Special Guest Expert - Jessica Gold: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Jessica Gold: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Daniel Aaron:
Does it take to create a vibrant, thriving life? First, the sad news is that Thoreau was right. Most people are leading quiet lives of desperation, lacking in meaning, fulfillment, and vitality. But we choose more. We choose to create extraordinary lives and the art of vibrant living. Show entertains you with inspiration, empowerment and education to create your life into a masterpiece. It's time. Let's vibe up. Aloha, y'all. Welcome to the show. I am Daniel Aaron, your host. This is the Art of Vibrant Living show. And guess what we do on this show? Well hopefully we entertain you. We inspire you. Most importantly though, we empower you to live your most vibrant, thriving life. So a request on that note, yes, entertainment, inspiration and take some action. Like say you're going to get some amazing experiences, information, wisdom today. I'm excited about this show. Take something of what Doctor Jessica offers you and say, yeah, I'm going to put that in. I'm going to try that out. I'm going to put it in place in my life. And if you would like some assistance to have an even more vibrant, thriving life, if there's something you're struggling with or something you'd love to create, please also reach out to me. Send me an email Daniel at Daniel aaron.com. I'd love to have a conversation with you. And on that note, let me, let me let me introduce to you our guest today, amazing woman. And you know, so before I tell you about her, what could be more important in your vibrant, thriving life than relationship sex? Love, right. That's the juice of love life, right? Okay. Doctor Jessica Gold is the founder of Bliss Science Coaching and her new AI platform, Digital Wisdom, which developed the relationship relationship coaching app Jessica Gold AI. She's an MIT trained PhD organic chemist who left her academic career to unexpectedly spend four plus years living in tantric communities, where she became a tantric scientist. As a passionate relationship coach for powerful men, she has helped hundreds of men in tech leadership and finance, rekindle passion in sexless marriages, get out of their heads and feel confident as lovers, attract the high caliber women of their dreams, and master the art of relating to women. Her work and life are chronicled in in her TEDx talk, chemistry for Your Sex Starved Marriage. Well that's hers. Just saying. Oh my goodness, doctor Jessica dares you to believe that your sex life and relationship deserve to be given at least as much time as working out or developing your latest AI app. Heck yeah. Jessica. Doctor Jessica, thank you so much for being with us.

Jessica Gold:
My pleasure.

Daniel Aaron:
I love everything that you've said so far. Well, those were your words that I read. It's beautiful. It's awesome. We could talk about what's in your bio alone for an entire hour. There's so much in there. And first, though. Not everybody here knows your story, and it's a cool story. How did you get to this point in your life?

Jessica Gold:
Hmm. Sheer tenacity and daring.

Daniel Aaron:
It takes that. Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, it takes that to live an extraordinary life, a vibrant life, right? But. And in what ways? How do you. How do you mean that?

Jessica Gold:
Well. I'm. I'm so thrilled that I got to change my life completely the way that I did. Um, but first, it did take a lot of courage and persistence. Perseverance to be a scientist. Um, it was very much a man's world when I was working in lab for ten years, doing my undergrad, my PhD, and my postdoctoral fellowship. And it was a grind, you know, we were all pretty much cut off from the the neck up, uh, cut off from the neck down rather, and living in our heads. Right? Really being stuck in our heads. Um, and then when I got the message one day, uh, that I wasn't supposed to be doing that anymore, I didn't even believe in messages or things like this. Um, but the voice of my heart broke through. I say, after going to Burning Man one too many times, I. Finally there were some cracks in the armor, and it took a lot of courage to listen to the voice of my heart, because I felt a lot of shame at the idea of leaving my scientific career. Um, so that was a really big leap. It was huge. It no one understood it at the time. I was scared to even take one year off. I thought, who will ever employ me again if I am not working for a year? Those were different days. Um, and then when I did find the place that lit me up inside, that seemed like, oh, this is what I'm meant to be doing. It really was not socially acceptable. Um, my family didn't understand, uh, I even thought it was, like, perhaps the strangest thing I could have stumbled upon. And it required so much courage to stay. Uh, and then finally to become an entrepreneur. You know, being a nerdy scientist, I didn't have training in, uh, I didn't have an MBA or training in how to run a business. So learning all of those skills, it's fascinating. But that also required intense amounts of courage and tenacity over the years. So that's how I got to where I am.

Daniel Aaron:
Thank you. Okay. You. Finally heard the message. You heard the message. You listened to the message. Now that to me cries out for. How did that happen? You use the word crack. I have a chapter in a book of mine called The Crack. Right. It's a whole chapter. So I love what you just said. I love those words. And what what what was it? What happened? How did you hear it?

