December 20, 2024 • 30 mins
Ever felt stuck in your sexual self-mastery journey? Have you tried all kinds of techniques but feel like you’re still missing something? If so, this episode is for you. You'll learn the #1 reason most men struggle to see real progress in their sexual growth - and how you can overcome it.
HINT: techniques alone won’t get you there. You've got to dive into the deeper emotional and psychological layers under the techniques - to create a strong foundation for the techniques to rest on top of - and by doing so, you’ll unlock the true sexual growth, confidence, pleasure, and connection you desire.
🔴 🎥 You can also watch this episode on Youtube.
❤️🔥 CONNECT WITH LAYLA:
🔸 The Tantric Mastermind for Couples (Upcoming in 2025)
🔸 Layla’s Youtube Channel
🔸 Layla’s Podcast "This Tantric Life"
🔸 Layla’s Instagram
🔱 CONNECT WITH TAYLOR:
🔸 The Orgasmic Mastery Course (February 2025)
🔸 Taylor’s Youtube Channel
🔸 Taylor’s Podcast "Sex Upgraded"
🔸 Taylor’s Website
#personalgrowth #menshealth #sexualhealthformen
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Layla Martin (00:00):
A sexual tool or technique that is going to
genuinely activate and awakenyour energy has to be paired
with deeper psychological andeven physiological healing,
because otherwise your systemcan't hold, it can't sustain it.
Taylor Johnson (00:16):
Welcome to part one of my interview with Layla
Martin on the Sex UpgradedPodcast.
My name is Taylor, I'll be yourhost for this episode, and
today I'm joined by Layla Martin, who, in my opinion, is one of
the top teachers out there whenit comes to sacred sexuality,
tantric sexuality and overalljust sexual vibrancy and health
and vitality in general.
So today's episode is going tobe a treat and I've broken it up
(00:38):
into two different sectionsbecause in the interview two
distinct and really importantand powerful themes emerged and
I thought it would be a funexperiment to create two
different episodes.
This first one that you're inright now it's a brief
introduction into Layla, who sheis, where she came from, and
then a look at one of the mainreasons men get stuck when
(00:59):
they're trying to improve ortransform their sex lives.
So this first episode should bereally practically useful and
inspirational in that way.
And then in part two of thisinterview we do a deep dive,
look into what it means to be aman in today's world, what it
means to be a sexual man intoday's world.
We look at some really kind oftaboo topics around male
(01:19):
sexuality and what a lot ofpeople actually desire from men,
but what a lot of men areactually afraid to deliver.
And there's some reallybeautiful words spoken in part
two from Layla to men that, ifyou're a man like I am, I'm so
excited for you to hear thembecause they're beautiful to
hear as a man from a woman who'sdone a lot of work in the
(01:39):
sexual realm.
So hope you listened to bothparts and I just wanted to give
you a frame up front for what toexpect.
Thank you so much for beinghere, thank you for caring about
your sex life and for joiningus today and, without further
ado, let's get into part one.
Hello everybody and welcome tothis episode of the Sex Upgraded
(02:00):
Podcast, and thank you, layla,so much for being here.
I'm super excited to go intoeverything we're going to go
into together and I want to givea special welcome to you, the
listener.
Thank you for showing up here.
I'm guessing you're either aman or somebody who's in
relationship with a man, andit's such an honor and such an
exciting joy to share this timewith you.
And I know Layla and I are bothpeople who have dedicated our
(02:22):
lives to helping people like youhave the most incredible sex
lives possible and entire lives.
So thank you for showing up andthank you for caring, caring
enough to be here, and I want togive just a brief little
backstory of how I came to knowLayla.
And then I'd like to ask you tointroduce yourself a little bit
, layla.
My introduction to Laylaprimarily came through my
(02:45):
partner actually, who tookLayla's VEDA coaching course for
women a bunch of years ago, andduring that I kind of peered
over her shoulder a little bitand listened to some of the
lectures and it was like wow,this is really interesting stuff
, like this person really knowswhat she's talking about, and
it's like positively impactingmy life.
And then I got to experience allof these beautiful sexual
things for my partner throughthat program and saw the
(03:08):
transformation in her and thework she was doing with her
clients and I thought, you know,someday I want to want to learn
from this person, or work withthis person or something I don't
know.
Put you on my radar and fastforward to a few weeks ago.
I got to help you at your Aerosretreat and we'll get into that
a little bit later.
But yeah, so, yeah, so happy tobe here with you and I'm
(03:28):
wondering if there's anythingyou would like to add like for
people who don't know you I knowsome of my audience knows you,
cause I've talked about you afew times but for people who
don't know you, who are you,where did you come from and why
are you doing what you're doing?
Layla Martin (03:45):
Let's do the core parts of the bio.
So I was born in Highlands,ranch, colorado, and just lots
of trauma.
So you know, my dad wascheating on my mom.
He left and tried to leave.
Like a few months after I wasborn they tried to make it work,
during which time he was verysexually abusive and just I
(04:05):
don't know what he was goingthrough, but sociopathic, really
manipulative towards my mom.
So just an early childhoodimprint of abandonment, of deep,
deep codes of unsafety.
Uh, so much shame around mybody.
Um, so I was also raisedCatholic and I was very, very
religious for a period.
(04:25):
So just the combination of allof this internalized dirtiness
and shame and disgust from thesexual abuse and then just a
whole rejection of my body as awoman.
So, like in my teenage years,you know, the first time I had a
sexual experience with mylovely teenage boyfriend, I went
into a full trauma, freeze,like I couldn't even speak for
(04:47):
half an hour.
We didn't know what that was.
Back then I was so horrified bymy own body.
I would take a shower in mybathing suit because I was, like
too disgusted to look at myself.
So, um, I, I, I started roughand one of the reasons that I
take a moment to articulate thatstory is because where I got to
(05:11):
in doing all the practices andwork I've done, to being
multi-archasmic, to beingdevotional to men, to being in
love with myself, to feelingLike that was a huge one for me,
just to feel worthy of thislife of love of my own greatness
(05:31):
, right Like that's been alifetime's journey.
And articulating where Istarted from, I think for those
of you listening, it's like itdoesn't matter where you're at
right now.
This capacity to be fullyorgasmic, to have an
extraordinary relationship, isin all of us.
I feel like it's, it's part ofour human expression and I I can
(05:55):
absolutely say that because Icrawled my way out of some of
the most horrible sexual trauma.
I used to like black out andwake up screaming in my early
twenties when I was having sex,like it was that level of just
terror of sex, terror of my ownbody.
When I first started emotionallyconnecting with my first like
(06:16):
adult boyfriend who loved me sodeeply, I actually threw up over
the side of the bed.
I was so just.
All of it was was so damn hardand, interestingly, alongside it
I always had this deepspiritual hunger.
