SHAWN: 00:00 Hello, radiant Rebecca.

REBECCA: 00:02 Hey Sean.

SHAWN: 00:02 I have a very important question for you.

REBECCA: 00:05 Okay. Shoot.

SHAWN: 00:06 Have you seen the first Star Wars that came out? The very first one. Came out in... Oh my God, people are going to kill me. In the 70s.

REBECCA: 00:16 Yes, I have.

SHAWN: 00:17 Do you know that that was episode four and yet it was the first episode?

REBECCA: 00:22 Really.

SHAWN: 00:22 Here's why this is relevant to this particular podcast. We've done probably 18 or so podcasts and we are going back to episode one. This podcast is episode one of Pleasure Central Radio.

REBECCA: 00:35 Are you saying this is a prequel?

SHAWN: 00:37 This is the prequel to everything that we've done up until now. You ready for it?

REBECCA: 00:40 I'm ready. Let's do it.

SHAWN: 00:44 The reason why this came up is we were having our annual meeting, and we can say that now because it's been a year that we've been recording all of these things. In our annual meeting we decided that it was probably a good idea for us to go back and really get some clarity around why Pleasure Central Radio exists and what you and I intend to bring to the table as we continue this and what our listeners can expect.

SHAWN: 01:09 This project all started as you and me and two other friends were having dinner together, and we were having a really lively discussion, a lot of fun. Because there was different viewpoints and because we had... I think that each of us were going, "Oh, that's interesting way to look at things. That's an interesting viewpoint. I can see how that works. Maybe I don't quite agree with that." From there we decided that this would be a great format for us to bring a lot of different subjects to people through the podcast, through Pleasure Central Radio.

REBECCA: 01:41 It was a very exciting evening. I remember the look on your face when I said, "Hey Sean, I've been thinking about doing a podcast where I talk about masculine and feminine and how they work together and support each other." You had this thoughtful look that turned into a slow smile that turned into a really big, completely wide-eyed across the face grin and I knew that there were something there.

SHAWN: 02:11 It's funny because if you all that are listening were here as we were starting to do these podcasts, that's the look actually that Rebecca looks for in me on every episode. We'll be talking for maybe half an hour, 45 minutes, and then all of a sudden my face will just light up. She'll go, oh, and I'll be like, yes, there it is. Let's go record. That's exactly how it started.

SHAWN: 02:31 I think what we wanted to do inside of this is bring not only the different perspectives of all sorts of different subjects, but also what we term grown up attitude towards things. Grown up attitude towards life in general. Does that make sense?

REBECCA: 02:50 It makes sense to me.

SHAWN: 02:50 What would you describe that as? What do you think the grownup attitude is?

REBECCA: 02:55 I would describe the grownup mentality as one that has a lot of maturity in it. One that realizes that while we are all self-centered people, because that's part of the nature of being human. We are better when we work together and when we we're able to build things in partnership. Personally a partnership is one of the things that I value very highly and find to be incredibly rewarding.

SHAWN: 03:27 One of the things that you talked about was the difference between an infant and an adolescent and an adult and an infant. You talked about infant stage, just like it's all about me and adolescent is, it's all about what I can get away with. An adult is...

REBECCA: 03:47 it's all about who I have decided that I am.

SHAWN: 03:50 Who I have decided that I am and what we can bring to the world. What we can bring to the community.

REBECCA: 03:55 Yes, as an adult you're living more from your values. The way that I think about it is from the adult mentality, you're coming from a place of living your values in the world as deeply and as truly and as honestly as you can.

SHAWN: 04:12 Our intention with this podcast is to bring that perspective, that infant adolescent adult perspective into all sorts of different subjects. We've talked about... We have 19 episodes recorded right now. So we've talked about 19 different subjects where we've really tried to bring that contrast of what's it like to live inside of that particular subject as an adult versus as an adolescent or as an infant.

REBECCA: 04:39 If this is the first episode that you're listening to with Pleasure Central Radio, we have all kinds of interesting things in store for you. We've talked about some comedy, some standup comedy shows, and what we see as the adult mentality within them. We've talked about my sex life quite a lot. We've interviewed some of my partners on the show. Sean has done a great job bringing the best out of them.

SHAWN: 05:06 Relationships, acroyoga.

REBECCA: 05:09 Acroyoga, yes. The gift of an authentic orgasm. What that looks like and how to get there. We've talked about blowjob tips and being feminine in the army. What else?

