Latest / Lucid Interval Podcast / #1 Relationship Coach: What Men and Women Get Wrong in Dating - Megan Thoma
Transcript
- speaker-0: To me, being seen is really being witnessed in in whatever is coming through for me in the moment and the person being like, What else? I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. Tell me more. What else? That to me makes me feel really seen and cared for. speaker-1: That's beautiful. And and that's a profoundly healing experience. I mean, I've I've been through this as a lot of the my own healing work that I've done. Just it requires that, especially if you've got things like toxic shame or a shame-bound identity. And it's very hard to correct that. Like is you it's very hard to trust anybody enough to to be in that position. And what you were describing about the things that people do when someone's having an inexperience of like you try to suppress it or fix it or relate it to your own experience. It's kind of like a failure of holding space. And holding space, I've learned it's just a it's a skill. And five percent of the work is paying attention to the person. The other ninety-five percent is suppressing the urge to to manage your own discomfort. Because we're it's like it's like ⁓ especially when you don't know the person. I mean, sometimes someone's crying in a Walgreens and you're just like, I have to go. Like, you know, it's like, why do people open up to me? I'm not ready emotionally for this, you know what I mean? But it's just like I guess I have the face. Well, I'm just like, how are you? And they'll tell me. speaker-0: I just like, where did this come from? Why have I picked some people like this in my past when I came from such a loving, healthy household? So I had to really dig into what that was about for me. Then I had to release a lot of the shame that I carried for picking the relationship in the first place. choosing it over and over again because a lot of toxic relationships you break up and make up and break up and make up and you know it's it's embarrassing in a lot of ways. So releasing a lot of the shame that I carried around staying in something like that or choosing something like that in the first place and then reclaiming, reclaiming the truth of who I am, what I really want, what I really think, what I really believe in, what I really desire for my life. That's my process of how I really healed. speaker-1: A a good way of dis what talking about what we're saying is toxic relationships are extremely sticky. Like they're sticky. You just get stuck together and you keep coming you try to get unstuck but then you come back together. The bridge experiment that I was telling you about, they wanted to study, you know, first dates and they would bring college students together, males, females, and they would send them off on first dates and they would make them go on a walk down a particular like a particular trail and that was the day. One trail had a stone bridge, like I think like you would see in Central Park, like the stone thing that you go over. And another one had a bridge that was like a rickety suspension bridge that like was like swaying in the wind and then like something from an Indiana Jones movie. The couples that went on the suspension bridge felt much closer, much more bonded after the end of the first date and were more likely to say that they wanted to go on a second date. And that was the only real variable that was changed. Whereas this, you know, the Stone Bridge was stable. And the reason is because they went they had a shared emotional experience. Megan, thanks for joining us. speaker-0: Yes, I'm so excited to be here. speaker-1: ⁓ what is a feminine embodiment coach? speaker-0: We're gonna kick it off with that, are we? Yep. Okay. ⁓ to me the word even embodiment means learning how to allow our bodies signals and sensations inform us and guide us and get us out of our head and more into our bodies. So for me, I I really I started out teaching a lot of mindset work with women. Which is really beautiful and helpful and necessary. But I think the missing piece was helping women really connect to their bodies because that is where our intuition lives. Our so much of our knowledge lives in our bodies. So I really wanted to go more in that direction at this part of my career. So speaker-1: What does embodiment work include? speaker-0: ⁓ my gosh, so many things. so many somatic exercises. And I'm sure you know somatic just means of the body. So it's just working with the body. There's a lot of movement exercises, there's a lot, ⁓ there's exercises. I mean, have you ever heard of gestalt therapy chairmark? Okay. I think that's a form of embodiment practice. Like you're speaker-1: Could you explain what that what that is for people that don't know? Sorry, I was a smart ass for a minute. speaker-0: Yes. I've gotten more apologies by the way in chair work than I ever have in real life. Yeah. So chair work or gestalt therapy is basically you set up two chairs in front of each other as if if two people were sitting in them you'd be knee to knee. ⁓ except you're the only one in the chair. speaker-1: Night's good to know. speaker-0: So you sit in one of the chairs and then you imagine someone sitting in the chair in front of you. And it can be anybody you want. It can be God, it can be an ex partner, it can be a parent, it can be a future person, whatever you want. And you have a conversation with them with your eyes closed, because our subconscious can't tell the difference between imagination, like a well imagined thought and reality. So with your eyes closed, you have a conversation, you ask this person questions. And then keeping your eyes closed, you switch into the seat in front of you. And now you are suddenly that person replying back to you. So