Episode 83 - WILD ATTRACTION – Become Your Lover’s Catnip with Paul & Patricia Richards
WILD ATTRACTION - Become Your Lover's Catnip with Paul & Patricia Richards, directors of The Sente Center, authors of "Wild Attraction: The Energetic Facts of Life - A Ruthlessly Practical Guide to Extraordinary Relationships," happily married 13 years. Paul, former VP of the Aerospace Industry, and Patty, Nurse Practitioner and Midwife.
In this episode, Paul & Patty give us a simple yet powerful template of Energetic Intelligence and reveal how the non-ordinary and the scientific intertwine. Uncover common male and female mistakes that block or blow up natural attraction. Discover your inner magnetism and the dance of souls. Reclaim your intelligent wild.
Transcript
Transcript
Francesca Gentille: Welcome to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra. Bringing you the soul of sex. With me today are Paul and Patty Richards of the Sente’ Center in Ashland Oregon. Authors of the new book Wild Attraction: The energetic facts of life. Subtitled a ruthlessly practical guide to extraordinary relationship. Paul and Patty, welcome. I’m delighted to have you here on the show.
Paul Richards: Well thank you. It’s great to be here.
Patricia Richards: Yeah, thank you.
Francesca Gentille: Now I have to say for our listening audience when I got your book and people like you will sometimes send me materials in advance of the show. My beloved snatched it. And he has been reading it. And he’s been giving me little snippets. And saying, those people are fascinating. They’ve actually mapped out the, the energy of the body. And how men and women can relate to each other. They brought the esoteric into something that makes sense. And I’m delighted to have you translate for that, for us. And first I want you to give us just a little bit of a background. So our listening audience has you in context of how a vice president in the aerospace field. Uh, an engineer, working on projects like the space shuttle. And wonderful nurse practitioner and midwife, became the energetic seers, the guides, of this, what some will think of as kind of woo woo, or, or esoteric reality into something that we can work with. How, how did that happen?
Paul Richards: Oh, Patty is deferring to me.
Patricia Richards: That’s a great question.
Paul Richards: That’s a great question. Yes.
Patricia Richards: We wonder every min..every day.
Paul Richards: I’ll try to make it make it brief to get on with the good stuff, the relationship stuff. As I was growing up, I had a lot of non-ordinary perceptual experiences. And, when I say a lot, hundreds and hundreds of them. And I was very scientifically based. So I was always looking for the science or the academic understanding of it. And eventually in my twenties, I went to UCLA and got involved in a program that was studying alternative perception. It was fledgling. That was the Seventies. And uh, went through several years of working with academics who were quite brilliant. And kind of got myself stabilized. And then went on into my aerospace career. And at some point while I was by day wearing a three piece suit, and jetting around the country, someone said you ought to talk to this person. And gave me a phone number and I called her up. And she was a psych, psychotherapist. And I always take those hints pretty strongly when someone says you should talk to a psychotherapist. So I called her. She said come to my office. Got to her office, she talked to me for ten minutes. And then said, greatly to my surprise. Ah, I am in a oral tradition of very highly educated people going back many generations who have developed a way to pursue at the highest possible level non-ordinary experiences of the universe and have ah, a very high functioning private lives. And it was this tradition was always passed from one person to another. It was very private. It had no social agenda. Ah, and from that moment, she then began to demonstrate, ah, her capacity for non-ordinary perception in a variety of feats. And there really was never a question in my mind that I belong there and that was the beginning of ten years of intense training three, four days a week. In the midst of this very busy aerospace career. So I was think not at all a likely person to write a book about energy and relationship. Ah, from some points of view, but from another perspective, I was lucky enough to become attached to ah, not a known tradition, but a very deep and beautiful one that allowed me to see as much as I can and yet have very um, fulfilling kind of individual experience of life. Patty, do you want to comment on that.
Patricia Richards: That’s a nice introduction Paul. And I would say about 18 years ago Paul moved to our town and I came in for an individual session. A friend of mind who was studying therapeutic touch said oh there’s this wonderful man, you might go see him. So, in that session he very casually said well I could train you to do what I do because you have the same capacity. So, I asked him, you know, why would I want to do this? Don’t you have to be very perfect and nonjudgmental and completely enlightened. And he started to laugh and said you’re already doing it. That’s what humans do. They are already paying attention to energy whether you know it or not. So you may as well know what you’re doing. And that made sense to me. So our relationship really started with mutual interest in attention and consciousness. And also science. And from that we have such a great relationship and such a deep communication. That we really have enjoyed sharing it. And we find over the years and early years when we would teach just energetic empowerment or different things, people were always saying, we just like to watch the two of you together. And we got that all the time. So we started mapping it. And out of that wild attraction uh was birthed.
