Ep. 87 Sexual Yoga – Londin Angel Winters
September 13, 2018 · 51 minutes · Episode 87
About this episode
Londin Angel Winters is an author, teacher and thought leader in the conversation of sacred intimacy. She helps people reclaim pleasure, thrive in sacred relationships and love like they’ve never been hurt. She and her life partner authored ‘The Awakened Woman’s Guide to Everlasting Love’ and founded Yoga of Intimacy™ which teaches the embodied practice of sustaining deeply passionate, long-term relationships. She is a teacher of Love, Intimacy and Serpent Medicine. (That’s right – Serpent Medicine.)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Key quotes
“So when I learned the art of surrender, everything changed. And that's when I dedicated my life to the yoga of intimacy.”
“What it feels like to not be met is to have that hunger inside that is just gnawing at you and it's not getting fed.”
“The best thing you could do is turn your phone off, put work away in your mind, step in front of your partner and see them. Look into them. Step in front of your partner and see if you could sync your breath with theirs. You have to be really sensitive to another person to match your breath to theirs. If you did that alone, you would shift your dynamic dramatically.”
“And I learned how to let all of that wash over me, all of that grief, and not resist it, not close down to it. It's the suffering comes from the resistance.”
“And one of the key premises of the book is that your intimate partner will teach you more about growth than any coach, guru, or teacher ever could,”
Related episodes
- Ep. 230 Laughter Yoga with Jamie Poster
- Ep. 50 The Real Midwives – Megan B. Post-Birth Journey
- Ep. 243 Dr. Negean Afifi – Birth Story
- Ep. 174 Ildiko Ferenczi – Birth Story
Transcript
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Londin Angel Winters in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [0:36] Welcome to the Informed Pregnancy and Parenting Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Elliott Berlin, and today we're talking about yoga. There are lots of different types of yoga, and you may have heard of many of them. You may have tried many of them, and you may incorporate a variety of them into your yoga practice. But today we're talking about sexual yoga, and if you haven't heard of it and are curious to learn more, then you and I are in the same boat. My guest today is an author, teacher, and thought leader in the conversation of sacred intimacy. She helps others reclaim pleasure, thrive in sacred relationships, and love like they've never been hurt. She and her life partner, Justin Patrick
[1:12] Pierce, are the authors of the book The Awakened Woman's Guide to Everlasting Love, which is an owner's manual for deepening intimacy and creating sacred relationship. They founded the Yoga of Intimacy, which teaches the embodied practice of sustaining deeply passionate long-term relationships. She is known as a teacher of love, intimacy, and serpent medicine. London Angel Winters, welcome to the podcast.
Londin Angel Winters [1:38] Thanks. Happy to be here.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [1:40] I'm curious about everything. First of all, you're super pregnant right now.
Londin Angel Winters [1:46] Very pregnant.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [1:47] And how far along are you?
Londin Angel Winters [1:50] 33 weeks.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [1:51] And this is your first baby that's coming.
Londin Angel Winters [1:54] My first. It's all new.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [1:56] Yeah. And you know, you're rocking it.
Londin Angel Winters [1:59] Rocking it? Thanks to you, I'm rocking it.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [2:02] Well, what did you do?
Londin Angel Winters [2:02] Crawl in there for every appointment, and then I glide right out.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [2:05] Aw. It's hashtag teamwork, I like to say. OK. What's your background? Before we get into this unique, interesting thing that you do that I'll probably blush, and luckily, nobody can see me as I try to figure out and navigate through it. What's your background?
Londin Angel Winters [2:21] My background is I was like most modern women. I was kicking major butt in the career world. I'd won an Emmy, achieved financial freedom, competed in physique competitions and was a champion. I pretty much whatever I set out to do, I could manifest it like with the Midas Touch, except when it came to love, I was a dismal failure.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [2:47] Really? Oh, yeah. Does that happen a lot when you're super successful in one thing and it's hard? Is it something about you or something about people in relation to you?
Londin Angel Winters [2:57] What I found out is that it was something about me and the way I was using my energy. What I was using to become a manifesting monster was like that go mode alpha energy. And what I needed to find to allow love into my life was that more what I call omega feminine receptive energy, where you could relax back and let someone lead you. So when I learned the art of surrender, everything changed. And that's when I dedicated my life to the yoga of intimacy.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [3:32] Because in all of the achievements you had prior, surrender is not really a helpful tool.
Londin Angel Winters [3:39] Precisely. Yeah. I mean, when you're looking to create something out of nothing or penetrate the world with your mission or, you know, just to win a physique competition, what you need to do is discipline yourself to like the millimeter degree. Right. All of that requires this very sort of transcend the moment, harness the moment, be in charge of the moment, lead yourself and others. None of that is great on a date if you look if you're looking for a really alpha man. Right. So that's what if you're looking for an alpha man.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [4:12] Exactly. That's the distinction.