So at first it showed up inCatholicism and then, when I was
like very early teenage years,I was just like, okay, this,
(06:39):
this doesn't feel like myspiritual path and I want to
know, like I like I want adifferent spiritual path.
And I went to the library and Iresearched all the world's
religions and I came out I thinkit was like about 13.
I was like I'm Hindu and myparents were like what the fuck?
And this is like before it wascool, or like 80, I was just
like white kid, colorado, beinglike there's something about
(07:03):
Ganesh, like I just I just feelsomething.
And it was.
I literally I had, um, uh, anIndian classmate and I begged
him to take me to his temple andhe's like, only, if you like,
treat it with respect.
And I was like I will, and hewas like, okay, and so I found a
trip in the back of the NewYork times when I was 14, that
went to Tibet, india and Nepaland I asked my mom and my
(07:24):
stepdad if I could go and blessthem.
They let me go.
So when I was 15, you know Iwas seeing monks meditating.
I went to Kashmir in India,which is the birthplace of, you
know, some of the deepestleft-handed dantric traditions
and lineages and so very young Iknew about the existence of
(07:47):
these traditions.
And I remember when I firstwent to Stanford University and
I started to go to therapy forsexual abuse and I just had this
like number one outrage thatpeople are in so much pain and
we don't have like a center onevery street corner for like how
to heal your trauma or how toheal your pain.
(08:07):
I was like what?
And it's so much better now,like over 20 years later, but
it's still nowhere near where itcould be for us to heal our
pain and our trauma.
And then I was sitting there inclasses like learning about, you
know, the average age thatpeople have sex at and when they
get pregnant and what herpes isand all that, and like thank
God for medical education.
(08:28):
And also I was like this ain'tgoing to save me, this is not
going to give me the kind oforgasm I want to have.
This is going to heal my soul.
So I went back to Asia and Iwas like heal my soul, show me
the answers.
And really in both classicaland neo-dantra I found not only
practices that healed my traumabut showed me true ecstasy and
(08:52):
bliss, and a tradition that Irevere that allowed me to touch
God in a way that wasn'tself-abandoning, like I didn't
have to give up what was true tomy human in order to know what
I feel like is our birthright,which is the divine quality of
this universe and ourselves.
(09:13):
So that's, that's the start ofit.
That was.
Taylor Johnson (09:17):
Yeah, beautiful.
Wow.
Yeah, I didn't know all thatand that's that's cool to hear.
And look at you now.
It's possible.
It's possible.
And even if you're not throwingup over the side of the bed
sexual trauma style, you canstill recover.
You can still recover.
No totally.
Layla Martin (09:36):
And what's interesting is, even for those
of us who had relatively healthy, sex-positive childhoods I'm
sure you see this people stillare like dealing with some
serious alienation in theirbodies and even just like even
if you're just a run of the millman without any like major
sexual trauma.
It's like the porn addictionand the brainwashing around
(09:57):
masculinity.
It's just like people we've gotpain bodies and so it's like,
even if you didn't have anywherenear the level of trauma that I
had, it's the same tools andpath can heal.
Whatever the problem is rightTo get to thriving or to get to
excellence, which is what Iwanted.
I was like I don't just want tobe a survivor, I want to be
thriving after this.
Taylor Johnson (10:17):
For sure, which is a perfect segue into what I
wanted to get into first withyou, which is, like you know, so
many men come to me and Iimagine you too but to these
practices because they, theydon't just want to recover,
right, they want to thrive, theywant to have not just an
acceptable sex life, but anamazing sex life, maybe multiple
orgasms, or at least theability to last as long as they
(10:39):
want, or at least the ability tojust feel free and alive in
their sexuality without shame.
And what I've noticed and Inoticed this in my own personal
journey too, but working with aton of men at this point is
there's oftentimes a stickingpoint.
And there was a sticking pointfor me, where I'll just speak
for myself.
I tried a lot of differenttechniques, right, and I would
do this technique for a while,and I would do this technique
(11:01):
for a while.
And I've talked to a bunch ofmen who've tried all these
different techniques.
But there's still.
There's this like internalroadblock that seems to happen,
Even if you just stack a bunchof different techniques on top
of each other, you know, andwhat?
What I realized was that thereneeded to actually be some sort
of internal shift in addition todoing these techniques.
(11:24):
You know and I wonder if youcould speak to that like you're
nodding your head, like you knowwhat I'm talking about, Like
you can't just do something forsix months and expect it to
change there needs to be somesort of perspective shift or an
expansion of what even youperceive as possible.
Layla Martin (11:36):
Right, yeah, well, okay, so the the technology
underneath that, as Iexperienced it and this is part
of the Taoist teachings and thetantric teachings is that your
sexual energy is part of yourlife force energy, and one of
the things that I've seen overand over again is that when that
(11:57):
sexual energy stops beingleaked out of your body through
you know, over ejaculation ordissociation from your body, or
habitual fantasizing whereyou're not really present, all
of that leaks energy.
Self-hatred is one of thegreatest leakers of energy.
Right, anxiety, worry about thefuture, being really hard on
(12:18):
yourself around performance Allof that leaks energy.
Now, when you stop doing thosethings, you will inevitably
start to build energy inside ofyour body.
You will become more powerful,will inevitably start to build
energy inside of your body.
You will become more powerfulto hold a new level of energy
and to hold a new energy ofpower.
Your identity has to shift toinclude that level of power.
(12:42):
You have to feel safe and alsoworthy of being as powerful as
you really are, and so, in myexperience, what happens is that
when you're only doing thetechniques, you will upper limit
.
If there's a story that my poweris terrifying, or if I have
that much power, I'm going tospeak my truth and then maybe I
(13:04):
get killed or laughed at orbullied or whatever it is.
If I have that much power andmy heart unlocks, right, all of
that realm of intimacy, superscary.
Or you know, if I have thatmuch power and I actually touch
my spiritual wisdom.
We think men got away with likefeeling safe, being spiritually
wise, but the first witchesthat were killed were actually
(13:27):
men.
Right, if you were a freethinker as a man in Europe for
the past 2000 years, youabsolutely got harassed,
tortured, killed, right?
So being mystically connectedas a man especially in the
European tradition but also inmany places around the world to
step out of the authority of youknow the mainstream, is
(13:51):
dangerous and we don't talkabout that as much for men as we
do for women, but there's thesame social codes of restriction
there.
If you activate your sexual lifeforce for long enough and you
start to harness that power, youinevitably become more
spiritually wise, and a lot ofmen are terrified of their own
spiritual wisdom.
So the language that I woulduse to explain the phenomenon
(14:13):
you're talking about is if youhit a safety code, meaning I
can't be that spirituallyconnected, that's scary, I'll be
harmed in some way or I can'tbe that powerful for any variety
of reasons, then your body willbasically tap out and start to
compensate and shut down thepower again.
