Latest / The Psychology of Relationships / The Real Work of Love: Healing Attachment Wounds & Choosing Growth in Relationships w/ Mark Groves

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The Real Work of Love: Healing Attachment Wounds & Choosing Growth in Relationships w/ Mark Groves · The Psychology of Relationships

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Julie Kraftcheck, and I'm UASU.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is the Psychology of Relationships.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Ever feel like the closer you try to get, the more your partner pulls away, and the more they distance, the more anxious you become, that anxious avoidance cycle can leave both people feeling misunderstood, exhausted, and stuck.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: In this episode, we're joined by Mark Groves, human connection specialist, author, and founder of Creight the Love.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: To explore what it really takes to shed those dynamics and build a relationship 2.0 that feels a lot more secure for both parties.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: Mark isn't just teaching theory here.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's lived it.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: He opens up about his own relationship journey with his now-wife Kylie McBeth and the work required to move from disconnection to conscious partnership.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: We unpack the psychology behind runner-chaser dynamics, anxious patterns.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: and co-dependent behaviors, and why these cycles persist even when two people deeply care about each other.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Mark shares how taking ownership of his own emotional responses, triggers, and survival strategies became the turning point for real change, not by fixing his partner, but by healing his side of the dynamic.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because it's often easier to blame an avoidant partner or to leave a relationship altogether than it is to slow down and look inward.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: but without that self-responsibility, the same patterns tend to repeat just with a different person.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Whether you're navigating conflict, feeling disconnected, or simply wanting to be more proactive about the health of your relationship, this episode offers insight into how relationships evolve and how we can evolve with them.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: Remember to subscribe to the Psychology of Relationships on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and leave us a five-star rating.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is the Psychology of Relationships, and you're listening to an episode that just might change the way you show up for love.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Enjoy!
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: reuniting with your ex something I've definitely thought about at some points in my life with exes, but this couple mark in Kylie were successful in reuniting and then establishing a strong relationship.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what we're going to talk about today.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: What does it mean to reunite with your ex?
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: and to basically redesign your love again.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: So we've got Mark Groves who we've been following for so long and we're so happy to finally get him on our show.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: How are you Mark?
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So good.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited to be here.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, whenever anyone talks about getting back together with your acts, I kind of sometimes forget that we did that.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, because it feels like quite a while ago.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even though it wasn't, it was what 2020 is.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it probably just, because when you get back together, it's a different relationship.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: Completely, yeah.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, let's start from your relationship with Kylie.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: You were together for five years, then you broke up, then you got back together.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, take us back to relationship 1.0 as you like to call it.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: How did you both meet?
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: And what was that love story in the beginning?
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we met on the often undiscussed dating app Instagram.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: How very Jensieo you're right.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's be honest, everyone's dropping in the DM which I dropped into Herdia and we had been following each other for a while.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Center message told her love to connect beyond the Graham and she wrote me back.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: No games like I remember she wrote me back at that time.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You had to send a picture when you sent a message and I sent a picture of a sunset from a grass mountain.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: she sent a picture back of a sunset somewhere in the desert and she wrote me back and I remember writing her back and saying well that's about the best possible reply I could have imagined because there was just like no gate which is how it should be you know that it's not forced that there's not like some sort of strategy that has to go into it which I'm not negating that I think we need like the skill set when it comes to dating and relating there is a skill set.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: for it.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, in relationship 1.0, she eventually moved to Vancouver.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in that relationship, there was always this sort of nudging feeling for me that Kylie wasn't fully in.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we were traveling in New Zealand in Australia.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember I went for this run and I'm like,
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thinking well I'm on the run.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just so tired of like I'm not here to chase anybody I feel like every time I get close to her she withdraws and then I have to get close to him Then she withdraws so I came back from the run and I said that to her and she said to me yeah, you know There's but there's a dream ahead that I've not told you about but it's been really really living in my psyche I've been afraid of it and it was that she was in a burning house and she had to leave like get out in my relationship
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: the Burning House was our relationship's good, you know, by every other metric other than the Burning Inferno that is supposed to represent it in a dream.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the actual experience of the relationship on this sort of skill set relational, you know, are we healthy?
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are we not?
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: we would have checked healthy.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But on a deeper level, there's this subtle fear of not staying for Kai and there's this fear that I'm in a relationship with someone who's not turning towards me.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like her, if you think about it sort of figuratively, her shoulders are turned sideways and I'm turned directly from facing.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what's really interesting is that if I was truly in discernment because I'm sure for a lot of people listening, watching that
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: we can relate to this feeling of just choose it, like just why don't you just turn towards like it's not fair.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're the one who needs to do the work.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You had the damn dream.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have it.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I recognize that I actually should have in that information turned to my shoulder.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's discernment like you can't build a relationship with someone who's not building a relationship with you who's like still I'm not sure people can be not sure.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a normal human experience But what do we do with the not sure?
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I did what most people do unfortunately and we spent three more years in that not sure E and what we did was we started to pathologize it
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, I had already been studying relationships, teaching them, and if you think about it, in relationship, it's like, well, why do people who teach relationships, therapists, coaches, doctors, nurses, right?
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: All these types of service related, providing roles are people who are highly attuned and likely had a role in their family where they took care of people.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what better job in the world than to monetize your survival strategy?
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But here I am in a relationship,
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've got value now, you can't go anywhere.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we went to psychotherapist.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: We did Koju, we had mentors.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We did all the things red attached.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, and when she learned about avoidance, she was like, I'm so avoidance.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it ends me.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what ended up happening was towards the end of that, there was a deal breaker on the table for me, and that was when I wanted to have kids buy.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was going to ask you that.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was very clear about that at the very beginning of our relationship.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she had agreed to that at the beginning of our relationship.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then about three years into that relationship, she changed it.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was like, hey, you know, that seems a little soon for me.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can we do like, you know, I can't remember.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like another year.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, okay, I felt to do it.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I can negotiate that.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then she went to change it again.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, no.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because in hindsight, I can see that when people change a deal breaker, they're often trying to get the other person to stand in their deal breaker and leave.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just to wrap up, relationship 1.0 is we recognize that actually, if this relationship required Kylie to believe she was a problem, like she had a problem in order to exist in it, then it wasn't the relationship I wanted to create.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the one she wanted to create.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said to her, like, if you need to think you're broken to be in a relationship, maybe the information of the burning house is actually brilliant.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's actually saying instead of like going to all these people and going to like a young man there, it was figuring out like dream meaning why don't we just take the dream that it's wise value instead of it being this like deep metaphor of something else.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe actually we should trust it and that you're not broken, but you're brilliant.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: and maybe there's something that you're feeling that I don't and now I can easily label that what she was feeling was the trepidation to create a relationship that required two people to self abandon because it looks like she's self abandoning in order to stay too but I am as well because no one in the right mind if we were just looking at a checklist if we were like should you build a relationship with someone who is feeling like they might have to leave any day?