Londin Angel Winters [4:15] Because likes repel. Precisely. So if you love your alpha energy and nothing makes you happier than being with an omega kind of man, the person that would submit to your lead, the person who would follow you wherever you went, you know, the person who had no opinion, kind of like whatever you want, then you could actually bring alpha home and be very successful in love. But what I was experiencing and almost all of the women I know is they have this idea that they want to lead during the day and like enjoy that during the day and then come home and be ravished. Right. Come home and have someone kind of say, hey, get over here. You know, put your bag down.
[5:00] I need to look in your eyes. I mean, those kinds of things like the things we see in the media where the woman gets swept off of her feet. All of those require surrender. So you have to learn what I call energetic agility.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [5:13] So many things are going through my mind. First of all, because sometimes I'm like, hey, to my wife, you know, like I could really use some dinner, but that's not what she wants probably to hear. I just come home from a long day. It's not always. Sometimes I'm like, hey, get over here. I could use a whole bunch of things, but dinner is just one of them. I think I'm the one that's flushing in this interview. You are? Yeah. But then it really should be like, hey, what can I do for you? But we'll get there. Yeah. It's also, I just want to say, probably the same between any two partners, right? If a woman's looking for an alpha female partner.
Londin Angel Winters [5:54] Absolutely.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [5:55] Or if a man's looking for an alpha male partner.
Londin Angel Winters [5:57] Well, what's so beautiful about our modern times is that gender is so fluid. And no longer, if you're born with certain genitalia, does that define your essence? And so what we're noticing is while that's great and we're all sort of switching roles so easily, what's terrible is that we don't really have a map for how to find polarity, which is opposites attracting. So if you want to have sexual charge in your life, somebody needs to be on one end and somebody needs to be on the other and can't be all muddled. Muddled is like neutral. Like, oh, yeah, we get along great, but we haven't had sex in 10 years. So the 1950s gave us strict models. Like, if you're a man, you play the masculine role.
[6:39] If you're a woman, you play the submissive role. And while that was so terrible for all of our essences, it gave us a map. Like, we knew how to create sexual charge because we just followed the law. You were given polar opposite roles. Yeah. Now you get to do it. And opposites attract. And opposites attract. I mean, it's literally physics. And now you get to do whatever you want, but if you don't have a map, sometimes you end up nowhere. And so what the book does is it gives you.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [7:08] Your book.
Londin Angel Winters [7:09] Our book gives you like all of these distinctions that help you understand where you are on the map and how to create what you actually want.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [7:17] So do you always have to look for the opposite of what you are or the opposite of?
Londin Angel Winters [7:22] No, for sure not. My husband and I really don't. We, there's three ways in any given moment that anyone can relate. One is alpha, alpha. You're both in go mode. This is like the classic power couple, right? So you're either great business partners, but you might get into a lot of arguments because you're both leading. So you're disagreeing. The other one's omega, omega. You're both relaxing together. This is when you play footsies on the couch, order food in, and binge watch something on Netflix, right? Everybody's like in nurture mode, sharing emotions mode, but nobody feels like having sex. It's like the best friend place.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [8:00] Okay.
Londin Angel Winters [8:00] And then there's alpha, omega.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [8:02] So it's the opposite of friends with benefits.
Londin Angel Winters [8:04] Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [8:05] Right? It's spouses. Friends with back rubs.
Londin Angel Winters [8:08] I'm just saying it's like spouses without benefits.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [8:10] Yeah.
Londin Angel Winters [8:11] Well, it's great. Justin and I really love that mode when we both need to be nourished, when we're really just tired and we don't wanna have the responsibility of working hard. We just crash out together and really enjoy our best friendship.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [8:27] Okay. Now I'm understanding this on a deeper level. You're saying within a relationship, partners can have different phases. Partners will go through all three.
Londin Angel Winters [8:36] You can be alpha, alpha, omega, omega, or alpha and omega. Yeah. So for example, let's say it's a busy time and you need to get a lot of stuff done. You can go in alpha, alpha, and then when you don't feel like having sex, you don't judge it because you're just like, we're in the same sexual pole. Of course we're gonna be repelled, but we're gonna be really powerful together. And then you've gone through a crazy time. You're really tired. You go into omega, omega. Your best friends, you don't judge it if you don't wanna have sex. You're like, yeah, we're just friending out. It's not gonna be sexy. It's not gonna be hot. But then at one point, with alpha, alpha, and omega, omega,
[9:10] at one point everybody starts to feel bored. And that's when the heat needs to come in. And that's when you go into alpha, omega. And you get to enjoy all three modalities all the time and know that you're in there intentionally. And it doesn't mean anything about your relationship if you didn't wanna have sex in that time.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [9:31] So there's no alpha, alpha sex?
Londin Angel Winters [9:33] Well, yeah, how PG is the show?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [9:41] I mean, it's, well, let the audience decide.
Londin Angel Winters [9:45] I mean, alpha, alpha sex would be pretty hot because it would look like, you know, I'm in charge. No, I'm in charge. I'm in charge. No, I'm in charge. The problem is that's not usually how alpha is used. Alpha is usually like, you get home and you're like, honey, make me dinner. And he's like, I'm doing my own thing. And like, you're both just leading and like barking orders at each other. It's usually not that sexy.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [10:11] Right, but it could be.
