Andy Nguyen and Yenukwa Kombian are the co-founders of Kings of Hearts, an organization committed to cultivating heart-based leaders. With 8 years of experience, they specialize in men’s leadership training and facilitate transformative men’s groups and retreats. Their work is rooted in the leadership values of awareness, embodiment, and integrity, empowering men to lead with authenticity, emotional intelligence, and a deeper connection to themselves and others.

On this episode, we cover:

• Men’s Isolation: a huge issue men are facing today.
• A peek into what we do in our men’s groups and why it is so impactful.
• The three pillars of men’s leadership training. 
• How Andy and Yenukwa found themselves doing “men’s work”. 
• How Andy emerged from being a participant into a leader.
• Men’s groups: The power of being seen with all one’s flaws and shadows, and being supported
• The challenges of offering authentic feedback to other men
• The “Miracle Zone” of personal growth.
• Osho’s dynamic meditation, the controversy around him, and useful practices he taught
• Embodying the Conscious King Archetype
• How to lead without making it about you
• The importance of accountability in leadership. 
• Emotional self-awareness and the importance of community.
• The Work: Men’s group in prison, and how we are not all that different from those men.
• Men’s big emotions: Need a container. 
• The importance of men’s groups that go inward.
• What Andy and Yenukwa recommend for men who are just starting out in this kind of work.

Links from this episode:

Kings Hearts website

@kingsofhearts on Instagram

Kings of Hearts Podcast

KOH Retreat Nov 1-3 2024

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GS Youngblood is the author of “The Masculine in Relationship” which offers a model for conscious masculinity. With The Masculine Blueprint, GS teaches men  to become grounded in their own power while also staying in relationship with their feminine partner. 

GS teaches that many relationship problems are actually rooted in a lack of “Relational Masculinity” which is a combination of groundedness, leadership, and relational skills. He joins me on the show to discuss these topics. 

On this episode, we talk about:

• Complacency in Relationships:
• Men’s complacency in relationships to avoid becoming complacent.
• The importance of being in “directive energy”.
• Leadership in Relationships:
• Challenges in nurturing leadership roles.
• Making decisions without always feeling compelled to do so.
• The importance of attunement to your partner when making decisions.

• Creating Emotional Safety for your partner

• The importance of self-examination and assessment - humility.

• Receiving feedback from partners.
• Structure in Relationships
• Internal and External Structure
• Setting boundaries.
• Conflict resolution rules.
• Taking emotional leadership.

• The need for intentional work on emotional intelligence in men.
• Operating Styles: Differences between doer/thinker and feeler modes.
• Switching to a feeler mode for nourishing relationships.
• Embodiment and meditation tips from GS. Focusing on physical sensations versus stopping thoughts during meditation.

• Breath Work and Movement recommendations from GS and Ben:

• Three Elements of The Masculine Blueprint:
  • Respond vs. React.
  • Provide Structure.
  • Create Safety.
  • The results: Groundedness, clarity, boundaries, emotional and physical safety in relationships.

Links from this episode:

GS Youngblood’s book: "The Masculine in Relationship."

GS’s course: "The Art of Relational Masculinity."

GS Youngblood’s Live Workshops 

GS on IG

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Dr. Anthony Balduzzi is a distinguished researcher and three time guest on the podcast. Recently he has been digging into the biological effects of the electromagnetic spectrum, and finding out how modern electromagnetic fields can damage living tissue. What he has uncovered will make even the most skeptical listeners think differently.

In this episode, Balduzzi describes the harmful effects of EMFs and shares practical ways we can all reduce our exposure.