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, if you want to life a hell, if you want to be anxious for the rest of your life, then you'll go to the doctor and wonder why you're anxious, but it's pretty obvious why you're anxious.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: because you're not finding your voice, you're not in choice.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're putting your body in relational circumstances that are not actually healthy.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: I have so many questions.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: So many questions.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: I guess like the what that stands out, it's like two years in you're starting to feel this.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like what was it that made you feel like it?
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: You were saying like all intense the purposes, the relationship is running smoothly and appear as healthy.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: and she moved to Vancouver.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like, and it seems like she's telling you like she wants to have kids and move it, but there is clearly something in your gut that's telling you this isn't right.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: Can you pinpoint that now in retrospect?
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I could just pinpoint the distance.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I could feel somatically in my body that there was a subtle that she wasn't all in, that I was like ready to choose this fully.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's what's so interesting is what I learned through the process and I think this is so true for if anyone resonates with more mice out of this story, which women tend to resonate more with mice out story is that there actually is a bypassing.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: of choice.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's a bypassing of being mindful about who you're choosing to create a relationship with.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I really learned is like I had blown by all of my own somatic senses that I shouldn't continue to invest.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what I do note that's relational is that if you feel that and you bring it forward, there is possible healing and reorientation like maybe
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, maybe they have stuff that they just don't realize that makes them want a distance, and there's an opportunity to work through that.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it doesn't get worked through unless you bring it forward.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the real work for people who might identify more with my story is that you have to bring it forward.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: The truth has to be laid at the altar of the relationship.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: So were you having those conversations in relationship on point now?
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, yeah, we were really like we would find some sort of maybe peace or like a sense of we were building something and then it would show it's place again.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I'm being really honest, it was there the whole time, but subtle like.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was just knowing in my body, like, I know deep in my unconscious, but it would come to my conscious mind was like, how do you build what was something with someone who had a dream that they might leave at any moment?
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when we were working with the psychotherapist, I remember having this conversation with.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: him and her and I just had this deep realization and this grief because in the awareness where it really was confronted I remember thinking like I had so much sadness and I was like I learned somewhere that this is normal.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I learned that someone not fully showing up for me is normal and that's just my template and it was just like such a beautifully sad moment of recognition you know that that the context of it is important.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: My heart's going, it's like screaming, yes, yes, yes.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: I feel that so much.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: And in my last relationship, there was a point where John Mayer's song slow dancing in a burning room, kept playing over and over again, my head.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I thought that's exactly what we're doing.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: We are.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: in love but in a burning room like this is all going down at some point and your description of your partner being turned away from you and you keep turning towards them is so real because I thought a good relationship is if you have that kind of disconnect you're the one helping your partner
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: put your hands on their shoulders and help them turn towards you or bring someone else in to help them turn towards you.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you're right.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're missing the your own choice of turning away and saying this is not the relationship I want to be in.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you know this last partner I had he kept saying like why do I feel like I'm the only one with problems in this relationship?
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Why am I the one getting all this help?
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: What is wrong with me?
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you're right like if you feel like you're the one with the problems in the relationship That's probably not a healthy relationship to be in so thank you for validating all that no of course And I resonate I mean that I got shivers the challenge with relational teachings in general on social media or just in general
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: is that we don't identify that actually the person who needs to fix shit actually has to hold the identity that they're broken in order to keep facilitating the person who needs to help all the time.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like in order for them to stop being broken, the person trying to fix them has to stop giving them shit to do.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And instead we're like, here's what I need.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's what adulting is.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go book the fucking therapy appointment yourself.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't, but I'm not doing it anymore, and so it's like we think I'm inviting them to be an adult.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's actually the adulting for ourselves is to stop because both are child behaviors.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, the person just is like, I'm a fuck up.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing I do is enough.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you think about it, it's almost like learned helplessness and the other person is their adaptive strategy is I'll never be enough so I like have to be the fixer and the care for and when you're done with that pattern there's an exhale but there's also a lack of trust because what we're really saying is I'm actually ready to relate to you and you relate to me as to healthy adults or to people building that
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of people who don't know how to relate to each other from healthy places.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: They actually need a problem.
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure we can all or have been that.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I guess the question and this is clearly you led to a breakup.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: But like when do you realize that this just isn't the right person for you versus you need to both own your shit and work through it?
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, in the book, we really wanted the reason we wrote the book was because we didn't have a path for ourselves.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and we really were like, well, whether you're single or dating or in a long 25, 30-year marriage, every part of the book applies because what it does is give you context to like why you do it.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's so important, the context because the context de-personalizes it.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because if you go like, oh, well, I identified it as a problem and it was because let's say my mom always criticized me and that's she always live with criticism, et cetera, et cetera.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I now have some understanding that that was the adaptive strategy I needed in order to get to where I am, which is here and now I can make changes.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's that aspect of being able to contextualize it and then actually get into creation mode.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do I want and taking a pause from relational patterns like one of the things we do and we suggest in the book We call it a sacred pause, but especially for people who are dating and it's funny because I'll say to someone like just take three months No engaging with
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're, you know, if you're head or second, no engaging with the opposite text for three months, whatever your gender preferences.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: No texting, no sexting, no trying to draw their gaze, and you will see it as a drug.
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when funny as people will be like, why have already done that?
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been single four years.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, you haven't done it.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, no.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is very different and intentional sacred laws than a dating and relating in swiping.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But getting back to your original question is like, how do I begin to know?