Londin Angel Winters [10:13] It could be. On the fringe.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [10:15] Oh yeah. Okay, so what was it? Cause you were, first of all, physique competition.
Londin Angel Winters [10:22] You didn't know that?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [10:24] No, I did know that, but what is it?
Londin Angel Winters [10:26] Well, there's a kind of bodybuilding. It's actually becoming really popular. I was at the very cutting edge of it starting where you, it's like bodybuilding, but you don't get big. You're just perfectly symmetrical and perfectly toned. It's kind of like developing each muscle. Like if you're trying to be like the statue of David, developing each muscle to its potential without bulking or doing anything artificial to make yourself big.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [10:53] So if that's alpha, then is omega not developing any of your muscles and just being big? Cause I sort of feel omega to your alpha in that way. Is that, is there a competition for, sponsored by Heineken or whatever?
Londin Angel Winters [11:14] This tub's for you? Just since most people are probably curious about the actual answer, it was interesting cause I pursued the whole physique thing thinking that was going to earn me love. It was so misguided. I was so wrong because I ended up being harder and buffer than most guys I was dating and therefore I'm in the same sexual pole as them, right? Like there's no opposite there. And when I finally learned about polarity, I was like, oh my God, I can let myself off the hook of this like 10% body fat thing. And I can settle into my really curvaceous body.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [11:51] Wait, wouldn't you naturally in that physique mode be driven towards fluffy guys?
Londin Angel Winters [11:58] Yeah, I mean, truthfully, that is what's going to create polarity.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [12:03] Right.
Londin Angel Winters [12:04] But you know, a lot of us have this idea of sort of, this is the problem is like a lot of us have this idea of who we want to be with. Yeah. And we're not actually embodying the energy that would attract that.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [12:17] So were you, I mean, you were attracting partners.
Londin Angel Winters [12:21] Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [12:21] Just not the right partners.
Londin Angel Winters [12:23] Totally.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [12:24] What felt wrong about it? How did you know something was wrong?
Londin Angel Winters [12:28] Cause I didn't feel met.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [12:30] Ooh. What does it feel like to not be met?
Londin Angel Winters [12:33] What it feels like to not be met is to have that hunger inside that is just gnawing at you and it's not getting fed.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [12:42] I mean, I can relate to this analogy for real, for real, because for years, I'm now doing, we have an episode with Kelly Levesque, a nutritionist. She has for the first time in like 40 years set me straight on nutrition. I love what I'm doing with her. But one of the greatest things about it is I thought I had no satiety light when it came to food. I would eat, eat, eat. And no matter how much I ate, my brain was like, feed me, feed me, feed me. And I was like, what, what? Like I could barely breathe. I ate so much. What's going on? Are you saying that's almost like in relationship, same thing? Like you'll go on the motions, go through the dates.
Londin Angel Winters [13:21] Totally. And then there's a part of your soul that like, you don't feel seen. You don't feel connected to. You don't feel like splayed open after lovemaking. Everything just feels like it's on the surface. You're hardly even included in the picture. And really that's true. There's so many women and men feeling like love isn't quite doing it for them, but they keep trying because that's just what we were shown to do.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [13:49] So then when you are met, like now that Kelly has me on this program, where I'm eating the nutrients that my body's looking for, I'm not craving anything. I eat and then I'm satisfied. And then I get a little hungry later and I eat again and I'm satisfied. It's like a whole new world. Imagine that in love.
Londin Angel Winters [14:08] Ooh.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [14:09] Imagine going on a date with your husband of 10 years, looking across the table from him and having.
Londin Angel Winters [14:15] This is hard for me to imagine.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [14:16] I'm just saying, I'm trying. Imagine going on a date with your wife of 10 years or 20 and looking across the table and having a moment between you that is so electric. It's as if you just met.
Londin Angel Winters [14:31] Wow. Yeah. That's what the sexual yoga provides us to have.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [14:37] I think that couples go through a relationship, highs and lows, ups and downs. Sometimes the relationship itself is much closer and further away. And then I think the sexual element of the relationship then becomes better or worse. But it sounds like you have a formula for when things are not as good as they could be, making them better and maybe even making them better than they've ever been.
Londin Angel Winters [15:05] Yeah. I mean, really what you're talking about in the same way that you would go to a yoga class to increase your flexibility, the sexual yoga, the yoga of intimacy allows you to land in the moment in a way where you have the opportunity to be met. In other words, becoming present, embodying the energy that is authentic to your essence rather than putting on a shell, relaxing the tissues of your body where you could actually receive the love that is being sent to you. What you end up finding out as you go down this road is that you're repelling the love more often than it's being denied to you.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [15:47] I think that it's just hitting me in a way that's about relationship as a whole and the sexual connection being a part of that.
Londin Angel Winters [15:56] Well, exactly. I mean, in our work, we teach that sexual connection doesn't even start until both of you are blooming like flowers in each other's presence. So often sex has like status and meaning to it and we have sex just to like reassure ourselves the relationship is okay. What's really more optimal is to establish connection in the deepest way, like soul to soul, heartbeat to heartbeat, lower belly to lower belly and become present with one another so clearly that the sex becomes like a vortex that sucks you in rather than something you're using to just force connection.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [16:42] I told a few people, hey, I'm gonna have this interesting guest on our podcast tonight. We're gonna talk about sexual yoga and they're like, what is that? I'm like, I don't know, but do you have any questions? And the first question all three of them had was, is that the same as tantric yoga?