So a sexual tool or techniquethat is going to genuinely
(14:36):
activate and awaken your energyhas to be paired with deeper
psychological and evenphysiological healing to be able
to sustain the empowerment.
And that's one of the reasonswhy, in the Vita method which I
created, the the sexual, likesexual work, is always paired
with psychological work, becauseotherwise your system can't,
(15:00):
can't hold, it can't sustain it.
It would be like if you had areally strong belief that, um,
being fit was dangerous, likedeep down inside society had
told you that if you got enoughof a six pack, like you'd be
killed or thrown out of thetribe.
You would just, for reasons youcouldn't explain, stop going to
the gym all the time.
Right, it would just like itwould just be so hard to go to
(15:23):
the gym.
You would have to do the workto feel safe being fit, you
would have to do the work tofeel safe.
Having fit, you would have todo the work to feel safe.
Having a six pack before yoursystem would be like okay, okay,
okay, let's go to the gym Right, and so that work together is
so important and I find likereally wonderful thought leaders
and teachers like you reallyunderstand that to pave the way
for someone to truly changetheir sexual expression.
Taylor Johnson (15:44):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for that.
And I really wanted to take amoment to just normalize that in
this conversation and just foreverybody listening, like, cause
I've talked to a lot of guyswho will contact me after
finding some free resourcesonline or maybe getting my free
guide or whatever, and they'vesaid, oh, okay, I started to do
self-pleasure for a few weeks,you know, like you said like the
20 minutes, but like that's notfor me, you know, and I'll like
(16:09):
dive a little deeper, like, oh,what do you?
What do you mean?
It's not for you.
And there's something to theeffect of like, oh well, my
emotion has started to come upand I'm really just looking to
like increase my sexualabilities, and so I'll be like,
huh, interesting, well, let'stalk about that, let's talk
about that.
And yeah, it's like, if youstart to do some of these, even
the techniques themselves, theycan start to elicit the deeper
(16:30):
emotional awakening that needsto happen.
That's also a sexual technique.
You know, this expansion ofconsciousness is also a sexual
technique, which is it's perfectbecause.
So the Eros retreat this is aretreat that you just put on for
the first time about a monthago in Costa Rica, and you
invited me to come down and leadsome of the breakout sessions
for men, which was awesome and Iloved it and it was beautiful.
(16:52):
And one of the things I noticedabout assisting some of the
main sessions is that you didn'thave people just learning
different techniques, like weweren't just focusing on the
microcosmic orbit or we weren'tjust focusing on the pelvic
floor, but every day there was abig sort of ritual process for
people to enter into what Iwould call at least a
non-ordinary state ofconsciousness, through some sort
(17:14):
of breathwork, activation ormovement or sound or something
that really got people to shifttheir sense of reality.
You know, totally sober, forthe sake of transformation, for
the sake of growth, and it wasbeautiful to see and experience.
Layla Martin (17:31):
Yeah, yeah, thank you for seeing that and
appreciating that.
It's a long history of bothbeing taught that by my really
good teachers.
I have an amazing teacher, maaAnansarita, who worked with Osho
.
She met Osho when she was, Ithink, 17 and was with him for
30 years and one of the greatteachings of Osho was like all
(17:55):
these spiritual practices won'treally get you anywhere if you
haven't unwound, likeessentially your core, wounding
material.
So like you can't really tryand build a new foundation of
being a king or a living God ora warrior of the heart If
(18:16):
there's all this energy beingused to hold down negative
beliefs about yourself or shameor self-judgment or all of this.
And we all have that.
Like every human has that levelof pain body, so there's
nothing wrong with having it.
But doing spiritual techniqueson top of like a foundation that
(18:38):
is unexamined and messy andbuilt like while you're in utero
, while you're pre-verbal, right, and trying to then put these
power techniques on top of itcan often look messy and lead us
to bypass or, as you're saying,just lose interest in the
process.
So it's woven into someone.
(19:00):
Learning these empowermenttechniques, can you feel all of
your emotions and stay present,you know, can you release your
projections and your pain fromthe past on women or men so that
you're able to sit down insideof yourself and see the person
in front of you clearly?
You know, one of the mostimportant teachings from the
(19:22):
tantric tradition, reallyarticulated by Apinavagupta of
the trika lineage, is that yourspiritual practices won't bear
fruit if you don't love yourself.
And we almost never talk aboutthat in the West, that this
foundation of self-love is whatallows something like meditation
or yoga to bear fruit.
(19:44):
And we usually skip that part,thinking I will love myself once
these spiritual practices makeme perfect, or I will love
myself once I'm multi-orgasmicand have a rock hard erection
for 30 minutes, right, I'm doingthese practices so I can be
someone that I could love,rather than the reverse, which
is what would it look like toactually love myself exactly as
(20:06):
I am Soft cock, hard cock, right.
Rage inside me, grief inside me, numbness inside of me, bliss
inside of me.
If I can love myself in all ofthose states, then when I layer
a multi-orgasmic technique ontop of it, who I am behind that
multi-orgasmic technique is amore powerful, true embodied
(20:27):
version of myself, and then it'sthe most natural thing for me
to practice that techniquerather than me trying to do
something.
It's like if you have like adiet of fast food and someone
tries to feel like feed you likea spinach salad and you're like
what the hell?
This is so gross, right, itjust doesn't fit.
Whereas if you eat largelyhealthy, right, vegetables start
(20:49):
to sound good, right, or likeorganic meat.
You don't want the like fried,nasty stuff that's like got like
quotes around it, air quotesaround it.
You want like real meat.
You know that happens becauseyou've set a different standard
inside of yourself for how yourelate to food.
So we're really talking aboutsetting this new standard inside
of yourself for who you are asyou make love, and then that
(21:13):
makes certain practices orcertain sexual expressions like
make sense.
Taylor Johnson (21:19):
Totally and I think, well, I can.
I can certainly empathize witha fear that a lot of guys have
around the oh well, I don't wantto love myself if I'm not there
yet, because I think the ideais, if I love myself now, that
means I'm accepting where I amand I'm going to just have to
stay here forever.
So I should give myself theboost.
(21:39):
But there's a reframe of that,which is I love myself now while
also holding the intention togrow, even though where I am is
where I am Like.
I have the intention to growand that's my path forward too.
Layla Martin (21:53):
Yeah, I think one of the best quotes for this is
like let's be practical, and forsome reason I'm just laying on
the spiritual quotes, but one ofmy favorite quotes for this um
comes from it's Ram Dass'steacher, neem Karoli Baba, and
it's love everybody and tellthem the truth.
And so what I think that wemiss sometimes in our culture is
(22:18):
either just like love, love,love, love, love, love.
