The Sex Reimagined Podcast

Alison Armstrong 1.0: Dating After Loss | From Grieving Widow to Best Sex Ever in 3 Years | #171

• Leah Piper and Dr. Willow Brown • Season 4 • Episode 171

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At 63, world renowned relationship expert Alison Armstrong is living proof that your best love story can happen at any age. In this candid conversation, she shares how at 61, three years after losing her husband of nearly three decades, she found herself having the best sex of her life. Today she's living in a guest house called "Harmony" with a man who asks how she can support her each week—a relationship she built using the opposite of what most dating advice teaches.In this revealing conversation with Sex Reimagined hosts Leah Piper and Dr. Willow Brown, Alison shares exactly how she found extraordinary love again through radical authenticity.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• The shocking truth: At 61, Alison found herself having the best sex of her life, three years after becoming a widow

• Revolutionary dating strategy: She sent her erotic blueprint results to Dan before they even met in person

• The "B List" method: 42 specific requirements about who someone needs to BE for the relationship to work (he took notes)

• "Fly your freaky flag": Lead with your authentic self from day one—advertise what you think they'll break up with you about

• The daily "lie down" practice: Simple intimacy ritual that transformed their connection without pressure for sex

• Boundary breakthrough: Clear requirements create more safety and intimacy, not less—"wrinkles are irrelevant to pleasure"

• Living separately together: They're in each other's space only by invitation, 90 steps apart in perfect harmony

Links & Resources Mentioned In The Episode Can Be Found HERE On The Website


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Willow:

Welcome. We are so honored and so thrilled. Our next guest is one of the biggest influences in both Leah and I's career. And so we're so thrilled to have her. Alison Armstrong, if you don't know Alison Armstrong, you are gonna be so excited to learn about her. She is an author, an educator, and the creator of the wildly acclaimed understanding men and Understanding Women, which was satisfying, so influential for both Leah and I. these are very powerful transformational online series. so I highly recommend that you check those out. Alison is so incredible. She sheds light on the fundamental differences in the ways that men and women think act and communicate. So she's really, really known for her insight, her sense of humor and her ability to articulate the human experience and the predicament of gender. So you're gonna have fun with us today.

Announcer:

Welcome to the Sex Reimagined Podcast, where sex is shame-free and pleasure forward. Let's get into the show.

Willow:

We're excited to have you. Welcome, Alison. Such a pleasure.

Alison:

Thank you. I am really glad to be here. And I love the title very big on imagination. Combating hallucination. Very, very just did last week I just did a program on that called Thrive Your Life. Cool. Love the imagination for hallucination. So I I am, I am thrilled. I'm

Leah:

thrilled to be with you.

Willow:

I love it.

Leah:

Great. So I'm really curious, Alison, we've Will, and I've both done a lot of your work. I started off like many people who've done your work doing. celebrating men, satisfying women that we, wow. You know, it was so great. And then continuing on to do, men and sex and understanding Women and the Queen course and many of your audio programs. One of the things I so loved it was so impactful for me was when you would have a, a panel of men of all different ages come at the end, and we got to submit our questions and hear from their heart at these different stages of development. Really got some gems from that. And, you know, I'm curious. You've had this beautiful career. You've affected so many people. What are you excited about right now? Where's the, where is your work flourishing? What's got you feeling alive?

Alison:

Oh my gosh. Um, okay, so since you were there, right. Celebrating men's Satisfying women was the first iteration. And one way to think about it is the title itself was meant to screen women out who were so angry at men that I wasn't prepared to interact with it. I, I dealt with my own, my own anger, my own hatred, but I wasn't prepared for that. Yeah. So, and women with celebrating men, right? Like celebrating men, what sort to celebrate and it like protected the workshop for the people who were like celebrating. You can do that. No one know how to do that. Right. So you're smart. Yeah. It was a, it was a screener, you know, when we started in 1995 and now I've come like the whole journey of um, you could say poking the bearer, you know, I poke the bear. So, um, using anger to get what you need. Right, right. Just to attract women who use anger to get what they need. Yeah. So I can tell them. Right. Doesn't work. Right. Or why you can't trust men to tell the truth. Well, because we teach honest men, it's not worth it. Don't go there. Right.

Willow:

Yeah.

Alison:

And, I'm gonna do a free, uh, a free webinar on when is Narcissism real? Mm.

Willow:

Oh, good. I can't wait for that.

Alison:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because it, it's the, it's the mud slinger of the moment

Willow:

that

Alison:

one gets thrown around towards everybody. I'm, it's worse than mud too. I think it's, well, I could cry about it. It's so damaging and it doesn't leave anybody more effective mm-hmm. In dealing with what's really going on. Right. It makes us feel better for a little while, you know, now it's, it's not me, it's them and, but we're not any more effective. So, so I'm heading into stuff like that. And then, yeah. And then it's been about seven years now since I've been working so long on male and female and women and men and estrogen and testosterone and then, and then hunting and gathering mode and. And then even talking about it, are you in a committed state of mind, which will completely shape your perceptions and your relationship to language and feelings? Are you in the open state of mind, which is the opposite, right? State of perception and processing and feelings and communication, all that stuff. So all these different ways that looking at this opposite ness. Right? Um, and then I, and then I got to things that they're, they're not gender, they're human. Mm-hmm. So things like the hierarchy of instincts and um, and competition, for example. And competition is part of being human. I mean, the word survive means to outlive, right? It's a win-lose game. So the competition, how does it express itself as being human, but then it can also be as male and

Leah:

female.

Alison:

And so I caught the embracing being human being. And so Lux, which I did live in 2020, and we thank goodness it was this huge production, right? And I get to keep working with the videos. It's getting better and better and tighter and tighter. And Lux is not about gender. Lux is about human beings. And really, what do extraordinary relationships take? That's, and I mean, you know, from having participated, I have been obsessed with understanding.

Willow:

Mm-hmm.

Alison:

Obsessed. Why, why, why, right. And, but. A different angle than the obsession most human beings have. And that is figuring out why. Right. Everybody does that, but then verifying that

Willow:

it's true.

Alison:

Right? It seems like this is why you would do that. Mm-hmm. Is that why you did that? Right? Yeah. And in the beginning of studying men, I was always wrong. And they were like, they were like, oh God, I would never do anything for that reason. And I'm thinking, well, women do what? Why is that not a good reason? Right. And so, so why, and you know, we have understanding men, understanding women understanding sex. Never say understanding, love and commitment. Right. Well, Lux is actually goes up to could you act in a way that honors yourself and then others without understanding.

Willow:

Hmm.

Alison:

Like, yeah, because we get so stopped. Mm-hmm. By the need to understand. And if we like, just don't understand, I just don't understand. I don't understand why he does that. I don't understand why I do that. Well, there's a point where if, without understanding why, you just interact with what, right. This is the behavior that I don't want in my life. So why somebody does it doesn't really matter. I'm gonna have a boundary there. Anyhow. Whatever reason they do that, there's still gonna be a boundary. Don't do it around me. And so there's this whole Uh hmm. It has so much to do with sex too. When the, I found out this amazing thing, the clear I am about my boundaries, the. And enforce them without condemnation. I'm sure you have a good reason for that, but I'm not gonna have that in my life. Mm. So are you gonna not do that around me or you gonna not be around me?

