This is a continuation of
the hit what in the world is
this type of intimacy,
which is this week, we're gonna be talking about experiential. Well, this are the these are the experiences
that we have in life and
why having those experiences and sharing them with our wives
are so important. We're gonna be talking about
the what are what is an experiential
intimacy?
Why is it important, and how do you actually grow those experiential intimacies?
We're gonna be talking about that this week on episode 245 of the relaxed male. This is the relaxed male,
a
The Show that comes to you each week, helping men to remove the nice guy from their life so they can actually live their life on their terms.
Join the host certified coach, Brian Goodwin, as he helps men step out of their heads and become free from the thoughts that bind them.
Amen. Hello, and welcome to the relaxed meal. And I
have
if you didn't catch this recording live, yeah,
you this is, this is take 2 of the,
of the of the Relaxed Mill podcast. Got about,
I don't know,
15 minutes in and realized, oh, hey. I did not
hit the record. So now, thankfully, we are recording.
So alright. So what are we talking about this week? This week, we're talking, we're doing another episode of the what in the world
is blank
whatever type of intimacy we have going on. And this is
we're talking about experiential
intimacy this week. Now
this
this whole series came thanks to the choose therapy
post of 10 types of intimacy.
And they list out that there are about 10,
and there's the ones that we know of. There's the physical,
intimacy, which is, you know, the the hugs, the kisses, the the other, the horizontal mambos, and things like that. There's also emotional intimacy, which is
us just having a an emotional connection.
But there's also intellectual intimacy, spiritual intimacy,
the experiential intimacy, which is what we're talking about this week,
social intimacy,
creative intimacy,
conflict intimacy, which seems a little,
you know, counterproductive,
aesthetic intimacy, which,
you know, almost sounds made up, and work intimacy, which, okay, why? That sounds like it's might be something, but we're gonna be focusing
solely on experiential.
And the reason why is because sometimes
we just kind of
we focus in on one type of intimacy, and we wonder
why is it nothing kicking in? Well, because a lot of times,
it's the intimacy that we need.
Those that
itch may not be just from physical intimacy,
and it may not just be from
emotional. It might be that we need a little bit of creative intimacy in there or social intimacy
or in this case, like, we're talking experiential
intimacy.
And so
experiential intimacy is something that we've had in our life
for for centuries.
Man has used experiences
to come together time and time again. We've
from,
from using boot camp, boot camp was an experience that allowed
men to feel
as a are a single team, a single united team instead of having a bunch of guys fighting together. They go through and experience a boot camp
all at the same time. And so they come out on the other side
with some really
close friends. You there's people that I
I don't actually talk to any of the guys from my my boot camp nowadays, but I do keep track of them.
I do see I do check to see what they're, what they're doing, what they're not doing and things like that. And it's a fun fun little
time to see how
the guys that I know have
progressed through their life.
But there's also the guys who I've gone
whenever I was in the Navy, went through, on on the
the same ship that I was on
and have still talked to a couple of those several of those guys
on a nearly weekly basis. And it's,
again, because we've all been through
similar experiences. And so we have those those experiences to base our our relationships off of.
So intimacies
vary from thing from time to time. And this is the same reason why you have old soldiers going to the veterans,
foreign wars post that go into the VFW.
You have,
the
business folks who are
part of the different types of, lodges and the animal zoo lodges, the animal lodges,
and, and the rotary clubs and things like that.
So, these are all thanks to
having different types of of of experiences
and to be able to have something that you can relate to
to somebody else. And so,
experiences with your wife have always been happening too from the time that before y'all got married.
When you got married and you went through your,
y'all's life together, y'all were having experiences that y'all could actually
bond over.
And so you might look at like experiential
intimacy as almost like a cement for the relationship.
And
it that's, it's a good way to to understand
why when you start
just kinda becoming a homebody, you know, after after the kids have hit, like,
12, 13 years old and they're not really finding the parents nearly as cool and so they would rather do other things and you would rather just kinda sit at home and relax for the weekend,
it ends up being where you start decreasing
the amount of experiences
you have in your life.
Those lack of experiences
almost allows that cement
for y'all's connection to start loosening and start crumbling and getting old and flaky. And
and
this is why
it's good to continue to date your wife.
It's why it's good to continue
going out and
doing
couple things,
Whether it's going antiquing because, well, the wife wants to go antiquing and you don't know why she wants to go look for old stuff, but she does. Alright. Fine. Let's go and let's see what they get what type of old stuff we can we can use and use to fill up our house with a little bit more. Then again, it may be she's having to she's going with you, and you're enjoying the time camping. And she's wondering why do we have to be homeless people for the weekend.
