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Interview with Valerie Irons: Awakening Beyond Unrequited Love · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Kay Eck, and this is where we talk to ordinary people about their extraordinary lives.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, watchers and listeners and friends of the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: We're back with my guest today, Valerie Irons.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Valerie.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's nice to be here.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm um excited to uh talk about what I think we're going to talk about today, although I never really know.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: But um I met you a month or so ago, and you shared with me an incredible love story, and I really want to talk about that today because I mean everybody loves a good love story.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: But first I'd like to um go a little bit into your background.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Where were you born?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: What was your family like, and um how would you have seen yourself as a child?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: How did you see yourself?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, okay.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and um I was born to a Navy captain at the time, and uh my mom and two older uh brothers, uh seven and nine years older than me.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my dad had a couple daughters from his prior marriage who were about 20 and 22 years older than me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So one of them was had already had her first son.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So my nephew was born before I was.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we uh went uh pretty quickly from uh Tennessee to Yokosuka, Japan.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: My dad got stationed in Japan, and very quickly after that he became an admiral, and we moved around um all the time.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: We lived in Oakland, California on the Naval Air Base, and we um lived in Pensacola, Florida, and uh McLean, Virginia, and then we moved um during the Vietnam War.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: My dad left the Navy and he started to work for the government.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was a program called USAID, and um he lived in Vietnam during the war, and we lived in Taiwan for four and a half years, Taipei, Taiwan, and um that was second through fifth grade, and for sixth grade um we moved to Bangkok, Thailand.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So most of my elementary schooling was done out of the United States, and uh I moved to Virginia, uh, seventh grade from uh Thailand, and boy, was that a culture shock, going from wearing um uh flowy Thai silk elephant pants and halter tops to wearing Levi's and wool sweaters, and it really wasn't um it didn't suit me at all.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a shocking year, and after a year we moved to San Diego, and so I spent most of my um uh all of my high school time in San Diego and some college, and so I've pretty much been a Southern California girl until I moved to Arizona 20 years ago.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's a lot of uh different um contributing cultures that formed you as a person, I'm guessing.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is did you feel the cultural influence other than just the clothes?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um absolutely.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: I uh it really suited my soul, so to say.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: So um in Taiwan, uh I went to a uh American school, but we would have uh we would do make dragons and do dragon dances like for the Chinese New Year.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so we would learn all sorts of things.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: We had a temple right above where we lived, uh, we lived on a hill, and every Sunday, every Saturday, the streets would be filled with people walking up the winding, winding roads of my neighborhood to go to the temple.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I really got to experience a lot.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when I when I got to Bangkok, um it really spoke to me um the uh culture, the golden temples with the sparkling uh mirrors and blues and uh reds and all the different colors that uh Thailand is just all these gleaming spires of gold uh in their cities.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's very beautiful.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um the Thai culture really, really spoke to my heart.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was little, I I fell in love with it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the uh we everybody had maids when you when you're foreign, living in a foreign country.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and our maids would take me everywhere, they would take me to the um celebrations uh of the floating.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: There was a candlelit ceremony I remember going to.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was in honor of the ancestors, and you would make these little boats and you would put offerings on them and put candles on them, and everybody would go to all the rivers and the clongs in uh Bangkok and we would light the candles and say our prayers and push the boats off and things of that nature.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it was fantastic.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Did your family have a religious tradition?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um we were Christian, um, but we went to the Navy bases for um for our church services.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um we all all of the kids we went to Sunday school and uh we would go to um Christmas Eve or Christmas service, but that ended quite quickly when I got over six years old.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think I don't remember any of that happening after six.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Why was that?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that moving to Taiwan, um moving to Taiwan, uh it was different.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the church would have been very far away, but my family just was just not big Christian uh churchgoers.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: My mom was actually um born in a Mormon family.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um we weren't very religious, which I think allowed me to become very spiritual.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, allowed me to really look at different religions or different cultures and and um really get a grasp of uh the unity within many many different ways of so I I want to hear a little bit more about that era when you were in Taiwan during the Vietnam War, and obviously you were separate, your father was separated from the family.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what was that like for you guys?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um he came home twice a month for two weekends a month.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, um, my dad was was an admiral, he was stern, he was um a little tough, and so I didn't mind not having him home.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: My mom was uh my mom and I were very close.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: We we'd gone uh fun adventures, shopping adventures, luncheon adventures, and um I loved it, so I did not mind not having him home.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you didn't feel any of that constant worry about his safety and what was happening in the world because you were rather close to it.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that I was more concerned with my brothers getting drafted.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And did they?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you're you you you went on to go to high school in San Diego, right?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then what happened after that?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um I applied uh to uh colleges and I got accepted to UCLA, and um so I went uh but without knowing really what I wanted to do, and it it wasn't really my cup of tea.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I skipped a lot of classes and went to the beach and was just enjoying uh my first year and a half of life outside of home.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um basically I let my my um grades drop and uh so I found out that I was going to get kicked out due to grades, and so I told my parents, and we decided I would come home and go to San Diego State at San Diego State University.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was only there actually I went to the junior college first and discovered film uh and uh the film industry, and I started to get into my creativity, which was really important for me in my life.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um I transferred to San Diego State and went into the film program, and right around that time, um my brother's high school girlfriend from Taiwan recontacted our family, and she was working in the film industry in Los Angeles, and so she said, You don't want to go to school to work in the film industry because you're just gonna come back and they're going to um have you work free as a page for months and months, and we're not gonna get paid, you won't be able to pay your rent.