Here’s what we cover on this episode:

• An overview of the electromagnetic spectrum, and where cell phones and wifi fit in.
• EMF sensitivities and allergies. 
• How electricity works in our bodies, and how that may interact with other electric fields
• The mechanism by which practices like earthing can have significant health benefits.
• How our bodies use electric fields to regulate, among other things, the distribution of minerals
• Relationship between electric frequencies and proper functioning of mitochondrial DNA
• Effect of EMF on bee biology and behavior
• Comparing non-ionized and ionized radiation
• How non-ionizing radiation can damage DNA.
• History of lobbying affecting national telecom tower installation laws
• Difference between 5G, and the ‘5G’ on new wifi routers
• Pulses of radiation are more harmful to our bodies than continuous fields
• Effects of proximity to frequency emitters such as phones and wifi
• Effects of bluetooth earphones
• Starlink radiation
• Benefits of earthing, contacting ground with bare skin
• The different options for blocking or reducing EMF exposure in your home.

Links from this episode:

Dr. Balduzzi’s Website: Fit Father Project

Radio wave packet resource

EMF Reader Ben is using

Book Highlight: "The Invisible Rainbow" by Arthur Furstenberg explores the historical correlation between major pandemics and the rollout of EMF technology. A must-read for those curious about the hidden layers of our modern environment.

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Alison Armstrong has been teaching and speaking publicly about men and relationships for 3 decades. She is a thoughtful and inquisitive individual whose curiosity led her to a profound revelation about human behavior and relationships. Through her deep contemplation and examination of male development, she realized that men often react independently of women's influences, shaped instead by their developmental stages. 

Her insights shed light on the misconceptions women might have, believing that a man's dedication to his career or personal goals could signify a lack of love. Alison's keen realization emphasizes that men and women's actions and priorities are influenced by different developmental needs, rather than personal affection or commitment. Her work aims to foster better understanding and communication between genders.

In this episode, Alison and I explore the complexities of conflict resolution, emphasizing the importance of curiosity over false conclusions. We discuss the evolution of the men's movement, strategies for handling relationships, and the power dynamics between genders. Alison shares her own transformative experience of challenging negative perceptions of men and highlights the critical role of empathy and understanding in nurturing strong, healthy relationships.

On this episode, we discuss:

• How men and women deal differently with emotions.-
• How women can get what they need while empowering men.
• How she became a champion for men, and a helper in relationships between men and women.
• Frog farming vs. discovering princes.
• Helping women understand stages of men’s development.
• How she learned to stop diminishing men, and how that changed her relationships.
• Ways that women justify disempowering men.
• Moving ‘from furious to curious’.
• Learning to improve communication.
• Dropping over-fixation on boundaries and leaning in with curiosity.
• Avoiding labelling each other.
• Being ‘pro-choice orgasm’
• Tips on really listening to each other, and common traps of not listening.
• The importance of making friends outside your relationship.
• How her work has changed over the years.
• Her thoughts on different waves of feminism.

Links from this episode:

Alison’s website

Alison’s Instagram

Alison’s Youtube

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's episode, we’re diving deep into the world of sacred plant medicines, indigenous wisdom, and conscious parenting with the extraordinary Vivien Vilela. Join us as we explore the delicate art of harvesting peyote, the spiritual importance of maintaining a respectful relationship with the earth, and the dangers of commodifying sacred plants. Vivien shares her journey from the party scene to a profound spiritual awakening. We discuss the significance of ceremony and proper guidance when working with plant medicines, and we specifically discuss Peyote.

We also discuss the visionary Aniwa Gathering, a transformative event founded by Vivien, which brings together indigenous leaders from around the world to share sacred ceremonies and wisdom without the use of entheogenic medicines. Learn about the critical need for sustainable practices, the impact of screen addiction on children's development, and how to raise children naturally in a city environment.

Ben and Vivien also reflect on their personal experiences, the importance of spiritual initiations, and the lifelong journey of personal growth and healing. Whether you're a parent, a seeker of spiritual wisdom, or someone curious about indigenous practices, this episode offers valuable insights into living a conscious, connected life. Tune in for an enlightening conversation that promises to leave you inspired and informed.