Londin Angel Winters [16:59] That's a great question. The word tantra is a very wide net and especially misused in the West because tantra has ancient, ancient origins and very specific meanings and it's gotten a little bit bastardized as we've gone.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [17:17] Sort of like Christmas?
Londin Angel Winters [17:18] Yeah, exactly like Christmas. So I think without going into like a history lesson, yes and no, yes from the point of view of how could you use your body to increase the depth of your loving and no from the point of view of maybe all the stereotypes that come with that like sex with strangers, no attachments, all of these other things that kind of have gotten lumped into that category. There's many categories to that word. How I'm using it is really using your body in a way to have you be in the moment in a way that has you actually feel met.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [18:05] Beautiful, no, I think it's really beautiful. I would love to get a little bit more specific about some of your methods and you do workshops and I'm curious what happens at a workshop whereas sexual yoga is just something you do three times a week in Santa Monica. Before we get into more specifics and also some things that maybe people can do at home already to just sort of start the process and test it out. Before we do all that, we're gonna take a quick commercial break. We're gonna be right back with London Winters to explore sexual yoga on the Informed Pregnancy podcast.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [19:02] Welcome back to the Informed Pregnancy podcast. I'm your blushing host, Dr. Elliot Berlin, and we're continuing our discussion about sexual yoga with London Winters. Okay, so we talked a lot about what sexual yoga is and the deep bond that you're trying to create and letting go of inhibitions that sometimes get in the way of that deep bond in general in a relationship and as it pertains to the sexual bond. Practically speaking, how does someone begin this journey? And also, when you say if you're gonna do flow yoga, so you just look up on the calendar when there's a flow yoga class and you go a couple of times a week, is that how this works too?
Londin Angel Winters [19:39] Not at all. So the specific specifics are in our book. We give tons of practices through the entire book and some of them are downloadable and you can follow an audio. But let me just give you the download here, which is that this isn't something you're doing in a class. It's like yoga where you go to do these postures to create an effect in your body that changes your life. But it's not necessarily like yoga as we know it, like Thursday night, 8 p.m., you know, show up to this class. We do offer classes to teach people these practices, but they're a little bit more of like a sacred container, a weekend immersion, something where the group is curated
[20:29] so the right people are there and nobody feels creeped out by anybody. And in those cases, or whether you're doing it at home, what you begin to work on is how you show up in intimacy. So everybody thinks that they want this deep intimacy, but the minute it starts happening, you start to see where you escape, where the depth is just too much to handle.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [20:54] Escape, like run away?
Londin Angel Winters [20:56] Well, no, you, no, mm-mm. Well, some people escape. That looks like getting into an argument, somebody feeling at their capacity and running out the door, yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [21:05] But- I don't mean running away from your partner. I'm saying running away from that feeling. It gets too close.
Londin Angel Winters [21:11] Absolutely, and the ways that you can run away from that feeling without even realizing you're doing it are to think about your to-do list, check your phone, like even look away from your partner. Just keeping someone's eye gaze is incredibly threatening because what you'll notice in an extended eye contact moment is you feel seen, and then you start to hit everything that comes up for you in feeling seen, like maybe you start worrying about whether he's looking at your wrinkles or what outfit you picked or what is he thinking, and you can see where sort of the egoic mind that's full of fear starts to generate stories of separation, and what you learn in the yoga of intimacy
[21:55] is how to just let those dissolve and how to drop into something that's so much deeper that you're actually craving, that you want to have, but it's so terrifying to get, and you learn to just be okay with your terror.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [22:11] Why is it so terrifying though?
Londin Angel Winters [22:13] Because if you feel that touched, you lose a little bit of power, you're a little bit less independent. You're not in your story of separation, you're in connection, and then if that person rejected you, it's gonna hurt more. People don't realize how much they've shored up their defenses. Even in a long-term relationship, we're relating in that safe way where it's just enough to feel like we're together, but not enough where that person could literally destroy you. And for you to feel that epic love, you really need to be able to unguard your heart again and soften your body with them and become available, like really available.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [23:03] So does that mean that you do open yourself up for a big fall?
Londin Angel Winters [23:07] Yeah. Half of the work I do is saying to women, if not now, then when. How much are your defenses really serving you? They're actually suffocating you. And I'm in this relationship with Justin and it keeps getting deeper and deeper and wider and wider, and I literally feel like I could throw up half the time, we're so intimate. And I wouldn't live my life any other way, because I'm here to love. I'm here to know myself as love. I'm here to share love. And I'm really sick of all the stories that keep me away from love, just to avoid getting hurt. And the last thing you learn how to do is be really okay with whatever you're feeling. So part of showing up in intimacy
[23:53] is allowing anything to run through your body, whether that's anger, jealousy, bliss in the next moment. You don't try and be reasonable. You just surrender to the moment as it's occurring. And…
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [24:08] I think we mostly suppress it.
