Episode 79: How to Spice Up Your Relationship with Bonding Based Lovemaking

Intro (00:00):

Hey, thanks for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Staci (00:13):

Hey, welcome to the Love Shack. It's a little old place where we get to get together and explore fresh perspectives and man, do we have a good one for you today. We're gonna also eavesdrop on some juicy conversations and discover the things that really matter. And we're gonna also have a little fun along the way. This is episode number 79, how to spice up your relationship with bonding based love making. Have you ever heard of it?

Tom (00:38):

I have not. And it can be tough to keep the erotic spark alive in long term relationships. Let's just be honest, especially when there are so many tasks and logistics that need our attention, or you're simply feeling distant from your lover.

Staci (00:51):

Yeah, often times the topic of sex and intimacy can also bring up feelings of anxiety and dread, especially when our day to day interactions and connection with our partners have become strained and complicated. Sex is usually the first thing to wain or stop altogether as the closeness that you once felt with your partner begins to fall away. And we begin to make excuses being that we're the human beings that we are and keeping up with the new ways to say, Hmm, honey, I'm sorry. Not tonight, not, not feeling it. You know that lots of jokes about having a headache, lots of jokes about not being, right, ready or gotta work or get up early, or, I could go on and on there, what's also frustrating is when you feel like you want to be intimate, but you don't ever feel like those needs get met. That also can set in some anger, some frustration, some resentment, and over time, these are the things that break down our relationships.

Tom (01:49):

And as Staci just mentioned, have you ever heard of bonding based love making? I have not. And I'm grateful that we have our guests. It's gonna help us understand. That's a simple way to bring intimacy back in our relationships today in Love Shack, we're going to teach you how to get out of your own way so you can really connect and enjoy intimacy with your partner again.

Staci (02:10):

So in our rest listeners, Tom and I, and our commitment to you, our listeners, we're always exploring new principles and wonderful people to bring in to the Love Shack for you. And today we have Carolin Hauser. She's the creator of bonding based love making. And she's joining us on the show to talk about this innovative approach, to moving forward and healing some of our sex and intimacy challenges that come up in our relationship. So if you're ready to spice up your relationship and finally stop the challenges that you may be experiencing right now in your love life. I want you to know this episode is for you and Carolin will be with us right back after we take a short break, stay tuned.

Ad Man (03:03):

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Hey, babe, did you know that the average couple spends only two hours a day with each other? And the majority of that time is spent eating, watching TV and surfing social media rather than connecting with each other. And if children are involved, my gosh, it's even less time than that.

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Tom (05:04):

Welcome back inside the Love Shack. We are your hosts, Tom and Staci Bartley episode 79. And thanks to our engineer, Eric. And today we are talking all about lovemaking

Staci (05:15):

And if you're looking for ways to spice up your relationship currently, this is a conversation that is going to be a game-changer for you together. We are going to embark on a conversation about bonding-based lovemaking. We're gonna cover how to bring stability, harmony, and romance back into your intimate relationships to help you overcome the destructive patterns of sex that lead to us becoming roommates. Instead of lovers, we have with us on the Love Shack, Carolin Hauser. She's a German-trained naturopathic doctor, a humanistic psychotherapist, and a family constellations facilitator. She's also the author of the award-winning book Blossom, your seven steps to sexual healing and the creator of the pleasure IQ and blissful marriage method. Carolin's also an internationally recognized speaker and teacher on the subjects of spirituality, relationships, emotional healing, and of course our topic of conversation today, bonding-based lovemaking. Carolin welcome to the show. It's so great to have you here with us today.

Carolin (06:20):

Thank you so much for having me.

Staci (06:24):

Hey, I wanna jump into our first question, which is how did you personally become interested in bonding-based lovemaking yourself? Where does this come from?

Carolin (06:33):

Well, it comes from a, it came from a lot of desperation.

Staci (06:38):

I relate. I so relate.

Carolin (06:41):

I was not blessed with having very good relationships for a lot of my life. Well, for the first half of my life and just struggled first with the relationship with myself and then with the relationship with men. And my second marriage, I was very committed to making that work and we were just hitting bump after bump after bump. And a friend of mine handed me a book called Cupid's Poisoned Arrow that she had read and she was in a marriage, but her marriage was still kind of good enough. She wasn't as desperate as I was at the time. Because the things that were suggested in the book are a little bit extreme. And so she just kinda like handed it to me and said, you know, like, maybe you can try this. I, it seems, it sounds too out there for me. Like, why don't you go ahead and try it and then come back to me and tell me, so that's kind of like how it came into my life, and yeah, I was desperate enough to, you know, to read it and what the woman was sharing and her book sounded very much like my story where relationships would start out great. I have no problem attracting guys, but then making it last and making it stable was just out of my reach.

Staci (07:53):

I love it. And say the name of the book that inspired this for you one more time.

Carolin (07:57):

Cupid's Poisoned Arrow. Marnia Robinson is really the pioneer in this whole field.

Tom (08:06):

So you read that book and then from that is the Genesis from where we are today and, and your specific frameworks and strategy?

Carolin (08:14):

Pretty much. I mean, I had already been working as a family consultations facilitator and, you know, I've worked as an energy healer, but my own just my own relationships weren't working. And my husband at the time, once I introduced what was in the book, he couldn't get on the same page with me. So that relationship didn't last, but since then, I've been able to really create a lot more stability in my life. And it is due to what I learned from Marnia and also have helped a lot of people bring intimacy and stability back to those through their love lives. And we don't think, we generally think that our problems are psychological or because of traumas. And there's obviously something to it. But what Marnia was suggesting is that our problems actually stem come from biology and neuroscience.