Willow:

Mm-hmm.

Alison:

It's very simple. It's just very much just boundary, boundary, boundary, and knowing and developing that I am trustworthy for holding my boundaries. And because I'm trustworthy. And this is a amazing paradox, because I've proved to myself I'm trustworthy to honor my own boundaries. I don't have to be on guard.

Willow:

That's right. What

Alison:

Right doesn't boundaries mean on guard? No, it doesn't mean on guard. When you're clear about your boundaries, you can relax. Mm-hmm. And express yourself and enjoy the pleasure of it. And then if something happens that doesn't work, you just go. Oh, not that go. Ouch. Ew. Nah, not me.

Willow:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. And they

Alison:

keep going, right? Yes. So, so I'm super stoked about all of that. I'm gonna do a whole series starting in the fall of all the embracing being human topics, which include the ways to relate to our bodies. Mm-hmm. Um, competition, uh, money and status and, and who we think it's okay to manipulate'cause they don't belong to us. Right. Uhhuh. Yeah. I could just keep going. The list is, the list is very, very long, but it's super fun to contemplate it. And then on top of all that, you didn't know it was gonna be a long answer to this question. On top of all that, the Queen's code book Uhhuh is coming out finally after 10 years. Audio. Oh my goodness.

Leah:

Congratulations.

Willow:

That's amazing. On audio. Audio. Oh, I'm excited. I wanna re-listen. I'm such an auditory learner, so I get a whole nother experience that way.

Alison:

Oh, Willow,

Willow:

are you the reader?

Alison:

My gosh. Yes. Yes, yes. That's great. That's why it takes so long. I wouldn't have anything else. It takes a long time and, well, when I realized, when I finally recorded it,

Leah:

Wow.

Alison:

Was that, uh, I, I, I dunno if you know this about the Queen's Code and Keys, the kingdom I, I, I type, I typed them, but I didn't write them. I, yeah, tell us more about that. Yeah. I literally Sat down, write the book, and the screen opened up. It's like, like, it just like opened up and this movie started playing with these characters, and I'm like,

Willow:

creepy. You channeled it to that. Yeah. Yeah.

Alison:

They live in some other dimension and they're having these lives and that,

Willow:

that's so cool to hear you say that, because I could feel that when I was reading it and I was like, whoa. Where, how, how in the hell did this come through? You know? So that makes a lot of sense. I watched

Alison:

a movie and I tried to figure out, okay, so, so Kimberly's going like this. How do you describe that? Right, right. And, and so what was so weird about it? It's weird, interesting. Weird is all the old English for, I mean, it's foretold weird. Oh, it does?

Willow:

That's interesting. It

Alison:

does. It does. It's actually, it's,

Willow:

that makes a lot of sense actually. That's

Alison:

weird. That's weird. That's weird. Could you stop saying weird? Oh, that's the right. Weird word. And then I looked it up and it said foretold. I'm like, oh, geez. Yeah. Wow. So what's very odd and was odd for me is that as I was recording the audio books starting last September, I, whenever I was recording Claudia's parts, right, the, the teacher, the godmother, the grandmother, right when I was recording her parts, I recorded it the way that I heard it, right when it came through originally, and I was typing. But it wasn't right anymore.

Willow:

Oh,

Alison:

wow. Like, how can it not be right? And so I just tell the sound engineer again, and I do it, it usually took four times and by the time it was right, it was different. And after a while, like I'm, I have chill. Just now going. Okay. It's been a decade since that movie came through and Claudia changed.

Willow:

Mm.

Alison:

How did she change? yeah. How did she change? What changed? What changed? She's, she's more compassionate. Even more compassionate. She's more intent, she's more ruthless when she needs to be. She's more playful. She's more sensual

Willow:

I love it.

Alison:

Yeah. And so as I was doing it, even with the retakes, there were times when I just sobbed. I just, I just broke down and, and just cried and cried and cried. And Greg loved the Queen's code, Greg. Greg knew about the book when we met in 1991, that this was what I had to do. Mm. And not knowing it would take 15 years for me to figure out how to do it. Mm-hmm. Right. And he. What he said about his mission in life is, you know, my mission is to support you in fulfilling your mission. Mm-hmm.

Leah:

And

Alison:

good man. Good man. When he first said that, I said, don't you want, don't you want something bigger? God bless him. He said, have you followed you around lately? Yeah. This is pretty big.

Leah:

Tremendous love story between you and, and Greg.

Alison:

Yeah. So I'm excited about that. And then this is, this is fun to talk about because it's almost three years since Greg went Cosmos is what I call it, Uhhuh. Um, and so this afternoon, you know, I was telling my boyfriend, my boyfriend, my playmate, my lover, about what I was doing this afternoon. Nice. And he's like, he's like, oh, should I, should I stay, should I sit on the couch while I do this? And I'm like, look, I get glowy enough talking about you if you're actually sitting there. No, no, no. This is never gonna work.

Willow:

You won't be able to do the interview. Sweet. That's a, that's a sign of a good boyfriend, a lover friend there.

Alison:

Yeah. Congratulations. I, I didn't know. So all excited about sex imagined It's'cause I. I couldn't, I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't. I I tell him, Dan, you would be a dream come true if I could have dreamt you.

Leah:

Wow.

Alison:

But I couldn't. I, if somebody had said, you know, when you're in your sixties, you're gonna have the best sex of your entire life,

Willow:

you wouldn't have believed. Yeah.

Alison:

Don't people stop that. I can

Leah:

believe it. I love that. I can actually believe that one. Yeah. And I was, I was talking to Dan about it. Right?

Alison:

He's two years older than me. Like, maybe our death, maybe people sex lives wind down because they think they're

Leah:

supposed to.

Alison:

Yeah. Right. And maybe our job is to tell them no.

Leah:

Yeah.

Alison:

D

Leah:

ding.

Alison:

Imagine, imagine no self-consciousness,

Willow:

right?

Alison:

Imagine wrinkles are just like hot. Well, they're just, they're just, they're just not anything.

Willow:

Neither, neither nor there. They're,

Alison:

they're irrelevant to pleasure, love. That's true. Wrinkles

Willow:

are irrelevant to pleasure. Let's, uh, make that a quote on our social.

Leah:

We're gonna, we're gonna create a meme.

Willow:

That's it. Yeah.

Leah:

Wrote a quote of Alison Armstrong. Wrinkles are next. And wrinkles. Yeah.

Willow:

A pleasure. I love that.

Leah:

Next level, we're going next level.

Willow:

What else have you discovered, Alison?