Londin Angel Winters [24:10] Yeah, exactly. That's not an acceptable feeling, shove it down. Totally. I can handle this, I'm too much, all these things. Can I handle it? Yeah, can I handle it? And what the yoga of intimacy teaches you is how to pull the limiter off. And I've been through some tough stuff. I mean, you know, I've had six miscarriages. They were just devastating to my soul. And I learned how to let all of that wash over me, all of that grief, and not resist it, not close down to it. It's the suffering comes from the resistance. The suffering comes from, oh, this is coming, this is coming, I don't wanna deal with this, I'm gonna tighten up and try and squeeze this out.
[24:52] And then it gets trapped, and it just circulates into more separation, more separation, and then suddenly you feel alone, you feel depressed, you feel separated from life itself. What you learn how to do in the yoga of intimacy is let all of that move through you without resisting it. And even though it's pain, it's vital. You're alive, and you're allowing life to do what it does with you, and your heart is staying open. When your heart is open, you feel connected, you feel purpose, you feel meaning. And ideally, if you have someone really amazing in your life, you can look into their eyes and show them your pain, and they can just witness you in it.
[25:34] And that alone is huge. You know, I went to the doctor with some pelvic pain and they didn't wanna deal with how I was feeling. So they tightened up, and they kinda like made me wrong, and just, I don't know what they said, but it felt terrible. And then I called a friend, and I was like, I need real help. And she said, call Dr. Berlin. I went to my first appointment with you, I showed you the same thing. And your empathetic heart, you were just like, oh, I get it, yeah, we can work with this. Talk about feeling met, you know? That was a dramatic black and white difference between going to a doctor who was like, you're just, you know, blah, blah, blah,
[26:15] you need to just blah, blah, blah, and just like forced me to be out of it, and coming to you and having you be like, oh, okay, I see what you're going through, we'll work on this. And then suddenly I'm in partnership. Like, I got a teammate, and everything in my whole pelvic floor melted in the presence of that compassion. That's what it's like to love in this way. Yeah, to have that with your partner.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [26:40] I feel like everything you're saying is so powerful, and it's like inviting, you know? Who doesn't really want that? But also truthful, like we get in our own way. We do, and then we forget that we got in our own way, and then we think it doesn't exist on the outside. But I especially love how you describe me as a doctor, thinking about going to see myself. So I want to be met as a patient.
Londin Angel Winters [27:05] Yeah, you're the man.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [27:07] If I get pregnant, I'm going to come see me. But also, two things that pop into my head. Number one is you talk about the women that you work with. Your book is called The Awakened Women's Guide to Everlasting Love. But it sounds like this would apply to anybody.
Londin Angel Winters [27:24] Absolutely. It totally applies to anyone. And in fact, half the book is written by my partner Justin, and is the masculine point of view on all of this. So men love the book as much. But what we really wanted to do was have the voice of the book be for the love-driven being. In other words, any male or female, if love is your priority in life over maybe mission and purpose, this book will rock your world.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [27:51] Interesting. I mean, up until tonight, I was thinking about becoming a physique competitor. But now you have me rethinking. Maybe I should be love-driven.
Londin Angel Winters [28:03] It depends on the physique of your partner.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [28:06] That's absolutely right. I have a lot of thinking to do. Well, I already have a partner. She's fantastic. So the workshops that you do, are they couples or are they individuals?
Londin Angel Winters [28:20] Both. So we work with people who are single and wanting to call in something deeper, something that's less shallow. In this day of swipe left, swipe right, people can really feel kind of like two things, not only unmet, but also like they have to be so entertaining to land a partner. They have to put up all of these, I don't know what, just masks, trying to be someone that gets the most attention, makes yourself interesting that they would stick around. And we really help people unwind that whole thing so they could actually meet a deep partner, someone who they could sustain a long-term relationship with because it gets real in long-term relationship.
[29:09] And if you're dating with a mask on, you're probably not going to attract that. And then we work with couples because a lot of the yoga is what happens in the nervous system in your dynamic. And when you're together for a really long time, you develop patterns. And these patterns create monotony, and monotony kills passion. So what we help couples do is recognize where they're in just automatic, habitual ways of interacting, therefore kind of losing the vitality of the moment with each other.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [29:45] I wonder if I go home tonight and my wife will be home, or somebody's home listening, or maybe a couple's listening together. What's a starting point? What can somebody do at home to start down this path on our own?
Londin Angel Winters [30:01] Great question. So in the book, we talk about the three pillars of sacred relationship, what it means to relate in a sacred way. The first pillar is presence. The best thing you could do is turn your phone off, put work away in your mind, step in front of your partner and see them. Look into them. Step in front of your partner and see if you could sync your breath with theirs. You have to be really sensitive to another person to match your breath to theirs. If you did that alone, you would shift your dynamic dramatically.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [30:40] I really feel the tingles.
Londin Angel Winters [30:42] Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [30:42] Just when you say it.