But if you raise a child onlywith love, you're doing them a
disservice.
You have to also tell them thetruth and you have to teach them
to tell themselves the truth.
Right, that's what createsactual thriving.
But if all we ever give peopleis negativity and criticism and
(22:39):
judgment and they don't get anylove, or all we give people is
truth and they don't have love,they also don't thrive.
So I think of love as thisunderlying foundation of
self-regard.
Like, what do you do with ananimal that you respect?
You love it, right?
Like it's just basic commonsense when we think about like
(22:59):
an animal that we love.
Right, when you have a dog thatyou like, care for you, love it
, no questions.
That doesn't weaken the dog,that doesn't make it like
anything like that.
But it also needs truth, itneeds boundaries, it needs
direction, and what I feel likewe lack is an ability to tell
ourselves the truth, and thatdoesn't mean criticizing
ourselves, being hard onourselves.
(23:21):
It's like tell yourself thetruth about what you need to do
to be the best version ofyourself.
Tell yourself the truth aboutwhere you're being lazy to your
own detriment, about what yourshadows are that are hurting the
people that you love in yourlife.
But love yourself too, becauseif you don't have that self love
, you actually will have a veryhard time truly transforming and
(23:46):
test it.
Try it If you don't believe me,but I think cultivating those
two pieces are so essential, andmost of the time, we have a
really hard time tellingourselves the truth about our
own greatness.
Like, if you have anyresistance to people loving you,
if you have any resistance toloving yourself, any resistance
to people loving you, if youhave any resistance to loving
yourself, you're probably nottelling yourself the truth,
(24:12):
which is that you areextraordinary and magical
because all humans are, and thatyou are wildly deserving of
love.
Right, that's actually thetruth, and sometimes we think
telling ourselves the truth isonly the hard truths, but most
of the time we don't tellourselves the truth about our
own greatness.
Taylor Johnson (24:26):
Yeah, let's all take a breath to feel that for a
moment.
Yeah, it was one of my goals ofthis conversation to make some
of those more.
(24:46):
You've called it spiritual, butthe esoteric things like
practical.
Like to me that is actuallyit's a practical thing, like you
know, add it to the list ofthings we're doing.
Like we need to practicallypractice loving and accepting
ourselves and telling ourselvesthe truth.
And like, yeah,self-responsibility, like really
owning the parts of ourself.
Like, if you're somebody whoreally wants to improve your sex
life, like we've talked about,it's not just techniques that
(25:09):
are going to take you there, butit's going to be perhaps a new
lifestyle, you know.
So, like, are you living thelifestyle that's going to be
supportive of thattransformation and that growth?
If you are awesome, but if not,like it's important to be able
to to acknowledge that, you knowand you can be like fairly
healthy and still have a lot offun.
(25:29):
I feel like.
Layla Martin (25:29):
I've done a great job with that and I think people
like usually think it's eitherlike and it's so funny that we
still call it like granolahippie, which is the granola is
like one of the most unhealthyfoods.
But it's like I either get tohave this like health and
wellness lifestyle or it's likeI don't know cocaine and
horrible drugs until six in themorning and I really love that.
(25:51):
Like, I eat mostly organic.
I'm obsessed with working out.
I was just sick for four monthsbut I just started running like
I love to again.
I love meditation, I love doingpersonal development work and I
love a good party and I lovebeing naughty.
I love doing personaldevelopment work and I love a
good party and I love beingnaughty sometimes and I have so
much fun when I do it and Ithink that this kind of sex is
(26:13):
the same way.
You get these extraordinarysexual experiences and you also
get to have so much fun beingnaughty too.
Taylor Johnson (26:22):
For sure.
Yeah, you've actually inspiredme to go out and do some more
crazy shit in my life.
It's just been, it's just beengreat.
But you know it's interesting.
You say that because there is amiddle ground and a new uh, uh,
what is it?
A new category of people thatseems to be emerging, like when
a lot of people think of thesetechniques like, oh, the tantric
, spiritual techniques, thatmeans I'm going to have to light
candles and burn incense andall this stuff.
(26:43):
But I was talking to this otherguy recently who said you know,
taylor, like I've been having ahard time integrating this
stuff into my community because,well, I love doing these
practices and I love having sexwith my girlfriend, playing with
these ways, but also then onthe weekends I just kind of want
to watch football, like hangout with the guys, and I'm like
that's awesome, there's noproblem there, that's actually
(27:05):
perfect, like you do what youwant to do, you know.
And so I think there's this asthis stuff becomes more popular,
we're going to see more andmore of that.
Layla Martin (27:13):
Yes, absolutely, which I love, and one of my
favorite things too.
In terms of these differentpaths, right Is like every path,
if it's true, will take you toa higher truth.
But I live a long, long timeago.
I had a friend who was ateacher to me in the jungle,
joshi Saluna, and she was likelook like, in every tradition,
(27:36):
there's like a fair chunk ofpeople who are just missing the
point and there's like a tinychunk of people that are really
getting it, like any religionyou look at, you're like wow,
there's like a tiny chunk ofpeople that are really getting
it, like any religion you lookat, you're like wow, there's
like a whole chunk of peoplemissing the point and there's a
tiny chunk of people who arelike really, really getting it.
And she was like so you look atthe traditions where, even if
people are missing the point,they're having a really good
time.
(27:56):
I really appreciate that aboutthe Taoist and the Tantric
traditions, because when youfind real Taoist and tantric
practitioners, it tends to be.
I love this about the pagans aswell.
It's like even if you kind ofmissed the whole point, at least
you still loved your life,given that there are spiritual
traditions that make space forthe love and celebration of life
, don't you want to know that,like you actually were
(28:20):
celebrating and having a greattime all along the way?
Just in case Because myfavorite new quote that Mickey
brought back from Burning mansomeone just handed her this
sticker on the playa.
It says we are in space.
Nobody knows what's happening.
I love you, you're like, sowatch your football, or light a
(28:45):
candle, who cares?
Taylor Johnson (28:46):
maybe do both light a candle in honor of your
team yeah that's great.
Oh man, all right.
So yeah, that was a little bitof the.
I like how you talked about theaorist retreat, the difference
between classical and neo-tantraand specifically how Osho
brought in some more of thesepractices to say like, hey, if
(29:08):
you're going to do thesepractices to really expand your
consciousness and be a betterlover, like you actually have to
deal with your shit first.
So I feel like we've talkedabout that and covered that and
check that box, which is great.
And there's a couple of thingsI'd like to move into.
But first I'd like to move into.
But first I'd like to ask likeyou work with thousands of women
.
You've primarily worked I wouldsay mostly worked with women
(29:28):
recently or for the past manyyears, and then this past year
you started opening up a coupleof different programs for men to
join too.
