Love Beyond Boundaries: Catherine Almond's Secrets to Lasting Relationships and Tantra

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Live in the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today I'm joined by Catherine Ullman. Catherine is a licensed therapist, a best-selling author, and an expert in human sexuality. Catherine is the author of 12 books, including the Tantrit Mastery series and shortcuts to mindfulness. Catherine is studying her PhD, and she has also got a new book that's going to be coming out. And Catherine's advanced training in traditional and spiritual psychology has helped thousands of clients over the span of more than 30 years. So we're going to be talking to Catherine about what spiritual psychology is and her new book and everything that she's up to and gonna be up to. So Catherine, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Thank you, Curtis. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for that nice intro.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Well, um, as as you said, I um I have an interest in how psychology and spirituality uh go together. And um when I started my uh journey to become a psychotherapist, I noticed that the main uh psychology programs had to do with studying rat behavior and animal behavior. And I thought that was interesting, but I thought we're more than that, and of course that's kind of a simplification, but I uh felt that we're also spiritual beings, and by that I don't necessarily it may or may not be religious beings, but we have a sense of something greater, some potential, something more than just uh the things that we're taught. There's something else going on in life. So I started to studying what's called transpersonal psychology, which says, well, as human beings, we can go a lot further, we can all become smarter and kinder and uh more compassionate and just were capable of a lot more things. So I was really interested in that. And uh, so I really started studying relationships and became a marriage and family therapist and uh wrote some books along the way. I just figured if I could help anybody, that's what I was here to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Absolutely. Well, explain to the listeners what tantric dating is and and how one does that.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Well, tantric dating was my um first book on the subject, and I was um out trying to date. I wanted to meet my husband that I have now, and uh I had a particular birthday, milestone birthday, and I thought, darn it, what I really want in life is my perfect husband. I've had two that were not didn't work out, and I want to do this right. And I started dating, and I don't know if any of your listeners or you yourself have gone onto the online dating uh jungle, but I found that I was kind of unloving and very judgmental. And I noticed the longer I was doing online dating, I was getting more and more judgmental. So I thought there's got to be a better way to do this. So I thought about some Tantra workshops I had attended, and I realized if I'm being judgmental on someone, that's my problem, and I need to uh use my dating as a way to become more loving. What's wrong with me, why I haven't found love, is that I'm not loving enough. And that was a big revelation for me because I figured I was a loving person. I had friends, I loved my family, I had a cat, I uh gave money to charity, but I realized I wasn't really loving enough. I was being very judgmental in my dating life. You know, I think it's weird because we we wouldn't be as prejudiced in our normal lives as we are in dating. I thought that was a very strange uh discovery. So I I uh came up with this method I call tantric dating, which is you go on a date with somebody, you just sit there and you think, wow, if I don't think this person's great, that's my problem, not theirs. That doesn't mean I need to continue dating them or I need to marry them, but I need to figure out what's in my way of being a more loving person. So I wrote this little book about it, and uh, much to my surprise, uh a girlfriend of mine from Seattle called me and said, This book has been named one of the best dating books of all time. I said, What? I kind of written it just for myself, and then a lot of people started finding it, this kind of attitude, sort of spiritual, mindful attitude towards dating to be very helpful. It's not everybody's cup of tea, frankly, but um for people who are looking for a little more spiritual or mindful uh way to go about dating, it uh it hit the hits the mark for some people. It started becoming a bestseller in its category. And that's then I wrote the other uh books in the tantric mastery series to go along with it.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Well, I know you mentioned a tantra workshop, so explain to the listeners what uh tantra is.