you are the ex partner, you are the parent, you're the future person, what you're the inner child replying back to yourself. And you just switch back and forth, having this full conversation. You might switch two times, you might switch twenty times. but yeah, as I said, I've I've I've put Ex-partners in there a time or two, and I've gotten so many great apologies in that chair that my ex-partner could never give me. Maybe it sounds a little woo, but it's it's very scientific. ⁓ I obviously did not come up with it, but there are things that have happened in that chair that are unexplainable. It's so awesome. And when clients are like, well I don't know what the other person would say. I was like, you don't you don't have to know what the person will say. You just show up and trust the process and it's amazing what can come through. speaker-1: And why do you consider that an embodied practice? speaker-0: Because you're still working with what you feel in the moment. You're not in your head. You're really working with whatever's coming through in the moment. And it still requires some movement and being in touch with what you're feeling. ⁓ whenever we do whenever I do that with clients, like I really take time to drop them into their bodies to prepare them for that process. So anytime we're working with the body, it's embodiment work. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ just from my man's perspective, women seem to be so much better at this. Like you just it seems to be one of the things that women are just wired to be embodied and when they be get become disembodied, like everything starts going poorly poorly, you know, for everybody, really. speaker-0: Well, yes. And I think there's almost two different definitions of the word embodiment. Like there's embodiment the verb, which like I'm very embodied in curling my hair. I know how to do that. I do it every day. It's I'm embodied in that. You're very embodied in talking on a podcast, in trimming your beard, in getting up and going to the gym, like whatever it is. Like you don't even have to think about it. It's just in your body. You know how to do it. Then The part that maybe you're saying is a little bit more difficult for men is embodiment as a way of being, like I'm talking about. Let l letting sensations guide you and inform you and trusting your body's wisdom. speaker-1: Yeah, I definitely agree. The that concept I think a lot of men would be like, What are you talking about? You know, basically have you I mean, do you observe this? I always love to get a woman's perspective on what men are like. speaker-0: You know what I think? And I'm curious to hear what you think too. You hear a lot about women's intuition. Like women are so intuitive. Yes, I fully completely agree with that. And for any women who are listening and they don't think they're intuitive, you are. Your your dial is probably just turned down where you can't hear it. But every woman instinctively is intuitive. But I I think men have great instinct. It's kind of Maybe it's semantics, it's very similar. But I think men definitely can feel things and they know things. I swe like the first example that I think of is, you know, the minute a woman seems to move on, I don't know why, it's like the ex-boyfriend just gets a feeling, like there's a disturbance in the field, and he feels something and he reaches out. Like, what is that? It's instinct. Men just know. speaker-1: Yeah, what is that? I don't know. speaker-0: So you you are instinctive and even intuitive, I would say. I just but may men aren't necessarily taught, just like a lot of women aren't taught, but men aren't necessarily taught how to tune into it and trust it. speaker-1: I love the distinction though of intuition versus instinct. That is a good way of kind of separating ⁓ feminine and masculine. Like women, I agree, are very, very intuitive and men are kind of instinctual. I think the distinction comes down to intuition is about sent being sensitive or perceiving what's out there and then taking it in, feeling it. Like you have a connection to what's around you and the energy of what's around you. ⁓ instincts just kind of seem to be independent of whatever else is going on. Men, we just kind of we have what's within us and we act and we just kind of go with what that is. And a lot of times I think that can sort of overwhelm paying attention to what's happening in our environment. whereas with women, like your nervous systems are amazing. Like you just pick up on everything. It's one of the things I'd love to talk to you about, things that men don't really understand about women that well, ⁓ is how unbelievably like intuitive is a good way of of thinking of it. Women just have a sensitivity to what's going on in our bodies. Like a lot of times women are much more aware of what's going on in a man's body than he is. Cause you can just feel it, right? It's an amazing thing to observe and I think it all it comes from just being an embodied being. speaker-0: Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's I mean, we are highly sensitive creatures. Like I'm sensitive to certain language that is used or tonality or cadence even or even the way a man like sits in front of me, like I can feel if he really wants to be there or not. It's it's kind of an Achilles heel sometimes because it's just like you see and feel everything, but it's also awesome at the same time. speaker-1: Can give an example of like when something like that's come up for you or where you're just you s were sensing something and you realize like later on you're like I knew exactly what was going on speaker-0: whole time. Yeah, ⁓ my gosh. I'm trying to think of like a very specific example. ⁓ let me think. I mean Yeah, okay. So ⁓ in the past, I remember dating