Staci (09:03):

So tell us more about that. So the, and I believe wholeheartedly, by the way, I, I know that our problems around sex and our ability to talk about it and explore right our age-old. Historically, we have been forbidden to talk about such things, to explore such things. Even, I bet you have this in your clinical practice as well, that when the topic of sex comes up, we all tend to clam up. You know, our clients tend to clam up, like, can we really talk about this? Is this really okay? Even though it's where we all come from sexually, right? None of us would be here without this wonderful vehicle called sex because of our religion and, and family of origin and programming, we tend to feel it's a taboo subject. And I think in a large part too, and one of the reasons why I was so excited to bring this conversation to our listeners is it is trying to open up those conversations around sex, right? Because they are the things that we can do, if we have the conversations about sex, we can get better at this. We can understand it for ourselves. We can adopt an identity of who I am sexually and where I wanna go with this and how I wanna show up in this. And I can explore this with my partner. And a lot of people don't also understand that sex is a great vehicle for self-exploration, right. With myself and my partner. And so one of the things that I was so excited about bringing you on is this idea of course, of bonding-based lovemaking, because it is rooted in biology and neuroscience. So tell us a little bit about that.

Carolin (10:33):

Yeah. So first of all, there's a lot of confusion when it comes to sex, what it is, what it's for, what it's not, and so forth. And the confusion is actually understandable. And it's real. Because what we as human beings don't know is that we actually have two programs for lovemaking, right. We just know what we know, and that's just the, you know, making love the way that we know in a sense we're, that program biologically is connected to procreation and that's where the problem starts. So when we have sex the regular way, meaning including orgasms, we're kind of like entering into a survival program for our genes. So genetically speaking, your genes really want us to mate with as many people as possible so that our species survives, right? It's not interesting in the survival of the union in a sense between men and women, it drives us to get getting bored with each other and to, to finding novel interests, more stimulating, and so forth. And it does that by using dopamine. Dopamine is a very, very highly addictive neurochemical. And so nature was very clever. It connected making babies with something like a cocaine high, you know, basically. And, you know, we laugh about it, but if you look at it too, I'm not a brain scientist, but there, there are brain scientists who actually have looked at this and have done brain scans on people, taking heroin or taking cocaine and people having orgasms. And it's the same exact thing on a brain scan. Like it shows, and it impacts us the same way. So imagine you just took a whole dose of cocaine and if you have, you know, what that feels like, and you also know, what it feels like right after and coming down off of it. Right? And so that's where the problem starts when we have, an event in our brain that is so intense, neurochemically speaking, it shifts our perception of each other and it makes it so that over time, instead of being in love and having the honeymoon feelings that we have because something is new, we start seeing all the faults. And then all the negativity starts creeping in and we close down and we don't feel attracted anymore. And it all goes downhill from there. Now the good news is there is a second program that we just don't know about, and it has to do with oxytocin, activating oxytocin, and a bonding program, which is also a survival program. So it has very strong, pleasure rewards, just like nature rewards us for making babies. It also rewards us for deeply bonding like a mother to a child from mother it's very pleasurable to be bonded to the baby and nature made it so that the mother would actually take care of the baby and not just drop it and leave it optimally.

Staci (13:22):

Yes. Absolutely. And I love this distinction in, in my work and in my conversations with my client, talking about the physical attributes, right. And the emotional-spiritual attributes that we all have as human beings. So the act of having sex would be the release of dopamine arriving at orgasm. And the oxytocin that we experience would be more of what drives the emotional bonding piece, the spiritual piece, and the deeper pieces that we have inside of ourselves. I refer to this as our human navigation system. And I totally agree with you, Carolin, we don't talk about this enough. Right. We talk about life through the lens of the physical, I suppose, because that's what makes sense to us, right? That's what we see and can measure and test, etcetera.

Carolin (14:14):

And so I don't wanna like be rude, but just to interrupt you, bonding lovemaking is a physical way of having sex. It's just a very, very, completely different way that none of us has done before. It's not having sex without an orgasm. You know, it's just having sex in a very different way.

Staci (14:30):

Yeah. So tell us about it. Tell us about what, so we can start understanding this.

Carolin (14:34):

How graphic do you want me to get?

Tom (14:36):

Well, I just remind you that it needs to be radio-friendly. So

Staci (14:40):

This means we have to speak scientifically about body parts and processes.

Tom (14:44):

In a biological sense.

Staci (14:46):

But I'm thinking of the listener out there who's saying, okay. Tell me about this and tell me how it works and why I would even wanna embark on it. So maybe let's start and dive a little deeper there. Like, why would I even wanna entertain the idea of bringing this into my relationship and what does it look like? I don't even know if I'm on board yet.