Leah:

Yeah. What else are you learning at this romantic style? Oh my

Alison:

gosh. Oh my gosh. Well, this, this boundary thing and mm-hmm. And flying your flag. Right. And I, I love that you had Ian as part of the summit and erotic blueprints. I mean, they are, to me, they're one of the most important breakthroughs in honoring ourselves.

Willow:

Yeah.

Alison:

Like just the, the, the self-knowledge, self-acceptance. Right. That this is what does it for me and this is what doesn't do it for me. And, and when Dan and I were introduced by one of my students, we started, we couldn't talk for a while in the middle of leading a program. And so we were texting and one of the things that I did was send him the link. Mm-hmm. I sent him two very important links, um, ms jaya.com and the power of when.com, Dr. Michael Bruce's work, and which is also relevant to sex reimagined because it talks about the four different genetic types that determine the release of hormones that are in charge of sleep and focus and sociability and sex drive. And I was always trying to get Greg to have sex like at eight o'clock at night.

Leah:

Oh,

Willow:

interesting. He wasn't into it. Huh?

Leah:

I'm like, give it to me at four. He was, he was at 4:00 PM

Alison:

4:00 PM 4:00 PM He, he, he was, he was a nothing by eight o'clock. Okay. And then, and then he was always trying to get me to have sex at six o'clock in the morning.

Willow:

Yeah. That's not a good time for most women.

Alison:

Well, actually depends. Ooh, it depends. This is actually genetically determined.

Leah:

Okay.

Alison:

So six o'clock is good for me. Six 30, I have the highest levels of melatonin. That's when I'm sleeping. Sleeping. Which I found out that, you know, having sex when you're sleepy is actually really good because your mind doesn't get in away. It's not on, it's not onto commentary and do all that. Ow it's right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sleepy's a great way to ask.

Leah:

I do like a little dreamy, sleepy. Mm-hmm.

Alison:

Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm. But, so, Dr. Michael Bruce's work is like really understanding this. So I sent to Dan the thepowerofwhen.com and msjaiya.com and he sent me back the information like we hadn't met yet. And I knew his erotically great.

Willow:

Ah, there you getting ahead of the game.

Alison:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I, younger women don't need to lead with this so much. Um, but around my age, I was shocked at how many men and women have signed off sex. Mm-hmm. And, and unfortunately for men, it usually happens. They have an incident that they then call erectile dysfunction. They don't know what the dysfunction actually was, and then they get worried. Right. And they get all in their heads and then they're like, let's just be affectionate.

Leah:

So there were

Alison:

men who were signing enough sex because they thought they couldn't win at it.

Leah:

Mm-hmm.

Alison:

But it's because they didn't know, like almost no one knows. We talk about this in understanding women, the role of desire in causing sex to start and causing hotness. Mm-hmm. Right? Like most women are turned on by a man who desires her. Well, guess what? Men are turned on by a woman who desires him. Yeah. And we're so worried about being desirable. Instead of expressing desire, we're actually trying to get something going with that stimulus.

Willow:

Yeah. Yeah.

Alison:

Right. We got

Leah:

it backwards. That's right. It's one of the things that I hear from my male students in relationship. It's one of their biggest complaints is they don't feel desired.

Alison:

Yes. Yes. And the women will have the same complaint. Mm-hmm. I don't feel desired. Mm-hmm. And both are like not expressing desire until it seems like the other person desires them'cause then they won't get rejected. Right.

Willow:

Right.

Alison:

So both are actually withholding the thing that would get the fires starting

Willow:

and what both really want,

Alison:

what both really want. Right. I don't wanna make myself blush too late. Do it.

Leah:

It's so hard. Late kidding. You've

Willow:

already ed out.

Leah:

Let's do it.

Alison:

Come on

Willow:

blush for us.

Alison:

So what if you didn't let the fires go out? Mm-hmm.

Willow:

Right?

Alison:

What if you were like our ancestors and you carry, you know, a little burning ember, a little coal, you know, packed carefully away from one campsite to the next. What if you just, what if, what if having that spark doesn't mean you have to have sex, and therefore you have to clear your schedule and get rid of the kids and do all that stuff. You can just have the spark and you can just, you know, blow the spark from time to time. And when you do that, the experience is, I call it loverness. Do you know I have a lover. I have a lover, whether or not I'm having sex right now.

Willow:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Alison:

Right. There's this sense of loverness, there's that staying that 20 seconds longer to kiss and mean it. Yeah. To to bite that lip. Yeah. I call it Gecko. The first time, the first time Dan kissed me, we just met and he, and we just were so excited to meet each other. Right. I had exchanged all this information. We'd already decided we're exclusively explore this stuff. We're already in love with each other. And, and I, when I saw him, I just, I felt like a reunion and he kissed me and there's this tongue in my mouth and I'm like, ah, tongue. He was, we call it.

Willow:

I love that.

Leah:

Adorable. That, or a little squeeze

Alison:

on the tush, you know, or, yeah. Um, I, I. You know, men are crazy about breasts, and breasts are worth being crazy about. They're wonderful. And, and they men have gotten so much trouble for how they are about breasts. And so they get very tentative. And so I, you know this from having done men and sex, which we now call understanding sex and intimacy. Remember ubs?

Willow:

I don't remember ubs. I don't remember

Leah:

ubs.

Alison:

Ubs. It stands for unlimited

Leah:

Breast feels.

Alison:

Oh, oh UBF's Yes.

Leah:

Oh, I love the covert public UBF's. Yeah. Those are so sexy you guys. The fires burning. Oh my gosh.

Willow:

There's your loveness going on. I love that.

Leah:

Yes. I love the covert pinky panky. Yeah.

Alison:

And it's like feeling down, just flashing. Yes. You

Willow:

know,

Alison:

everyone likes boobs.

Willow:

He's better all of a sudden. Well,

Leah:

you know what that kind of reminds me of is, is I am started my period and I'm having the day of my period where I'm really sensitive. I don't actually want my breasts be touched. My nipples are on high alert.

Willow:

Me too. I'm on the same day, day one. So I

Leah:

love the attitude of being like, have as much as you want whenever you want. But like today, except for today, not well at, I stay in the spirit of that, how do I stay in the spirit of that and still have this sovereignty day?

Alison:

Okay. Well if it's not too much detail, um,

Leah:

is it just the nipple? It's especially the nipple, yeah. And probably like another half a inch around the nipple. So the side boob is totally available.

Alison:

Well, so you could have some fun. You could take like Bambi, Uhhuh, you

Willow:

know, this is the zone. Draw a circle around the areola. Anything outside. Yeah, put the pasties on and go. You can look, it's fair game, but you can only touch around and you gotta touch with a flat palm. No fingertips coming at my boobs today. No pinchers.

Leah:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Willow:

There's one area where they

Leah:

really long corrections. Now there's a

Willow:

good rule of boundaries, right? That's a good way to use your boundaries in that moment. One of the things I learned at some point from a teacher was boundaries are either requests or requirements. So if it's a request, it's like, Hey, I really only want you to touch my breasts this way on day one of my period. But if you don't, I'm still gonna love you and stay with you and it'll be all good. And then a requirement would be, I really need you to only touch my breasts this way on day one of my period. And if you don't follow this requirement, at some point it will be the undoing of this relationship.