Jessica Gold:
Well, what is the quote that says, you know, love the cracks because that's where the light gets in. There's a beautiful poem about that. So basically I was just grinding as a scientist, I it was really hard. We were expected to work long hours and I pushed myself just naturally. Um, but in the process of that, I received a zero education in how to be a healthy human. So my relationships were suffering, my health was suffering. I was suppressing all my emotions, and they were coming out in physical symptoms like chronic anxiety. Um, overdrinking lack of good sleep. Uh, it was starting to really take a toll on my body. And. So. Hmm. How to put this? Um, I think in, in that case, after a while, like, you just can't go on like that anymore. Um, and part of me was trying to break free of. I felt like I had a duty to work as hard as I possibly could to make all the money I could so that I could be responsible and have enough for retirement, you know, and maybe save enough to, like, pay for my children's college. And I was really it was like a lot of pressure. And I pushed and pushed and pushed. Um, and at some point, I had the gift to get to do my PhD in the San Francisco Bay area. So there was a lot of experimentation going on. You know, like I said, going to Burning Man, doing authentic relating. There was experimentation in sexuality and dance and psychology and psychedelics. And so I was in these underground communities of people who were really exploring, like, what does it what does it mean to be human, to be fully alive? And I think just over ten years for me to continue to slowly, slowly turn toward those things allowed the crack to get bigger and bigger. Um, until one day, you know, I had a really impactful year at Burning Man in an authentic, relating community where what mattered was not my pedigree or my accomplishments, but who I was in the moment. Mm. And it was so confronting because I didn't know who I was in the moment or what gifts I brought.

Jessica Gold:
I hadn't been trained in presence, empathy, connection. I hadn't been trained to value those things. But when I felt so loved and so accepted, and it was rich and nourishing and I wasn't wedded to my to do list, um, like trying to just accomplish the next goal as quickly as possible and just letting days go by in an endless stream of tasks. I was like, alive and connecting, and it was a relief. So when I came home from that experience and faced at that moment, I was working at a biotech company and faced like the windowless cubicles and the smell of microwaved fish and, you know, like it's terrible. And this endless commute, which always drove me crazy because I was like, why do we all have to drive at the same time? This makes no sense. Um, I, you know, and begging for two weeks of vacation every year. I just looked at my life and I was like, I cannot like, this can't be my life. This cannot be what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but it's not this. And so that was how I was able to listen.

Daniel Aaron:
Thank you. That's beautiful. And golly, so many people I know can relate to that. And part of what's beautiful about what you said is some people who are either, you know, watching now or going to watch or listen later, we'll hear what you just said and they'll go, oh, I think that might be happening with me right now. You mean it's it's okay to let this crack open up, right? That's beautiful. Um, so and then let's and I want to get get on here to what you're up to now and what, what came after this transition. Because there's there's so much in that still that there's something else you said a moment ago, which is that that for you when you were leaving your life as a scientist, there was shame in that. And would you be willing to say what what was going on with that?

Jessica Gold:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I had dedicated ten years of really, really hard, excruciating work to getting my PhD and doing my postdoctoral fellowship and publishing my research and getting the awards and the funding. I had really, really put a lot of my life force energy into it. And it's also a dangerous career. Um, it organic chemistry. Mm. So to think that maybe I had been too stubborn and been not on the right path all that time, I felt embarrassed. Um, yes. And, you know, I felt also worried about my family, you know, how would they explain this to their friends? Mhm. Um, they were really proud of me. Mm. And also I was 33 when this was happening, so I was at an age when most of my friends were getting pregnant or getting promoted. And instead I left my career. And because what can an organic chemist do? I mean, yes, I could do medical writing or science writing, but and I had done some of that, but those doors just weren't opening for me. There's nothing you can do as an organic chemist outside of lab. So I felt like I had this expertise that was confined to one area and I left. I stepped outside of the rat race completely. I went to live in a spiritual community, uh, and not have an income and not know what, how I would ever be employed again. And that's where I come from. That's the definition of being, you know, irresponsible. Mhm.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. Worrisome. Oh, my God, she just joined a cult. What's going to happen? And I can I can sort of joke about that because, you know, I so many times my family said something like that about me, you know, like my brother calling me up and said, I just heard from mom that she thinks you've joined a cult. And I was like, huh? That's not exactly wrong, but kind of wrong.

Jessica Gold:
Um, sure.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. And I can, you know, barely imagine what how challenging that must have been to like to, you know, the way I think of it sometimes is it happens often for for some of us that we're we're climbing a ladder, like, you know, somehow we put our ladder up against this tall building and we said, that's the place to go. I want to go there. And then we're just like climbing and climbing and climbing. And then at a certain point, like we pause and go. Am I on the right ladder? You know, and that's like this moment of like, uh oh. Is the ladder going to am I going to like, let it go off? And what's going to happen then? So kudos to you for for summoning that courage to listen to your heart. Right? I think of that. There's a great Native American saying that that the human, the longest human journey is from the head to the heart.

Jessica Gold:
Yeah.

Daniel Aaron:
So you said you said, uh, maybe one too many burning mans. And I think I read somewhere that you, you know, is your fifth one that that turned the thing right. And wonderful. That was quick, right? Because a lot of people, they just keep climbing the ladder like, screw it, man. I'm just going to keep going. I don't care if I don't feel good or if it's killing me. So yeah thank you for that.

Jessica Gold:
Mhm.

