The Art of Repair with David Chambers
“Avoidant people don't believe that they can find love, so what they do is they run away from it. Anxious people take on the battle. They keep trying. When they find someone they immediately think they are the one because they’re afraid to be alone.“
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David Chambers
In this episode
David and I explore the art of repair in intimate partnerships. We walk you through setting up micro containers for macro moments of conflict so that you can show your nervous system that conflict actually gets to be regenerative.
We explore the fear based roots of anxious and avoidant dynamics, and how to stretch in your capacity for closeness and healthy dependence for a more secure base.
David shares his wisdom on the space between two people and how to clean up “garbage” on your side of the street so that you can see and be seen by your partner.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform. Favorite quotes and a full transcript of this podcast can be found below.
About David Chambers
David is known as The Authentic Man, is a charismatic coach in the UK, specializing in the areas of dating, relationships, and intimacy for men. With more than a decade of experience, he has honed his skills in empowering men to develop deeply connected relationships and vibrant sexual lives. His focus on nurturing the true, authentic self and healthy masculinity has led many towards transformative personal growth.
His coaching technique, deeply rooted in building self-awareness, emotional depth, and self-leadership, guides men through the intricate dynamics of modern relationships. David's profound vision for The Authentic Man is to liberate men from the constraints of pain and fear, facilitating journeys towards authentic, life-altering relationships. He stands as a key influencer and motivator for men striving to achieve deeply felt happiness and enduring connections.
Favorite Quotes from the Podcast
“Avoidant people don't believe that they can find love. Or they're unsure, so what they do is they run away from it. But anxious people take on the battle. They keep trying. When they find someone they think they are the one, they often become quite obsessed because they are afraid to be alone. ” - David Chambers
“Intimacy is about closeness. It's being seen at really deep levels. It's allowing someone to really see the deepest parts of your soul and who you are beyond the garbage, beyond the body.” - David Chambers
Transcript of the Podcast
I'm so excited to introduce you to David Chambers. You will instantly feel safe in his presence, grounded and an ease in the way that he shows up, hold space and communicates. He is known as the authentic man and he specializes in the areas of dating, relationships, and intimacy for men. With more than a decade of experience, he has honed his skills and empowering men to develop deeply connected relationships and vibrant sexual life.
His coaching technique, deeply rooted in building self awareness, emotional depth, and self leadership, guides men through the intricate dynamics of modern relationships. David's profound vision for the authentic man is to liberate men from the constraints of pain and fear, facilitating journeys towards authentic, life altering relationships.
He stands as a key influencer and motivator for men striving to achieve deeply felt happiness and enduring connections. Let's drop in.
[00:01:35] ERIKA STRUAB: I truly just want to get to know more about you. I'm so attracted to your work and like, just, I've, I've been reading just different things that you've shared and like your own evolution. Um, so I, I just love to start with like, what initiated you into this kind of work, like into the becoming, if you will.
[00:02:02] DAVID CHAMBERS: What initiated me in? My own pain, I guess. You know, like a lot of people, I, I wasn't good at relationships. Right. I wasn't good at like real intimacy. Mm-Hmm. . Um, I could put sort of labels on why that is. Like I, I come from a, a long line of absent fathers, so there was no men in the house. My mom, you know, she doesn't have a great relationship track history, so I didn't see any sort of modeling of good relationship and I probably spent a lot of my years believing that.
[00:02:34] DAVID CHAMBERS: And I was really honest. I remember telling. Uh, that her next girlfriend, yeah, I think at the end of the relationship, I was like, I don't believe relationships can work.
[00:02:43] ERIKA STRUAB: I
[00:02:44] DAVID CHAMBERS: truly believed for a while. I was like, I won't get into relationships. I refused. I, you know, I met wonderful women. I can really be lucky in my life that I have met truly wonderful women.
[00:02:53] DAVID CHAMBERS: They've generally gravitated towards me and my experience. And that's how I like to choose my experience as well. But I was like, relationships don't work. It's not possible. Like I can't do it. I don't know how to do it. I was fully in that camp of like, you know, if you'd met me when I was 26, 27, you know, I'd go out on dates and multiple dates and wouldn't be like, You're amazing.
[00:03:14] DAVID CHAMBERS: Like you're doing all these things of your life, blah, blah, blah. Like, I like you, you like me, let's get into a relationship. And I'm like, no, no, they don't work. Like, if you want a relationship, you need to go find a different man. Cause I'm not that sort of guy. Um, and I, you know, then kind of persuaded to be in a relationship with someone and we lasted for four years, which was probably life changing for me in like learning to be more patient, learning to like be with her emotions.
[00:03:39] DAVID CHAMBERS: Like when they came up, but also learning to like say my own and not just be worried about upsetting and hurting because that was the thing for me is that if I say truly how I feel, you're going to get upset. And if you get upset, I have to deal with your being upset. And I would rather not do that. So I'd rather not say how I feel.
[00:03:57] DAVID CHAMBERS: And we broke up because I didn't express how I felt, I didn't, I still didn't do it. Uh, we broke up, we were in Bolivia and I was lying in a, in a bed in a lovely, a very small hotel in a town called Sucre and I was crying in bed and I was like, I'm not going to let this happen again. And I said it to myself, I was like, as if I like told the universe, I'm not letting this happen again.
[00:04:15] DAVID CHAMBERS: Um, and then I just went on a bit of a journey of like looking deeper into me. and understanding me and how I was being and doing various modalities of work, getting coaches, doing plant medicine, a lot of coaching, group coaching, um, like, a lot of relational work, reading up about a lot of relational work, and it kind of got me to this place where a friend of mine asked me to, to Do a podcast with him.
[00:04:41] DAVID CHAMBERS: He was like, look, we know so much about dating, especially and how that dating isn't about all this strategic stuff. There's deeper parts of dating that make the authenticity, the fun, the joy. So let's talk about it. And we started to do that. And it kind of set me on this path of podcasting, then coaching, then more coaching, then group stuff, then deepening my learning.
[00:05:00] DAVID CHAMBERS: And then I sit here today, um, almost like an accidental coach.
[00:05:05] ERIKA STRUAB: Mm. Mm. But so on purpose. Right? Like, yeah. So on purpose, what, what helped you the most, like rewrite that story that relationships don't work? Because I think a lot of us probably harbor that and it's unconscious a lot of the times too. So like, what helped you rewrite that story?
[00:05:28] DAVID CHAMBERS: I think a big part of it is, is my ex girlfriend who accepted me as I was. And like, It was times where I'd, I'd experienced what I commonly experienced in relationships was a lot of jealousy. So I would go out to a bar with some friends and the partner I was with would just be like, on my case, like, where are you?
[00:05:52] DAVID CHAMBERS: Why are you not home? What are you doing? What are you? And then I come home and they'd be like this barrage of questions. And I'd be like, No, this is crazy. Whereas she would, she just got it. She got me. Right. She got the, I had female friends and they were friends of mine and some of the women that I dated many years before, but we were just friends and that was it.