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Well, tantra has a reputation of being uh kind of wild sex and having sex in strange postures and so on, and it for some people it is that, but what I learned about is Tantra is about um it's uh everything is sacred, including sex. So sex is considered sacred instead of I was taught that it's the opposite of sacred, I because I grew up in traditional religion, and we say, well, actually, everything is sacred, and that includes sex, and we want to use sex as a way of connecting and getting intimate, not just getting off. So we kind of think that that using sex as a just a way to get off. If people want to do that, that's fine, but in Tantra, we want to see how we can use sex to get as close and loving as possible. As close and loving as possible, you know. When I started thinking about this, Curtis, I saw that on television we can have all kinds of, you know, sex is now everywhere on the internet and on the movies and Netflix and so on. But what's really not it's okay to show people having uh sex with strangers, it's okay to have people having violence and sex, of people having uh uh rapes and murders and guys tracking down the perps and stuff. But what's really still not okay is to show people who are in love just being loving and affectionate to each other. And I thought, wow, that's that's really strange. So uh Tantra is really about how can we make love in a way that's the most loving way possible. So it's strange that it that Tantra gets this reputation of being uh uh alternative when it's really, I think, a very positive alternative to what's out there. Am I explaining that in a way that makes sense?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Well talk to I'll go here.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Oh, I just said sometimes um sometimes when you talk about alternative things, you're not sure if you're uh tracking with people. So I'm glad that that was coming across.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Absolutely. Well, talk to the listeners about the difference between orgasm and ejaculation.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Well, most men and actually most women don't know that uh for men, there can be a difference between orgasm and ejaculation. And of course, I'm not a man, so I haven't experienced it. So the way my husband explains it to me is that right before a man ejaculates, well, they're taught that they're the same thing. You know, they're men are taught that it's the same thing, that or ejaculation is orgasm. And actually, if you really start paying attention, the orgasm happens a minute a minuscule amount of time before the ejaculation. And you can start noticing this, that it's possible for men if they train themselves and start noticing this and become mindfully aware of it, that they can actually orgasm uh they can actually orgasm without ejaculation. And why would you want to do that? Well, you might want to do that because you don't want to stop making love, you're not ready to stop making love yet. So you could have an orgasm and then keep going without because, as you know, once you ejaculate, you're done. So maybe you're not ready to be done, but you want to have that complete pleasure. Um, also in ancient China, they felt that that men lose uh energy from ejaculating, and that especially as men get older, they don't want to uh ejaculate as much as they used to. So that's one reason that um uh uh they they suggest that men ejaculate less. So we don't want to say you need to have less sex, but you might want to learn the difference between orgasm and ejaculating. It's very beautiful. I've been in the presence of my husband when he's had an orgasm without ejaculation, and it is a it can be a full body orgasm just like a woman. I don't mean just like a woman, obviously a man is different, but it can shake his whole body just like a woman can have a whole full body orgasm. And I think it's really a shame that uh men aren't uh this isn't more common knowledge that men could learn. Wow, I'd like to maybe that won't be my favorite thing, but I'd sure love to check it out. And it might be a man's favorite thing, but it's the the uh information isn't widely uh shared. And so that's one reason I'm happy to have this opportunity to share.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Well, uh, another thing I'd like you to share, and I'm sure the listeners are uh love this, give some best practice tips on how people and their partners can make love for hours.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Well, if you want to make love for hours, you have to make sure that you're not carrying any resentments. So, you know how many times you're still a little bit upset. This is totally normal. Certainly happens to me too. You're a little bit upset about something that got said this morning at breakfast, and so your heart partner might approach you later in the day and go, Hey, you want to make love? And you're like, Nope, don't feel like it. Because you're still a little bit resentful about something that happened this morning or yesterday or last week or last year. So this is normal for people who've been together for a while to still be uh stuff they haven't talked about from this morning or last week or last year. In fact, when I do uh therapy with couples who've been together maybe 20 years, they might have something that happened 10 years ago that they're still upset about. So all of these things that we don't talk about make us not feel like making love. They make us feel like we don't trust the other person, they make us feel like we don't want to open up to our partner. And if you want to be making love for hours with somebody, which is completely possible, you have to do what I call clearing techniques. So when my husband and I are, for example, gonna make love, we sit down on the couch together first and we just say, Is there anything we need to talk about? Well, I thought you were a little grumpy this morning. Well, you know what I was, and I'm sorry. You know, uh, I didn't really feel good that you uh had your sister come visit us and didn't ask me. Well, you're right, you know, I should have asked you. Or maybe sometimes it gets a little more argument. But if you want to get into a space of really beautiful love making with your partner, this is one technique that uh is really essential, is what we call clearing conversations to just make sure there's nothing still hanging out between the two of you that's gonna interfere with how close you want to be. Because you really want to be close with someone when there's no traffic, there's no stalled out traffic between you in the space between you. You want a clear communication, and that way when you get into those intimate situations when you're communicating non-verbally, you're communicating with your bodies and your love, that uh there won't be these kind of things stopping you. So that's another thing. People don't know that it's really possible to make love for hours and hours, and um, sometimes people experience that when they're first together, but you can also have that when you're together after a long period of time. But you do have to do this kind of work to keep the conversation clear between you.