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the first part is is that whenever I'm working with a couple, it's always like, let's actually just put, staying together or breaking up.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: off the table for a second because if your only intention is to stay together then you might be actually missing valuable information.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: If one person doesn't want to be in that creation mode, it's already a game of a lot of times couples go to therapy and one person doesn't want to be there and doesn't want to change.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my space in that, and we invite this in the book, too, is what is actually the radical truth that exists in you right now, because even if you're afraid to say, well, I'm afraid that the relationship won't work.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's bring that truth into this space.
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I'm afraid that they'll cheat.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's bring that truth into this space.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: All of these truths exist anyways.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what ends up forming?
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: through this sacred pause, through the contextualization, is what we call in the book like the great thought.
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like actually thawing out your nervous system and getting back into your body.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because you know, if we're the ones who are like staying turned towards all the time, it's more complex than this, but on some level we're in a functional freeze.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm frozen.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's no way if someone said, I'm not sure I want to choose you,
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to send you flowers.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to oversee you now, right?
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we would never say to a little kid who's, you know, got someone who says, I'm not really sure about you.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'd never say, oh my God, go convince them.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's how we love you so much.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You do not have anything to do.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the deeper sense that comes in is the ability to choose.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, a lot of our relationships were built on previous agreements previous selves, right?
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so really, relationships over time are two people changing on some level side by side.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't say it together but like side by side.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of relationships initially are actually require the abandonment of self, right?
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: They require the like, I don't know what I need, what I want, my life's about what you need, the other person's like, I mean, I have to have be broken to be in this relationship.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I'll create needs for you.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's that differentiation is so important.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think I'm always like, there's a few questions I was asked people when they're like, should I stay or go?
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's such a complex question and it requires so much nuance, but what I will say is the first question I ask is is staying our going leaving yourself?
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because whatever your normal pattern is, things get hard.
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, this is outside of the context of abuse.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is outside of the context in a relationship with a narcissist or a sociopath.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: get out.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but because often in those circumstances, we're like if only I worked harder.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: As I gave your working harder as the thing you normally do, maybe stop.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the other question I think is just powerful is even if your partner changed everything.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: and did everything you want, would you want to be with them?
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Asking someone, do you actually respect your partner?
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you like them as a person?
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: As a friend.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, do you actually like their values?
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do they discuss you?
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, why would you want to work out a relationship with someone who discuss you?
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So coming back just like to yourself, we'll lead to all of it anyways.
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, should I say Rigo, we'll be like, who am I?
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do I want with my life?
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what am I committed to?
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is that possible in this relationship?
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes or no?
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: So what made you to decide it was time to let it go the first time around?
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was that part of like, maybe there's brilliance and we've done everything else that we thought we could do.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no more tools.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe actually this is the most loving thing we can do.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that led to us doing a closing ceremony, which...
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which was, we hadn't seen each other at the end of our relationship because I was traveling for work and we had been in the discussions and then we had a face time call kind of as the final call and Kylie had said to me, why would you want to stay, I remember she said, why would you want to stay with me like I'm unsure I'm dead and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: like you don't get the easy way out like you have to choose it to go because you have never done that.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we had this final call where I was like you need to say the words because I recognize that that actually it was in her choosing to leave which I could honor.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't you know I remember saying her like I had left an engagement when I was 27.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I would have been desperate to hear, you know, what I had said to her was, I love you.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to create a life with you, but if you for whatever reason can't do that with me, I love you.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you can go.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I wished that I had had the same level of sort of like it was through the experience of my previous engagement that I had the tools and the language to say that because it was true I just wished someone could witness the deep need that I had to go I didn't know why but I just had to and so I could see that in her this like she was getting sick she was like trying to figure this out and I was like you don't now like there's nothing more to figure out and in that conversation you know there was a lot of tears and she said like okay this relationship has to end.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: We spoke about a week later and I was like, hey, do you think we should do a closing ceremony and she's like, yeah, sure like we didn't know what that was, but I googled it and other people had done something.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't get back together, though.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think what is beautiful about the closing ceremony.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we answered three questions.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: What did we most appreciate about the other person and why?
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: We lit a fire actually getting back to the dream.
• 21:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had bought a wooden birdhouse that represented the house and we burned it during this ceremony.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I get emotional all the time thinking about the closing ceremony because I remember sitting outside my car being like,
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, do I not want to go because I just genuinely don't want to do this right now?
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or do I not want to go because the person who can do a closing ceremony doesn't exist?
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was saying a second answer.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so as I have a commitment to always do the things I'm afraid of that I know I need to do.
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I went in.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so we lit the fire, put some music on that we cared about that was important to us.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Answer that question.
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The second question
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: and then the last question was what do we hope for the other person.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was profound because we got to experience what is what is it like to let love go with grace.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: and reverence that loved and go anywhere.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It actually deepened on so many levels.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And everything we'd been taught about society and culture about breakups was like, Kate, each other, you know, other things.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those are the hardest ones though, sometimes.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, because it's easier to get over someone that you hate.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a lot harder to get over someone you really love them.
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was it.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like the strange paradox where I was like, I love this person so much and here we are ending.
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you guys lived together at the time?
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We did.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we lived together.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: So you guys were like fully going through all the motions with it, but just it felt off.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: That was what I'm getting for me.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's something.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we were trying to figure out this like felt like 5%.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But really it was 95.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it was like we were really trying to figure out.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we were committed to each other.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: We really love
• 23:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: each other.
• 23:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it was like, it was a hard thing because here you are, you're like, we have the tools, we have the teachers.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet we can't figure this out.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's got to be a way.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I learned a long time ago when I had left my engagement, although obviously didn't, I should have tattooed it.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, I just knew that when you're looking for an answer for years, for time, it's usually the answer you don't want to see.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you're trying to find an answer
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: But how brave is that both of you can choose to let go of this relationship?
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think very few people can do that in a relationship.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: I would say my ex cheated on me because he didn't want to make that choice.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: He wanted to force me into that choice.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you hear this a lot in relationship, too.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like, I want to drive this person away so they can break up.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: They can make that choice for us.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, I mean, that's really profound what you just described and just really brave.