Carolin (15:05):

Oh yeah. So the only reason why this would make sense to you and why I would suggest embarking on this is if you have a lot of friction in your relationship if the honeymoon feelings have gone away, if you feel disconnected and if you wanna have the honeymoon feelings back, and if you wanna have honeymoon feelings every day, and if you wanna know how to produce them, then I would suggest listening. You know. Like, if you wanna feel the way that you felt when you were first met, then, because there is a way to learn to navigate your own biochemistry and your own biology, that will feel very, very pleasurable after a short amount of time off like being confused, you know? And it is still physical lovemaking just way, way slower in a way where it's not so much about genital friction, but really connecting energy. And the more you use their specific bonding cues, like breathing together and looking into each other's eyes. And a lot of it has to do with your intention because the subconscious is very clever and it goes by energy. So when the subconscious feels like your partner is coming towards you just wanting something. So oftentimes in sex, we get touched because somebody wants something from us. Somebody wants to have sex with us, and therefore they're touching us to turn us on or something like that. So the perception in the subconscious is like, oh, somebody just wants something from me. And kind of what makes the bonding-based lovemaking and the oxytocin flow is learning to give through it to each other, physically, emotionally, and energetically. And that's, it's just a matter of practicing what that feels like then looks like. And when that happens, when you start getting touched in a way where your subconscious feels like you're being given to, then your whole subconscious relaxes, and then the oxytocin starts flowing. So in a sense, it's really learning to make love in a very, very, very, very relaxed way. Which for, for guys is like, oh, how, like what? Right. Cause you're so used to having to do something, to be able to perform in all of that, that all falls away. And it's a little bit of a, like, I mean, for my clients in the beginning, it's like very confusing, you know, how to do that because they're, you know, you, they think they have to have certain functions functioning.

Staci (17:27):

Well, there's, there's, I would agree with you that there's a tremendous amount of performance anxiety, especially for the male side of the equation. Right. Which leads to a lot of EDT. And for understandable reasons, why do we carry the responsibility? And I'm supposed to step into this situation with my partner and be Don Juan, and know-how to not only please her but please myself, somehow in the process, there's a lot of responsibility to carry. And let's be honest as, as, as women typically, especially in our culture and our society, we're not very adept at knowing even what it is we like, or if we do, we don't feel like we can communicate that to our lovers. So we really, kind of set the male up for saying, okay, you know, figure out how to love me and make, rock my world and be romantic and, and pleasure yourself. And then, gosh, if you can't do that, who's banging on who, right. So common, it's the man trying to get the woman to engage or, and/or he's pushing it away because of the performance anxiety. And then we get to start to understand why porn and masturbation and all those kinds of things in isolation are preferable to the responsibility emotionally and the weight that I carry on my shoulders to, you know, show up and be this Don Juan love maker.

Carolin (18:47):

And risk being rejected all the time. Right?

Staci (18:49):

Yes. I mean, that's a lot to ask. What do you have to say about that?

Tom (18:53):

No. And I would just, you know, ask Carolin, so I really like where you're going. So I would sense from what you just described that trust is a very important part of this, of this newly learned framework and process, you just described, right?

Carolin (19:07):

Yes. And also as your brain relaxes, and as you do the physical bonding behaviors, you are going to start feeling more secure and you're going to feel more trust. So basically, in early development in early child development, we develop either a secure attachment style or an anxious or an avoidant. Ideally, a baby gets really well taken care of and feels securely attached and has the oxytocin bond with the mom for a lot of us that doesn't happen because, you know, mom had to go to work or whatever other siblings, you know, it doesn't have to be abused all the time, but obviously abuse also neglect. And so when we as adults then start using the same pathways in our brain, it is really a healing experience of getting what we didn't get as a baby. So it's, it goes really all the way back to, and so when our brain and our nervous system starts receiving those things, and even better, if you had it as a child, it will, this will be much easier for you than if you didn't have it as a child. Um, you will automatically have an experience of trust just based on your physiological response to each other.

Staci (20:23):

Meaning that feels familiar. Right. If I come from a place where I had some secure bonding with my, with my family of origin, with my parents, right. When I feel it again, I go, ah, that's it, right? That's what makes me feel safe and secure, etcetera.

Carolin (20:38):

And I mean, we talk about subconsciously, you know, mainly like these programs are very deeply subconsciously ingrained. So when we get the attention that is loving and comforting, instead of like, you know, somebody wanting something from us, our nervous system, our subconscious mind reads that as safety. So subconsciously we start trusting each other because right now we're not trusting each other subconsciously because subconsciously feels like you're just wanting something from me all the time.

Staci (21:05):

Yeah. And that's a huge problem of 'em, especially as it relates to long-lasting relationships, for sure. Where I feel like there's always more that you want more, that I have to give in order to make this work. And we all become emotionally exhausted. Right. We run out of emotional gas there

Carolin (21:20):

And with bonding based lovemaking because of the physical experience and because of your feeling of really getting your needs met all of a sudden your entire, I mean, it can really transform your entire life and the way that you feel about, about yourself, because you are living a physical experience of there not being any lack, like total fulfillment.

Staci (21:41):

Well, you know, you're causing me to, to reflect back, you know when relationships first start, there's a place where we have that experience typically where I say, oh gosh, you really get me, or you really understand me. And I've never been able to share this with anyone before. Right. That's kind of the cue of gosh, I've never been able to relax into this before. And then we start to build this life together and we fast forward even five years. Right. And then we start to realize, oh, I'm starting to feel unsafe. I'm starting to feel insecure. Tell us a little bit about what, you know, from the neuroscience and the dopamine, oxytocin, etcetera, as to why that's typically the case. Why is it that we start out in this place where I'm like, oh gosh, you really get me and sex is typically easy and exciting and thrilling. And then we move into this place. As we start to build a family and a life together, it moves into a place of like honey, not tonight, you know, I'm just not feeling it. Or like you said, I feel like I just don't have it to give. I think a lot of females feel that way. Like I just don't have it to give. Right. Can you do something else?