[00:06:11] DAVID CHAMBERS: Um, and she, she got it and she accepted it and she, was able to see it for herself. And that relaxed me a lot in like, ah, I can trust you. I can trust you
[00:06:22] ERIKA STRUAB: because I
[00:06:23] DAVID CHAMBERS: can feel that you can see me. You can see how I am as a person. Um, but I think also I've had a, I'd have felt experience of things working of, I think a big thing is a really big thing for me was I never saw conflict modeled.
[00:06:36] DAVID CHAMBERS: In my life between couples, like I never saw conflict happened, like conflict resolution, um, like reconnection, re entering into intimacy. I never saw that. I saw conflict, people not talking and that was it. Like even my father with me, if there was conflict, he would shout at me or say some stuff to me, and then he would just distance himself.
[00:06:55] DAVID CHAMBERS: So I never learned the art of like repairing conflict. And I guess in that relationship of four years, I saw I had to deal with repairing conflicts. And I started to learn a very simple thing that I think a lot of men have is like, Oh, if something goes wrong in the relationship, or there's a disagreement, In a relationship, it doesn't mean it's terminal.
[00:07:16] DAVID CHAMBERS: Like if someone disagrees with you, it doesn't see something the same way. It doesn't mean your relationship has to end because you're on completely different tracks. It's just that you might see this one thing differently and you just can accept that. And I think that started to transform things like, Oh, we can just accept that we see things differently or.
[00:07:32] DAVID CHAMBERS: Oh, because you're upset. That doesn't mean the relationship has to end or because I'm upset. Like I can get over that. I can move past that. And I think inside those four years, as well as having a lot of really great fun and, and, and lovely moments together, I learned a lot about. Relationships and how to be in a relationship, a functional relationship, especially.
[00:07:51] ERIKA STRUAB: I think that the art of rupture and repair, right? Like it's an art, it's a dance. And I think most of us, myself included, like repair wasn't part of the equation. So rupture meant ending like any kind of rupture. It doesn't matter how small or how big, but like nervous system is like, this is over. They're gone.
[00:08:14] ERIKA STRUAB: I have to run away or I have to do this, but it's like that sense of like, it's over comes in. And so I'm curious, like, how would you say someone starts working with that or learning to kind of stay when, when the nervous system is flooding in conflict, when they're maybe on the precipice of learning repair, like, how do we stay in that space to learn the art of repair?
[00:08:43] DAVID CHAMBERS: I think it has to start with like, A willingness and desire right to be in the energy of conflict because if we want to, if we, if conflict comes up and we like, I just want to eject from conflict all the time. Every time conflict comes up, I want to eject. Then all that happens is then we will always find an exit because there's always an exit, right?
[00:09:03] DAVID CHAMBERS: I think it's, um. The Gottmans and I have the concept of exits. Uh, so the Gottmans, no, it's Harville Hendricks. I think get the love you want. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get the love you want. They talk about this concept of exits and like how we leak energy out of the relationship in a, in a conflict situation, a conflict arises.
[00:09:24] DAVID CHAMBERS: And we, one of the exits for a lot of people is numbing, like, okay, I'm going to go and play video games or I'm going to go shopping or, you know, whatever is the stereotypical things that men and women do, but there's numbing. So part of the initial thing is like being willing to stay in the energy of conflict, in the energy of like, ah, we're in conflict.
[00:09:42] DAVID CHAMBERS: And right now I hate you. Yeah. And you don't have to say it. It's just like being willing to go. That's the energy and we can stay here and I can, and we can get through this.
[00:09:54] ERIKA STRUAB: Like,
[00:09:55] DAVID CHAMBERS: I might not see a way that we can come out this other way, loving each other more. But I can, I believe there is a way to do that.
[00:10:03] DAVID CHAMBERS: I believe in my capacity to do that, and I believe in your capacity, and actually I don't even need to believe in your capacity, but I can believe in my own, and like, the fact that like, we're beings and we can work through this, and we're willing to do so, staying there. Like, my practice was, was just sitting and breathing
[00:10:21] ERIKA STRUAB: in
[00:10:21] DAVID CHAMBERS: front of my partner, um, to see my now partner when she's upset and she's crying just to sit there and breathe
[00:10:31] ERIKA STRUAB: like,
[00:10:31] DAVID CHAMBERS: and we sometimes we did this for like 20 minutes, you know, she told me like when something happens and she's upset, what, what she really needs is me to stay there in the room with her and be still and be grounded.
[00:10:46] DAVID CHAMBERS: And be, be open and be loving. And how I did that was to sit and breathe and look her in the eye and keep the front of my face, soft, my eyes open,
[00:10:55] ERIKA STRUAB: even
[00:10:56] DAVID CHAMBERS: when it was difficult, even when she stormed out the room and came back. And that I would say was like the most immense training
[00:11:05] ERIKA STRUAB: in,
[00:11:06] DAVID CHAMBERS: in conflict and conflict resolution I could have experienced because like she might start shouting and I would sit and listen and then I would always respond from a place of calm because I was sitting there and I was breathing and I was observing my story about just, just leave.
[00:11:22] DAVID CHAMBERS: This relationship's useless, it's not going to go anywhere and just observe the story that's happening while also sitting there and being like, okay, I'm in this, I'm sitting here, cool, I love this woman, and I want this to be better, and if we can be patient in that, the number of times that it just became, it became either the run its course, like it just, it just had a wave to happen.
[00:11:47] DAVID CHAMBERS: And out the end would come would be a level of grief or sadness and deep reconnection. Or there would be an obvious point of like, ah, there's been a misunderstanding here. Like, ah, You know, and you could compassionately be like, Oh, I think we misunderstood each other in this way. And then talk through that and be like, Oh, yeah, I'm taking responsibility for my part.
[00:12:08] DAVID CHAMBERS: You're taking responsibility for your part. And we can come out. But, but you have to hold the, the pose of, of conflict. To hold the energy, hold with the energy of conflict without it, um, running you in that moment. Like being present to it without it running you because once the conflict engulfs you and you can become flooded with the conflict and you're like, I'm ready to fight or run fight, fight or flight, then we say things we don't mean we leave and remove ourselves, which creates more pain.
[00:12:41] DAVID CHAMBERS: Um, so for me, that was a really. Like, the, the initiation of just being in conflict and staying there and enabled me, like, now, I just believe there's pretty much anything that happens between me and my partner, we can stay in. And I've seen it in couples I've worked with, it's like, you can see the desire to exit the moment.
[00:13:01] DAVID CHAMBERS: And when you can get them to both stay there and keep, stay present, they see a pathway. Just for you having being, being grounded and being present.
[00:13:12] ERIKA STRUAB: So much of that I, I so deeply resonate with. And I think of the idea of like being both feet in, like being able to stand on your own two feet, both feet in.
[00:13:24] ERIKA STRUAB: In the moment like that. It doesn't mean anything beyond the moment. But how can I stay in this moment with like all of me here? Because I think all of us, including myself, look for that exit. Like, where can I straddle this line and have one foot out and one foot in? Because I think that creates more safety.
[00:13:45] ERIKA STRUAB: But it doesn't, right? We're just leaking energy out and, and for a woman when there's so much energy being leaked out, like that lack of safety that comes into the container is terrifying. So, I love what you said because it just really made me, like, think and sink into the container. Right. Like what that actually feels like.
