How To Navigate Relationship And Sexual Dynamics

Speaker 1 0:05
Welcome to the Love Lab podcast, a safe and fun place to get real and learn about sex, whether you’re a man or woman, single or couple, this is the show for you. I am your host, Kevin Anthony, and I am here to guide you to go from good to amazing in the bedroom and your relationships.

Kevin Anthony 0:27
All right, welcome back to the Love Lab podcast. This is episode 325 and it is titled, how to navigate relationship and sexual dynamics. So we’re going to be talking today about relationship and sexual dynamics that show up that people have to figure out ways to navigate on a regular basis. We’re going to use the framework of a tool that My guest has created, and we’re going to show how that framework can help couples navigate those dynamics. There are so many different dynamics that show up in relationships, and some of them can be challenging. And you know, there are a lot of tools out there, some of which are good, some of which are not so good, but the basic gist of the tools is they’re designed to try to help us understand who we are, who our partner is, and with that understanding, then learn how to navigate the relationship.

Because if you don’t understand, you know, this is something I see people do all the time. I have a friend who does this a lot. I was actually just telling him this the other day, because it kind of drives me crazy, you know, he figures out something that works for him, like some way of doing something or something, you know, that really works. And then he thinks that’s the way it has to work for everybody else. And so then he argues with you all the time about, you know, yeah, but this and this, and then you need to do it like this. And then, no matter how many times you’re trying to explain to him, that doesn’t work for me, right? And people do the same thing in their relationships like this is the way I do it. This is what works for me. So it must work for you. And so these tools basically can help us understand each other, and when we understand each other better than we know how we can basically work with the other person.

A perfect example of that would be something like the now I’m drawing a blank on it. I was just in my head a second ago, love languages. Thank you. Wow, that just left my brain for a moment. But like understanding the love languages and realizing that maybe somebody’s love languages are different than yours, and they might like to receive things differently than you like to receive them, right? So that’s kind of the gist. But we’re going to, we’re going to, we’re going to actually be talking about a completely different tool today, and I have a guest to help us walk through that and figure out how we can use this to help navigate relationships and sexual dynamics.

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Okay, my guest today is Shelly Levine, and she’s a seasoned love investigator. She offers not just insights, but a navigational compass through the complexities of relationships. By understanding the groundbreaking 4 cross love framework, you will learn how to unlock the secrets to love, transforming your understanding from guesswork to clarity. So welcome to the show Shelly.

Shelly LaVigne 4:08
Thank you, Kevin. I’m sorry I’m having some audio problems. I just want to make sure that you can hear me now. Yes, okay, it’s gonna have to be my computer microphone.

Speaker 1 4:20
That’s just fine. Welcome to the show.

Shelly LaVigne 4:24
Thank you, Kevin.

Speaker 1 4:27
So as I kind of described in the beginning, you have a tool that you call the compass of love. And I’m wondering if we could just start out, because everything we talk about the rest of this episode is going to be about this tool and sort of how to use it and its implications. So could you start by explaining to people what the compass of love actually is.

Shelly LaVigne 4:53
Well, as a love investigator, I have observed there are four positions on the compass of love, and I call it northeast, south. South and West, because it’s just easy to remember that. And so each position as if you’re a position in the game of love. We call love as a game, right? Well, that’s actually pretty profound because it is, and there are four, you can play the game from four different positions, and each position has a distinct biological concern that drives our actions in love. So without you being aware of it, it’s how you show up in life, and it’s what steers you in the game of love. And I believe, like our blood times, we are born into these positions. So you cannot change it, and you cannot be more than one I think we’ve all realized we can’t change people, but we can learn how to read them.

And a lot of what you have said in the past is about these patterns and seeing these cycles and these sequences of how people communicate, how they react. And as you were just saying, which just can be more true is that people find a way for them to navigate love. And just because it works for them doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work for somebody else, because each one of these positions sees life and love and relationships and interactions very differently. So the North position is very concerned about certainty. They’re aggressive, controlling, they’re very direct, black-and-white kind of people, and they want things to be that way for them, and they have a tendency to believe that that’s how everybody sees life. And the East the same thing their concern is freedom. So they’re exciting, exuberant. There are these people that are very kind of reactive in life, and then and they’re wonderful again, have a very different approach. So they see relationships very differently than the North position.

The South position has a concern for stability. So they’re steady, supportive, amiable. They’re just kind of go along, kind of people, but at the same time, they will stand up for themselves. And if you, if you push them too far, they will, you know, you’ll see it, you’ll get the reaction West sees things and that they want security. They’re pensive, persistent, patient. So each of these positions, north and east are on offense, and south and west are on defense. So that’s why I use the game analogy because you literally are playing this game. And once you understand any game, you start recognizing that you play better from one position, that others, others fill in these roles. And then you start making these plays and these interactions in this this cycling sequence happen. And that’s why you see people that come at life differently, and they think it’s it’s all about them, but they’re not seeing the cycle and sequence. They’re only seeing their perspective. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that we have to recognize that that’s actually what’s going on.

Kevin Anthony 7:58
There’s nothing wrong with that if you want to be single. Do you want to be in a relationship? There’s a problem here.

Shelly LaVigne 8:09
It’s like, if you wanted to go play basketball, and you go in and you’re like, you know, I’m not going to follow the rules. I don’t want to play any position. I’m just going to do my own thing. Like, okay, no, we don’t want to play with you. You wouldn’t win. It’d be no fun.

Kevin Anthony 8:22
I think that one of the keys to anything, and we, I personally feel that we need to be slightly careful using the word game, because I don’t want people to take this as something that is either not serious or like something they can sort of screw around with people on, you know, like the whole pickup artist kind of thing. I don’t want people to see it as that. I understand what you mean when you say game, but I just, I need to clarify that so people will understand we’re not, we’re not telling you to play games with your partner, right? Because that’s something that I always tell people. It’s like, knock off the game playing, right? But for lack of a better word, we do have to understand that there are game-like dynamics that happen here. And the thing is, is, if you don’t understand that, you can’t possibly be successful in it, like, I know I’m opening up a huge rabbit hole here, but the reality is, is that there’s no way that we would have enough time, nor would I want to in this show, to actually explain this to most people. But this is something that the government does all the time, right? In other words, they’re playing a big game, only they’re not telling you the game is happening, and you’re not aware of what the rules of the game actually are. So you’re completely flying blind and wondering why you’re getting screwed over left and right all the time, right?