Carolin (22:51):

Yeah. So the scientific term for what you were describing is called habituation. And the biological reason for this is that we are programmed to find novel mates interesting. So when we first meet somebody that's compatible with us, we have a whole kind of different chemical cocktail in us because of the novelty of it. And because nature wants us to like wanna make babies, right? And so in the beginning, it's very enticing and they have done studies with rats where rats are [inaudible] bonding animals, where the guy could have had as much sex with his wife as he wanted in the beginning, it was fine. And then he got tired and super not interested. And then they would just put a young, fertile, new rat in it. And he was ready to go and like go for days. And like all of a sudden his interest and tiredness and depression was completely gone just because a new fertile female was introduced, you know, and then he would get used to her again, and the same thing would happen. And you would just see him as being totally disinterested. And then you put a new one in front of him and he would just totally perk up. And, not that we're like rats, but we're very, we are also mammals and very similar in that sense. And so when we are in the procreation program, meaning where we have lots of orgasms, then this is what happens. We habituate to each other because we're literally just using the procreation program and not the bonding program. If we know about the bonding program and learn how to use it, then we can totally escape all of that. Or if we've fallen trap to it. And, you know, if you're [inauduble] this for the first time and you're like, oh my God, this is what's happening to us. It doesn't take very long to shift into this other program and learn it. It's really just a skill in a sense, and getting some help with the subconscious childhood wounds in order, you know, so that your traumas don't get into the way, in a sense, if you were a child that didn't have safe bonding as a child, there might be some resistance, you know, that's part of it also, why you might have recreated an adult relationship where you're not getting it right. But all of that can be healed, which is the good news.

Staci (24:58):

Yes. Well, you know, I, I see very, very much so in the work that I've done over many years with hundreds, a couple from around the world, that we have the ability, and I'm sure this has to do with our energetic, you know, the natural intelligence of being a human being. We recreate do-overs to help us understand and heal from things that we've come from in our past, which is why it is. We tend to replicate things that are unresolved or unhealed inside of ourselves, and don't know of a greater growth vehicle than relationships, right. That is the personal growth vehicle that does spectacular things to help us see ourselves and to understand ourselves and, and to work some of those things out, right. We will do things in a relationship that we won't do anywhere else in our lives for others and for ourselves. And I can see that what you're saying would be the greatest place where we could come in and we could kind of address some of these attachment issues that thank goodness we have so much wonderful research, etcetera, to help us understand more about why does that we're doing what we're doing instead of feeling crazy, instead of feeling like, I'm losing my mind right. On both sides, whether I'm saying I can't get, my sexual needs met emotionally, or I just feel like I don't have anything to give in the tank that can be a very, very difficult place for either side to be in. I love, I love this idea of where we get to come together and we get to practice bonding together. Do you find that couples who stepped into this originally, is there some resistance? Is there a lot of resistance to this?

Carolin (26:33):

Yeah. I mean, some more than others, you know, because it is like really putting your love life on a diet. Like, you know, if you wanna gain more muscle, you need to go to the gym five days a week, right. If you want to have this amazing energy and your body's like feeling really alive we do make love on a schedule in a sense, but it's, it's actually very freeing. And in reality, it's very freeing once you, once you can allow it because you're so, you will know, you're not having to guess when you're getting some, this is just what you do and you're do it to my belief really much is that a lot of people that get married, they really want a sacred union. They want something special. And they think by getting married and having that one day, that that's what happens. And it doesn't right. We don't have the tools. And I believe that bonding base lovemaking is the practice of actually having a sacred union. And it's built every day. It's kinda like forged, you know, through the energy and the connection every day, every single day.

Staci (27:28):

So, wait a minute, you said something, I don't think we've touched on right now, which is okay. It's a schedule like, and I can hear, I can almost hear my listeners going, wait a minute. That's not romantic. Come on. I think that what I need is romance. So what I'm thinking I need. So tell us a little bit about the schedule and how that works.

Carolin (27:48):

So I'll just tell you what, my day, what my life looks like. And so generally we wake up and we cuddle for like at least a half an hour, and then generally we also cuddle for at least an hour in the evenings. And then generally every other day we make love also. And then generally once a week, we have like two or three hours where we make love. So we make love a lot and we connect a lot and it's awesome. And it makes it so that we're very stable. We're very in sync. We have no communication problems when we stick to it, when we don't, we have all the other problems that other couples have. And it's like, you can see it immediately. Like when we fall into the other, cause every once in a while, we're like, oh, you know, it's going well. And let's just try again, you know, let's just see what an orgasm feels like. And then inadvertently for two weeks, we can't hear what the other person is saying. Everything's triggering. It's like, what just happened? Like we don't normally have problems. And all of a sudden, now we have problems, like what happened? And I mean, I have enough experience to know what happened, you know, it's just, my chemistry is off.

Staci (28:45):

Wow. So do you never, when you're engaged in the act of lovemaking, there's not an orgasm that happens in the cuddling and the bonding method?

Carolin (28:54):

Ideally not. I mean, sometimes, you know, you will get too excited, but ideally, you learn to make love in a way where you're not missing anything and where you're very happy because when you make love in a more gentle way, your genitals start to be more desensitized. And even just like feeling a penis on a vagina, the skin on each other inside basically, or on the outside starts to feel very, very pleasurable, right? So the pleasures not coming from the friction anymore, it's coming from the skin getting more sensitive. And it's almost like a more electrical charge that you start feeling and your entire body and your skin become more sensitive and more tuned in to each other and where kissing feels amazing. You know, remember when you were a teenager and like kissing, I was like, oh my God, you couldn't stop for hours. So that kind of thing.

Staci (29:39):

I do remember that actually. Do you remember that? I've always been a big kisser,

Tom (29:45):

You know, I mean, what you've just described, Carolin, I mean, the greatest definition that I've ever heard of intimacy is "Into me you see". And so your definition right there is, to me, that's the greatest, you know, truly experience, not a definition, but the experience of what intimacy is the all of me into you and the all of you into me. Yeah. Right. I mean, come on.