But I'm curious to talk aboutthe state of men, which people
hear that sentence and they'relike, oh, shit, I'm a wild
feminist and I'm angry and I'mcoming for you and that, my
(29:49):
friend, is quite a cliffhangerand the end of our part one of
the interview.
Thank you so much for being here, and when you're ready to move
on to part two, if you'realready on my podcast, you can
just go to the next episode, butif somebody sent you the link
for this episode, you can justdo a search for sex upgraded
Layla Martin and it should showup with part two in the title of
(30:11):
the episode.
So thanks again so much forbeing here and for caring, and I
look forward to seeing you inthe next part.
A sexual tool or technique that is going to
genuinely activate and awakenyour energy has to be paired
with deeper psychological andeven physiological healing,
because otherwise your systemcan't hold, it can't sustain it.
Taylor Johnson (00:16):
Welcome to part one of my interview with Layla
Martin on the Sex UpgradedPodcast.
My name is Taylor, I'll be yourhost for this episode, and
today I'm joined by Layla Martin, who, in my opinion, is one of
the top teachers out there whenit comes to sacred sexuality,
tantric sexuality and overalljust sexual vibrancy and health
and vitality in general.
So today's episode is going tobe a treat and I've broken it up
(00:38):
into two different sectionsbecause in the interview two
distinct and really importantand powerful themes emerged and
I thought it would be a funexperiment to create two
different episodes.
This first one that you're inright now it's a brief
introduction into Layla, who sheis, where she came from, and
then a look at one of the mainreasons men get stuck when
(00:59):
they're trying to improve ortransform their sex lives.
So this first episode should bereally practically useful and
inspirational in that way.
And then in part two of thisinterview we do a deep dive,
look into what it means to be aman in today's world, what it
means to be a sexual man intoday's world.
We look at some really kind oftaboo topics around male
(01:19):
sexuality and what a lot ofpeople actually desire from men,
but what a lot of men areactually afraid to deliver.
And there's some reallybeautiful words spoken in part
two from Layla to men that, ifyou're a man like I am, I'm so
excited for you to hear thembecause they're beautiful to
hear as a man from a woman who'sdone a lot of work in the
(01:39):
sexual realm.
So hope you listened to bothparts and I just wanted to give
you a frame up front for what toexpect.
Thank you so much for beinghere, thank you for caring about
your sex life and for joiningus today and, without further
ado, let's get into part one.
Hello everybody and welcome tothis episode of the Sex Upgraded
(02:00):
Podcast, and thank you, layla,so much for being here.
I'm super excited to go intoeverything we're going to go
into together and I want to givea special welcome to you, the
listener.
Thank you for showing up here.
I'm guessing you're either aman or somebody who's in
relationship with a man, andit's such an honor and such an
exciting joy to share this timewith you.
And I know Layla and I are bothpeople who have dedicated our
(02:22):
lives to helping people like youhave the most incredible sex
lives possible and entire lives.
So thank you for showing up andthank you for caring, caring
enough to be here, and I want togive just a brief little
backstory of how I came to knowLayla.
And then I'd like to ask you tointroduce yourself a little bit
, layla.
My introduction to Laylaprimarily came through my
(02:45):
partner actually, who tookLayla's VEDA coaching course for
women a bunch of years ago, andduring that I kind of peered
over her shoulder a little bitand listened to some of the
lectures and it was like wow,this is really interesting stuff
, like this person really knowswhat she's talking about, and
it's like positively impactingmy life.
And then I got to experience allof these beautiful sexual
things for my partner throughthat program and saw the
(03:08):
transformation in her and thework she was doing with her
clients and I thought, you know,someday I want to want to learn
from this person, or work withthis person or something I don't
know.
Put you on my radar and fastforward to a few weeks ago.
I got to help you at your Aerosretreat and we'll get into that
a little bit later.
But yeah, so, yeah, so happy tobe here with you and I'm
(03:28):
wondering if there's anythingyou would like to add like for
people who don't know you I knowsome of my audience knows you,
cause I've talked about you afew times but for people who
don't know you, who are you,where did you come from and why
are you doing what you're doing?
Layla Martin (03:45):
Let's do the core parts of the bio.
So I was born in Highlands,ranch, colorado, and just lots
of trauma.
So you know, my dad wascheating on my mom.
He left and tried to leave.
Like a few months after I wasborn they tried to make it work,
during which time he was verysexually abusive and just I
(04:05):
don't know what he was goingthrough, but sociopathic, really
manipulative towards my mom.
So just an early childhoodimprint of abandonment, of deep,
deep codes of unsafety.
Uh, so much shame around mybody.
Um, so I was also raisedCatholic and I was very, very
religious for a period.
(04:25):
So just the combination of allof this internalized dirtiness
and shame and disgust from thesexual abuse and then just a
whole rejection of my body as awoman.
So, like in my teenage years,you know, the first time I had a
sexual experience with mylovely teenage boyfriend, I went
into a full trauma, freeze,like I couldn't even speak for
(04:47):
half an hour.
We didn't know what that was.
Back then I was so horrified bymy own body.
I would take a shower in mybathing suit because I was, like
too disgusted to look at myself.
So, um, I, I, I started roughand one of the reasons that I
take a moment to articulate thatstory is because where I got to
(05:11):
in doing all the practices andwork I've done, to being
multi-archasmic, to beingdevotional to men, to being in
love with myself, to feelingLike that was a huge one for me,
just to feel worthy of thislife of love of my own greatness
(05:31):
, right Like that's been alifetime's journey.
And articulating where Istarted from, I think for those
of you listening, it's like itdoesn't matter where you're at
right now.
This capacity to be fullyorgasmic, to have an
extraordinary relationship, isin all of us.
I feel like it's, it's part ofour human expression and I I can
(05:55):
absolutely say that because Icrawled my way out of some of
the most horrible sexual trauma.
I used to like black out andwake up screaming in my early
twenties when I was having sex,like it was that level of just
terror of sex, terror of my ownbody.
When I first started emotionallyconnecting with my first like
(06:16):
adult boyfriend who loved me sodeeply, I actually threw up over
the side of the bed.
I was so just.
All of it was was so damn hardand, interestingly, alongside it
I always had this deepspiritual hunger.
So at first it showed up inCatholicism and then, when I was
like very early teenage years,I was just like, okay, this,
(06:39):
this doesn't feel like myspiritual path and I want to
know, like I like I want adifferent spiritual path.
And I went to the library and Iresearched all the world's
religions and I came out I thinkit was like about 13.
I was like I'm Hindu and myparents were like what the fuck?
And this is like before it wascool, or like 80, I was just
like white kid, colorado, beinglike there's something about
(07:03):
Ganesh, like I just I just feelsomething.
And it was.