[00:14:07] ERIKA STRUAB: And I'm curious for you, how, how do you hold the idea of a container? How have you created this just like really beautiful container? It sounds like you hold for your partner.
[00:14:19] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah, I think, you know, you know, there's like a relationship to me. It's like, it's like many different containers, a bit like a Russian doll in many ways.
[00:14:29] DAVID CHAMBERS: There's like your relationship as a, as the entity that it is, it is a container for the two of you to grow and evolve and experience love and, and pain and healing. And then there's the mini containers you can create at any moment or that you create around, um, how you deal with certain things. Like, if, you know, one of the things, because we talk a lot about how we want to, how do we want to be in conflict, for instance, like, and I'm like, I don't do, I don't do shouting and name calling and, and like character assassinations, if you step into that, I have a very, very strong boundary about this.
[00:15:07] DAVID CHAMBERS: If you step into that. I will leave, not permanently, but I will vacate the room, I will not tolerate any way, any sort of name calling and shouting and screaming, because I will never do that, because I will move myself so that that never happens, because I think when we step into that area, then we, we really have lost consciousness.
[00:15:24] DAVID CHAMBERS: So that's like a really strong boundary for me in conflict. But I think it's just like with containers, it's like conversations. It's like, how do we want to do this thing? How would you like that thing to go? How do we want to deal with this thing when it goes wrong?
[00:15:38] ERIKA STRUAB: You know,
[00:15:39] DAVID CHAMBERS: like, because inevitably things kind of go wrong.
[00:15:43] DAVID CHAMBERS: So having an idea of like how we want to deal with things when they go wrong is beautiful, but also we, we had had a lot of conversations about, because me being an avoidant man, I shut down and I stopped talking. So I, so we had conversations like, okay, inside of our, the container of our relationship. But inside the container of say, when I'm in, I'm not in a great mood, right, what do I need from her when I'm shutting down?
[00:16:13] DAVID CHAMBERS: Right. And I was like, actually, what I need from you is for you not to keep chasing me.
[00:16:19] ERIKA STRUAB: And to be
[00:16:20] DAVID CHAMBERS: like, trying to get my attention and energy. Right. Because that pushes me further away. I was like, if you can trust that when I do shut down, that I will come back, right, if you allow me the space to come back and I will come back faster, if you can do that.
[00:16:37] DAVID CHAMBERS: She was like, Ooh, that's a really big ask because I feel like it's never ending. And I was like, I get that, but it's not never ending. She was like, true. And I said, okay, what do you need in those moments for me? And then we had this kind of dynamic and I can't remember exactly, That was it. What she needed in those moments was to, like, feel that I still love her.
[00:16:58] ERIKA STRUAB: Mm. Yeah.
[00:16:59] DAVID CHAMBERS: Right? So that might just be as simple as, like, saying I love you. That might be the only thing I say all day, right? Or, like, hugging her in bed when I get into bed,
[00:17:11] ERIKA STRUAB: right? Or
[00:17:11] DAVID CHAMBERS: something like that, but she just wanted to know that I So, inside of that container of, like, how I was feeling, and what's been magical about this is that, The longer we've done this, and this is probably like four and a half years now, if I'm like shut down and I feel stressed or anything, there might go 12 hours where I feel that way.
[00:17:33] DAVID CHAMBERS: But the, the connection and love we have in our relationship doesn't disappear. She's just like, ah, yeah, he's, he's pissed off about something. But she's also not taking it personally. And that's been a whole other thing for her to look at. It's like not taking everything personally. But it's like having agreements and having agreements around how we, you When things go wrong and also reminders like how there was a, uh, one of the things we had was like, if my partner just remember it correctly now, it's like if she starts to talk from a place of, um, that the relationship is going to end, I could interject a very strong sentence.
[00:18:14] ERIKA STRUAB: Just to
[00:18:14] DAVID CHAMBERS: kind of knock her out of that.
[00:18:16] ERIKA STRUAB: That was,
[00:18:17] DAVID CHAMBERS: again, that was another agreement we had. So I think with containers is like, if you kind of have those conversations that can set yourself up in a way that when things you find yourself in certain situations, you have, you know, it sounds kind of boring.
[00:18:28] DAVID CHAMBERS: Like you have these structures, but you have these agreements and you've talked about them. Then it's, it's, you can just kind of go, Oh, well, I know. Cause we've talked about this. And if you've had much real conversations, you're conversating regularly. And then also talking about after certain situations happen is like, how did that go?
[00:18:44] DAVID CHAMBERS: You know? Like, how was that for you? And you start to learn and then you have less of the conversations because you know how to start to deal with these different sort of situations and create these kind of mini containers around each other and with each other to, to deal with the many, you know, low energy things that happen, but also the beautiful things that occur in your relationship as well.
[00:19:05] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah, yeah. And I love that you're speaking to, It's not just how we do conflict, but it's like how we prime for conflict. Like we have to have conversations about it outside of the conflict, because if we're just trying to navigate conflict and conflict, we're not ever actually giving ourselves the best opportunity to see it from like a zoomed out lens.
[00:19:29] ERIKA STRUAB: So it's like setting the container for the container essentially. And I think the follow up piece is so important. And I think some of us might miss. That piece of it that it's actually like the circling back to it. I'm really checking in with like What did we learn there? What, what needs to happen next time?
[00:19:48] ERIKA STRUAB: Like, how did you feel in this? Like that check in piece, I think is the like solidifier of the conflict. And then our system starts to learn this is regenerative. This isn't like taking away or eroding what's here. Like. This process is actually regenerative. If we can have like the primer, we can be in the conflict, stay in that tension and move differently.
[00:20:14] ERIKA STRUAB: And then have that kind of like check in afterwards. Like it's just this whole beautiful process that I think starts to really create so much safety and intimacy. Um, and I think helps us so much with the anxious avoidant dance. And could you speak a little more on your journey with avoidance? And like how that worked and how it even shows up now, if it does.
[00:20:38] ERIKA STRUAB: And just, I think that's just such a common thing people struggle with. And that actually is a big response. For me has been as well that shut down and avoid, um, and it's such a, it just harbors intimacy so much. So I'm just curious if you could speak a little to your journey with that.
[00:20:58] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah. Um, it's really seeing for me was like, because the way that I was like post this relationship and before I say, I always say post this relationship probably, you know, the last six years was if you saw me, you're like, okay, well, David loves intimacy.
[00:21:17] DAVID CHAMBERS: You would see me and move and I can be charismatic and I can be in a bar and talk to people and I have no issue with like physical touch and closeness, but there's a, it's an emotional closeness for me that really gets to me right or spatial closeness like me and my part. We, and my girlfriend, there was a joke, there's something, something we saw on TV.
[00:21:36] DAVID CHAMBERS: And I think there's some argument in some TV program we watched because someone left a toothbrush at the person they slept with and we paused it. And I was like, so. She goes to me, okay, so if I left my toothbrush after like one night of staying at yours, how would, what would you have made that mean? And I was like, okay, so I'm going to pretend the conversation when I have it by friend on the phone.