We don't know. You know? These are the things that us people us guys like versus the what the wife likes, but then there's the things that
you and your wife may like. Y'all maybe end up going to do, do museums, 1, one museum a month or every other weekend or something where y'all go to, like, the planetarium
one one weekend and then the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of
of of Cowboy Arts and Museum of Osteology
and, you know, there's a lot of different types of museums
that are right in your area. I mean, we've got here in this, where I'm at in Elk City, we've got the museum Route 66 Museum. We also have, Route 66 Museum in the next town. So there's a lot of different Route 66 museums. And the next town down there, we have an Air and Space Museum.
So hey.
So there's a lot of
museums that you can see just in your area. I know even the little town that I grew up in.
They're just 15 miles away. There's the High Plains Museum, and so there's a lot of experiences that you can have if you choose to have them. You just have to be able to get out of your comfort zone to be able to do that. So why is experiential intimacy important? Because it is what allows you to have
the bonding
for your with you and your wife. Y'all can go through and
find interesting art and or interesting experiences,
And those can be
as exciting as possible or just as mundane as possible. And we're gonna talk about some of the different things you could do. So how do we
build our experiential
intimacy?
Well,
you go out.
It's the easiest way to do it. Have find a way to do an experience. You don't actually even have to leave the house to have interesting experiences.
You just have to be able to turn on an imagination
and start trying to see what is it that we are
we're
we're what are what is it that we can do to
change how we view something in our life?
And that can be from,
you know, having a fire drill or having a fire drill where you can't see. And so, one person has to be blindfolded
and the other one's blindfolded and y'all try to find y'all try to lead each other
out of the house. I mean, this is something just came off the top of my head. So, you know,
is it is it a good idea?
Maybe not. Maybe not. It might, it may not be the brightest idea, but it's just something that's, you know, me and the wife, we like to we are big movie fans or at least I am. She's I like the weird ones. She likes the more
not so weird ones. And so there's times that I get to we used to get to sit down and have a, have a movie night, and it might be something really bizarre and we're
there's some that get too bizarre even for me, but we get go through have a bizarre movie
and, get finished, and she goes, well, okay. That was an experience. I was like, yeah. This is it is fun. And we go we just kinda continue on the day. It's just hour and a half, 2 hours wasted. That's all it was. Nothing big. And so
we
get to have those experiences. Then we also like I said before, we do we do like to go out and do museum stuff. So,
the biggest area for museums is over in Oklahoma City. So and that's an hour and a half away. So it's not too terribly far, but it's, you know, it's a it's a drive.
And so we we do those from time to time, not all the time, but we still like to get go out and have experiences of going to the Oklahoma Zoo City Zoo or going to,
going down to, the Holy City down outside of, of cache, I believe is where it's at.
Interesting little, little place, and there's a lot of experiences. If you're getting around and best place to start,
just do the tourist thing. Go to go to your local
hotel, and most of them have a rack of brochures of all the weird and funny and odd bizarre things you can do. Atlas Obscura is another place that you can find new interesting and bizarre things to do
in your area.
You know, in like here in Western Oklahoma, you can, go down to, down to the Wichita Mountains and see if you can find the iron door. There's supposedly an iron door and behind if you find it and you can get it open, then congratulations. There's supposed to be a whole bunch of of gold and dead Indians. That's what the story is. So
so there's there's a lot of of
of adventures that you can have. And our wives like, believe it or not, even if they're home bodies and they don't wanna get out, they want to be taken on adventures.
They will gripe about it the whole way but at the same time, there's something about it that intrigues them and they enjoy it.
So you might might find that all of a sudden you've got a, got a woman with a very pioneering spirit.
So but there is some things you wanna understand when you're doing
the,
when you're trying to build these different experiences.
Just understand that
your idea of an adventure
and her idea of adventure,
2 different things altogether.
Nothing's going to be sometimes you're gonna have the the
the points that are similar.
Other times, you're gonna have points that are not similar.
She's gonna want to,
like I said, go
go antique shopping and you would like to go
look at old cars at the car show.
Okay?
There are experiences.
You can find stuff that you like out of both of them. And,
and so you can see
what's you know, you can start to learn a little more about what your wife is into is and she gets to learn what you're into.
And there's a lot of good,
interesting things that happen and go along,
but you have to be able to be willing to step out into the land of discomfort
to find those new things. And
so best way to build an experiential,
build your experiential intimacy,
it's a lot easier said than,
than I'm making it out to be,
is go just simply go do something new.
Do something that you have not
ever done before. This might be something that you've talked about doing,
but you've always made excuses as to why you don't need to do it.
Or you may end up, something she's talked about doing, but has always come up with excuses as to not do it. And so,
there you go. There's just a place to start.
Let it be messy. Let it
be uncomfortable.
Especially, if y'all are doing something that you've never done before, say, like, try to do a remodeling of a room.