Shelly LaVigne 9:36
Gosh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 9:39
This whole idea of just understanding that these dynamics exist and being aware of them is like sort of the ground-level first step right, like we need to know that this exists if you don’t understand that there are different positions and that people are actually they have sort of different default ways of being and showing up in. relationship, then you’re already starting off at a disadvantage.

Shelly LaVigne 10:04
Yes, like if I asked you to sit down and play chess, for instance, if you had never played, if you don’t have a playbook, some way to understand what’s going on and the moves and the reactions and the counter plays and looking forward like you’d be totally lost. You couldn’t even play. And I’m suggesting the same thing about these positions in the game of love. And thank you for clarifying that, because I think Neil Strauss’s book definitely has, has that connotation, has that kind of notion about it that I would I really appreciate you clearing that, because I think game for me is like sports, like, it’s literally a game, like, you were in the game all the time, and we’re in it. 24/7 365, no matter what you’re doing. It’s like, you can’t sit on the bench, you know, you’re always in it. So you better learn how to play effectively. Why wouldn’t you want to play effectively?

Like, this is only everything, and love is the pinnacle of the game, like, that’s what we all want the most. It’s the number one thing by far that is written about, sung about, talked about, you know, has this writhing in pain and stumbling head over heels into it. It’s the number one thing. So why not learn how to play effectively? And I think that personality tests are interesting, but they don’t really definitively tell us anything. Like you can kind of be all over the place based on your subjective answers, because they are subjective, and it’s kind of Oh my gosh. If there’s anything I’ve learned so far, it’s that we have a really hard time maybe admitting who we are, but being honest about who we are versus who we want to be or how we want to be seen. And it’s only because we don’t have a way to really kind of define it, or, you know, put it in in some way. And I don’t like being labeled. This is, I don’t. Nobody wants to be labeled. We do that, but we at least have to recognize that this is truly happening underneath it all. I mean, you have seen and all the time that you’ve done this relationship coaching patterns, right? Like, there’s certain people that are always doing things a certain way, and you’re like, I told you something different, but you’re clearly continue to do the same thing, expecting the same result?

Speaker 1 12:24
Oh, absolutely. And the other thing that you can clearly see is, that you know how different people’s patterns either work together or don’t work together, right? So this is a big thing. When you’re doing coaching work with couples and relationships, it’s like, you can see, okay, you’ve got this pattern, and you’ve got this pattern. But then the third piece is, how do those patterns actually work together or not? Sometimes they do. Sometimes, you know, people’s patterns will actually feed each other, and sometimes they will absolutely make it so difficult to navigate.

Shelly LaVigne 12:57
Well, that’s so fascinating, because I have, I have realized that opposites attract for a very, very important reason, because the opposite of us fills that void. In a sense, it all it like, you know, the kind of cliche You complete me is actually kind of true, because the North position and the South position, the North is this very driven black and white person, and the South position is a very supportive kind of person, and those two together really, really make an interesting dynamic, and they’re really amazing love story. Same thing with East and West. And you can also do the 90-degree positions, but you start realizing that that’s really what I want and need.

But at first, it’s fun and exciting, and it’s like this other part of me that I didn’t even know that I had, that I don’t know that, that I don’t have, actually, but I want to kind of understand it and appreciate it and realize that it’s not part of me, but I like it, but then depends on the relationship. It’s the conflict that starts coming because, in a sense, they’re keeping you from being the person you are, because their concern starts overruling the relationship. So the concern starts being the number one thing that they want, and it’s the opposite of your partner, and that’s where the friction starts coming in. You misunderstand, misinterpret, and I call it blind upset. So it’s the chasm between what was said, how it was heard, how it was meant, how it played out, and how it makes each of us react and feel based on our position. And it can be very perturbing at a certain point.

Kevin Anthony 14:37
Yeah, the whole opposites attract thing is very interesting, because depending on what level you look at this like, we can’t just say all right, before I confuse people, let’s just give some examples that make sense. Let’s look at a negative opposites attract pattern if we want to use the lens of attachment styles, right? One pairing of attachment styles is somebody who’s avoidant with somebody who’s anxious. Now they’re both completely opposite styles, and they tend to attract each other, but in the most dysfunctional way that you can possibly think of, right? So that’s an example of an opposite to track that’s very negative. An example of an opposites attract that’s very positive would be like, say, masculine and feminine energies, right? So that’s a way where, you know, as a masculine man, having the feminine presence in my life actually makes my life better, right? And vice versa.

Kevin Anthony 15:38
So I have, you know, for a feminine woman having a masculine man who can show up and support her in all the ways that the masculine can. And, you know, the healthy ways can be very positive so that’s an example of opposites attract where it actually could be a very good thing. So, yeah, it’s just interesting that the whole dynamic of opposites attracts, because people argue about this all the time, and some people will say, No opposites attract, it’s such a good thing. And then other people like, no opposites attract, it’s a terrible thing. And it’s like, well, what lens are you using, you know, to view that there’s multiple different ways in which we are opposite. Some are healthy. Some are not so healthy, right?

Shelly LaVigne 16:17
100% and I think, you know, the whole avoid an attachment thing is interesting because I would say that there’s just the North, in general, is a bit is kind of a lone wolf. We don’t mind doing things by ourselves. We just don’t, don’t need that attachment necessarily. So I think in that book, The Attached, which I’ve read, you could kind of consider the North as avoidant, or even the West, and the East, they’re kind of suggesting is is anxious. So I don’t think that they’re opposites. It’s just that they’re looking at the world differently. And so the East person, the East person, has a tendency towards being more anxious, being more needy, being more wanting, that connection because it’s very It’s um, they’re much more sensitive. And so that book is interesting. I think the number one thing I got out of that book, which I absolutely enjoyed, was protesting. So when you don’t get what you want, you protest. And so you’re it’s every position has a different way of protesting. So for the North, they’ll just leave. For the east, they’ll be they want to talk it through. They want to be more involved. And for the South, they’re more just assessing the they’re more thinking about it.

