Challaine (00:32)
And welcome everyone to today's episode of Let's Have a Chat. I have the honor of sitting down with Dennis Hall. We've just been shooting this shit for the last 15 minutes or so. And I was like, we better hit record because man, we get into some topics here. So Dennis has a BA in Philosophy, a Master of Librarian Information Studies, which just sounds super cool. So I'd love to talk about that. But the biggest topic.
that we are going to get into today, if you will allow me, Mr. Hall, is a feminine energy. And I absolutely love getting the male's perspective on feminine energy. So Dennis, thank you so much for being on the show today. I appreciate you taking the time.
Dennis Hull (01:16)
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm honored and excited to be here.
Challaine (01:20)
Thank you. How on earth
did you get into feminine energy work? Like, come on.
Dennis Hull (01:24)
Well, I mean, I, how far
back do I go in this story? I was more or less raised by my mother and my sister. β you know, my parents divorced when I was young and I have a good relationship with my dad. It's not like he abandoned us or anything, but, β just day to day that was my life, with my, mother and my sister. And, so I was around feminine energy from the beginning and really had a firsthand view of the things that they were dealing with. My sister's younger.
and I had that, had my maternal grandmother, β had severe, severe depression, but this is at a time in the early seventies before it was really recognized as something easily, something treatable. and, she had medical professionals that would just tell her, know, basically it's all in your head, but not in a, not in a clinical kind of way that we can help you, but just like more like bootstraps, suck it up, deal with it.
so she never felt seen, never felt heard. She got married, β at 15 years old. Right. Yeah. And was a mother by 19 and had three kids and just her whole story. β she was a creative. She was an amazing painter and musician, but never really had the opportunity to explore it. And I understand so much of how her depression, β related to that now, which I didn't at the time, I didn't know.
Challaine (02:28)
Wow.
Dennis Hull (02:50)
but my relationship with my maternal grandmother was really powerful. And, β there was one formative moment that I remember where she had, she was having a particularly depressive episode. I was staying with her that day, just me and her. She's on the couch. She's crying. She's, she's just trying to get it together because she's supposed to be taking care of me. Right. I'm 11 years old, maybe so old enough to know. But, at some point I walked over and I just put my hand on her and I said something. I don't even know what I said.
But what I remember is her sitting up and taking my hand and looking at me in the eye. And she said, and she smiled and she said, you just always know the right thing to make, to say, to make me feel better. And that stuck with me. β and I continued to be that for her. And then I started, I don't know. Like I said, I just, guess I sort of liked the payoff of being able to be there for someone that was in pain and, have the right thing to say. So I leaned in a lot to just the study of words and language and.
Challaine (03:37)
Thank
Dennis Hull (03:47)
paid attention to how people thought and how people behaved. And I brought that to my mom, who was obviously, you know, as a divorcee with two kids, trying to live her life. And then my sister, you know, I had responsibility for, was 11, she was seven. And because my mom now is working three jobs, I'm effectively raising my sister. So I'm just surrounded by, just in those three cases at that time in my life, surrounded by women whom I'm supporting in various ways. Like not the
Not in the traditional, I'm the man of the house kind of way, but just doing what I can do, saying what I can say to be of comfort and support. And I just continued to be that through high school. And then, you know, between seventh and eighth grade, I was blessed with a voice change that became this. Which, which adds, know, and that's just me. You know, I don't want to be, I don't want to be arrogant or cocky, but it is, it is a gift. that. Yeah.
Challaine (04:33)
Yes. We are talking about that. You own that. Own that, sir. It is certainly
a gift.
Dennis Hull (04:45)
Adding to, so that added some depth and richness to the way that I communicated as I was already being this person for the women in my life and, and, and men too. mean, I don't want to discount that I've had good relationships with, with men my whole life too, mostly. β but it just continued to grow. β and, and I've just always had solid friendships and relationships with women. and.
As I grew, actually went to college. When I graduated high school, I went to college on a musical theater scholarship. And that just didn't take, I didn't want to do it. And I meandered around and one day I was in Garden City, Kansas. I decided to go to junior college after literally completely failing out of my first semester of college. β Because...
I did dumb shit, but like one of them was I took college algebra at 7 30 in the morning. Like who's going to like, that's not going to work. So of course I failed that. just, I literally failed out. That was a choice. Yeah. So musical, I mean, I was taking like 18 hours of classes. And if you're studying music, a lot of these classes are one hour classes. So 18 hours was something like, you know, 12 classes or something. I just burned out like immediately.
Challaine (05:43)
course. That was a choice to take college out. Okay, cool.
Yeah.
Dennis Hull (06:08)
So I decided I need to simplify this. went from Wichita, Kansas, where I'm from out to Garden City, Kansas, to junior college. β shacked up with five other guys in a big house. We all lived in this house together and I needed a job and I couldn't find one. So finally one day I just walked into the local radio station and I said, Hey, I'm Dennis. I need a job. And there was a guy standing there. There was a guy standing there and he had a piece of paper and he's hand and he handed it to me. He said, read this. And I read it and he said, okay, you're hired. When can you start?
Challaine (06:26)
Just like that.
Dennis Hull (06:35)
And so like the next day and now I'm working at a radio station and I'm, I'm the backup on their FM side. was the backup on air talent and on the AM side, was running, I just did a bunch of stuff and I started writing and, the recording commercials. And then I kind of leaned into that and meandered around a little bit ended up, β years later. β I decided I wanted to go back and finish college and get my degree.
Challaine (06:44)
Yeah.
Dennis Hull (07:01)
And I went in with the idea that I wanted a degree in physics. I was really interested in science and I still am. β but I had to take some, I needed nine hours of humanities courses and I just loaded it with philosophy. I took an intro to philosophy class. took a philosophy of science class and I took a formal logic class all in the same semester. Formal logic and I excelled in those so much and in the intro to philosophy in that class.
Challaine (07:21)
Formal logic. I love that. Okay.
Dennis Hull (07:31)
I wrote a paper that actually got accepted to deliver in an honors, I would even in the honors program, but it was a really good, it was a really good paper. got a lot of recognition as an undergrad. actually came to San Antonio, Texas, which is where I live now and delivered that paper at a symposium. β and I just got so much, β and it was, it was a linguistic muddle problem in philosophy. and so that study and that, that study of
of philosophy of science and all of that together. I excelled. I loved it. So I leaned into it, changed my major, ended up earning a degree in philosophy, β where I was really leaning into epistemology, which is, which is, yeah, theory of knowledge, basically. So philosophy has three big branches, metaphysics, β epistemology and value theory or ethics. So it asks three big questions. What exists? That's metaphysics.
Challaine (08:13)
I've never heard that word. Okay. Okay.
Dennis Hull (08:28)
How do I know that's epistemology and what do I do? That's value theory. I loved epistemology and I love the study of philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Obviously I'm a word guy. I've been saying the right thing for years. I've been writing and speaking. And so I leaned into that and I loved it. And that obviously altered the course of my life. Um, from there, I went in and earned this master's degree in library and information studies, which was really the study of knowledge management for me, which is taking.
the linguistic skills and at the time really leaning into human computer interaction, which was, this was, I don't know, 20 years ago now. So this was somewhat of a precursor to where we are with AI today. β but I didn't stay in that. ended up going into project program and portfolio management, went into corporate, you know, made a big name for myself and peaked at running the transformation management office for a fortune 50 company. Making good money. Yeah.
