The Love Drive with Shaun Galanos

On July 13th, I lost one of my dear friends. Josh Kalven was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive cancer in March and died four months later. He was a husband, a dad to a five-year-old, and a sweet friend.

This episode is a eulogy. I read Josh the letter I wrote him in June, back when we still thought he'd beat it. It's full of stuck ropes, bad slab, his famous hummus sandwich, and everything he taught me about climbing and friendship. And I talk about grief. What losing my dad, my dog, and now Josh has taught me. How devastating it is, and, if you can find it, how beautiful.

Grief is unexpressed love. Maybe. It's also expressed love.

If there's someone you love who doesn't know it, and an email you've been meaning to send, let this be your invitation to send it.

I'm taking August off to move into the new place and rest, so this is the last episode until September. If it touches you, share it with someone who needs it. And I'd love to hear from you. Leave me a voicemail at 415-494-9559 or an email at podcast@thelovedrive.com. Take good care of yourself and the people you love.

Connect with Shaun:
Read my blog: https://shaungalanos.substack.com
The Love Drive Podcast: https://shaungalanos.com/podcast/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelovedrive/
More About Shaun: https://shaungalanos.com/about/
Buy me a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/thelovedrive

The manosphere thinks going down on a woman is gay, submissive, or a low-return waste of time. It's wrong on all three — so I brought in an expert to help me prove it.

In this crossover episode — Shameless Love — I sit down with sex educator Amy Baldwin from the Shameless Sex podcast for an honest, explicit, and useful guide to going down on women. We take apart the manosphere nonsense, then get practical: how to get out of your head as a receiver, real anatomy (yes, Amy brought a vulva puppet), hygiene without the shame, communication that actually works, and my field-tested tips for being great at this — plus a rapid-fire hot-or-not round to finish.

Ten years ago I wrote a blog called What Women Wish You Knew About Eating Pussy. Consider this the 2.0.

Explicit. Headphones recommended.

Mentioned in this episode
She Comes First — Ian Kerner
Emily Nagoski ("same parts, organized differently")
Dan Savage
Midori — the "pussy hug"
Feeld (dating app) · Uberlube
Amy's book, Shameless Sex
What women wished you knew about eating pussy blog post

Links
Shameless Sex: podcast + shamelesssex.com (couples retreats, Oct 2026)

Connect with Shaun
Read the blog
The Love Drive Podcast
Instagram: @thelovedrive
More about Shaun
Buy me a coffee

A listener asks whether to move back to somewhere familiar or take a leap somewhere new. Shaun uses the question to explore something bigger: how do you make peace with a life you can't predict?

In this episode: finding community after a move, the "third space" concept, why it took two years to find his people in Montreal, what Flagstaff taught him, and why every choice — city, relationship, kids, career — requires you to grieve the road not taken.

Books mentioned:
The Untethered Soul — Michael Singer
Meditations for Mortals — Oliver Burkemam

Work with Me
I have room for 3 new coaching clients. If this episode resonated — this is exactly the work we can do together.
shaungalanos.com/coaching or https://shaungalanos.substack.com/p/love-and-relationship-mentorship

Leave a Listener Question
📞 415-494-9559 📧 podcast@thelovedrive.com

Connect with me
Read the blog
The Love Drive Podcast
Instagram: @thelovedrive
More about Shaun
Buy me a coffee

Follow & Subscribe
If this episode moved you, share it with someone who needs it. Word of mouth is everything for an independent podcast.

Jess Janz is a writer, community facilitator, and the founder of Dinner With Strangers - a project that has brought over a thousand people together for a meal with one rule: no one talks about what they do for work. Her book, The Table Where We Meet, is out July 14th.

We set out to talk about platonic love and ended up somewhere more personal - about what it actually means to bid for connection with a stranger, what gets in the way of letting people in, and what happens when someone turns the big scary light on and decides to stay anyway.

In this conversation: why we project entire futures onto people we've known for five minutes, the grief of nine years of building something and not knowing where you end and the project begins, why friend breakups are so hard to mourn, and the small everyday acts that are actually love stories - if only we'd name them.