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Come work with us.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: You want to be a runner, you want to be a gopher girl, you know.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, she was working in the commercial industry, making uh TV commercials.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um I went up there and it was a match, and I started working um freelance, uh doing uh TV commercials, and I was the gopher and I would go get everything from the dry cleaning to the snacks to lunches to coffee to what you name it.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was exciting, it was thrilling, it was wonderful, it was a wonderful time.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: How long were you doing that?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I did it about three, four years.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I slowly made climbed up my ladder and um and then I moved into post-production and started working for a company with post-production and started to find interest in post-production in the painting of uh of as a matter of fact, Gatorade, Gatorade sweat drops.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um they had me painting a few of those um on a uh program, a computer program.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was not really getting anywhere with it.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't uh uh they had their people.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so they would just throw me a bone every now and then.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: So where where did you go from there?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you're in did you stay in the film industry?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I stayed in the film in industry until it was time to move to Sedona.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I uh had some friends here and um left the film industry when I went into my wild days.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: So this could get a little, I don't know if you want to go here, Kay.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: We all have wild days.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um it was about 1989 in Los Angeles, and um I I went into a life of uh I'm gonna say drugs and debauchery, uh uh party drugs and debauchery and late nights, and um it was the rave scene just as it hit the United States and I was prime.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I had been such a good girl up till then I hadn't rebelled, and this was my the beginning of my rebellion.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I dove in headfirst and uh really um went on that path.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think one of the things that took me on that path was a little uh bit of a heartbreak and uh disappointment in love.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is when my my pattern of disappointment in love began.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I dove into uh uh this wild crazy life for a good four years.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a long time when you're um you know, when it's a hard when it's a hard life like that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hard on the body, hard on the soul.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: So were you were you working during those days?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I can imagine that in the late 80s in Hollywood, Los Angeles, like that was probably not so uh difficult to get into that um to that scene.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I it was very easy to get into the scene, and I was working a lot at first, um, until I it slowly over the years I wasn't able to hold down the work.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I my my um uh nights of partying uh became more often and uh my recovery nights days, I needed more recovery days.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um, and I boy, you know, this is um talk about learning from doing.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I really went the opposite uh of where uh I've become.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: I had to I had to go on to that full scale, the other side of the scale, and lose my integrity and uh just all sorts of things that I wouldn't dream of doing now, just so that I think that I could come back to it.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: I could come back to um everything that's really important and come back to that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Come back to the yeah, during during that period, did you have contact with your family?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: I did, I did.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it I know that my mom was really quite worried.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because it was probably you probably thought you were keeping it pretty, you know, hidden and no.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: So did you would did you have to rely on them or um for financially?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I did.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: They they helped me out a lot.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I was very lucky uh to learn how to take care of myself after they had both both passed, and to learn to really um I had to grow up.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: How how old were you when that happened?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: 31 where my mom passed it.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: My dad passed it when I was 29, and they were much older when I was born.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I was planned, and um so I had to grow up really quickly.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: So the the invitation, the saving.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: So did you come out of your dark night of the soul before going to Sedona or how did that all happen?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened was um um in about 1993.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this would have been around in the at the end of the third year of my life of living the crazy life.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my mom, my dad died, and my mom invited me to go on a trip to Asia with her to go show me where my dad lived in Vietnam.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to show me his life in Vietnam, and we decided we'd go visit my brother in Hong Kong and go back to Thailand and just have a real nice trip together.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um we went over there.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And after we traveled together for two months, um, I went.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: The reason I went was because I wanted to stop the life I was living.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to stop all the drugs, and I didn't know how.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that if I got over there and got away from everything, I would be okay.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: So inside, this was this was my way of saving myself in a way.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so after two months, uh she was ready to return to the States, and the ticket was good for a year, and I said, Well, you know, I'm not coming home with you.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: She said, I thought you were gonna save that.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I stayed and backpacked for the rest of the 10 months in uh Asia.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um, wouldn't you know it?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I found the islands that were having raised and uh and all of that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't quite done, I wasn't quite finished with that kind of lifestyle, and I ended up um boy, I ended up uh going uh over to India to a place called Goa, where they're quite known for um that kind of lifestyle and the big party lifestyle and the big parties and um doing a lot of LSD and that wasn't in my repertoire up till then.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: So when I went over there and I uh I did LSD at the parties, I I had a real flip-out.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I had an incident happen and I felt like I lost uh my soulmate and lost God, and um my world literally turned to hell.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um so that was my event uh in my life.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: The one thing where the rug got pulled out from under me, and that began my healing journey, and that was the beginning of making me into who I am now.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: So when I got home from that trip, it was actually on that trip.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying to make things right, but they it wasn't happening, and I heard a voice and it said, Go home, your mother needs you, and so I went home and she died within one month uh to that day in my arms of a heart attack.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: So uh there I was trying to uh heal from what had happened.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I picked up a belief that I would never um be with anybody.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I would be single for the rest of my life, and um uh that's where that big belief happened.