The Feminine Face of God with Stefanie Marco
“Anger means protection. Anger means boundary. Anger means no. Anger is a beautiful chance to revisit who it is we need to become to fulfill our destiny, who we will no longer be, or what we will no longer allow in the way of love.”
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Stefanie Marco
In this episode
Stef illuminates the ancient roots of Tantra, polarity, and how we begin to heal the relationship to the masculine.
We explore objectification, the feminine desire for “More”, and we connect the dots as to how and why anger is the missing ingredient for intimacy.
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 Stefanie Marco
Stefanie Marco is a Sacred Union Guide who specializes in awakening and healing the Heart.
Stef has been a devoted student of ancient wisdom for over 20 years. She has received various spiritual transmissions and certifications in Taosism, Tantra, Kundalini and Sexual Yoga. Stef is one of fewer than 200 KAP Level 4 practitioners of Kundalini Awakening in the world.
She holds a multitude of wisdom teachings and various elemental quantum healing techniques: Yoga, Kundalini Awakening and Tantra, she offers Union consciousness and reparenting methods to her clients to welcome them into greater wholeness within and into deeper monogamous intimacy.
How to Connect with Stefanie
Stefanie’s Website
Stefanie’s app A LOVE REVOLUTION is available on iTunes and GooglePlay for a Free 30 Day Trial - subscriptions include LIVE monthly co ed coaching calls for singles and couples beginning in October.
Stefani’s Instagram
Stefanie’s Facebook Group
Favorite Quotes from the Podcast
“I think a good curious question beats an assumption any day.” - Stefanie Marco
“Anger means protection. Anger means boundary. Anger means no. Anger is a beautiful chance to revisit who it is we need to become to fulfill our destiny. And who we will no longer be or what we will no longer allow in the way of love.” - Stefanie Marco
“When we can be with emotions and not have to do something with them or make somebody else do something with them, that's when we really know we're coming online with another level of awakening.” - Stefanie Marco
Transcript of the Podcast with Stefanie Marco
It's such a pleasure to sit down with Stephanie Marco. She's not only a mentor to my heart and womb and feminine embodiment, but such a soul sister. She's a trauma informed somatic healing and love coach, whose foundational methods are based in 20 years of studies in Eastern spiritual sciences, including Tantra, Taoism, Kundalini, and Tibetan Buddhism.
Her processes take a neuroscientific approach, shifting subconscious programming, and unblocking resistances to love and oneness. Stephanie works with singles and couples in the areas of inner child, reparenting and shadow work, as well as cultivating sexual healing, polarity, and reprogramming blocks to intimacy through various somatic, yogic sciences, and meditation practices.
She leads global live and online heart medicine experiences that are both fun and deeply transformative. You will be transformed by this conversation.
Let's drop in.
[00:01:33] ERIKA STRAUB: I know there's so many twists and turns and we could start in so many places, but really like what called you in to this work to your path.
[00:01:45] STEFANI MARCO: Thank you. Um, yeah, well, you know, I grew up in New York City. And, um, in Brooklyn specifically and, and Queens. And that atmosphere is very intense. Um, my parents were not married for very long before being divorced. And I just remember being quite contemplative, like very early on in my life and wanting a lot of solitude.
[00:02:17] STEFANI MARCO: And I remember just one day laying on the floor in our apartment and suddenly Being struck by something that I didn't really have words for and I'm not sure I even have the words for them now other than it was like being conscious of consciousness, like suddenly understanding or sensing that like, oh, like this body I'm in and these walls aren't everything.
[00:02:42] STEFANI MARCO: There's something else that. is bigger, and it scares me a little bit, and, but, like, this isn't the only part of reality. And I was probably about four years old, and it's a very, like, clear memory for me. And since then, Um, I just remembered looking at shapes and looking at geometry and, and, and like seeing patterns and things and wanting to understand like the mathematics around kind of existence.
[00:03:12] STEFANI MARCO: And, um, and I began to get really into spirituality. I liked going to church I went to like a Catholic high school that I felt was very like community oriented and forward thinking we had students of all different denominations within the spiritual context of. Catholicism and those teachings, but we prayed together as a community and, um, explored my senior year, um, experiencing God was a course you could take and it didn't have to do with specifically, uh, Catholicism.
[00:03:44] STEFANI MARCO: It was just sort of spiritual. And, um, And I started dating a guy in my 20s who was really into Eastern philosophy and martial arts, and all of a sudden kind of seeing this new way of thinking and reading the Tao Te Ching and coming into expressing martial arts really started to make sense to me. There was like this feminine idea of God that I hadn't experienced or explored before.
[00:04:11] STEFANI MARCO: And You know, I found myself making a lot of decisions that were really still with this kind of programming of what I grew up in, a lot of, um, victimhood, a lot of anger, a lot of defensiveness, survival, um, only being able to look out for yourself, a lot of narcissistic programs, and finding that I was, like, in these patterns that I Essentially, I was dying to break free from and really knowing that spirituality was my path, but not quite knowing how to make it all come together to change my life in a significant way.
[00:04:51] STEFANI MARCO: Um, and so I continued to study and I got into kundalini yoga in 2004. And. That really started to break me open into, um, much more unity, consciousness, and into practices that just made me feel good, and I could sense were healing me, and I didn't really understand what the depth of them were until around, well, it came in phases.
[00:05:20] STEFANI MARCO: One phase, I started to feel into the sexual aspects of it, because I was dating a man who had some issues that I didn't. Realize, um, sexual issues, and within our relationship, he started to feel free from those, um, within the intimacy that we were engaging in together that was very profound and beautiful.
[00:05:43] STEFANI MARCO: Um, and then there was a lot of ego distortion around that, like, Oh, you know, who am I and what am I bringing in for him and, and also like my not understanding that these Kundalini practices were opening something up in me and wanting to explore more of that. And that relationship ended and was very pivotal in my going deeper into my spiritual path.
[00:06:05] STEFANI MARCO: And then a few years later, um, I was on a psilocybin journey and I had experimented with plant medicine a lot and psychedelics prior to that, but this particular journey actually, um, incited a Kundalini awakening and it was that was in, I think, 2000. 14 or 15. And, um, and it was a very traumatic Kundalini awakening.
[00:06:36] STEFANI MARCO: I didn't even recognize it at the time as a Kundalini awakening because it was so traumatic. I thought I had just had a really bad trip and experienced a lot of electric current through my body and seeing the past lives of the people I was with in that journey. And subsequently becoming quite attached to them and, um, giving things meaning that were pulling me into a psychosis.
[00:07:02] STEFANI MARCO: What's what I now know it was a Kundalini psychosis. And then I had spiritual teachers around me who could guide me through that and recognize that I was going through an ascension process into further mastery of my spiritual self. And, um, That took me into deeper studies with my Kundalini teachers, but into deeper studies with Taoism and eventually classical Tantra.