 On this episode, we discuss:

• Harvesting and use of Peyote properly

• • Destruction and Disruption of Peyote Plants
  • Efforts to educate on responsible harvesting

• Indigenous Cultural Practices

• • Emphasis on reciprocity and respectful relationships with the earth
  • Rituals such as fasting, offerings, and spiritual connection

• Commodification and Misappropriation

• • Concerns over sacred plant medicines being commodified
  • Importance of traditional initiations and proper practices
  • The dangers of recreational use without proper guidance
  • Adherence to indigenous practitioner wishes

• Ceremony and Reciprocity

• • Knowledgeable Practitioners and Offerings
  • Importance of sitting in ceremony with experienced practitioners
  • Physical and spiritual offerings
  • Reciprocity and its significance

• Aniwa Gathering

• • Focus on spiritual connection without entheogenic medicines

• • Use of natural herbs like cacao, tobacco, and sage

• • Raising funds for indigenous projects through the Huya Aniwa foundation

• Peyote’s Spiritual Significance

• • Description of peyote and its roots in Mexico and Texas

• • Its role in connecting individuals to their true selves and ancestral memory

• • Importance of using peyote in the right ceremonial context

• Indigenous wisdom on parenting 

• • Lack of initiation rituals in western societies

• • Approaches to avoid screen time and societal pressures

• • Emphasis on discipline with love and fostering unconditional love and respect

• • Traditional midwifery and keeping children close

• • Nurturing imagination and avoiding artificial toys

• • Faster brain development in indigenous children in nature

• Challenges in City Environments

• • Pushback from society and finding natural stimuli
  • The impact of screens on children’s emotional balance and ability to be present
  • Concerns about excessive screen time

• • Conscious living as parents

• Personal Growth and Spiritual Awakening

• • Vivien’s Story

• • Journey from party scene and drug use to spiritual awakening

• • Spiritual session leading to significant growth

Aniwa Gathering

Aniwa’s main site

Aniwa on instagram

Hyua Aniwa

Aniwa on Youtube

Ben’s Freedom From Addiction Circle

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Charlie Bloom and his wife Linda have been writing and teaching about relationships for decades, and he joins me on the heels of the release of their recent book “An End To Arguing: 101 Valuable Lessons For All Relationships”

We discuss these points and more:

-Differences are unavoidable; conflict is not.

-Your partner thinks differently than you.

-Ways to free yourselves from impasses.

-It’s often better to just drop a fight until your heads are cooler.

-Deepening a relationship beats winning an argument.

-Speak according to the receptivity of your partner.

-Learn to see the fears of yourself and your partner.

-Learn to share responsibility for problems with your partner.

-Coming out of victim scripts into co-creation.

-Different relationships have different kinds of conflict.

-Are there couples who never fight?

-Learning how to be in conflict.

-‘Sudden’ endings to relationships are often years in the making.

-Translating relational teachings into action.

-Losing the hope that you’ll never get triggered

-The biases of friends supporting us in relationships.

Links: 

Charlie and Linda Bloom’s website

The Creating Conscious Love Course 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jordan Gray is a relationship coach who has written hundreds of articles that have been read by over 250 million people worldwide. He has worked with tens of thousands of clients via his programs, groups, and 1-on-1 coaching. 

He joins me on this episode to talk about how to get the most out of life as the challenges land on our doorstep. 

We discuss:

• Moving from bachelor to committed relationship
• Marriage has actually been great
• Dating takes a lot of energy!
• Finding someone who’s also a giver
• Each relationship is different, so relationship advice can’t be universal
• Look for a counterpoint to where you and your partner tend to go too far, for example with too much or too little structure.
• Fears of going into marriage: "what if things get worse and worse and I’m stuck?"
• The practice of addressing troubles in the relationship rather than just enduring them.
• Phases of life: dating and deeper relationships.
• Thresholds of deepening into a relationship.
• Preparing for parenthood.
• The benefits of becoming a generalist, of getting off the computer and chopping wood.
• City life vs. country life
• Giving up financial opportunities for the sake of heart and happiness.
• Relationship with money: between the poles of demonizing it and making it one’s god
• The importance of choosing friends who support your objectives.
• Solo therapy compared to group therapy.
• In parenting, offering children both safety and adventurous risk.
• How it can help children to see their parents work responsibly.
• How being a parent can limit available work time, but make it more potent.
• Screen addiction and parenthood.
• Countering screen addiction with finding a deeper purpose.

