http://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/

Holistic Life Navigation, P. O. Box 263, Bearsville, NY (2025)

11/19/2025

I'm endlessly fascinated with the difference between gender roles in Western societies and s*x-specific roles in tribal ones.

It seems that the tribal roles bring a great deal of peace and ease.

Nature assigns these, not governments or religions. These individuals learn how to use what's unique about their body to further the collective.

It's not done in isolation, it's seen as equal value to one another, and you don't see anything like depression, addiction or isolation.

But when you take these gender, s*x-specific roles and you put them in an isolated context it's more than any one person is equipped to handle.

Women are shackled in their homes with children, losing all sense of self, and men are tasked to endlessly provide until they burn out and become numb.

It's no wonder we try to escape s*x and gender roles so much. I did for years.

What's fascinating is, when done in a collective way, they begin to feel empowering.

When you're braiding your sister's hair, singing while sweeping the floors, and you have 10-15 other women who can hold and nurse your child for you it is a very different experience.

Same as when you can hunt for days with your brothers, swim naked to wash off, and laugh around a campfire as you bring food back to your tribe.

These are the very things, in the Western world, we pay thousands of dollars to experience at retreat centers.

Community living.

This post speaks to both s*xes, but my upcoming group is just for men to come together in an anything goes space to unburden themselves from what they carry alone.

Which means releasing the resentment, finding their center through somatic practices, and learning a new way forward with the support of a collective of men cheering them on.

I think it's fair to say that men have less spaces they can access to learn embodiment, invoking the feminine and masculine, and practicing feeling seen and supported with other men only - which is why I'm focusing on them in this upcoming group.

Comment "men" to register. Make sure to do so by 12/15. We begin in January.

11/18/2025

I just discovered that this song was about Jonathan Melvoin, the keyboardist of The Smashing Pumpkins who died of a he**in overdose.

I miss the music of the 90s because of the profound empathy and wisdom many songs brought to the matter of death and addiction.

This is what I teach as well: that addiction is the result of not knowing how to find safety inside of yourself.

The pain and overwhelm seem endless and, there you, alone with it all. So you reach for the nearest drug: money, your phone, chocolate cake, or he**in.

Something that shifts your state and brings a temporarily release from having to feel what you hold.

On November 24th I'll be hosting a FREE webinar on using food as an adjunct form of therapy to support us as we recover from addictive substances and behaviors.

Please share widely with anyone you know who could use this.

Register here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/events/how-nutrition-impacts-addiction

11/17/2025

Platonic male intimacy saved my life.

What most women might not know about men is how we're conditioned to see all touch as s*xual.

This is due to p**n and s*x hormones in puberty.

You can look at old photos of men. Their arms are around each other, some are kissing cheeks, and you can even find beautiful footage of present-day tribes in Africa where the men bathe together, wash each other, and hold each other naked while receiving ceremonial tattoos.

Humans need touch and men are no different, but our touch is so overcoupled with s*x that it becomes a "no-go" zone, especially with straight guys and their same s*x friends. (cue my recent music single "Same S*x Friends" .mojica.music).

Po*******hy and being s*xually violated by straight men left me in an extremely sensitive, hyper-aroused place around male touch.

ANY male touch, even from men I wasn't attracted to, would cause immediate s*xual arousal - so I avoided men like the plague.

I had already been viciously bullied for being bis*xual throughout middle and high school. I didn't want anymore unwanted attention.

So male intimacy either meant full on s*xual hook ups or cold distance between me and my straight male friends.

Until I met these beautiful brother bi***es who I love so much. (Zach) and (Steven) have rewired my brain, body and ge****ls by rehabilitating my heart around men.

They are the first straight men I've ever befriended who are so secure in their s*xuality and masculinity that they can be hugged, cuddled, and even hold hands when walking down the street just like girls often do with their dear girl friends.

I call these type of men "Moon Men". Men that can invoke the feminine through their male bodies and it makes them even more secure in their masculine.