[00:07:28] STEFANI MARCO: And, uh, in 2020, found myself at a Tantra ashram in Thailand that I was meant to stay at for three weeks. And COVID came in full force and allowed me to stay there for nearly two years, studying with my guru. And having a really huge, um, transformation through that process, which has now led me to finally have the courage to teach, uh, over the past three years, uh, full time and to devote myself to being a guide and a teacher of this work.
[00:08:01] ERIKA STRAUB: What a powerful journey. There's like so much in each of those pivots and experiences. I'm just taking it all right now. Truly. Um, I would love to know more about this two year period of time studying Tantra and what that experience was like for you.
[00:08:23] STEFANI MARCO: Yeah, it was really powerful, you know, um, and It's so easy to sort of romanticize it from the outside.
[00:08:31] STEFANI MARCO: You know, Oh, you went to an ashram and you had an awakening and now you're teaching and having these beautiful experiences. And for me, it was quite painful. And I don't think that that's the experience of everyone. But I learned that I was really carrying around a lot of programs and stories that were resisting my ascension from happening fully.
[00:08:56] STEFANI MARCO: Thank you. And this teacher who I found, I'm so grateful for, uh, his name is Bhagavan Shri Shamuka Anantanetha, and he's a guru from a very long lineage of Kashmir Shaivism and, um, Shiva Shakti Tantra rooted in Trika and Paola lineages. And so what that essentially means is, is I was learning non duality and I was learning, um, how this sense of who I was, this, this identity.
[00:09:27] STEFANI MARCO: That I was holding onto was really blocking my heart from true love and that process was painful and what a guru's job is to do is to mirror to you the things that keep you from enlightenment and that, um, are blocking you. And they also help you to ascend your kundalini energy and to open your heart into a new consciousness of sacred union with yourself.
[00:09:59] STEFANI MARCO: Where you are not inhibited by duality, meaning I'm good. I'm bad. Um, the other and me, this separateness dynamic that we are shifting out of as individuals so much right now. And also as a planet in our consciousness, we are ascending and we are moving. And so, um, You know, I feel I was being prepared and he, um, really graciously and sometimes really painfully broke me out of these ideas about myself and about others.
[00:10:35] STEFANI MARCO: And I would say most prominently my victimhood and this idea that my pain was special and different from other people's pain.
[00:10:44] ERIKA STRAUB: And
[00:10:44] STEFANI MARCO: that, and he and I would joke, um, and, and, and I would say, I'm going to write a book and it's going to be called my special pain, me and my special pain. Right? Because I think that that's the thing that we all kind of walk around with.
[00:10:59] STEFANI MARCO: We think that we're so, um, unacceptable and that the parts of ourselves that if people really knew who we really were, we would be exiled or that somehow our pain is so different. And. What we don't realize is actually as much as love unites us, our pain really unites us. When we can see each other's pain and have compassion, we realize that we are no different from the other and there is no separate.
[00:11:27] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah.
[00:11:28] STEFANI MARCO: And so that was a big part of that journey for me.
[00:11:31] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah, I would even, I would add maybe this is just my own piece, but shame really connects us to when we can really sit in that and bring that forward. I think we make that really special too, but it feels like that's such a floodgate to love.
[00:11:48] STEFANI MARCO: Shame is a specialness.
[00:11:50] STEFANI MARCO: Exactly.
[00:11:51] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah.
[00:11:52] STEFANI MARCO: The pain is there. And then the aspect of specialness that we add to it is exactly what you just said. I agree.
[00:11:59] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. It's yeah. I definitely have spent my time in that space and realizing how, you know, moving through shame that it is not special, that we all hold it and feel it. And it is the biggest block to us fully stepping in or fully showing up or fully opening in love.
[00:12:20] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. Absolutely. I'm curious this identity that you spoke of that you were really attached to that was maybe in resistance or was holding you back. Could you speak more to kind of that person or persona, whatever this identity was embodying at the time.
[00:12:41] STEFANI MARCO: Sure. And you know, and I also have to say like, Again, within the context of shame, I learned to love aspects of that persona that I created
[00:12:52] ERIKA STRAUB: that I,
[00:12:52] STEFANI MARCO: that had worked for me.
[00:12:54] STEFANI MARCO: I've learned to, um, through that process, see all of those masks as sacred as well. They were trying to keep me safe. They were trying only through their pureness, get me love, but they were impure. Behaviors.
[00:13:11] ERIKA STRAUB: They were,
[00:13:12] STEFANI MARCO: they were not being true to my true nature, and they were repressing my full potential.
[00:13:19] ERIKA STRAUB: But,
[00:13:19] STEFANI MARCO: um, you know, I grew up, I was a child actor. So from a very early age, I learned that I needed to be somebody different to get love. And that's an extreme version of it right but all of us I think have that as young children if we're treated like objects by our parents and most of our parents do treat us that way.
[00:13:38] STEFANI MARCO: Right. Um, you know, and and most of the time it's to protect us and a lot of the time it's their own uncultivated versions of seeking love, right? So they say you're mine and you're mine and that means I love you because you're mine and that's a beautiful notion, but we aren't anyone's and, um, and so as a child, I experienced, um, through that, you know, time of my life, um, having to create a very external social, outgoing, extroverted personality that deep inside it wasn't really me.
[00:14:16] STEFANI MARCO: I was quite shy. I was, you know, a bit emo and sensitive and I wanted to actually be a ballet dance and my, my dad said, your career will be over 20, uh, you're going to be an actress and, you know, thrusted me into this world and I enjoyed aspects of it, but really it was. About pleasing him and, um, and then having to work at such a young age, it really disconnected me from my peers.
[00:14:44] STEFANI MARCO: I was bullied quite a bit in school. You know, I was in public schools in Brooklyn and Queens, New York. Um, and you know, being the girl on TV was not, not the thing to get people to want to hang out with you. And I didn't really know how to. Deal with my peers either. Um, so I had this program throughout my life starting at that age and moving in through adolescence of being special being different and and having this duality between wanting so badly to be accepted by my peers.
[00:15:23] STEFANI MARCO: And then when I wasn't saying, well, I'm better than you any and creating these personas that we all do, you know, and in my, my case, it was just an extreme version because it was, uh, it was a mask of an actress, right? Like what an archetype, the actress. Right. And so, and then I also found like the actress working for me.
[00:15:46] STEFANI MARCO: Right. I could get into nightclubs. I could. schmooze my way into this thing or that thing. I could be, I was, I was good on camera. I was, um, charming. I knew how to audition and kind of sell myself and all of these things. But, um, when I came to the ashram, I was confronted. I was confronted by other students saying, you're fake,
[00:16:14] STEFANI MARCO: you're fake. You don't know how to be in community. And I didn't. And I was being um, but hearing those words and, and, You know, and we do these, these, um, types of exercises in this work where we cut each other's ego, loving the way this particular practice, it's called Chod. It literally means to cut the way this practice was introduced to me was actually not the way it's supposed to be introduced someone just kind of threw it on me and it's supposed to be consensual and you're supposed to kind of know what you're doing.