I literally I had, um, uh, anIndian classmate and I begged
him to take me to his temple andhe's like, only, if you like,
treat it with respect.
And I was like I will, and hewas like, okay, and so I found a
trip in the back of the NewYork times when I was 14, that
went to Tibet, india and Nepaland I asked my mom and my
(07:24):
stepdad if I could go and blessthem.
They let me go.
So when I was 15, you know Iwas seeing monks meditating.
I went to Kashmir in India,which is the birthplace of, you
know, some of the deepestleft-handed dantric traditions
and lineages and so very young Iknew about the existence of
(07:47):
these traditions.
And I remember when I firstwent to Stanford University and
I started to go to therapy forsexual abuse and I just had this
like number one outrage thatpeople are in so much pain and
we don't have like a center onevery street corner for like how
to heal your trauma or how toheal your pain.
(08:07):
I was like what?
And it's so much better now,like over 20 years later, but
it's still nowhere near where itcould be for us to heal our
pain and our trauma.
And then I was sitting there inclasses like learning about, you
know, the average age thatpeople have sex at and when they
get pregnant and what herpes isand all that, and like thank
God for medical education.
(08:28):
And also I was like this ain'tgoing to save me, this is not
going to give me the kind oforgasm I want to have.
This is going to heal my soul.
So I went back to Asia and Iwas like heal my soul, show me
the answers.
And really in both classicaland neo-dantra I found not only
practices that healed my traumabut showed me true ecstasy and
(08:52):
bliss, and a tradition that Irevere that allowed me to touch
God in a way that wasn'tself-abandoning, like I didn't
have to give up what was true tomy human in order to know what
I feel like is our birthright,which is the divine quality of
this universe and ourselves.
(09:13):
So that's, that's the start ofit.
That was.
Taylor Johnson (09:17):
Yeah, beautiful.
Wow.
Yeah, I didn't know all thatand that's that's cool to hear.
And look at you now.
It's possible.
It's possible.
And even if you're not throwingup over the side of the bed
sexual trauma style, you canstill recover.
You can still recover.
No totally.
Layla Martin (09:36):
And what's interesting is, even for those
of us who had relatively healthy, sex-positive childhoods I'm
sure you see this people stillare like dealing with some
serious alienation in theirbodies and even just like even
if you're just a run of the millman without any like major
sexual trauma.
It's like the porn addictionand the brainwashing around
(09:57):
masculinity.
It's just like people we've gotpain bodies and so it's like,
even if you didn't have anywherenear the level of trauma that I
had, it's the same tools andpath can heal.
Whatever the problem is rightTo get to thriving or to get to
excellence, which is what Iwanted.
I was like I don't just want tobe a survivor, I want to be
thriving after this.
Taylor Johnson (10:17):
For sure, which is a perfect segue into what I
wanted to get into first withyou, which is, like you know, so
many men come to me and Iimagine you too but to these
practices because they, theydon't just want to recover,
right, they want to thrive, theywant to have not just an
acceptable sex life, but anamazing sex life, maybe multiple
orgasms, or at least theability to last as long as they
(10:39):
want, or at least the ability tojust feel free and alive in
their sexuality without shame.
And what I've noticed and Inoticed this in my own personal
journey too, but working with aton of men at this point is
there's oftentimes a stickingpoint.
And there was a sticking pointfor me, where I'll just speak
for myself.
I tried a lot of differenttechniques, right, and I would
do this technique for a while,and I would do this technique
(11:01):
for a while.
And I've talked to a bunch ofmen who've tried all these
different techniques.
But there's still.
There's this like internalroadblock that seems to happen,
Even if you just stack a bunchof different techniques on top
of each other, you know, andwhat?
What I realized was that thereneeded to actually be some sort
of internal shift in addition todoing these techniques.
(11:24):
You know and I wonder if youcould speak to that like you're
nodding your head, like you knowwhat I'm talking about, Like
you can't just do something forsix months and expect it to
change there needs to be somesort of perspective shift or an
expansion of what even youperceive as possible.
Layla Martin (11:36):
Right, yeah, well, okay, so the the technology
underneath that, as Iexperienced it and this is part
of the Taoist teachings and thetantric teachings is that your
sexual energy is part of yourlife force energy, and one of
the things that I've seen overand over again is that when that
(11:57):
sexual energy stops beingleaked out of your body through
you know, over ejaculation ordissociation from your body, or
habitual fantasizing whereyou're not really present, all
of that leaks energy.
Self-hatred is one of thegreatest leakers of energy.
Right, anxiety, worry about thefuture, being really hard on
(12:18):
yourself around performance Allof that leaks energy.
Now, when you stop doing thosethings, you will inevitably
start to build energy inside ofyour body.
You will become more powerful,will inevitably start to build
energy inside of your body.
You will become more powerfulto hold a new level of energy
and to hold a new energy ofpower.
Your identity has to shift toinclude that level of power.
(12:42):
You have to feel safe and alsoworthy of being as powerful as
you really are, and so, in myexperience, what happens is that
when you're only doing thetechniques, you will upper limit
.
If there's a story that my poweris terrifying, or if I have
that much power, I'm going tospeak my truth and then maybe I
(13:04):
get killed or laughed at orbullied or whatever it is.
If I have that much power andmy heart unlocks, right, all of
that realm of intimacy, superscary.
Or you know, if I have thatmuch power and I actually touch
my spiritual wisdom.
We think men got away with likefeeling safe, being spiritually
wise, but the first witchesthat were killed were actually
(13:27):
men.
Right, if you were a freethinker as a man in Europe for
the past 2000 years, youabsolutely got harassed,
tortured, killed, right?
So being mystically connectedas a man especially in the
European tradition but also inmany places around the world to
step out of the authority of youknow the mainstream, is
(13:51):
dangerous and we don't talkabout that as much for men as we
do for women, but there's thesame social codes of restriction
there.
If you activate your sexual lifeforce for long enough and you
start to harness that power, youinevitably become more
spiritually wise, and a lot ofmen are terrified of their own
spiritual wisdom.
So the language that I woulduse to explain the phenomenon
(14:13):
you're talking about is if youhit a safety code, meaning I
can't be that spirituallyconnected, that's scary, I'll be
harmed in some way or I can'tbe that powerful for any variety
of reasons, then your body willbasically tap out and start to
compensate and shut down thepower again.
So a sexual tool or techniquethat is going to genuinely
(14:36):
activate and awaken your energyhas to be paired with deeper
psychological and evenphysiological healing to be able
to sustain the empowerment.
And that's one of the reasonswhy, in the Vita method which I
created, the the sexual, likesexual work, is always paired
with psychological work, becauseotherwise your system can't,
(15:00):
can't hold, it can't sustain it.
It would be like if you had areally strong belief that, um,
being fit was dangerous, likedeep down inside society had
told you that if you got enoughof a six pack, like you'd be
killed or thrown out of thetribe.