Challaine (09:20)
I am so blown away by you just speaking. So just keep
going. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (09:25)
Living a good life, but I was by
about, by, by the time the pandemic rolled around in 2020, I was pretty fucking miserable. Like I liked my work, but I worked at a company that where we went through and I love that job, but then we got bought out by a different company and everything changed like dramatically changed. So where I had, where I went from having the highest performing team in the company and getting a hundred percent trust score on the
On the employee engagement survey, meaning that 30 employees that reported to me all participated in the survey and all gave me a 100 % trust score. They all trusted me completely. And then just this amazing leaders like Gallup called to say, this real? then, that happened in 2018. And then by early 2019, the merger happens in the new company split up my team. And I was now back to being an individual contributor.
Challaine (10:02)
That's huge. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (10:20)
My team was scattered to the four winds. Three months later, most of them quit the new company. I tried to lean in. tried to hand it by, and again, by the end of 2020, I was just burnt out. was done. My blood pressure was off the charts. I weighed 250 pounds. I'm down 200 pounds now. That just didn't feel good. I just was sick and unhappy. And I just finally decided to quit and go back to voice work in the study of voice work. I struggled with.
the acting classes, I started struggled with the, method, the Stanislavski method, right? Which is so like getting into your head and then getting from your head into your body and bringing all that to the character. And I was really having trouble with that. was having trouble just accessing my emotional self because I'd been in corporate for years where that's not actually a prized traditionally not prized. and
Challaine (11:10)
Absolutely.
But you had been in your emotional self for years prior to... Yeah.
Dennis Hull (11:18)
I had, yeah, so I did,
and then I kind of shut it off. And when I came back, I was struggling with it. So I couldn't get through the method to bring to my voice acting. And I did some on-camera stuff too, and a little bit of stage work and I was just struggling. So I stumbled across β something called the Alexander technique, which is a way of getting in your body for acting. That led me into studying somatic work.
and somatic method of acting, which is effectively saying, instead of using your mind to program your body, use your body to program your mind. If you're playing a character in a scene and you need to be in despair, put your body in a sad state, slump your shoulders, look at the ground. And eventually your mind will follow. You will start to feel that and it will, you know, it's just another way of kind of being, getting access to these feelings.
Challaine (12:08)
rather than mine
first and then... yeah, yeah, of course.
Dennis Hull (12:10)
Mind first, go body first. The mind still has to be engaged.
So when I started doing that, it was working for me, but then a lot of, a lot of shit started coming up as I was really starting to pay attention to my body and how I felt about things. realized that part of the reason I feel like shit all the time and what was going on for me at work was in the new company, I was just out of integrity all the time. I was being asked to compromise my ethics and my, my view and my, the things that got me the a hundred percent trust score.
Challaine (12:39)
Yeah.
Dennis Hull (12:39)
I was being in
a way asked to compromise. And that's not to say that the company was unethical. I don't want to say that at all. was just their values and the way they worked didn't fit me. And so I was out of balance. β and so things like that started coming up. started leading to deeper, β study. And so then I actually hired a somatic therapist. And so now as I'm really studying embodiment work and methods of embodiment, that led to Tantric work. found someone locally. started studying that.
And then in September, 2023, uh, although I was fully fucking terrified to do it, I went to a Tantra retreat, a four day retreat. And that was, that was the absolute turnaround of everything. It just, the way I showed up there, uh, and the feedback I got from the facilitators at the end, they just, they pulled me aside and just said, nobody shows up this way. Nobody shows up the way you showed up to this. You have a gift and you.
maybe want to look into pursuing something in this space. And I thought about it and people that I met there were very supportive of me saying, yeah, this is like you bring, you have an energy that you and a gift that you need to share with the world. And so I leaned into it. I listened. had to go through a lot of machinations of feeling like, who the fuck am I to do this? Right. Who, like what, what makes me special? Like why, but all that crap that we all go through about
Challaine (14:00)
Yeah.
Dennis Hull (14:08)
about this feeling of like, I'm not allowed to, to feel special. I'm not allowed to feel like I have something unique. I'm not allowed to say that I'm, that I'm different than other people, different than other men. And what I had to get over was feeling like it, the, the, understanding that I am allowed to absolutely be different and embrace my gifts. It doesn't make me superior or inferior in any way or anyone else. I'm just different.
Challaine (14:33)
I love that. I love that analogy.
Dennis Hull (14:34)
So except my difference, put it out in the world.
And I still, decided, yeah, I'm going to lean into this. I hired a mentor and I was flying to Miami and studying Tantra with him and studying Tantra locally and reading. I, so I was throwing myself into that. Then I went from, the same somatic therapist, I enrolled in her teaching program. So I'm certified in somatic therapy work. Now I'm, it's not a certification in Tantra. Yeah. So, so somatic work is, is again, it's really.
Challaine (14:56)
Can you define what somatic work is for those of us who don't know?
Dennis Hull (15:03)
an embodiment practice. The idea here is if you, if you've read the book, the body keeps the score, both somatic work and Tantra, can, can attach to, or can be, are influenced by this or Tantra probably influences. It's the other way with Tantra. But the idea is this, that when you experience trauma, your body stores the energy from that trauma, your nervous system holds onto it. And so there are areas of your body that can feel tense and tight and angry and
Challaine (15:09)
Okay.
Dennis Hull (15:32)
and can hold tension and stress because it's literally energy trapped in the body. So when we do somatic work, what we're doing is trying to find that pain, find that energy. And it's not always pain, but trying to find that energy and release it, right?
Challaine (15:46)
Is it specific
to an event? don't know if I'm asking this correctly. For example, my shoulder is like for years and years and years chronic pain in the back of my shoulder. Is that related to anything specific that could have happened in my life?
Dennis Hull (15:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So it could be.
The answer is it could be. I mean, it could also be a very mechanical problem. I too have a bum right shoulder. I have titanium plate in my neck from a degenerative condition. And so there can be obviously very mechanical medical things going on. No question about that. I'm not going to, yeah, we're not diagnosing.
Challaine (16:26)
We're not diagnosing here by any means. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (16:28)
But it could also be, you know, particularly if it's chronic muscle pain and you know, maybe a massage helps work it out, but it never really goes away. Yeah. It could very well be that there's just, you know, so maybe this is pure speculation, right? But just to give an example, because I relate to this, that the way that my trauma was manifesting for me is I would shrug. I was always just a little bit shrugged and a little bit like I would tighten my stomach. I'm always guarded. Right. I'm always in.
self-protection because my threat detector is always on, even though I'm not in any kind of threatening situation. Right. This is effectively what, trauma is right. And PTSD is you're guarding yourself against them, right? You're constantly in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And your body is reacting to that. And you may not even, you don't even necessarily know it. If it's come, it could be something that came from a childhood wound when you were two years old. Right. So it can tie to that.
Challaine (17:10)
in the constant fight or flight.