[00:16:46] STEFANI MARCO: But I was just sort of verbally told all of these things without preparation. So, it was very, um, shocking for me. And I learned a lot from it. I'm, I'm grateful that it happened exactly the way it did. Um, but it felt like I was literally dying. And I was in my room, like, nobody likes me. Everyone, like, like, my curtain's been pulled down.
[00:17:06] STEFANI MARCO: And I've been, like, exposed in front of everyone. For these things that I feel so ashamed for. And as I started to unravel the shame of that. And the story of that, and the identity, I started to not feel shameful. I started to feel so much compassion for this little girl who just wanted to graduate. So much
[00:17:33] ERIKA STRAUB: compassion for this little girl
[00:17:35] STEFANI MARCO: who just wanted her classmates to think she was cool enough to do that.
[00:17:39] STEFANI MARCO: Yeah. Didn't know
[00:17:40] ERIKA STRAUB: how to ask
[00:17:41] STEFANI MARCO: for that vulnerable words. Yeah. Connected words.
[00:17:48] STEFANI MARCO: Only knew how to survive through it
[00:17:50] ERIKA STRAUB: because
[00:17:51] STEFANI MARCO: she's so just, that's what we wanted love.
[00:17:54] ERIKA STRAUB: And
[00:17:54] STEFANI MARCO: I could change that story and think how you're such a beautiful person. All we wanted was love. Oh, we can do that.
[00:18:03] ERIKA STRAUB: We
[00:18:04] STEFANI MARCO: can admit that.
[00:18:07] ERIKA STRAUB: As you're sharing about this kind of reflection or mirror that was Given to you of your fake and, and kind of this like journey it took you on like that shame journey of that kind of burning through and burning away what I'm, what I'm sensing and curious about it also sounds like it was such a moment of learning to receive that so much of you was.
[00:18:33] ERIKA STRAUB: Received by you in that moment,
[00:18:42] STEFANI MARCO: and it's so powerful when we can dismantle all of the barriers that we put up to not receive us.
[00:18:52] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah, that has been the deepest work for me, especially in this year in this chapter. Is truly understanding receptivity and it being so different than I think we're taught or we think and, um, like moving out of the giving to get something or waiting for some, someone to deliver something to relieve whatever it is we're feeling, but really to strip away these, these barriers we have from.
[00:19:25] ERIKA STRAUB: The world from our bodies, from sensations, from feedback, from emotions. And like, really being able to hold, like, bring this all to me. I can receive this. Like, I want this, like, I want to feel more and be in communion with whatever is right here in front of me. And it was a very hard lesson, continues to be.
[00:19:50] ERIKA STRAUB: It's very raw. Um, But what, you know, what paradigm shifts happen there when it's like, oh, this isn't about feeling better, this is about feeling more, and like, what is the actual true pulse and palpitations right here, right now? Mm-Hmm? ? Yeah. Like how can we receive the present moment?
[00:20:17] STEFANI MARCO: It's the most pot and powerful.
[00:20:20] STEFANI MARCO: That we do, and it's the most powerful place we can do is present.
[00:20:28] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah.
[00:20:30] STEFANI MARCO: Yeah. And that is where we are.
[00:20:32] ERIKA STRAUB: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Chills.
[00:20:36] STEFANI MARCO: Yeah. You know, we can embrace our wholeness in the present moment for ourselves. Yeah. Mm
[00:20:46] ERIKA STRAUB: hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And it truly is that like space that takes us out of these right or wrong, good or bad frameworks that really keep us.
[00:20:56] ERIKA STRAUB: In such a box and it's such a lower vibration and learning how to hold so much nuance and complexity and mystery and I'm imagining that is part of like non duality, non duality isn't really a language and I'm super familiar with, but I'm imagining that might have some interplay.
[00:21:17] STEFANI MARCO: Yes. What are you asking specifically?
[00:21:20] ERIKA STRAUB: I'm Yeah, I guess I am. I'm curious of what what non non duality does truly mean.
[00:21:27] STEFANI MARCO: Um, it's a great question. Um, you know, a friend of mine, Aaron, he gives a really great metaphor that I really like. And he says, When we think about the ocean, we think about the ocean as a body and an entity that is interconnected, where everything is a fluid family, and everything is.
[00:21:53] STEFANI MARCO: Dependent upon the other in this ecosystem, and we don't think of necessarily the ocean as the fish and the coral and the water and right. It's just this vast ocean and similarly non duality in our humanity just shows us that we are all one and that we're existing in the illusion of separateness so that we can see the infinite expressions of God through other people.
[00:22:22] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah,
[00:22:24] STEFANI MARCO: and so. Every single person is our teacher. Every single person is divine. Every single person is you. There is no separation. There is no better than, less than. We all have absolute unique potentiality, free will, and when we exercise that free will, we have infinite possibilities for our expansion and to uplift this planet.
[00:22:50] STEFANI MARCO: And so, that awareness of the miracle and the divinity of every single person is so important. Brings us out of that. I'm an object. I have to do this and perform and you're an object. I get to use you and you need to perform for me into a much higher calling of giving people their free will. Not because we're good people, but because it is the divine order of things.
[00:23:17] STEFANI MARCO: And when we're in flow with that bigger divine ocean. Done. We all benefit.
[00:23:25] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah.
[00:23:26] STEFANI MARCO: And it brings us into a different perspective.
[00:23:29] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. Yeah. The vastness of it.
[00:23:33] STEFANI MARCO: Yes. And the us and them, me and you separation. We're experiencing separateness as our way of yearning for togetherness.
[00:23:44] ERIKA STRAUB: And we're
[00:23:45] STEFANI MARCO: allowed to be in this dynamic, juicy dance between yearning for more and coming together and having more and separating and seeing.
[00:23:58] STEFANI MARCO: Who I am in the miracle of me and coming together with you and being able to learn more of the miracle of me through your eyes, and it's the biggest gift.
[00:24:08] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. And so I'm so curious because, and I'll again just speak for myself, I know there's always like a yearning for more. And I know there was so much conditioning to make that wrong, or to suppress that, and I don't necessarily have a specific question, but I'm just curious what that might activate or bring up in you this like dance of like, Oh, there's such a yearning and then there's such a like, Ooh, like, press that down.
[00:24:42] STEFANI MARCO: Totally. And some teachers and friends of mine who really talk about this are. London Angel Winters and Justin Patrick Pierce, who I think we know as well. And, um, this idea of more is always very prevalent and it's discussed in the Vedic scriptures as well. This, this, this discussion between Shiva and Shakti, between the masculine and the feminine, asking of each other, what is life about?