Daniel Aaron:
Now. There's so much more we could speak about with that and four plus years living in tantric communities. You went and lived in a spiritual community. I did, I did a lot of that myself. So I'm super curious to learn what. Well, one what was that like? But especially what was that like for you? I mean, it's not like you were you went straight from being a sort of, uh, only academic scientist because I heard you in terms of those you had those, you know, the time where you're starting to experiment and encounter these alternative communities in the Bay area, which is great. So you're getting warmed up in that? It must have been, though, like something like going into the deep end when you were actually living in a community. Is that true or what was your experience like?

Jessica Gold:
It was wonderful, to be honest. Um, and I had completely denigrated anything to do with spirituality. I was like, uh, hell no. Hard no to all of that. I was a dedicated scientist, you know, atheist, agnostic and not interested in taking up another anything having to do with any sort of religious trappings. Um, it took me completely by surprise, because I really didn't understand what the tantric scholars and sages were about. I had never actually learned. I just had all these misconceptions in my mind. But it was actually a very sophisticated, um, deeply beautiful tradition, um, with complex writings and gorgeous practices and a very, very practical approach to life. That was exactly what I needed. And when I realized that what they were up to was actually studying awareness, um, then everything opened up and fell into place for me. Uh, instead of motivating myself through punishing myself and self-criticism, I was able to get curious about my experience of life and start to perhaps be kinder to myself. It was a revolution. And so to be able to get up every morning I was living in this wooden hut on a hill across the street from the ocean, and I had this giant balcony overlooking the ocean, and it was just this one room wooden hut with, you know, all the insects and animals in there with me. And but, you know, to just not have to worry about what I was wearing or being cold and being on my little motorbike and going down and doing there was like the yoga classes. There was, you know, pranayama, Kundalini, there was philosophy classes, there were meditation, meditation retreats. Um, there were group classes because it was a tantric community. There was a sexual element as well, like a sexuality track where I could study that part of my being which heretofore I had only shamed and dismissed and felt cut off from. Mm. And so it was. I would say it was delicious food for all the parts of me. Um, and it was warm and I just got I was like, what if I let myself be happy? I, I didn't ever allow myself that before. And I thought, wow, I am really nourishing myself here, you know? And the food was nourishing and simple and easy. I mean, everything was easy and I could just be with my body, be with my emotions, and start to get curious about like, okay, what what does nourish my soul in this life? What am I here to do? And so those aspects were I think they saved my life.

Daniel Aaron:
That's beautiful. Thank you. I and as you say that I feel this, like great nostalgia, warming my heart. You know, for me, I was similar to you in a way, in that I was agnostic, maybe atheist, agnostic, just in case. You know, I don't want to burn any bridges, right? Um, and then I got this, like, divine whack upside the head that took me from not believing past believing into knowing, which totally screwed up my whole life, of course. And then the first thing I did when I came out of that was I went and lived in a spiritual community, and it was so. It was. It was. It was so nourishing and beautiful and powerful and, um, you know, one of the ways I describe my own past is I was a fat kid. And and part of the reason for that was I grew up on the sad, sad standard American diet, though not just in terms of the processed food and the junk food and all that, though we did that too, but also just in terms of the beliefs and the values, that is sort of the standard American diet. So when I, you know, encountered something else that was like, hey, relationships matter. Hey, feeling good in your body matters. Like, you know what? Actually being happy and present that. Whoa, that was so mind blowing to me, right?

Jessica Gold:
And to me, those sounded like weak, like distractions. Like, oh, why would you care about that? Well, I need to be efficient and I need to succeed 100%.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, I'm with you. And so I can relate to that in the level that my I, before I had that divine whack upside the head, I was, I was a martial artist and I was competing and you know, and it was it was tough and and I was pushing and challenging and pain is good. And then when I first heard about yoga, I was like, oh, that's just like pansy stuff. Come on. That's, you know, ridiculous. And then when I first actually got into yoga, I was like, oh. Mm. This is a little a little harder than I thought. I'm not so good at this as I thought, which, you know, is in many ways true of like being present. Right, all that stuff. So let me ask you this though. You, you you brought up the word tantra somewhere in here a couple times. And, and we both know I have I have some experience, not the degree that you have probably. Tantra is so misunderstood. Right. That word like, um, you you you defined it a few minutes ago as the study of presence. Did I get that right?

Jessica Gold:
Well, that's one aspect. Studying awareness. The spark of awareness.

Daniel Aaron:
Awareness? Yeah. You know, and of course, most I don't know actually what most people a lot of people hear it and they're like, oh, that's how to have better sex, right. Um, and so what is it really though? Would you, would you tell us?