Dennis Hull (17:27)
It can be, it can be trauma in like the big T sense, some kind of massive abuse, β or a car crash or something like that. Or it can be complex trauma, which is a bunch of little shit, right? Death by a thousand paper cuts. could be both. Right. So what we do is we start looking, β like I do two different methods of somatic work. One can be very much online where I would say, you know, like we might drop in today and I would say, you know,
Take a moment, breathe, scan your body. Where are you feeling tension, stress, buzzing noise? Like where's your body reaching out to you and saying, Hey, I need something. You don't even have to know what it is. And you might say, well, it's my shoulder. It's right here. Okay. Let's visualize that. If you had to give that a color, what would it be? If you had to give it, you know, as you go into this space, like, want you to visually like walk into this pain. What shape is it? What color is we start giving it? We start visualizing it.
And we let our, we just let our minds go and our bodies connect and tell us a story about what's going on there. And then we start finding out where that goes. We delved into it and you can release like for me, in my case, β maybe the third time that I went into this journey, we call it, which is sort of like lucid dreaming, right? You're letting all of this happen and we're trying to figure out like, what are the images that come forward that makes sense? What are the ones that don't?
So my first journey, my third journey, cause the first two times, like I was just struggling to get it. The third time I go in and I was really having the pain like in, it was up in my shoulder, but kind of in this area. And it became this viscosity, this black viscosity, which became a theme for me is that I always was feeling like I was, I could move. It was always like moving through molasses. was always thick and I was always having to stop and come up for air. And over time that told me a story.
Challaine (19:14)
or molasses. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (19:23)
and allowed me to release some things. And I got to a point in that, in that visualization where I was so stuck and so frustrated at being stuck that I just got angry. And I had this big anger, like this emotional release of anger, which then led to tears and led to, and so you find these emotional releases. So another way then that somatic work can help is in person where, β I do a lot of work on the abdomen. We carry so much stress, you know? And so.
In this case, you might be laid out on the mat and I'm just kind of poking around and like, I don't know what you can see, but there are places that I find like right here in kind of the splenic area or for women in particular down around their ovaries and their womb where there's just pressure and pain and then you start pressing into that and you breathe into that. And it's just like, it can be a switch. Like you might feel you're just fine. You look just like you are right now and everything's okay. Then when we find that spot, it just.
opens the floodgates and the tears come and, you don't even necessarily know why. Right. So instead of, again, it's the same thing I was talking about with the somatic method of acting where instead of trying to talk through this, we're letting our bodies tell us the story, or we're just trying to let it release. And we're not necessarily getting wrapped up into why it feels this way. Right. Let's just let our body tell us the story, let it release the energy. So
Challaine (20:49)
I love
that you had mentioned, sorry Dennis, about the β abdomen and the stomach, because I'm sure you've heard this, that our gut is like our second brain, right? So if the brain is so overwhelmed or traumatized, that shit needs to go somewhere, right? Yeah.
Dennis Hull (20:56)
Mm-hmm.
That's right. Yeah.
I think, I don't know this for sure, but I feel like I heard somewhere that there are as many serotonin receptors in your stomach. I mean, there, there are, don't know if it's as many, it's not as many in your brain, but there's a bunch. That's why it's called that. You know, the, that there are serotonin receptors there that when you're flooded with serotonin, you feel it there too. Right. So there's, there's definitely hormonal and their science to back this up. β
Challaine (21:30)
Hey.
sure.
Dennis Hull (21:36)
Now, so that's somatic work and it can be anywhere on the body. Now, Tantra takes us a step further in then saying that some of what's being released could be our shadows, could be our dark side. And now what we want as the darkness comes forward, what we want is not to shame the darkness or say, you go away. We want to integrate it, embrace it and say, this is part of us. My ego is part of who I am. My pain.
Challaine (21:52)
Ooh, I like that.
Dennis Hull (22:06)
My, uh, you know, what we might consider the dark side is part of me. All of my fetishes and kinks and weirdness. That's part of me. Right. So if you're a woman who, you know, is a, you're in a monogamous relationship with a man and you're living your life exactly the way you're supposed to pose to, but you're bi curious and you feel guilty about that the hell with that. If you're curious about being with another woman.
integrate that, accept it, integrate your shame and say, it's okay to feel that way. I don't have to act on it. Or maybe I want to act on it. It's okay to feel how you feel, you know, up to the point that you're hurting another person. Right. So, you know, you're right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins, but you can integrate so much of who you are and love that part of yourself. And
Challaine (22:47)
Fair.
Dennis Hull (22:59)
You have, you when you think about this and you think about it in terms of your inner child, your wounded inner child is what's trying to protect you. And we get this idea that we need that voice to be quiet. Well, instead, what we really need to do is as our adult cells, we need to embrace and love and believe that child in the way that they weren't when they were a kid. Right. And integrate that, not shame it, not make it worse. Tantra.
Challaine (23:24)
What do we do
with this shame when it comes in? If you have these thoughts, like that monogamous relationship and now you're kind of bi-curious, but you feel so much shame, do we talk about it with our partner? Like, how do we process this shame?
Dennis Hull (23:31)
Mm-hmm.
There are a couple of ways. mean, one is to find your community, right? Find a community of people who will hear you and listen to you. like, maybe it's not your partner. Maybe you can tell your partner, Hey, I'm having some things don't come up and I need, I need an opportunity to talk with people about what's coming up for me. Maybe you can talk to your partner at some point. If you're in that situation, I think you have to, you want to, β
Challaine (24:03)
You have to. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (24:08)
But the point is to get right in internal to yourself, irrespective of your relationships, start with you love yourself, right? This is the deal. This is the whole point. Learn to love yourself completely, accept yourself completely. And when you have that, β the shame starts to fall away because part of the reason I would posit that a person doesn't want to talk to their partner is because they're ashamed to talk to their partner. They're afraid their partner is going to shame them more, make them feel bad, make them feel guilty.
reject them in some way and that may be true but when you find yourself that you are in love with yourself and you really accept yourself completely if your partner does reject you you're coming from a place of strength to say am i willing to accept that do i want to stay with someone who is going to reject me and not love me for my whole self right but first you have to love yourself for your whole self
Challaine (25:03)
Absolutely.
Dennis Hull (25:03)
β
and so, and so then the, next step of Tantra is really starts to deal with things like sexual shame and guilt because there's so much for us in the Western world, so much guilt and shame and pain and abuse and trauma around sex is we're brought up in this way to say that the, the, the desire for sex, the desire for physical pleasure and car and, and the carnal needs is somehow.
Challaine (25:06)
Thank
Dennis Hull (25:33)
Not okay. Right? The sex is for making babies. Well, yeah.
Challaine (25:37)
Where did that even come from? Like it's so natural. How did we
collectively as a society decide that it's not okay?
Dennis Hull (25:45)
Yeah. I
feel like I don't know. don't, can't say I know the answer to this. β my own sort of anecdotal view is that it comes from two places, that are related. One is definitely religion. β and one is actually political. Right. Because the, the like it or not marriage and divorce is an industry. It's an industry and monogamy.
Challaine (26:02)
Okay.
Dennis Hull (26:14)
is good for the economy.
Challaine (26:17)
Okay. Okay.