[00:25:10] STEFANI MARCO: What is reality? All of these deep, deep questions. And when we ground it into just the human existence, This idea of more, gosh, thank God for it. Because when you don't want to know anything more, then that relationship is over.
[00:25:31] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah, yeah. And
[00:25:34] STEFANI MARCO: that's okay too, right? But our relationship with our humans is always going to be in relationship with what is it the more that we want.
[00:25:47] STEFANI MARCO: And where the spiritual work comes in is, is this more coming from a place that is going to expand through. That is going to bring me into further unity with others. Or is this more coming from a place of needing and grasping and seeking love?
[00:26:08] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah.
[00:26:09] STEFANI MARCO: And to objectify and to sometimes even create destruction or violence, right?
[00:26:17] STEFANI MARCO: And being really, really in relationship with our desire.
[00:26:24] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah, it's so, it's so interesting this total difference between the two. Like there's such a different texture to that energy and So much healing, I feel like has to happen in that to be able to even discern the two, because there is a wanting more that comes from such like a wounded place.
[00:26:45] ERIKA STRAUB: And I personally think if we take it all the way back, really to like narcissistic wounding, which to me is our worthiness wounding, our father wounding, our receiving feminine wounding. Like it's. that wounding. Um, and the energy of that is the, like, give to get, like, I just need to get, there's a very, like, taking piece of it, a very self serving piece of it, where the other is kind of disregarded completely.
[00:27:13] ERIKA STRAUB: And then this other more, which Which is completely different. It's like, I want more of you. I want you to see more of yourself through me, like I want to amplify what is here. It doesn't matter if it's good, bad, right or wrong. Rage, grief, a lot, like just more, more of all of it. Um,
[00:27:33] STEFANI MARCO: where's my favorite macho?
[00:27:36] ERIKA STRAUB: It's so juicy. Like, I love it. Um, I think I was in that first paradigm for so long. It terrified me to step into this other one because it was like, am I going to hurt someone or hurt myself in like fully embracing that more? Cause the wounding more was so, um, big and manipulative and shame filled.
[00:28:02] STEFANI MARCO: Yeah.
[00:28:03] STEFANI MARCO: And you know, look, we, we all slip into that. Yeah. I'm presenting is not this idea of perfection or that like I've attained some perfect place with my more.
[00:28:18] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah.
[00:28:19] STEFANI MARCO: Right. I just learned how to have these things teach me how to approach all of these big emotions as teachers so that I'm less identified with outcome with making other people responsible and with shaming and being personal to myself where I am less, um, addicted to the drama The questioning and the relentless yearning and, and, and all of this and looking at every single time something like this comes up in my life because it always will.
[00:28:59] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah,
[00:28:59] STEFANI MARCO: we are not becoming super humans we are just maximizing our potential. And, you know, and hopefully spreading the ripple effect of what that does. To those around us. And then they do the same. That's that's really all we're accomplishing here. But that more is the gateway to something so much more profound.
[00:29:19] STEFANI MARCO: And when we can love our more, especially as women, as the source of what creates life, the source of the yearning inside of us that wants to be filled with God's love, with our love. Man's love, our friendship's love, with the world's love, and, and so that we can show the love that we actually are. That is the most beautiful gift, and such a bright light, and what really the Seminine is here to guide men and women.
[00:29:56] ERIKA STRAUB: Because
[00:29:59] STEFANI MARCO: it's not really gender based, but, um, certainly in most heterosexual relationships, That is a dynamic that's going on where the feminine is really wanting to connect
[00:30:12] ERIKA STRAUB: both
[00:30:12] STEFANI MARCO: physically and the masculine is wanting freedom.
[00:30:16] ERIKA STRAUB: And,
[00:30:18] STEFANI MARCO: um, and how we can coalesce with those two, two things and make them a beautiful dance rather than a power struggle.
[00:30:25] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah, I feel like there's such a reclamation that needs to happen with our more. And I think, I mean, again, past projections myself, but. You know, being so afraid of that more because we look at it as, oh, this is pushing the masculine away and then kind of submitting or like letting go of that more or like trying to brush it aside and be in the dance without it.
[00:30:55] ERIKA STRAUB: And. What an absence, like there's such a void without it, like we, what is happening inside of us without it, without that.
[00:31:07] STEFANI MARCO: I love this conversation. It's bringing up so many things.
[00:31:11] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. I would love, um, I would love to hear more about just like embodying this more and like really being able to deepen into our feminine and feminine energy and expression.
[00:31:27] STEFANI MARCO: Yes. What can I tell you?
[00:31:29] ERIKA STRAUB: I've been dying to have this conversation with you
[00:31:38] STEFANI MARCO: more, you know, this, this more comes from such a primordial and, um, natural connection to our mother goddess, our mother earth. And her desire for, for life on this planet and to be protected and, and nurtured and able to birth ideas and nations and, and harvests and, and fruits and trees and birds and bees and humans and, and right.
[00:32:14] STEFANI MARCO: So this more when it comes from this very deep connection as women to our home space to the place of sacredness where we are gateways. From God and spiritual ascension and energy onto the material plane of the earth is a very, very deeply profound urge and yearning. It is. Yeah. Right. And so when we can start to, um, when we start to remove some of our woundings and entitlements around that, that, that has basically been substitutes for our truly coming into the depth of where this more.
[00:32:56] STEFANI MARCO: Is living in the body. Um, it's such a process, right? Um, within the feminine space within the feminine body, because, you know, if we go really further back, our menstrual cycles, when we're young girls are such an initiating point, and it's that point in our lives, we were shamed about that or had embarrassment around that or didn't have a lot of answers from other women around sexuality around, you know, This whole new cycle in our lives as women now being able to become mothers, um, as a sacred transition, most of us don't get that.
[00:33:35] STEFANI MARCO: And a lot of us feel like it's gross and we have to cover ourselves. And if we're bleeding that that that blood, if we get a stain that we're embarrassed in front of the class or all of the things right that come with that as sort of kind of this first wound of the shame around our sexuality around femininity.
[00:33:55] STEFANI MARCO: And. Once we start to heal and embrace all of this beautiful, cyclic, feminine yearning, fill me with more energy, um, through having a deeper connection with our yearning and the sacredness of it in our womb, and the sacredness of it to birth light, and to be the basis of all life on the planet, and a connect, and a connectedness to a universal shoe.
[00:34:26] STEFANI MARCO: Universal feminine that all of us women belong to, and that's the feminine face of God who can handle and take our yearning if we can't hold it
[00:34:35] ERIKA STRAUB: in,
[00:34:37] STEFANI MARCO: and we can surrender it to her. And being lit up in so much power when we connect to her more regularly
[00:34:50] ERIKA STRAUB: and
[00:34:50] STEFANI MARCO: how it relates to our relationship with men, is that it really, um, simultaneously inspires them to open the heart.