Francesca Gentille: Um, I love that, I love that it’s in the real time of your lives. That this is something that you’ve lived. That you’ve practiced. That you are the possibility of beautiful connection and attraction. Because, it’s said that we really transform the world through who we were being. Not just who we’re saying--what we’re saying--but who we’re being. Want to point back to what, what you said when you first got together is that sense that you don’t have to be perfect. This is something that, in a way you already are doing already. And, and that the, the information that you have supports us human beings to bring this into greater awareness, greater choice, around, around this energy sensing that we are already doing. Can you give us an example of how we are already doing this so are--how do we do this? And consciously?
Patricia Richards: Um, well, I think of..I’ll give you a female example because I think every woman can relate to it. If you walk by, um, perhaps you’re walking...you’re in a club or walking by a construction site..or whatever. You’ll walk by maybe a group of men and you feel often times uncomfortable. Sometimes you’ll feel like somebody has reached across and touched you or come near you but they physically have not. And what is that? Or I could come behind you if you were in a room right now Francesca and I came behind you perhaps I was really, either overjoyed or very angry about something. You may not see me but you’ll feel me and you’ll be aware of it. Well what is that? And for us that’s a daily event that you have an energy field and it’s always perceiving um, much of what you are working out with people is in this communication of energy that’s passing but nobody is really giving you a framework for how to use that in a way that supports you. Because the same thing that can be alarming and be uncomfortable when you are in a relationship or a committed relationship. It becomes this profound dance of communication. So Paul and I can be across the room from each other. And huge communication. I can energetically go over and sit on his lap. It’s great. So, for a long term relationship, it’s how to be each other’s cat nip. It’s wonderful to know how to turn on the buttons and switches that are part of your energy system so they’re more ah, you’re more aware of them and they’re more volitional.
Paul Richards: It’s interesting that we uh, share, that what seems to work is when the female person is energetically fairly active. And the male person is not so energetically active. If, if, I were to have met Patty, uh let’s just say in a supermarket or something and struck up a conversation. Um, she could be more energetically forward or, or come toward me. But if I, um, allow the energy associated with me, to move into her field, that probably won’t work. Uh, the, the, uh,
Patricia Richards: I usually feel slimed during the ...
Paul Richards: Right. So it’s actually difficult. It takes a certain restraint for a male person not to respond um, by moving their energy into a, a field of a woman they find attractive. But that restraint itself is a language. And it telegraphs almost a kind of chivalry. Whereas the opposite, when a person kind of invades the energetic space of the female person, it’s a form of aggression and not quite come across as respectful as seems to be needed or you know the highest and best for two people in that circumstance.
Francesca Gentille: This is fascinating and I want to talk more about this after a break and a word from our sponsors. How men become more magnetic and really invite this active energy into their lives so it’s there, so it’s something they can do and how women can bring this into their own energy awareness in a way that, that connects and invites men to adore and appreciate them. After we come back from a break and our fabulous sponsors who we encourage you to support because this helps great shows like this continue to be on the air and on the internet. And we’ll be right back.
Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra bringing you the soul of sex with the fabulous Paul and Patty Richards who are the directors of the Sente’ Center in Ashland Oregon. Authors of the new book Wild Attraction: The energetic facts of life. And we were just talking about how men are holding space for women not actually moving forward. Which is kind of counter intuitive to the way the culture says you know, be a stud, be a star. And so how can they be charming in a way that, more magnetic and inviting and has that chivalry that you were talking about?
Patricia Richards: It’s a toss up on who want’s to take this one. I think I let you Paul talk about the male role. Because it’s--I think it’s a wonderful thing to describe the um, the role of the male in energy.
Paul Richards: I think it’s very delightful that as a male I can be appreciative. I can say “you’re the most lovely woman I’ve seen in five years.” And if I say that without this forward movement of my field into the woman’s space to whom I’m speaking, that can play. The um, boldness, that I get the privilege of exercising, really works in terms of the energetics of gender if I am energetically reserved and allow the woman to send the cue, the more subtle cues, and make the more subtle actions of energy. So there a kind of physical boldness that actually is, is, I’m called upon to provide as long as I don’t do the energy forward part. But if I were to say you know, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve met in five years, which is done with sort of flowing my energy into the space right around her, that a, probably would appeal more to a woman who maybe had trouble with men in the past who were aggressive or were, didn’t quite have the uh, model of how the male and female work best. In other words, the healthier feminine candidate, the more likely that feminine candidate will be attracted to a person who has a certain polished boldness but understands the energetic reserve that was embodied in the past by people like Cary Grant, Rhett Butler.