Dennis Hull (26:18)
I mean, it kind of is. And if you look at that, you
just see like, and beyond that, really satisfied, happy, integrated people don't have as many needs. Right. If I'm satisfied with myself, I'm not out trying to buy confidence in my car, in my house. I'm not doing what's that line from fight club. It's a, we spend money. don't have to buy things. We don't need to impress people. don't like. Right. When I'm healthy.
Challaine (26:44)
Yeah.
Dennis Hull (26:46)
As a human being, I'm not doing any of that shit. Right. I'm not going out saying I need a breast augmentation or I need liposuction or I need Botox or I need a nicer car or I need a nicer house or I need to impress people by virtue signaling my. Yeah. mean, so it's really like unhappy people and conflict are great for the economy. Right. And so I think we do get, here's an example that I've learned recently.
Challaine (27:01)
who really don't give a shit. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (27:16)
β something like one in three people has herpes, but they don't know it. Most of us don't know it. So the reason herpes became so stigmatized because overseas it's not, it's not a big deal. It's just a little, little, it's a little, it's a virus that can get in your, it's in your nervous system. And sometimes you have a little breakout on the skin and it's meaningless. has no real. It's not even very much different than shingles. Shingles works the same way. It's a virus in your.
But because it's on the genitals, it's stigmatized. The story I heard is that that some pharmaceutical company was working on an antiviral for some other purpose. Might've been HIV. I don't know what it was, but they were working on an antiviral that ended up not being needed, but they had done all this research. said, okay, we need, we need to sell this thing. And so there was a whole push to stigmatize herpes to sell valacyclavir, Valtrex.
Challaine (28:15)
Okay.
Dennis Hull (28:16)
that it was really big pharma that made herpes a problem. now we, if you've got it, you've got to go have this pill for it. You have to pay for this pill. my God, because you don't want people to know it's, so we have to make it, we have to turn it into something that makes you less than so that you want to buy the pill so that you don't feel that way. Right. That's one example. And there are a plethora of examples about that. Right. β So
Challaine (28:22)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I absolutely love that. They
created the fear. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (28:47)
create the fear like, if you
do, you know, it's you become dirty, become unapproachable. You become, we don't want, we don't want to feel dirty and unapproachable. We don't want another reason to feel rejected. Um, that's just one example. So you just get scared to death. it's, you know, as a youth. Yeah. You're like, Oh, you can't have sex because you might get pregnant. You might get an STI. Oh, and then sex means that you have to be bonded to each other.
Challaine (29:03)
You'd scared to be yourself and show up as you are.
Dennis Hull (29:13)
And sometimes it does mean that, you know, it just, it co-ops all of these things. And to me in the end, and this is particularly the case for women, a woman who owns her sexuality, her pleasure and her power. think men are scared of it. Like sexually empowered women are awesome and amazing and can do any fucking thing they want. And are, are, are in touch with the universe and energy in a way that a man can never be. And I think that scares people.
Challaine (29:28)
Really?
Dennis Hull (29:41)
It didn't scare me. think it's fucking awesome. I want to see it. I want to encourage it. I want to cultivate it. My own view is that women are literal portals to creation and a man that can never, in a way a man can never be. And that when a woman is fully integrated and in touch with her sexual energy and her creativity, that I make, that is what I think will change the world and move us in a positive direction. It is certainly not the patriarchy, which is clearly
against femininity, not even not only not against women necessarily, but against femininity. They don't even want men to be in touch with their feminine essence.
Challaine (30:12)
Yeah, yeah.
That's what I was going to ask about. β
Men do have feminine energy, correct? Okay, how can we balance, and we've talked previously, even within my own relationship with my partner, how can we find balance or not even balance, but harmony when one has too much...
Dennis Hull (30:38)
Mm-hmm.
Challaine (30:43)
β masculine energy and is not falling into their feminine energy.
Dennis Hull (30:45)
Uh-huh.
So there's a couple of things I could say about this. I first, it's not bad or wrong that women have embraced masculine energy. Despite the received view of some people espoused, there's nothing wrong with that. know, the masculine wants to go and wants to lift and wants to have structure and be ambitious. And, you know, for many women, I think they're forced into that to survive. They don't necessarily want to be.
others, like you want to embrace it. Like, I don't want to be dependent on somebody else. And I want to know that I can completely stand on my own, but the result can end up being the same, which is you start to feel a little bit out of touch with yourself. β that, know, you, that, that the go, go, go all the time. Over stresses you, overwhelms your nervous system. And particularly if you, if it's combined with this trauma that has you guarding all the time. So you're in your masculine energy.
out of a sense of having to be in control all the time. And it's too much. mean, it's too much. Yeah. You can only take so much. And, you know, I, I'm not into biological determinism per se, but I've also done enough study on anatomy to know that we are men and women are wired differently. And it's not that you can't handle it. It just takes a toll, right? It takes a toll.
Challaine (31:53)
And your adrenals can only like pump that out for so long. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (32:16)
you know, why, why do women die of heart attacks and why, like it makes you sick because you're just not, your body is not structurally designed to handle that stress. Right. For men, think that we are, you know, like our whole deal is, you know, saber tooth tiger be ready. Right. Like that's the evolutionary mechanism for us. Like that's what we're about is, is that kind of protection, that kind of be ready to go. Whereas women, β
Challaine (32:34)
Yeah. β
Dennis Hull (32:45)
You know, you have to move between different varying degrees of, of attention and softness. one of the things, Alison Armstrong is one of my favorite researchers on this that she talks about, women having diffuse awareness and being like aware of everything around them. And so one of the things that can stress you out. Yeah. Is like, all right, let's, let me give you an example. Okay. You're trying to have sexy time and trying to get in it, but like, you know, there's a pile of laundry over here. That's not done. You know, there's dishes in the sink that aren't done.
Challaine (33:14)
Hahaha!
Dennis Hull (33:16)
And they don't like, it's not that they have to get taken care of, but just the fact of those things there are an energy draw on you. Right. Because you have this diffuse awareness. It's not multitasking per se. It's just all this shit on your mind, because from an evolutionary point of view, you're out picking berries and you got the kids and is this baby okay? And is this baby okay? And is this the berry I can eat? Or is this very poisonous? And is there a tiger coming after me? Is there a bear? Is there what's the weather like? You know, you're just all of these things are happening at the same time.
Challaine (33:44)
So this is evolutionary.
is... Okay.
Dennis Hull (33:46)
This isn't, it is an evolutionary explanation. Men
are single focused, right? Men are like, where's the biggest threat? Where's the biggest thing? What's the biggest thing I need to be dealing with? I'm going to go deal with that. So we often don't understand or respect to the fact that for you to soften, for you to slow down, which the feminine wants to do. The feminine wants to slow down and savor, right? And soften.
And be sensual, uh, and not just check shit off the list all the time, but for you to be able to do that, like all the little shit needs to be done, or you at least need to know there's a plan to get it done. Right. Together, I think in a, in a, in a couple, think what you want to work towards is just having less of that shit that's pulling at your energy. Right. Just find a way to like you, talked about at the beginning, we were talking, I don't remember if the tape was rolling. We were talking about hiring of the EA.
Challaine (34:27)
Yes.