Alison:

If I had it all my way. Mm-hmm. Well see. Okay. So this is something that I discovered in the last couple years'cause of one of my students. The just idea, the word need. Right. What do you need? I need the word need. Yeah. Has a lot of charge on it. It does. We're not supposed to need anything. Do we deserve what we need? How do I get what I need? I am. It means I'm weak that I need anything in the first place. That's what most men think. They think it's pathetic to need anything. Uh. There's somewhere between 15 and 20% of men who if you say you need something and you won't die without it, then you're exaggerating or outright lying.

Leah:

Ah-huh.

Alison:

Yeah. But the need means an urgent requirement of something. That's the dictionary definition. For some reason, the word require doesn't have all that stuff loaded onto it.

Willow:

Not as charged. Yeah. It's

Alison:

it, yeah. It's just, I require this. Hmm. It's the exact same thing, but it has, it has boundary in it. It has agreement in it has, this is the deal already in it. This is what's required.

Leah:

Yeah. Required.

Alison:

Yeah.

Leah:

I really have a hard time with heavy needs. Yep. I have a visceral, uh, sensation of not wanting to have them. I preferred if I just didn't have to have those. Oh, no. Um, but require, yeah, that makes sense. There's an authority. There's a, a self understanding, a self-knowledge, a self-awareness of how to love me. You know, I require this in order to flourish. Do you wanna participate?

Alison:

if you're gonna be part of my life, you are my requirement. Yeah, it's, it's been amazing. Um, it's, the other thing I've been really excited about is, um, I did, it was last summer. It's called Own Your Ultimatums.

Willow:

Okay. And

Alison:

yeah. And I like

Willow:

that title.

Leah:

Ooh, yes.

Alison:

Good. Uh,

Leah:

yes. Yeah. You're really good at these. Uh, I know you got the best title, these hooks. They're so good. Your genius with language is so exciting and so fun and so clear. That's why your

Willow:

books are so fun. Yeah.

Leah:

I just have to celebrate that about you. Yeah. Okay. Continue. Oh, uh, the ultimatums Owning Your Ultimatums. Oh, your

Alison:

ultimatums. Yeah. Nice. And. And it came from me having a conversation with Dan, another conversation with Dan about a requirement that I kept trying to get over. Right. Uhhuh, this was something I needed and I thought I shouldn't need it and I should get over this need. And we kept having these blow ups over it when I would just get to the end of, ah, I need you to have a healthy guided lifestyle. I can't watch you do this to your body. And, and it seemed like it was tied to Greg, right? I'd suddenly have a heart attack and Right. But even I even needed it with Greg watching what he did to his body. And part of being human is it's my body. I can do what I want with it. Mm-hmm. Right. I, I reserve the right to do whatever I want to my body. Mm-hmm. Well, if we're married, your body affects every part of my life. Right? Yeah. Wow. And so I kept trying to get over this requirement of a healthy guide and lifestyle. And it, and it, I couldn't, it kept coming up and, and I'd finally be so serious. I'd blow my top, which is the exact worst time to say what you need or require. And, and, yes. And finally I just, I'm like, look, we had to talk about this. And again, and he, he said, that sounds like an ultimatum. Oh. And I'm like, oh no. Oh no. You know, the voice of my head, oh, no, Menaid, hold ultimatums. Don't have an ultimatum. Whatever you doing, don't have an ultimatum. You know? And the ideal woman, like, right, whoa, whoa, whoa. Right. You can have an ultimatum. That's terrible. The Alice have an tum. I'm. I am having a release call with my partner right now. How about I do a release on this and then I'll come back? Sounds good. Okay. And so I did all this Sedona release work and having ultimatums until it just, it all the charges gone, but it just is what it is. Ultimatum means final offer. Okay. Well what if we started out relationships with presenting our final offer instead of presenting our final offer when we think the person's most likely to suck it up and just go with it.'cause they don't wanna lose it.

Willow:

Right. Well, that goes back to deal breakers at the early stages of your work. I mean, right.

Leah:

I was just about to say like sex and marriage, like the correlation with what you're saying. It's a whole thread. It turns out I've been doing

Alison:

it for ages and refining and refining and refining and yeah. And I went back to him and I said, could we have a grownup conversation about ultimatums? And he said, please. And, and so I've been having so much fun since then. Like, okay, think about, all right, so let's say you're dating, um, and you're hoping to find that magical, wonderful person that then everything will be wonderful'cause they're wonderful. Doesn't work like that. But anyhow, um, and you have your list and you know what you. What really you turn into a terrible person if somebody doesn't like that. And so you, so you write it all down and then instead of waiting three or six months, you know, when you think you really have a future, then you tell'em these things, which is what most people strategize to do. What if you led with it, okay, we, let's talk about this stuff when we're, we don't care what the other person thinks. Let's reveal our erotic blueprint when we don't care what they think about our blueprint, right? We're gonna honor it. If you wanna play and honor it too, then let's keep talking. But if you are gonna make fun of me, ridicule me, shame me for what turns me on and turns me off, then the end. Right? Let's talk about sensitive topics when we're insensitive, love when we're the least sensitive to what their other person's gonna think about it.

Willow:

It's so, it makes so much sense, but it's so backwards from what we have been doing inside relationships for eons.

Leah:

how did you and Dan, where did you reach, where did this take you, this ultimatum conversation? Where did, what happened in the agreement space?

Alison:

yes, the beginning of oneal ultimatums, I, I say, okay, I'm gonna give a brief, brief history of this conversation. No, it didn't end up being brief because I could see I had a list that Greg qualified for when I met him, and then we did in sync with the opposite sex. Right? And what do you need to give? And if you're giving that, what do you need to get to keep being happy giving it? Which is really important. Relationships are not fulfilling if you don't get to give. What you most need to get right? So in sync we talk about deal breakers and then understanding love and commitment. We start with your ideals, the perfect person, right? And then boil it down to the standalone. I'd rather be alone than be with someone who wasn't that. And then of those things that they have to be, what is their time for them to become that, right? Because there's things we need to ask for and we need to describe what it would look like and we need to appreciate it. And then, and people need time to do that thing that we need to do. But there's also, there's things I don't have time for. I don't have time for you to become honest, and I have no history of being able to make dishonest people honest. So, so you better be that, right? So we call it the B list, right? So of all these deal breakers, what do they gotta be? You gotta be that

Willow:

the Be list.

Alison:

The Be list. The Be list, which is part of your dealbreaker. I love that list. Well, and then in ultimatums, what happened?'cause I started working with so many singles after I became suddenly single. Right. And was learning, I had to relearn all of my own work.

Willow:

Yeah.

Alison:

I'd done it in, in Marriage for almost three decades.

Willow:

Yeah. How do you, you, you and Greg were together for that long, three decades.

Alison:

Almost, almost 28 years. Oh

Willow:

wow. Amazing. Yeah.