Carolin (30:06):

And it's really an experience of oneness that like, that you could just have where it's easy to have it and, and be on the same page and really feel through the because we're using the bonding chemicals, you really feel like a, a unit that's, you know, and, and you become in a sense, very indestructible as a unit.

Staci (30:26):

Because of the bonding aspects of it, right?

Tom (30:30):

Well, you're validating me I've threatened to write an article and you're really validating me.

Staci (30:35):

Tell me. What is the article?

Tom (30:36):

I mean, it's how this old fart makes love to his wife all night long And well, and I'll keep it radio-friendly, but I mean, if the skin is the largest organ on the body, right. And you're our scientist here then the more skin I would sense that we can, you know, bonding and safely press upon and integrate with our partner. Well, my goodness, I mean, talk about pheromones, bioscience, and all kinds of wonderful things that are happening. Well, that's, I mean, that's very common practice with Staci and me, I mean, my gosh.

Staci (31:11):

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in just looking at our own life, we've stepped into this very naturally. And I'm contrasting right now, if I'm hesitating, it's just because my little wheels are spinning here for our listeners. Like, okay, wow. I would say very much so on the front side when Tom and I came together, you know, the objective is and tends to be, you know, reaching orgasm, like that's, and then we, we go, okay, we're done. And very, very quickly, I'd never done this in my previous relationships before it was completely intuitive. We ended up sleeping naked, and I've never done that before in any previous relationship. But I had this longing to do that with Tom so that we could like sync up. And, you know, now more than a decade later, I look so forward to that every single night, like it's the completion of my day. And I know that regardless of what's gone down in the day or what I've had to face, that wonderful place that I get to look forward to is, is stepping into my bed. And we call it like sinking up and it, and we get to take our bodies and just kind of cuddle for a minute. And we'll talk about the endings of the day, but there's a very specific position where he puts his arm around me and I hook my foot on his leg. And it's just like, oh, everything is right with the world right now.

Carolin (32:38):

Exactly. That's what I say. You know, I know that every, like when I'm there, then I know everything is right in my world.

Tom (32:45):

But I mean, what an incredible, you know, scientific confirmation, again, if you can get science to work for you, right Carolin my, gosh, you're, you know, you're incentivizing how we're designed.

Carolin (32:55):

Yes. And actually one of my clients yesterday, my clients know that I'm like I'm a nerd on this topic and somebody found a study that the only hormone connected to longevity and you staying young is oxytocin. So there's, you know, there's a lot of benefits, health benefits energy benefits, you know? On and on.

Staci (33:18):

We could get young her by having more oxytocin in our lives, right?

Carolin (33:21):

What sold me actually was I saw a video of Marnia when she was already in her fifties or sixties. And she looked like a 19-year-old and I was like, I'm gonna, I need what she has. Like she was glowing and like, oh my God, like.

Staci (33:34):

Well, so as we kind of gets ready to wrap up our conversation, we could talk about it for hours. I'm fascinated about this. I do wanna give our listeners some places where, okay, if you wanna explore this right. If you wanna try this on in your relationship if you wanna take the next step, could we give them like 1, 2, 3 steps to get started? Like, how do I start doing this in my relationship? And maybe I'm really kind of, I know we odds, or there's a bit of a disconnection between us. How do I easily, and simply start stepping into maybe exploring if this is something that would work for my relationship or not?

Carolin (34:07):

I definitely think, you know, start reading the book, like that's where it starts because you need to have a lot of scientific proof in order to kind of when it gets to not, you know, stopping yourself or ridding yourself of having orgasms your unconscious mind will wanna say things like, oh, you know, it's probably not that bad. And you know, it won't matter. And if you don't have the scientific knowledge, really, like the book is a compilation of a lot of, lot of arguments for bonding-based lovemaking, you know? So it really helps to have that under your belt before you tried. And that in the book Marnia has actually put together a 21-day kind of she causes the ecstatic exchanges. If you wanna try this by yourself, I do not recommend trying by yourself because of the subconscious stuff that's connected to all of that. So ideally, you know, read the, see if it makes sense, if you really want help, find somebody like me. I do have free training on my website that people can also go through to get a little bit more of, you know, how it would look like working with me. And I think you'll do yourself a favor by getting somebody to help you with this.

Staci (35:22):

Yeah. Did you end up having somebody that kind of mentored you through the process originally?

Carolin (35:26):

No, but I've, you know, it took me four years to really get it, and a lot of heartache and trials and because I was also dating and single, you know, and you can only practice this when you have somebody and how do you introduce this to somebody when you're like single?

Tom (35:44):

So how about this? How about, what do you find, you know, that is usually, you know, with one or the other, I probably, I would imagine, you know, when two people, a couple comes to you, husband, wife, partners come to you, what are usually the common objections, you know, that people are even though, maybe with the scientific research and evidence, what is it because they don't think it's possible what, you're, what you're describing to have this euphoric kind of reset if you will?

Carolin (36:10):

Yeah. That, and then a lot of it, you know, a lot of women have autoimmune stuff and think that you know, people think that they don't want sex because of the libido and the libido is connected to the procreation based program. So once you get out of that, your body will start wanting and start responding and getting juicy again on its own, you know, but it's a, so oftentimes it's hormonal issues and people don't think that that would, you know, because they're older or have had babies or whatnot, you know, they don't think that it could be any different, like physically, you know, so that's, and I'm a naturopathic doctor. So I have a lot of experience with helping, you know, people naturally bring the hormones back and back in balance. And, and for men too, you know, a lot of men struggle with, you know, they think they have low testosterone and yes, but for bonding-based lovemaking, you don't need to have more testosterone. It's, you know, you need testosterone for the procreation program, but not for the bonding necessarily.