[00:35:01] ERIKA STRAUB: Mm-Hmm. ,
[00:35:02] STEFANI MARCO: when we are connected to that level of truth, truth is the language of the masculine.
[00:35:09] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:12] STEFANI MARCO: We can speak truth to the masculine without the distortions of our wo wounds and speak to him from our womb. And the space of that truth of life that is undeniable truth going into this space when penetrates us.
[00:35:32] STEFANI MARCO: Right, quite literally, then we are opening his heart to his and his warrior hood is not going after trophies and juvenile things, he starts to have a reason to fight. And that reason and that purpose comes from his heart. Because he sees it reflected in the need that we have, have more and for him to be the protector of that more the provider of that more the desire for him, exalting gratitude for surrender to him to be his audience.
[00:36:16] STEFANI MARCO: And
[00:36:16] ERIKA STRAUB: that
[00:36:18] STEFANI MARCO: creates this beautiful understanding and love. This sacred partnership. Where we are inspiring each other from truth and love, not from wounds and grasping.
[00:36:37] ERIKA STRAUB: It is a completely different field, like incomparable to, I think, anything else that we can experience to be in that union of that level of truth.
[00:36:57] ERIKA STRAUB: And it makes me so emotional to feel into it because. There's just such an honoring of what it took to get there and honoring to be met in that way, like you just know that what came before that to be able to hold that much truth and that much love and to open and penetrate in that way. Like that is not for the faint of heart.
[00:37:30] STEFANI MARCO: It's not for everyone. And I often say, you know, Sacred union is typically it is similar to like a psychedelic journey.
[00:37:38] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah.
[00:37:39] STEFANI MARCO: It blasts open a lot of levels of new intelligence and it really frees people out and it's also a responsibility.
[00:37:54] ERIKA STRAUB: Huge.
[00:37:55] STEFANI MARCO: Through our individual work.
[00:37:58] ERIKA STRAUB: The level of commitment required on such a like individual level and then the relationship level is.
[00:38:07] ERIKA STRAUB: All or nothing at all.
[00:38:11] STEFANI MARCO: Yeah. And, and the urge to escape and run away from it is, is, is real.
[00:38:16] ERIKA STRAUB: Very.
[00:38:17] STEFANI MARCO: There's a knowing that all of the escaping puts us into cycles that don't empower us. All of the escaping all the old ways of being once you start doing this work more and more and see the benefits of it.
[00:38:36] STEFANI MARCO: The showing up to do the work is worth it.
[00:38:42] ERIKA STRAUB: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It's so worth it.
[00:38:45] STEFANI MARCO: It brings everything that we've ever thought and things that we couldn't have even thought into our lives through the teaching and the school of relationship and love. That is the school we came here to
[00:38:56] ERIKA STRAUB: learn. Yeah. And it's so reparative.
[00:39:01] ERIKA STRAUB: And there's nowhere to hide. And there's no exit door. Um, It's so confronting, but it's so transformative. Like entire identity shifts in moments, entire droppings of armor in instance. It's truly like I again can speak for myself could not have put words to it or ever imagined what it felt like if not experiencing it like it's it's not something you can really I again I think maybe this is true or it's just my truth that how can you have resonance to it if you haven't experienced that kind of experience.
[00:39:52] ERIKA STRAUB: space.
[00:39:54] STEFANI MARCO: I really, uh, I'm grateful for you bringing that up because that is a huge thing, right? There's so many of us who want to just read something and learn it by reading it or watching some videos. And this is not something that is learned in the month.
[00:40:13] ERIKA STRAUB: No,
[00:40:14] STEFANI MARCO: it requires commitment, it requires discipline, it requires practice, it requires a teacher, it requires guides, it requires community, it requires.
[00:40:25] STEFANI MARCO: A real bravery and real commitment and excitement around the quest to know yourself
[00:40:40] ERIKA STRAUB: as
[00:40:41] STEFANI MARCO: the biggest job you'll ever have in life and the most fulfilling and rewarding journey to be on. It is truly a hero's journey to step into the extraordinary world and to bring home the gift. And the gift was you all along, right?
[00:40:59] STEFANI MARCO: Like we've seen this in all of these wonderful movies that we love. Um, and that's, that's also what I love about this work. It is the actual pathway to create and to become a true warrior in your own life.
[00:41:17] ERIKA STRAUB: And to
[00:41:18] STEFANI MARCO: lead other people through not trying or carrying them on your back or anything that we're taught is codependent.
[00:41:27] STEFANI MARCO: It's through really just living and allowing them to have an experience with you and your purity of love that you're able to bring with an open and brave heart takes a lot of bravery.
[00:41:40] ERIKA STRAUB: It does. It does because it's truly so much autonomy existing. In the relational field, like it, it breaks all these codependent paradigms.
[00:41:52] ERIKA STRAUB: It's no longer like you are something that I own. It's taking the possession out of it, but it's, it's holding the claiming. Like I claim this, I claim you, but I don't possess you or own you. And those are drastically energetically different and also subtle at the same time.
[00:42:16] STEFANI MARCO: And easy to misinterpret, right?
[00:42:18] STEFANI MARCO: There's a lot of misinterpretation around some of these teachings and, and as they become more popular, um, there's, there's a lot of misunderstanding, I think, at times as well. And it's okay. It's like we're all finding our footing in, in this world, but that's why language sometimes eludes us. The act of actually experiencing it and having these experiences of transformation through this work is what it's all about.
[00:42:49] STEFANI MARCO: Because the moment we start talking about it sometimes, it really dilutes
[00:42:54] ERIKA STRAUB: what's
[00:42:55] STEFANI MARCO: happened and what transformation really is about.
[00:42:59] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah, yeah, it like brings it down to a little bit lower of a field than it actually is with the words because it kind of contains it more than it actually is. Um, yeah, it's, it's.
[00:43:13] ERIKA STRAUB: Made everything you've ever gone through worth it.
[00:43:17] STEFANI MARCO: Yeah, not only worth it, but it's like, you know, it starts to have fun with you. Do you know, you start to be like, Oh, that's funny. That's so my pattern. This is another pattern thing that is in my space that keeps coming up for me that, Oh, isn't this cute.
[00:43:36] STEFANI MARCO: Isn't this interesting. You know, the universe plays with us.
[00:43:42] ERIKA STRAUB: I just discovered a pattern, um, with my partner and it was around when I'm, I'm really feeling something that I don't yet know how to communicate. And it's usually laced with some shame. I asked him a question about it, about like, Oh, are you feeling this way about this when it's. Just completely what I'm feeling like instead of directly being able to communicate it and own it.
[00:44:08] ERIKA STRAUB: It's like, I'm just asking him a question. Okay.
