Robert Kandell, accomplished teacher, coach and lecturer, joins Tatiana Berindei to dive deeply into the complexities of how sexual shame affects men in relationships. Robert is described as “part football coach, part loving dad, and part slightly crazed drill sergeant.” He works with his clients to re-energize their lives and build better relationships. In 2004 he founded OneTaste with Nicole Daedone and built it to a seven-figure international company. Listen in as he and Tatiana explore the powerful conversation beneath sexual shame and the impact is has on men in relationships.
Hello everybody, welcome to the Sex, Love and SuperPowers podcast show. I am your host Tatiana Berindei, although, I sound a little bit different today. You get the super sultry laryngitis version of Tatiana. But, I am very excited to have our guest Robert Kandell with me here today. We’re going to be discussing how sexual shame affects men in relationships, which I believe is just such a really important topic. I’m so grateful to be graced with an individual who has a lot of wisdom around it and is able to speak to it, because my goodness, we need more conversation about this right now. Before we dive in, let me tell you a little bit more about Robert Kandell. I love this.
Hailed as part football coach, part loving dad, and part slightly crazed drill sergeant. Robert has spent the last 18 years helping people re energize their lives, and build better relationships through more honest and authentic connection. After building a successful consulting firm in San Francisco, he then took his business acumen and co-founded One Taste in 2004 with Nicole Daedone. Taking on the challenging task of bringing conscious sexuality to the mainstream market, Robert built the company from scratch to a high seven-figure international corporation. He left One Taste in 2014 to start his own consulting firm, helping small businesses become marketable and profitable. Robert is also an accomplished teacher, coach and lecturer. He brings his enthusiasm and acumen to his weekly podcast Tough Love, on subjects around relationships, intimacy, communication and gender dynamics. Welcome to the show Robert. I’m really happy to have you here today.
Thank you so much. I’m really happy to be here.
We’re going to start off with a question I love to ask people. What are your superpowers?
Patience, approval, tenacity, and awareness of the metamessage.
Patience. Patience, approval, tenacity, and awareness of the metamessage, the message underneath the words of the facial gesture, the body language. Seeing, and hearing, and understanding the metamessage.
I love that. I love how you languaged that. That’s such an important skill to have. It really is a superpower and makes a lot of sense as to why you would be in the line of work that you are in. Having that as a superpower, it’s a really important one, and I think really apt for this topic that we’ve chosen for today. I mean, I get this sense that the presence and the space that you’re able to hold for a person, anyone who has that superpower, really being able to read that undercurrent, in my experience, can hold a tremendous amount of space for people. When we’re talking about a topic as sort of touchy as shame, that’s a really important quality to have.
Because it’s so tender.
It’s so tender.
So tender, and so challenging, for men to even think they might have some, let alone start to investigate it.
Yeah. Let’s talk about that a little bit, because I think that that is actually, I mean, I think for men and women, but I can imagine, especially for men, because of the way our culture is set up, and you’re supposed to be like Superman, you’re supposed to be impervious to anything and not have feelings. To even begin to identify shame inside of one’s self is quite a process in and of itself.
Can you speak to that a little bit for some of the men who might be listening in today, of how one would even go about identifying shame inside of one’s self?
It’s a very interesting dynamic. I’ve been doing a lot of research. I’m working on a book, and the book is called Unhidden. It’s a book for men and those confused by them.
I love that.
Thank you. Which is a lot of people. I want to say I’m a strong proponent of women’s empowerment. I’ve spent really, the majority of my career really helping women, and being of service to women, and creating space for women to grow and be big. It’s so important and it’s so wonderful to see what’s happening in the last 10 years. Men just don’t have the same space. When I was doing my research, I came across something called the MRA, which is the Men’s Rights Activists I think, or Activism, or something like that. Basically, it was men asking for equal rights. When I first read it, I was like, “What is this? Men don’t need this. This is ridiculous.”