All good.
Yeah. Now I have two. Now I have two, yeah.
Dennis Hull (34:44)
Now you have a VA, so there's a whole bunch of shit. Now you got two VA's, so there's a whole bunch of shit been
pulling on you that now is, it's still there, but you know it's going to be taken care of. So your energy now is available to slow down and do different things. Right? So I think this is.
Challaine (35:02)
Or am I
just giving myself more room to add more shit to my plate? Right? So we have to like be cognizant. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Dennis Hull (35:07)
Well, yeah, you have to be intentional about that. Right? So that's the bottom line
of all of this is be intentional. When you are going in, when you, when you step into something where it's better, feels better to you to be in your masculine, choose it. Choose it. Don't just habitually become that when you feel like you want to be softer and in your feminine, choose it, let yourself surrender. Find a rituals that let you relax yourself.
Also, pay attention to whether or not you're in the presence of someone who is allowing you to be in your feminine.
Right? So if you got a man in your life, if your husband or boyfriend or whatever, if he is the reason your diffuse awareness is all scattered because you're having to pick up his socks and you're having to clean up after him and you have to take care of his shit. now you're mothering him. That's not sexy. Fuck that. And that's where you, you know, the feminine then wants to call that man forth, meaning this is an opportunity for you to step up and be a better man.
I don't want to be in a place where I'm criticizing you and emasculating you. But if you're acting like a little boy, I'm going to fucking treat you like one. And I don't want to have sex with a little boy. Right? So this is where I look at the men and say, how do you step up and be your best self? You know, why is it on you to, to change and be different if you like, because it's on you to take responsibility, find the focus and fill your role in the relationship. First of which is take care your own bullshit.
Challaine (36:17)
Amen. Exactly.
Dennis Hull (36:40)
Right. Don't outsource your responsibility onto your wife. Or if you are outsourcing that what's the trade, what are you taking off of her plate? Reciprocation matters. Right. We're, we are again programmed to say that when we get married, somehow we each have ownership in each other, which I actually disagree with, but okay, let's suppose that you do. Does that ownership mean that I get to tell you how to live your life in total? Do you get to tell him how to live his life in total? It's a partnership.
Challaine (37:00)
Yeah.
Dennis Hull (37:09)
divide it and work it out. For him, for a man, think that the key to a man being his best self is actually embracing more of his femininity. Now that doesn't mean acting effeminate. It means to think about for himself what it means to be soft, what it means to slow down, what it means to be sensual, right? Women in my, I mean, I've been working at this for a while and I've known, I mean, I've been studying this for a long time.
Challaine (37:19)
What does that look like?
Dennis Hull (37:39)
Women for the most part, I don't want to make a blanket statement. Somebody will always say, well, not all women, not all men, whatever, but women in general, think they want to, they want to live sensually. They want to be turned on by their lives. They want to stop and smell the roses. you want, when you eat a piece of chocolate, you want to experience that piece of chocolate, not just throw it in your mouth and hork it down. Right.
Challaine (37:44)
There's always someone.
Dennis Hull (38:07)
And whereas the masculine gets like ambitious and go and like, need to get this done and this done and this done. And that's a beautiful thing too. But for a man to understand, or for a man to invite the feminine in, think he has to invite it into himself first. So he has to make himself sometimes slow down and be sensual. Right.
Challaine (38:27)
And that's
just, that's not just in the bedroom. Yeah. Yeah, slow the fuck down.
Dennis Hull (38:29)
No, anywhere like slow down. Like I find myself sometimes you ever find yourself like you've just
finished lunch and you're like, I don't even really remember what I ate. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Challaine (38:39)
No, not for me to be honest, but my husband for sure. When I eat,
like even if I were to have a burger, I take half an hour to eat that burger. I know that seems like an exceptionally long time, but anytime I eat, my meal is 30 to 45 minutes. And I don't even like having conversation when like at the dinner table. But my husband, he will eat.
Dennis Hull (38:54)
Mm-hmm.
Challaine (39:03)
three burgers in here I am throwing them under the bus but he'll have two or three burgers in that time right?
Dennis Hull (39:06)
Right. It's, it happens to me too, because I
will fall into that habit of all the things I have to get done. And the meal becomes something I check off the list. Well, eventually everything becomes something you check off the list. Even sex becomes something that habitually you just want to get done the hell with like, come on, man. want what we want is the dance. What we want is the dance with everything. Right. So I think just like any dance, most of the time.
Challaine (39:35)
Like the ease and
the flow and yeah.
Dennis Hull (39:37)
Yeah. Somebody has
to lead. Somebody has to follow. And in a traditional relationship, the masculine leads, feminine follows, but that doesn't mean the man always leads and the woman, it can be both. Like I like to let go sometimes I'm okay to be, to let go and let and surrender and let myself be led for a little bit. And the women in my life, they like being able to take that sometimes, but here's the thing. It has to be their choice, not mine.
Challaine (39:43)
Can those roles reverse though?
Yeah. Okay.
Dennis Hull (40:08)
Why is that? I don't know why. And it might seem unfair to men for me to say this, but it does have to be her choice of when she wants to step into leadership. I can make a gesture of something like submission when she has to decide whether she wants to take the dominant role in whatever. And like, for example, I don't know how it is for you, but like you're ambitious, you're working, you're busy every day.
By seven o'clock at night, you're like, I am decision out no more, no more. I don't have it.
Challaine (40:41)
I actually said that last week. Someone had asked me a question and I was like, I don't want to answer any more questions. No more mummies. I'm done answering questions. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (40:44)
Right. Right. Right. So me
and my relationship, one of the things I had to get really comfortable with with my wife is saying that each night I take responsibility almost every night for dinner in our house. say, here's what we're going to make. She does the grocery shopping. There's a whole story about that because again,
Challaine (41:03)
Okay.
Dennis Hull (41:10)
Like she, she goes to the meadow and she picks the best things. And I go and say, that's fine. That's fine. That's fine. I don't like, I don't shop. just, when I find it, I put it in the cart and I don't care what it costs or whether it's the, the name brand or not the name brand. really don't give a shit. So she likes to shop. I let her do the shopping, but I do the meals for the most part. And what I realized is I just need to pick it and have it ready. Or if we go out, if I say we're going to go out tonight, I know where we're going to go. She gets home. say, change into this. We're going out.
Where are going? You'll see. Uh, or sometimes I tell her, uh, that this is where we're going to like, we're going to go have sushi tonight. Uh, and I know the things that she's almost always going to say yes to, um, is there a risk that she's going to be like, yeah, I don't want that. And it's going to feel like rejection. Yeah. But so what? Right. It's still sexy to her that I'm taking the risk, taking the lead and saying, this is what we're going to do. Right. So why is it, why is it on me to take the lead? Because it fucking is.
Challaine (41:59)
Yeah, it's so wet.
Dennis Hull (42:09)
And I'm going to say this, and again, there are men who will bristle at this. The quality of my relationship depends entirely on how I show up. That does not absolve you of responsibility as a woman. It doesn't. But I'm only responsible for me. I can only control me and myself. So that's what I do. And I also recognize when I am not able to do that.
