the kind of care we should have received, but didn't when we were youngsters and infants.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: There's, there's something interesting for me here too, around, around the way, um, men engage with our sexual [00:47:00] energy. Mm-hmm. Like in terms of that, like being out in the world and in the public. Sure. Yeah. Sphere especially. But this thing where when we become dissociated from, from our kind of embodied feeling selves and some kind of sexual energy arises, we don't really feel it, we don't like know how to make sense of it.

It just becomes like a, like an urge and inner urge.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: I like using this, um, the two metaphors of fishing and fire, and there's this thing that, that often one does with fishing. This idea of like casting out the line and like throwing something out there in focus of getting a catch mm catches somehow something that's going to help fill that loneliness that we were talking about earlier.

Except that every time there's that throw, we lose a little part of ourselves with that as well. It's a constant throwing. And then there's the, the metaphor of fire, which I often see as well that, that kind of. Way of men [00:48:00] being, I've done this too in my own way. Absolutely. The kind of like a flame fur.

It's like where that sexual energy, kind of like a big wide arc destroys anything in front of, in front of it. Its path with that kind of object. Objectifying look, gaze. Yeah. The undressing of someone, the having sexual fantasies about someone, and I'm really taken by this idea of a, a different kind of metaphor of a lantern.

Mm-hmm. Like, can, can we, can we learn how to generate our own sexual energy and hold it in a way where, like a lantern, it's like fully felt and fully expressed, but also safe, that there's a boundary around that which allows others to, to come towards that, to be able to enjoy the light and the warmth and the heat and not be burnt by it.

Where like we can all, all of us be autonomous, sexual human beings. Mm-hmm. Not needing to suppress that [00:49:00] sexuality, but be able to respectfully hold it for ourselves and in relation with others.

Nicole: Right. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause we don't wanna suppress, that's where we see the problems. Mm-hmm. Right. Particularly religions that do lots of oppression.

We see what happens when you repress this aspect of the human condition. Right. So being able to find that way, like you're saying, to have it exist in your being because you know, eroticism is our life force. Right. It is our creativity. It is the way that we engage with sensation. Even if you don't engage in sex, eroticism is a life force.

How you engage in sensation, pleasure play. That is something we all have. And so being able to embody that and have that in a way that's, yeah, harnessing it for yourself and not inflicting it upon other people is [00:50:00] an absolutely crucial part of ending rape culture. This is where I get excited about ending, where culture through the liberation of our pleasure.

It's not through the suppression, it is through the liberation. Mm-hmm.

Bear: So agree, right?

Nicole: Yes. Yes. And how do we do that though? You know, I think it's being present as much as we're being present with each other right now. As much as you're being present with your clients, as much as we can be present with our people that we love in our community of sexual, platonic, romantic, all of them, when we're present with that person, that stranger, whoever it is, it is that touch of, of.

Connection that you don't, yeah. Maybe they've never had that level of presence before and you have no idea what level of ripples that is going to create to actually end rape culture, which is part of the suppression and these desires to control the [00:51:00] power over again. I believe in the power of presence.

Yeah.

Bear: I've heard you touch on that in previous podcasts, which I'm, it's totally, it's totally worth that idea of, of being in a place of power worth not power over. I think some, so many men see the project of, of feminism as somehow wanting to flip the tables and that feminism's about emasculating us and, and making us less powerful.

And it's just not what it's about. It's about liberating all of us. Yeah.

Nicole: Have you read, uh, the Joy of Sex? It's like a classic, right?

Bear: I think I thumbed through it many times when I was like, new Joy Teenager.

Nicole: Yeah, the new Joy of Sex. It was funny 'cause um, my, uh, training site knew, you know, knows that I specialize in sex and relationships and they had some old sex books.

They're like, ah Nicole, you might want these, you know? And so I said, ah, okay. I threw some of them away 'cause they're so [00:52:00] old. As you can imagine, if we look back on the lineage of this, there's a lot of patriarchal problematic views in all of them. So I threw most of them away, but, uh, this was one of the like classics.