Links:

Jordan Gray’s website

Productivity course

The Level-Up Your Relationships Workshop

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Manesh Girn is a postdoctoral neuroscientist and popular science content creator specializing in the neuroscience of psychedelic drugs. He currently works at the University of California, San Francisco, alongside psychedelic research pioneer Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, where he conducts research on the neural mechanisms underlying the psychedelic experience and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

In addition to his research, Manesh runs a popular digital platform on Instagram and YouTube called "The Psychedelic Scientist”, where he shares the latest findings in psychedelic science in a digestible and easy to understand way. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Manesh's journey from head to heart, from bypassing emotions to inhabiting them.
• Emotion centred, body-focused therapy (beating pillows with weapons.)
• How Manesh got his start in psychedelic research.
• How an early psychedelic experience opened Manesh up to different takes on reality.
• Finding the support to go beyond intellect.
• The various healing/transformational modalities of:
  • breathwork
  • men’s groups
  • psychedelics
  • conscious relationship training
• How different psychedelics affect our brains differently.
• Neuroplasticity: how psychedelics can help change thought patterns.
• Psychedelics for those with with trauma and depression.
• The importance of support in psychedelic journeys
• Setting down a belief that life is intrinsically unsafe.
• Learning to recognize people and situations that are safe.
• Integrating psychedelic experiences for lasting change.
• The importance of intention before and after a psychedelic journey.
• Psychedelics as an aid to innovation.
• Psychedelics for people in positions of power.

Manesh’s Youtube

Manesh’s website

Manesh’s Instagram

Arka Brotherhood Men’s Community

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Groves, founder of Create The Love is a relationship expert, but he also believes in freedom of speech and thought, and is an advocate of personal sovereignty. During the recent pandemic, he began sharing what he was seeing in the people and institutions around him. His sharing on @itsmarkgroves and The Mark Groves Podcast was controversial, because any dissenting opinion at that time was censored and considered to be “unsafe”.

I personally appreciated the discourse that Mark was bringing, as I lacked the courage to be as bold as he was, despite agreeing with many of his questions. On this episode of the podcast, I discuss the pandemic, the lockdowns, and the hysteria that took over our society at that time.

In this episode, we dive into:

• The dangers of framing everything as a safety issue.

• Dehumanizing people during the pandemic.
• Data-based arguments about COVID-19 vaccines.
• Mass formation psychosis.
• Why PCR tests shouldn’t be used for diagnostic purposes.
• Unconsciously believing that healthy people are biological threats. 
• The wide scope of misinformation spread throughout the pandemic. 
• The anxiety, fear, and hysteria spearheading pandemic behavior.
• Family conflicts and getting “canceled” over COVID-19 dissent.
• COVID-19 and masks as an ideology vs evidence-based.

• Natural immunity is at least equal to vaccinated immunity.

• The exploitation of psychology and weaponization of belonging.

• Normalizing controlling people’s bodily autonomy.
• Censoring people, governments spreading misinformation, and the lack of critical thinking during the pandemic.
• Language is the first step to dehumanizing people in an out-group.
• Violating informed consent when getting vaccinated.
• How do we prevent divisiveness in the future?
• Healing begins with the acceptance of reality (that the unvaccinated were marginalized and demonized while being left out of society and losing their jobs, while the vaccine that was promised to end the pandemic didn’t, and Omicron did)
• Accountability without annihilation.
• Learning to speak your truth despite the inconvenience.
• Fighting for the freedom to disagree.

Links from this Episode

• Part 1 of This Episode
• Mark’s Website
• Mark’s Instagram 
• Masks
• Immunity
• Mass Formation Psychosis

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Groves is the founder of Create The Love, and host of the Mark Groves Podcast. Mark is on a mission to bridge the academic and the human, inviting people to explore the good, the bad, the downright ugly, and the beautiful sides of connection. His work empowers people to step into their power, transform the way they relate to themselves and others, and create authentic change in their lives.