And that might look like me saying, Hey, I need time to myself. I need to just step away. can't show up for you the way that you need me to tonight. So I, need to just step away. Or it may be me coming in saying, I really feel like I've been to battle today and I need, I really would appreciate your priestess energy. Like, I just want to lay my head in your lap and feel received tonight. Is that okay? Right. That's vulnerability, but it's not wounding. Right.
Challaine (42:59)
That's vulnerability right there. Wow. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (43:06)
It's me being vulnerable saying, have a need from you tonight. This is a relationship need that I have. Can you step up? And maybe you can't and that's got to be okay. So I need to be able to speak my needs, but not be attached to the outcome. And I have to be able to come in and like you as the woman in my life, I do want your priestess energy. I want to feel loved and seen and held and heard, but I don't want you to be my mom or my free therapist.
Challaine (43:14)
Yeah.
day.
Dennis Hull (43:34)
Right? So there's vulnerability, which is opening your heart and asking for what you need. But then there's neediness, which is, need you to validate me today.
Challaine (43:44)
β I love that.
Dennis Hull (43:45)
And that's what we all want to get past male or female. Yes. Having legitimate needs versus neediness. And the line is, is am I coming in and asking you for what I need? Because I know I, I, I need it. I deserve it. I desire it. Or am I coming in begging you to tell me that I deserve it and need it or does it, and it's okay to desire it. It cannot be on you to tell me that I'm valuable.
Challaine (43:49)
Vulnerability versus neediness. That's strong. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (44:16)
That's neediness, right? Having needs is saying, I am valuable. I am deserving. I am the man who shows up for you. And today, this is what I need from you. And then respecting your own sovereignty to say, I can do that for you today, or I can't.
And it works the other way too. It could work the other way too.
Challaine (44:37)
I'm so deep in thought just listening to
everything that you're saying and seeing how it can apply to my life and my relationship. And this is definitely an episode that β you've met with John that I'm going to share with him. And yeah, just such incredible, incredible insight. Wow.
Dennis Hull (44:48)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's, these are things that I've learned
by the, mean, like I'm not a guru. The reason I know this shit is because I, I know this stuff because I fucking stepped in it. Like I went through all of this. I went through the phase in my marriage where I was like, why the fuck do I have to be the one to do all of this? And the answer is because I do. I do. My wife is the woman in my life. She's not my mom. She's not my therapist.
Challaine (45:07)
You should be. Watch out Tony Robbins, okay? Because Dennis Hall is, he's coming.
Yeah.
as I do.
Dennis Hull (45:31)
She's my partner. Am I stepping up as her partner? I want respect. Am I living a life worthy of respect? And the answer was no, I was not. I was not showing up well in the relationship. I wasn't taking care of my own responsibilities or I was minimally, it wasn't that I was doing nothing, but I was minimally taking care of responsibilities. I was drinking too much. Right. So, and at my age now, like, you know, if I have a big hard night, it's like two or three days to recover. So I was useless for that.
Challaine (45:40)
How are you showing up in the relationship to get that respect?
Yeah.
Dennis Hull (46:01)
I was living in this way, this escapism rather than saying, I need to turn into the skid. What's the shit that's going on that is drawing on me? Where am I not holding my boundaries? Why am I living a life that other people have, have set up for me because I'm not taking responsibility for what I want. Right. Your boundaries are the currency of your self love. When you don't hold your boundaries or advocate for yourself, you're telling yourself that you're not worth it.
Challaine (46:31)
Since the beginning of this conversation, there's been a main theme, and I'm sure you can agree. It's I, it's self, and it's love, it's me, it's taking responsibility for yourself and β not having shame β within yourself or holding judgment, right? Like just...
Dennis Hull (46:36)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
That's right.
Have compassion for yourself.
Challaine (46:57)
I had a beautiful talk
with my daughter last night and I'm not going to go into detail about the details, but I basically said to her, was like, at the end of the day, you've got yourself to count on. You go with you everywhere you go, right? So β don't have shame in who you are and love this...
Dennis Hull (47:13)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
That's right.
Challaine (47:23)
this incredible soul and body that you get to just take everywhere with you. And she kind of she paused and she looked at me and she was like, it's kind of true. I was like, it's very true. It's very true. We can't change who we are. We can grow. Absolutely. But like our our roots is like they're there in us and we need to nurture that and and and grow and water and and feed that.
Dennis Hull (47:28)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's 100 % true.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Challaine (47:53)
our essence, right?
Dennis Hull (47:53)
Yeah. And,
and I don't think that that doesn't mean that you don't trust other people or count on or depend on other people. Of course you do. The essence of it is that, that for me to be able to count on and trust other people is to take a risk. It's still to take a risk. To be able to take that risk is to first trust yourself and say that no matter what happens with this other person, I will be okay. I can make myself okay. I can have the conversation.
Challaine (47:58)
No. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (48:22)
You can have the conversation you just had with your daughter with yourself when you need to. Right. Stop talking to yourself so harshly. Talk to yourself exactly the way you would talk to her. Love your inner child exactly the way you're loving her. Embrace her, your inner child, the way you embrace your children with compassion and softness. And that's where men need to be too. Right. A man tapping into his femininity is tapping into his ability to be empathetic.
compassionate to savor life, to see the beauty in things, to stop and smell the roses, right? To be sensual and not to lose his masculine essence in the process. That's what's happening, I think, to men is where they are embracing their femininity. They are becoming effeminate. They're losing their masculinity in the process, which is why you get the response of this positive masculinity movement that I think
Challaine (49:09)
Thank
Dennis Hull (49:22)
is misguided when it's saying stamp down the feminine and be fully in your masculine. I think that that's, I think the way to understand how to be fully in your masculine is actually to embrace your feminine side. I think that's probably true for women as well. You, there are times when you, you're going to have both and accept both. They're both part of you.
Challaine (49:29)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because you can't have one without the other. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (49:49)
And let them, let them be what they need to be situationally kind of go with the flow and also know when to be intentional. Right. It's kind of paradoxical. β if I have to give, yeah, don't fight it. Right. And, and, and also know like, when is it time to be, to be intentional? Right. So, and I keep bringing this up, like in the bedroom is a really good time to be intentional. Don't be habitual, slow down, let yourself like one of the
Challaine (49:59)
Yeah. Stop fighting it. Stop fucking fighting it. Yeah.
you just snuck
that word in. Don't be habitual. Yeah. By checking, yeah, checking them off the list.
Dennis Hull (50:20)
Yeah. Don't be habitual. Don't, don't do things by hat out of habit or, or, or, yeah,
involuntary response. Use the pause, decide. Like don't react to respond. There's always a space between what happens and how you react to it in that space. Take a breath and decide how will I respond to this? Don't just let your visceral reaction come out. It will almost always not serve you.
Challaine (50:49)
I'm writing that down. Respond, react in space.
Dennis Hull (50:50)
Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a, GS
young blood writes about that. He's one of my favorite authors about masculinity. β and he says, you know, respond, don't react. And that's just using the pause. But I feel like the, the, yeah, yeah, it's not the, yeah, it's not the beat. It's the space between, right? β they're like comedy that you laugh in the silence. Right.