Alison:

Yeah. So, so I had, I, I had to relearn everything Right. In this context of being single and. Did you say

Willow:

horny? I did.

Alison:

You

Willow:

you whispered. I barely hurt. I did. I did. It was shocking. Say it loud and proud.

Alison:

You say it loud and proud. It was so shocking. I didn't know what a steady diet for almost decades of sex could be a person. Right. And then it's gone. And then, and then he's gone. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm crying. I'm grieving, I'm in shock. And so, and horny, fucking horny. Oh my God. It's good. I call my, I Yeah, it was a crazy horny widow and oh my God. And my son, God bless him. Why, why do, why do boys wanna have sex more than girls wanna have sex? Well,'cause boys can reproduce all the time and girls can only reproduce about 30 hours a month. So how do you get girls to wanna do it more? Um, be good at it. How do you be good at it? Good questions. Wow. Yeah. He was, uh, 13 when he was asking these questions. Yeah, he's very smart. Smart. And it's time for you to have sex. I promise I'll tell you how to do that. So anyhow, I had to relearn everything right in this context. And I didn't know if I ever wanted to be in a relationship again. I, I, I, I, I, I thought I just, I didn't wanted to love lover. I wanted even wrote it down. I just wanted 24 hours a month bring snacks, right? Like I just,

Leah:

I could be happy with it.

Willow:

Bring strawberries and chocolate and champagne 20 hours a month. Four, be ready. That's all I need.

Alison:

and then I realized from an experience I had, I realized, oh, oh geez, I really, I wanna be in a relationship again. Shoot. Especially since in, in Lux, people should start there. Um, we, we give away the big secret from love and commitment that, you know, what makes relationships so difficult is there's no such thing. There's just no such thing. They don't actually exist. That's why they're so easy to change and so hard to keep going. And so interacting that way, right, with these instances of being related and who am I being and what am I speaking to and how am I listening? And the three things we can control. And so from the very beginning to answer your question, this is a long way around your is, um, before we ever met, Dan knew what was on my B list. You got a be this, if you're not this, let's just stop now. And then after we met, I sat down with him with the rest of the list. And, but I learned something really important that I teach in on ultimatums. And that is if you are not consistent with what you say you require, then they know you don't actually require it. So this thing where I kept trying to get over it was very confusing to him. And it wasn't until I committed to it that then he could interact with it as this was real to deal with. He says, we're gonna break up over this. I said, yeah, we're gonna have this fight every four to six weeks until you break up with me. Until I break up with you. Yeah, you'll break up with me. You'll get tired of this fight and you'll break up with me. I said, oh, you're right. And then I said, what else on that list? Will we break up over everything? Everything, each and everything, all 42 items, we would break up over, whoa, we better look at this list again.

Willow:

And

Alison:

he took notes.

Willow:

So valuable to have that information up front, you know? But here's one of the things that I, I often will teach around these boundaries and like this B list and, and you know, this other list is, well, I don't know if it totally relates, Alison, you let me know. But, you know, boundaries can shift. Like those requirements might be there early on in the relationship are one year, and then they might not be there the next, they can sh they're like different than rules. Right. So tell, tell me a little bit how this works with that. Well,

Alison:

so in understanding sex and intimacy, you might remember this, um, we call it the cover charge.

Willow:

I don't remember it.

Alison:

Yeah, we called the cover charge and, um, and it's for people to make a list of, okay, imagine, imagine I'm a restaurant and there are certain things on my menu. Well, how do you get into my restaurant? Um, what's the cover charge? And so it's getting very clear about those boundaries. Like, no, you don't just get to hold my hand because I agreed to meet you in per person. That that's a huge intimacy, right? So actually think about like, what do I need for someone to hold my hand? What do I need for someone to kiss me? What do you, what do I need before I'm gonna allow someone my home? What do I need to take my clothes off? Right? So whatever you could have on your menu, like, this is what I'd like to, to provide sexually. What do I need in order to provide it? And. I knew that I needed exclusivity. I, I describe it as one. I have one USB port. I, I'm not as much as I think polyamory is a beautiful ideal, I'm not built for it. And, and so that was the thing when Dan wanted to pursue, right? Because I asked him, when did you know this could be something really serious? He said, probably about the third hour of us talking on the phone. And, and most men will say, mm, about three minutes or in about three seconds, they, they know what it can be, right? 30 seconds, they know what this could be. And so he wanted to pursue it. And I'm like, okay, if we're gonna explore this. Because that's what we committed to, an exclusive exploration, you know, it has to be exclusive. I, I can't be sexual with somebody who's being sexual for other people. So that's what we originally agreed to. And then as you know, he went and did the Ms. J quiz, right? And he sent me his results. He took a screenshot and he sent it to me. And my reaction was, you're a playground. And then, yeah. And then because I knew the quiz, right? I knew the quiz. And what kinds of things would lead to certain kinds of results. I'm like, um, okay, so that section that got you that percentage, um, there's, you gotta say yes when there's some things in that list, you would say no to. So what were your yeses, right? Like, so I started inquiring into the results of the erotic blueprint so that we could talk about it ahead of time and where, where he wanted to go. What was like a cliff to me. There are things that are just a cliff, right? Mm-hmm. And, and so we, an answer to your question, Willow, we, from the very beginning would interact with all different kinds of needs from Okay. Do. He would say something like, wouldn't it be fun too? Right? And he's way more okay with sex and sexuality than, than I was at the time. And, and I'd be like, he's like, wouldn't it be fun too? And I'm like, do you need that? I don't, why? I don't know that I'll ever go there. Can you imagine the rest of your life without that? Do you need it? And God bless him.'cause there wasn't any condemnation of what he was proposing. He could, he just would tell the truth. There are things that he would say. One thing he said, I don't know.

Willow:

True answer. So authentic, I dunno.

Alison:

I said, okay, well we then let's keep checking in on that. If you don't know, let's keep checking in. How, how are we doing with this? If we did what we're doing now for the rest of your life, would you be good with that? Right? And then there are other things that, that I was like, I'm never gonna be that person. So if you need that, then when you need that, I won't be enough. Which means I'm already not enough and I'm not gonna live like that. So, which is it? And, and God bless him. He, he, he was beautiful. He said, he said, you're enough and you deserve to be enough. Aw, I don't need that.

Willow:

And they just

Alison:

took it off the table.

Willow:

See, isn't that so incredible? That's such a great story and depiction of like, the things that we think we need sometimes we actually don't when we are fulfilled on a more soulful or heart level.