Patricia Richards: Rhett Butler.
Paul Richards: Yeah. There were models in cinema and books and different places of people who had that. Paddy? A comment?
Francesca Gentille: Richard Gere today, has some of that as well?
Paul Richards: Yes I would say so, yeah.
Francesca Gentille: You know he, it’s some of that, that, sort of flaws but reserved. I sometimes will offer, for men, that they can do a drive-by compliment. So if they say, you know, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in five years and just keep going. Does the mere fact that they, that they keep walking means that their energy isn’t ah, pushing her over. And that it also leaves a little bit: “who was that masked men?” You know, who was that just gave me that beautiful compliment and walked away? And there is this sense of, almost my energy then wants to follow him. And find out more about him. So it’s very similar that sense of boldness. Bold, bold with reserve. What an interesting you know um, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Chocolate and peanut butter together for the first time. And how about women? What, what, women are often confused. They don’t want to be too bold because maybe then they’re a slut but then they don’t want to be too reserved because maybe then they’re not noticed. But what would we say for our women?
Patricia Richards: For women I would say in general, um, women can be, they can be too still in energy. And so often times they are still when they should be moving and they are moving when they should be still. And so it’s an interesting thing to point out. If you are in a singles situation, you are always testing for safety and availability. And we are very big on take your time, get to know people, you know don’t rush things. And we’d look at what stage of a relationship you are actually in and what are the really um, mating rituals and energy that are required. For instance, if a woman packs a lot of energy in her, say her rear end or her breasts, it will signal: look at these areas. And if you think back to walking down a street you will see women do it all the time. And they are packing energy in so that it is like a stop light. We’ll if you go to the high school and you are 14 and that’s what women are doing, they’re teaching themselves and others to really only be seen as bits. And it’s really not the stage of relationship or the age it’s really appropriate to be doing it in our opinion. But on the other hand if you are in a relationship where you’ve tested for safety and you are now in love and you are sexually active or you’re in a committed relationship you want to be the thing that that person can’t look away from. So I am always catching and holding Paul’s attention. If I walk up the stairs in front of him, you better know I am packing energy in my rear end or where ever I want him to pay attention. It’s this fun back and forth of “oh, he’s responsive.” A woman wants to be responded to. She wants to feel like that she can put out subtle cues and the man is paying attention. Because attention is her food. It just nourishes the feminine. So we are trying to teach men to be more attentive to the feminine. And woman to really carry themselves as works of art. Moving from their body center so their depth and their wisdom is available. And knowing when to employ energetics in a safe and available setting. So that they can continue to surprise and delight the person that they are attracting or are in love with.
Francesca Gentille: I think that is so important for our women that are listening or any dads that are out there. Or daughters. Is that sense of, women always do want to be seen as beautiful. They want to be seen as...they want to be seen. And to be, and have a sense of attention and worth given to them. And there is so much training in our culture to reveal our breasts or show our legs and to just lead with the sexual enticement. And then we can end of feeling that we are objectified. And we are not seen as a wholeness. And I teach flirting and dating and I don’t teach seducing and enticing except to couples because I find that our culture leads with seduction and enticement and then drops it once it’s in a relationship. What I would say, you know very much, lead with something more holistic. And then once you are in a relationship is a great time to up-level like you said to walk up the stairs and have the, the energy, of your bottom be completely alluring to your partner. Where if I start that way, I’m in a club and I’m walking up the steps and someone is allured by the energy of my bottom they may never get to the rest of me as a person.