Challaine (51:02)
Yeah. And there's time and space. Don't they say that about music too? Like the music is, it's not the act... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (51:18)
Or in singing bowl therapy, which I've been studying, say healing happens in the sustain. It's not when you strike the bowl. It's the tone that comes after as it's, as it's sustaining and ultimately releasing. Right. So it's, get, we get in the habit of thinking that it's the doing that makes things happen, but it's really the being. Right. So yeah, those are the things, you know, β the, the.
Challaine (51:40)
It's not. wow. β
Dennis Hull (51:48)
The one thing I want to say because we brought it up and didn't close it. I know we're running maybe a little short on time is that Tantra has this reputation for being all about sex. And it's very prevalent in the Western world and it's about, know, and it has this, there's a hedonistic element. can't lie. I mean, that's there. β But what the sexual aspect of Tantra
It was about taking all of these concepts about storing trauma in the body and realizing how much of it we store in our sexual thinking, in our sexual organs. And so it just says, all Tantra is doing is recognizing that your genitals are part of you. Don't be ashamed of them either. And if you have shame and you have pain stored there, we need to address it. How do we address that? The same way we address it in any other part of the body with meaningful either self-touch or guided touch.
or from a person that is trained to work in these spaces and to work with genital touch and lots and lots comes out in that. A lot of pain, a lot of trauma is released and it can be life-changing. It is life-changing. I mean, that's why I do the work. Where I've done sessions where it can be like, can have the trauma release can be crying. It can be rage. can be laughter. It can be orgasm.
varying and it can be varying degrees of all of those things or all of those things could have had sessions where all of that comes up. And it is just as massive, but it there it is always there's always a catharsis that comes after it and always a, an understanding of like, what's it like when I am able to surrender and let all of me show up in that space. It's pretty, it's pretty profound. and it's an honor for me to be called to hold that kind of space as a man.
Challaine (53:15)
Jesus. Yeah.
Like a rebirth. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (53:41)
β it's a big deal. Like it's non-trivial to have a woman be, be in a space with me alone with that kind of energy and that kind of touch and to be able to surrender into that. And it's an honor to be called to be, to create that safe space to channel that.
Challaine (53:58)
And
you've always been this person when you were talking about your corporate, like the 100 % trust score, right? So yeah.
Dennis Hull (54:00)
I've always been this person. Yeah. This is, this is me leaning into those gifts. And people ask me like,
you get aroused. Do you get, well, my arrows just doesn't show up when a woman shows up in the space to work with me. What I see is someone who is taking a risk because she is really almost desperate for help and support. She wants to be better. And she doesn't like her body doesn't remember if it ever knew what it's like to be in the presence of a safe grounded.
Challaine (54:22)
Great.
Dennis Hull (54:30)
And I am a safe grounded man. I'm not saying that I'm embracing that. I'm not pretending to be, this is who I am and this is a gift I'm bringing. So if somebody's interested, it's here and it's hard to embrace sometimes. It's scary to like look at someone and say, yeah, this is like, I show up in the world as a man who knows how to, how to behave with women who knows how to, and I'm not, I don't look at every woman and be like, fuck yeah. mean,
Challaine (54:38)
Yeah, you didn't ask for it. just just showed up. β
Hahaha
Yeah.
Right, Sure.
Dennis Hull (54:59)
I don't, I don't look at every woman as a sex object. And that's
not to say I never did. I was a teenager once, but even in that space, it was, it was not the same. β so yeah, I just have a reverence and a devotion for women. I, I like to stand next to them in support, but I'm not, it's always in partnership, not submission. I don't elevate women to say that you're above me. β I just think that women occupy this space and they deserve devotion and reverence. think men deserve devotion and reverence too.
Challaine (55:05)
Yep.
That's powerful. Yeah.
Dennis Hull (55:29)
I just think men have forgotten how to live in their king energy and their leadership energy to deserve it.
Challaine (55:37)
That's powerful. Yeah, yeah. To deserve it. To deserve it. Speaking of gifts and your gifts, this conversation, like I don't think I've I haven't said anything. And usually I'm like, like it's back and forth. I'm like, I'm just taking it all in and just absorbing the gift of your voice and your knowledge and your experience. So I want to thank you so much for sharing that. And you have another gift for
Dennis Hull (55:37)
So I want to help men with that. It's a live a life worthy of respect. So.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Challaine (56:06)
listeners today, if you're if you still want to proceed with that, you have a poem that you had mentioned that you were like, what is she what is she leading up to here? What am I doing?
Dennis Hull (56:13)
I do. Yes, I would love to. It's about, yeah. It's about, I forgot I mentioned that. So
yeah, this is a poem that I wrote. It started out as two different pieces and I put them together and it really is speaking. It ties together the whole theme of this, or at least the theme of what I do and why I do it. So let me clear my throat and my voice on and okay, here we go.
Challaine (56:34)
Your voice actor voice over voice. Yeah, here we go.
Dennis Hull (56:41)
There is an art to worship. It's a language older than words, a rhythm deeper than touch, a painting beyond the canvas. It is not the art of taking, not the art of claiming. It is a primal hunger, but with reverence. The art of worship is presence. It is the slow inhale before fingertips meet skin, the still pause between heartbeats when gazes lock across a room, and an ancient power stirs beneath the ribcage.
It's an electrified attuning, an absolute knowing that the soft curve of a collarbone holds the weight of a thousand whispered hopes. That the hollow of her throat is a temple arch built to channel ballads of wanting. That the slope of her back is the landscape of a dream, one I will never own, only admire. Only stand in awe of, like a treasure hunter on the edge of a rainbow he can chase, but never catch.
You see, I've never wanted to conquer a woman. I've only ever wanted to kneel before her, not in submission, but in devotion. Not to lose myself in her, but to stand by her in the sacred in between, in the truth of uncertainty, the forbearance of connection, the anticipation of pleasure. β Because the truth is, a woman is not meant to be understood. She is meant
to be experienced, like the first sip of something dark and sweet that lingers on the tongue, mysterious, changing its flavor the longer you let it be. Like moonlight on the river, fluid shifting, impossible to grasp and mesmerizing. She's honey on the lips, citrus on the tongue, the heat at the back of the throat when the spice takes hold. Sweet and sharp, a flame in spirit with soft, cool hands.
She is contrast and contradiction. is fierce in softness, untamed in stillness, and cosmic in the way a whisper can shake me to my core. So tell me, how could I ever meet her with anything less than reverence? How could I ever touch her without first preparing my hands to hold something sacred? How could I ever kiss her without first offering the veneration that is her name? I'm a servant of pleasure.
not mine, hers. Because the most magnificent thing I have ever seen is a woman lost in the moment of her own unfolding, a woman who has forgotten the world for the shape of her own breath and sound and motion. A woman who is let go of expectation, of limit, of the need to be anything but her full self and her full expression, feeling everything.
And if I am privileged to be there when it happens, if I have the honor to serve the air that she breathes in that moment, then that is enough. Because I have seen queens rise from the weight of my hands on their skin. I have watched goddesses reclaim their thrones in the quiet hush of my smoky candlelit temple. I have traced my lips over scars that tell stories braver than any epic I have ever read. And I have learned.