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um looking back, it had already started, the pattern had already started.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: My pattern unrequited love, but that's when um I got to see it and really unwrap it, unwind it over the next uh over the course of the next 20 years.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um as I was on my healing path, because after that um I was suicidal, and um it took everything uh that I I could muster up to get through this and get and art got me through it.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: I started creating art and I started to feel my heart and to feel God when I was creating art, and I started to understand that I did not, after all, lose God.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um I started my healing journey, just doing everything that I possibly could to um become whole again.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yet all my parts had kind of gone out into the ethers and grab them back and bring them back into me.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the long road.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I've taken the long road and I'm happy I have now.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think that that's that's a common experience with on the drug scene when you're doing drugs, is you you do deposit yourself in ways along the way.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: You lose yourself, you lose bits of yourself, you forget who you are if you ever really knew, you know, or any any inkling that you might have had, just you know is supplanted by God knows what.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: So, did you have do you consider to be the unrequited love like the the main pattern of your life, or were there other patterns running?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: There have been other patterns too, uh, that I've worked a lot on healing of not being heard, not being seen, um, being dismissed, um, things of that nature.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, every now and then those triggers will still come up, but I know how to look back and see where they came from, and I I know what they are now.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I understand it's not about what's happening now, it's about what happened back then.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know if you've if you've had this experience along your path, but I had something come up recently, and it was my it was, you know, my pattern.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was already aware of it and I had already been working on it so much that when this most recent one surfaced, I was so I have like a lot of shame about that, that I hadn't fully cleared it, that I hadn't made more progress.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it felt like I had taken 10 steps back.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm wondering if you had that experience at all.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: A lot.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: A lot.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then I it took me years and years and years to learn to love myself and forgive myself.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that took care of the shame.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: So talk to us a little bit about this process, a little bit about what you learn about unrequited love and what that was really all about for you.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, um, if I had not gone through all of the unrequited loves that I went through, multiple, many one after the other after the other, um I I don't believe that I would have come fully to know who I am as much as um I do and to explore um into my the depths, the depths of of despair, which uh I I got to see my um full a little bit better at that.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: I also got to experience God and the connection with God uh and and God, our creator of the universe.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh many people have different names for it.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um but when my experience with God became physical, I could actually feel it in my heart.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I could actually feel God and God's love in my heart.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it was very similar to uh the feeling that I would have uh when I would um think I was falling in love with somebody.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would feel it in my heart and it wouldn't be returned, and so it it got to be a disappointment.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And what happened after a while was disappointment after disappointment after disappointment.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I would it would debilitate me.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I would get in bed, I would cry for days and be so lonely.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was single for so long.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and um I think after a while, or now looking back on it, it uh I was learning the art of letting go.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I was learning the art of um self-love, and self-love was the last piece to come in for me before my now husband uh came in.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: So um looking back, it was the art of letting go.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: There were there were three main things learning what my soul really wanted to express in this lifetime, had to do with art, it has to do with sound healing, sound and music and chanting.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um those are the things that my soul really wanted to express.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I got to dive into them completely without any um distractions, and um also learning the art of letting go.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that that's incredible.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: When you were talking about um, you know, going into the depths of your despair, and you know, that you found God, and I almost feel like that is I don't know if it's every way, but it's definitely one way that you have you have to like empty out, and then when you think there's nothing there, like even you don't care about you, there's just nothing, then that little voice, that little presence, that little something comes in and says, No, there's there's something here, something always.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: I want to ask too, um, about music and how that came into your life and and whether that became like the tool of your healing and then also your your gift.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, um, at first it was art.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: As I said, I um what happened, I was making art, and so I would feel my heart and it would connect me to God, connect me to source, and it truly brought me out of my depression, and it brought me joy and excitement, and it took me up to a plateau.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing could penetrate that plateau.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was happy with still with my baggage, if that makes sense.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And at one point I discovered mantra music.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so this would be yoga music using chants uh from in Sanskrit, ancient chants, and um often modern melodies, and I dove in, it took me over like wild plier.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I dove in and I began chanting and chanting and chanting.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: What I found was that the chanting and the mantra took me from my plateau, boom.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: It just took me to a place of uh knowing myself in um a much deeper way, knowing God in a much deeper way, and into complete true bliss, ecstatic bliss.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I thought that was gone to me forever.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, after I began, I thought, oh, I can't live without this music.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there isn't too much of it happening in Sedona, I better bring it.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I started to bring mantra artists to Sedona, and after a few years of doing that, I noticed that every time I talked about a harmonium, and that's the instrument that's played, it looks like a sit on the floor and a pump organ type of thing.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I would think of it or anything, my heart would kind of go on fire.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I had learned by then to listen to my heart.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I I started talking, said you you want me to play the harmonium?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Are you trying to tell me that you want me to play the harmonium?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it would just burn and burn.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I learned how to play the harmonium, and I ended up uh making music and writing my own songs.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you always leave the mantra the same, the ancient mantra stays the same, but the melodies can change.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh having a band and playing around and sharing in that with people, and it just really sent me, absolutely sent me probably the most exhilarating thing I've ever done.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and you've done a lot of things.