Jessica Gold:
Well, I think they're both right. I, I actually have a whole course on this. Um, and so the sexuality part I define as neo tantra, which was essentially developed in the modern West with a little spark of inspiration from the classical tradition of the East. But neo tantra is about the unchaining of your sexual self, uh, and using awareness to move through the world in how you relate and how you relate to sex. And of course, as Westerners, we really need that. And that's a fantastic set of practices, and I'm so grateful that those exist in the world. But for me, as a scientist, that would never have been enough. I, I, I needed something more. And so I started asking all of my teachers, where did all this come from? What is this really? You know, show me the books. Show me the original writings. Like, what the hell is this? I needed to know, you know, as a scientist and a researcher. So I started researching the tendrils, the threads back to where this came from. And I discovered, uh, the Indian tantric tradition. And of course, the Tibetan Tantric tradition is much more well developed and is known in Tibetan Buddhism, Vajrayana, all those practitioners are well acquainted with Tantra. But, um, so the classical Indian tradition of Tantra, you know, is a sophisticated spiritual tradition that is about awakening from suffering, liberation from suffering, um, awakening to the truth of who you are and the study of awareness. I like to say that the Tantrics were the original scientists, because they did really deep inquiry into how humans work, and they were trying to explain how our body worked before we had any scientific words. So they used energy instead of talking about the nervous system, for example, and chakras instead of understanding like blood flow and the nervous system in our body. And they actually did a pretty good job of trying to understand what was going on on a microscopic level in our bodies before any of that science equipment existed. Um, but they did it all through, uh, subjective individual experience. So really getting quiet and going within and using mantras, visualizations, awareness practices to really understand the nature of mind and the nature of reality.

Jessica Gold:
Um, and, you know, modern Western science uses well to the best of our ability, objective measurements. You know, we try to do experiments that can be repeated, that are controlled, like that's a technical term, meaning you. Compare it to something you're not experimenting on, and objectivity reigns. We look at objective data, but the tantrics we're looking at subjective data, um, as their information, because that's what we had before science came along. And so that's what classical tantra really is about. And the way and the reason this matters is because classical tantra is an incredibly empowering practice. It allows you to go deeper into the richness of your life for me, instead of every day just going by in a blur of tasks, it allows me to sink into my moment to moment experience of life and incorporate pleasure, incorporate awareness and the body, and really deal skillfully with my emotions, with my body, with my desires, and with my relationships. Because Tantra was about using everything in your life as a householder practice to liberate yourself, awaken from suffering. It wasn't about it's not a monastic practice where you go away as a monk to do practices. You practice in the context of cooking, cleaning, raising your kids, working, relating to your spouse. And so, I mean, I could talk about this for an hour, as you can see. But to sum it all up, I, I separate those two. There's neo tantra, which is about the unchaining of our sexual self. And then there's classical tantra, which is a sophisticated spiritual tradition from the Indian subcontinent that flourished around the year 400 to 1400 of the common era.

Daniel Aaron:
Beautiful. Thank you. That's great. Super clear. And so then how do they relate to each other? You know those two. Those two say branches.

Jessica Gold:
Well that is one of the most fascinating things you can study. And I've had so much fun reading about this over the years. So there's a professor of religions named Hugh Urban who wrote a book. It's an academic book called Tantra. And it it, uh, explains a lot of how classical tantra got translated and misunderstood into neo tantra. Um, there's also a book called um. I'm forgetting the name of it right now. Um, it's a book on the history of the chakra system that also very, very well explains that. Um, and of course, Christopher Wallace, who's one of my teachers. His book Tantra illuminated traces that history. Um, but I think Hugh Urban's book is the best. Um. And I wish I could remember the name of the chakra one. Alas, we'll put it in the show notes. Um, but in the cliff notes are that when the British, uh, went to colonize India, there were some people who were really interested in the occult, and they formed this society called the Theosophical Society. And this was in the 1800s. And one of the founders is this woman named Madame Blavatsky. And she's an incredible historical figure. Definitely. Go look her up. So Madame Blavatsky and her co Theosophical Society people, they ended up witnessing some tantric rituals and they didn't understand what they were, but they were fascinated and they were some of the first people to start to write about Kundalini and the chakras and, um, to take what they saw of the rituals, along with, like other British, um, colonialists who were just scandalized by, you know, they just had very racist views of Indians. So they took they just sensationalized anything they found of tantric spirituality, spirituality in India and twisted it. And so all of these things got filtered through the lens of racism and also occultism. Aleister Crowley, you know, uh, put his imprint on it, the sex magic guy. And also this man named Pierre Bernard, who founded some love cults in upstate New York in, like the 1920s, early 1900s and many, many other very colorful figures from early 1900s America. All of these people shaped what came to be known as neo tantra. It also had influences from the 1960s counterculture movement, because by then Tantra had become known as had become synonymous with like rebellion and liberation, and so famous people such as Annie Sprinkle, the porn star, she created this thing that then became known as Tantra massage, uh, for example. And so all of these different influences, it's such a colorful story, fascinating. It's like when you when you're getting bored and you want to remember how wild humans are. Read about the history of of neo tantra. And so those are some of the tendrils that helped form it.