SHAWN: 05:21 Lots of difference actually between masculine feminine or the contrast of those two in all sorts of different ways.

REBECCA: 05:28 And actually that is a good segue maybe to talk a little bit about you and me and how we've got this nice masculine feminine balance between us.

SHAWN: 05:37 I love that. Okay, what is your intention? What do you feel like you bring to our audience?

REBECCA: 05:45 I think what I bring to most conversations and particularly to this podcast conversation is the desire to provoke, to talk about subjects that are not necessarily ones that we have the opportunity to share about very often. Ones that tend to be very personal. I'm an unusual person. I'm a pretty open book and so I tend to share a lot of things with people that they are surprised and willing to talk about.

REBECCA: 06:15 I found a lot of value in that, both in being able to talk about those more taboo subjects and connecting with people on that level. Also having those conversations usually ends up with a bunch of different ahas with people that are involved in the conversation going, "Oh, I never thought about it that way." I'm always learning new things from other people. It seems like people are learning new things from me quite a lot.

SHAWN: 06:43 Yes, there's a level of bravery that you bring to this with simple subject matter. Subjects that I probably would never have thought of talking about in public. Something that's going to be recorded for the rest of time. At the same time, it's been an enjoyable space for me to be in because I'm very inquisitive by nature and I want to know everything about everything.

SHAWN: 07:09 I think it's important for people to know everything about everything because inside of that lies choice and they can decide what works for them or what doesn't. I've enjoyed that part. I've enjoyed actually being the sort of person that can bring a container to that as well where you and I can start a conversation and it just seems to flow or we can have a conversation with a third party in here and it just seems to flow. I really enjoy that piece of it.

REBECCA: 07:34 Yes, you really do seem to have this desire to pierce the veil of reality somehow and shine a light on something.

SHAWN: 07:45 I've come to a space where I'm not convinced that there's anything that's actually truth and maybe you could... One plus one equals two mathematical, I'll go along with that. But as far as often what we're experiencing in life with relationships and with how we go about things, the truth is to me a vail sometimes.

SHAWN: 08:06 I do love the idea of shining a light past that veil and just showing anybody, myself included what could be on the other side. The reason for that in my mind is because that is where connection lies. That's where harmony lies. We can be connected to each other, to ourselves, to the world, to the planet, into everything simply by knowing that there might be another way of looking at it than what we choose to see through our own eyes.

REBECCA: 08:36 I think that might be why we've gotten along so well even though we have such different perspectives and values and different ways of approaching relationships. Because I also think that there's an infinite number of opportunities. The way that I live my life, being a polyamorous person for the last 19 years has been more about possibility and being able to see how good life could be and then moving in the direction of what I actually want.

SHAWN: 09:07 I think that's a really unique way that we connect. I think that's a piece of us that's very important for people to understand, is that our lives are entirely different. It's one of the things that I love about you and I love about doing this with you, is that you're polyamorous and had been for 19 years. I'm monogamous and have been for however old I am. We have so many discussions where we don't...

SHAWN: 09:40 I think that we work to see each other's viewpoint and yet because we have such different ways of life, it's not so much about understanding and agreeing as just seeing and understanding. It's been a lot of fun to have the conversations with you and this is what our listeners can expect both of us challenging each other at times and trying to explore a little bit more at times.

SHAWN: 10:07 Our intention with our audience is also to have them challenge and explore. If there's a way we get to everybody to get in and have the conversation, great. Hopefully what this does in my mind is open up the conversation in everybody else's lives.

REBECCA: 10:22 Amen. I'm on board with that.

SHAWN: 10:24 Amen.

REBECCA: 10:25 That's another thing that we both have in common. We both grew up in religious backgrounds and religious families. Now we have a very different religious background. I grew up in a seventh day Adventist church and my parents were... and actually the entire church that I was in was pretty damn liberal.

REBECCA: 10:47 Even though there's a lot of strictness associated with that church, I felt I had so much freedom growing up. I mean, I'm pretty sure that as a Sabbath school leader for the youth group, I had a talk about abortion at one point, which I'm not sure that everybody in the church was happy that I did that, but I didn't get any flack for it. Then you [inaudible 00:11:14].

SHAWN: 11:15 Grew up in a very strict religious household, very strict Christian religious household. Exited that when I was about 26 so it was a... I was in that for a long time. My mindset has shifted dramatically since I was 26. That was a year and a half ago.