Alison:

Yeah. And what we've, you know, ever since I started interviewing men in 1991, what men have said about sex is they, I mean, women are led to believe that men are gonna marry the best sex they ever have. And it's not true. Not true. They, they're not connected. And what, you know, one of the things that makes a woman the right person for a man to marry is that in his perception, there's enough communication, there's enough spontaneity, there's enough experimentation that he thinks, yeah, we can work this out. You could be the only person I have sex with for the rest of my life. And we're still gonna have fun because it, because that's how it's been. I mean, they operate based on how has it been, right? So if you're not open to each other from the very beginning, they're gonna take that at face value that you never will be open. So this will never work. And, and then the flip side of that is we have to make sure we're not false advertising. I can't pretend to be open to something that we know that's never gonna work for me. That that won't ever be negotiable. At least as far as I can see. It won't ever be. So we shouldn't bet on that. It will be right. Yeah. So powerful. so over the course of all these years, we had another layer in regards to requirements and that's that if you think about B, like what you need a person to be right? In love and commitment. I teach you how to ins, how you can inspire someone to be right. If you need someone to be affectionate, then just be playful. They virtually can't help but be affectionate around a playful person. But what if you need someone to be something no matter how you are, that when you're the worst version of yourself, you can still count on them to be that way. Yeah. Like they generate, they're count on for generating, being that way no matter if you're having the worst day you ever had. So when you list the qualities that way, they exist very differently. And then if you think of B and then behaviors. So there's the qualities you need a person to be, and then you need those qualities mapped onto your life. So if they're being generous, then go ahead and describe what would generous look like with your family, with your children, if you're bringing them into the relationship. With your body? I, I put something on my list that never occurred to me before. I, I mean, in 1991, I had on my list loves my body in, in 2019, loves my body and lets me love theirs.

Willow:

Good distinction.

Alison:

I didn't even know to think that at the time. Right. I didn't know you could be with someone who loves your body but isn't really inhabiting their own. Right. Greg, Greg was not keen on his body. He was really glad to get rid of it. Aw, seriously. I felt his joy, his little exhilaration to be free. He was like, we, that kind of freaks people out, that someone would die and you would feel their joy. But I did for a very, very long time. And so it's, so, and, and Dan knows this'cause I've talked to him about it. Like, I have 19 things on the B list and 23 things on the, on the behaviors list. And I've told him, you know, it's probably gonna take at least two more years before all these things on this list are verified because the circumstances haven't arrived yet.

Willow:

Right. Gotta have the platform. And

Alison:

so, yeah. So he and I have not committed to each other in that way that people are like, you know, I don't know, tell death to his part or we're, you know, we're in it to win it or No, we have a deal. We get to keep each other for as long as we're giving each other what we need. Love it. And, and that's out of profound love. Like, I don't, I'm not gonna torture him to stay with me when I can't give him what he needs and he can't give what I need. That's mean and people do it all the time. It's most people's marriages,

Willow:

it's most relationships. Yeah.

Leah:

there. Okay. So I'm imagining that you've got more and more couples coming to your platform and exploring your work. You know, where it was such a female oriented audience when I went through your work and now it's expanding and, and, uh, it seems so exciting. It makes me want to like, bring my husband along and revisit all of this material. I wanna see his list. Yeah. Yes, I would love to have a whole new conversation with this material due to this type of inquiry. Mm-hmm. So. I, I'm assuming you probably have, an image of a couple who started to do this work when they were already quite far along in their couple this Like who were they when they came in and then they do the work, and then who do they become as a result of this unfolding? Do you have a, a before and after story of some students that you'd be able to share. Whether it turned into a we stayed together and went deeper or we uncoupled as a result? I'm kind of curious'cause I think both could be a success story.

Alison:

Well, we definitely have them. Um, what you were describing initially, what I call from good to great. Mm-hmm. That's my favorite. Mm-hmm. Right. To interact at from good to great from. From We're awesome to exquisite, right? Exquisite means carefully chosen, right? So everything you're doing, you're being, you're spending your energy on carefully chosen. It's all designed, right? That, that level of engineering, you know, I'm an engineer, right? So that I, that I get to do with Dan. Um, there are others who are engaged in that, that are huge inspiration for me. Unfortunately, most people aren't motivated when things are good. Like set it and forget it. This works. Let's pay attention to what's not working. And, and since human instincts, literally, and I wish I was exaggerating. We're doomed. If we're not wide awake to the impulses, to the compulsions, to the drives, to the prohibitions, to even speak up and say, I need something. Or even I call it don't ask, don't tell, don't say, honey, what do you need? Honey, if you had it all your way, what would we do this weekend? Right. Don't, don't ask that. Right. And don't say that. Well, if I had it all my way, we would do it like this. Right. Um, the prohibition against asking and telling it, it's, it's human. It's not just male and female. So to overcome that, it needs to be really safe. But we're so quick to judge what somebody asks for. Right. And then it seems like their needs are obstacles to our needs. And it, I mean, it, it's nobody's fault actually, that most relationships just, they just turned a crap. And, and so I wish, I wish the good to Great. We have way more stories of, and, and amazing people who are dedicated to supporting our work because our work saved their marriage. And, and those are beautiful, right? That they, they literally were on, you know, it was do this or go to the divorce lawyer. And, and I think one of my favorites, um, are people who are just starting out. Um, I have something now called the smart singles intensive where I, where I get to interact with, have special classrooms, you know, with the people in the intensive and customize the courses for them, do this next and that, okay, do this to the fifth session and then switch over to this one and then go back. And it's really fun. Um, and, and so the people in the intensives as they're getting uber clear. Like so clear about who they are and what a person would need to be for them to be better off than being single, like single stops being a predicament to escape. Um, then, then I interact with them as they're interacting with the person who showed up inside that clarity. And, um, okay. Willow, you used the F word before, so Oh yeah. You can use it too. So there was one of my students who was working on her list and she didn't wanna work on it anymore. She's like, this seems hopeless. This seems like looking for a needle in a haystack. I thought about how do you find a needle in a haystack? And, and the answer was right there. I said, you know how to find a needle in a haystack? And she said, how? I said, get a big fucking magnet.

Willow:

Oh my God, I love that so much. That's exactly what it is. It's a big fucking magnet.

Alison:

But, but here's the thing. When you have clarity about who you're, and you represent yourself as who you are early and often, which is the most attractive thing a woman can do for to a man, like they're just blown away by it, right? You, you don't, you don't just have a magnet. You become the magnet. You are the magnets. You are your clarity, your loyalty to yourself, the representation. You're so

Leah:

irresistible when you're just yourself. It is like magic sauce. It is so good. And everybody wants. I did think it could be that easy.

Alison:

It's that easy. And everybody wants to be special and unique. Well then be yourself. There's only one of you. That's right.

Willow:

You just be authentic and the right one will stick with you. Yeah. Yeah.

Alison:

So I mean, that's, so that's how Dan and I ended up. Congratulations.

Willow:

Thank you. It's exciting.

Alison:

It, it's really exciting. And, and one of the things that's really fun about it is, um, we so support each other. We so take care of each other. This morning he was like, okay, how can I support you this week? And, and we don't live together.

Willow:

Mm-hmm.

Alison:

I literally live in his backyard.

Willow:

You do? Like in a studio in the backyard.

Alison:

It, they called it the guest. It was the guest guest house.

Leah:

Yes.