Daniel Aaron:
Wow. Fun. Yeah. I'm with you. I it's it's fascinating. I love the, the Theosophical Society and those esotericists that were part of that and and cool. You know, it's like one of the ways I think of it is there's always the, the pure original and then the toxic or maybe not even always toxic, but just the, uh, derivatives that go off from the original. Right? My favorite example is cacao. There's this amazing cacao bean, you know, and now we have Mars and M&M and Snickers, right. It's like, yeah. So there's something valuable about the pure original, and there's also something valuable, valuable about the evolution and the way things change, you know? And I know for me, I've gotten a lot out of neo tantra from growing up as a, you know, puritanical New England and uptight and ashamed of my body and thinking sex was bad. And so I'm super grateful for that. Um, well, let's let's go to the next part because you from if I'm understanding right, you've you've really evolved your work with this, right? You had your own liberation and your study and shifted your life. And now you work particularly with men and founders and tech and finance. What's brought you into that world? What's going on there?

Jessica Gold:
Absolutely. Oh, and I remembered the the book on the history of the chakras. It's called Rainbow Body by Kurt Leland. It's a very fun book to read. Mhm. Um, so. Yeah. So because I had this very deep shift in my life, uh, and it was like I was living in black and white before. And I feel so much more powerful now, so much more alive. It's like really coming into what I was meant to do. Um, I couldn't believe that I never got taught any of these relational skills that I learned in the spiritual community. I had never had a single class on how to deal with my emotions. Um, how to relate skillfully, how to communicate non defensively, what to do with my desire, um, how to take responsibility, how to get out of victim mentality. Like how to have good boundaries. I had zero idea about this and um. It. Those things then, like my hair trigger reactions, my ingrained modes of talking which defaulted to defensiveness. Those things were running my life and it made my friendships shallow and stressful. It made social situations awkward. It made my intimate relationships tumultuous and challenging. And ultimately, I was just trying to make everything work through sheer force of will. And that was incredibly exhausting and stressful. Um, were there any.

Daniel Aaron:
Sorry to interrupt. Were there any downsides to that lack of education? I'm. I'm sorry. I'm joking. Because what you just said is like, it's a heartbreaking, you know, all these things that you hadn't learned about and all the ramifications of that. I hear that, and I'm like, oh my goodness. So thank you for pointing all that out.

Jessica Gold:
Not only had I not learned about them, I had been taught that it was uncouth, that it was just not done to learn about these things. Um, I had been taught that psychology was weird. I shouldn't ever study it. Don't ever go to therapy. That's just for really broken people or the weak. And I should never need to study myself. And yeah, that's a tough situation to be in. So it's a miracle that I ever broke out of that. Mhm. But when I did and I started to learn oh I can turn the scientific and researcher lens on my own self without shame, blame or judgment. But to really get curious and hold myself with love and ask for help and all these things and learn. I mean, it is endlessly fascinating to study my own reactions to life every day. But when I realized I could do that, I thought, wait a minute, I want to reach out to other people who are like me. Um, and I saw that men were being really underserved in the field of personal growth. Um, and I thought, well, I want to reach out to men. Also, I tend to have a more analytical mindset. I tend to have a higher sex drive. I really felt like I didn't so much identify with women's experiences, although I do also work with women. Um, but and I'm also a rebellious. I'm like, I want to do something different. And I was like, I want to understand men's experiences too. I want to know what y'all are going through when it comes to relating and desire and sex. I mean, when I unshamed my desire, I was like, whoa, that's a force to be reckoned with. And I thought, well, if men have to deal, if that's even a 10th of what men have to deal with, I'm like, wow, I get it now, you know, like I get it. Why? It's hard. And so. I wanted to reach out a hand to people like me who are scientists, who are in tech, who were left brained, analytical, who were maybe afraid to listen to the body or the heart, or had been taught that studying these things is just not done or is a distraction.

Jessica Gold:
And also, I wanted to help men really understand women so that because my whole mission is for us to understand each other instead of to keep fighting in this dumb war of the sexes. Um, because I know that having an incredible partner and a fulfilling relationship where we're in it really intentionally, uh, is the foundation of my ability to show up in the world with love, with care, and to do my most meaningful work. Mm. The other thing is like, it's such a well known pattern. Everyone talks about it in every coaching book. All the therapists talk about it. It's it's the default that if you are driving really hard to be successful in your job, especially if you're a left brained, analytical man, you will likely end up with your success feeling hollow and your wife leaving you in a multi-million dollar divorce if you don't learn relational intelligence. And like, again, there's no shame in this. I had to learn it myself. Right? So I'm not coming at this as if, like, I know better. It was really hard for me to let myself learn it. But I do want everyone to know that life is so much more fun and pleasurable and fulfilling when you learn this.

Daniel Aaron:
100%. That was beautifully said. Thank you. As you said that I had this flash to, um, when I was, I don't know, in my 20s somewhere, I was living at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, another spiritual center, and my mother came for a visit and I was like, great, wonderful. And so she was there for, I don't know, a few days. And I took her around to different things. And, and I brought her to I don't remember what it was, but some kind of group. And, and I was in the midst of my education or deprogramming process there. And for the first time in my life, I learned, oh, I have I have feelings that I can speak about. I can ask for what I want, you know, a lot of good.