But to touch a woman with anything less than love is desecration. Yes, there is an art to worship, and I am grateful to guide the brushstrokes.
Challaine (1:00:21)
Wow.
Dennis Hull (1:00:22)
Hmm.
Challaine (1:00:24)
I had my
eyes closed and you were just like right in my ears. That was cool. I felt that. Thank you so much.
Dennis Hull (1:00:37)
Thank you. Thank you for letting me share that. It always feels good to share.
Challaine (1:00:37)
You are absolutely, absolutely.
Yeah, hey, just like, yeah, just like, woo wee. That was good, that was awesome.
Dennis Hull (1:00:45)
Yeah, let's let it wash over, right? β
I want women to receive that, learn to receive that, and I want men to learn how to be in that devotion without sacrificing their strength and leadership and masculine essence.
Challaine (1:01:02)
You are an Earth angel and have such a powerful message and such incredible gifts and I'm so grateful for you and for our connection and we've talked a few times and I just I'm so grateful that you are a part of my life and that I can learn from you and cheer you on from the sidelines and that we're actually in this space and time together.
Dennis Hull (1:01:11)
Hmm.
Challaine (1:01:31)
Like, it's so cool, it's so cool.
Dennis Hull (1:01:31)
Me too. I love,
I am so grateful for the divine timing and for you and what you've brought in. You you've challenged, you've challenged me to think in a little bit different ways too. And, and John too, like I want to give a shout out because our conversation was really enriching to me, challenging, but enriching. It really had me thinking a lot about, know, I've worked so much with women. I can show up for men and I want to, and he really
gave me things to think about about how I would do that better. So, you know, shout out to him for like showing up the way he did in our conversation and just being his authentic self in the moment. β cause it really, that was a gift too. So you and you are both, you're a gift to me and a treasure. And I'm looking forward beyond just talking like this, continued friendship with both of you. Yeah.
Challaine (1:01:59)
He definitely will.
Absolutely. Thank you so much,
Dennis. I like to end the episodes with a quote or just β a tidbit of something that has stuck with you throughout the years. I always say, one that always stands out for me is β every journey begins with a single step or the only constant in life is change. What is something that you hope will true?
Dennis Hull (1:02:27)
something. I'm so confused right now.
Hmm.
Hmm, let me think about that. Let me think about that. Yeah. β
Challaine (1:02:45)
or a piece of advice.
Dennis Hull (1:02:51)
Gosh, there's I'm having trouble like narrowing one down because there are so, so many, um, um,
Challaine (1:02:54)
Hehehehehe
Dennis Hull (1:03:00)
Hmm.
Challaine (1:03:01)
You brought one up earlier by an author, did you not?
Dennis Hull (1:03:04)
Did well, okay. So here's one that I really like β I don't think this is the one I brought up but I'm gonna bring it up Because I think it applies so much and you really you really embody this to me This is a this is a quote from actually it's a book by Robert Bly called iron John Which is one of the he's one of the yeah He's one of the pioneers of the positive masculinity movement and I think I think this is right. Somebody might correct me but β one that sticks with me that he said is
Challaine (1:03:15)
β
Okay, I've heard you talk about that book before.
Yeah.
Dennis Hull (1:03:34)
Where lies a man's pain, there also lies his genius.
Men, in this case, he was talking about man, meaning men, but really it's a person. Where lies a person's pain, also lies their genius. And when I look at the book behind you and I know your story, that's, you embody that. You are the essence of, you had pain and you, you alchemize that pain into passion and genius, which is again, that is a, something that is uniquely feminine. Alchemizing pain into love is a feminine quality.
Challaine (1:03:54)
Turn the pain into the passion.
So I do have it in me.
Dennis Hull (1:04:09)
You absolutely have it in you. I have refrained from commenting on some of your posts online because I'm like, you, I know
you absolutely are certainly capable of being in your masculine and being great at it. You have, you have, you have a sincere and deep feminine essence. I feel it. I see it. β and it comes through and yeah, so that's, that's one good example. the other one I maybe that I'll, that I will, that I really liked it. I'll leave.
Challaine (1:04:26)
Thank you. Thank you.
Dennis Hull (1:04:37)
leave your viewers and listeners with is one by Joseph Campbell and it says, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.
Challaine (1:04:44)
Christmas.
Dennis Hull (1:04:46)
So whatever, when I say that, whatever is the first fear that comes up in your mind, that's the one to lean into. That's the one to go towards, not away from. Yep. Yeah. Go towards it, not away from it. And if you need support in that, hire Shalane to coach you. Hire me, hire somebody, get some help.
Challaine (1:04:46)
Yep.
Damn it! Damn it, I don't want to!
How can people get, connect with you, Dennis? Yeah. Perfect.
Dennis Hull (1:05:07)
β DennisHull.com is my website. They can go there.
You can book a, like I do a free 30 minute call just to chat and find out like, is there something we can do? And you can book β online coaching, which I do for both men and women, although my website leans towards women. Or you can book body work if you're local or if we happen to be in the same place. I do somatic body work, which is very sort of vanilla massage and like cuddling and just other kinds of touch.
Challaine (1:05:23)
That's it.
Dennis Hull (1:05:35)
And then I do Tantric body work as well. And then definitely pay attention to my ethics page. someone's going to book those kinds of sessions that are kind of intimate touch. You definitely want to look at that and feel really comfortable, then like just, yeah, just book and get on. Let's talk. mean, β my, my process is very slow and staged out to make sure that everyone it's all about building trust and safety. β and you'll know, like, you know, from the time we've talked, you know, right now,
Challaine (1:05:51)
Yeah, let's talk.
Dennis Hull (1:06:04)
Whether or not you feel safe and trusting of me, you know, you trust your inner knowing. Then you say with that, do I want to do something more? So get on, read about me, learn about me, book a session. Let's talk. There's no pressure. There's like, I'm not a hard sell guy. I can. Yeah. If I can help, if I can be of service, that's what I'm about. I want to be of service. and yeah, you can, you can, you can get to know me and decide for yourself. And yeah, I would be honored. I am always honored.
Challaine (1:06:10)
Absolutely.
Yeah, just like this podcast. Let's have a chat.
100 % trust score with Dennis Hall.
Dennis Hull (1:06:33)
to, it's, it is non-trivial to be trusted by someone to be their coach or their body worker or both, or just to be invited into their lives. I mean, of course I charge and I get paid. That's the coin of the realm is the coin of the realm. But the payoff for me is in how it feels to be trusted and be allowed to be in support and in service of someone. That is not trivial. It is really, I think that's a big, big decision to decide who to trust with that.
Challaine (1:07:02)
It's real. It's,
yeah.
Dennis Hull (1:07:03)
with that, with
your pain and vulnerability and your healing. take it seriously.
Challaine (1:07:08)
Thank you, Dennis, so much for being on the episode, for sharing your wisdom, your heart, your love, your peace, your poem. I was sitting there, I was taking that all in. I'm so glad I put these headphones on today. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in. Please love, like, share this episode. Connect with Dennis. We are forever lifelong friends. is just, he got me right here. So until next time, have the best day ever.
Dennis Hull (1:07:15)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
It's just, you know, great care.
Challaine (1:07:37)
and we'll chat soon. Bye for now.