someone, and this is why I like to say that you know the phrase actions speak louder than words. There's truth to that, yes. But I'm more in the camp of I want actions to match the words. Cause I think someone can say a lot of words and also someone can do a lot of action, but it it sometimes they still contradict each other. Here's what I mean by that. I remember dating a guy way back in the day ⁓ who did a lot of romantic gestures. And I don't mean love moming. He just showed up as a very thoughtful person and always planning dates, always wanting to spend more time together, always, you know, planning things for the future. There was a lot of action that that displayed forward momentum. But in intuitively, I was like, why does something feel off here? He's doing all the things, but I intuitively don't feel like he's really in this. And turns out he wasn't. And we broke up. And I could feel it coming. Again, even though he was doing the things, I could feel like he wasn't fully in it. And it turns out the reason we broke up is we shared very different views on faith and religion. And so that was that. But I could feel it. I could feel it even though he was doing all the right things, quote unquote. speaker-1: That's interesting. ⁓ a difference of viewpoint on things like faith, that seems kind of fatal. I mean, you you would I mean one would think I guess if it just doesn't matter to either person, then maybe the differences don't matter. But what are some of the things like that that you think are important for us to be looking at in terms of compatibility? speaker-0: Yeah, there's I mean, God, there's so many things. definitely lifestyle choice. I think like how you both want to live your lives. For example, my last very serious relationship, you know, I'm in a phase where I feel like I'm not nesting, but really wanting to establish a home base and you know Build a relationship, eventually start a family. Like to me, I'm very grounded in that, where he was someone that was like, I'm gonna fly by the seat of my pants, I wanna travel the world all the time, I wanna live out of a van, and I'm like, that's not my lifestyle. I don't want that. I love you and care about you, but I don't want that lifestyle. So ultimately we were incompatible in that. We were out of alignment. ⁓ Yeah, and you know, there are a lot of people that when we talk about religion that experience like an interfaith. kind of relationship that works for them. I am someone who very much sees everything in gray. And the person I'm talking about was seeing things very black and white and neither is wrong or right or good or bad. It's just different. And that did not mesh well. So ⁓ so lifestyle for sure. And then what what do you really value? Like for me, The person that I end up with, he doesn't have to be a therapist or a coach. He doesn't have to be that, but he's gotta value growth. I can't be with someone who's like, I will never go to a therapist or I will never go to a coach or I will never explore that part of myself. Like you you have to value growth. So you have to, you have to really know yourself to know what you're looking for in a partner. And I think that's what a lot of people don't want to spend the time figuring out. speaker-1: Yeah, well there's like the things about shadow work is like when you pop the hood you have to deal with what's under there. I know, I know. I mean you and you never know. When I was in college I lived in a fraternity house and it was a really old rundown had a lot of work that needed to be done. speaker-0: It's so annoying, isn't it? speaker-1: And the was one of the members of the alumni board was a construction guy and we were just like, Can we please fix the windows? And he's like, The thing is, if we cut into the windows, we have to deal with whatever we find in there. Yeah. Like if the wood is rotten or there's mold, then we have to deal with it. And we're not prepared to deal with that problem at this particular stage. And it is I sometimes I've I've talked to a lot of men who ex have expressed this where they're like, Look, like I'm married, I got kids, I got a business, I can't blow my life up right now. And and It's I think there's a false dichotomy to think that automatically going in and looking at trauma and things like that will blow your life up. But it could happen. You know, I mean there like that's not unprecedented, but I think a lot of men, it like one of our things is we just like men can just kind of be used to being uncomfortable for long periods of time. And whereas like women I think are much less likely to like, Yeah, I'll just be miserable for twenty years or thirty years and make the money, you know, like they're much less likely to make partner in a big law firm. And there was a lot of d discussion in the last twenty years of like how do we get more women to make partner? Why don't we more women want to make partner here? And I'm like, ⁓ why do any men? Like you it's where you really need to start by wondering like who wants to work a hundred hours a week for other to do other people's homework. Totally. You know, women are ⁓ seem to be much less interested in that. speaker-0: Yes. We like comfort. You know, we do. But we're also, I think by default, in some ways, very introspective creatures. I think men men there are men that are introspective, but I mean if you look at people who invest the most in coaching and therapy, it's it's it's more women than men. It is right now. But I think we're starting to change some of that. speaker-1: Yeah, well a lot of things thing are also changing. Women are starting to have a hell of a lot more discretionary income too. So that's changing and it's revealing that that's what they're spending their money on. Like they're not just spending money on making