Episode 59 – Unpacking Intimacy & Understanding Sex Energy (ft. Michael McPherson‪)‬ The VulnerABILITY Podcast

In this episode of the VulnerABILITY Podcast, Marisa speaks with Michael McPherson, author, speaker, and small business owner on a mission to powerfully upgrade men and women's relationships to sex and understanding of sex energy.



In this episode, Marisa and Michael cover topics that people often shy away from: intimacy, sexual identity and our relationships to sex, our sexual energy (and what that is!), porn, and shame.

Highlights From The Episode:

[2:30] MM - "I originally turned to pornography as a means to educate myself and learn... but that started a really long, probably about a 10-year, 15-year journey for me that really took me through the wringer. I had thwarted relationships to sex, thwarted relationships to women... I was incredibly distracted by my mind's fantasies, by the way my mind was basically trained to objectify women."



[3:30] MM - "If you know anything about union, [it] will mirror any unfinished business you have with yourself."



[3:35] MM - "People shy away from this subject [sex] for a reason. There's a lot of density there. There's a lot of darkness there. There's a lot of trauma."



[5:30] MM - "Instead of waiting around for someone to start the conversation with me, [I thought], why don't I start the conversation?"



[6:05] MM - "It was my intention to start a conversation that wasn't being had. Rather than introduce a new form of dogma, let's just loosen up things a bit. Let's just get to a place where we can actually heal in this area, to experience the miraculousness of having an empowered relationship to sex and our sex energy."



[10:30] MM - "The most empowering thing and powerful thing we can do for our children is to heal our own relationship to sex. So that when things like this do arise, we can come from it from a more genuine place, rather than coming from our own personal wounds, our own personal history, our own personal fears, our own personal shame."



[11:45] MM - "Doing the internal work ourselves to open up access as parts of ourselves, to come into a place of wholeness going to create a sense of safety that we need in our environments with our children for them to have their innocent experience [with sex]... The absolute best thing we can do is our own healing work. I think that's the level of self-responsibility that's really required if we're going to have a healthy dynamic with sex that we're going to pass on to future generations."



[13:10] MD - "When we face the most shameful and most difficult moments, and we bring them out into the forefront, then that's where we get the truest amount of healing."



[13:15] MM - "When someone leans in with vulnerability, it typically has a heart-opening effect on us. It has us lean in, open our hearts, and really hear them."



[14:50] MM - "We're the ones that have to live with all the unspoken things that still hang over our heads. It does impact our interpersonal dynamics. It definitely impacts our ability to experience freedom in our relationships, to be who we are authentically and be met there."



[15:45] MD - "There [are] differing opinions about what 'strength' is. Men get caught up in porn, or they get caught up in the idea of dominance, or [that] strength looks a certain way."



[16:15] MM - "When I say 'take back your power' I'm really talking about sex energy... No one ever taught me about my sex energy. No one ever taught me how to harness it and channel it, in an empowering, constructive way. And that's true for most men."



[17:20] MM - "[Porn] puts us into a trance, and in that trance, the imagery, the video, the explicit content that we're watching is actually getting imprinted into our subconscious mind... What most men don't realize is the context that they have for women and sex is primarily based on that imprinting that they receive...