You would just, for reasons youcouldn't explain, stop going to
the gym all the time.
Right, it would just like itwould just be so hard to go to
(15:23):
the gym.
You would have to do the workto feel safe being fit, you
would have to do the work tofeel safe.
Having fit, you would have todo the work to feel safe.
Having a six pack before yoursystem would be like okay, okay,
okay, let's go to the gym Right, and so that work together is
so important and I find likereally wonderful thought leaders
and teachers like you reallyunderstand that to pave the way
for someone to truly changetheir sexual expression.
Taylor Johnson (15:44):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for that.
And I really wanted to take amoment to just normalize that in
this conversation and just foreverybody listening, like, cause
I've talked to a lot of guyswho will contact me after
finding some free resourcesonline or maybe getting my free
guide or whatever, and they'vesaid, oh, okay, I started to do
self-pleasure for a few weeks,you know, like you said like the
20 minutes, but like that's notfor me, you know, and I'll like
(16:09):
dive a little deeper, like, oh,what do you?
What do you mean?
It's not for you.
And there's something to theeffect of like, oh well, my
emotion has started to come upand I'm really just looking to
like increase my sexualabilities, and so I'll be like,
huh, interesting, well, let'stalk about that, let's talk
about that.
And yeah, it's like, if youstart to do some of these, even
the techniques themselves, theycan start to elicit the deeper
(16:30):
emotional awakening that needsto happen.
That's also a sexual technique.
You know, this expansion ofconsciousness is also a sexual
technique, which is it's perfectbecause.
So the Eros retreat this is aretreat that you just put on for
the first time about a monthago in Costa Rica, and you
invited me to come down and leadsome of the breakout sessions
for men, which was awesome and Iloved it and it was beautiful.
(16:52):
And one of the things I noticedabout assisting some of the
main sessions is that you didn'thave people just learning
different techniques, like weweren't just focusing on the
microcosmic orbit or we weren'tjust focusing on the pelvic
floor, but every day there was abig sort of ritual process for
people to enter into what Iwould call at least a
non-ordinary state ofconsciousness, through some sort
(17:14):
of breathwork, activation ormovement or sound or something
that really got people to shifttheir sense of reality.
You know, totally sober, forthe sake of transformation, for
the sake of growth, and it wasbeautiful to see and experience.
Layla Martin (17:31):
Yeah, yeah, thank you for seeing that and
appreciating that.
It's a long history of bothbeing taught that by my really
good teachers.
I have an amazing teacher, maaAnansarita, who worked with Osho
.
She met Osho when she was, Ithink, 17 and was with him for
30 years and one of the greatteachings of Osho was like all
(17:55):
these spiritual practices won'treally get you anywhere if you
haven't unwound, likeessentially your core, wounding
material.
So like you can't really tryand build a new foundation of
being a king or a living God ora warrior of the heart If
(18:16):
there's all this energy beingused to hold down negative
beliefs about yourself or shameor self-judgment or all of this.
And we all have that.
Like every human has that levelof pain body, so there's
nothing wrong with having it.
But doing spiritual techniqueson top of like a foundation that
(18:38):
is unexamined and messy andbuilt like while you're in utero
, while you're pre-verbal, right, and trying to then put these
power techniques on top of itcan often look messy and lead us
to bypass or, as you're saying,just lose interest in the
process.
So it's woven into someone.
(19:00):
Learning these empowermenttechniques, can you feel all of
your emotions and stay present,you know, can you release your
projections and your pain fromthe past on women or men so that
you're able to sit down insideof yourself and see the person
in front of you clearly?
You know, one of the mostimportant teachings from the
(19:22):
tantric tradition, reallyarticulated by Apinavagupta of
the trika lineage, is that yourspiritual practices won't bear
fruit if you don't love yourself.
And we almost never talk aboutthat in the West, that this
foundation of self-love is whatallows something like meditation
or yoga to bear fruit.
(19:44):
And we usually skip that part,thinking I will love myself once
these spiritual practices makeme perfect, or I will love
myself once I'm multi-orgasmicand have a rock hard erection
for 30 minutes, right, I'm doingthese practices so I can be
someone that I could love,rather than the reverse, which
is what would it look like toactually love myself exactly as
(20:06):
I am Soft cock, hard cock, right.
Rage inside me, grief inside me, numbness inside of me, bliss
inside of me.
If I can love myself in all ofthose states, then when I layer
a multi-orgasmic technique ontop of it, who I am behind that
multi-orgasmic technique is amore powerful, true embodied
(20:27):
version of myself, and then it'sthe most natural thing for me
to practice that techniquerather than me trying to do
something.
It's like if you have like adiet of fast food and someone
tries to feel like feed you likea spinach salad and you're like
what the hell?
This is so gross, right, itjust doesn't fit.
Whereas if you eat largelyhealthy, right, vegetables start
(20:49):
to sound good, right, or likeorganic meat.
You don't want the like fried,nasty stuff that's like got like
quotes around it, air quotesaround it.
You want like real meat.
You know that happens becauseyou've set a different standard
inside of yourself for how yourelate to food.
So we're really talking aboutsetting this new standard inside
of yourself for who you are asyou make love, and then that
(21:13):
makes certain practices orcertain sexual expressions like
make sense.
Taylor Johnson (21:19):
Totally and I think, well, I can.
I can certainly empathize witha fear that a lot of guys have
around the oh well, I don't wantto love myself if I'm not there
yet, because I think the ideais, if I love myself now, that
means I'm accepting where I amand I'm going to just have to
stay here forever.
So I should give myself theboost.
(21:39):
But there's a reframe of that,which is I love myself now while
also holding the intention togrow, even though where I am is
where I am Like.
I have the intention to growand that's my path forward too.
Layla Martin (21:53):
Yeah, I think one of the best quotes for this is
like let's be practical, and forsome reason I'm just laying on
the spiritual quotes, but one ofmy favorite quotes for this um
comes from it's Ram Dass'steacher, neem Karoli Baba, and
it's love everybody and tellthem the truth.
And so what I think that wemiss sometimes in our culture is
(22:18):
either just like love, love,love, love, love, love.
But if you raise a child onlywith love, you're doing them a
disservice.
You have to also tell them thetruth and you have to teach them
to tell themselves the truth.
Right, that's what createsactual thriving.
But if all we ever give peopleis negativity and criticism and
(22:39):
judgment and they don't get anylove, or all we give people is
truth and they don't have love,they also don't thrive.
So I think of love as thisunderlying foundation of
self-regard.
Like, what do you do with ananimal that you respect?
You love it, right?
Like it's just basic commonsense when we think about like
(22:59):
an animal that we love.
Right, when you have a dog thatyou like, care for you, love it
, no questions.