[00:44:16] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. So many, so many show up. How do you, um.
[00:44:22] STEFANI MARCO: Some questions, because I think that, you know, um, the curiosity is so much more healing and creates such beautiful conversations, I imagine, between the two of you than if you were to just come up and be like, why do you always do this or, you know, or like, you know, or kind of.
[00:44:43] STEFANI MARCO: project what you're feeling rather than asking a good question. You know, I think a good curious question beats an assumption like any day, right?
[00:44:52] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. There's something to good questions. They really drop you into places. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, um, around some of the Tantra practices and then this, um, space of divine union.
[00:45:11] ERIKA STRAUB: How did those come together? Cause I'm very, very new to any of this world of Tantra. And I'm just so curious, um, if there is a connection I'm imagining there is, but I would love to love to learn more from you.
[00:45:27] STEFANI MARCO: Oh yeah. Thank you. Um, so Tantra. Is, um, a path towards sacred youth, and so there are, most religions are actually paths to sacred youth, but they haven't really been spoken to in that way, um, because of a lot of the way colonialism has distorted and changed, um, the roots of a lot of these religious teachings, and so one is consciousness, Um, can be found in Christ consciousness.
[00:46:01] STEFANI MARCO: It can be found in Tibetan Buddhism. It can be found in a lot of the world's religion. And, um, it's just that sometimes these stories have been changed a little bit. And, and, and the thing with religion is it's a very symbolic language.
[00:46:18] ERIKA STRAUB: In
[00:46:18] STEFANI MARCO: spirituality, it exists in symbolism. And so we often read these ancient texts quite literally.
[00:46:25] STEFANI MARCO: And if you don't understand the symbolic nature behind some of this language, um, we can make false definition. And that's, you know, really alluding to what we just said earlier about like language kind of bringing it to a different vibration. But so Tantra is a path of finding sacred union with ourselves.
[00:46:46] STEFANI MARCO: And in Tantric teaching, You'll see a lot of the different goddesses as gateways, and they all just represent beautiful divine energies that we want to align with and explore and embody in our own bodies to as archetypal languages that can literally shift our vibration and, and call in. This union that we're seeking with all things and so these goddesses, um, represent kind of these different energy forms to explore, um, and they can become really great, um, practice points for our Ascension and bringing in more of that more of this consciousness to ourselves more feminine consciousness.
[00:47:31] STEFANI MARCO: What are the different and infinite aspects of the feminine that we are holding space for in our lives to bring? Manifestation and that's that's essentially the basis of Tantra. I mean, there's Tantra can be interpreted in so many ways and most literally Tantra actually just means spiritual text, spiritual book.
[00:47:53] STEFANI MARCO: Um, and so the Tantras were, were beautifully explored, um, very and sectarian aspects of religion that expanded through India and that will be probably the most prominent during medieval times. And there were various different schools and lineages, but unlike the way we see religion, um, in modern day where there's like wars and a lot of hatred involved in different points of view, the tantrics were very like bohemian scholars, and they wanted to learn from the different aspects.
[00:48:31] STEFANI MARCO: And they respected the different schools and they would come together and. Um, and explore and have conversation around these different aspects of being and, and, um, expansive, um, existence and humanity and metaphysical science and bring those energies and that community into the fold. So people would ask you, what do you practice?
[00:48:56] STEFANI MARCO: What religion are you? Something like that. They would say, who's your guru? And then that would give them an indication of. What your lineage was, what your philosophies were, and so, um, it's very interesting, it's a very interesting path because you can be a Christian Tantra, you can be a Jewish Tantra, you know, uh, Tantra is a way of interpreting spirituality through a unique perception of life that frees us from attachments to things that lower our Our vibration and that keep us enslaved in ideas and programs and dog.
[00:49:34] STEFANI MARCO: They break us free to explore our own individuality. It's
[00:49:37] ERIKA STRAUB: a
[00:49:39] STEFANI MARCO: self initiated pathway that, um, is, I would say, expanded by a guru and by teachers that you choose and lineages that you choose to embark on. I don't know if that's too esoteric.
[00:49:52] ERIKA STRAUB: Oh, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. And I'm curious to how then it.
[00:49:59] ERIKA STRAUB: moves into like sexual energy.
[00:50:03] STEFANI MARCO: Right. Well, you know, there are very few texts in the, the world of Tanta that talk about sexuality. And, uh, the Trika and the Kala lineages explore sexuality because it's a big part of who we are and our energy. And, um, and so sacred union Um, and coming into this experience of not objectifying the other and utilizing our sexual energy to experience God is a part of the exploration.
[00:50:39] STEFANI MARCO: I mean, Tantrics were, um, really, like, great scientists of human potential, and they wanted to understand how we could expand and ascend into godly states of being and deeper states of consciousness. And so. Sexual practices, um, were introduced in order to do that,
[00:51:00] ERIKA STRAUB: and
[00:51:02] STEFANI MARCO: sacred prayers and rituals around things that were often, uh, considered very counterculture and breaking the norms and the caste systems of society.
[00:51:12] STEFANI MARCO: And
[00:51:17] ERIKA STRAUB: it's just, it's so fascinating how so much like sexual energy, um, like physical intimacy, there's so much taboo and, and darkness there, but there's also so much healing there. And how do we really like open up this healing aspect of it, like really reclaiming pleasure as such a vehicle for healing and expansion and Ascension?
[00:51:43] STEFANI MARCO: Yeah, I mean, it's a process and, um, you know, it starts with really moving ourselves into our hearts
[00:51:52] ERIKA STRAUB: and
[00:51:54] STEFANI MARCO: we're, we're currently in a huge paradigm shift on the planet moving from, you know, 3D consciousness. into a denser consciousness 4d consciousness where we are expanding and that 4d consciousness lives in the heart space and it is um and the sexual energy that is cultivated in these tantra practices opens up kundalini energy and that kundalini energy comes down from comes from our sex organs and and travels through the chakra system and through our hearts and at the heart space that is where we are open to For the first time, having huge transformation
[00:52:35] ERIKA STRAUB: on a
[00:52:35] STEFANI MARCO: neurobiological level
[00:52:37] ERIKA STRAUB: where
[00:52:38] STEFANI MARCO: our nervous system can now receive a different perspective and now look through this different, more enlightened way of being.
[00:52:46] ERIKA STRAUB: And
[00:52:47] STEFANI MARCO: that is happening in a much more rapid pace in the timeline that we're on now on this earth. And that's why we're seeing so many more people Gravitating to Tantra, Kundalini energy, because we are ready to ascend and enlightenment isn't, um, something that's just for this small population of people who are studying the Fulus in ashrams, it is really meant to travel across the globe and up into this planet.
[00:53:15] STEFANI MARCO: And so there are a lot more seekers now than ever. And the sexual aspects of that, this energy that's coiled at the base of our spine is really tapping into that sexual energy and that energy when it's moved into the heart consciousness, the heart space is what starts to amplify spirituality.