These two have held me, cried me, laughed me, and cuddled me back to life when it comes to my relationship with men.

They're helped me reclaim the non-s*xual, platonic intimacy I had with other boys before puberty - most men reading this will know what that means.

And they help me facilitate my 6 month Embodied Masculinity group where we teach men how to open their hearts by deeply embodying their emotions, femininity, and masculinity.

Comment "men" to join now. Registration closes 12/15 and we begin in January.

11/16/2025

Atarah Valentine joins Luis on the podcast today. They warm up talking about how we can practice self hatred, and we can practice gratitude. It's all a practice. What choices and practices have adapted you to be the person you are?

Men, Atarah saw, hurt women. He did not want to hurt women. As a result he practiced hating masculinity. He evoked feminine energy emulating his grandmother who wanted to fix everything for everyone. Another woman he emulated was his mother who married abusive men attempting to fix them.

"Real men wear white socks" he was told, but Atarah is not the white socks wearing type. So he shrank, "apologized with [his] shoulders", and stayed small, not wanting to take up space. Until the age of 40 when he decided to embrace his power and begin training.

Training, and his platonic relationship with his male trainer, helped heal his relationship to masculinity in himself and with men. The masculine parts he had been rejecting were ultimately the parts that freed him.

Join Luis December 3 at 1pm EST. for the webinar, Reclaiming Masculinity: Embodying Our Nature Beneath Toxic Conditioning, where we dive into this topic together.

What do you do to balance the masculine and feminine energies in yourself?

You can register for the upcoming webinar, Reclaiming Masculinity, here: https://hln.thinkific.com/courses/reclaiming-masculinity

You can read more about, and register for, the 2026 Embodied Masculinity group here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/slow-practice-mens-group

You can read more about Atarah, and work with him, here: https://theseedlevel.teachable.com/

Listen to the podcast:
https://holisticlifenavigation.buzzsprout.com/

Watch on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/

11/15/2025

On December 3rd I'll be leading a webinar that celebrates the masculine when it's in balance.

I'll also be explaining how repression of the masculine is just as toxic to an individual, and others, as is the stereotypical dominant type of masculine.

Who modeled masculinity for you?

How does it feel to hate your masculine expressions?

How does it feel to cling to them and repress your feminine?

Masculinity is a force, and a very important one at that. When we learn how to relate to it we can find a lot of balance inside of ourselves.

Please register through the link in my bio.

11/14/2025

Comment "addiction" to get the FREE registration link sent to your DMs.

11/13/2025

On today's episode, Luis is joined by Annette Knopp - meditation teacher, somatic educator, nature mystic, and author - to discuss her newly released book Mystic Nomad: A Woman's Wild Journey to True Connection.

In her book, Annette shares the personal experiences that shaped who she is as a person, and then how these events developed her way of teaching and showing up in the world. Part memoir, part modality teaching, she wrote the book with the intention of sharing her story as a way to support others.

Luis reads his favorite excepts from the book, and invites Annette to share her reflections on each section. Together they discuss the ways in which the personal can be universal, and how sharing of deep and highly personal experiences is an act of generosity.

You can order the book here: https://www.annetteknopp.com/book

You can read more about Annette and her work here: https://www.annetteknopp.com/

Listen to the podcast:
https://holisticlifenavigation.buzzsprout.com/

Watch on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/

11/12/2025

Our fathers bear the torch from their fathers, but what if their torch was put out?

Masculinity is an energy not limited to just one s*x. Any one can invoke it, however it is undoubtedly amplified by testosterone.

This is why men, especially pubescent boys, require some serious attunement, teachings, and guidance from the elder men around them.

The best way to teach something is to BE it.

I've worked with many people who, at their core, carry a pain inflicted from their father and why they associate what they do with men and the masculine.

If your father was absent, masculinity means abandonment.

If he was cruel, masculinity means mean.