So I said, okay, I'll hold onto it. And I was flipping through it and it had this, uh, discussion of women and it said in the sidebar, it's like women Bold and then below. And it said he cannot be a good lover until he views women as a people. B equal. And I was just so hit by the Oh yeah, we still have this, the a part people.

Mm-hmm. Women are people. This was something we had to write in a book. We had to write that in a book. What? Oh God. You know, just holding that of like, God, like this is so deep of what it means to not just be objects. To not just be property. Right. Yeah. And to find Peoplehood fuck Jesus. Wow. Mm-hmm. Um, let alone equality radical.

I was [00:53:00] just like dumbfounded reading that the other day. I was like, oh God, this is why we have so much work to do.

Bear: It really is. And that was a book that was probably published around the same time as, as women are from Venus, men are from Mars, 1970s. Yeah. Trying to emphasize the point of, of how essentially different we are and just not recognizing the extent to which that socialization is what impacts us and makes us who we are.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: Yeah.

Nicole: And it's fascinating to read the research I've been reading, um, untrue by Wednesday, Martin, all about women's eroticism and I'm sure just the familiar trope that men are cheaters. They're the ones that want the novelty and the desire of multiple people and research shows that's not true.

Women cheat at just as much once they've gotten liberation. Mm-hmm. Once we had access to finances, we started cheating just as much as men. You know, once it was no longer, if [00:54:00] you do this, you could die and no longer have the ability to live. Women started cheating left and right. And so it's just really interesting, these tropes we have about men being the people that want the sexual desire, but women mm-hmm.

Equally want it. Mm-hmm. If not, some of the research suggest more in terms of diversity. Mm-hmm. You know, which is, it's, there's so much to unpack here. Let's just say everything you learned about sex was wrong.

Let's just throw that out there.

Bear: I think that's a, that's a pretty good title for a book. You need to write that one.

Nicole: Everything you thought wrong, start again.

Bear: All of that. All of that.

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious, I know I asked what you would say to your younger self, but is there anything that you'd wanna say to men more specifically, big questions, right? Again, the book is there, but what do you wanna say to men who are listening to this podcast?

Bear: [00:55:00] Hmm. Thank you. That's a good one. Um, I think it's one of the chapters I've been writing. Patriarchy Hurts You, man. I think that's like the being able to recognize, 'cause it's, you know, there's that classic metaphor of fish in, fish in the sea, not not knowing what water is. 'cause it's all around them. All around them.

Nicole: Right, right.

Bear: And I think that's what happens for a lot of, a lot of us manners because we live in a patriarch culture because we, we hold power over others and you don't really appreciate that until you don't have that power. I think that's a really key thing. Men don't get the moment you don't have it.

You can see the power dynamics of play, but it's like when we're surrounded by, by patriarchy, when it's just part of our day to day, it's really hard to appreciate the extent to which it does limit us, the extent to which it really confines our [00:56:00] ability to, to be ourselves, to live our truth, to live our, our best lives.

I think that's what I would. Really one meant to just question more than anything, just to get a little bit critical about the lives that we're living and why we're living them, and where those messages came from. That said, we had to be breadwinners and we had to be protectors, and we had to be the ones that are, that are always in a place of knowing and yeah, just getting curious.

Yeah. Recognizing, you know, where is the hurt for us and where does that originate from? Mm-hmm. What little steps might we be able to take to change that?

Nicole: Right. Yeah. There's no end to that process. Right. When we look at the various systems of oppression that impact us, if you think that you've unpacked it all.

Mm-hmm. [00:57:00] Oh no. We gotta start at square one again. You know what I mean? Where it's like there is gonna be a never. Ending process of unpacking this for various forms of oppression, patriarchy, racism, sexism. You know, like we could list the whole, it's a constant reflection of curiosity.

Bear: Yeah. And they're all interlinked.

Can't. Yes they are. Can't spread them out. Just cannot separate them out. The more I look into one area, the more other parts of that come into play.

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. And I think about the power dynamics of not, not knowing until you lost it, and the amount of women who, you know, you, you leave your, your friend's house at night and you say, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go home.