That if you if you do that, make sure you have a very strong relationship
first because, yeah, me and the wife, we don't do the remodeling thing,
anymore. We've tried it a couple times and,
yeah. It it it it doesn't work. I've got a different working style versus her. So it just it's not a it it doesn't it's not a pretty experience, but we have gotten our projects done. It's just,
usually, eventually, someone has to step away and and take a deep breath while the other one goes and does their thing because eventually,
they're going yeah. We're gonna go through and, and have a,
have a bad experience. If not,
it's gonna be someone's feelings are gonna get hurt.
But there's a lot of different things. I mean, if you wanna do something light and easy,
then go they've got
crap tons of of Legos out there. Maybe y'all sit down and do a Lego together. That's the same, you know, kind of the modern version of doing a a puzzle.
Doing, you know, a 1000 piece, 5000 piece puzzle, maybe doing one of those impossible puzzles, the one where it's the exact same picture rotated
90
impossible puzzles, the one where it's the exact same picture rotated 90 degrees that has that's a circle. You know? There's
there's a lot of them out there that are just really, really tough and insane. So you can get to that.
You could do something along those, but there's other things that you can do, the other experiences
that might even actually help you with your relationship, help you with your,
with the time that you spend with your wife. I mean, you could try doing, doing a couple's retreat.
Couple's retreats are are interesting and and
often
provide a lot of insights that you would have never thought to look at. Another one's kinda like getting, couples counseling if you want to make sure that y'all are stronger in
your connections
or even do couples coaching. So, you know, you want, some coaching, you can always reach out to me. You can go to relax mail.comforward/lovebirds
and fill out and and
go that route, and I'd love to be able to talk with you. If you're not what you think y'all are pretty strong in that area and y'all just wanna do something different and just have the experiences
of
trying new things,
try volunteering, man. That's something that will always
bring you 2 together because, 1, it helps y'all to become more grateful for what you do have
so you can volunteer. Again, I mentioned it before. You go camping. You can go go shopping. You could be your her bag holder if she goes and looks around in a
in different,
different shops.
You can also just find
interesting places to go.
And like I said, through, Atlas Obscura,
you can also go to,
go online to, you know, interesting areas in,
in my town.
Go on individual trips
is something else you can do. You could go on a on a fishing trip and wife can go on a girl's trip. And when y'all come back, y'all talk about what the trip was like.
Because there's there's always
abilities to come back together because that's what the experiences are about.
It's about the stories you share
with each other
and how that experience affected you.
To come in to even if y'all do go
your
own your own way. You go you do your camping trip. She does a,
a spa day and y'all come back and y'all y'all share that.
That's where
the connection happens. This is why
the
the experiences are like cement.
Because when you go through those experiences,
even if y'all go through the exact same experience, y'all are going to have
2 different experiences
because you're 2 different people.
So she's going to have
a an experience that she's gonna wanna share her thoughts and insights with on with you on. And she's you're gonna wanna do the same thing. And that's just what is what
happens
as y'all
have
life together.
So
so try
going out, doing something new, doing something you've never tried before.
Let be okay with the fact that you might you may land on your butt a couple times because it's just it's the experience that counts.
The experience allows you and your wife to come together and have
a better relationship,
which is the actual goal
of why you go out and do things with her
so that you can live life intentionally with your wife and your wife can live life intentionally with you. And as y'all keep going back and forth with this, y'all are gonna find that your lives are becoming better, stronger, and
and better.
Yeah. I should've said better before, but you will have these things
be
stronger
because of the experiences that you had. So I'm starting to repeat myself, which means that I am starting to run out of stuff to say. So we're gonna go ahead and we'll call this,
this little little episode,
done for the, for the week. And if you're interested
in,
finding out more, you can go to the website relaxed mail dot com. If you're interested in go getting coaching, you can go to relax mail.comforward/lovebirds.
And you've all if you, found anything in here that resonated with you, share the podcast out. Share this podcast with your with your guy friends. Let them know there
there's a show out there that is helping
change how men look at the world, change how men
approach the problems of their life so that instead of being stuck in the poor me, I'm I'm a horrible person, they can actually get out there and enjoy life and let their wives have their emotions
and not be affected by the fact that their wife is upset
for whatever reason.
And they don't have to worry about trying to tiptoe and not be be grumpy because, you know, I don't wanna upset the wife. Well, you'll find out that you don't you have no control over whether or not your wife is upset. You have no control over whether
your wife has no control over whether or not you're gonna get upset.
Just allowing folks to have their emotions and to go through that human experience of emoting
their their feelings
is one of the more beautiful aspects of life. No matter how scary and unsure you are, you can always know that you're going to have those emotions
every single time. And to to
go through life
and try to try to to avoid those is root of where most of our suffering comes from. So guys, with that, I wanna say thank you again for listening. Y'all take care. Have a good rest of week, and we will talk to y'all later. Till then.