Staci (37:04):

You bring up a really great point and I'm really pretty passionate about not allowing this part of our lives to kind of, you know, just get set aside. And I think so many of us women think, oh, all right, good. We're done with that. Right. Let's now that we've had the kids and we're approaching 60 and I'm through menopause. We don't have to worry about any of that. And, and our intimate lives sexually kind of get put to the side. And I think that we, we miss out on a lot of opportunities there, you know, for rejuvenation, for longevity, for brain health, for emotional health. Right. There are a lot of things that we don't realize. We're kind of setting to the side.

Carolin (37:45):

Yeah. In my opinion, it's like setting paradise, you can have paradise on earth and you're like, oh, I don't need that. Do you know?

Staci (37:51):

Yeah. That's not for me. I don't need that. I'm 60 now. We're just gonna ride into the sunset.

Tom (37:57):

I was just gonna ask Carolin, do you are able to like, say, as you get, say, you know, cross over the age barrier of 60, is that a place where, you know, you can help, you know, someone that steps in with you, you know, I mean, cause again, I have no interest in that, you know, and for those of our children that are listening, please plug your ears. Just kidding. But you know, I mean, to me that's just a bunch of junk, but I'm sure, we see out there in societally, you know, you don't have the dry. No, maybe not, but doesn't, you know, I always say don't confuse what is it? Performance with pleasure, you know, I mean, come on, you may not have the same sperm count for heaven's sake, but it still doesn't lessen my drive for the pleasure and the connection. The intimacy, you know, I mean.

Carolin (38:41):

Everybody that comes, you know, that men and women, they think that sex is the way to connecting and yes it is when you do it in the right way, you know, we've just not been taught to connect in a way that feels actually super fulfilling physically and emotionally and spiritually and men and women, they, what they truly want is connection.

Staci (38:59):

Yeah. You know, which is so true. It's not really about the sex or the orgasm. It's more about this deeper place, but I just don't know how to get there. I don't know how to access that. And so tell us your routine again, one more time so that we can kinda wrap our heads around it. Like I love the cuddling part. Right. and when couples come to you to start this, I mean, are you just inviting them to like sit on the couch and cuddle or, or in a place where they can be close?

Carolin (39:27):

No.

Staci (39:27):

All right. So back it up. Step one. Okay. I read the book and when we talk about reading the book, it's Cupid's Poison Arrow. Okay. That's the book. And give us the author one more time.

Carolin (39:40):

Marnia Robinson.

Staci (39:42):

Okay. So I've read the book and I'm like, and the book is gonna give me like the outline step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?

Carolin (39:48):

Yeah. And then we, when you work with us, we work on your subconscious, the energy work that I'm trained in. And I have a whole team that I've trained in it's called family constellation and it helps with shifting these subconscious programs around our attachment styles. So if there's any wounding or trauma from you as a child, that would not let you move forward into the bonding because in your brain, that's not safe. We know how to do that. We know how to basically do like a yeah. Do the healing and to you reverse it so that your subconscious actually allows you to move into that. And then we also have a community, you know, it's because this is so new, it's super helpful to be with other couples that are, you know, figuring this out and trying this out. And, you know, for a lot of people, like they have kids and, and jobs and like, you know, how do you do it with how do you integrate it? So part of how you'll be able to have a schedule like mine, where, you know, you have lots of time in the morning, lots of time in the evening. And then throughout the week, actually it comes from helping your subconscious release, any kind of survival programs that make it so that you think subconsciously that work, you have to work hard to survive, right? Because our time management has a lot to do with what we think we have to do. Subconsciously if in our, if in our family, you had to work hard and struggle, and there was no fun. You're gonna repeat it. You're just gonna become a workaholic because that's the only thing that feels safe. So a lot of what we do with our clients is to help them reprogram all of that stuff so that it becomes, it can become safer and safer in their subconscious for them to actually work less and have more time. And they can see, you know, they actually start making more money and less time, and all of a sudden their brains figure it out, you know, but it's a transition. It takes, you know, we work with people for a year to transition all of this.

Staci (41:33):

Wow. And so, and that, and when you think about a year, you might go, wow, that's a long time, but let's think about how many years maybe we've struggled with this. Right?

Tom (41:44):

Okay, you're bumping up against a very fundamental, like you [inaudible], you know, I mean, some these attachment styles come from when we're very, very small. So we're talking many, many years of, of this, you know, programming that gets deepened and deepened and confirmed and confirmed, and now you have this bonding based, you know, a process that like it's challenging everything in our fiber, you know? But like, come on, man. Like, like get back to reality.

Staci (42:11):

Yeah. And your energy, the energy work that you do in helping us kind of shift our energy a bit so that we can kind of step into this and deal with the head screaming.

Carolin (42:22):

Exactly. And then having the other, having the other people in the community also helps, you know, and seeing it and getting reassurance and creating in a sense, creating, you know, no experiences for yourself where you're confirming that this is actually safe and other people do it and it's safe for them. You know, they're not starving, they're not being on the street, all of a sudden.

Tom (42:43):

And they had similar challenges when they first stepped into it as well. Cause I think many times we often think we're the only ones that have that problem.

Staci (42:52):

So in a nutshell, bonding-based lovemaking is a place where we get to bond physically. Right? And we might even have intercourse, but the idea is we don't need to reach orgasm because that's, is that where our brains kind of cross the line in regards to the oxytocin release and the dopamine release, we have to release dopamine in order to have an orgasm?