more money. Although I mean coaching can lead to that. ⁓ but they're spending money on like being happier, feeling better, you know, having a better life. speaker-0: Yes. Yes, and thank God for that. When you talk to about shadow work, you're someone would you say you're someone that's done a lot of that work? Yes. What how would you personally describe shadow work? I'm just curious. speaker-1: So okay, so the term shadow comes from Carl Jung, and Carl Jung has, I think, one of the better explanations of what we mean by the word self. And the self is kind of like our highest self. You could think of it as a soul, our most complete self. ⁓ things like trauma or conditioning split off parts of the self. And it comes from a belief that who you truly are in your most authentic self is wrong in some way. It could be that you're told that when you're growing up. It could be that who you truly are is not safe in the environment or the culture that you grew up in. That's very common. ⁓ and so what ends up happening is the authentic parts of the self, parts of it get split off, and there's a kind of a positive and a negative side of it. And positive and negative, I mean those like like charge, not good or bad. And the positive th thing that gets split off is what we think we're supposed to be. And that it goes to a place, a part of ourselves that Young called the persona. And the word persona literally means mask. It's it's the persona that we put on that is, this is who I think I'm supposed to be to to earn love, right? As if love can be earned. And the antithesis of that goes into what's called the shadow. And it's really just the the inverse of whatever is in the persona. It's the part of ourselves that we had to suppress That we believed we had to suppress in order to be loved or to be accepted, or and like in some cases literally to survive. ⁓ and so those two things will kind of live in triangulation with one another. Shadow work, the work of shadow work is to go to find what's in the shadow and to reclaim it, to find the parts of ourself that we've suppressed or hidden. And ultimately the goal is what's called integration, of the integration of self. And that is a process of bringing persona and shadow back together. It's kind of like matter and antimatter. You know, when the t when the two meet, they, you know, they f they disappear. They would explode technically. And that's not how shadow work ends usually. ⁓ but sometimes, I mean, you know, there's something I've talked a lot about recently. ⁓ sometimes people just choose the wrong life. And it's, you know, I've been I've interviewed a lot of people on the show about depression. And how you know people in medicine a lot of times will view it as like a disease of the brain. And in reality, like if you've chosen the wrong life, if you accept that that's a valid premise, it would be impossible to imagine not being depressed. I mean, it's quite a depressing state of affairs. So ⁓ shadow work is about looking for the parts of yourself that you have abandoned or cast out or exiled and bringing them back home. And hopefully in the process, the the the goal is to become more full yourself. speaker-0: Yeah, love that. Very thorough definition. I appreciate that. No Yeah, I love it. There is there's a particular exercise that I was taught by one of my mentors that I do inside my scene program for women specifically that is very much like working with those rejected I she calls them my mentor who created this, the outlawed parts. So for women to have a chance to it's in three different buckets. The buckets is are vulnerability, intensity, and sensual or sexual. And underneath each bucket are all these different words that I ha just have women pick one word that they want to try on. So under vulnerable, it would be like needy, overly emotional, graspy, like all these parts crazy, these parts that we've been told throughout our lives or by society or by an ex partner or some somebody. that we've made so wrong and we've we've outcast them. Intensity it's like the the bitch, the crazy one, the, you know, psycho, whatever. speaker-1: Too much? Is too much would too much be intensity or or neediness? speaker-0: Too much would be probably under the vulnerability bucket. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Too much. And then, you know, the sensuality, the, you know, lusty, drippy, even the submissive. Like we have stuff around that. It's like I'm not submitting to a man or the dominant. Like, no, I can't be that either. So and and we play music. And we get out of our heads and into our bodies to really just try on being needy, to try on being the bitch and reclaiming that part of ourselves, because there's no bad parts. All parts get to belong. And really bringing that into wholeness. And my God, it is one of my most favorite exercises. It's so much fun. speaker-1: It's extraordinary. That sounds fun. Yeah. Well, also, one thing we've talked about before is acting. Yeah. And you get to play. I mean, you know, children don't the in the the school that I'm working in now, I mean, it's really based on just being like a child. Like children don't need to do method acting. They don't need to know someone's motivation. They just play. And that's what you do. When you act, you're playing a part. But we all can the thing about that's so extraordinary about acting is every human experience is in every human. Right. We can all at least imagine what it's like. Maybe actually envy people who have the freedom to be the bitch or to be the you know, I mean, and there are these roles that we get to play and it's cool to have a safe container di in which to be able to do that. speaker-0: So true. It's so true. There's there's also an exercise at Bridge, that thing that I volunteer at all the