What We Cover
1.  Why we are obsessed with romantic love over platonic love - and what that costs us
2.  How Dinner With Strangers works, and why removing the agenda is what makes connection possible
3.  Projection: narrating entire futures onto strangers in coffee shops before they have introduced themselves
4.  Bidding for connection - small honest signals and whether they get returned
5.  Jess answers "how are you" honestly - fear about the book, and not knowing who she is outside the work
6.  Identity tied to vocation and the danger of losing yourself in what you have built
7.  The loneliness of being single while creating - no one to debrief with at the end of the day
8.  The big scary light - what it means to be truly seen, and what is actually more terrifying: rejection or acceptance
9.  Friend breakups - no script, no closure, no culturally sanctioned way to grieve
10. How to actually build community - ritualizing friendship and why getting out of your comfort zone is the only answer nobody wants to hear

About Jess Janz
Jess Janz is a writer, poet, and community facilitator based in Toronto. She is the founder of Dinner With Strangers, a gathering project that has brought over 1,000 people together across North America for meals where no one talks about what they do for work. She has hosted events for lululemon, Pinterest, Wealthsimple, and The W Hotel, among others.

Her debut book, The Table Where We Meet: Lessons Learned From Dinner With 1,000 Strangers, is out July 14, 2026. She also writes a Substack called Gentle Company.

Connect with Jess
Instagram: @jessjanz
Website: jessjanz.com
Pre-order the book: jessjanz.com/book
Substack: Gentle Company

Connect with Shaun
Read the blog
The Love Drive Podcast
Instagram: @thelovedrive
More about Shaun
Buy me a coffee

This week's episode is a tender one. I recorded this on Father's Day — three years after losing my dad — and I'm reading my Substack essay Living with a Broken Heart and riffing on what it means to keep showing up, keep feeling, and keep choosing love even when it costs you.

I also make a correction from EP17, share a few quotes that have been sitting with me, and offer some practical tips on how to actually live with a broken heart — not just survive it.

In This Episode
A raw check-in: Father's Day, grief, and why I showed up to record anyway

Correction from EP17 (What is Love?) on Ho'oponopono — what it actually is, and why it matters

I read my essay: Living with a Broken Heart

6 tips on how to live with a broken heart

I have room for 3 new coaching clients

Quotes
"God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open." — Hazrat Inayat Khan

"You have to keep breaking your heart until it stays open." — attributed to Rumi

"Maturity happens when we learn to hold ambiguity: emotions that contradict each other, that don't quite make sense together. So maybe as we grow up, we get better at smiling when we cry, dancing as we grieve, being kind when we lose our shit." — Max Vallot

"I haven't been feeling like myself lately. I must be growing." — Unknown

Books Mentioned
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents — Lindsay C. Gibson

The Road Less Traveled — M. Scott Peck

No Bad Parts — Richard Schwartz

A Note on Ho'oponopono
In EP17, I referred to Ho'oponopono as a prayer, meditation, or mantra. That was incorrect. Ho'oponopono is an ancient Hawaiian practice with deep cultural roots and strict protocols around who can practice it and how. It's not a phrase or a technique — it's a process for restoring harmony within a family, traditionally facilitated by a trained elder.

A listener and Love Camp alumna who works closely with this community took the time to write me a generous and educational correction, and I'm really grateful. The resources below are a good place to start if you'd like to learn more.

Start here:
Kekoa Kealoha on Ho'oponopono and The Pitt — A Kanaka Maoli content creator and activist responds to a "Ho'oponopono poem" featured in the HBO show The Pitt. Accessible, contemporary, and worth 2 minutes of your time.

Moʻo ʻŌlelo: Moʻolelo Hoʻoponopono with Aunty Lynette Paglinawan and Kaʻaiʻai Paglinawan — A grounded, primary-source conversation about what Ho'oponopono actually is.

Talk Story with Aunty Lynette: What Is The Hawaiian Way? — Not specifically about Ho'oponopono, but a beautiful introduction to Hawaiian worldview and values.

Go deeper:
Hoʻopono: Mutual Emergence — Dr. Meyer

Nānā I Ke Kumu: Look to the Source — Foundational texts on Hawaiian worldview, culture, history, and practice

Work with Me
I have room for 3 new coaching clients. If this episode resonated — heartbreak, grief, fear of love and intimacy, learning to set boundaries or make requests for your needs — this is exactly the work we can do together.
Book here or email me for more information.
https://shaungalanos.substack.com/p/love-and-relationship-mentorship

Leave a Listener Question
📞 415-494-9559 📧 podcast@thelovedrive.com

Follow & Subscribe
If this episode moved you, share it with someone who needs it. Word of mouth is everything for an independent podcast.