Carolin (43:14):

The feeling of orgasm. We only have that feeling because it's a dopamine release. It's a high, it's the only natural high that we can fabricate other than taking, you know, otherwise, we have, would have to take drugs to have that same experience.

Staci (43:30):

Well, so is it, in bonding-based lovemaking, are there places where it is okay to do that? Or do you find that everything that you've been working on for the long haul breaks down and you gotta kind of start from scratch?

Carolin (43:44):

Yeah. Because you have a totally different chemical cocktail, all of a sudden, you know, once the di once the dopamine high happens, then it takes the brain two weeks to get back to just neurophysical normal.

Staci (43:57):

Wow. Two weeks, seriously? It takes that long to burn off dopamine. And so how do we, you know, then I start to think about lifestyle and I know we're not gonna be able to get into this in our two minutes or so that's left, but, but I start to think about all the places where we get dopamine hits throughout our lives. It doesn't just happen in orgasms. So, I mean, I can get a dopamine hit on, on Facebook or shopping.

Carolin (44:24):

And all those things generally do not foster connection, real connection, you know? So it is a detox like it's an entire detox process and coming back to yourself and what's a real and real pleasure and getting pleasure from real things. But food is also, you know, connected to, I mean, there's lots that's connected to it.

Staci (44:41):

Yeah. Aphrodisiacs.

Carolin (44:44):

I mean this [inaudible] industry, [inaudible] and they use it to get us hooked in.

Staci (44:50):

Yeah. Oh, for, for sure. And it's almost like you have to play in that world in order to even be able to rise above the noise. Right. As is where in the world, in which we live in and things are traveling so fast and more, more, and more things are done online than they are face to face or in-person through our technologies. Yeah. How do you see that playing out as we wrap up here?

Carolin (00:45:11):

Well, we're really on a mission to get people back to like a healthier way of living. Like too much department is just not good for us. It creates a lot of aggression and it creates a lot of violence. It creates a lot of misperception and lack. And so if we, as a society can learn to as a whole get off the whole dopamine train and back to something more normal, it will create a much more peaceful world. That's what I believe.

Staci (00:45:34):

I love that. And, let's do that. I sometimes I love to do everybody take a takeaway, right? Like, so one thing that we wanna leave our listeners with through our conversation today that maybe stood out to us individually or personally. So for Carolin, I'll let you start, you know, what is something that you want people to remember and take away from our conversation and all that you've shared with us today?

Carolin (00:45:55):

That we can, you know, truly have paradise on earth. And it just takes like, doing things completely differently than most everybody. But, you know, it's never too late. Like you can, even if you're older or, you know, wherever you are, there is a way to shift this.

Staci (00:46:09):

I love that. What about you, babe?

Tom (00:46:12):

Well, I would, yeah. You know, it's what I just hear overwhelmingly screaming in my subconscious is, is, is slow down, you know? I mean, yeah. I mean, that was so well said Carolin, we, we have so much coming at us, and, and, and the amount of, of over, overstimulation is literally off the charts. So I mean, it's what we tell our clients, what do we do when we become a hot mess. What's the very first thing we share with them and teach them to pause. Breathe. Because we know from a scientific standpoint, going to slow our brain down, we don't need anything to speed us up. I don't think any of us do.

Staci (00:46:48):

No, that's so true. And you kind of somewhat took mine, but it is this idea of being able to slow down and recognize and realize that intimacy happens in many forms, right. And holding and feeling close to somebody is oftentimes way more rewarding than any act of sex that we could do. You know, I know when I work with couples, I have them practice touching each other because it's been so long, right. Just sit and hold hands or sit close together, hug and just let that be enough. Right. And then you can bring in, you know, maybe the kissing and those kinds of things, but, like you said, it's always very slow and there's plenty of time to enjoy it. And, and I think that's a part too, where we don't really take the time to enjoy, you know, the touch of your hand or the kiss, you know, your lips on my lips and, and just really kind of soak that in. So gosh, I would say like, you did slow down and enjoy these precious things that we have in our lives, and it can make a true difference in regards to not only helping us feel better but changing our chemistry. Now we know Carolin.

Tom (00:47:51):

So Carolin please share with us and our listeners, where can people, you know, find out more about you and your work?

Carolin (00:47:56):

Yeah. It's all on my website. Carolinhauser.com.

Staci (00:48:07):

It's been a pleasure here, Carolin. I'm sure we can have you come back and we'll have many conversations about this. This is something we offer to our listeners. You know, we're all about helping you explore things that may or may not work for you. This is something that Tom and I realized, oh my gosh, we kind of just slipped into this intuitively. Carolin, thank you so much for you and your words of wisdom today and the work that you do it improves couples' lives around the world. I'm sure. So have a beautiful week and we think forward to connecting with you again soon.

Carolin (00:48:39):

Thanks for having me.

Staci (00:48:40):

We're gonna take a quick break here. Really short break, and then we're gonna come back with a little bit of fun called follow the fun. So take a breath and just think about slowing down, maybe taking a pause.

Ad - Staci (00:48:59):

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Speakover Man (00:49:33):

On the path to good health and wellbeing. Alternative talk 1150 is the station for you.

Tom (00:49:42):

Welcome back inside the Love Shack, Tom and Staci Bartley time for a little bit of fun. What do we do, what's the fun Mrs. Bartley?