The more I got into it, the more I understood why this exists, and what the underlying thing is. Because men don’t feel the freedom to speak, to connect to, to be rewarded for their emotional state, they don’t learn the skills how to touch them or know them. So we push them away, we push them into our shadow. Because of that, there’s no opportunity for healing. There’s been incredible programs for women to empower, which is wonderful. There hasn’t been the same for men. Women’s empowerment is increasing, and women are just growing, and the feminine is growing in the world, and men don’t have the space to keep up, or even have a chance to keep up.
Yeah. I think that that is so true. You said something about the shadow, and pushing it into the shadow, because men don’t have this space to explore those emotions. What I’m seeing is that not only are women growing in their power and growing in their leadership, and really stepping out into the front, but what’s happen concurrently, is that the masculine shadow is growing even stronger, because men don’t have that space.
Right. Totally agree with you. It’s a direct result. We have the benefit of women’s light shining, but the detriment is women need men. For biological reasons, true. But also, for their full optimization of who they are, all genders … I don’t want to make this just two genders, because there’s so many genders. All genders just need the opportunity to keep up-leveling, and keep connecting, and keep growing. We need to create space for each other to go through the challenges to the dark nights of our soul, through the rocky roads, so we can find our footing in this ever-changing world. There’s a lot of space for women to do it. There’s less space, and shrinking space, for men to do it.
Yeah. How do we then begin to open up that space, because I think it’s such a … There are certain men … I mean, I know some really beautiful men. I feel so blessed in my life with some of the men who I’m just honored to know, and be married to one of them, and men who are just really willing to look at their stuff, really willing to go deep, who aren’t afraid to feel things and to name them. But that’s not the majority of men. Sometimes I forget that, because I live in this little bubble of these beautiful men I’ve surrounded myself with. As soon as I step outside of that, it’s like, “Oh right.” How do we even begin that dialogue?
You start to practice and work on the concept of approval. I said that was one of my superpowers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was curious about that.
Yes. Approval doesn’t mean you agree with everything another person does. What you approve of them as a person. It’s sort of like when you have a computer with a virus. You don’t throw away the computer. Sometimes you do, but you don’t tend to throw away the computer. You just attack the software that’s the virus. When you approve of a person, of a man, of who he is, and then say, “There is this part of you that I want to invite you to up-level. I am going to stay with you in this process. I am going to reflect to you your impact on me, and I’m going to say it in a way that you know I love you dearly. I’m rooting for you, and it’s really important that you understand this, because you might not see the impact you’re having on me.”
Most men do not know the impact they have on women.
Most men do not know the impact they have on women. Most women assume men do. We’re in this chaos and this argument because of that distinction. If a woman says to a man, “I want to be closer to you, and this is one of the things we need to up-level.” That’s a lot better than what normally comes, which is, “You’re an asshole,” or, “You’re dumb,” or, “You’re just a man,” or, “Of course this is who you are, because this is the way you were raised,” or, “This is the fault of your mother.” Whatever nasty thing that tends to come, because the woman doesn’t feel approval.
Now, what’s coming up for me as I hear you speak, is an argument that I’ve heard a lot as we’ve had this YouTube eruption. Actually, I’m going to hold that, because we do need to go to this quick break. But, I really want to dive into this when we get back. Let’s go to break, and then we’re going to dive in here, around this argument that I have heard a lot of women come up with in sort of response to what you just said. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but it’s one that I want to hear your answer to.
Great.
We’re going to go to quick break. Where can people find out more about you and your work?
I’m building a new website, robertkandell.com. Until it’s up, you’ll go to my current website. But, everything is going to be found at Robert. My podcast. I’ve mentioned my book, my writing, etc.
Beautiful. We’ve been talking with Robert Kandell about how sexual shame affects men in relationships. Stay tuned, because this is a really powerful and juicy topic. We’ll be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
Music Credit: All instruments played by Amanda Turk. Engineered and produced by Tatiana Berindei and Daniel Plane reelcello.com
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