[00:21:59] DAVID CHAMBERS: And I was like, oh my God, she's left a toothbrush. Like she's trying to take over my space. Like, how dare she do that? Like, what is she thinking? Like, she's probably looking through my stuff before she left and all this. And it's starting to acknowledge, is it like, As a avoidant person, the stories we run about the infringement on our freedom and our, and our spaciousness and our autonomy are completely like runaway trains in our minds.
[00:22:25] DAVID CHAMBERS: So some of it was just observing like, oh wow. the meaning that was making. I spent a lot of time with a coach. Um, and a lot of his, a lot of his work is like observing the meaning that we create out of the little things that happen. And we can get into all this kind of like high level masculine feminine polarity bits and pieces.
[00:22:46] DAVID CHAMBERS: But if you don't notice the meaning that you create out of the small things that are happening in your day to day life or in your relationship, right? Like, no matter how much, you know, that polarity stuff's not going to help you because it's just too far up the ladder and it's, you're, you're ruining the, the tiny little bits of intimacy.
[00:23:02] DAVID CHAMBERS: So, for me, some of it, like the journey was emotional, learning to be with emotion and sharing how I felt with people and realizing that, oh, actually, people really love it when we hear, emotion that has that has depth and I want to say confidence. And the reason I say this is because a lot of guys come to me, they're like, Oh, I started opening up my heart to someone and, and she just like, she just called me like week or something like that.
[00:23:32] DAVID CHAMBERS: And I'm like, Hmm, how did you do it? Did you do it in a way that you were trying to get to solve your problem that you were trying to get some sort of sympathy or you were just like, and you're allowed to be a mess sometimes, of course. But if you're just always an emotional mess and she has to be your therapist, then this is going to create a different sort of dynamic.
[00:23:49] DAVID CHAMBERS: So I guess for me, it was learning to like express how I was feeling. Well, like, and I can be quite good at this. I can talk and process what's happening for me at the same time. I don't need, sometimes I just need someone there in front of me. Um, so like learning to be in my emotions, learning to see that like these little, um, bids for connection that happened with my partner, like a message to me, like, It isn't some way in which they're trying to steal my autonomy and steal my freedom.
[00:24:20] DAVID CHAMBERS: Um, and like little questions and observing it, I mean, she'd say to me, when are you going to be finished with work tonight? And I would feel this emotional reaction of like. What does she want to do tonight? Oh, God, she's, she's organized something and she hasn't asked me and I would just stop and go. Oh, yeah.
[00:24:38] DAVID CHAMBERS: Wow. That's not true. She's just, she's just asked me what I'm doing tonight. You know, she wants to cook dinner for us or something and wants us to go out for dinner. And it's just observing that and just seeing the reality of it was a really, and that's, that's, that's ever going. I have to always be observing that because my avoidance will never disappear.
[00:24:54] DAVID CHAMBERS: It is like deep rooted, but I know how to, um, yeah. Most of the time, I'm not perfect, to, to, to, I see it. I'm like, ah, that's that thing I'm doing. Like, I'm not. And then also, in this relationship that's been beautiful, is we've allowed each other, she's learned that my freedom does not mean that I want to leave.
[00:25:15] DAVID CHAMBERS: And there's something wrong with the relationship. So we've then baked in times where we spend time apart, like my partner's Swedish, so she'll go to Sweden often around Christmas or something like that. And when she goes, she'll just be with her family. And we might not talk for three, four days, right? Or I go to, like I usually go to a retreat or two each year.
[00:25:35] DAVID CHAMBERS: And during that time, she's like, I'll speak to you when you're out. So it's like, we, we bake in these times where we get to really be free, but we also bake in time of like extreme closeness, you know, where we're on holiday together for five or six days and we barely leave each other side. So it's like, we're stretching our own muscles in that way.
[00:25:53] DAVID CHAMBERS: Um, and that's been really. Like, amazing to be like, ah, if I'm close, I don't lose who I am. I don't lose my autonomy. I can still have autonomy in a relationship as well. You know, if I communicate my needs and my boundaries and my desires in a way, then this is a really important thing. That's not like, one of the habits we do is when we, we tell someone a boundary, we do it because they've crossed the boundary and we do it in a way that we're angry and annoyed with them.
[00:26:22] DAVID CHAMBERS: So it doesn't feel like a boundary. This feels like we're telling them off. Whereas we discussed like boundaries and from a place of like, ah, like, so I can love you more, what I need is da da da. So it doesn't feel like I'm telling her off. It just feels like I'm saying what's there for me. So I learned that boundaries are okay.
[00:26:42] DAVID CHAMBERS: She learned that boundaries are good and we learned that boundaries don't mean we've done something wrong. Um, so like it's, it's the emotional piece is really important learning to be with autonomous, uh, to feel when the times I'm not as autonomous as I want to. And I think there's probably one piece I think that's probably really important for me here.
[00:27:01] DAVID CHAMBERS: It was like, I had my heart broken about. Six years ago by a woman, she was a lovely woman and, um, I loved her and she, I'm quite in love. And I told her one day, I was like, you know, look, we've been seeing each other, I love you. And I think within 30 seconds she was like, um, like this is over. And I was like, you know, that was one of the deeply painful moment, but I realized over those, those months afterwards, what I realized was, was the thing that I'd been afraid of, right.
[00:27:32] DAVID CHAMBERS: Loving someone more than they love me. I was in it. And I experienced it. And I realized I was like, this thing has been holding me back from really opening my heart up because I was afraid that this would happen. And I was afraid if this happened, I couldn't deal with it. And I was sitting in this space for like, when it happened, I realized I was like, Oh, I can deal with this.
[00:27:52] DAVID CHAMBERS: Like I'm sad. And sometimes I have ways of, of grief and all sorts of things, but I'm okay. And it really set me up to be like, Oh, Oh, I don't need to keep trying to like hold my heart back to avoid being her. And it, for me, that really set me on a, like a bit of a, like, fast track of being free from that belief.
[00:28:13] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah, oof, like those moments that things are most afraid of, usually they've already happened. Right. Or they, they do happen and they end up being the things that really do free us, but it comes with like the grief, right? The grief and the anger of like, I need to grieve and descend into myself. And then I need to touch into my anger and rise in my boundaries because then I'm safe.
[00:28:40] ERIKA STRUAB: Then I can be autonomous and, and give my heart to someone at the same time. Um, I'm just, I'm sitting here like with the avoidance piece. Cause it's part of. Kind of my DNA as well, if you will. Um, and there's like, I think of it in terms of like closeness. Like there's a certain level of closeness that I've, that I can tolerate really easily, right, where like that avoidance doesn't show up.
[00:29:09] ERIKA STRUAB: It's like you can get really close to like maybe this distance and I can, you know, we can be with the tension. We're, we're familiar with our story. So it's like, oh, there's that story again. Okay. Like, I can unpack that. I know that's a distortion, but for me, I'm discovering like my edge and my line of like, if you are this much closer than like, Like all of this then comes forward and I don't know if you can, if you relate to that, but as you're talking about the, like the emotional unpacking of avoidance, that's what it shows up for me, like just learning, like the levels of closeness, like where I'm at in my personal journey of like, oh, wow, this penetrated a closeness that maybe I haven't been before.