I'll text you when I make it safe. Right. And mm-hmm. The amount of text messages that me and my women friends send, oh, I've made it home safely. I'll ask a man. They're like, why do you do that? You know? It's like you, oh [00:58:00] yeah. You don't understand that through this world. I constantly live with this. Yeah.

And you don't know that. And if you, you could just walk a day in a woman's shoes, you would feel it instantly in ways that you don't even know.

Bear: Mm-hmm. That flamethrower energy again, it's like Right. That it's palpable.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And so I think too about the ways with men where I feel like there's not enough conversation. If there is conversation about sex, it's the, oh, I fucked her, and then her and this bitch. You know, like that sort of like trophy kill count of what you've done, or literally no conversation about sex at all.

And so, uh, I thought men could just start talking to each other about what they're experiencing.

Bear: That's the thing though, so so many [00:59:00] men in my experience, when I think back to my friends and my kind of social social circle, so many of us were really wanting that level of conversation. We just didn't know how to start it.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: There's always that fear, you know, whoever might start it might be the one fearing being excluded from the group, just like being back at school and in the playground.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: It's like, do I dare to show a vulnerability here? Do I dare express to to a friend that I'm having difficulties in my relationship emotionally or sexually, whatever it might be.

It's that first daring, which is where we start to see, oh, vulnerability is a form of courage. Vulnerability is a form of strength. Like just rewriting that whole narrative of, of what is strength anyway. It's not, it's not what we've been raised to think of it as.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: I'm sure it could be that there are people that [01:00:00] won't respond well to that.

Nicole: Okay.

Bear: But there will be just as many people that will feel thankful and grateful for the opening that that presents to be able to share of themselves as well, to make that personal connection where just a little bit of that loneliness gets eroded away.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: And we can feel like we're with someone in a meaningful way.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Check your friend group, right? Mm-hmm.

If your friend group doesn't feel safe talking about these things, you're right. There is another friend group where you can. Mm-hmm. And again, I just immediately feel the level of pleasure that you could feel in your body because at the end of the day too, what is essential to pleasure is sure, embodiment.

Sure. Safety, but also communication skills. Yeah. And if you have gone your whole life being nonverbal about your sexuality because you have just been letting it happen, it unfolds [01:01:00] naturally. I'm putting that in air quotes, oh my God, you are missing out on such a world of pleasure my friend. And I think anyone in kink knows that like the worlds you can build through open communication about your desires, that is a muscle, that is a muscle that even, you know, when I first started and I was with this beautiful, kinky human who asked me, how do you like to be touched?

I went free state, silent, and I said, I don't know. And what a journey it has been on where now I could give you the monologue. I could give you the handbook and be like, this, this, this, this, that, this. Right. And so for all the men out there too, who don't even know how to communicate their pleasure and their desires, that happens Sure.

Through lovers, but also through community. Oh, how did you learn this? Oh, that was, oh, okay. Okay. You know, and of course that's also how we talk about sexual trauma too, is learning that maybe this wasn't [01:02:00] okay. I learned that through conversation. But the whole arc too, all the way to pleasure of what are your fantasies?

How are you communicating this? How are you making that happen? That also exists in community conversation. And so the silence that we're experiencing is so in the way of accessing deeper pleasure. Uh.

Bear: I love that. I love that sense of communication being, being the key. And there's something in, in there around the, the vulnerability of not having the right words and being okay with that.

Like even just in, in the time we've spent chatting together, the number of times I've like, oh, I'm losing my words. Like,

Nicole: yeah,

Bear: where were we? What am I saying? How do I say that? Sure. It's, it's okay. Like being able to just be open about, yeah. Sometimes I struggle. Sometimes I struggle to find the right words to convey.

The meaning that I might have, like the more open we [01:03:00] can be with each other and in community, the more, the more leeway we give each other to get things wrong, the more we can see each other is just human beings who are doing their best trying to get by.

Nicole: Right? And that means dismantling the idea of that manhood, human hood, any of it, right?