Londin Angel Winters [30:43] I know, it's so good. It's by far the most powerful thing you could do for another person because it shows them that you're sensitive enough to them that you could actually pick up on the pace of their breathing.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [30:58] I mean, in a very non-creepy way, I think it's the same thing with the kids. Oh, absolutely. If the kids are away and if they're around me, but first of all, I'm on my phone or computer or they're on their electronics, we're just there. We're not connecting. We're not relating. Exactly. And we have the Sabbath. We're Sabbath observant. So Friday night at dark, everybody's got to put their stuff away. All of a sudden, there's this family bond. Every week that we're forced into, it's a completely different energy. So I can see how if you make time for that, even when you're not forced to, it can be a very powerful connector.
Londin Angel Winters [31:38] Yeah, and what you really want to learn how to do is have that become, I call it agility, like have energetic agility where you could do that 10 times throughout the day with your partner. So you're working, you're on your devices, you're doing all of that. And then you have a break and you know how to put it all down, look deeply into your partner and just share a moment together. This is what Justin and I do all the time, like just literally five minutes together. And then you feel that deep connection. You feel fed. And then you just give each other like a little smile. And then you go back, work a little more. And then life doesn't feel like it's destroying you.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [32:19] It feels so different than sort of the get a break, make the obligatory, hey, babe, just checking to see how your day is going. And then she'll say something like, hey, you know those dresses? I was looking at the blue one and the red one. Meanwhile, I'm typing and answering a text. And she finishes her question, which one do you think looks better with whatever? And there's this long pause because I'm actually zoned out of her question. I'm just typing my email. She's like, are you there? Are you there? Totally. That sounds like what happens to a lot of us all the time versus like investing that three or four minutes into a strong connection in the middle of the day.
[32:51] I always said there should be like a relationship fit bit. You know, the fit bit is like you got to do all the steps. You got to do the stairs. You got to do a certain amount of water. Yeah. Like there should be a relationship one. Like have you done presence? Presence. Ten times presence throughout the day. What are the other pillars?
Londin Angel Winters [33:09] The second pillar is polarity. So just like you said, pillar one, presence, isn't sexual. You could do that with anyone that you love and not create weirdness, right? Creepiness, I call it. Creepiness, yeah. Pillar two is where the sexuality comes in. So this is polarity and it's the opposites. So that's being mindful of what energy you're bringing into the space. So let's say you were at work all day and you're in go mode and you know, your brain, like all the energy is in your head and it's so forward moving. What you would want to do to create polarity is drop energy into your body. That's where sexuality occurs, right? Is in the body. How do you do that?
[33:52] Where attention goes, energy follows. So if you can't get your mind off your to-do list and you know, your device and blah, blah, blah, you will just keep all the energy right there in the mind, right there in the head and it's not going to feel sexy. I don't care who you are. So what you learn how to do is bring your attention to your body and you know this from your work, right? You just touch yourself, like press your hands in your thighs, bring attention to, oh my gosh, I actually have a body and I have a lower body. If you become more adept, that's just basic stuff, like touch your thighs, remember that you have legs. I mean, for real, most of our culture doesn't even remember
[34:33] they have a body when they're sitting in front of their computer. If you want to be more advanced, start doing breath practices to breathe all the way down into the pelvic floor. That's a powerful way of dropping your energy down. You can feel yourself open up so the energy has a place to go. Exactly. Do this in front of your partner. Better yet, breathe her energy down. Now you're a master love maker. And it's only the second pillar. It's only the second pillar. Well, and also what's so beautiful is the gift you can give her because you begin not only matching her breath but then guiding it. You just released her from self-sufficiency. She's finding that surrender that she's just been yearning for
[35:20] for her whole life, right? So this is the yoga. It's more about what you're doing with your body, your breath, your presence, less about agreements and strategies for relationship and all that other stuff that people do. That is great for other purposes but not love making always. The third pillar is devotion. And what devotion means is ultimately giving the thing you wish you could get. So we all come into this world with childhood wounds, right? No matter how hard our parents tried, there were things where we just didn't get the love we wanted to get. And so most of us, when we look at romantic relationship, we're like these zombies, these hungry ghosts
[36:01] that are trying to complete that piece through another. And where you get true liberation, some of the basis of these tantric teachings ultimately is resting in the perfection of the moment, feeling yourself already full, and then overflowing to giving. When you have two people who do this for each other, you become each other's champion. Like you're literally each other's hero. And instead of constantly complaining about what you are or not getting, you begin to focus more on the gift that you are and what you could give your partner that day that would make them more full. When you have you doing that and them doing that, neither of you would need to worry about self anymore.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [36:46] Oh, wow.
Londin Angel Winters [36:47] I know. You're like standing for each other as like the ultimate champion. And one of the key premises of the book is that your intimate partner will teach you more about growth than any coach, guru, or teacher ever could, because they see you in the moments where you might not otherwise want to be seen. I mean, they're witnessing all of it. They know you better than you know yourself usually.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [37:12] That's really powerful.
Londin Angel Winters [37:13] It's so powerful.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [37:14] That's really powerful. And the principles are not that complicated.
Londin Angel Winters [37:18] Oh, no. They're so simple. They're simple, but they just need to be pointed out really and then practice.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [37:24] Yeah.