[00:29:58] ERIKA STRUAB: And here's now all of this. All of my shit and how terrifying it is, you know, for someone to be that close and to see all of that shit, like your shame that comes forward. Or for me, it was really this reckoning of when you are that close, all of a sudden I feel so codependent, but if you are this close, I'm good, you know, like I, I can be in more interdependence or even independence, maybe a little hyper independence, but like, we're good.
[00:30:30] ERIKA STRUAB: But the second that it's like this penetration to that, like deepest level of closeness that like I've personally gone, it's, it's unbelievable. The, you know, the complexity that shows up the splitting, the emotional pain, like all the distortions. And I'm just curious if that has kind of been what was revealed to you and in your emotional journey with avoidance.
[00:30:57] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah, yeah, you know, I love how you do you talked about is like almost a physical distance and most emotional distance is like, ah, if we're like this close, it's okay. Right. And I, and why I think this is always really interesting is because And I work with quite a few avoidant men, and they often can be, not all of them, but a number of them can be quite charismatic, and they can be very attractive, because they appear, especially in the early stage of dating, of being very comfortable with, um, intimacy, right, especially physical touch, um, sexual intimacy as well, and so forth, and even disclosing things about themselves that some people may think are intimate details, um, But in fact, they're still holding like what's really intimate to them, close to them.
[00:31:43] DAVID CHAMBERS: And sometimes it's like, for me, it's often comes up as like, um, I, I, I had a, my own place, right? And I lived in it for basically 14 years on my own. So when a woman would come into my life, my partner come into my life, when I noticed her leaving her stuff, In the place, that's like warning bells start going off in my head, like, Oh, is she thinking this is more than I think it is?
[00:32:09] DAVID CHAMBERS: So what I had to start to do with my partner is like, she would leave stuff and I would literally just sit and look at it. And I would notice like all this stuff coming up, like, Oh my God, does this mean this? And does this mean, and I'm just looking at it. And like, it'd be like this weird meditation that she never saw me do while I was looking at the stuff that she'd left.
[00:32:29] DAVID CHAMBERS: And I have to be like present to like, ah, yeah, like I'm creating this story about this stuff and and it would be Like it was, you know, it was, it was hard,
[00:32:41] ERIKA STRUAB: but
[00:32:41] DAVID CHAMBERS: like, if we can catch in our awareness when it's happening and, you know, the avoidance and, you know, all our patterns avoidance or anxiousness, right.
[00:32:50] DAVID CHAMBERS: They're so wily. They can like morph like comedians into different, different things that we don't notice them. And it isn't easy, but when. It kind of all erupts and it starts coming up and then sometimes we then project it we then say stuff or we start to distance and so forth. Again, the key that was for me is taking responsibility.
[00:33:14] DAVID CHAMBERS: Like, because in the past I wouldn't take responsibility and that's partly because of my disability. I was not dogmatic, but I was always like, there's a right and wrong and this is how it is. And as I've got older, I realized there is a million perspectives to every single moment. So, because when you're with someone and you're like, hey, I overreacted about you leaving your jacket here.
[00:33:36] DAVID CHAMBERS: And when you came back, I was a bit shut down. And I'm really sorry for that. And the reason that was, was, you know, X, Y, and Z. People are so much more reasonable with you when you can do that. There's so much more reasonable and that's hard because, you know, in that moment as an avoidant person, uh, for me, what triggers is like, I'm bad.
[00:33:59] DAVID CHAMBERS: I'm wrong. They're going to reject me. They're going to think things of me and all these things start to come up. But I guess this is where you kind of cultivate the intimacy in the relationship. And also, you know, when I, when I work with men, I always say, it's like, you've got to cultivate a certain level of resilience as well.
[00:34:17] DAVID CHAMBERS: And, and ground into some calm, you know, all those things together that if, when you do apologize and say, Oh, look, I've seen where my awareness went and they, they flip out. You can just hold it because you know that like, okay, if I can hold this with calm, this actually makes. them calm in turn, right? But it is, it is so difficult when you see the avoidance as it, when it comes up in, in different areas.
[00:34:41] DAVID CHAMBERS: And it's, it's sometimes I have to laugh, you know, and we, I'm quite lucky, like I, with my partner, but also some of my clients, it's like, we do, we really laugh about it. Like they'll, they'll say one of my, one of my clients said he came home, he'd been away and he came home and his partner was on his side of the bed.
[00:35:03] DAVID CHAMBERS: And he goes, he left the room. Like, she was asleep, he left the room, he went to the kitchen, and he was like pacing around, and then he got a drink, and he was sitting down, and he said there was a moment where he looked, and he saw a reflection in like a window of himself, and he started to laugh, because he was like, I've just gone into this whole thing that she's taking over my territory, because she was sleeping in my side of the bed, right?
[00:35:27] DAVID CHAMBERS: And he said he was able to like laugh it out to himself and then go back and you know never never told her the story but like we I think more and more I say that we have to be willing to laugh at ourselves and the patterns because when we take ourselves so seriously I think that's that's part of what triggers us more than anything is because we like we take it we take ourselves and our reactions and our um stories so seriously instead of holding them with some lightness.
[00:35:54] ERIKA STRUAB: When we can bring humor in it, it like immediately changes the pattern, but it's so hard to get there sometimes when it feels so intense, but I think that's when we have the most opportunity for change and transformation when we can like actually like see the intensity. Like have that moment of stepping out of the intensity.
[00:36:16] ERIKA STRUAB: And it's like, I have a choice here. Like, this is actually kind of hilarious the way I'm behaving or like, let me own it, like, let me actually share my truth here. And I think both of those are different pathways we can take to start kind of breaking the cycle there. Um, but with avoidance, what, what do you find is like the real fear in it?
[00:36:41] ERIKA STRUAB: Like the fear. to me is a lot about loss of freedom, loss of autonomy. Where do you think that really comes from? Like, what's at the base of that in, in your experience?
[00:36:54] DAVID CHAMBERS: I see with men, it's like they have a, It's almost like a fear of codependency. It's like a fear of, like, if I become too close to you, then I'll become dependent on you and I can't depend on anybody.
[00:37:12] DAVID CHAMBERS: Right? Or if we then become really close, then you reject me and I'll be helpless. So it's like it's really this, the avoidance of ever being in a state of being of helpless or weakness where you're dependent on someone because it's, it's like a, you know, when I've seen it in extreme cases where there's just like no trust for anybody, avoidance leads to like not trusting anybody.
[00:37:38] DAVID CHAMBERS: And then being confirmed in that through various ways because we create our reality so well and feeling lonely and being like, well, this is how the world is. And I, but I see at the base of it, it's like this, this, this lack of belief in, in, in other people's humanity, in, in, in the safety of connection, like, you know, all of that.