Jessica Gold:
Oh, no, I'm just going to say, I know it was revolutionary when I learned I could ask for what I want instead of trying to manipulate to get it right.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. Amazing. And there was this beautiful moment where. And I was like, so curious to see how my mother was going to do with all of this. And then at one point, we're in this, you know, circle eight people maybe. And, and like the, the talking stick came over to her of some sort and she said. I'm not like you people. I don't talk about my feelings.

Jessica Gold:
Oh. Bless her.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, exactly. I was like, oh, you could. It's never too late. But yeah, you know, it's it's phenomenal that. Human beings don't have that as a standard part of our education. It's just really, really weird. Um, and, you know, it makes a lot of sense that, um, I like the way you built the bridge from your experience and your academic and scientific background and the ways that you can relate to men, especially in those fields. Um, so, so tell us more like how how do you help them? How do you work with them?

Jessica Gold:
Yeah, it's a great question. Um, so I like to use my bliss science method, which is why I call my business that. Um, and when I say I'm a tantric scientist, it means that I turned my scientific lens inward on my subjective experience instead of it always being outward. And that's what I help you do. So in the bliss science method, we look at helping you develop authentic personal power that doesn't come from trying to control everything with your mind. Um, we look at relational intelligence and we look at wise and sacred sexuality. And some of the aspects of developing authentic personal power are noticing. If you're relating to the world as a conscious creator of your life, or as a victim in victim mentality. If you're being totally honest with yourself about what you want and who you are. If you're developing secure attachment to yourself, if you have self-compassion and self-worth. And I have to say that. So that's the first pillar. It's really actually beautiful and fun. I know it might sound like a lot of things, but I'm just giving you examples of some of what we work with. Depends on what you bring. It's actually fun and beautiful to do this work. Um, the second pillar, relational IQ. Relational intelligence I help you develop emotional intelligence. Great communication skills so that you get what you want with your partner. She understands you, you feel heard, and you don't have to worry about upsetting her. Um, you learn each other's operating manuals. So many of us were taught to be passive in relationships and then complain about what we're not getting, or we think that the other person should just know. But that is not true at all. In modern relating, you have to teach your partner what you're operating manual is and then learning to have great boundaries. So many men I work with really love women and really care and they become nice guys, however, so they're bending over backwards to please her and not having any boundaries of their own. This leads to resentment that pushes her away, and it also leads to her not respecting you and killing the passion. Um, and then we look at bringing the lens of curiosity to your relationship instead of having to always know the answer.

Jessica Gold:
You can just be like, tell me more about that. I actually don't know what to do here. And then in the third pillar, why is in sacred sexuality? Oh, this changed my life so profoundly. So many men I work with are stuck in linear models of sex that it's just like a one, two, three, four, and it always goes in a straight line. You always do the same things, and they're afraid that, you know, they'll be criticized by women, or she won't like it or she won't have the pleasure she wants. And thank you so much for caring about that, about women's pleasure. That's amazing. And I want to give you permission to play, to get it wrong, to have it not always be hot and have it be a collaborative effort together. And I also want to show you how to develop, um, the your own erotic life not dependent on women. And I had to do this too. So how to let in the sensory pleasure of life in every moment through your senses, um, instead of relating to pleasure as something bad, relating it, relating to it as which is what science says essential for our happiness and quality of life. Um, so those are a few of the things just to flesh out the three pillars again, authentic personal power, relational intelligence, and wise and sacred sexuality.

Daniel Aaron:
So what I understand then is this is a 21 year program that you've created.

Jessica Gold:
Um.

Daniel Aaron:
No, I'm joking, of course, though, as you say that, I'm like, oh my goodness. And that gives me a beautiful reflection. Like I've been into personal and spiritual growth for about 30 years now. And, and everything you said, I'm like, okay, I have some awareness, some skill, and there's plenty of room for me to grow in every one of those components of the curriculum there.

Jessica Gold:
Um, yeah. And I want to say, like, it's not about getting somewhere, right? Like the growth is the the goal. And I really do mean that, like, I will be peeling away layers for the rest of my life. And I find that to be fun. It makes life interesting. You don't need to beat yourself up because like, oh, I don't have perfect like erotic life or something like that. That, that, um, is counterproductive. But honestly, it takes six months. Truly and truly a good six months of dedication. And you can tip these things. Right? And then it just flows from there. Um, you know, some of my clients stay for a year or two years because they love having me in their back pocket. So you get direct access to me and we have an ongoing conversation, and they just absolutely love having me there to help them, you know, relate to women skillfully with as much pleasure as possible. But honestly, I've seen such awesome results in six months.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. And, you know, my sense is the the world is speeding up, right? We are continuing to stand on the shoulders of the people before us, even as you gave us sort of the evolution of, of tantra. Like it moves faster. Right? We're getting wiser as a as a culture.

Jessica Gold:
I hope so. I think some of us are. Some of us seem intent on, um, you know, closing in and being less curious. Right. There's a big divide there for sure.

Daniel Aaron:
For sure. Um, Charles Dickens words are always true and always true. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Right? So let's I mean, there's so much to speak about and talk about with all of that you just shared, though, if it's okay with you, let's zoom in into the third pillar and talk about orgasm. Right. Because that's always an interesting topic. Yeah, it's always an interesting topic. And I think one that's charged, has shame, has opportunities for liberation, can be misunderstood. There's a lot of different thoughts and approaches on it. Um, is that okay?