• 29:04
  unknown: Yes, I have.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that's saying a lot.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: So where how did the self-love piece come in?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, I had a uh a little, it was a two-month perhaps it was a relationship.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I received an email.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: I first of all, I was I've been single for 15 years.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh when it was at the 12-year mark, a gentleman came into my life for two months.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: He had had an experience that told him that I was his wife.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I knew him uh the prior decade.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: So and he was a nice guy, a yoga teacher, and uh so he came into my life and kind of moved right in because he didn't uh live here, and things felt off, but it hadn't happened in so long.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: I thought maybe this is something, and my heart, I felt the love flowing through, and um it turned out that he was absolutely not the right person.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes the wrong person comes in uh right before the right person.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think this was the case of that.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: The wrong person coming in and um can I can I ask you about that?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: What's that all about?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what do you know about that?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I can only talk from my experience.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I've heard that a false sometimes in the twin flame journey, which you know who knows if that's all of it's true or not, but the twin flame journey that sometimes a false one comes in, sometimes they're here to activate uh your chakras, which is what happened to me in a hug.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: I literally felt my chakras go all the way up, and um but uh there was a temper involved that I I wasn't quite used to, and and I was ended up walking on eggshelves in my own home and sometimes being a little nervous.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I asked him to go, and so that was two months into it, and um uh I asked him to go, and um, so he did, uh luckily that was very easy.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I didn't understand what the whole process was about.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was really confusing to me because I I didn't understand uh the outbursts that would happen and and um the talking around the situation, and there were things that I I'm not going to say he was a narcissist, I think that word is overused nowadays, but he definitely had narcissistic tendencies and and and traits.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was very confusing to me.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um I started listening to Matt Kahn's podcast, and I found something in his podcast.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I started listening to all of his old ones, and I found something um that really helped me.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he was talking about how um if somebody is yelling at you, what they're really saying is, this is how I was treated.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: You need to see what's happening to me.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is what was done to me, you need to see it.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I need to show you how I was hurt.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I got to bring compassion instead of confusion and anger into the situation as I was healing from that.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um then uh Matt Kahn talks a lot about self-love.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, he's a good teacher about self-love.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he said one thing to me or to on his uh uh YouTube video.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he said, treat yourself as you would treat a four-year-old.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I really had to examine my self-talk at that point, and it was nowhere near what I would say to a four-year-old.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so that one piece of advice was probably the most loving advice that I've ever been given and I've ever taken on.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really learned uh self-love from him, and I think that that was the final piece.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that my my man could have come in before that piece came in.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: That you know that I I recall the point on my journey when Matt Conn came in, and I think it was shortly after he published Whatever Arises, Love That.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I've given that book to quite a few people.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, that's a that's a that was a game changer for me.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: So this element of self-love, what what is it about that do you think opens up the door to what we're gonna talk about next?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that um if we look at everybody as a reflection of where we are, um when you fully love yourself, you bring in somebody that will reflect that back to you in love.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: So tell us how that happened.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, it's so exciting.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's see.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh of course, uh, even though I didn't believe I was going to be with anyone ever again, kind of a woe is me attitude, I still had hope that I would be with somebody.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um several different uh psychics, truly, uh, that I had seen had kind of painted the picture of what my person, they were all sure I was gonna end up with somebody.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they said he's a musician from California, he plays didgeridoo, he makes didgeridoos, and a couple of other things of that nature.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was kind of I had my I was looking for that.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty specific and pretty rare.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, your chances are high if you're gonna see your guy, you're gonna recognize your guy, right?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Also, I have to say that um before he came in, um I had really I was very specific on what I didn't want.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: We make our lists, we girls, we like to do that.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: We make our lists of what we want in a in a relationship, and I have uh uh not done any uh substances uh for 15 years.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wanted somebody who also was not doing any substances, and that was very, very important to me.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um at one point I remember saying I don't even want somebody who's doing uh medicinal marijuana edibles or something like that.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew that what I had done was just made my my path so narrow that most likely nobody was going to be able to get get in there.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm really glad I was that specific.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um what happened was that I had a band uh coming, uh a band Larissa Stowe and Shakti Tribe.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she's a mantra singer and they're wonderful.