Alison:

And Dan named it Harm. So I live in harmony. Oh, oh, you live in harmony? I live in harmony that makes, visits me in harmony. Oh. And um, we have this thing every day called, uh, I am gonna blush. Um, so I was, I was not getting enough attention. Right. He's, he's got three kids. He is got a whole life. He's got, I call him the Lord of the manor. He's got 35 acres in the mountains. Right. And, um, and I was suffering from lack of attention and I was turning into a terrible person and he said, okay, I have an idea. You pick a time every day and we'll just lie down. Sweet. Lay down. Yeah. We'll just lie down. Upside down. We'll hold each other. We can talk if we want. We can nap, we can get frisky if we want. But we're just gonna start with that every day. You pick the time'cause your schedule's more restricted than mine. And then he gets this little smile.'cause he hasn't had to work in 30 years and so he has all this free time. Right. Well now we have jokes about, you know, there's a lot of words that can go before down. There's the lie down, right? There's something called the dirty down. Um, it's not what you think though. The dirty down is when I take the sheet out and I put it over the bedspread because you just come in from feeding the horses. You don't

Willow:

wanna get the bedspread dirty,

Alison:

do

Willow:

the dirty down.

Alison:

We don't, we don't wanna take a shower, we just wanna hold each other. But we're, we're, we're dirty, right? I'm a country girl. I've been on my tractor. I got manure, right? So we got a dirty down. Um, well there's a go down.

Willow:

There's a go down. What's now, now that sounds dirty. Yeah. You can make up your own down. Yeah, you can make

Alison:

it all yourself.

Willow:

I have to interpretation.

Alison:

But it's, he made this up back in January and it is transformed life.

Willow:

Oh, that is fantastic.

Alison:

Yeah. And it's that thing we have to interact with. We have to interact with enough. Yeah. Right. There's ideals and then there's what is enough. Right. And so we have, on Wednesdays, we have a day date, you know, in the middle of my work week. Mm-hmm. We just carve out this period of time that we spend with each other. We might do chores, but we're often feeding hay to the horse.

Willow:

But that's, you both love that and it's like, it's actually good for your nervous system to be Yeah.

Alison:

We love being together. And so there's so there, but it's just enough. So there's three hours on Wednesdays and then somewhere between like maybe 20 minutes or an hour every day, like just depending on when we can. And, and the thing that, I mean, you guys know this, um, I'm, I have this huge house, right? I have this huge house, 200 miles from here, and I was becoming a smaller person inside of this huge house, and part of it was just being female and being afraid. Mm-hmm. Right? Living in the country. There's a mountain lion. Mm-hmm. In the canyon. Big guy. Right? Right. Um, and I didn't realize how much of my energy was spent just monitoring my safety. And there's something about living in his backyard, in this, in this circle of protection. Right. He's so committed to me being safe and happy. Right. And, and so I spent a lot of time alone, which I didn't know that I loved being alone. I didn't, I couldn't own that actually. I was 61 years old when I owned. I, I love being alone.

Willow:

It's a really amazing

Alison:

thing. I love being alone.

Willow:

I'm a big fan

Alison:

myself. and so we don't live together because we both love being alone. Mm-hmm. And he's 90 steps away. He's on the other side of the pool in the middle of this Aspen forest. Right. And yeah. And you know, there's bears and moose. The bear showed up, tried to get my kitchen. Oh my. But. We we're always in each other's space by invitation. Always. Never. Oh, we are here, I was hoping to have the living room to myself. Right.

Leah:

I think you've, you've really got a special magical life. It just keeps bringing you gifts. And I can tell that's'cause it's where you put your attention, you look for what's right and you celebrate it.

Willow:

Yeah. It's so beautiful the way your, your work has, come from, inside of yourself and from your own experiences and also from all the research that you've done. And just like, really tuning in and listening to like, what's really going on with people and how they interact with each other, understand each other, or don't understand each other, you know. How can, how can we shed more light on what it means to be in an, intimate relationship with another person? So powerful. Any, any final words of wisdom for our listeners who are just really feeling lost or confused when it comes to love, relationship, sexuality, intimacy.

Alison:

Oh gosh.

Willow:

Just sum it up for us in a word.

Alison:

Just sum it all up. Uh, let's see. Um, most men, most men can't think of anything funner than sex. So if you're not having fun, you might be missing the point from their world. What would make it fun? Um, everything we're doing to get men to love us is silly'cause they're born loving us and we mostly get in the way of it. And, uh, fly your freaky flag. Um, whatever your freaky flag is. You know, you channel you channel or you're edgy or whatever. Whatever you think they're gonna break up with you about, uh, advertise it from the very beginning.,Because if you do that, then you're going to keep people who aren't right for you.

Willow:

Beautiful. Yeah. Well done. Yes. That was, that was a synopsis. That was perfect. I love that. Aw, that's been, yeah,

Alison:

there's no scarcity.

Willow:

There's no scarcity. Yeah.

Leah:

Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Thank

Willow:

you. Yeah. Yeah. We

Leah:

need to be reminded of that. There's gotta watch. Yeah. There's so much love and so much abundance available.

Willow:

Yeah. It has been such a pleasure, alison. So wonderful to reconnect with you, to just sit with you in the flesh. Mm-hmm. And just hear enchanted. Enchanted.

Leah:

What can I say?

Willow:

All the fun. And thank you for sharing with us vulnerably about your, your own experience. It's, yeah, it's a pleasure to be with you. We're honored.

Leah:

Yeah. I can't wait to go check out the Luxe program.

Alison:

Oh, I'm so proud of you.

Leah:

Oh

Alison:

my gosh.

Leah:

Yep.

Alison:

It's so fast. It's less than eight hours of video. And like the whole world occurs differently. Yeah,

Willow:

yeah. Can't say no to that.

Leah:

Yeah. Sign me up. We're in. Thank you. Appreciate your time today. Welcome, love, love you're doing.

Announcer:

Now our favorite part, the dish.

Leah:

Welcome back. It is Sex

Willow:

Reimagined Leah Piper and Dr. Willow Brown. And we just interviewed one of our sheroes. Yes. We had so much fun. It was so great. Alison Armstrong. Just what an incredible, um, gift to the world of romantic relationships and how to have a successful one. How to have fun in one, as Leah puts it, having, uh. Mastery over disastery inside of your relationship.