REBECCA: 11:33 You look really good for 26.

SHAWN: 11:38 Terrible for 27 I'll tell you that much right now. I have gone from leaving that religion. In leaving that religion, I decided there was no God to believing more that maybe there is some sort of God I guess in my mind at this point it's not in an omnipotent power of any kind. It's not an all powerful being so much as it's a source.

SHAWN: 12:05 It's a connection that we all are you're God, I'm God, the dog outside is God. There's all sorts of different ways that God manifests and represents Himself now. I think that you and I have, I don't know if you believe that specifically, but we do have very similar spiritual beliefs now and that we both subscribe to things like the Abraham Hicks and Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle. You could just think of all sorts of different names that we could throw out here now of spiritual thought leaders that we really put a lot of stock into what they have to say.

SHAWN: 12:42 We bring a commonality to this and also a difference to this. I think that is what is so important to me about the podcast is that is life. Life we will run into commonality and we will run into differences and how do we handle that? Did we handle that from the infant perspective, the adolescent perspective or the adult perspective?

SHAWN: 13:04 Our intention inside of this podcast is not to have a sermon, it's not to preach and say this is the way that you should live. Whether that's monogamy, polyamory, whether it's being masculine, being feminine. All the sorts of different subjects that we talk about. The intention is not to preach so much as to just say, "Hey there's another way." There's another way that people are living their life and enjoying their life and it's worth at least knowing that it's there.

REBECCA: 13:31 In fact there's a lot of other ways and being exposed to those other ways I find is often a really helpful way of adding more data to my infinite possibilities mindset. Seeing how many other lifestyles people are living and what makes them happy and what doesn't gives me all kinds of information for what is going to help me best follow my most heart centered path.

REBECCA: 13:58 We're hoping to be able to do that for everybody else. Even though at times I will say, this is what's so great about polyamory or this is what I love about that. It's not meant to tell people that that is the right way to live. I don't think that there is a right way to live. It's just me pointing out, "Hey, this is a benefit that I happened to find really useful."

SHAWN: 14:22 There's something great about chocolate ice cream as well. It doesn't necessarily mean that chocolate ice cream is everybody's favorite. I've loved these conversations with you about polyamory because it's exposed me to a world that I probably would not have really known a whole lot about and still I'm learning about.

SHAWN: 14:40 For me it's actually been, "Okay, well I'm really not interested in that kind of life." I like my life of monogamy. I think that that's very important. There's no judgment inside of this. There's no judgment... Although so many subjects that we've talked about in the past and we'll continue to talk about in the future. I think that it's easy for us to make assumptions and to have a judgment on that subject.

SHAWN: 15:03 There's so many subjects that we've talked about in the past and that we'll continue to talk about that it's so easy for each of us to go, "Oh, I know what that's all about right now." There's the judgment, there's the assumption of what's going to happen. Where the conversation's going to go. Yet it's really our goal to make sure that that slides off the table. Let go of the judgment, let go of the assumption, just hear the message and then make your choice.

SHAWN: 15:31 In my mind, the adult way of looking at things is it's about discernment, not judgment. It's about understanding and kindness not assumptions. It's really about using the information to have freedom and responsibility,

REBECCA: 15:46 Right, it's not a directive about how to live. Another thing that we'll pay a lot of attention to in this podcast is staying out of the victim mentality. Staying out of the idea that anyone else is doing anything to me because well, there are things that happen in our lives that we may not be able to control and people may say things and they might hurt us. We always have control about how we respond. Even if it takes a little bit of practice to control how we respond. We are always the ones that get to do that. Our attitude and approach is up to us.

SHAWN: 16:23 Yes. As an adult, we're moving towards our desires in a respectful way. In a way that's helpful to ourselves and to others around us. The title of our podcast then is pleasure central radio. Pleasure is an interesting word. There's a lot of judgements and assumptions inside of pleasure. Where would you... What's your understanding of pleasure? What that is, what's the intent behind that word?

REBECCA: 16:50 Well, I'm glad you brought this up because now it's been a year and a half or two years since my friend Marie [inaudible 00:16:56] came up with Pleasure Central Radio as a title. I've had some interesting responses to it because oftentimes when people hear it, they either assume it's all about sex or it's all about hedonism. Neither one of those is really true.