And the West is definitely more. They’ll go into hibernation and go back and think about it. So that’s an interesting perspective, and I find it fascinating. I just find all these different ways of looking at relationships fascinating. But I think the underlying there’s an underlying concern and interaction going on that I think we’re all aware. We’re kind of like, all know that’s there, but we just can’t quite put our finger on it. And I think that this is what’s going on, is that the cycling sequence is happening. We’re not understanding how we relate with each other, and that it’s it is actually very different. The understanding helps us see that these opposites aren’t necessarily good or bad, they just are. So when you say, people say, Oh, they’re good, oh they’re bad, no, they just are. So you have to understand, like everybody wants to qualify things, well, I don’t think qualifying that necessarily makes it good. It’s just have to we have to recognize that it is what it is and work with that, versus just, you know, trying to say that it’s good or bad.

Kevin Anthony 18:46
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think maybe one of the best ways to describe, you know, the human experience and how these tools fit in with it is like we’re basically, if you think about it in terms of a hologram, right? When you look at a hologram, depending on what angle you look at it from, you see something different, right? So, like we, as a human and as a spirit and as a you know, body, we are kind of like a hologram. So it’s like you can’t look at anything through just one dimension, because if you look at it through different dimensions, you’re going to see different things. And that’s why, if why I think it’s so valuable to have so many tools in the toolbox. That’s why I like introducing the audience to a different way of seeing things, a different lens, to look through a different angle, right?

Kevin Anthony 19:35
So the more tools you have, the more ways you can look at your relationship, the more information you can get, the more information you have, the better decisions you can make. So, yeah, I think, I think that’s a good way of looking at it. And I would also say, to your point about, oh, you might be able to say, you know, the North is, you know, sort of relating it to the attachment styles. Yeah, there’s. It. There’s like a default sort of attachment style that people have. But what’s truly important is how you sort of like how you react, I guess is what I’m trying to say. In other words, you know, if the North has a tendency to be more of a lone wolf, right, and more of an avoidant, the lone wolf doesn’t necessarily mean avoidant, right? Lone Wolf just means that when somebody’s not clinging to you, you’re okay with that, right? But it doesn’t mean you’re trying to actively run away.

Shelly LaVigne 20:34
You know, could not agree with you more.

Kevin Anthony 20:38
I you know, when we’re comparing things, it’s just like we need to be a little bit careful. And I don’t want people to think that, Oh, if I’m the north, then I must be avoidant. Like, no, not necessarily. It just means you like your alone time, and you’re perfectly fine doing a solo weekend trip in the mountains or something like that, without getting super anxious that your partner’s not around, right? I wouldn’t call that avoidant, right? So, yeah, levels.

Shelly LaVigne 21:04
Self-awareness is only everything. And I think once you start realizing this, you need to take it’s different from taking responsibility for your position versus using it as an excuse, yeah, which is what you’re saying. So like, okay, so if I am one of these positions, and I recognize this, and I start seeing myself in this, and it’s clear that that’s how you know, that’s what’s going on. It’s like, oh, well, that’s fascinating. How can I be a better person because of it? How can I be a better partner because of it? How can I be more self-aware and recognize that this is all going around, around me and I can actually be a positive contribution?

Kevin Anthony 21:43
Yes.

Shelly LaVigne 21:44
Oh well, I’m I’m avoidant, or I’m anxious, so that’s why I am what I am. Just deal with it, perspective then, Oh well, that’s fascinating. I wonder how I could be a better person because of it.

Kevin Anthony 21:57
Yeah. So I’ve done a few episodes on Attachment styles. And I will say this, if you are the type of person that is like, well, I’m avoidant. That’s just how I am, you have missed the entire point of attachment styles. The entire point is to get to secure attachment where those things are not negatively impacting your relationship or your experience, right? So yeah, if you’re using it as an excuse, that’s a problem.

Shelly LaVigne 22:23
Yeah. If you’re trying to use anything as an excuse, that’s a problem, yeah.

Kevin Anthony 22:28
Oh, and I see people do it all the time, all the time in coaching, especially, especially so we give people a lot of tools, right? Which is great, and I’m all for giving people all the tools they could possibly have. Because I think the more tools you have, the better chance you’ve got, right? But some people will take one of these tools and they’ll kind of latch onto it, right? And they will literally use it as the entire excuse. You have seen this since the beginning of time with people’s astrological signs, right? Well, I’m just to this, so therefore I will always be that, right? And it’s like, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to explain to people astrological sign just simply tells you what the default blueprint that you came into this world with was, was, not even necessarily, is it is then your job, from the moment you get here, to evolve yourself past all of that, and you can you’re not stuck with it for the rest of your life.

Shelly LaVigne 23:32
Yeah, I find it dangerous too, because I’ve seen so many, so many people say, Oh, well, you’re an Aries and you’re a cancer, so you can’t be compatible. I don’t even know if that’s true, because I don’t know much about astrological science, but to me, that’s dangerous. Because you’re, you’re kind of, you’re assuming, based on what you did, what you just said, is that this is true because of these two positions. So you therefore, can’t be compatible, which, to me, is, is it’s it’s too bad, because I think people like you said, take it so seriously that they use it as an excuse to not only avoid people or or be irresponsible, but they also use it as a way to get out of a relationship that maybe they don’t want To be in, rather than just being honest with themselves in this situation.

Kevin Anthony 24:24
Yeah, and, you know, these things are, again, they’re just supposed to give us information. I was just working with a couple in a session last week, and we were talking about communication styles because I can, I mean, I can tell just talking to them, that they have definitely different communication styles, so I’m starting gently with them. And I said, I’m saying, Okay, we’re going to work on identifying each other’s communication styles, and we might find that maybe you’re not quite the same communication style, even though I already know this. And the point is, I said, but that’s okay. You don’t have. Be the same communication style. You just have to be aware of what each other’s communication styles are, and then you know what tools and strategies to put in place to make that communication easier, right?

