Intimate Interactions

Alex Owens was a Catholic school girl. Now they have an OnlyFans and strip. While they are an awesome and complex person, that’s all I’m giving you for an intro. Roll session.

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William chats today about sleep-walking through life. We discuss his separation from his wife, the need of purpose or meaning in life, confronting fear, how we spend the time of our lives, mindfulness, and ptsd. Content warning for near death experiences, and if relevant to you, two assigned-male-at-birth people talking about toxic masculinity.

What does health and wellness look like if you’re trying to just get your body moving again after a long period of being sedentary? Many of us post COVID-19 vaccination are grappling with the cost of life-saving inactivity? Well, we’re fortunate to have Lisa Tamati back, our Maori ultramarathoner extraordinaire. You don’t have to run the equivalent of the circumference of the Earth more than once through over 140 ultramarathons like she has to understand that human fight between wanting to give up and practicing a small victory of resilience. Today Lisa discusses protecting your mindset while recounting a mountain pass marathon that awed me.

If you haven’t checked out her book Relentless yet, you can find it on her website at lisatamati.com. She also has a great podcast out, Pushing The Limits, where you can listen to experts discuss tips and strategies from elite performers to you.

Remember to resource yourself for this conversation. Pandemics, depression, and sedentary lifestyles are intermingled for a lot of us right now. It may seem insurmountable to start back into caring for your body, but I promise you it’s very possible. Little victories, friends. I feel like a long time ago, Lisa made the world decide to either get on board with her vision of herself or to get out of her way; but that kind of victory doesn’t happen overnight. I encourage you to frame it more as “if Lisa can make it through that mountain pass, I can get 5000 steps today,” even if it feels impossible. No matter how you use the content, I’m proud to present Lisa Tamati, here on Intimate Interactions.

Today, I continue my conversation with William. If you recall, he’s the cishet man who had a near death experience forcing him to confront addiction and other dysfunctional coping. We chat about intellectualizing feelings as a form of avoiding feeling them, inner child therapy, reconciling with parents, our stories we tell ourselves about our lives, reframing, and the role family plays for us now.

Lisa Tamati, our Maori ultramarathoner friend who has competed in somewhere around 140 marathons, is back to chat with us about doing the impossible. A mistress of mindset, Lisa chats with us about belief - belief ourselves, but also in people who believe in us. With the feats of stamina and endurance she’s achieved in her life, I can think of few better qualified to speak on the topic. Also plenty of companies and elite athletes pay her for coaching so she probably knows what she’s talking about.

Lisa’s book Relentless goes into more detail if one session leaves you wanting more. You can pick it up on her website at lisatamati.com. You can also get her podcast for free, Pushing The Limits, everywhere podcasts are found. Have a listen! She’s quite good! Wait - let me channel my inner LeVar Burton: but don’t take my word for it - decide for yourself here on Intimate Interactions.

Pushing The Limits (Podcast)

Today I reconnect with my friend William. He’s a distant acquaintance with whom I never really forged a connection of substance but now all that’s changing. He’s a heterosexual cis man who recently had a near death experience. This forced him to confront a history of distracting himself from what was important. Whether it was gaming or alcohol then, it’s become therapy now. We discuss therapy, medication, forgiveness, and compassion.

Lisa Tamati is many things. She’s Maori [m-ow-ree] from Aotearoa [ow-tay-uh-row-uh], or as settlers call it, New Zealand. The Maori use the word iwi for band or tribe, meaning bone. It signifies a lineage and ancestral connection, but that metaphor communicates strength and resilience to me across language barriers, and I still see that strength and resilience today in communities continuing to survive colonialism and find ways to thrive. Lisa is from both the Te Ati Awa iwi and from the Ngati Rau^ka^wa iwi. For settlers, one might just say “around Wellington” but it doesn’t mean the same thing.

She’s also the first woman from New Zealand to do a lot of things. If I described them all, the podcast would be over before the intro had finished. Instead, I’ll just say she’s an incredible writer and ultramarathoner who brought her mom, who she describes as the very best mum, back from the verge of death with an intense amount of grit and some help from hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a recognized medical treatment for some forms of brain injury.

If you want more about that after the podcast, you can always pick up her book, Relentless, in which she imparts her mindset as an extreme endurance athlete and the wisdom such a life can bring. Go to lisatamati.com and find it there. You can also check out her podcast, Pushing The Limits, where she documents running techniques and interviews experts on elite athletic strategies. She also does coaching and corporate speaking arrangements on her website. But without further ado, let’s go to our first session with Lisa Tamati, here on Intimate Interactions.

Pushing The Limits (Podcast) https://lisatamati.com (“Relentless” book)

I decided to revise the format of the show two days ago when this was recorded. I'm going to try to include helpful tips or advice when discussing difficult or depressing stuff. I've always been personal development focused, so this feels more in line with my values. The show is also going to get shorter unless the episode commands more time. I'm currently aiming for about a twenty minute runtime but we'll see what is reasonable given the content.

I’ve been feeling increasingly burned out from the pandemic and other stressors in my life so this is only the second time in three years I’ve produced an episode the day before and posted it either the evening before or the morning of. So far I’ve hit every deadline and I intend to keep doing that even as I explore other formats for the work I produce.

So today we're talking about strategies for managing burnout during a pandemic with Billie.

Post pandemic hope, threesomes, hot tubs, sex parties, touch starvation, and lots more get covered today with my friend Robin Beatch. She mentions Black Noir, a history of Black folx in movies and films. She also hosts Sex with Robin on BFM 109.6 every monday at 10AM PST. If you would like, check her out at sexwithrobin.com. One last thing she mentions is the similarities she experienced between pregnancy and BDSM. Whoa - she’s the one making the comparison. Don’t at me!

Actually, at me. Intimate Interactions social media is lonely right now. I think I need to create a community facebook group rather than a Facebook page. Look at me, being all old and unable to use social media well. Okay, I’m creating a Facebook group. We have a discord server. Go at each other.

Who doesn’t want to talk about masturbation and first orgasms? Lauren and I tell stories and share about our experiences and relationships to our sexual selves.