• 24:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: And once you two do decide to have this closing ceremony, what was your intention during that time?
• 24:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because obviously you don't stop loving this person.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, by the time our relationship was done, Kale and Eric were different, but by the time it was done, I was done.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I had no interest in staying in the pattern.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was so done with that pattern of like someone doesn't choose me.
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It had to get to the place where it was.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I immediately was like,
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: we have amazing mutual friends and we had discussed with them like okay if there's a celebration please just invite whoever can go but just let me know because I'm not ready to be in the same space and neither was she and that was great like our friends you know we're just draw by our own relationship ending you know and it was so beautiful because they didn't choose
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, because there was no side.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was what was different.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, we went right away to no contact for three months and We had one friend of mutual really good friend of both of us who were kind of mediates some messages That needed to be shared like logistical things or like
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because at the same time, you know, it was December 2019.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: We started in September of 2019.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, then we spoke again in December, we came back together, had a conversation, and connected, and we were like, no, it's not a line.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we spoke for about a month, and then I realized I was on this retreat, and on this retreat, I remember, I was a attendee, and I remember thinking to myself, like, I'm still in conversation with her, and she's still dictating the level of intimacy.
• 25:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: and connection.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, nope, so I went home face time to her.
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I recognize that this is still happening.
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're still deciding.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not.
• 26:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm deciding.
• 26:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't keep in contact with you.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was like an example of that?
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, what was something that you felt that you were like, I feel like she's dictating the intimacy?
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, because I had been the one who always wanted more.
• 26:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was always the one who was like, I want more.
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the capacity of the relationship was dictated by her capacity.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I realized I kept being the one who was consenting to someone else deciding the capacity.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, no, I'm deciding.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to live in a space of a long end.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when I had that conversation with her, I mean, she's incredible.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she was like, oh, you're right.
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am doing that.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's not fair.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we went back to no contact and then, you know, COVID starts and so here I am like, thinking the world's ending and I'm like, well, that's the person I'd want to come over.
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you have to have such a deep reverence for the desired of fracture of boundary for whatever reason.
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just knew this is not a negotiation.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like my growth is not negotiable.
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: My transformation is not negotiable.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I never for once feared that I wouldn't find someone.
• 27:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I knew that all you needed was two people who really cared about growth.
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It really were curious, who had humility.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Would you say you wanted more from her?
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, was that marriage in kids or was it like more emotional capacity or both?
• 27:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it'll show up as the symptom of I want more from her, which the telling of that would make me the victim of her lack of capacity.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if I was really like, and this is the language that we get to in the book,
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: taking responsibility is I wanted more from myself that needed to show up with boundaries and standards from the like what the relationship was capable of doing in alignment.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I needed that because without that, she couldn't anyways.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: How did you get there?
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, how are you able to flip that?
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: Because I think that's such a pivotal point of this conversation, right?
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: Because we always hear people just being like, I want to more.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: They couldn't give it to me.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: How do you take that accountability?
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: if you want to move to the next level in your life, it's not optional.
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because the challenge or the sort of strange juxtaposition of being a victim, but not living in a victim mindset.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's usually what happens is we'll say, like some of them might hear initially without some context, what I'm saying, and they would go, oh, that's victim blaming, but really what I'm saying is, you can be the victim of an experience, right?
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it is your responsibility with what you do with the experience.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we live in this binary world, either this or that, or either it, and this is not binary.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: This actually is the complexity, because someone can have been through ultimate trauma.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that experience can have fueled creating the most beautiful thing in the world.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we're not saying, well, no trauma, because no trauma, no beauty.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not giving permission or anything.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's usually the sort of, so to like actually make the leap,
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: to the full sense of responsibility because I guarantee there's someone else on a podcast saying, yeah, they couldn't fucking show up.
• 29:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Move on to the next.
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you've seen that viral thing where it says, find a man who will.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's easy to say that.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you flip it around and you say, find a woman who will and it doesn't sound quite nice.
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's necessary because without me taking responsibility for my role, I don't allow them the freedom to take
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I see what you're saying, but I also see the other side, like, what's the lie?
• 29:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Because we what it wants someone that's like in this situation ship where like person does not give even anything to be like, well, I just need to take a count to build 100% you know what's that line.
• 29:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: You think you should, okay?
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're in a situation ship and you want more.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: and they don't.
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then you are consenting to be in a relationship dynamic with someone where you're actually misrepresenting possibly and not honoring what you truly desire.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're accepting breadcrumbs.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're accepting something less and then you're the victim of the situation ship but you're not.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You are choosing to be with someone who can't show up fully for you likely because there's a familiar wound and now you get to say, oh they just treat me like a
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Neither are you.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: I see what you're saying.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: You're not saying, like, take your countability, like try to make it work with them.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's take your countability and like, own how you're showing up to this.
• 30:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 30:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like right on a piece of paper, what's true?
• 30:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we have a chapter in the book that's called Getting Right With Reality and breaking up with normal.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those chapters are like savage takedowns perception of like fantasy land.
• 30:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, because a lot of people who stay in those types of circumstances learned somewhere, they couldn't have what they desired.
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what happens is we live in the wound of rejection because we stay in circumstances that are rejecting.
• 30:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I get to blame the guy or the girl.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: when it's really me who's rejecting my desire.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I am the birthplace of the thing that I'm projecting onto them.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, this is a really tough one to hold, but I, at this point, I'm going to say a hundred percent of the time, which I normally would qualify something with like 99.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm afraid you're going to like it.
• 31:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: 100% of the time external betrayals are preceded by internal betrayals.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So infidelity is lying, cheating of someone else, usually, usually, always is preceded by some sort of betrayal of ourselves.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that doesn't mean it's anyone's fault because that's where we go to.
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so you're victim blaming the people who've been cheated on.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, what I'm saying is we probably learned somewhere to bypass and betray ourselves to maintain connection.
• 31:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we're not villainizing them.
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're just calling out the truth of it.
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had a friend who was telling me this story about a relational circumstance that it I'm like, okay, we just need to actually connect to the part what did you choose?
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as soon as she was able to own that,
• 31:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: This guy cheated with multiple women's secret life, blah, blah, blah.