[00:53:34] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah, I'm just thinking about like the clients that I work with and.
[00:53:40] ERIKA STRAUB: Just a lot of the women that are in my space. And I, I work mostly with women who are very in that masculine wounding and often have histories of sexual trauma or sexual abuse and, you know, just thinking of like the different chakras and different areas of the body that have to close. To be in that. And of course, you know, we, we work with people who have similarities to ourselves.
[00:54:05] ERIKA STRAUB: So there's traces of that, that are absolutely within my story. And what I, what I've really noticed is how we start kind of when there is sexual trauma, we start kind of existing outside of self completely. And then it's kind of coming into the head space and then it's kind of coming into the body and then it's kind of coming deeper.
[00:54:28] ERIKA STRAUB: And then, I feel like the heart and the womb are kind of sometimes open at the same time or start to open at the same time. Um, and I'm just, I'm just curious what that brings up for you or what wisdom you could speak into that journey.
[00:54:45] STEFANI MARCO: Yes. Well, that's absolutely true. The beauty of connecting the heart to our room space begins to start to open this energy of honoring Um, the voice of the world space and, and, and then it moves actually up into the throat chakra, which is also very connected to this sexual energy to be expressed.
[00:55:12] STEFANI MARCO: And so as we start to cultivate these channels we start to be able to express from a new place that is in time.
[00:55:19] ERIKA STRAUB: And
[00:55:22] STEFANI MARCO: a lot of times with women who are really embodying their masculine energy, there are blocks. In the board, there's blocks in the heart, there's blocks in the womb. And so what we start to do through these practices is open ourselves and to start to come into forgiveness.
[00:55:40] ERIKA STRAUB: We
[00:55:43] STEFANI MARCO: have violated us. Um, we start to come into a forgiveness with maybe the masculine face of God, even our fathers. Um, there is typically a lot of, um, masculine forgiveness that has to take place. For that new space to start to truly trust and to speak to what she's moving on.
[00:56:11] ERIKA STRAUB: And when we
[00:56:13] STEFANI MARCO: start to connect her to the heart, we start to be able to really become protectors and magnets to a masculine that is going to protect us.
[00:56:31] STEFANI MARCO: And when we start to connect to the voice, we can start to really express and call that in. Where's the voice? As, um,
[00:56:43] STEFANI MARCO: it used the voice as an expression of the room space and the heart space rather than of the mind space.
[00:56:49] ERIKA STRAUB: And
[00:56:49] STEFANI MARCO: when we use the voice in our minds, we tend to repel and, um, at least in terms of romantic and sexual energy, we tend to really, um, create a competition with the masculine in our life. And speaking from our minds is great.
[00:57:07] STEFANI MARCO: If we are doing a dissertation in front of, you know, a thousand colleagues and a business conference. Um, we're not speaking from this place to our coworkers, right? But when we're speaking from this place with the masculine in our lives, we want to protect and lead us. Um, we start to really choose men who are more trustworthy and start to be able to speak from a place that is just true and not
[00:57:34] ERIKA STRAUB: entitled and
[00:57:36] STEFANI MARCO: not muted.
[00:57:37] STEFANI MARCO: And not throwing the hot potato of our emotions into his lap to deal with. You can just go,
[00:57:44] ERIKA STRAUB: Ahhhh!
[00:57:48] STEFANI MARCO: I walk out of the room. I say enough. And then I say enough. And, you know, every time you do this thing, da da da da da da da da da da da, right?
[00:58:00] ERIKA STRAUB: He's
[00:58:01] STEFANI MARCO: making a sound.
[00:58:04] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:58:06] STEFANI MARCO: And he's knocking at the door. Let me, um,
[00:58:11] ERIKA STRAUB: just maybe,
[00:58:12] STEFANI MARCO: maybe we need a
[00:58:14] ERIKA STRAUB: massage.
[00:58:14] ERIKA STRAUB: No, or whatever.
[00:58:16] STEFANI MARCO: The service, his
[00:58:18] ERIKA STRAUB: service shows up in those moments.
[00:58:23] STEFANI MARCO: You're not mothering and lecturing and competing with him as a man. You're fully surrendered to your bones, your heart, and your voice.
[00:58:33] ERIKA STRAUB: I feel like there's also a piece where we really have to work through all of that anger. That was Habit Men and I know you and I like touched on that when we connected a few weeks ago.
[00:58:46] ERIKA STRAUB: How do we work with this anger because it's so potent and so real and often so misdirected?
[00:58:56] STEFANI MARCO: Anger is such a hugely beautiful and sacred emotion in both men and women and we have so many stories around anger and disowning our anger and repressing our anger and misusing our anger. That we don't even know what anger is anymore. And I was just with a client yesterday who, um, was really confused about, about anger and he's, he's such a beautiful person.
[00:59:32] STEFANI MARCO: And there's this part of him, like so many of us that feel, but particularly men that feel that experience, experiencing, expressing, and even having anger is toxic and it's destructive and needs to be Push down and repress at all costs. And what happens when we castrate ourselves that way, we are incapable of setting boundaries and healthy protection, and we fall so much into codependency and when we honor our anger and can be with anger in its purity.
[01:00:19] STEFANI MARCO: With love and let it sit at the table with us and tell us so much with them that it has, Oh my God. So much. Without letting it burn down our house,
[01:00:35] STEFANI MARCO: but we can actually say, I am angry. What we call forward within us is this divine parent, this divine level of maturity that is going to unapologetically express its sacred. No, I
[01:00:55] ERIKA STRAUB: know that it's
[01:00:56] STEFANI MARCO: been wanting to be expressed maybe for decades.
[01:01:02] ERIKA STRAUB: And when
[01:01:07] STEFANI MARCO: we can understand that anger. And love can exist at the same time, really start to get free from all of these conditionings that if we are angry, that it means that love is going to be taken away from
[01:01:24] ERIKA STRAUB: us. Or that if
[01:01:25] STEFANI MARCO: we are angry, we have to remove someone from our love list.
[01:01:29] ERIKA STRAUB: And
[01:01:34] STEFANI MARCO: that's just all a conditioning that anger means destruction.
[01:01:39] STEFANI MARCO: And anger means protection.
[01:01:45] STEFANI MARCO: Anger means boundary. Anger means no. Anger is a beautiful chance to revisit who it is we need to become to fulfill our destiny and who we will no longer be or what we will no longer allow to in the way of love.
[01:02:10] ERIKA STRAUB: I don't think we can bring our full self forward until we connect truly with that anger.
[01:02:16] ERIKA STRAUB: And so many of us have experienced anger through Passivity and withdrawal or anger through rage, and neither one of those are actually anger. Those are all disembodied experiences. Anger is this. I matter. I'm here. I am made of substance. I have needs. I have rights. It's, it's just so potent. It's such a form of self advocacy.