Kevin Anthony 25:12
So you know, back to the astrological signs. It’s just like, rather than telling people you absolutely can’t you or shouldn’t or don’t or whatever, it’s just like, Okay, if this person is this sign, and this person is this sign, assuming that you’re still relatively the same, as far as you haven’t grown a whole lot in your life, then that tells you that you may need, you know, to employ a different strategy, or you there may be certain challenges that will arise in this relationship that might not arise in other combinations that you will have to deal with. And then you get to make the choice of, am I up for that challenge, or am I not up for that challenge?

Shelly LaVigne 25:50
Right exactly? And how often, when you’ve been doing this for some time, do you see other people projecting their concern or their what they think is correct or right onto others to the point where they won’t allow that diet, the relationship dynamic, to happen or work? Is that? I mean, is that the point where you people just start, they kind of give up? Because I feel that the projection of our concern and the projection of how we want life to go or that we think others should be doing things doesn’t allow for the relationship to happen, like you just said, because they have different communication styles, doesn’t necessarily well, it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. They’re just different. And I think that’s one of the biggest things I’m trying to tell people, is that we’re just looking at life differently, and it’s actually fantastic because life would be really boring if we all look at things the same way.

Kevin Anthony 26:44
Yeah, that’s a wonderful point that you bring up, and you mentioned it earlier, and we didn’t really get around to it again, because we were talking about some other things, but this idea that none of them are wrong or bad, right? So it doesn’t know whether it’s an astrological sign and an attachment style, or, you know, a position on the compass of love. We’re not saying that this is wrong and you need to fix it. We’re just saying that you need to be aware of what your tendencies are, so that way you can figure out not only how to navigate life yourself, right? Because if you know I have a tendency to be a certain way, then you know what you need to do in different situations that arise. But then, of course, there’s the dynamic of the relationship, and then how the other person is, and it just gives you, gives you information. Information is how you make decisions.

Shelly LaVigne 27:41
You know, there’s got to be a give and take, there’s a compromise, and because recognizing that you see things differently than I do, but it can be also like, for instance, if you like pottery, I’m a North I look at Pottery a very different way than you would. Well, that’s fantastic. Now you can come together and recognize, oh, he sees it a completely different way than I do. How fun is that? And it’s the same thing with sexual relationships, the same thing with everything. It’s like we’re just looking at life differently and great. Like, let’s explore that. Like, isn’t that fun?

Kevin Anthony 28:17
Yeah. Well, you know, the reality is, if everything you know, you said, if everybody saw things the same way, life would be boring. Not only would it be boring, but we would never actually accomplish anything. Because, you know, like the famous Einstein quote is, you can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created the problem, right? It’s like you need to see it from a different point of view. You need to see things differently than, you know, somebody hires you to solve a problem, and you come in and you’re thinking the exact same way as the people who created the problem. Are you likely to solve that problem? No, you’re all going to sit there staring at it, going, I don’t get it right. You need to come in and you need to see it differently than they saw. And then you go, Oh, I can see the problem right here, right?

Shelly LaVigne 28:56
You know, exactly in these four positions, look at these problems very differently, and the cyclone sequence of human communication happens in a certain way. And so the North position is the idea, people, but the actual position is the idea. So you had so, you know, let’s have dinner. Okay, well, that’s the idea. And then it goes to the east position, and you go through the exploration so information and possibilities are gathered. All right. Well, what do we want to have? Like Thai burgers, you know, vegetarian? You decide on vegetarian. And then you go to actually doing the thing. This is part of the this is the third part of this. Or the, yeah, the third part of the cycle, you actually do the thing you eat. And then you go to reflection, which is the West, and you evaluate this. Evaluate what happened. Would we come back? Was it the way we wanted? You know, was it worth it? And then this cycle happens. 24/7, 365, in every single way, and all day long, every day. And you’re always operating from your positional concern.

So if you’re a northeast, south, and west, you’re seeing that cycle happening in. From your perspective and your concern. So if you, as you said, you go into a problem in any situation, and you have all these people, and they have these different perspectives, their concern will come out in the in, in how they’re going to solve, solve the problem, but recognizing that this cycle is happening and that once you see that that’s happening, and you can contribute to this cycle based on your concern and your and your position, then you can play effectively. It’s like if we went to play basketball and we had a play call, right? So I used to play a lot of volleyball, but I tons of basketball too. So if you have a play call and you have the person on the outside, you know, throwing the ball in, you know, each player has a certain sequence that they need to go to, whether it’s blocking somebody or moving to a certain position, to go and create that so that that play happens effectively, hopefully. I mean, that’s the goal, right? So they can get the, you know, the ball in the hoop and score. And so the same thing happens every day, in every single communication interaction, some on a micro level, and some on the macro level.

So within these micro levels, you have all these actions happening to create some bigger picture, some bigger plan, some bigger cycle. So what you said is so true, and once you start seeing like this, that what’s happening right in front of you every single day is actually explainable like you can realize what’s going on. You start seeing your contribution in the cycle, and you don’t miss you don’t feel like you have to overtake it with your concern. So this starts happening. And it’s like, it becomes effortless fun and like, sweaty joy when it comes to basketball, right? Because then you start playing effectively, and you’re like, Oh, I see that this is going on. I see that this is my position. I really only needed this percentage of the time, because I feel like in certain situations, especially in group projects, some people feel like they have to control the whole thing. And it happens in relationships too, where they feel like they’re the only ones that can see, you know, like the rightness of it always right.

So I should be controlling this relationship, this sequence, this cycle, this group exercise, and they overtake the experience, so that not everybody gets to experience in the way that they should do. You see what I mean? So there’s like a percentage, almost, of this cycle that, if somebody takes it over, the other person isn’t allowed their experience. And so it takes away from the whole entire thing. And I think that’s happening in so many relationships, and I think it could be not avoided, but it could be in such a better synchronous synchronization like it could happen so much more beautifully if we understood this.