That I have to have this all put together. I have to know exactly what I'm gonna say and be here versus coming to someone saying, okay, I don't have all the answers here. I'm personally confused. I wanna let you in on some of the thoughts that are going through my head right now. Is how do you feel about that?

Right? And then the intimacy that can come from that space of the unknown of, I don't have it all put together. I don't have a clear conversation, plan or agenda here. I'm, I'm in the grace space. I'm in the mess. But there's so much vulnerability and connection that can be created through that. And I, I think about, you know, in the field of psychology, they talk about that emotion [01:04:00] wheel.

Have you seen that? Mm-hmm. Tell me. Yeah, for sure. Where it's like, um, at the center, maybe some of the more core emotions. I don't know. I, I question words like core, where, where do we draw that line? But some of the more, um, sad, happy, joyful, you know, and then they spread it out into more finer expressed words in the circle.

And I think about sexuality the same way. I want pleasure, I want pain, I want excitement, I want, you know, whatever. And then how do we stretch that out to get more words? And again, we think about this in the field of psychology. If you're right, like the more words you can have, you can name your experience, communicate it with your partners, and have connection, sex being the same way so many of us.

Have no language because it is the cultural taboo. It is the thing you don't talk about. And so most of us don't even have language to describe this, and we need that damn emotion wheel of sex, you know, where it's like, yeah, I want this and that, and this and that. And then getting even comfortable using it.

[01:05:00] Oh, that's a journey.

Bear: The emotion wheel, not the, not the emoji.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: Wow. Yeah.

Nicole: We are regressing in some ways.

Bear: I love the, that, how that relates to the way I make sense of that. The sense of how often in our lives we, we live within a really thin, small bandwidth. And there's something that happens when we, when we say, right, I'm not gonna live by the rules I've been given anymore. I'm going to, through communication, through inquiry, um, start to take apart our understandings of things and, and put them back together.

But when we can start to feel more in every way, to feel more of the pleasure as well as more of the pain, right. To feel more of the sadness as well as the joy to feel just more of everything. Like that's, that's really living, that's really being alive.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: Knowing that we won't be stuck in any of it for any [01:06:00] period of time, because that's the nature of being alive.

Like life is a pulsation. It's like everything comes and goes just like the breath. And that will just shift from feeling one thing to feeling something else before we know. Yeah. But to have the full bandwidth, to own all of what it is to be a human, that really excites me. Yeah.

Nicole: Absolutely. Yeah. I've said this before and I, I love it.

It's like I cry hard. I. And I come hard.

Bear: Mm, love that.

Nicole: Right? Like those are not

Bear: sometimes all at the same time.

Nicole: Yeah,

Bear: exactly.

Nicole: Man. Those are good spaces. Those are good orgasms. That's a good one. Yeah. And it's so connected, and I know you see that. And I see that it's about the embodiment, it's about the safety, it's about the full range.

You're right. You can't just stay in the light all day [01:07:00] long. You have to understand that there's dark and the human experience, there is loss, there is mourning, there is death, there is grieving. And you will not escape that my friend, any of us,

Bear: any of us.

Nicole: Yeah,

Bear: I'll help explore the light and the dark as well. Just in, just in the little star too.

Nicole: Yeah. It's important.

Bear: Joy, the laughter, the sadness, the shadow, the difficult things.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: It's, it's all here and it's all available to us. Yeah. Used to go there.

Nicole: Yeah. Absolutely. Another question I have for you is I love these big questions.

I think they're so fun, you know, and just like what is the biggest thing you have learned thus far in your work?

Bear: I know thing in my work that I am enough.

Nicole: Mm. [01:08:00] Yeah. Say more.

Bear: I am enough. I think that's a really big part of being able to support other people and their healing. For me was just that recognition of I don't need to have the answers.

I don't need to be able to be clever in any way. To be able to point them in the right direction, to be able to say exactly the right thing at the right moment, that will blow their minds and somehow transform because of something I did. I just keep learning to trust that if I just show up and I'm with someone, stuff happens.

Magic happens, energy moves, and I don't have to do anything, but just by being me, I am enough.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Bear: For a lifetime of growing up, feeling I wasn't man enough. Mm. Which enough, [01:09:00] strong enough, powerful enough with a big enough dick, or whatever the enough might be, that's being huge.