• 32:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now you're dealing with that's a pretty crazy behavior.
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's very like you're getting into like narcissistic sociopathic behavior.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I was like, where was the earliest sign that you missed Red Flag?
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, it was here.
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, is there anywhere earlier?
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because till you can get to first moment, that's where you left yourself.
• 32:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the three year relationship is just created on the abandonment.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: You are what you tolerate.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right?
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: All of that, all the behavior in your life is what you've tolerated.
• 32:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: in your life.
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: So we got to take accountability for that as well.
• 32:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I think about the infidelity that you're talking about, Mark, I think about this all the time.
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: It is because I had let go of my needs that gave him permission to forego to disrespect because it's like it's the whole roller coaster of one day taking me out, ring shopping, the next day being like,
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I never chose that, right?
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: I never sat there and said, oh, what I choose is for myself.
• 33:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: I just sat there and waited and said, why is he changing his mind?
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Everything was on him, but I never turned it back on me and said, am I just abandoning myself by allowing him to make all these choices for us?
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: So Mark, what was your boba that if this relationship that you were like, I'm abandoning myself, and then how did you take that accountability and then that eventually moved to a new relationship with Kylie?
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was that moment of the recognition like I learned somewhere to tolerate, being in a relationship with someone who doesn't fully choose me.
• 33:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was also in recognizing that like somehow I was getting importance in value by trying to help her.
• 33:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like sourcing safety and security by trying to fix things.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when I recognized that, I realized how unhealthy and unfair that was.
• 33:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the impact that was having on her.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember when I said to her, like, what happens if we just see what you're feeling as being signs of your brilliance, not your brokenness?
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember her just crying because it was like the first time
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: her feeling had been validated.
• 34:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And instead of us trying to be like, what's next to fix the feeling you have?
• 34:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, uh, let's actually ask it questions.
• 34:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's get curious.
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for me, it was when I had the awareness, it was like no more.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're like, when I finally connected to the anger to like a healthy level of.
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why am I in a relationship with someone who's telling me about dreams about leaving or like why do we tolerate these like fuck this?
• 34:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and so when I took that stand and also had empathy for her need then she started to trust me on a deeper level right because she's like he's calling out the truth of our connection And he's he's actually standing in his non-negotiables.
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, now I can trust him
• 34:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, this is the part that I'm hearing our listeners ask, like, why try it again with her versus find someone else that, you know, can meet that need and you don't worry that they choose you.
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, I went back into my relationship history and I realized a ran from every woman who could actually show up and love me.
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we all would have caught our own can of worms, you know, because that's that's how it works But yeah, but like I recognize that like a woman I was terrified of and I needed to heal and fix these things Like like change and get access to my voice and stop sourcing from trying to help and save people Because it changed my work to it changed so many things because you know If you're monetizing your survival strategy
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that means you're not freeing them.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I started to see this in I, you know, now I've, like, I just did a workshop with coaches and nutritionists and itticians and therapists talking about this.
• 35:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is like deeper thing that needs to be healed where we're hooking into the people we're working with.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's not freeing them to actually heal, right?
• 35:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because we're living out the same dynamic.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we don't think we are because they're paying us money.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: So we're peeding the same patterns.
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 35:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just calling it a job.
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when I started to really step into that, and I had the awareness of that, I was actually totally open to Kylie being the person potentially, but she would be the one who had to come to me.
• 36:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had no interest in going to her, and she knew that, you know, and she was doing her own personal work during that time, and
• 36:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was thinking like I don't want to repeat this like I need to figure out what is going on and like get deeper into this Which she talks about in the book and on some level like so I could turn towards a relationship Potentially with Mark but a relationship in general right and so she messaged me one day and was like hey I'd love to have a conversation with you and catch up and so she came over
• 36:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: How long was this after the break up eight months, seven months?
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: So a lot of enough time has gone by a lot of times.
• 36:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is about three months after I said I'm no longer going to let you dictate.
• 36:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: As like the level of and so she she said to me, I've learned a lot.
• 36:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the things I've learned.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready to choose this relationship and I'm I'm curious about exploring it with you.
• 37:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was like, okay, and I could tell she was different.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was like a different energy to her.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: She had that woman's wagon now.
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was like certainty in her choice.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I could feel it.
• 37:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was terrified of it, but I could feel it.
• 37:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember, so we created what we called a dating container.
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 37:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we created like structure around it, which it would be three months.
• 37:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But by the end of the three months, and throughout we would check in, is this connection working?
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this actually the right way our relationship should be structured?
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was actually through that, which is really interesting.
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I started to see how I wanted to accelerate the relationship.
• 37:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, over and back together.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's the like go too, don't believe.
• 37:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 37:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she'd be like, well, we're like exploring that, like, slow down.
• 37:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, yeah.
• 37:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 37:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not ready to choose this like this isn't still is not a yes for me.
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm bypassing again my no or my maybe and so she was so grounded at that time.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like a little intimidating she was like Yoda like a hot Yoda
• 38:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: She said to me it was actually really beautiful because I said to her how do I even trust you?
• 38:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you told me that you chose this we spent four years in this dance.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do I trust you now?
• 38:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you're saying it now, and she was like you're right.
• 38:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going anywhere and I choose you And I get that you don't trust it yet and I was like
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because it was like everything I needed to hear, but it was like an embodiment to her certainty But there was also a reality which that's the thing we really learned if we could be fiercely dedicated to the reality that this might not work There was actually freedom in that that actually creates some a tremendous amount of fear and trepidation for people
• 38:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that's actually freedom because we're saying all of this is true anyways, and so by bringing it It becomes a material that the relationship works with like I remember saying to her once in the container like this isn't feeling good for me Here's what's coming up and she was like yeah
• 39:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for bringing that forward, and then we talked about it, and then there's more trust.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: I guess like as a listener, I'm still like, what is that difference?
• 39:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: What I'm hearing from you is there was a feeling just in the way she started herself and the tone and all that, but like what were the other major changes?
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The major change was that neither of us were in our adaptive strategies anymore.
• 39:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Neither of us were in our codependent patterns.
• 39:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were subtle, like we had to continue to call out where they were showing up.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But no longer did I need her to be broken.