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they were coming, and um I uh was I rarely work the door when all in in these uh things that I would promote.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but this night I was working the door and he came in.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never seen him before, and I thought he was really cute, and my heart did a little flutter.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I would see him around town, and because we had uh Kirtan in um in common, that was uh something I could speak to him about.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we had several conversations and turned out he played didgeridoo and he was come from California, he had just moved here.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was um around uh October of September, October of 2012.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um I remember um having a dream about him one night.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: He was really nice, just really sweet, really nice.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: I really liked him um as a person, you know, but I had this dream and uh he moved here on the on a bicycle, and he had a little bicycle, a little thing on the back of the bicycle where he kept his his stuff.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: He's had a place to live, but that's how he got around.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I dreamt that um we were flying through the air on the back of his motorcycle, completely, utterly in love and happy as can be.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I woke up from this very, very poignant dream, I thought, wow, maybe he's my guy.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so um my pattern, if I had the that feeling for for somebody, was to kind of turn into a really nervous high school girl, not knowing how to act or anything like that.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember maybe this next time I saw him, he uh uh we gave a hug and he asked me if I knew um if I was familiar with this woman in town.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um I thought, here we go again, God.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's getting together with this woman, which he was, and it's another P another unrequited love, but the other ones I never really had dreams to go with them.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were just feelings in my heart, and they would end up with someone else or not like me or uh things like that.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um I spent some time to uh let that go and move on from the idea that he might be the one.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: So he got together with this girl and they ended up living together, and um shortly after that he started making didgeridoos, and I remember saying, Are you kidding, God?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, Oh my gosh.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so after that, uh for a while he ended up getting in a motorcycle, and I said, No, how can this be?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh, but I'm I'm really, really loyal, and I'm really, really um one of those people that if someone's with someone, whether they're married or not, that is completely off limits.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um I I it was just like nope, that's not gonna happen.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um at one point I uh oh they got married.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: They got married, and so any little I had to dig deep and any little last strings of hope or uh that might have been there, I had to just cut them and let go, completely let go.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right around that time.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh I think around that time is when I had my experience with the um uh that little two-month mistake.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Which wasn't a mistake, actually.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: That was I have to correct myself, that was not a mistake, it was a wonderful learning experience.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was not the right one, but he helped push me to my next lesson about self-helping.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: So um, but that was right around this time that happened, and so I let go of it completely, and we started working together.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was freelancing, and I started freelancing at the same place, and so I would see him, he would see me, and it was always such a uh mutual respect and admiration for each other's work, and uh we would give a hug or a little hello, and it was always so nice to see him, and um then he ended up getting divorced.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, I was looking elsewhere, I was I was actively looking elsewhere.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh, but so he ended up getting a divorce, and I didn't even think about it.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even think about him or the possibility of him.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: But to me, that ship had passed.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had already let go, it was done.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh although I have to say that I would still get like a little schoolgirl excited, nervous when I would see him at where we freelanced.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was a little little excitement happening.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I had set my sights on another uh place to find love, and um I had lots of unrequited love in this place, and I had high hopes for one uh this one guy, a musician from California, and I had high hopes for him, and uh he was coming in my dream time, and um it didn't happen, and this whole thing um it was a yoga festival, and the whole thing kind of blew up and fell apart, and I uh I went into a death.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so this would have been in September of 2018, and I I went into a a death uh of uh I don't know, maybe uh dreams that were happening along that timeline.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um a death, I got very sick, I got very dizzy for months after my sickness, and um I had to really completely let go of that dream that I had been pursuing and that kind of direction.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um after some healing time, um I was in bed one night and I felt The the kind of like the arrow of love shoot in my heart, and the arrow of love had his name on it, Daniel's name on it.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I I sat up in bed, I said, No, God, no, I cannot go through this heartbreak again.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not strong enough to do this.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I said, you know how I feel about him.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: This he's really, really special.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can't go through this heartbreak again.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I pushed it down.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I was really good at pushing it down by then.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh at that time, uh about um about a month later, I went to um I went to an event uh with Greg Braden and with my friend, and I felt some hands touching my shoulders, and I turned around and it was Daniel and his friend.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: And Gwen looked at him and looked at me, and I I introduced them.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: And as we were leaving, Gwen said, Well, that was a lot of energy between you two.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, Gwen, you know the story, you know the whole story about that.