REBECCA: 17:14 Yes, there's definitely a lot of talk about sex in this podcast because that's a big source of pleasure. But for me, pleasure is more about that feeling in your body that you get, that's satisfying a deep desire. When I think about it, I think of it as... You know when you've done something for somebody and you're really pleased with having done it and they say thank you, and you respond with my pleasure and you absolutely mean it, to the core of your being. That me is what I'm talking about when I say Pleasure Central Radio.

SHAWN: 17:52 What do you think the differences between Pleasure and Desire? What's... Go ahead.

REBECCA: 18:02 I think they're related, definitely. Especially the core of each of those words. When I think of desire, the purest form of desire, to me that feels like a soul tug. That feels like I'm being drawn towards something. It's different than oh my God, I see a naked lady over there. I desire her. It's more of the... My entire soul, my entire being is being pulled in this direction for some reason and I may not know what it is. I'm just feeling, yes let's go that way.

REBECCA: 18:42 True pleasure is what happens when you follow that soul tug. When you follow that desire, that deep core thing, you move in the direction of it. The satisfaction that shows up is what I call pleasure. I make a distinction between pleasure that fuels and pleasure that depletes.

SHAWN: 19:04 Pleasure that depletes. I can understand that. Something that feels good in the moment, but in the end you're feeling remorse or some sort of pain because of it, right?

REBECCA: 19:15 Yes, or you're just... You're not having more energy than when you started. I think that's a big part of life is engaging in things that give you more energy than they take from you. That's how we continue to build our lives and build and create a lifestyle that we're really excited about.

SHAWN: 19:34 How do you know that it's a pleasure that's fueling. What sorts of things do you think people will feel?

REBECCA: 19:41 I think the more that we are connected to our bodies and willing to be embodied humans, the easier it will be to tell, at least it is for me, it's always been for me. The more I am moving and doing some kind of workout or dance or anything that's reminding me to stay fully in my body, the easier it is to tell. When I notice it will be things like I'll have more energy, I'll have more attention, I will attract more quickly. I'll become a magnet for the things that I want. It's like adding jet fuel to my attraction creator fire.

REBECCA: 20:21 I'll feel like I'm in flow. I will have a deeper connection with the people around me. I'll be more present usually if I'm full of pleasure, if I've been recently fueled by pleasure. Another thing that pleasure does that I find really valuable and important to talk about is it sets my vibrational tuner for more pleasure.

REBECCA: 20:45 When I'm able to bask and wallow in that space of feeling really good and energized and connected, I'm also putting that energy back out into the world, and so what's coming back to me is a match to that and is going to increase that. Wallowing in pleasure, basking in pleasure, however you want to say it is a powerful creator trick.

SHAWN: 21:13 I think that's the important piece that I want to make sure that our listeners understand is that the pleasure that we're talking about here is not just a fleeting little selfish adolescent infant type act, but the pleasure that we're talking about in all of our episodes are intention anyways, the pleasure that we're talking about is the pleasure that we intended when we came.

SHAWN: 21:39 That source or God intended for us when we came. It's the type of pleasure that because we're feeling like you said, that fullness inside and we're feeling satisfied and we're feeling abundant inside, we can then bring that to the outside and that cycle can keep going and going and going and humanity as a whole can rise because we can start spreading that abundance, spreading that pleasure, spreading all of that joy

REBECCA: 22:08 It helps us more clearly see what our desires are, to see what those soul tugs are. Because when you're already in alignment with pleasure, you notice those and they stick out to you.

SHAWN: 22:18 Start to notice them, start to... Yes, just to notice them is actually a huge component that we're actually going to have to talk about in another podcast. Just the seeing is a huge component and like I said before, that's why I love doing this with you is because I think that what we're doing is opening up that curtain, maybe allowing people to see something that could be their little path, what they need to be doing, at least in the present moment.

REBECCA: 22:45 I've also noticed that the more I'm willing to be connected to my pleasure, the smaller steps I'm able to see. The more minuscule things I'm able to pay attention to. I know that there are people out there right now that are complaining. I don't know what brings me pleasure. I don't know what excites me in life. I have no dreams left.

REBECCA: 23:07 I understand that and finding one little thing to appreciate and letting that set your vibrational tuner to appreciation will help you start to see the things that'll take you to the next place. Sometimes there'll be tiny things, sometimes there'll be big things. Probably if you haven't been feeling much pleasure in a long time, they're going to be tiny things. Those tiny things lead to bigger things, lead to bigger things, lead to more interesting things, lead to lifestyle things. Lead to creating the life of your dreams.