Kevin Anthony 32:50
If people understood pretty much everything we’ve said thus far about, you know, seeing things from different perspectives and all of that, if they really understood that, and they were really living that they wouldn’t end up in that situation where they think that they’re the only one that sees it clearly, and their partner just completely doesn’t get it right. However, we wouldn’t be doing the work we were doing, or we are doing, if everybody were on that level right, because they wouldn’t need us. Okay, I have a bunch more questions for you. I need to take a short break when we come back. There are a couple of questions I really wanted to ask way in the beginning, but we just got so into this that I didn’t get to them. So I want to come back to them. I want to know how you sort of discovered these positions. And I also want to know how does one find out what position they’re in? And through that, of course, we’ll talk a little bit more about each position, but that’s what I want to want to talk about when I come back on the other side of this break.

Kevin Anthony 33:49
Okay, are you a couple? Are your relationship and sex life where you want them to be? Are there changes you would like to make, but just don’t know how maybe you think there is nothing that can be done if you are not 100% happy with your relationship and or your sex life. Then get help today and change your life. Go to https://www.kevinandceline.com/sex-coaching-couples/. Don’t worry about the long link. It’s in the description. Schedule a strategy call with me today so we can map out a strategy to get you where you want to be, so you can have it all your way. Go to https://www.kevinandceline.com/sex-coaching-couples/ and book your strategy call today that is very obviously a commercial for my couples coaching program. So you know, all the stuff that we’re talking about today, all the stuff I talk about on the show on a regular basis, if you’re having difficulty in your relationship, whether it’s just simply relating. Or, you know, a lot of times people like, you know, we’re like, amazing and we love each other, but our sex life just isn’t working anything like that. Reach out to me and I can help you.

Okay, so let’s, let’s get back to this compass of love. I’m really curious how did you come across this compass of love and figure out what these positions were and what these patterns were?

Shelly LaVigne 35:08
Well, not to go too far back, but when I was younger, my parents got divorced, and I was blindsided. I just didn’t see it come didn’t see it, I just couldn’t figure it out. So I guess at that point it started when I really started questioning love and family and just, you know, relationships and marriage in particular. So I got to the point of I’m not getting married and not having kids. I don’t want that to happen. And then, of course, we all want it though. You know, at the same time, it’s only everything. So I just kind of was observing and trying to figure out what the heck was going on in all these relationships and why. You know, the divorce rate is high, 50% give or take, and the tragedy of divorce is real. You know, in some way, shape, or form, almost all of us have been affected by divorce or will be at some point. And so just by happenstance, my husband, and I happened to run into this guy, John Cundieff, in Colorado, about 10 years ago. And he had this way of he had researched, let’s see so many things, philosophy, biology, and then one thing in particular that he’s he went and lived with the Navajo Indians, Native Americans, and he was looking at the medicine wheel.

And it really, if you just, if you study the medicine wheel at all, it follows this cycle. Now there is no one medicine wheel, if you go and look at all the different medicine wheels out there, but it does follow the cyclone sequence of heat of nature and how each individual person kind of fits into the tribe. So when, at that time, you know, in Native American time, when they had to literally survive, they started realizing that certain people were very good at certain things, and I think this is where that came about. Well, John was explaining this in a way that, to me, was so profound about relationships, but he was using it in a business for business. And he and my husband kind of connected on that. But I was listening for me. It was about the relationship we had, because of my parents. We have two daughters, my my husband’s relationship started off just a little off. I don’t even know how to explain it, but now I do because of this, because we’re, I’m north, and he’s east, so we’re both on offense. And I started realizing why we were kind of butting heads at first.

And so for the last 10 years, I have been honing this and kind of reorganizing it, and come up, came up with the framework and the checklist that I have on my book to help people really kind of synthesize all the things I believe we kind of need to look at before we make the most important decision of your life, of who you’re going to marry. And essentially, then the whole idea of marriage, in a way, is to have children. That’s kind of the evolution of humans you know, have to have more humans in order to keep going. And so I that’s how I found it, and I just, the more I observe it, the more I investigate it, the more I look at all these relationships and people and what’s happening, the more I see it, you know, it’s like, it’s so apparent, but it’s, it’s nuanced. You know, we’re all different. We all have our own way of going about life, and our identity is huge for us because identity is a way for us to survive. So our survival concerns help us in to be a part of these tribes, and whether it’s your family, whether it’s a Bucha people, whether it’s you know your gym, the people that you go visit at the gym. You need an identity. I get an identity within that tribe to survive, not literally but figuratively, because I want to be a part of it, or you have your own tribe that you want to declare and identify as and be a professional within.

So I just realized that this is happening all over the place, all the time, and the cycle and the sequence of this human communication, to me is, is the most profound part, because we don’t realize it’s happening. You can say, I mean, there’s a lot of personality stuff out there that kind of puts it in these different categories, but none of them really say that this is actually biological. And I believe, like I said, I believe, like our blood types, we are born into these positions, which means you cannot change it, and you are not more than one. Now, can you lean one way or another? For sure and certainly, based on how you were raised, we adopt a rebel against how our parents raise us. Yeah, and so if you’re the opposite, or even a 90-degree angle of your parents like my husband is, his parents are north and south, and he’s east, and he was the firstborn, you know, you kind of adopt those concerns and those ways that they go about navigating life.

So you you or you completely Rebel, and so that that works. You know, all those things happen, and so that’s why I think all these things are super helpful. As you said, All these tools are really helpful, but I think we can also get a little too indulged in making excuses for ourselves because of them. And my point is, let’s take responsibility for who we are and what we’re doing and how we’re going about life because it matters, and I think that’s why we’re so part of me is so concerned about our society right now, because not only are we not coming together, we’re misunderstanding, misinterpreting and, you know, persecuting people and victimizing ourselves. And it’s just not healthy when I think it’s so much better, I just this life that we’ve been given for such a short time is so beautiful, and we’re just marring it. I don’t know the best word, but, um, yeah, it’s unfortunate. I guess my sisters used to call me a Pollyanna, but I’m not. I’m not. I’m fine with that.

Kevin Anthony 41:23
Well, look, if we don’t have people who are envisioning the best that we could be and holding space for that, we’re never going to get there, right? So, you know, it’s like, on the one hand, I can understand how some people say, hey, you know, you got your head in the clouds all the time, always. You know, seeing things is, you know, in this dreamy way, why don’t you be more realistic? Because this is how the world really is, yeah. But if we want to change how the world really is, we need people over here thinking about, how could it be better, right?