Londin Angel Winters [37:25] And the other thing about the principles is they're really counter to our lifestyles in many ways. So while they're quite simple, they're revolutionary in that to put away your phone when you don't have to changes your life. Phones. Phones. To actually think about what energy you're bringing to the table and how that's affecting the sexual heat of your relationship will change your life. To begin to live for your partner's fullness and just be their greatest champion rather than their constant complaint. Your partner will gain a courage and feel seen and feel championed into their own greatness in a way that what I always like to say it like knits you together like a well-woven rug.
[38:15] And every piece of conflict brings you closer and deeper and wider together until long-term relationship gets a really bad name in our culture as if it's like a dead zone and a gutter of neutrality. But with these practices, long-term relationship becomes magnificent. I mean, every moment brings you deeper 10 years, 20 years in. This is someone, I mean, you're loving at your edge.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [38:44] Wow.
Londin Angel Winters [38:45] Yeah. And it's tragic how much you're invested and that's beautiful. You're living like an artist of love giving everything to your life. No hold back.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [38:58] How long are your workshops?
Londin Angel Winters [39:01] Two-day immersions.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [39:03] Wow. So you must see like quite the transformation from hour one to graduation.
Londin Angel Winters [39:09] It is profound. And we have had so many couples. People often come to our work as a last refuge. In fact-
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [39:16] To save the relationship?
Londin Angel Winters [39:17] Yeah, I just actually spoke to someone yesterday and she was like, this is where we have a workshop coming up and she wanted to come and she said, you know, London, this is our Hail Mary. Like, we don't know what else to do and we want to be together but we don't know how to make it work. This is going to be our Hail Mary pass. I don't know the sports analogy precisely, but. And I get this all the time. And within two days, when they give up all of those habitual patterns, the monotony, they give up all the stories they created and the resentments and the defenses and, you know, all of those things that eat away at true love. Within two days, they can just be flirting with each other again.
[40:00] Literally.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [40:01] I introduced you as a teacher of love, intimacy and serpent medicine. What is serpent medicine?
Londin Angel Winters [40:12] I'm so glad you asked. So glad. So, I actually own four snakes.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [40:22] Live snakes.
Londin Angel Winters [40:23] Big ones.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [40:24] Big snakes?
Londin Angel Winters [40:25] Yeah. Well, one of them is really big. I have all sizes and shapes. And I use these to teach people how to find that natural Kundalini energy in their body. A snake is fully embodied from head to toe. When you have your eyes shut and you have a snake on you, you can't tell the difference between the head and the tail. They're completely congruent, totally coherent, and they are the essence of Shakti embodied. So when you put a snake on your body, you remember how to wake up to pleasure, to your own vital energy, to what it means to be alive in your body, to feel past your mind. The biggest thing that people get at a snake ceremony is they drop out of their mind
[41:12] in a way that they haven't in years, you know? The snakes place them into their bodies.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [41:20] I mean, is it because people fear snakes?
Londin Angel Winters [41:23] No, it's because snakes are resonant with that deep earthly vibration. They're so present. Talk about being present. They're so in the moment. They're so unapologetically authentic that when you literally have that transmission, you get a direct transmission from them. They call you into the moment. The part about being scared is because the reason why people are so afraid of snakes is snakes are unapologetic in their demand for presence. If you are unconscious and you act stupid around a snake, it will bite you because it's demanding more presence. When you come with consciousness and mindfulness and you treat the snake with being 100% there,
[42:10] the snake will make love to your body.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [42:15] So if the snake's on your body and you check your phone?
Londin Angel Winters [42:20] Yeah, actually, it's funny because most people are so afraid of getting bitten by a snake, which if you approached a snake in nature, unconsciously, you would get bit. But these are temple snakes. I've raised them from babies. I've worked with them in a sacred way every single day of their lives. They trust humans. They don't actually bite you. What they do is they get really bored by you and they crawl off of you. So in snake ceremony-
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [42:46] That's even worse.
Londin Angel Winters [42:47] Oh, it's so much worse. I mean, I've had women in snake ceremony cry because the snake-
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [42:52] Is the snake left?
Londin Angel Winters [42:53] Left.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [42:53] Oh, gosh.
Londin Angel Winters [42:54] And they were like, this is what men do. And then I say, okay, well, what was going on with you when the snake crawled off? And they're like, I started to think about something other than the present moment. I started to think about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They left the moment. Their body was there, but their being wasn't. And the snake was like, all right, I'm out.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [43:18] Where did you pick that up?
Londin Angel Winters [43:19] Oh, my God. I mean, this is something that sometimes you just don't know. As a little child, I grew up in the woods in North Carolina. I used to play with snakes all the time. And it was just something that came out of my heart. I have no good reason why I do this, other than it was a calling. And the minute I touched the snake as an adult, it was like a lightning bolt. There are a lot of people who come for snake ceremony and they get the lightning bolt and then they feel like they have to have a snake.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [43:53] Oh, really?