If he was big and loud and dominating, masculinity means oppressive.

The issue is this: because it's an energy, and not assigned to just one s*x, it can throw us all out of balance when we dislike it, repress it, or abandon it because of these connotations.

Embodying your own masculine energy can be incredibly empowering and revolutionary, especially when you don't come from such great examples of it.

In January I lead my 4th Embodied Masculinity program. It is a men's only space that focuses on healing from unsupported puberty, male-specific conditioning, and coming together in a collective of men to recover from the pain that results in isolation, competition, and even male-based traumas.

You can join through the link in my bio, but everyone can join my upcoming webinar on 12/3 which is all about using somatics to embody their own masculinity and undo the negative connotations we've attached due to painful experiences with the masculine.

Register here: https://hln.thinkific.com/courses/reclaiming-masculinity

11/11/2025

I have a few points of nuance I wanted to add to a post that could be seen as reductive.

First off, I know le****ns with similar situations. But I'm not a women, nor am I a le***an, so I'm not leading a group for them.

I also find it interesting that men I've worked with who had two moms didn't have this same experience. Yes, they may have craved a father figure (and some also had one) but they didn't feel the burden of caring for a single mother.

Single is the key word here.

What makes it different for most men is the masculinity piece. A daughter to a single mom may also feel burdened to care for her mom, but not as the "man" or "replacement" for the father.

It may be more of a sister, or friend, or even doting daughter.

There's a unique and specific experience that happens to developing boys, in particular, with this dynamic that I feel needs more attention.

And in no way do I shame single mothers. It's the most intense job imaginable.

But we need to also be aware of the repercussions it can have on their, in this case, young boys.

I've witnessed so many men repress and even hate their masculinity to not hurt their mothers, who had been so hurt by their fathers.

I've also seen many men have their masculinity use to "husband" their mothers in the absence of a loving partner.

My Embodied Masculinity group holds all of it so men can learn to stop hating and distrusting the feminine (in themselves and others), while also learning to root into their beautiful masculine expressions that can lift up and support themselves and others.

Join through the link in my bio.

11/10/2025

My journey into maleness is a unique one.��

The only people I’ve met that truly relate to it are other inters*x men and trans men.��Yet, it was to my amazement, that all men deal with this in some way.��

When you’re born, like I was, from a lineage of fathers hurting their sons you come to see masculinity as abandonment, abuse, and something to not trust.��

And then you’re born into a culture that lacks the rituals for coming into a male body + honoring puberty, and s*x, and how to treat a lover and a friend.��

So we’re misguided, hurt, and cut off from this very important natural force that flows through us.�� And the result is often what we see as toxic masculinity or repressed masculinity.��

Men being violent or men being boys for life.��

Men being dominant and controlling or straight men calling themselves q***r and leaning on expressing as more feminine because they're presence is better received in spaces where women and other people have been hurt by men.��

On December 3rd, I'm hosting a webinar that will teach you my practices and philosophy on how to reclaim masculinity from something that can only be dominated or repressed.

I'll use somatic practices, stories, and my unique inters*x perspective on masculinity as a force that all s*xes and genders can learn how to better relate to.

Comment "webinar" to register.

11/09/2025

Meet Zach Kalatsky, a mentor for the Embodied Masculinity 6 months slow group, as well as a member of the HLN retreat team. He joins Luis today for a chat about their experience as friends, and as part of a team that holds the all male slow group members.

So many men identify as being fatherless sons, sons of men who could not connect and support their boys the ways they needed. The result is a lingering and deep sense of never being supportively held by men in their life. Part of the shift and practice of the men's group is realizing, "I can be held". A foundational reason this is possible is the group's sense of collaboration, not competition.

You can read more about Zach, and connect with him, here: https://www.theforesthaven.com

Listen to the podcast:
https://holisticlifenavigation.buzzsprout.com/

Watch on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/

Holistic Life Navigation

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