Shelly LaVigne 41:54
So, how the real world really is, let’s, let’s figure it out. Like I want to figure it out.

Kevin Anthony 42:00
You know, you said some other things that were really important there as well, which is, you know if I could kind of sum it up, it’s this idea of taking responsibility for your life and the things that occur in it. Now, granted, think sometimes things happen to us that we have no control over whatsoever, but in general, in the majority of our life, how we show up and how we operate in the world directly creates our experience. So therefore we are responsible for it. One of the big things that I see in society, especially in this last decade or so, is there’s been this huge push to get people to believe that nothing is their fault, that they’re just victims of everything. Well, it’s not your fault. This person did there, this group of people, or this entity is that they all did it to you, and it’s not your fault, right? It’s just, it’s disempowering for people and intentionally so and so, I think a very important message is to take that power back, right? And to realize that you do have control. You’re not just a victim being railroaded all the time, and that, you know, there are tools such as this that can help you take that power back.

Shelly LaVigne 43:17
Yeah. And do you find, I’m kind of curious, do you find that people don’t feel like they have to work at love? Because I feel like, in some ways, people think, oh, you know, it’s just you literally fall head over heels. It’s fate, it’s love at first sight. It’s, it’s, you know, you know those cliches, I’m sure, all too well. What’s your take on that? I’m curious.

Kevin Anthony 43:38
Yeah. So, okay, yeah. I have a lot of thoughts on this. We don’t have enough time for all of them, but I’ll give you a couple of them quickly. The first one is, yes, most people take there are certain things in life that people just completely take for granted. They think they know how to do it because they just do it right. So, like, I always use the super, you know, way on the one end of the scale, for example. But it’s like breathing, right? Everybody thinks they know how to breathe because they’ve been breathing since the day they popped out of their mother’s womb, right? But the reality is, is, you know, nowadays there’s all these, you know, teachers out there teaching people breathing techniques. Of course, they’ve been doing it for 1000s of years, but, but the idea is, a lot of people actually are not breathing in a way that is very effective for them, and it actually can cause problems, right?

Kevin Anthony 44:26
So it’s like, you think you know how to breathe because you’ve been doing it your whole life, but you really don’t. And people approach a lot of things that way. They approach love and sex that way as well, right? And so, you know, I work with people that are, like, 50 years old, right? And you’re trying to help them fix their sex life, and you realize that they’re still having sex the same way they did when they were 15, and it was the first time they ever had sex. You like you’re still doing the exact same thing you were doing when you were 15. Well, no wonder it’s not working, because when you were 15, you had no fucking idea what you were doing. You were just guessing and trying to figure. Out and screwing up, but you’re still guessing and trying to figure it out and screwing it up, 35 years later. So yeah, I think, I think a lot of people approach relationships and their sex life from the point of view of, well, I already know how to do that. They just sort of take it for granted. They just go on autopilot, and they don’t realize that, like anything else in this life, if you want to be good at it, you actually have to study it and practice it, right?

And so I like to use analogies all the time. I’m like, you know, everybody you know, they want to look at all the great, you know, I’m a guitar player, so I use analogies like that. That’s like, you want to look at all the great guitar players, and you’d love to hear the story about the child phenom who was just amazing at seven years old, and blah blah. That’s like, point 0000, you know, 1% of the people who ever picked up the guitar, everybody else had to go through hours and years of study and practice to get where they are. So in other words, this idea that you can just pick up an instrument and be great at it. Now I use that as an example because it’s obvious and it’s one that people can relate to. But then I, then I start, narrowing those examples down a little bit to get people to see that everything in life is like that because people take eating for granted. I’ve been doing it my whole life. Do you know how to do it properly? Do you know how to watch your macros? Do you know what you’re supposed to be eating? Do you know what things you’re supposed to avoid? Right? Probably not.

So it’s the exact same thing with relationships and sex. It’s like, and, but then you use the word, here’s the other the side of that is, then you use the word. You say, Well, it’s gonna take work. Oh, no, work I got. Oh, I got, I got enough work. I’m already stressed out. I You mean I gotta do work, right? And so one of the things that I try to do with couples, and I was literally just having this conversation in a session last week, I’m like, Look, yes, it’s going to take work, but not all work has to be hard or miserable, right? Like there are, there are things that you could do that are technically work, that you enjoy. And I used to use the example, like my wife, when she was left, she loved to cook. She just loved it. Most people would view cooking as work, like, I gotta cook again. That’s how I look at it most of the time, just like, damn it, I’ve got to make food again, didn’t I just do that a few hours ago? So for me, I see it more as like, it’s another task I got to do today, right? Whereas she never saw it that way. It was. It was a passion and a love. So I try to get couples to see that, yes, there is work that needs to be done, but that work doesn’t have to be miserable. It can actually be fun. And yeah, it’s not always going to be fun, but we try to make it as fun as we can.

Shelly LaVigne 47:58
Look at it too. Is like your relationships bring you the most joy in life, whether it’s with your significant other or your children or your family or your friends. So why wouldn’t you want to like it? Why isn’t that the most important thing? Like guitar again, you’d be sad. But if you could never be friends with somebody again, or you’d never be like in a relationship again, wouldn’t that be the saddest thing? So why wouldn’t you want to understand that?

Kevin Anthony 48:25
I think so. I completely agree. And it’s amazing to me how many people I watch make so many other things in life a higher priority than their relationship with their significant other. They will make all kinds of things. Obviously, a career is a big one. That’s the one we see most often. I’ll see people make friends, you know, a higher priority. I’ll see people make hobbies a higher priority. I’m just like and you wonder why your relationship is not working, why it’s suffering, why it’s, you know, making you miserable, you put everything else as a higher priority, it just blows my mind.

Shelly LaVigne 49:07
Tells me, too, I find it fascinating, I guess, because I’m so passionate about it, because I love the subject of love, because to me, it’s only everything.