Nicole: Yeah,

Bear: I am enough.

Yeah.

Nicole: I mean, I'm, I'm feeling that as a therapist, right? Like, what does it mean? There's so many times where I'll hear like the world's atrocities and you think, what are the right words to say here? Or How am I supposed to show up for this person that is expressing to me some of their deepest pain points and sobbing in, in your office and you're, I'm with 'em, right?

There's that, uh, Winnie the Poo, you know? Yeah. There's this classic story about er being so sad, so sad, and his friends, uh, poo and all of them asking like, oh, what do you need? What do you need? And er says To just be with me. And somehow that makes it all okay.

Bear: That's not just [01:10:00] er, it's what we all need.

Yeah. It's so common though to have our. Feelings minimized, especially as children, to be told that we're being too much. Yeah. You know, but being too emotional or being too happy or joyful or too sad, or making too much of a fuss and never get to just feel what we need to feel and allow the natural arc of that feeling to work its way through us.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: Just simply held in our,

Nicole: and I think for myself and most of us, that means examining our own comfort with these spaces, right? Because so many of us are in a space of wanting to help other people, and so the second that they start to cry, we say, oh no, it's gonna be okay. Don't worry. No worry. Like you're gonna be fine.

It's okay. Right. That coming from our own space of discomfort with the emotions that are coming out, as well as a desire [01:11:00] to care. Take missing the whole point though, of what it means to actually be with that person. I see you, this is tough. You're right, and I am with you right here. And you're not alone in that.

That will make the person cry more, which is, which is, you know, maybe what's needed at the point, you know? But it takes our own comfort to get comfortable with that, because I've struggled with that so much in the therapy office where I like see that person. I'm like, okay, what skills do I have? What tools do I have?

Okay. Okay. Like, it's like this panic state where I have to, oh, you're right. This world is so hard and I can be with you in that. Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. So all of us included lifelong journey, right? When you see that person in your community struggling, what does it mean to take that deep breath, breathe into that and say, I'm with you, and see how that impacts the relationship rather than particularly men.

Let's name that, right? Men particularly [01:12:00] often wanting to be like, here's the solution. I've got this, I'm the provider. Mm-hmm. I've got the clear plan. That's a lot of what you hear in relationships, particularly between men and women of the man not being comfortable with the emotions and trying to just like, here's how you go, here's how you go.

Rather than like, oh, I see you. That makes sense.

Bear: Oh, yeah, you've, you've nailed it. It's that thing again of, of having been taught how to not feel when we're younger. It's just huge discomfort for us. It has been, and it continues to be for me in so many ways to just sit with someone else's upset, especially if it might in any way be directed at me like, sure, relationships, but how different the world would be if we could just be with each other.

Nicole: I dream of that world. I do. I do. Hmm. Well, it's been such a joy to have you on the show. I wanna take a deep breath with you as we come towards the end of our [01:13:00] time

and just check in to see if there's anything else that you wanna share with the listeners. Otherwise I have a closing question I can ask you.

Bear: I don't have anything for the listeners. More just an appreciation.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: Now for this, for this time.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: Away them. That you've been with me as people who didn't know each other before hitting the Zoom button.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: Being able to be with each other. It's felt really a really great example of that.

Nicole: Mm.

Bear: Appreciating you for that, Nicole.

Nicole: Yeah. I appreciate that. And thank you for being vulnerable. It takes two to dance, right? It does. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm learning to get more comfortable with compliments, so I'll I'll take that one into my heart again.

I always do that. I'm like, and you too. It to you. Dammit. Dammit. So taking a deep breath to feel that. Thank you. It's, it's, [01:14:00] um, it's a joy to be in this space and it's a joy to keep learning of what it means to be present, to not have an agenda as the host here, to not have a plan of where I'm gonna take us.

Yeah. And to be comfortable with, okay, we are two raw, authentic human beings in this space and, and let's be intimate and talk about some of these more complex things in our world. And yeah, it's created some of the most beautiful conversations that have absolutely changed my life, let alone the listeners who write and tell me about it.