[00:37:59] DAVID CHAMBERS: And it just, yeah, it can, it, you know, I feel lucky that I, I, I've seen, I've seen some of my clients as well. Right. But it's like if you get so in the story of the avoidance and like how true it is and how you can't trust anyone and how connection is dangerous and how if I'm in connection I'm going to be taken advantage of or if I become codependent, then look what happens to people that become codependent, right?
[00:38:22] DAVID CHAMBERS: We've got like whole, um, like ethoses of like never be dependent on a woman, never be dependent on somebody else and so forth. And that doesn't lead us to healthy relationships, right? Because part of a healthy relationship to me is interdependence, which has a bit of codependence in it, right? It has a bit of independence in there, and it has a bit of codependence because really to co create anything magical and amazing and like Life changing, be that a business, be that, um, your own career, be that a family.
[00:38:58] DAVID CHAMBERS: We have to be willing to be codependent on each other in some capacity, maybe not on every, in every capacity, but like, you know, if you've got a business. There's codependence because that's how a business works, right? Like there is autonomy and there's bits of codependence and it's that, that codependence I think that really at its root is like, am I going to lose who I am?
[00:39:19] DAVID CHAMBERS: Do I die if I become merged with another being? Okay, I wonder if that's like the really essence piece there for a lot of avoidant folk.
[00:39:29] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah, that and that feels like annihilation. I think in at least to our body and our nervous system like the sensation of it. Um, yeah, it's it's so avoidance is so fascinating to me in that sense.
[00:39:44] ERIKA STRUAB: I'm curious if you could speak to the. The anxious side then, because as we know, we, you know, end up in dynamics where there's usually the anxious and the avoidant, very common. What do you think's going on, um, for the anxious person? Like what is that deep seated fear in that person?
[00:40:04] DAVID CHAMBERS: Uh, being alone, being unloved and being, being alone or, and I see what I think is really interesting is it's like, sometimes it's like two sides of the same coin, but it's just reacting to the problem in a completely different way.
[00:40:20] DAVID CHAMBERS: It's like. Avoidant people don't believe that, um, love, they can, they can find love, right? Or they're unsure, so what they do is they run away from it. Like, okay, it doesn't, it can't be safe. But anxious people are like, I'm taking on the battle. I, I'm gonna keep trying. And this might be the one, this might be the one, and when they find something they think is the one, they often, and not always, can almost become quite obsessed, you know, whether that is on dating apps.
[00:40:52] DAVID CHAMBERS: So I guess for the anxious person, the core is like, am I, am I lovable? Yeah, am I lovable? This is like this eternal question and then wanting to like ask everything if it's true, you know, am I lovable, you know? Ah, like, you know, a friend, am I lovable? And then the energy of that creates a dynamic of anxiousness because the question is unanswered.
[00:41:16] DAVID CHAMBERS: And then the trying to get the answer that they desire, not the answer they fear, creates these loops of anxiety and creates the loops of pushing people away and lots of chasing, chasing unavailable partners, chasing unavailable relationships, chasing unavailable friendships, like, you know, because this anxiousness and avoidance isn't just a intimate relationship piece.
[00:41:36] DAVID CHAMBERS: And I've seen it a lot in people's lives. It starts to, it touches family. It touches careers even, you know? Um, yeah.
[00:41:46] ERIKA STRUAB: Honestly, the more I sit with it, and you know, my best teacher is relationships, you know, especially the ones that didn't work out, but also just getting to know these different parts of myself, because I definitely have a very strong anxious part and a very strong avoidant part.
[00:42:02] ERIKA STRUAB: And I think both parts. Have a lot of anxiety in them, like I think at their core, there's a ton of anxiety and a ton of fear. And, and to me, the more, the deeper I get into, into it, I think the fear at the core of it is the same. And it's really like an absence of self, like I don't know myself. Or I don't trust myself or I don't know how to love or care for myself.
[00:42:31] ERIKA STRUAB: And I don't know how to actually be dependent on someone in a way that feels safe. Like, I think there's also this relationship with dependents that's like really dysfunctional. Um, Again, probably because of our templates and our, you know, primary relationships. Um, but I think it's really this just unhealthy relationship with dependence itself.
[00:42:54] ERIKA STRUAB: Can I depend on myself and can I depend on another? And I think sometimes we feel like we have to choose or we don't feel like we're capable of either. Like, I don't trust myself, I can't depend on myself, or I can't trust anyone else. I can't depend on anyone else. But I, I, the more I strip it down, I think it's actually so much more the same than it is different.
[00:43:17] ERIKA STRUAB: Like, it, it actually doesn't feel as polarized to me anymore as it, as it used to. And I'm just curious how that lands for you or what you think of that.
[00:43:27] DAVID CHAMBERS: No, no, that's really beautiful. That is, it's just a dependence thing. It's like, uh, I find my body almost like leaning forward and leaning back because.
[00:43:35] DAVID CHAMBERS: It's like, can I trust myself? Can I depend on myself? Can I trust you? Can I depend on you? The anxious person leans in to get the answer. I want to get closer to see if I can find the answer to that, to that existential question. The avoidant person leans back
[00:43:54] ERIKA STRUAB: and
[00:43:54] DAVID CHAMBERS: tries to move away from the, to, from any confirmation of the answer.
[00:43:58] DAVID CHAMBERS: Like it, it, that, that, that feels really, yeah. And there's um, I had a thought there. It's like, you lean back, like, I don't want the answer. I'm afraid of what the answer might be, so I want to run away from the question. And the anxious person is afraid of what the answer might be, but they want it answered.
[00:44:22] ERIKA STRUAB: You know,
[00:44:22] DAVID CHAMBERS: they want to find this answer. You know, it's almost like a determinism, a determination. Like, I want to find an answer, but not always because obviously there's some anxious people that do also lean out and they still have the anxiousness. But there is this, like you said, this perennial question about dependence, like, and I guess it really, you know, my understanding of the kind of attachment theory, I guess it really is that the child's, Thought was, I can't depend on you, or I guess the opposite is like, Oh, there's too much depend.
[00:44:53] DAVID CHAMBERS: You are dependent on me.
[00:44:56] ERIKA STRUAB: Like, is
[00:44:56] DAVID CHAMBERS: that, that, that feeling for the little child of like, Oh, this is too much or, Oh, I didn't get enough. It's almost like that. And we then decide what that means in terms of our, how we can depend on ourselves, self trust and the world because yeah, that self trust piece. You know, it's just a really tricky one for us as humans to, to, to grapple with in the space of relationship.
[00:45:22] DAVID CHAMBERS: Um, because we have to be like, can I trust my decisions and choices?
[00:45:27] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah. Yeah. I think trust is like core to this. And I think for those of us. Which I think is most of us have had attachment trauma, especially early in life and then reenacted that until we woke up. So there's a, there's a long history, right?
[00:45:44] ERIKA STRUAB: Of like attachment trauma or ruptures, but that ruptures trust. that ruptures our trust in ourself. And the deeper I look at trust, it's more like, can I trust the sensations in my body more than I trust the stories in my brain? Because the stories in my brain are usually Distortions, but can I trust what I feel in my body and stay with that?