Paul Richards: You know when we do lectures, we bring in occasionally photographs, because we’ve travelled the world looking how men and women interact. From New Guinea, throughout Europe and the South Pacific, and in Paris they have a phenomenon that we call whole body illumination. Whole body illumination means that you distribute your energy equally throughout your entire body. And the affect of doing that is to say “I am a complete, centered, grounded, valuable, deep person. And if you watch women walking on the streets of Paris, they do this to an amazing degree more than anywhere we’ve seen. And we actually got some lingerie pictures from gallery Lafayette in Paris of people wearing the most suggestive attire and yet because that have this whole body illumination you really didn’t get the feeling that uh, the female form was being, a kind of, framed so that you were being psycho-sexually triggered. And if you look at those photographs which we showed in our lectures and compare them to American lingerie companies, its a very striking difference that gives people an immediate sense of what energetic illumination means and how it can be used. We strongly advocate the Parisian approach until you are in the relationship where there is a high safety and availability at which time, um, we have this concept of intelligent wild, which says, the wild, nobody’s looking for tame attraction but wild attraction from a dysfunctional place simply doesn’t work. Intelligent wild means you know when to use this huge bag of tricks. We are just mainly focusing on the energetic ones that can enhance relationships over the course of a very long life.
Francesca Gentille: But let’s talk more about that intelligent wild. And more information for our men as well. And a couple more specifics for our women, how to be that whole body illumination. For our men, and for men how to, what they’re steps are in relationship--starting it, keeping it alive. After we get back from a break and word from our fabulous sponsors. We will be right back.
Francesca Gentille: Welcome back to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra bringing you the soul of sex with Paul and Patty Richards, authors of Wild Attraction: The energetic facts of life. And we were talking for women, and we’ll get to men in a moment, about that whole body illumination. What one thing that women can focus on and practice to bring more of that sense of whole body illumination into their body, into their being.
Paul Richards: Great. For this you need a mirror. And you would stand in front of a mirror. And start with the opposite of what you want to ultimately project. And to do that you would focus your own eyes at your own image on some part of the body. Could be facial, could be chest. Could be rear end or leg. And look at it. Think about it in terms of it’s psycho-sexual power. Focus on it. Look away. Clear you mind. And then quickly bring your eyes back to the mirror and see where you eyes are drawn to. And that simple exercise, uh, very simple suggestion brings about the packing of extra energy into the body part that you are trying to illuminate. And that is uh, kind of the half step. Once you can catch yourself doing what everyone does under certain circumstances and make it conscious, then you can move on to how do you unify. And the unification process is somewhat different. If you look into the mirror and you start with looking at your own face and pay attention to your face. Let your, um, as your breathing rises and falls, move downward through your body, you may also take your hand without removing it--put it on your face and draw it down with your eyes down the center line of the body paying equal attention, loving attention to every part of your body as you move your hand down, as far down your leg as you can get. Then look away from the mirror and then look back, you might find that your gaze is no longer drawn with a hard focus on anyone part of the body but you register the entire body. And the repetition of that simple exercise...you may have to do it two or three times to really realize yes uh, I can bring about this consciously this change that normally is subconscious. And the more times you do it, over the course of several weeks, the more adept you become. When you feel yourself walking you actually find the art of walking different when energy is equally distributed to your body. Patty, are you wanting to elaborate?
Patricia Richards: I probably would add to it. If, I would like everyone to really think of ah, a person who is a karate master, and the grace and the beauty and the um, there is a relaxation if you are in the room with somebody who is center-based. And the first thing I do when I work with women is I--and men--I work with them to become center-based. When we are anxious or when we are self-conscious, we pull ourselves up into our face, and if you--and a listener now, or Fransceca now if you want to do it--if you take your hand and pull all--you know just move it up your body so all your energy is in your face and then you turn to somebody and talk or walk across the room. You become almost a head on a stick. And it’s the more superficial part of you. And so if you talk to someone and you are talking face to face, you are almost guaranteeing that you are going to have a superficial presentation. The other very simple thing is to put your hand down your belly, pat that belly and from your center from your belly throw a line down as if you’re anchoring into the center of the earth. So pretend you have an anchor line to the center of the earth. And then practice walking across the room moving your center across the room, not your face, with this anchor to center the earth. And get a girlfriend or do it with your spouse or your partner. Practice walking with everything pulled up to your face. And then practice walking from your center. connected to the center of the earth, moving it across the room. It is so deep and so graceful. And when you talk to someone, center to center, you are revealing the most, uh, the most wise deep and genuine part of yourself. So I think that would be where I would start with women-- and men, start by being center-based.
Francesca Gentille: Um, that sounds so beautiful. And for our men I sometimes think that women have an unanswerable question: would you really love me and want to care for me if I wasn’t sexual with you? And that men sometimes have an unanswerable question or one that keeps going on in their mind: Would you really want to have sex with me or fuck me or want me if I wasn’t providing for you and taking care of you? Would you agree that that is something that...it can be at ah, the core for many men and many women?