Jessica Gold:
Yeah, absolutely. We can definitely talk about that.

Daniel Aaron:
My wheelhouse. Yeah. Let's bring it on. Okay. So, um, well, actually, this is kind of a weird thing. I never, never thought of it this way, but what what is orgasm and what's the importance of it? Would you say that?

Jessica Gold:
Sure. Yeah, we can start there. So. I really like to use the words of one of my teachers, Leila Martin, who says that orgasm is pleasure, expansion and a change in consciousness. Mm. Three of those happening together. Now, some might argue it could just be pleasure and expansion. I think it sometimes is. Anyway, I don't really care what the definition is. Um, what I'm interested in is. There's like a gateway. There is a certain loss of control. You have to be willing to do a certain messiness and surrender, uh, at least for women and for men to have a full body energy orgasms. And that is such a deep path to walk, um, especially for me, who's always interested in controlling things and like, mentally forcing and making stuff happen by tightening. Um, I think allowing ourselves to zoom out from intercourse and standard ways of orgasm and getting curious and being like, huh? What other ways can I run a pleasure through my body? Allows orgasm to be like this whole playground of of possibilities. Now, I think one of the things that one of the harms that neo tantra did, and there were a lot of harms caused by neo tantra, because when you take part of a spiritual tradition and you extract it from the guardrails and the grounding and the oversight, things can get really fucking weird. And they did. Mhm. Um, but one of the things that it did was it sort of enshrined orgasm as the most important thing in sex. And I think that does a disservice to all of us. Um. For example, I work with a lot of men who have sexual shame. So contrary to popular understanding of men and women, there are many men who really want emotional connection with their partner and who struggle to desire sex as much as their female partner. Mm. Um, especially there's men who struggle with challenges with erections. And one of them, he came to me and he said, like, I'm tired of being feeling stressed out about whether whether or not I'm going to be able to get hard. I just want to be able to have a sexual experience that doesn't have to involve orgasm, but that I still feel satisfied and fulfilled by. And I think that inquiry is so liberating, and I would like to see more of that for everyone. Um, it's a little bit counterintuitive because women forever have been saying focus on female orgasm. So we I also want that to happen because throughout history that was ignored. So it's a both and proposition here. Um, let me see. Am I answering your question?

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah. You know, I think part of my experience and part of what my own personal liberation was through, through various aspects of tantra was like. It's okay to talk about this stuff. Right, right, right. Like, I mean, I remember first learning that and then and then like, the first time I was with a partner and I was like, I'm going to talk about what's going on right now that feels so wrong and so scary. But, you know, once we opened it up, it was like, ah, what a relief. So in some ways, you know, that's that's part of what's going on for me now is like, hey, let's just bring this out into the light, right?

Jessica Gold:
Yes. And that so that is part of what was awesome about living in a community where we talked about this. I couldn't believe it. But we openly at lunch, you know, would just talk about orgasms or sex or energy and stuff like that. And I it changed everything. Um, and learning neo tantra also allowed me to become like a nerd about sex and just be awkward and study it and get curious and do experiments that fail, um, and be able to just stop and be like, hey, what are you feeling? Or what do you want right now? Right? Like, it doesn't have to be this one smooth thing. And I know a lot of men are really terrified that if they don't do it exactly right, she'll not want you anymore or not want to have sex with you again, or even less than she already does. But I promise you that if you bring it into the light and give each other permission to relax and be awkward and play, that, it will make it so much better. Mm. Um, and. That's also the benefit if you don't have a community handy of people just talking openly about sex, it's helpful to work with a practitioner. And this is part of what I love, is to be the one to bring you that permission and to give you that example of like, hey, I'm totally comfortable talking about this. I love talking about this, and I hope you get that transmission from me to empower you to bring that to your life.

Daniel Aaron:
Mm. Beautiful. Thank you. Okay, so let me. I see we're running out of time, and I want to, um, ask a little bit more on this specifically, and then we'll see what happens. There's, you know, there's like. Yeah, part of what you described is that there's been in my lifetime anyway, I've seen this sort of liberation of women's orgasms. Right. And I've seen so much, um, so much beauty in the tantra worlds I've in been in where, you know, women who were not able to orgasm got to the place where they could. Right. And that's so beautiful. Right. And we know there's this societal holy grail of multiple orgasms. Right? Then on the flip side, there's, I think, some challenging confusion for men because there's this one. There's the, the fear of, we call it premature orgasm. Right. Then there's this I don't think it's well known, but there's somewhat known thing, like a lot of men believe. You know better that I don't orgasm. I shouldn't orgasm, right. And of course, there are deeper roots to that and benefits and philosophies and all that. And then there's another school that's not spoken about much. I don't know many people that actually suggest the healthiest thing in a relationship is for neither partner to orgasm. Sure. Yeah. So what's the right answer, doctor? Jessica?