• 39:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was a fully functioning, amazing adult.
• 39:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And no longer did I need to try to fix because I didn't need someone to choose me anymore.
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd chosen myself to take it off the table.
• 39:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when we orient to our relationship from our wounds, that's very normal.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what we do till we don't.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: What happens when we sort of spend our lives choosing people who wound us in a familiar way
• 39:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: apparent who wounded us the most that sort of how it works.
• 39:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is through the thing you want most from somebody in your dating process is actually the thing you must give to yourself.
• 40:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once you give it to yourself then you no longer seek it unconsciously from the other and then you can love each other.
• 40:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think it's important for anybody listening right now to just pause and rewind and listen to the dating container again because I think that is how dating should be done we should be dating in a dating container before we even take that next step because I think we go from like dating to committing to a relationship, which means committing to let's making this last.
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: But we don't commit to we're not committing to I want to express my needs.
• 40:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're not committing to I want to honor your needs.
• 40:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Those are not the commitments we make when we define the relationship.
• 40:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's a huge step that we're skipping.
• 40:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think the other big piece too is the fact that like you didn't rush right back into it because I've been there before where I've broken up with someone got back together and nothing changes each time because it's just repeating the same patterns.
• 41:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: I really believe like if you're going to give a 2.0 a try and really make it work.
• 41:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like the fundamentals need to change.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: You can't just go right back to where it was.
• 41:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, that's why the language, like, how do I get back together with my acts?
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm always such a stickler.
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, don't move forward, like, be walking forward in your life.
• 41:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they'll meet you walking forward.
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And whoever means you walk forward, you won't care if it's them.
• 41:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's such a good distinction.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It makes such a difference, I remember hearing Alan Watts say, why fall in love?
• 41:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rise, and it's such a difference, you know, like rise in love.
• 41:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, like in the book, we talk, like our principles of liberated love, one is a fierce dedication to the truth, and another one is honoring each other's path as their own, that we're honoring the sovereignty and choice of the other, and it is actually through doing that, that the relationship becomes a place of expanding ourselves, instead of collapsing ourselves, who wouldn't want to be in a relationship with one of the major intentions,
• 41:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: is to bring each individual alive more, more healed, more powerful, like my wife getting more access to her voice doesn't threaten me because it just makes her more powerful, which is great, that it's only when power dynamics are what I'm playing with, that that is scary, or or I don't want it.
• 42:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: I really like how you were able to share from like the anxious perspective.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, if we're going to use anxious avoidant terms, but you know, the person that feels like they're not getting enough in the relationship.
• 42:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think a lot of people, a lot of our listeners, you probably relate to that.
• 42:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it is so easy to blame the other person.
• 42:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: So we do this.
• 42:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like, this take a countability and, you know, doing it for yourself, like how else were you both, I guess, able to heal within the relationship, because I think that's another misnomer as we think we need to get it all together before we meet that person.
• 42:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, it was through starting to say, hey, we're going to use this relationship to you.
• 42:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I always think there's the logistical competency part of relationship, right?
• 42:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the skill set, the words, the language, the energetics.
• 42:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is that we healed our nervous systems, you know, like we talk in the book about how the nervous system is actually layered and all of this.
• 43:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: because a lot of conversations about relational patterns like anxious or avoidance or attachment, codependency, they don't actually bring into context that you are a mammal who has a nervous system.
• 43:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of these behaviors are actually encoded in your nervous system.
• 43:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what's going on when you get super anxious when someone doesn't message you back is really an automated process that's a memory within the nervous system.
• 43:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we're saying, like, hey, let's actually use this to heal that.
• 43:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So some of the other ways we're through that, just like the awareness, right?
• 43:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the awareness of all these things that are going on, awareness of each other's wounds, each other's ways that we get when we're stressed and taking accountability, a massive amount of just like accountability and humility.
• 43:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, one of the principles we have in the book is a mutual sense of positive regard for one another,
• 43:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: So how did you decide like okay we're doing this again like how did you get out of the relationship container and like eventually get married and have a baby like what was that process?
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we were both very excited and we were excited about what was possible.
• 44:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: We survived the three months.
• 44:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The trust was being rebuilt and there was just alignment and you know, mind you through all this, all the things are going on in the world.
• 44:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a deep level of trust as we're navigating that together.
• 44:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once we knew that the previous things from the previous relationship,
• 44:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: where this material that created a different relationship.
• 44:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now there was just deep trust and it was like full steam ahead.
• 44:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: And obviously we don't have Kylie here.
• 44:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: We'll have to get her for another episode.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: But like what was the key work you think she did?
• 44:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like what changed within her without having to like feel like she's broken and needs to change?
• 44:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the closing ceremony and the way it ended was sort of the catalyst to that because now she was like, okay I need to get to the root of this and she talks about it in the book She did this session with one of our mentors his name's Mark Wala and he's one of the most world-renowned experts in inherited trauma and he did a session with her I was saying to Kai like oh you should do we had broken up right so I know it's like you should do a session with Mark Wala and she's like
• 45:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't really need it.
• 45:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she gets on with him and he says do or something along the lines of him paraphrasing.
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he says till you heal your family stuff essentially, man will always be mother.
• 45:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't do the work, I'll be having this conversation again with you in two years.
• 45:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that really dove her into, I'm not sure if you guys have learned about like the mother wound.
• 45:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: which is of course not just mother, it's like mother as like a sort of archetype too.
• 45:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The mother wound, I don't know all the like intricate details of it, but let's say for example, it's like the unconscious desire for the mother to protect the daughter from being, you know, too powerful because they gave away their own power, but they fear that a powerful woman will be, you know, is not safe in this world that the mother doesn't allow the daughter to outshine or become more, etc.
• 46:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not speaking to her specific dynamic.
• 46:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's experts on the mother-in-law that are worth having on, does it such a thing?
• 46:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 46:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm definitely not doing it justice, but that's just sort of like a framework of it.
• 46:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a much more complex and more beautifully said by Kai, and an expert in it.
• 46:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what's interesting is when she healed that, she actually did what was called a no-man diet, which was guided by a woman who does it still.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in that, she entered a three month container, no contact, no anything, and no communication with any men, no anything.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she said that she felt like she was dying.