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if he was interested, he would be asking me out for a hike or for tea or something, and so you know that that whole story.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I can't go through that again.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I let it go and I ended up buying a yoga studio, and that took the next four months off my calendar.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: I just it was the busiest time of my life, and um, I temporarily stopped working at the freelance place where I was working just so because I didn't have time, I didn't have time to breathe.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I went back to working there in October.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um my first day back, I saw him in the lobby, and we hugged, and we both went to our separate rooms to do our sessions, and I saw him again after our sessions in the parking lot, and uh he said, you know, I I think I need another one of those, and came over and gave me a hug again, and um, it was a longer-than-normal hug, it was lovely, and it felt very nice.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I asked him, I said, Would you like to do a sound journey at the studio?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, with you, I'd like to.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, that's a great idea.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we do a collaboration?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um uh a couple of days later, I was mopey, I was a little mopey because the love thing was like that sometimes.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I I quickly the collaboration came into my head, and um I heard a raven calling out my window.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I I know to listen to things like that now, and so I picked up the phone and I texted him and I said, Well, um would you like to get together to talk about the collaboration?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'd hello, love, I'd love that.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: He answered immediately, and I said, Well, let me know.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: My heart stopped a little bit.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, let me know when um it's good for you.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was a week or two out from making appointments, and he wrote back, he said, How about 5:30?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked at my schedule, I did not have anything on my schedule.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Normally I might have gone, oh no, I don't know, you know, but I I said yes, and I went over there and um we took 10 minutes max to talk about our collaboration, and the energy between us was amazing, and uh we had we talked and talked and talked about our lives, and we had laughter, belly laughter, um, just writing on this energy that was flowing through us, and he ended up asking me to stay for a movie.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we watched a movie, and uh he says that his pinky finger was touching my toe because I sit cross-legged everywhere, and he he said that he could just feel the electricity coming off the toe.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's true that the whole movie, I don't know how I paid attention.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh after the movie uh we talked a little more and I had to go feed my pets, and so he gave me a little peck on the lips.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but I drove home in a daze, and by the time I got home, he had written a beautiful text, and um he came over a few days later for dinner.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: We couldn't, he the next day he was like, When can I see you?
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: When can I see you?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't see him for four more days, and so he was just sending me texts and wonderful, just absolutely wonderful, and I was pinching myself.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I think that um it it was about almost a week from that movie date or our meeting uh that we uh he asked me to breakfast, and so he came over and picked me up.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um he we rode on the back of his motorcycle up the canyon, and while we were riding, I had a flashback of the dream.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like the dream.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, oh my god, maybe this is it.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe this is it.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so at breakfast, he um confessed his feelings for me, that he had feelings for me, and I said I had feelings for him, and we got to talk about it a little bit, and um we ended up having our first kiss there by the creek that day, and um ever since then we have been like this, and we we feel it's a miracle, first of all, that he is my miracle.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, hands down, he is the miracle that I've been given.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um we feel like we have known each other for an entire lifetime.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: We feel both of us um recognize each other's mannerisms, like the turn of the head, um, little things.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: He he feels like he's known me his whole life as a uh a play, as a friend play playing with him.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: He had feels like he has vivid memories of me playing with him when he was a kid.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: But we didn't, but I think that we've always been connected.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is a biggie.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, we got and COVID happened.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: Holy moly, COVID happened, and we uh he moved in uh when lockdown happened because I I didn't know if we were going to be going into martial law the way Australia was, and I said, no way am I gonna be separated from you right now.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: So he ended up moving in, and then that became permanent um a month later.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he moved out of this place, and and um he proposed a year after we'd gotten together, and we had um a dream wedding eight months later.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Eight months, about eight months later, and um I that's my first marriage.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I was 57 years old.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: We got married when I was 57 years old.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: My first marriage.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: I thought there was no way I was so lonely, I was not dating, I was not loving.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um the people who there were people asking me out, but once upon occasion, um it wasn't for me.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: And suddenly this person comes, and when he came in, what we both realized is that just the way he is naturally, his personality traits, his gifts, they naturally um help to heal my wounds.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: So just him being himself is salve to all of my leftover little traumas, and for him, my being myself and the way I am naturally is salve to his wounds that he's had this whole time going up, and so um it's really a phenomenal thing to witness and be part of, yeah.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the it that last part about how just being yourself is the antidote, so to speak, to that that's so powerful that because we spend so much time like striving to be like the right person for somebody and to do the right things, and it's not that at all, is it?