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Absolutely. Well, let's talk about soulmate relationships, talk about the secrets to a soulmate relationship and how one can attract that.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Well, a soulmate relationship um is basically uh in tantra, we talk about the chakra system, but it basically means, and I think that uh a lot of people have heard this kind of saying, you attract what you are. So if you're grumpy and um like I was kind of um more judged when I was looking for my soulmate, I realized I'm not as loving as I'm about a half-loving person. And so that's one reason I was attracting partners who were half-loving. I had to tell the truth about that. That if I wanted to attract a more loving partner, I needed to become more loving myself. So people are looking for a soulmate relationship, and you're gonna attract pretty much uh your person you attract is gonna be pretty much a mirror of you. So if you haven't cleaned out your heart, if you're still carrying trauma from your childhood, I was, I was in therapy a lot. I had to do a lot of work to clear out my kind of lousy childhood, but I did all the work because I wanted to experience love in my life. If you're still uh, if you're, for example, your finances are a mess, you're not gonna attract someone who's gonna save you from that. It's unlikely. You need to clean that stuff up yourself. So basically, when you want to attract a soulmate, you want to look at yourself and go, what about myself? Do I need to bring up to the level of the person I'm looking for? Now, today we're taught that that just means your looks or your car or your uh all the exterior things. And you know, it's okay to get that going as nice as you'd like, but that's not what's gonna attract a soulmate. What's gonna attract a soulmate is, I'm sorry if this sounds very woo-woo, but it's you're gonna be your vibration, it's gonna be what you're putting out there in terms of how loving are you, how spiritual are you, how giving are you, how much do you have your life together, how much are you able to say you're sorry, how much are you able to take responsibility, like when you have these clearing conversations and say, Yeah, you know you're right, that was me this morning. I'm sorry, instead of going, you know, because what often happens, what used to happen to me in my relationships before I figured it out was no, it wasn't me, it was you. It was you, damn it. You're always like that, and so we have to be able to, if we want a soulmate relationship, we have to be able to rise up to the level to go, you know what? I think you're right. I was scrunky this morning, and I'm sorry that I don't really want to talk to you that way, or whatever it is. So a soulmate relationship means you want the highest relationship possible, and you're willing to improve yourself to be able to attract that because you'll attract what you are.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Let's talk about uh some common misconceptions that people have about Tantra.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Well, the main misconceptions, as I said earlier, are basically that it has to do with um wrapping yourself up like a pretzel when you have sex. Uh, you may or may not want to do that, but it's not necessarily tantra. Um, people think tantra means uh having orgies, and uh some people who practice tantra might have orgies, but it's not inherent in it. My husband and I are completely monogamous. And uh, when I studied tantra in an ashram in India, we didn't have any orgies, so there might be some people doing that, but that's not uh necessary, or even something many of us are not even interested in. Um, people think that tantra has just to do with sex when it actually has more to do with love. So if it didn't have such a weird reputation, I think a lot more people would be attracted to it because it's how to make love uh love, how to make how to have sex lovingly and intimately, and how to get as close to your partner as possible. That's a beautiful thing. Many of us are looking for that, but we're a little scared and we don't have guidelines for that. So Tantra offers some guidelines for that, just like I was sharing earlier, like learning to have orgasms without ejaculation, or learning to have clearing conversations, learning how to talk about what you're scared about, and all these kinds of things. So the misconception is that it's something dirty and weird and strange, and for some people it might be, I don't know, but that's not what I learned about.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