Mark and I sit down on the coast of Tofino, Canada for a special two-part episode.

In part 1, we talk about fatherhood and parenthood. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Fatherhood as a deeper window to look at where there is still work to be done on oneself.
• After having a child, what is most important?
• Old wounds and patterns that tend to arise during parenthood. 
• How intimacy dynamics tend to shift after having a child.
• The reasons why an uncomfortable number of couples divorce after the first year of a child’s life.
• Nurturing your feminine energy as a man. 
• Accessing discipline and discernment as a father.
• Upholding the ethical obligation to be successful. 
• Being purpose-driven as a man.
• The paradox of choice.
• The downsides to technology and access to mass communication.
• Consciously choosing every aspect of your life.
• Embracing a cultural initiation into manhood.
• What is toxic masculinity and why does it exist?
• Valuing mother and father roles in the family.
• Inflated egos and immaturity.
• What comes after ego dissolution?
• The benefits of taking time off work to support your new family.
• How fathers can support their own health after having a kid.
• The importance of talking to other men after having a child.
• The gift of being a parent and the gifts you receive from your child.
• And a question for Mark: Now that you have a kid, is it worth it? Would you recommend it?

Links from this Episode:

• Part 2 of This Episode (on C0.vid Hysteria) will come out in 2 weeks and links will be updated at that time.
• Mark’s Website
• Mark’s Instagram 
• Mark’s Podcast 
• Mark on YouTube
• Conscious Relationship Council - a live 12-week relationship training for men
• Arka Brotherhood - men's work.

Previous episodes with Mark:

• Evolving Man Podcast - Holding Space with Mark Groves
• Evolving Man Podcast - To Be A Man with Mark Groves

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Todd Youngs has been in continuous recovery from severe addiction and alcoholism since 2009. His personal path to recovery involved a combination of 12 step work, and his work with Ayahuasca. Todd now works intensively with others to help them achieve a life of satisfying and meaningful sobriety. His approach is eclectic and holistic drawing on the 12 Steps, CBT, MEI, and Mindfulness practice in order to deeply address the bio/psycho/social/spiritual aspects of addictive disorders.

Todd has worked extensively with Ayahuasca for over 14 years within a variety of communal and personalized settings. He is focussed on building bridges between the older treatment paradigm and newly emerging modalities that utilize Ayahuasca. He is the co-founder of Natura Care Programs.

Todd is often heard fondly referring to his own personal path of recovery as AAA+, or “Ayahuasca Assisted Alcoholics Anonymous:  A Roadside Service for broken-down, drug-addicted hippies”.

In this episode we dive into:

• How humans explore drugs to satisfy creative and spiritual yearnings. 
• The dark and light sides of psychedelics. 
• Todd’s wild addiction recovery story.
• Using pharmaceuticals to manage side effects of drug and alcohol use.
• Connecting to something bigger than yourself through ayahuasca.
• Todd’s journey of brewing his own ayahuasca in his mother’s basement.
• How ayahuasca helped Todd through 12-step recovery.
• The necessity of connection and accountability during recovery. 
• Family members seeing a change in Todd & Ben after ayahuasca journeys. 
• Healthy ways to incorporate the use of an altered state to transform your life.
• Therapeutic opportunities when taking psychedelics.
• Psychedelics vs therapy. 
• Are psychedelics the right path for you?
• Breaking down what the 12-week Natura Care Program looks like and why the 12 week model is advantageous.
• True recovery: Healing the root causes of addiction.
• Finding centeredness, calmness, joyfulness.
• Can you actually trust plant medicines?
• Ultra-conservatism vs. open-mindedness in recovery circles.
• Psychedelics in Recovery.

Links from this episode

• Natura Care Programs
• Psychedelics in Recovery
• Todd’s Website
• Ben’s Freedom from Addiction Circle
• Evolving Man Brotherhood Free-Trial on Circle

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.