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not that at all.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've never been so myself with anybody.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we will we'll go, we'll be co-creators, professional together, and and then in the next hour we are our nine-year-olds, and then we'll move to into our teenage selves.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's this whole range that we are able to inhabit and uh bring together.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's very joyous, it's very bliss, it's not hard work at all.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: People say relationship is work and it doesn't have to be.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think that you've done work, the work.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: I have suspected that.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: I I have been suspecting that, and I that's why one of the why I was so excited to meet you.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: I I I or to you know to to get into this and to hear your story, because it was just so incredibly hopeful to me.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: And um I I want to I want you to talk a little bit about the the wisdom of creating a very specific list.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: I have uh many times I rewrote my list.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh I have to say that with the one that came in for two months, he uh he definitely um didn't have things that were on the list.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I had little things I had learned from my last relationship, which ended uh 15 years ago, 16 now, I think.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I learned a few things with him and and I decided to put them on my list.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like uh the person must have a job, must be willing to work, uh, and must have their own car.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Little things.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and this one that came in for two months didn't have either of those, and I still uh let him in to test the waters.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, yeah, we don't have to do that.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um we if we do know that it will, I believe that it's gonna be a learning experience for you.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's really um not much, and then I think I've written out a lot, I wrote out a lot, and a lot of them were so minor um that they're they don't matter.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: And what's what's happened is that the love that we share between one another and and our the fact that we are so on the same page, we are so on the same page, boy, it makes life so much easier to be completely on the same page as someone.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean we have to do the same things all the time or want to or spend every minute together, but we're on the same page about uh a lot of things.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so that takes little baby things that I wrote down out of the equation.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't that those aren't important when you find this connection that you literally are feeling that's running through you.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um the woman who ended up uh marrying us at our second ceremony, our public ceremony.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um she was talking about a tribe, I think in Africa, that they say that when two whole beings come together um in a sacred marriage or a sacred union, what happens is that uh a new energy is created with them together.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's uh person A, person B, and then this new thing that gets created when they're together and this new energy.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that is so grand, it's so uh it sweeps you up.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: It it doesn't sweep you up as if off your feet and you're uh giddy, but it's so powerful and so strong.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um that list, uh yeah, I would say that 80 percent is he's got uh taking care of on my list, but there are some things that I let go of.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's interesting because I was gonna say that I've had that experience, like I had a long list, but there were like a couple things missing.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: But you think like, well, there's and it wasn't they were important things, and um it's like well, it's pretty close, and maybe there's something that I'm maybe my emphasis is is in the wrong place, and so and I think that's because we're accustomed to believing that we don't deserve everything that we want, and why?
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't we have everything we want?
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right, I think we can, I think we can, but we have to learn how to believe it and learn how to let it in.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, also I think that um uh there comes a time.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think when he and I first met in 2012 that we were the people that we are now.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that we could have gotten together.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know that his relationship helped shape him into who he is now, and who he is now is who I've always wanted to be with, and not knowing it was him, but the the qualities that he is now are the qualities I've always looked for.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say though, if some of the important things on the list are not there, that's a those are red flags.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I I yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can't even think of any right now.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, actually.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the little ones are there.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, however, don't be afraid to make it so narrow.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um you only want one person to fit through it, after all.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it can be a little scary to make it that narrow.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if something's important to you, hang on to it.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I love what you're talking about with this um, you know, this third energy that is created between you, because I feel like if one whole person and another whole person come together, there's no energy spent filling each other's holes.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so this third energy that that that's what makes it feel so effortless is that there's not all this leaking energy, you know, it's just all devoted to the communion of the two whole spirits or you know, people.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's very, very true.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: And another thing that I think is really, really important that um we really like each other.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: We really admire each other, we like each other.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're each other's biggest cheerleaders, um, it professionally and also um we just like each other.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: I like who he is, I like his integrity, I like uh how he carries himself.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I I like him a lot.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: I might tell him I like him as much as I say I love him.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, I really like you.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're so adorable.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_02: I can't stand it.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I want to know um if early on in the relationship you had any moments of doubt where you were like, oh, is this gonna happen again?
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, like the fear of the pattern cropping in.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: He and luckily he he does counseling, and so he kind of understands a little bit uh about what I was going through, but I absolutely was terrified that he was gonna leave.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I was terrified to let myself be loved and to let myself love.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I told him everything up front.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: I had really hard conversations with him, up right up front, and let him know.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh it took months, but he would look and he would look at me.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: I would come to go to his house.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: He he would look at me and he would say things like, I am not leaving.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am I'm here.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to worry about that.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm here.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: He knew, but he didn't know right away.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think right uh the way he says it, and I think it's really interesting to get him uh his perspective as well, is that um he uh he was starting to hear his um uh his mind try to say things like this is early on within probably the first couple of weeks.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh oh, she's too she's too um uh uh attentive, she's too she's too um this or to that, maybe too affectionate.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she wants this or she's too this and she's too that.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he finally, this is so he is this is where the battle of with his mind ended.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: He finally got to see what was happening, and he realized that it's been his mind the whole time and his past with relationships that wouldn't that created a wall that wouldn't let it all the way in, and he decided he surrendered.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: He just he surrendered, he said, No, no, I know what you're trying to do, and I want to let this love in.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he wiped it away, so he had to make a decision, and I had to make a decision, and we and neither one of us knew we were having to make that decision, and so he wiped, he said to the mind, you don't have power over me, I want this, and he went with his heart, and I and that showed that I felt it.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think I felt it, and um his being very, very clear, I am not going anywhere.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that was incredible.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_02: I love that because that's so important because you know when you're younger, you know, you you can take a lot more chances because you haven't had a track record of heartbreak, you know.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_02: So it it becomes harder to do that as you age and you face disappointment and things like that.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: And um it's such a it's so vulnerable, you're so vulnerable, and and the ability to do that is such a such an act of faith.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, for him, that was huge, and for me, um, it was terrifying.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: And but I had to do it, it was everything I had been wanting.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it sounds like he wasn't gonna let you make any other decision, which is yeah, no, but maybe maybe in the first two weeks, yeah, there there could have had his mind won the battle.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there could have been that moment.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: I never had experienced it.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it you it's probably, I don't know about for him, but it it for a lot of us, I think it would require a vigilance to what the mind is trying to do because that can creep back in at any point, you know.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not like probably not a one and done.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's possible that it could, it could, I know for myself anyway, it could it could creep back in.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the battle with the mind is the last frontier, isn't it?