We talk about the top three mistakes people make in dating.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Wow. Well, number one, I think it's about um I think I think we're taught that uh our you know, we're sold a bill of goods by uh uh advertising that a date should look a certain way, dress a certain way, act a certain way, and uh everybody's looking for the same person that looks and acts and and um and uh behaves a certain way and owns certain things. And that if the person meets that criteria criteria, what I was taught was that you should go after them. But if you go after someone who just has that exterior thing, how do you know that they're a good match for you? You don't. So that's the number one thing I think is I mean, it sounds sounds like something everybody knows not to focus too much on the exterior, but it's actually quite deep because I think we tend to think that that kind of person is gonna be our our soulmate. Number two, I think that uh biggest mistake we make is uh we think that being in the friend zone is a bad thing. And in Tantra, we're like, why would you want to have sex with anybody that you're not friends with? That sounds kind of creepy to have sex with someone you're not really close and friendly with. So uh there's a famous uh relationship psychologist called John Gottman. He works with his wife, Julie, and they uh write some popular books, and they said that this is my favorite statistic. They said that 69% of people in successful relationships say that the friendship is the most important thing. I was when I first heard that, I'm like, You're kidding. Men must think sex is the most important thing. No, that was men and women in successful relationships. 70% say it's the friendship that's the most important thing. When I read that, I just thought, why are we not trying to cultivate friends when we're dating? Why do we think the friend zone means no sex? So I think this is really backwards. And I'm gonna actually call that, I think that's so important. I'm gonna call that number two and number three, because uh, I was actually just on the phone earlier with someone who was saying, uh, you what you want to do with this uh person you're dating is try to cultivate more of a friendship so that they trust you, so they're not scared of you. And um that's gonna make whether this your whether your dating then works out or not, you've increased your ability to be a loving person, a friendly person, and uh created more love in the world just by dating.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Well, I know you talk a lot about conscious touch, so uh explain to the listeners the definition of conscious touch.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Okay, I will. Uh it's one of my favorite subjects. Conscious touch uh means that um we're fully in our bodies when we touch. So often we just you think about when you hug a stranger and you just kind of go unconscious at that moment because it's a little bit intimate, and you know, you're hugging your aunt or your cousin or something. And what we want to do when we're with a lover is we want to actually feel everything about our body while we're touching somebody. So we might actually just run our fingertips. We can practice it right now, we could just practice running our fingertips over our arm. And we can actually really tune into it mindfully and go, oh, I feel I feel that. And we just really turn off our minds and just really become aware of what that touch feels like. It's a very different experience when you bring your awareness to the touch than when you're just kind of touching someone rotely. And many times we make love just doing the kinds of motions that we have learned are successful to make love. And we don't actually slow down and bring our consciousness to, oh, what does that actually feel like where my partner's stroking my arm? Let me just feel how delicious that is. And you can actually have orgasmic feelings just from a simple touch on your arm if you really relax into it and feel it fully. So a lot when we study tantra, we do exercises where we will sit with a partner. And like I said, you can do it to yourself, but of course it's much more fun with a partner where we'll just slow down. And we don't even do sexual touch. We just might stroke an arm, touch a shoulder, stroke someone's face, and we start feeling how exquisite that is, just to have a soft touch on the face. Sometimes we call it angel touches, just touching so lightly. And we start training our attention to have these very conscious, mindful touches. And then later on we can bring that to love making, and that just becomes very exquisite. But it starts with training ourselves to become more aware that in certain moments you can just sit in your chair and become mindful of how it feels your butt is touching the chair or your legs. And you can practice this as a sort of whenever you remember, you just go, oh, I feel my body. I feel the touch of the chair, I feel the touch of my hand against the computer pad here. And you really uh start to develop uh this ability in yourself for conscious touch. This is something that's at the root of all tantric uh connection.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Well, talk to the listeners about your books, including your uh your upcoming book, you know, kind of give us a brief description of us of it and uh, you know, tell us what inspired it and when it's coming out and all that good stuff. Anything else you want to tell us?