Staci (00:49:49):

Yeah. You know, before we step into the fun, babe, I mean, I really wanna give a shout out to our listeners. Like if you need help and support with this, right, then, then now would be the time to do that. If you're feeling inspired by our conversation or you're feeling like you need help to even have this conversation or step into exploring these kinds of things, this is what we do.

Tom (00:50:07):

Yeah. I would say the greatest thing that we know is people wait too long. If I had to tell you how many times people said, I wish I wouldn't have waited too long. I just would also like to share with you that raising your hand for help in a relationship does not mean the relationship is over rather it's the very best thing you can do to take the next best step for you to understand how you and your relationship to get better.

Staci (00:50:31):

Exactly. If you know that you're, you're wanting to face some of these challenges, maybe it's not, you know horrible, but you know that you wanna improve it even. Or if you know that you're on the brink of things, you know, making some significant changes, you fulfill it coming. These are places where, gosh, it's okay to raise our hands and get some help and support with that. So as we step into a bit of following the fun today, I wanted to impress upon you that demonstrating your affection creates feelings of intimacy and romance as well. And what do I mean by that? This demonstration of affection means you get to pause for a moment. We've been talking a lot about that and maybe appreciate somebody in your life. Hey, as they're walking out the door to say goodbye, I just want you to know, I really appreciate you taking out the trash or folding the laundry, or I just really appreciate you taking care of the kids. That really means a lot to me. And I noticed, and yes, those things translate and make a huge difference in our lives.

Tom (00:51:31):

Or a passionate kiss, not a kiss, like a little bit on the cheek or whatever, as someone turns their head. No, just take that extra couple of seconds. Literally. We just got through with Carolin. I mean, all these things cannot be underestimated, but I mean, sometimes Staci will literally stop me cuz I'm kind of a lot of times in a hurry and stop me and say, no, no, no, that didn't work and take a few extra moments and please, I need a, I need a real kiss.

Staci (00:51:56):

Plant one on me, baby. Slow it down a little bit. Or you know, something that Tom is also good at, you know, in this demonstration of affection is he'll buy me little things. He'll pick up a pack of gum for etcetera because he knows, I love this specific brand, you know, and this specific flavor and he'll just slip it on the counter. And I think, oh, you've thought of me. And, and you remember, and you know, and so gifts or the ideas of gifts in this demonstration of affection don't have to be big things either. They can be really little simple things that you just kinda slide in there.

Tom (00:52:29):

You know, and I'm thinking, or, you know, a note like a note, just a little note and something authentic and genuine and heartfelt that you can maybe where you know, your partner's gonna see it. Like Staci sometimes I'll, you know, I place one on the mirror, you know, and I've left before I know she has gotten up or somewhere in his or her car or somewhere in the kitchen. I mean, again, we're talking microseconds here, but way, way, powerful, powerful demonstrations of our appreciation and love for our partner.

Staci (00:52:58):

And this is a big one. And this one came up with some of my clients this week where he says, you know, honey, I don't like weddings. And as family and friends have gotten married here over the last year, so I've refused to go with you, but we have a family wedding coming up and you know what, I'm gonna go. And we're gonna have a great time. Like you're gonna see me show up in a way I never had before. And it was cute for me to watch them, his wife was like, oh man, what does this look like? You know this is a whole new version of you. And, and what we're getting at here is even saying, Hey, I'm gonna go and do something that I know my partner loves to do. And I'm gonna show up in a way that isn't like, how soon can we get this over with, how soon can we leave? This is so stupid. This is just horrible. I can't wait to get outta here. No, no, no. If you were to turn that around with a little bit of time and a pause, how could you contribute to the experience and allow your partner to really enjoy it? You may not be enjoying it, but what could you contribute to make and help them enjoy it as well. And maybe you're really good at that. I know that I drag you out to a lot of things. And you do a really great job of just kind of rolling with it.

Tom (00:54:10):

So as we land, as we do every single episode if you know, if you've been listening and thank you if you have is we always have, what are you feeling? Why? Cuz we're we love music. Cuz music touches us, touches us emotionally touches the feeling side. So what are we feeling this week?

Staci (00:54:25):

I mean the only appropriate song, and actually, this song was a reminder to me from my wonderful engineer, Eric, that is behind the scenes right now. Eric, there was an episode that we did quite some time ago where you said, Hey, I don't know why you didn't think of sexual healing by Marvin Gaye. And so when we had the conversation about, you know, love-based bonding, I thought, oh it's sexual healing, baby. That's what we all need. And so that's our song this week, you know, sexual healing is available to us all. Sexual healing is something that we can step into however we choose. Bonding-based lovemaking is just one option for that. But I love how he says I can't hold it much longer. Right? It makes me stronger. It makes me feel so fine. So, you know, you can, you can listen to this song along with all of our songs from each and every episode on our website, it's been a pleasure to be here with you this week, as it is always. We hope that you've taken something away from our conversation today. Something to give you to think about something, to get you to feel, come on back next week. And if this episode has helped you or you feel inspired to pass it along, please do so. We're Tom and Staci Bartley, hosts of Love Shack along with our, our wonderful engineer, Eric Ryder. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

Tom (00:55:44):

We will see you. Same time, same place next week. Thanks again.

Staci (00:55:46):

Bye-Bye for now.

Outro (00:55:54):

Thanks for joining us today in the Love Shack, we hope you came away with something that made your toes tingle. To learn more about everything you heard on today's show, go to Stacibartley.com/podcast. Love the show? Help us spread the love by sharing the show with others. Okay, everybody. Time to go. We gotta close the doors to the Love Shack for this week. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Come back next week though and join us for another edition of Love Shack live with Tom and Staci Bartley.