REBECCA: 23:36 That's something that I've done for myself over the last 15 or 20 years is using this idea of pleasure and appreciation to direct my life path. Just little by little and finding the things that really light me up here and there and just seeing where that takes me. To me that is such a satisfying life.

SHAWN: 24:03 I'm amazed in my own life how things start rolling. You find just one thing... For me, it started, I would say what, nine years ago. One of the things that I got turned on about was hot yoga. Man I did hot yoga like crazy. I was doing doubles and maybe five, six nights a week all the time.

SHAWN: 24:24 From there, so many other areas in my life started to roll. Then recently over this last year and a half, I built a band and now I'm singing in a band. That brings me so much joy and so much pleasure. It seems that once that really started to roll for me, then everything else really starts to roll. I've experienced exactly what you're talking about myself.

SHAWN: 24:46 Finding one thing that really gets you excited and really turns you on and then rolling with that and then watch how everything else goes. What you guys can expect that are listening out of this podcast is we're going to talk about a whole bunch of different things. Our intention inside of that is to help our listeners as well as ourselves, explore and maybe find that one thing that, "Oh, I could get behind acroyoga for three months. Maybe I'll give that a try and see how that makes me feel." And then see what happens the rest of your life.

REBECCA: 25:17 I love that you brought up the band example too because I've been privileged to watch most of that happen. I think you'd started the band by the time we connected and started spending time together regularly. I know that some people would look at that and say, "But you're not making money from the band yet. What's your goal? Why haven't you completed this thing that you're wanting to complete."

REBECCA: 25:40 For you it's not about that. Eventually awesome, cool. But for you, the pleasure comes in building the band and taking these steps and putting things together and learning how to fire band members and replace them with ones that are better, and finding people that can really keep the beat. It's very connected to the soul of what you're doing there. It's not, I'm going to make a band so that I can become a rock star and get rich. That's something that'll be really cool, but that's not why you're doing it. You're doing it for the pleasure of it.

SHAWN: 26:13 Started out just for the release, just for the... Singing to me is a release. It was just for the pure pleasure of singing. Then as it moved from there, as it progressed from the shower in the car into a band, then it moved to the pleasure of watching somebody else sing along, watching them smiling and laughing and having a great time on a Friday or Saturday night.

SHAWN: 26:37 That's actually a great metaphor for what we're talking about. Finding something inside that builds you up, fills you up and then boom, you can start letting it out into the world. Then now that person that's for me watching on a Friday or Saturday night, they come away going, "Oh, that was amazing." Had such a great time and now they're bubbling over in and hopefully inspiring other people.

REBECCA: 26:56 Look at all that excitement and energy that is added to your life. Just [crosstalk 00:00:27:02].

SHAWN: 27:01 It all started from singing in the shower.

REBECCA: 27:04 All right, here you go, everybody. Singing in the shower [crosstalk 00:27:07].

SHAWN: 27:07 Lesson number one. What I've experienced is that inspiration, being inspired to start the band has led me to feeling stronger all the way around. Stronger, not just in the band but stronger everywhere in my whole life.

REBECCA: 27:26 I'd say that's pretty natural because in my experience, that's one of the things that pleasure does is it adds fuel to the fire. I've spent a lot of my time and romantic relationships and journaling about what I'm thinking so that I can clarify what my values are, how I truly want to live. I think that's one of the interesting things about polyamory for me. Is when you have all of the options in the world, literally. I like women too so I have all the options in the world. It's really helpful to find some parameters to help you aim at what you're wanting to aim at.

REBECCA: 28:02 Once you find what you want to aim at, that clarity to follow that pleasure definitely adds power to whatever you're doing and to who you are. Being as a person.

SHAWN: 28:17 Yes and inspires you to be an even better person and inspires all of us to growth.

REBECCA: 28:25 That's what I have noticed.

SHAWN: 28:29 Okay, well there you have it. That's episode one, the prequel of everything that we've done up to this point. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more of these podcasts with you. I know that I'm getting value out of it and so hopefully like this then it just starts springing forth and everybody else can get some value out of it too.

REBECCA: 28:49 Yes.

SHAWN: 28:51 We'll wrap it up. Rebecca, you are truly radiant.

REBECCA: 28:55 Thank you.

SHAWN: 28:56 We'll see you all next time.

REBECCA: 28:57 All right. See you all next time.