[00:46:11] ERIKA STRUAB: And then it's like, can I trust my reality? Like that's been a big piece. That's been kind of coming into my peripheral is just being able to validate my own reality. And it's not a matter of being right or wrong or someone else, you know, having to hold that exact same perspective, but like, can I trust my reality because of the sensations in my body?
[00:46:33] ERIKA STRUAB: And stand in that truth and be able to like express that truth, but not from a lens of good or bad, right or wrong. Or seeking validation or agreeance of it, but just, can I actually trust my experience in this moment? And I think a lot of us like on, on this journey, I know for myself, a lot of times it's like, no, not in this moment.
[00:46:56] ERIKA STRUAB: And when I can't trust my reality in this moment, like I'm learning, those are the pockets where I don't know myself well enough yet. And I think that brings up that like primal panic in all of us. When we find ourselves in a pocket of like. I don't know myself in this kind of conflict or I don't know myself in this moment or this environment or with this type of person or reaction.
[00:47:24] ERIKA STRUAB: So I don't know, I don't know if that makes sense at all, but to me it's like finding these gaps where I'm like, I don't know myself in this moment. And then how do I, how do I find myself in those moments?
[00:47:38] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah, and I'm like, as you're saying this, it's like, there's a gap and I'm, and I trust this reality, you know, the, the physical sensations I'm having, they might be a fear and nervousness and whatever.
[00:47:51] DAVID CHAMBERS: It's like, Can I trust this reality and you might be looking around and you're in a beautiful field of lavender
[00:47:57] ERIKA STRUAB: and you're
[00:47:57] DAVID CHAMBERS: like, I can't trust this reality, right? Because this sensations I'm having a fear and so forth do not match with the, the world that I'm experiencing right now. And I can see it in my eyes in and from a neutral place.
[00:48:11] DAVID CHAMBERS: And then my mind kind of goes to is like, ah, and then it's like, how do you resolve that in that moment? Because if you can sit in that, like, oh, I can't trust this and that's okay. Okay. Then we could really be like, Hmm, why am I feeling this way? What's occurring in my mind? What's occurring in my body?
[00:48:28] DAVID CHAMBERS: What's occurring in this, this moment? But if we seek some certainty quickly, which I think is a habit of humans, right? Then we look for a story to give sense to what we're incurring. And it creates like a, it gives us a sense of safety. Because I guess in that space of not being able to trust reality, then we can, we can instantly feel very unsafe.
[00:48:53] DAVID CHAMBERS: And then we might want to pin that on something like that person did that thing, or that thing is not the way it should be. And then we, we're actually, we actually lose the moment of growth that you're, you're, you're expressing there.
[00:49:05] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah, I love, we, we do pin it on external things to get this like pseudo sense of safety.
[00:49:11] ERIKA STRUAB: Like we're so quick to make meaning out of certain things. And I think that's actually a common quality that anxious and avoidant people do have is urgency, but it's not, it doesn't look the same like how the adaptation looks completely different, but there's a sense of urgency at coming to a like rooting it into something and You know, when we're in anxious or avoiding it, we're also in fight or flight, so we're super dysregulated.
[00:49:39] ERIKA STRUAB: So we're super black and white about things, but it's like this urgency to get to a conclusion because I don't know myself right now. And that's, it's like a really interesting space to bring consciousness to those moments and then to bring breath into the body and just to be with those sensations to me, like that's.
[00:50:00] ERIKA STRUAB: That's the work. Like that's the work. How can I be with these sensations, the emotions that it evokes when I don't know myself in this moment? And it's intense, intense work. But I think that's where we can create transformation and like more intimacy with ourself.
[00:50:23] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah. Wisdom is really possible. Like self learning is really impossible in, is possible in the moments where we're like Ah, there's a space here.
[00:50:32] DAVID CHAMBERS: What is here? And we get curious. And it's like you said, it can be intense because we've got emotions happening. And then we also have to bring a level of consciousness. And it's, this is the, you know, this is like the, I think my opinion is, is of a lot of men's work. This is like the thing that underpins so much of it, like in my eyes, it's like, can you be with the experience, feelings, emotions, pattern, story, while maintaining presence and awareness.
[00:51:04] DAVID CHAMBERS: Because the, the way that we are taught into being not just men, everybody is just to like, just be flung around the place by our experience and our feelings and emotions. Like, if we look at a newspaper, we look at, um, celebrity news and all this, it's just full of people who are just going, Oh, in this moment, I suddenly felt threatened.
[00:51:24] DAVID CHAMBERS: So I threw this table, you know, and we don't really like go, Right. That's not a great way to live. We don't, we don't really have that conversation long enough, but this, this part of, you know, I see men's work or everybody's work really is like, can I be of experience? Like you said, emotions and feelings, can I be, be also conscious of not just the experience, what else is out there?
[00:51:49] DAVID CHAMBERS: What else is possible? What else is in my mind? What else could be the perspective or, you know, just sometimes the, the awareness we need is to be able to just. have the emotion and like you said, like be able to breathe at the same time. Like it's such a great practice that has, it sounds so simple, you know, but actually it's like, it's training you for the deepest work of your life.
[00:52:17] ERIKA STRUAB: And to me, breath is the pathway to that. Cause What I feel if I'm, if I'm not deeply engaging in that, my breath is like to here, you know, it's like so shallow, but the second I invite it to drop in, then I touch all the stuff that I don't want to touch, but like, that's where we start to actually feel and release.
[00:52:39] ERIKA STRUAB: But it's, it's really like the breath is what leads us there. Like the breath is such a guide to what's actually happening or what we're resistant or unwilling to feel. Anytime I'm like in resistance, my breath is like so shallow. It's like, Nope, not, no, thank you. Not feeling that and then you drop into the breath and you're like, Oh my God, there's a lot there.
[00:53:05] ERIKA STRUAB: There's a lot there. And it's, you know, it's, it's a lot to hold everything that's happening on the inside of us and then between us. And I know when you and I spoke a few weeks back, you had really, um, kind of breathed life into like the space between us, like the room field. And I just want to ask if there's anything you wanted to speak to in that.
[00:53:27] ERIKA STRUAB: Cause I think that field is like so potent and powerful.
[00:53:33] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah, we, we feel the space and we've touched on this. Like, yeah, We, we, we unconsciously fill the space with like thoughts. And I like to always look at it. Like we have a little, uh, phantom in front of us, like a ghost, uh, I guess it's, you know, when we think of glasses and lenses, right, but it's like, it sits in front of me and it's like all my projections of myself, right, sit inside this, my negative beliefs, my ideas, like how I, like what I'm worried about, about the world, it all kind of sits here and behind there is almost like the witness, you know, the witness, that's me, that's like, clear and spacious and conscious and open and in front of you you have your own little phantom there that's like been had all your traumas and your worries and your fears and we just spend so much time coming from the witness saying something that's like that's there it gets processed through our fears and our worries our concerns and then we communicate this back to someone else's fears worries and concerns and then that gets taken in and everything is so distorted like everything is so distorted in a conversation in how we um, Perceive other people's actions a lot of the time, or how we even perceive our own actions, or we worry about what our actions mean.