I mean, I'm really thankful to be here and I'm, I'm really excited to continue this journey.

Bear: Wonderful.

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: Thank you. You had a last question?

Nicole: Yes, I do. Alright. So the last question I ask everyone on the podcast is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

Bear: Mm. I think feeling afraid.

I think if we [01:15:00] recognized more of the fear that we, all of us carry around inside of us, uh, we might treat each other differently. Yeah, we were curious with that as to where that fear might come from, originate from. Yeah. That could change a lot of things.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm thinking about all of the hatred, the violence that happens out of fear of the other.

I think about evolutionary theory of the other and the scariness of that, the unknowns, the ways that we project onto other people from our past experiences. We put people into boxes and presume that we know their world and a lot of what we talked about earlier of seeing that inner child. Mm-hmm. I would love for people to meditate and think, just for a moment to see that that human before you, that maybe you're judging or presuming to see them as a little [01:16:00] baby.

Hmm. And the arms of another and see what sort of feelings that brings up for you to remember that that was once someone's beautiful little baby being rocked back and forth and oof the weight of that. When you really think of that, I, you're, you're right. I think there's so much that would be different in the world.

That's an understatement. Right.

Bear: It goes back to what you said earlier about the, the ways in which we protect ourselves.

Nicole: Yep.

Bear: And what is it that we're protecting ourselves from? And especially when, I dunno why this is coming up for me, around whether it's substance addiction or behavioral addiction or attachment styles, that the ways that we find to help us get by in life, that help us get through life are all part of that process of, of a sense of needing to protect ourselves from something.

So underneath that is a fear. And what's that fear about?

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: Get curious. [01:17:00] 

Nicole: Yeah.

Bear: Not to be judgmental of others, but just curious for their, an understanding of their humanity and our own humanity.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Have you seen the research on Rat Park?

Bear: No.

Nicole: Oh God. I love, I love this research. It's so good. Um, yeah.

And a lot of my studies on, on drugs and chaotic use and addiction, there was, you know, a lot of our research on that was based on a study where they would put rats and cages with cocaine and heroin. Right. And the rat would drink the cocaine water, the heroin water to excess and overdose and die. And then people came in more in the seventies and said, what if we rewrote this experiment?

And instead of leaving the rat in a cage all by himself, we actually created a rat park. Where there was things for the rat to [01:18:00] do a whole world of connection of other rats. Mm-hmm. And I bet you can see where this is going. The rats barely touched the water, and if they did, it was never to a point of overdose.

Mm. And so what does it mean to rewrite our whole fucking understanding of addiction? To get really clear on what is the cage that we are living in, in our personal lives, as well as the larger systems and the relationships that we are lacking in. Whenever I hear of use, I immediately think, what is the societal context going on for this person?

And where are their relationships? Yeah. Oof so much to rewrite for a whole society on that one.

Bear: Oof so much. And ultimately it comes back to. The origin of our wounds being relational.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Bear: And how the healing of those wounds only happen through [01:19:00] relationship. So it's not, it's the kind of coming back to really meeting each other and seeing each other as human beings and Yeah.

Questioning how we've got to where we've got to, what we each might need to do to change that. Yeah.

Nicole: Well, thank you for taking a big step in that today, for being vulnerable.

Bear: Thank you so much for having me. It's been such joy, a delight. Mm-hmm. Talking with you this time.

Nicole: Yeah. For all the listeners who have been connecting with you and your work, where can they find your book?

Where can they connect with you?

Bear: Hmm. Yeah, so I'm Bear Phillips online, bear phillips.co uk, bear Phillips two on Facebook and Instagram. The book is still in its early stages. I'm approaching publishers. I have a GoFundMe campaign, but there is a, a page on the website dedicated to to the book come, come and have a look.

Great. [01:20:00] 

Nicole: It's such a joy to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for coming on.

Bear: Thank you.

Nicole: If you enjoy today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and head on over to modern anarchy podcast.com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode.

I wanna thank you for tuning in and I will see you all next week.