Londin Angel Winters [43:53] They get one. Oh, yeah. Because it's a really powerful animal. I mean, it's kind of like if you had a horse and there was just a wisdom and intelligence there that you began to count on. That's how I am with my snakes.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [44:09] Wow. I've heard of people having snakes. Most people don't relate to snakes from a spiritual perspective. They're just like cool animals and the feeding process is interesting to watch and all of that. I'm really relating to them as an animal totem, like shamanically.
Londin Angel Winters [44:28] Wow.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [44:30] We're running out of time, but I think you've really given us an insight because I had no idea starting off what we're going to be talking about tonight, to be totally honest. Could have gone anywhere. I think in the end you could have your kids in the room for this episode. But three little points that occur to me are, number one, this kind of presence and letting go of fear and opening yourself up and allowing yourself to feel things that you're not used to feeling. Is almost exactly what we talk about in childbirth education and getting ready for both childbirth and parenting. And so I think that it'll be interesting to see how it is for you to go through that.
[45:19] But I get the sense that the same things that you've been practicing for so long and studying and teaching to others is going to be very helpful to you when you go through these intense transitions. And the second thing is a lot of our audience is pregnant or recently had a kid. And both of those can drive the physical relationship further apart. For some people, it bonds them closer together. But for a lot of people it also drives them apart. And not just the physical relationship but the relationship as a whole becomes strained. And so I think it's extra helpful that you give us these three pillars that we can just work on at home and try to build back
[46:00] that relationship both during pregnancy there's a lot of room for intimacy, sometimes intimacy that is not achievable when you're not pregnant and also postpartum after there's a pause in the physical relationship for a while to bring that back together after there's so much chaos sometimes and new things to learn and lack of sleep in the same way. Nutrition sometimes and exercise to be able to take these pillars more important than perhaps any other time in life and be able to bond on those few minutes that you have to bond and start to bring the relationship closer together.
Londin Angel Winters [46:36] You know we were talking about these practices of sexual yoga and the practicals we were just on a podcast called Neuro on Fire where a top neurologist who works with major teams like NBA, NFL, people who have millions of dollars on the line to win the game are using the exact same technologies we teach couples in sexual yoga. They're teaching teammates to do with each other before the game because they literally have proven that it entrains their bodies together. Basically they become on the same team and this is how they can go on the court and know exactly where each of them are think on the same plane wow coordinate so you know when you talk about
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [47:21] you know what that reminds me of?
Londin Angel Winters [47:22] What?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [47:23] You ever see the tv show Abby and Brittany?
Londin Angel Winters [47:25] No.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [47:27] I'll tell you why I ran up there's a TLC show I think the only living pair of conjoined twins in the world and it's girls and their names are Abby and Brittany right so they have two heads but they share a body but you know one of them controls the right arm and one of them controls the left arm but they do things incredibly coherently like they'll sit and type an email how can they do that? How is one controlling one hand and one control the other hand or to eat with a fork and knife or they play softball or they drive
Londin Angel Winters [47:59] oh my gosh
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [48:00] but there's some sort of neural connection
Londin Angel Winters [48:03] yeah
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [48:04] that's not obvious it's not that you can see it on an anatomy scan so it makes sense that even take yourself out of the same body of somebody else you can develop those neural connections and sort of be aware be like they have to be aware of where the other arm is in space the other leg is in space and so I mean it sounds like you're suggesting you can do that just person to person
Londin Angel Winters [48:28] well not only can you do that person to person but what you feel physiologically like in your body is you feel on the same team as your husband or wife it puts you back on the same team and when you're going through something that's so stressful like pregnancy or a newborn you don't have to rely on the sex to bond you anymore you can do these practices of like breathing together becoming present with each other get on the same team and then when you go into something entirely stressful again you feel like you've got each other's back you feel like you're sort of working together rather than against exactly like these teams are doing
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [49:13] it also reminds me of those experiments where you see people a partner they get them to bond they line up their eyesight they line up their breath and then they tell them to close their eyes and they'll touch one on the forehead and the other one knows where they were touched
Londin Angel Winters [49:28] that's exactly what i'm talking about
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [49:29] wow that's so powerful i gotta try that totally and you know i'm gonna jumble this all up i'm gonna be like honey look at me over here and then all of a sudden i'm gonna remember like the football thing i'll be hiking she's gonna be like what in the world i'm like so sorry i'm new at this i'm new at this give me a chance i'm very grateful to you for coming and i learned a lot myself um and i'm really excited to share that with our audience as well
Londin Angel Winters [50:00] it was my pleasure
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [50:02] so again your book is called the awakened woman's guide to everlasting love not just for women and um where can we find you online
Londin Angel Winters [50:11] um london angel winters dot com it's l-o-n-d-i-n angel winters dot com
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [50:19] i will check you out over there thanks again for being here at home thanks for listening you have some practicing to do and uh when you're all done share this episode with a friend um i'm sure it'll be helpful to people that you know and if you have other interesting topics that you'd like us to explore send us your suggestion to info at informed pregnancy dot com
Want more pregnancy + parenting? Start your FREE TRIAL of Informed Pregnancy+ and get access to all our curated pregnancy and parenting content — original series, iconic birth films like The Business of Being Born, prenatal workouts and more.