[01:02:47] ERIKA STRAUB: And what I found in my life was how afraid I was of other people's anger and couldn't receive theirs. and therefore couldn't receive them. But as that receptivity opened, it's been bring your anger forward because that means something matters here. This means that you matter to you. And it also means I matter to you.
[01:03:09] ERIKA STRAUB: And it's like fucking magic.
[01:03:14] STEFANI MARCO: I mean, I love how you put that because it's true. Getting angry is an indication that you are loved. Someone becoming angry with you is an indication that they love you.
[01:03:27] ERIKA STRAUB: The deepest, one of the deepest forms, and of course, how, how they can hold it and express it and bring it forward makes all the difference.
[01:03:38] ERIKA STRAUB: And that's a, like a, a skill and a capacity that has to be cultivated, but it is such a love language and it is so misunderstood. Like even, you know, people hearing this conversation and be like anger, no, it's complex, but it truly, like, to me, it's one of the deepest connectors. It is an expression of love,
[01:04:02] STEFANI MARCO: huge expression of love and calling someone to their brain.
[01:04:12] STEFANI MARCO: They can really burn things down and tools to express it privately and to own it and to acknowledge it and experience it and to, um, allow it to be met with the heart.
[01:04:26] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:04:28] STEFANI MARCO: I've been wanting to actually for years do a program called the alchemy of anger. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:04:34] ERIKA STRAUB: Because
[01:04:35] STEFANI MARCO: it's such a highly potent alkaline, so you can just really create amber and pour it into golden love.
[01:04:43] ERIKA STRAUB: Mm hmm.
[01:04:44] STEFANI MARCO: It's processed.
[01:04:45] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah, it is. So it's, it's just so powerful, really, really learning the art of anger because it is so potent. It can burn everything down. And I have burned so many things down so many things down and definitely still on the learning journey of, you know, fully bringing it forward and not shutting it down and fully bringing it forward through the heart.
[01:05:17] ERIKA STRAUB: Because I think I found so many ways in my body to bring it forward, not through my heart. And that's different. There's still avoidance there.
[01:05:26] STEFANI MARCO: Anger. It's not anger. The anger, the thing that is anger that's destructive is the resistance to it.
[01:05:32] ERIKA STRAUB: The resistance to the anger. That's right.
[01:05:33] STEFANI MARCO: It's not. It's just a thing.
[01:05:40] STEFANI MARCO: Right? We, we, we feel anger and then we, we do what people call get angry. Right? Right. Or rage, but it's because we can't hold that big feeling. And the way we alchemize it through the heart is by regulating the nervous system and doing these practices that Tantra teaches, yo, yogic sciences teach, um, breath work, all of these different rituals that start to enable us to hold more space in our body.
[01:06:11] STEFANI MARCO: What we're doing here isn't airy fairy. We are creating a nervous system that can hold big emotions by practicing big emotions. In safe spaces with tools for recovering them and people who can guide you through that safely. That's what this is.
[01:06:28] ERIKA STRAUB: People who can hold it.
[01:06:32] STEFANI MARCO: Start to learn how to hold it for yourself.
[01:06:34] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. One of my, my most favorite work with clients is when they bring so much anger forward. And I know, you know, asked me three years ago. There's no way I could have held that. I would have been defensive. I would have shut down. Like, all the reactions. And now it's like, yes, like, bring this forward. I'll show you the boundaries.
[01:06:59] ERIKA STRAUB: I'll tell you my nose, what I'm not willing to hold, and what I'm not willing to sit with, and what, you know, I will not receive as an attack. And, within that container, let's play. Let's express this. Yeah, it's so powerful. I, you know, just bringing this whole conversation full circle. I'm just sitting here thinking like anger is such a deep expression of intimacy.
[01:07:30] STEFANI MARCO: I am so happy you're taking that from this because it is what can call in such a huge transformation from, um, from disconnection into profoundly deep connection.
[01:07:50] STEFANI MARCO: So many people run away just at that moment where it could actually turn. Into this very, very deep healing opportunity, they can't hold that anger and they have to do something.
[01:08:03] ERIKA STRAUB: Yep. Yeah.
[01:08:05] STEFANI MARCO: When we can be with emotions and not have to do something with them or make somebody else do something with them.
[01:08:11] STEFANI MARCO: That's when we really know
[01:08:13] ERIKA STRAUB: that
[01:08:13] STEFANI MARCO: we're coming online with another level of
[01:08:16] ERIKA STRAUB: awakening.
[01:08:18] STEFANI MARCO: Really beautiful to find ourselves there. We, you know, these practices don't kind of like jump on us like, like. Like a plant medicine journey where all of a sudden we were like having these explosive climactic moments,
[01:08:33] ERIKA STRAUB: you
[01:08:33] STEFANI MARCO: know That can happen.
[01:08:34] STEFANI MARCO: But what really is the the crux of this is looking back on something while being triggered and being like, oh It doesn't bother me so much anymore.
[01:08:44] ERIKA STRAUB: Mm hmm. Oh, I can I can hold this
[01:08:48] STEFANI MARCO: Really used to bother me I'm like totally fine with it and you know You can't chuckle to yourself and and like handle life with calmness
[01:08:58] ERIKA STRAUB: So that's
[01:08:58] STEFANI MARCO: really the payoff is being able to handle life.
[01:09:04] ERIKA STRAUB: Handle life with more receptivity,
[01:09:08] STEFANI MARCO: integrity, being the person that you think you are in
[01:09:12] ERIKA STRAUB: your head.
[01:09:14] STEFANI MARCO: Actually in your reactions, actually in the moment, in the present moment, in real time.
[01:09:20] ERIKA STRAUB: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I absolutely love this conversation. Like so activated, like in all the most amazing ways. And if you are actually going to create this anger program and you want a collaborator, just let me know.
[01:09:37] ERIKA STRAUB: I would absolutely love that. It would be really fun. But before we close today, I just would love to send people your direction and towards your work. So where's the best place that they can find you?
[01:09:51] STEFANI MARCO: Well, um, they can find me on my app. A Love Revolution is my app. It's launching on January 15th and there you'll be able to sign up for lots of different programs.
[01:10:02] STEFANI MARCO: Um, and you can also go to my website, loverevolution. com. A Love Revolution. And, uh, Instagram stats. With an F underscore, underscore Marco.
[01:10:13] ERIKA STRAUB: Beautiful. Well, I'll make sure to put those all in the notes so that people can find you. And just before we jump off, I just, I just want to honor you. Like it's, it's so lovely to sit with you and to feel your openness, but also your power.
[01:10:28] ERIKA STRAUB: And it's, it's just truly an honor to meet you here and get to learn from you.
[01:10:38] ERIKA STRAUB: Thank you so, so much.