• 46:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like she felt like who was she without the male gaze?
• 46:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who was she without male attention?
• 46:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who was she?
• 46:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: She saw all the way as she sourced and manipulated and tried to become valuable and important and attractive.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, at the end of the day, what was really like if I think about what is at the core of this, and this is a hard, I think a hard truth for our culture to be with is that ultimately everything comes down to our early childhood and our mother's ability to be attuned to us.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, granted, there are a lot of societal environmental, all these factors that get in the way of that, and those are all valid.
• 47:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But at the end of the day, what it just says to me is like, how do we create families, friends, groups that allow the support of the mother to be well-resourced?
• 47:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she can be attuned to the child because what I'm even saying is like it's hard when a single mom a mom working a job Right, like there's so much that's why I don't what quickly happens is then a woman feels guilty That she couldn't show up fully or life so this is not to cause that but I'm also not wanting to protect anyone from that Because it's actually an important truth.
• 48:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember talking to my mentor and he said I was like so like a caregiver And he's like caregiver is a word we use when we want to reduce the amount of pain
• 48:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: knowing that the mother wasn't the one and I was like oh wow that's true like when I felt into that I was like that's actually true we don't but he's like if you actually just see that you're replacing mother with caregiver you're actually protecting them from the experience of knowing their mother wasn't there right right now's like holy moly so you know I look at all of it and it's like well where do you fathers of course are important but I remember asking him that like the father matters right
• 48:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: as I'm in the ad, you know, and I'm like, I'm important, but what was really cool.
• 48:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as he said, the mother prepares the neural architecture of the child for the world, and then hands the child to the father to take them into the world.
• 48:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
• 48:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's beautiful.
• 48:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and when I share that on social media, a lot of the response I got was like, but I take my kid on adventures, but at my minute, and I'm like, I get it.
• 49:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much complexity to the human experience.
• 49:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's funny that if we don't hear our own experience expressed in a 30 second clip.
• 49:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: I know, it's like that's not me.
• 49:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's like, okay, and I say all this because it's like, the work relationally is actually about providing the thing you didn't get.
• 49:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now granted, of course, our wounds could be with our father, right?
• 49:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not, it's not just a blank slate, because a father of and a name not being available.
• 49:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: All those types of things can be the pursuit of unavailability as an adult.
• 49:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's really interested because like when you think about it, what you're really doing, when I finally said no more, his eye was attuning to myself.
• 49:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 49:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we are not destined to a life of poor relating because we had a parent who can show up.
• 49:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just like your attachment style is a style, it's not who you are.
• 49:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 49:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just what you're prone to when there's insecurity or a lack of safety.
• 49:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But can you actually start to attune to yourself, attend to your needs?
• 50:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And at the end of the day, what I think all relational friction,
• 50:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: is really inviting and that means any, that could be with food, that could be with your body, that could be with your health on some level, that could be with your job, that could be with your purpose.
• 50:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all saying, can you honor who you are?
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when, when you need to, do you have your own back?
• 50:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Mm, yeah.
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I want to bring this back to your book in a nutshell.
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: I feel like this is related.
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: What is liberated love?
• 50:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Liberated love is the celebration and the creation of a space between you and other people because it's not just going to be romantic.
• 50:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once you build the template, you're going to change every relationship in your life.
• 50:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to change your life because what we're saying is you as a human matter and instead of looking at the
• 50:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: they're just giving you information.
• 50:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you think about it from the process of alchemy, it's like, you're turning what you see as bad stuff into fucking gold.
• 51:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, liberated love is about actually using love as a path to liberation on every level.
• 51:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And to me, it's like, well, once you do that, once you say to a partner, like, this is what I want to create.
• 51:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to create that with
• 51:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like I mentioned, if you're Tinder profiles, I want to use this container of relationship to bring both of us alive in a G-Vardering.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 51:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like swipe right all day.
• 51:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, even if you have a fish in a picture, that's a swipe wrap.
• 51:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's even if it's actionable to remember yourself.
• 51:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: The fish represents liberating love.
• 51:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
• 51:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 51:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: So putting it into example, sake again, too, like for you and Kylie, what was kind of that example of like how you turned, maybe an issue or something that was broken with both of you, into that liberated love, like growth opportunity.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: it's now just a way of being.
• 51:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 51:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the other principles of liberated love is when something's coming up for one person, it's coming up for both.
• 52:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just that the other person might not feel it.
• 52:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's actually instead of like, oh, that's your problem.
• 52:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, that's ours.
• 52:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 52:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you're feeling neglected.
• 52:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's not my experience of what's happening, but tell me more about it.
• 52:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in internet language, we'd be like that's gaslighting.
• 52:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not it's just saying like maybe that's not true for me But I'm not saying it's not true for you.
• 52:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, you know because really what is a relationship?
• 52:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's two truths that can be subjective that coexist that through the conversation and dialogue You create a deeper truth and that one includes the both of you relating to each other So if one person feels something the other person
• 52:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so then you're not feeling and then you don't hide it instead the relationship is like tell us okay, like share the thing that's coming up for you because that's what leads to breakthroughs that's what leads to transformation that there's a difference of codependency with that though right yes so if you're relating from a place of always having problems and that's how you create connection that's very different.
• 53:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that delineation, I think, is pretty felt like you could tell when that's happening.
• 53:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could tell when someone only connects through criticism.
• 53:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the ways that people who have more of an anxious style of attachment, probably some of your abandonment in there, is they'll want to talk about everything all the time, because they don't yet know how to self-regulate and hold on to things a little longer before they engage.
• 53:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: Gosh, there's so many nuggets in this that I need to rewind and listen for myself.
• 53:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: What advice we're going to wrap this up very quickly here, but what advice would you give to someone who maybe in a relationship like you and Kylie in relationship 1.0?
• 53:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: where you're on a relationship escalator.
• 53:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: I feel like this happens a lot.
• 53:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're going through the motions, you're on this escalator.
• 53:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's going up, but your connection or your feelings may be not catching up with escalator.
• 54:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yet, you've moved in, you've met parents, you've merged friend groups.