Paul Richards: Yes I’d love to comment on that. We have kind of a similar set of ideas. We feel that uh, the people we talk to, mainly...probably one of the main complaints from female people is they feel not sufficiently claimed. And the word claimed has to be carefully defined. Not as a brutal thing but it means--in the case of Patty--it’s the identification of her within our duo and also to the world at large that um, I will do what it takes, to nurture and support, and to protect this relationship no matter what indefinitely. And that’s it. There is an energetic to claiming a person. And the energetic is...sort of has to do with..just almost like almost putting your hand...it’s sort of the...energetic equivalent of just gently but firmly just making contact with a person’s forearm or bicep with yours. And in that process, affirming yes, I recognize you as my mate, I’ll do whatever it takes as long as it takes to make that as good as could possibly be. And that ritual of claiming is something that’s good if it happens frequently and it contains the “no matter what” message. Ah, Patty we...
Francesca Gentille: Is it true for male and female or would that be more the male to the female and is there something distinct that the female would bring to the male?
Paul Richards: Well, see when, the female in energy terms cues that. She subtly cues the male it’s time for him to claim her. So as with most things energetic the cues come from the feminine, the more overt action often then comes from the male. And in the claiming process for the male to claim the female, the male then is claimed, equally claimed. So it’s sort of...there is no way to know who catches who in a thing like that. It’s mutual and complete.
Patricia Richards: I think I would take it a different direction in response to your question. Although I really am glad you brought up the claiming because a lot of women, they don’t feel like they have enough attention. They’re not claimed. And they want... I think the female psyche wants to feel the power and the capacity of the male so when you say to me Francesca well people, you know, “women, will they still love me if I’m not doing” and to be honest, our framework pretty much says that the male essence, when we look at people and a primarily male essence it is the motion of doing. And there is a necessity for the male to be able to do if he is going to be attractive to the feminine. The feminine wants to experience raw male capacity that is also tempered with awareness. And the female really does carry the flame of sexuality. It is what she offers. Not in a trivial, cheap, you know like, it’s my job, and I have to, you know, be your sex slave. But it is the role, I think, of the feminine, to keep the flame of sexuality alive and um, and vibrant in the relationship. So even though it may not be what people want to hear or it may not be culturally politically correct. We would say that it is the male’s role to do and to be capable and to present as a powerful um, effective being, if he wants to really attract an extraordinary relationship with an empowered female. And it is the role of the female to carry some sexual...some sexuality, some aliveness in that area. Or what ends up happening is wild attraction, this force, really sweeps in, and you’re leaving a bit of a gap in your relationship and somebody else will fill it. So to us it is very real that much as we wish we could opt out of those roles, they seem to be hard-wired in.
Francesca Gentille: This is so beautiful and I wish I had hours to talk to you more about this energetic dynamic between the masculine and the feminine. And how some of us do carry more masculine, so..male or female..so, then we want to relate to someone who carries more of the feminine, male or female. So there’s always this energetic pairing that we’re longing, or seeking and a spark that flows between us when it’s there. How would people find out more about you, this book, your services, how to take your workshop? How do they get more than a taste as they had today?
Patricia Richards: Probably a way to start is to either go on Amazon or go on our website. Which is WWW.sentecenter. And that’s S-E-N-T-E center dot com. And basically we offer individual sessions or classes by telephone or lectures in person. And um, books and audio recordings. We really just have an interest in creating great people. So our primary interest is how do we contribute to the creation of great people. And we feel that one of the ways we can do that is to make available a model that takes into account what is actually happening in energy. And we encourage people to have a healthy psychology. Do your counseling. Do the therapy that is required to have your issues, you know, ironed out. Have a mind-body practice, have a physical practice, have a spiritual practice. And then educate yourself about your energy system. Because it adds a vocabulary and a language and a capability that is very rewarding.
Francesca Gentille: Paul, Patty..it’s been an honor and a delight to have you here on the show with us today.
Patricia Richards: Thank you so much.
Paul Richards: It’s entirely mutual. Thank you so much.
Francesca Gentille: For our listening audience, if you, another way to find out more about Patty and Paul, to see their pictures, their bio, find their website, to get transcripts of the show, also find me, my bio and my services. You can do that at W-W-W personal life media dot com. That’s W-W-W personal life media dot com. Thank you for listening to Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra. Bringing you the soul of sex.