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Thanks for that opportunity. Um, when I wrote Tantric Dating and it was received so well, I thought, well, I'll write a couple of other short books about Tantra. So um all my uh books in my Tantra Mastery series, there's five, and as Curtis is saying, the sixth one is going to be coming out hopefully before the end of the year. So there's tantric mating, dating, relating, healing, and uh loving. And um those are the five that I have. They're all only a hundred pages. They all you can read them in an hour or two, easy. Um, I tried to make them very easy to read. I have they're very inexpensive because I want to spread the word. Um, so uh you can check those out on Amazon or wherever your favorite place is. The ebooks are like 99 cents. And the one that's coming out is gonna the last in the series is gonna be called Tantra Pro-Aging, because in Tantra we believe that uh love and love making can get better with age. You know, I was taught like everybody else that it get sex gets worse with age, but that's not my experience, and that's not the experience of Tantra. So we see it as a lifelong journey. Um, I know the ancient Chinese believed that people in their 80s should still be making love every day. So um that could be a possibility. So this book, uh, this book that's going to be coming out, the last of the series, is uh pro-aging. So it's kind of challenging the myths that uh sex has to get worse as we get older, or that we it's harder to find partners. There's actually, if for your older listeners, there's plenty of attractive older people out there. It's not uh it's not at all not at all like they tell you. And um, so I hope that book will bust some myths and help some people. And uh, like I said, it's a it's a series, so you can uh learn tantra in little little bites. Each book has exercises in the back that you can do to learn some tantric principles, and uh you don't have to get these books in a brown paper. How did they say that? Brown paper wrapper. They're all G-rated. Well the ones that talk more explicitly are just still more like science. They're not like trying to turn you on or anything. So, anyway, I hope those books will be helpful if you're interested. That's a way to not have to make a lot of investment or read a lot.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Well, uh that does those books include your upcoming book?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

That includes my upcoming book, which is the one on uh Tantra Pro aging.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Okay, well, besides your upcoming book, tell us about any other upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Um well, I'm gonna be finishing my PhD in uh October, which I'm very excited about. And I'll I'll turn that uh dissertation into a book as well. But I'm not not talking that much about it because it's probably gonna be another six months or a year. But um, if you want to follow me on social media, stay in touch. I also have a YouTube channel where I put all my podcasts and uh lots of videos, so you can learn some Tantra on there. I'm always getting uh emails from people saying, Oh, I watched your videos, and they're from all parts of the world. So please help help yourself to watching videos. You can learn about Tantra and some other things on there. And um so those are my upcoming projects. I still I um I I see do psychotherapy with clients and uh singles and couples, and uh those are my upcoming projects.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Well, that was gonna be my next question, though. I should contact info. Tell us the name of your YouTube channel if you got a uh website, throw that out as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yes, if so, my name is Catherine with the C C A T H E R I N E. My last name is A-U-M-A-N. And that you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, uh, you can find me on YouTube, you can find my website with that, so and you can find me on my books on Amazon. So um I just try to be everywhere, and please connect with me and we can stay in touch. I have a uh newsletter that comes out every other week. I'm gonna be uh next week on a panel called Tantra Unlocked, and there's uh 12 women each giving talks. I'm gonna be talking on uh how to stay emotionally connected during sex. So uh if you'd like to attend that for free, please go to my Facebook page. There's a link. Uh, or you can uh I think you can probably uh I don't know if you can Google Tantra Unlocked, but if you go to my Facebook page, you can have a link there and you can come join us for free.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

So is that website, KatherineAllman.com.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yes. Uh-huh. And my uh and on Facebook it's KatherineAllman.author. And Instagram, it's just Katherine Alman. So I try to keep you entertained if you want to follow me there.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Absolutely. We'll close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Hmm. I just uh invite you to check out Tantra, it's very uh loving and wonderful. And uh if you heard the the negative stuff about it, just take a chance and you might find that it's something that you've been looking for. Certainly was for me.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

All right, ladies and gentlemen, for more on um Catherine and everything that she's up to, including uh checking out her upcoming book. Visit CatherineAllman.com, check out her YouTube channel, check her out on social media and all the places that she's at. Follow rate review, share this episode to as many people as possible. Also to learn and be aware and up to date when the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast releases new episodes. You can visit www.curveball337.com. And if you haven't done so, sign up for the newsletter to keep up with all things living the dream. Share the website and the show to everybody that you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Catherine, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Thank you, Curtis. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.