Leah:

Yeah, let's be a mastery. Couple people. I think, uh, she has given me so many gems over the years, and this interview really reminded me. Same one with Sherry Winston. They both reminded me how much I have integrated. Their teachings into how I see the world and how I experience my deepest desires to have a fulfilling love life. And I just, I've had such a, their work has had such a profound impact on me with Allison. You know, I, I remember her teaching this whole piece about, you know, kind of coming of age and I think as young girls, we get. The awareness somehow that we are these attractive beings that get attention. You know, I remember being like 11, 12, 13, and this whole idea around wanting attention from boys and dressing the way I thought you had to dress in order to get that attention. So I remember my first pushup bra. I remember being obsessed with makeup. I remember like frantically trying to do this. Thing that would get boys to like me, I didn't know that I was settling. You know, she has this whole concept that sexual attraction, all it means is that someone wants to get their body next to your body and do yummy things. But if you really want love, it's about being charming and enchanting. And when someone is charmed and enchanted with you, yes, they're sexually attracted to you, but they also feel compelled to want to make you laugh. To wanna protect you, to want to make you happy. And that struck me, you know, so hardcore because my whole life I thought in order to get love, I had to be sexually attractive. And I didn't know that what I really wanted was A. for uh, what I wanted was love, and that the key to love was just being yourself. And so although we didn't talk about that directly, there were some indirect pieces of the conversation that kept on bringing that into my mind and heart and how much I have thought over the years that I wish someone would've told my teenage self, who desperately wanted to be liked and loved and thought I had to be somebody else in order to get it. Yeah. And so I spent a lot of time not being myself, not knowing. I had to be myself just wanting to be what I thought someone would love, which never got me love. Yeah. How painful that has been over the years.

Willow:

Yeah, I think so many of us, I certainly can relate to that, of just like taking a very long time to figure out what was authentic and what was true, you know? And just having, having had to play out a certain mold. Certain it's gotta look a certain way or be a certain style in order to be of value, in order to be lovable. So, um, you know, it was, it was so cool to sit with Alison and, and listen to her and where her work is at now.'cause Yeah, I know you and I have dug into her work many, many years ago, and as you said. Definitely colored the way that our work, um, has been offered to the world. And so it was, it was great to kind of see how, where her work has evolved and it, and developed into, yeah, and, and how it reminded us of that early work that she did. So really, she's just been following this thread and fine tuning this. The thread. And um, you know, one of the things I really loved that she talked about during this interview was, uh, the B list. Yeah. And so you think of the, the B list. You're like, well, it's not the A list, so it must be on the B list, but it's the be. B list. So yeah, it's like what is, what do you need your partner to be? Who do you want to be with? Who do you want to be in relationship? And she's got a whole thing about how she gets that B list out of people. But um, it was just cool to learn about it. To hear about it and how it also. Um, relates to behaviors, the b list relates to behaviors within the relationship.'cause a lot of her earlier work was about like, you know, telling, basically opening women's eyes to the fact that men are not women, they are not misbehaving women. Right. They are a totally different. Species a totally different, um, brain chemistry, just completely different. You know, I know she's a big fan of the Luann Breen's work as well. The male, the male brain, and the female brain. Hmm. So if you haven't read those books, um, highly recommend those two.'Cause they are, they're just couldn't be more different all throughout developmental stages. And, uh, so she really, all of her work is, is, is about understanding each other. She's probably a four on the Enneagram like you and I are. Leah. She

Leah:

probably is. Yeah. And I, and it's one of the things I love about her style of thinking is how she bothers looking up the definitions of words and how powerful that is. Yeah, that has always struck me about her work. I love that she brings the definition of language because there's power to the psycholinguistics of, of our language and the words that we choose to use and, and when you use a word and you didn't even know, just like the specific meaning, you got it in the ballpark, but when you get down to the meaning, wow. Does it expand in profundity?

Willow:

Right?

Leah:

Yeah. And how you use it or how you then will intend to use it in the future.

Willow:

Yeah. So powerful. She's, she's really a, she's really just a smart woman, you know, she's a scholar of, I was curious. Relationships. Just curious. Yeah. And just developing and creating. And what is she 61 now? And she is in, uh, the hottest time of her oh my God. Romantic life. And she shared a lot on this interview around that was so sweet. Adorable.

Leah:

So cute. Oh my. God like, and she's so lit up, so bright, so shiny, so radiant. You know, I think, I think that's what I really loved about who she gets to be as a permissionionist. You know, like,'cause we need more voices that are her age. I can't tell you how many friends and clients I have that start to feel totally invisible. Absolutely. Like, like the world is just leaving them behind. Whether it's technology, whether it's sex, whether it's relationships and dating and it just, ah crushes my little soul because these are important people in my world and life. And I love what she's standing for and that she's not done. Didn't you get the feeling like she's still just started, she's just getting started and it's like, wow, I want that kind of energy. Yeah, and you know what else is cool about the progression of her work is she's completely retitled everything. Mm-hmm. You know? And I think that takes a lot of guts. I mean, here you've built this empire with a certain languaging and a very specific demographic of who your audience is. Yeah, and she was mutable enough. And, um, oh, there's a specific word. It'll, it'll come to me if it, if it needs to, but there's something about her willingness to be influenced by culture and, and in so doing not only has most of her work is now online versus live, it was always live when I started. Uh, it's also way more inclusive. She's moving away from so many gender specifics. Mm-hmm. And really coming around to humanity. Yeah. And I think there's quite a bit of a learning curve there. It's been true for me, and I can only imagine how much harder it is for people of an older generation to be able to be that adaptable. And I was very impressed and encouraged. Yeah. By her adaptability, it really gave me fuel and energy to want to get better and better at that. Oh,

Willow:

I love that. That's, that's fantastic. Yeah. I, she really is a, a queen of an example in this industry and, um, enjoy her interview. Let us know what you learn from it. Let us know what you get from it. And you probably are gonna wanna take notes on this one'cause there's such, such pearls of wisdom, threat, uh, threaded throughout it. So

Leah:

yeah, type some of your, um, highlights into the comments.'cause I, I'm assuming if you've gotten this far, you've probably watched or listened to the episode. So your feedback's really important to us. We want this not to just be a conversation between Willow and I, but the, it's a conversation for all of us because we're here to grow and expand and to understand each other. So your part in the conversation is super valuable.

Willow:

That's true. We wanna hear what you got to say, what's going on for you, and even if you're like, I really enjoyed it, I don't know what else to say, we wanna hear that too. Yeah,

Leah:

and I, I also just, I feel like I never met Greg. I've never even seen a picture of Greg.

Willow:

I know, but don't you get know him,

Leah:

I feel Yes. Like listening to her, her CDs over the years and the stories of her work. I mean, you just feel like, you know, the two of them, and I hadn't known that he had passed away, and so I, I

Willow:

didn't either.

Leah:

I thought her, the pieces that she said around grief really dropped me into my heart.

Willow:

In a,

Leah:

in a, in a sweet way. And

Willow:

yeah,

Leah:

and I'm so, Happy's got this new guy too and how she's learning. Oh, and then in her interest in the erotic blueprints, I mean, yeah.

Willow:

It was so good.

Leah:

You go clean,

Willow:

enjoy it. We'll see you on the other side.

Speaker:

Thanks for tuning in. This episode was hosted by Tantric Sex Master Coach and positive psychology facilitator, Leah Piper, as well as by Chinese and Functional Medicine doctor and Taoist Taxology teacher, Dr. Willow Brown. Don't forget your comments, like subscribes and suggestions matter. Let's realize this new world together.

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Dr. Willow Brown

Host
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Leah Piper

Host
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Alison Armstrong

Guest