• 54:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: For anybody going through that who's like, I'm so afraid to take myself out of this relationship because we're already on this escalator.
• 54:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: What advice would you give to that person?
• 54:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, recognizing that the momentum of life is maybe having you leave your center, right?
• 54:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you're allowing yourself to go up and escalator that you're actually not ready to go up.
• 54:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so just being with that truth, like, oh, things are really moving.
• 54:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's all these indicators, but yet, you know, in a way, this can be a pretty regular pattern for people where they meet their needs with wants.
• 54:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need, and sorry, I need you to know I'm chosen I want you to post me on social media.
• 54:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need to know that we have a future, let's have a kid.
• 54:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what's really not happening is we're not getting to the deeper sense of security.
• 54:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like the conversation, Kylie and I
• 54:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: was really a conversation about alignment, and so can we create the foundation of security before we create all the other things?
• 54:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now granted, you might be listening to this, watching this, and you're like, shit, I created all the other things, and now I want the security.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: We sometimes do it in the opposite order, and that's okay, because that's actually what most people do is do it in the opposite order.
• 55:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: They think the milestones actually prove what is only a felt sense.
• 55:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, that's very profound.
• 55:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I think my biggest takeaway with this whole conversation, again, probably the elicit to this like three times to get it all, but I think the big one that's coming up for me is, you know, behind any unmet need that you have of others, there is something deeper within yourself.
• 55:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: And we always talk about this to a dating.
• 55:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: It is a mirror into what's happening for you.
• 55:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, relationships and all of that is a place to heal, but also to recognize what's bringing up for you.
• 55:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: Because I think in relationships, you could really have a lot start to confront you.
• 55:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, the biggest thing with the should you get back with your ax, like I also hate the way that is phrased, but it's like, unless you're both willing to do something different and approach things in a way that actually getting to the root of what the challenge is that you're facing, that's how you know if you should pursue something again.
• 56:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I loved what you said earlier, Mark, about it wasn't about getting back with my ax.
• 56:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was moving forward.
• 56:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: And if they met me there, then that was the right person or
• 56:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: someone else could have been to.
• 56:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: What a great synopsis.
• 56:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 56:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, I'm always brought back.
• 56:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I shared this in the book.
• 56:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember.
• 56:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But one of my favorite lines from Abraham Hicks.
• 56:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you know Abraham Hicks?
• 56:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
• 56:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Abraham Hicks, if you can let go of one of the esoteric nature of what I'm about to say, the actual groundedness and the words are brilliant.
• 56:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Abraham Hicks is a woman named Esther who channels a guy named Abraham.
• 56:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you listen to Abraham Hicks's stuff on YouTube, you'll be like, holy shit, his stuff is dial.
• 56:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's really interesting that she said that has always stuck with me, is she said, or he, whenever you say that you desire something, the universe will orchestrate to bring everything into your path.
• 57:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: so that you can hold it.
• 57:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you say I desire a great relationship, then everything that needs to be resolved for you to create that will be brought into your life.
• 57:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why I think if we can say I'm so tired of picking this type of person, good, you should be tired.
• 57:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what is actually the deeper level of responsibility you can take in this?
• 57:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where's your role?
• 57:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like, that I saw a funny meme the other day that said the dating pool has pee in it.
• 57:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it doesn't all, right?
• 57:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's so many stories of people's dating world that disprove our own beliefs about dating.
• 57:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so for me, it's like, what beliefs are you holding?
• 57:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And are they helpful?
• 57:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what work do you need to do?
• 57:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's it, man.
• 57:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the hardest stuff is like,
• 57:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you keep attracting unavailable people, you are being invited to actually let go of unavailable people.
• 57:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair, till you have access to your know, your yes isn't real.
• 58:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's very much related to my two main takeaways.
• 58:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: One is the creation stage of a relationship, especially a new relationship.
• 58:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Many of us, in addition to falling in love, we fall into relationships.
• 58:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: We kind of just write it out.
• 58:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: See where this takes us, but
• 58:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: being intentional about creating what does a healthy relationship look like just for you and I that's unique to us is so important in that early stage and then also the question of is your identity in a relationship what's holding you back?
• 58:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: You were thoughts about, you know, Kylie being the broken one and she thought she was the one that needed help.
• 58:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: She had all these issues.
• 58:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think we have a lot of these identities in our relationships.
• 58:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, you've heard the golden retriever and cat, you know, the identities where one person's always the one wanting attention and the other one's like the bitch, you know, like I'll give you attention when I give it to you.
• 58:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then when you are that, when you assume that identity, you just, what do you do?
• 58:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: You just keep feeding more into that identity and in fact your partner.
• 59:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: also enables you to become more of that identity.
• 59:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I think it's a great, great pause for all of us to think, am I identifying myself in a certain way in this relationship?
• 59:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: That is holding me back.
• 59:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so just having the mindfulness around how we build relationships is the ultimate takeaway.
• 59:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: So thank you for
• 59:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: letting us be on your journey of how you and Kylie rebuilt your relationship to a completely new one.
• 59:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: You do not go back to your ex.
• 59:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: You've started a new relationship with a new person, both of you.
• 59:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's been quite a journey.
• 59:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's for sure.
• 59:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: And you can read all of out, because there's a whole book about it.
• 59:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we share lots of client stories in the book, which I think is good for people.
• 59:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the audiobook is actually really special because I'm a big
• 59:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we had unscripted conversations at the end of each chapter where we discussed the chapter.
• 59:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, okay.
• 59:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to download the audiobook today then.
• 59:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
• 59:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so much.
• 59:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of fun.
• 59:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, and I, you know, the audiobook has been crushing compared to the written book, which is interesting.
• 1:00:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, we are definitely going to link both in the show notes.
• 1:00:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Anything else you want to share with people before we wrap up?
• 1:00:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think the thing I always want to remind people of is that you can create anything you want.
• 1:00:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great love doesn't come to those who are lucky.
• 1:00:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it comes to the people who take responsibility for creating it.
• 1:00:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a good way to end it.
• 1:00:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love that so much.
• 1:00:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: And if you haven't done so yet, subscribe to the psychology of relationships today.
• 1:00:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: So you don't miss an episode.
• 1:00:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Bye.