That doesn't weaken the dog,that doesn't make it like
anything like that.
But it also needs truth, itneeds boundaries, it needs
direction, and what I feel likewe lack is an ability to tell
ourselves the truth, and thatdoesn't mean criticizing
ourselves, being hard onourselves.
(23:21):
It's like tell yourself thetruth about what you need to do
to be the best version ofyourself.
Tell yourself the truth aboutwhere you're being lazy to your
own detriment, about what yourshadows are that are hurting the
people that you love in yourlife.
But love yourself too, becauseif you don't have that self love
, you actually will have a veryhard time truly transforming and
(23:46):
test it.
Try it If you don't believe me,but I think cultivating those
two pieces are so essential, andmost of the time, we have a
really hard time tellingourselves the truth about our
own greatness.
Like, if you have anyresistance to people loving you,
if you have any resistance toloving yourself, any resistance
to people loving you, if youhave any resistance to loving
yourself, you're probably nottelling yourself the truth,
(24:12):
which is that you areextraordinary and magical
because all humans are, and thatyou are wildly deserving of
love.
Right, that's actually thetruth, and sometimes we think
telling ourselves the truth isonly the hard truths, but most
of the time we don't tellourselves the truth about our
own greatness.
Taylor Johnson (24:26):
Yeah, let's all take a breath to feel that for a
moment.
Yeah, it was one of my goals ofthis conversation to make some
of those more.
(24:46):
You've called it spiritual, butthe esoteric things like
practical.
Like to me that is actuallyit's a practical thing, like you
know, add it to the list ofthings we're doing.
Like we need to practicallypractice loving and accepting
ourselves and telling ourselvesthe truth.
And like, yeah,self-responsibility, like really
owning the parts of ourself.
Like, if you're somebody whoreally wants to improve your sex
life, like we've talked about,it's not just techniques that
(25:09):
are going to take you there, butit's going to be perhaps a new
lifestyle, you know.
So, like, are you living thelifestyle that's going to be
supportive of thattransformation and that growth?
If you are awesome, but if not,like it's important to be able
to to acknowledge that, you knowand you can be like fairly
healthy and still have a lot offun.
(25:29):
I feel like.
Layla Martin (25:29):
I've done a great job with that and I think people
like usually think it's eitherlike and it's so funny that we
still call it like granolahippie, which is the granola is
like one of the most unhealthyfoods.
But it's like I either get tohave this like health and
wellness lifestyle or it's likeI don't know cocaine and
horrible drugs until six in themorning and I really love that.
(25:51):
Like, I eat mostly organic.
I'm obsessed with working out.
I was just sick for four monthsbut I just started running like
I love to again.
I love meditation, I love doingpersonal development work and I
love a good party and I lovebeing naughty.
I love doing personaldevelopment work and I love a
good party and I love beingnaughty sometimes and I have so
much fun when I do it and Ithink that this kind of sex is
(26:13):
the same way.
You get these extraordinarysexual experiences and you also
get to have so much fun beingnaughty too.
Taylor Johnson (26:22):
For sure.
Yeah, you've actually inspiredme to go out and do some more
crazy shit in my life.
It's just been, it's just beengreat.
But you know it's interesting.
You say that because there is amiddle ground and a new uh, uh,
what is it?
A new category of people thatseems to be emerging, like when
a lot of people think of thesetechniques like, oh, the tantric
, spiritual techniques, thatmeans I'm going to have to light
candles and burn incense andall this stuff.
(26:43):
But I was talking to this otherguy recently who said you know,
taylor, like I've been having ahard time integrating this
stuff into my community because,well, I love doing these
practices and I love having sexwith my girlfriend, playing with
these ways, but also then onthe weekends I just kind of want
to watch football, like hangout with the guys, and I'm like
that's awesome, there's noproblem there, that's actually
(27:05):
perfect, like you do what youwant to do, you know.
And so I think there's this asthis stuff becomes more popular,
we're going to see more andmore of that.
Layla Martin (27:13):
Yes, absolutely, which I love, and one of my
favorite things too.
In terms of these differentpaths, right Is like every path,
if it's true, will take you toa higher truth.
But I live a long, long timeago.
I had a friend who was ateacher to me in the jungle,
joshi Saluna, and she was likelook like, in every tradition,
(27:36):
there's like a fair chunk ofpeople who are just missing the
point and there's like a tinychunk of people that are really
getting it, like any religionyou look at, you're like wow,
there's like a tiny chunk ofpeople that are really getting
it, like any religion you lookat, you're like wow, there's
like a whole chunk of peoplemissing the point and there's a
tiny chunk of people who arelike really, really getting it.
And she was like so you look atthe traditions where, even if
people are missing the point,they're having a really good
time.
(27:56):
I really appreciate that aboutthe Taoist and the Tantric
traditions, because when youfind real Taoist and tantric
practitioners, it tends to be.
I love this about the pagans aswell.
It's like even if you kind ofmissed the whole point, at least
you still loved your life,given that there are spiritual
traditions that make space forthe love and celebration of life
, don't you want to know that,like you actually were
(28:20):
celebrating and having a greattime all along the way?
Just in case Because myfavorite new quote that Mickey
brought back from Burning mansomeone just handed her this
sticker on the playa.
It says we are in space.
Nobody knows what's happening.
I love you, you're like, sowatch your football, or light a
(28:45):
candle, who cares?
Taylor Johnson (28:46):
maybe do both light a candle in honor of your
team yeah that's great.
Oh man, all right.
So yeah, that was a little bitof the.
I like how you talked about theaorist retreat, the difference
between classical and neo-tantraand specifically how Osho
brought in some more of thesepractices to say like, hey, if
(29:08):
you're going to do thesepractices to really expand your
consciousness and be a betterlover, like you actually have to
deal with your shit first.
So I feel like we've talkedabout that and covered that and
check that box, which is great.
And there's a couple of thingsI'd like to move into.
But first I'd like to move into.
But first I'd like to ask likeyou work with thousands of women
.
You've primarily worked I wouldsay mostly worked with women
(29:28):
recently or for the past manyyears, and then this past year
you started opening up a coupleof different programs for men to
join too.
But I'm curious to talk aboutthe state of men, which people
hear that sentence and they'relike, oh, shit, I'm a wild
feminist and I'm angry and I'mcoming for you and that, my
(29:49):
friend, is quite a cliffhangerand the end of our part one of
the interview.
Thank you so much for being here, and when you're ready to move
on to part two, if you'realready on my podcast, you can
just go to the next episode, butif somebody sent you the link
for this episode, you can justdo a search for sex upgraded
Layla Martin and it should showup with part two in the title of
(30:11):
the episode.
So thanks again so much forbeing here and for caring, and I
look forward to seeing you inthe next part.
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