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_03: I believe so.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, but it might be a lifelong battle because the mind, once we get it, there's I think there's a point for everybody.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, after a while.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: after the after a lot of work where the mind doesn't trick them and they get to see it for what it is and you get this point where like oh my gosh i see what you're doing yeah and when you get that and you have that experience it's a game changer so i think that in love and also with our own selves throughout forever uh it's the battle it gets quieter but there are times when it when it wants to roar that is that's like a life with the mind in service to the heart not not the heart in service to the mind you know that's and that's like a rodeo it's like trying to wrangle that big steer down you know like with the little rope it's crazy wow oh my gosh I hope that other people enjoy your story as much as I do I could hear it again and again because it's you know it's so sweet and I love like how you're like a high school girl you like revert back to your high school self when you talk about how that all started and yeah yeah um it's touched all aspects of me yeah I have I have said to myself that I I want to feel like I was like I'm like I did when I was in high school I want to feel that sense of excitement you know and you can yeah why not I'm calling it in put it putting it that on my list call it in with you um I want to be an inspiration for women over 50 uh women over 45 who who think all is lost it's not lost um all is in God's timing and also um work on yourself um and it happens when it's a frequency match my frequency is it's so like his frequency our frequencies are very similar um so uh I think that's very important also so keep raising your frequency the higher your frequency is the better your person's gonna be the I feel that I feel that so much because um you know like I've had situations where people I've been um communicating with potential matches who just um disappear at some point and um I used to take that really personally and now I'm like thank you universe it just wasn't a match like it just it'll it just is it's like poof not for you and so um I've I've really come to trust that and I I don't take it so personally anymore but that was kind of hard because I didn't hadn't really dated it since I was like in like early 20s so you know I had a lot of like figuring of of that stuff out to do.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_02: So okay so Valerie I was wondering if this would be a good time to switch to our lightning realm what do you wish you knew about the afterlife um I wish uh I knew oh it's supposed to be lightning lightning I wish the questions are quick the answers don't have to be I wish that I knew um how we um come back and repeat lives I've heard I've read a book that we sometimes repeat lives choose uh how we choose to go in and uh with the other souls who are going to be main partners in our in this uh journey how we how we decide all that yeah I I I wonder too and I I describe that in my book as like sitting around the conference table with God deciding like what kind of life you want to live like what kind of experiences you want to have and who do you want to have them with and you know just kind of planning the whole thing out that would be fun yeah that's I'm really curious about that too um okay number two what is the number one thing people ask your help with what is the number one thing people ask my help with yes um uh frequency change um through sound healing yes I have experienced that and we will put your contact information in the notes because um you have a really incredible journey what is your main source of inspiration my main source of inspiration is to inspire oh interesting to inspire becomes your inspiration that's beautiful I love that okay number four who taught you to drive and how did that go um it was everybody in my family my mother my father um and one of my brothers and um dad was difficult and um I think I enjoy my lessons with my brother the most that makes sense you know I um I am waiting for the day that my children have to teach someone to drive because they're probably still angry about the how it went down.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay um the all right my final lightning round question is what makes you unique oh boy um I believe that uh the past what I've what I've gone through um in my life and what I've overcome and uh where I've grown up all the different um cultures that I've been able to immerse myself in uh has given me a broad broad view of the world one of the things I find so remarkable about you just at the end of this um interview is that you know you have such a joy like that feels like it's part of your being and it sounds like you know when you're describing your childhood that that's always been there but even even joyful people go through that dark night of the soul and it doesn't mean that you're not going to ever be joyful again if you're like your your path shows how it's never too late it's never too late and um even if you don't believe it even if you don't believe it you could be given a miracle at any time um and there's so many different ways to find your tool again there really are yeah so did you bring a question for me today I did I did I would like to know okay what would you tell your younger self I've heard this question asked of people before and I I hear them say um that you know it's everything's gonna be okay and I feel like I want to tell myself that there will be times when it is not okay it is it's not gonna be okay and this is life this is you should expect this that for whatever reason we came into this arena called earth as a human to experience some incredibly profound things and a lot of that profundity comes at the bottom of the barrel it's where there's no light at all and then there's that little pinhole and that little pinhole becomes your salvation and your uh your hope and your dream and it um yeah so I think that that's what I would tell myself.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful thank you thank you well Valerie it has been so much fun talking to you and um I can't wait to like get to know you better and see you around town and get on that magical sound bed thing again yes anytime just let me know.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for being with us and sharing just sharing your story from such a generous place.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you thank you so much