Kevin Anthony 49:16
You know, many, many years ago, when I was in, probably let me think early 30s. I think it was, I was dating a woman. We were living together, and I was working corporate. Not only was I working corporate, but I was also a partner in a startup company, a new tech startup company, and I was also a co-founder of a nonprofit, all the same time, and I was just like, insanely busy, right? Just stupidly busy, like, I look at it now, I’m like, How in the world did I even do all of those things I literally used to work my corporate high-stress tech job, get in the car, drive 40 minutes south through the track. Traffic to another city, basically, and then show up for the startup company, and then be there for a couple of hours and then drive home, and then I’d be like, at home, sitting there working on a computer for nonprofit stuff. It was insane.

Kevin Anthony 50:16
Anyway, the point is that I clearly remember a moment. I can’t remember if it was that night or if it was in the morning, but regardless of which my partner wanted to have sex, and I remember thinking I am so exhausted and I need to get up and go to work and like what really would be in my best interest is to get some damn sleep. And I just had an epiphany in that moment, and I realized that that’s the decision that I would have made in the past. Up until that moment, I would have said, I’m sorry. I really need to sleep like you know. And there were legit reasons, or at least they seemed legit to me. And in that moment, I had a total epiphany, and I realized something. I realized that the most important thing was actually our relationship and nurturing that and that having sex, aside from being fun and pleasurable, was actually an essential part of nurturing that relationship. And that’s when I said that stuff can wait. Let’s make love.

Shelly LaVigne 51:22
Right? That’s great. That’s a great story.

Kevin Anthony 51:26
And that was many years before I did this sort of work, but it was a major shift. It was a major reframe for me at that moment when I suddenly realized that all these other projects I had going on were not the most important thing in my life. And look, if we look at history, right? Let’s, let’s look at all of those projects, and where are they now? Okay, corporate. I don’t work for corporate anymore. I got completely burnt out, and I started to hate it, like literally despise it, something that I loved when I started, I learned I got to the point where I was miserable and couldn’t do it anymore and had to leave it right. Okay, that doesn’t exist anymore. What happened to the startup company? The startup company ran for about five or six years, and it was starting to do well, unfortunately, we took too long to get this technology into the market, and we got too many competitors out there, and the market shifted, and the company ended up folding.

Kevin Anthony 52:18
So that doesn’t exist anymore either. The only thing that’s still going is the nonprofit that is still happening. The point being, though, is that jobs will come and go, right? Projects will come and go, and things like that will come and go. And while they’re important to some extent, they’re not the most important thing in life. Obviously, that that relationship ended up, you know, going as well, although we are still very good friends, and we’ve actually worked together for now, for like, a decade, her and I, she’s, she’s an amazing person who is still somebody who’s very important in my life. So, but that’s, you know, when you really get to like what’s important in life, your relationships with your significant other, your marriage, if you’re married, your relationship with your kids, those are the lasting things that are truly important. And so if you’re not willing to make those a priority, and you’re not willing to put the energy and the work and air quotes into making those successful, then you just have your priorities all screwed up.

Shelly LaVigne 53:26
Well, I find it interesting too. The more that I have done this, even with my own husband, the more interesting he becomes, and the more interesting I become, you know because I’m interested in somebody else. So it makes me think of my whole world kind of opens up in a different way. So I find it fascinating and fun, but maybe it’s just me.

Kevin Anthony 53:46
Well, yeah, and, you know, I guess maybe it sort of depends on your your personality as well. But you know, every significant every relationship, not just the significant ones, every relationship I’ve ever been in, I’ve learned something from that person, and I’ve taken something from that relationship that I’ve continued to carry on with me. And I’m talking about emotional baggage, either I’m talking about, you know, this person taught me this, or this person taught me that, or this person showed me this, or this person shifted my perspective on that, right? And so all of those things have been important in some way.

Shelly LaVigne 54:23
Yeah, I have another question for you. What do you think? Or do you think, I guess is a better way to put it this, this cynicism is coming from? Like, I feel like, I feel like marriage, love, connection, not that it’s getting a little bit of a bad rap. I maybe it’s because we’re just not understanding each other. We’re miscommunicating. We’re getting angry with each other for no apparent reason. So we just rather forget it. Like, I’d rather you know how many, how many bumper stickers have you said? Like, I love my dog more than humans.

Kevin Anthony 55:01
It’s a great question. This is another one where I don’t really have enough time to share all of my thoughts, but I’ll share a few of them like I did before. I will say this, I believe that there has been a concerted effort to destroy the traditional family unit. And I think it’s been happening for decades, not just the most recent, very obvious stuff. And I think because of that, it has actually been rather effective. And because of that, people have experienced a lot of like, I mean, in my generosity so I’m technically Gen Xer, right? So that was really kind of the first generation where we saw significant divorce rates, right? So my generation growing up, I knew tons of kids. My parents were divorced as well. I was older by the time they divorced. But you know, it’s just like we kind of grew up in that dysfunctional divorce sort of culture. And then, you know, things have just gotten progressively worse, and because of that, we never learned how to have good relationships.

Kevin Anthony 56:18
And so then we have experienced our own massive amount of failed relationships and dysfunction, which has really just jaded us, right? We just look at our entire I’m 50 years old if I didn’t do this for a living, and if I didn’t actually learn how to get out of those patterns, like, I could be just like everybody else looking at the world through a very cynical lens, like, well, you know, my parents got divorced and they didn’t get along, and then, you know, look at all my relationships. They’ve all felt like I could be stuck in that too, if I didn’t learn better. So I think, yeah, I think that there’s just been a lot of pressure that’s really been deliberately trying to tear apart the family unit. I think people, as a result of that, have experienced a lot of relationship struggles and dysfunction, and they just they’re jaded because that’s what they’ve experienced their whole life. I mean, we’re looking at now, what are we calling this most recent young because it wasn’t the millennials, but now there’s what Gen Z, I think are the ones that are younger than the millennials.