[00:54:45] DAVID CHAMBERS: And it means that the field between us, the space between us, is just full of, it's full of fog, it's full of garbage. And like, all the information that's coming to us is like, being filtered through the fog and the garbage. And, We wonder why like relationships are so chaotic or communication is so chaotic.
[00:55:05] DAVID CHAMBERS: And I think the work is, you know, relationally like, you know, because relational work, it helps us in every aspect of our lives. And, you know, career to a family is to become aware of like, what's my garbage? And how does it distort my world and how can I start to clean it out and how do I start to become aware of like, Oh, look, you know, the avoidance is just like a piece of garbage, like a large piece of garbage that we filled the world for you.
[00:55:31] DAVID CHAMBERS: Where we go, Oh, look, she left a toothbrush. And now I'm thinking she's trying to marry me, you know? And like, if we don't realize that that is part of the fog, that's part of the garbage, then we think that that is the real information. And there's so many places that we see this in our lives, in our societies where we think the garbage is the actual information and we have to like, learn to kind of like, pull it apart and detangle it.
[00:56:00] DAVID CHAMBERS: And so much of the time, I think in relationship, it's like, when you really pull apart the garbage from the communication or from the information, again, it's like, they want, like want love, they're bidding for love, or they're trying to protect themselves.
[00:56:18] ERIKA STRUAB: And
[00:56:18] DAVID CHAMBERS: like, you know, is there anything else that's really happening?
[00:56:23] DAVID CHAMBERS: Right. And, but we have so much garbage on there so often we give it another million other meanings that's not there that actually hurt our ability to relate and to connect to the people that we really want to.
[00:56:37] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah, it's, it's so just cleaning up that field so we can actually like see each other clearly.
[00:56:43] ERIKA STRUAB: We can see ourselves, we can meet somewhere that's vast, full of possibility, full of intimacy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I'm curious to kind of tie all of this together. We've definitely danced in it and touched on it, but how would you define intimacy? Like what does that, what does it actually mean to you?
[00:57:07] ERIKA STRUAB: If you could even. Yeah.
[00:57:10] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah. Um, I think it is the range of levels of closeness, it's, it's a closeness, it's a being seen like at it's like really deep levels. It's like allowing someone to really see the deepest parts of your soul and who you are beyond the garbage, beyond the body, down to like who you are as a, as a soul, a possibility source.
[00:57:36] DAVID CHAMBERS: Um, and, and then on the, maybe the lighter end, it's just. Sharing a part of you with somebody, you know, I was in a men's circle a while ago and we were talking about sex and intimacy and I said, Oh, you know, even this circle of us, many are talking about sex into me, this is intimacy because we're having to share parts of ourselves and be vulnerable and open up parts of ourselves that we might not do in our normal lives and it creates an intimacy in this group instantly when we do that, when we feed it.
[00:58:08] DAVID CHAMBERS: Our relationships with intimacy, they grow in their connection between two people. They grow more and more. When we starve them with intimacy, we create separation, we create, um, conflict, we create loneliness as well.
[00:58:25] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah, I love that. I so I so resonate with that. Like, it really is that closeness and like that revealing and kind of being able to see someone on a soul level, like beyond all of these projections.
[00:58:37] ERIKA STRUAB: But it's like our responsibility for someone to actually be able to see that. I think a lot of times we project that like, you need to see me. And it's like, No, actually, I think I need to really like reveal and open and clean out my garbage. I'm going to start using that line, clean out my garbage so that like, I see myself first and I can allow you closer the closeness piece.
[00:59:02] ERIKA STRUAB: I know that's like a deep work for myself and my work in the world is just closeness. Like what closeness level can I tolerate and how much closer can I let someone. And to me, it's like mission work, life work, soul work, and I think intimacy is such medicine for us.
[00:59:23] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah, and the intimacy we can have with ourselves, I think is like a key, key pillar that we don't often think about.
[00:59:31] DAVID CHAMBERS: How willing are we to, how willing are we to see our own, like, feelings and emotions that we have about us and that we've had? How willing are we to just, like, lean into those? You know, for me, it was how well am I to lean into the sadness and the grief and the heartbreak and be with what is part of me, that part of me that I don't, I don't really want to be into because it hurts.
[01:00:00] ERIKA STRUAB: And when
[01:00:00] DAVID CHAMBERS: we are willing to go there more and more with the parts of ourselves, then our ability to then be with other people in those states increases incredibly.
[01:00:11] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's, it's just wild how it's all relational, right? Like everything is relational, how we relate to ourselves, our bodies, our emotions, our sensations, our realities, and then how we're able to do that for others around us.
[01:00:27] ERIKA STRUAB: And it's continued practice. It's, it's a forever practice.
[01:00:32] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah, forever practice. I like that. That's a wonderful way to put it.
[01:00:38] ERIKA STRUAB: Thank you so much for this conversation. Um, like I feel so settled in my body right now. I love, I just love that feeling when, you know, there's like a, I'll speak for myself. I don't know if this is happening for you, but just like a co creation that just feels really, Genuine and open and safe.
[01:00:57] ERIKA STRUAB: So I, I just want to thank you for, you know, co creating such a safe space. And like, I just love that feeling of settledness with someone when you, you just drop into something and it's like, Hmm, totally resonate with that. And so thank you. Thank you for that.
[01:01:13] DAVID CHAMBERS: No, thank you for having me. Thank you for also creating that space for, but I like to call it, um, usefulness, you know, not that it's easy.
[01:01:21] DAVID CHAMBERS: I feel, I feel at ease.
[01:01:24] ERIKA STRUAB: Yeah,
[01:01:24] DAVID CHAMBERS: in this and it's like, like, I love the feeling of ease because it's like, ah, I can relax. My body can just settle in. I can feel, I can also open, you know, and might be with you and be with me at the same time. And that's, it's always a gift.
[01:01:39] ERIKA STRUAB: That's a gift. I'm so grateful for that.
[01:01:41] ERIKA STRUAB: And before I close, um, I do want to just ask, where's the best place for people to find you and follow your work and work with you?
[01:01:51] DAVID CHAMBERS: Yeah, I'm a pretty active Instagram person. You can find me there, like posting very regularly and talking about stuff. Um, but I know that not everyone's on Instagram, so you can find me then.
[01:02:02] DAVID CHAMBERS: I have a podcast called The Authentic Man with David Chambers with, you know, 200 plus, 270 plus episodes there if you want to listen to me and other wonderful people talking. Um, and then obviously there's also my website, which, you know, you can find out a bit about. I'm not super active on the website.
[01:02:18] DAVID CHAMBERS: It's there as a kind of placeholder place, but between the podcast and Instagram is the best places to really kind of get into my world.
[01:02:26] ERIKA STRUAB: Beautiful. Well, I will make sure to link all that stuff so people can find you and just thank you again for being here for the work that you've done. Um, on yourself, like as a woman, it's always just such a gift to sit across from a man who you're like, like, I feel this person's done so much work.
[01:02:44] ERIKA STRUAB: I feel their sense of self and the safety. Like it's just, it's truly a gift. So thank you.
[01:02:50] DAVID CHAMBERS: Thank you.