Jessica Gold:
Oh, such a great question. You know, I am not interested in going to extremes in my work. Um, I'm also not interested in prescribing what I think is best for you. Mhm. Um, I'm here to support you in discovering, you know, what is calling to you. Mhm. For me. What I've learned from my spiritual practice of classical tantra is to just notice, like where what are our tendencies, what are our habits, and what would it be like if we antedated those? So if you are always focused on ejaculation, what would it be like to not focus on that for a while? Or if you have a very strict practice of never ejaculating, which I don't recommend? Um, what would it be like to loosen that? Like what? What? And so we always just look at where have we become calcified or rigid and where do we need more energy, more curiosity, more play? Um, and as far as the school where no one should orgasm, listen, like, you can cherry pick research to support anything these days. So if that's your game and if that's working for you in your relationship, then by all means. But again, I'm not here to go to extremes. I think that what is going on is that what we're asking for from relationships today is different than in any other time in human history. And this is known like we've never before asked to be in a love, a romantic love partnership where we are raising children, both of us working and trying to keep passion and being primary lovers with each other over decades. That is a completely new thing. And so there's lots of people who are trying to figure out how to make this work, uh, with all kinds of different fringe solutions to that. And humans are incredibly diverse. If I've learned being a practitioner, you know, a coach. For the past ten years, I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of men, couples and women. And what I've learned is that humans are incredibly diverse in how we relate in our sexuality. And I really don't think it's wise to have a one size fits all way to go.

Daniel Aaron:
It's awesome. I love that right? Everybody is different. And I also love what the way you spoke about the, you know, the tendency and the antidote. Because for me, part of what that. Implies and connects to is that. Life is always unfolding, right? And if we've gotten calcified in your terms, if we've gotten stuck or reached a limit over here, oh, how would we grow if that loosens up? Right. And if we go over here, how would we grow there. Because there's there's always more. Yeah. Beautiful. Mhm. All right. Well and uh if I'm remembering correctly you have a free gift for our audience. Is that true.

Jessica Gold:
Yes, absolutely. I have many free, um, free things that you can study. I think the one that I'm offering here is the neo tantra, how to incorporate neo tantra into your life. Now, it is a much more deeper and insightful guide and probably different than anything you ever imagined. Yeah. The manual. You always wanted to introduce neo tantra into your life, so definitely check that out. And please do read it and write to me and let me know what you thought and what you're going to be using. And what was also like, oh hell no! Ha! I'd love to hear what you think. And this is from my ten years of tantric study and practice.

Daniel Aaron:
Beautiful. Okay. And so, uh, the, the URL, the web address for that's on the, uh, on the screen right now, though, if you are listening and not watching, I'm gonna read it out for you right now. It's bliss. Dash science.com/neotantra neo tantra. Super cool. Thank you for that. I mean goodness that's a manual that I certainly didn't get when I came into this earth at school or from my parents.

Jessica Gold:
Right. It's definitely my number one most downloaded free gift. So check it out.

Daniel Aaron:
Cool. Thank you. All right. And I think Jessica, that brings us Doctor Jessica to our last question. So sad. We're going to have to do 40 more shows to talk about all the juicy things here. Um, the big question that I have for you. Yes. And it's a big question, because clearly you have learned and experienced so much and you have so much to offer, though when I ask you now to boil that down, to distill it, to bring it down to one thing, if you had one, one thing to offer to help people to live their most vibrant, thriving life, what's the one thing that you that you suggest?

Jessica Gold:
Um, I would say get curious about your experience of life instead of relating to yourself with blame, shame, or judgment. What if you could just ask yourself, what is wise about this?

Daniel Aaron:
Mm. Beautiful. I love that curiosity. Skilled the cat. Right. So it's absolutely one of the most fundamental aspects of a good life, a vibrant life.

Jessica Gold:
I had not heard that one yet.

Daniel Aaron:
Excellent. So, Doctor Jessica one, not only thank you for being here, but thank you for the courage that you that you had to make that journey from your head into your heart and body right to to face all that you had to face to make that transition and then to bring your, you know, uh, can I say obsessive nature, your, your study nature, your deep dive nature into something that's so powerful and meaningful and beneficial to you and all of us and for being here and, you know, taking this time and sharing it with us.

Jessica Gold:
My pleasure. And thank you for seeing that. It feels really lovely. It's awesome to get to talk to you about these things. Thank you for your thoughtful questions.

Daniel Aaron:
Uh, a pleasure and honor. Awesome. Okay. And y'all, my friends in our audience, thank you. Because guess what? You are the heroes of this adventure. You are not only interested in vibrant living, you're doing something about it. Oh, by the way, do something more, right? Like, beyond just learning the stuff, what can you play with? What can you try? What can you study? Certainly grabbing Doctor Jessica's manual would be a great first step. There's so much there though, and please I hope you will join us again soon. I love that you all are here. Super grateful to be with you. Thank you, I love you. See you soon. Aloha! Mahalo for tuning in to the Art of Vibrant Living show y'all! I'm Daniel Aaron and may you live with great vibrancy.

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