I mean, when you’re looking at Gen Z groups now, the idea of marriage is so outside of their thinking, like, because, you know, say, with millennials. Millennials were like, I am. We’re not so much in for marriage, but, you know, we just wanted, like, cohabitate, right? You know, like they basically were, we’re gonna kind of play marriage, but we don’t want to legally be involved in any of that, you know. But now, when you’re looking at the Gen Z ers and they’re like, we don’t even want to do that. We just want to live this sort of like, hook-up culture, solo, poly, just, you know, kind of be our own thing. Live by ourselves, but date multiple people, kind of stuff like they’re completely jaded on all this stuff. They’re going to find, however, and actually, the millennials are already finding this out. I was saying something about this on social media the other day, where you’re starting now to see these they’re still somewhat young millennial women, they’re waking up in their mid-30s and early 40s, and they’re crying all over social media because they’re alone because they don’t have any children, because they don’t have, you know, and there’s just like, finally, the light bulb is going off, and they’re miserable in life because they’re working, you know, 50, 60, hours a week at a job. They’re single, right? They’re realizing that the biological clock is ticking, and they’re all freaking out, right? And it’s like, why? Because you basically shunned all of the things in life that could have taken you to in the direction that you’re now lamenting you didn’t go, yeah.

Shelly LaVigne 59:00
And I mean, I mean, I think it’s instinctual. I think it’s part of our human nature, obviously, to want that. Yeah. So my book is based on a lot of it. There’s a huge section on the show Love is Blind, and it goes over this where these, there are these people at 30, you know, 30 and up, that are in that situation, and they’re almost in, like, Look, I can’t figure this out, so let’s just kind of force it in a sense, you know, like you have to decide, you choose somebody, you go get married, and then within a 38-day time frame, they get married. And you know, you see it that the number one thing that you hear is, I’m so tired of the dating app superficiality. And I like, Duh.

Kevin Anthony 59:42
Right?

Shelly LaVigne 59:45
But at the same time, like, I get it, like, where else are you supposed to find people? But yeah, it is so apparent that we’ve kind of gone against our own natural instincts, or the own, our human, the order, in a sense, of our natural, the natural you. Dynamics, and it’s fascinating.

Kevin Anthony 1:00:02
Yeah, it is. It’s fascinating. It’s sad, and it’s unfortunately, just another example of how we as humans swing from one side of, you know, the pendulum swings from one side of the spectrum to the other, never really landing in the middle. You know, a lot of those people would look at, you know, say, my grandparents generation, you know, they called them the greatest generation, the way that they did relationship. And they would look at that, and they would say, Oh, this is patriarchal. And it’s like, you know, she had no choice, and she was basically a slave in the home, and, and so what do they do? They want to run to the other side of the spectrum, which is, you know, I’m just gonna do the dating app, solo poly thing for the rest of my life, and it’s like, but you mean, there’s nothing in between those two? Exactly, there couldn’t be, potentially something in between those two.

Shelly LaVigne 1:00:53
My gosh, that’s so true. That’s so true. Yeah,

Kevin Anthony 1:00:57
Well, this has been a fascinating discussion, and I could talk to you for another hour about all this stuff. I really rarely does anybody do this, but I appreciated you asking me, some questions about this, and allowing me some space to talk about it. Usually in the interviews, I kind of focus more on the guests, but I enjoyed the back and forth.

Shelly LaVigne 1:01:16
Oh, thanks. I know you know. I’ve seen you, you’ve been there, done that. You obviously have some incredible wisdom. So I’m just curious, you know, I just like, I like hearing what you have to say. I love it.

Kevin Anthony 1:01:28
Well. Thank you. I very much appreciate that. And we are pretty much out of time, but I think we did a fairly good job of, you know, letting people know that this tool exists. And obviously, in just a moment, I’m going to give you a moment to, you know, share where people can find your book. Because, you know, there’s no way you could take an entire book and tell everybody what’s in it in an hour, right? It just, it’s not possible. So the idea is, if you want to know more about this compass of love and the positions today, we kind of scratched the surface. We let you know that this tool exists. We kind of piqued your interest, hopefully, on how it might be able to help you navigate relationships. And then the next step is, if you really want to know more, you go out and you seek the book. I don’t know if you’re working with people, but now is the perfect time to tell people how they can find out more about this.

Shelly LaVigne 1:02:21
Yeah, so the book will be out. Well, it’ll be out definitely by the time this comes on and you can go to 4cross love.com I write a love letter every Friday. So every Friday I base the I base this information on these four positions and how you can better navigate, not only yourself, but how you can relate to others in every aspect of your life. So I the love letter to me is just fun, because you get it every Friday, and it’s just a very short little thing, yeah, but go to 4crosslove.com I’ve got some stuff on the positions, like how you could be red flagging in your positions, which is also in the book sexual relationships is also in the book. And just understanding that you know your position is self-awareness is only everything, and then understanding positional awareness is is just it’s mind-blowing. So, yeah, I would love it. I’ve done the audible version, I’ve got the ebook. I’ve got the paperback. I’m just super excited to share and hopefully bring some love back into more and more love back into the world like that is my number one goal.

Kevin Anthony 1:03:23
Boy, do we need it? That reminds me of the Bert Bacharach song. What the world needs now is love sweet love. It’s the only thing I don’t remember all the words, oh, it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. That’s the rest of the world that was even before my time. So I’m not even dating myself on that one, because that song predates me by quite a bit.

Shelly LaVigne 1:03:50
We’re almost exactly the same age. So yeah, I hear you. That was a long time ago.

Kevin Anthony 1:03:57
So I want to thank you for coming on the show and sharing the knowledge and wisdom that you brought today, and I hope that people here got something out of it.

Shelly LaVigne 1:04:06
Yeah, me too. Thank you so much, Kevin. And again, I apologize for the audio stuff that’s totally on my end. It happens.

Kevin Anthony 1:04:14
All right, everybody that’s all the time I have for this episode, and I will see you next week.

Kevin Anthony 1:04:25
I hope you liked this episode of the Love Lab podcast. If you enjoyed this show, subscribe, leave us a review and share it with your friends, and for more free exclusive content, join me in the passion vault at https://www.kevinandceline.com/vault/. That’s https://www.kevinandceline.com/vault/. Thanks for listening and remember, as Celine used to say, you’re amazing!