time, where I can't really talk about what it is, but there's a moment where you where the the volunteers get to really try on that part where it's like you just get to be mean. And it's so fun. It's so fun, especially for recovering good girls that like are never mean and don't do that and don't want to hurt people to try on that part where it's not hurting other people, but to still just express in that way. It's so fun. I miss acting so much, by the way. I really, I really miss it. speaker-1: Do it. You should do more of it. It's it's liberating. I love it as an adult. It's like that in calisthenics where I get to do handstands and swing on monkey bars. Like that's what my inner child loves. I just need to do it a couple times a week and like I'm good. Yeah. I have to ask about something you just said. You said a recovering good girl. ⁓ is that similar in d do you think to a nice guy? speaker-0: Yes. I think those are the speaker-1: Never heard of this concept before for a female. Can you just elaborate on what a good girl is? speaker-0: Good girls are they s they smile all the time. They say yes when they wanna say no, they don't wanna rock the boat. It's like a version of a people pleaser for sure. It's like whatever you want, I'm good with, whatever you think, whatever you wanna do, you know, what pace you wanna set this relationship, however much you wanna pay me. I'm just fine. It's good. I'm good. I I'm you know The the old adage, which I was not told this growing up, thank God, of you know, children are to be seen and not heard, and good girls don't cry. And I was taught good girls don't get angry. So I shout out to my mother. She and I are very, very close and she knows this about me. But growing up, thank God, I grew up in a family that was very open to emotions and expressions and it was completely okay to cry. It was completely okay to fall apart. It was completely okay to be in our joy and expression. But the one emotion that my mother did not love was anger. Because she and her sisters used to fight a lot and had really damaged relationships because of that. So when my sister and I would fight, I would get in big, big trouble. So anger was not allowed in my house. So I had to be good. So for me, such a reclamation into my wholeness of what it means to be Megan was reclaiming my anger. Because what happens growing up, if we're disconnected from our anger, we're disconnected from our boundaries. So I would let people walk all over me. I would have partners treat me in ways that now I would never stand for. But back then I was like, ⁓ you just have to like pretend you're okay with this and pretend you're fine. And just be good. Don't rock the boat. Don't a don't get angry. Don't match them in their anger and don't have any boundaries. Just be fine with everything. So yeah, that's to me what being a good girl means. speaker-1: What is the process of like reclaiming your anger look like? What did it look like for you? speaker-0: Me, for me specifically, it was anger work. So working with my rage and anger. So for anybody listening, I'll give you two well, they're simple, they're not always easy, but I'll give you two simple exercises that you can do. To start working with anger, a great technique is something called release writing. Have you ever done that before? Okay. I like music. to in the background, because music is one of the quickest ways to change our states. So I will put on Angry Music and I will just start writing what I'm angry about. Or I'll do, can I curse on this podcast? Or I'll do a fuck you letter where I will just say, fuck you for this. Fuck it. Like it can be directed at someone particular. speaker-1: you can. Absolutely. speaker-0: And you know, with journaling, you're normally writing and it looks really pretty. With fuck you letters or release writing, you start writing so fast it it looks like chicken scratch when you're really in it. You're just like writing, writing, writing, writing, writing. And by the way, at the end of every sort of anger process, you always want to like refill your cup, like doing something really good and gentle and nourishing so it teaches your nervous system this is good for you to do, this is right, this is correct, this is okay. So release writing is great. The other bigger way to work with anger is what is called like an anger burn, where you put on, again, really angry music and you basically hit a pillow, like you put your arms over your head and just hit it and hit it and hit it. But what what's really cool with anger work, it doesn't it doesn't really work unless you use your words. So I've worked with some men in the past. And when we've talked about working with their anger, they're like, ⁓ yeah, no, I do that already. I go to the gym. Like I I I hit a punching bag. Like that's that's my release. Like, well, it's close, but that's more catharsis. Catharsism. I can't even say the word. It's cathartic to hit things. It's cathartic to let out a primal scream. But unless you're really using your words like, fuck you for doing this. I hate you for doing this, then that like don't you dare, blah, like letting out the words, that's what helps really complete. The cycle of emotion. speaker-1: Interesting. ⁓ anger work is something that I've done a little of it myself and I you know, I'm in a place now where it it's I need to come back to it. I've got maybe a couple of things else I'm working on right now, but anger work is really tricky with men because we're afraid of the consequences of our anger. And like we have men and women, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of talk about conditioning. I've I've known so many women, especially in the last year, that have brought up the way that women are conditioned and the effect it is that it's had on them. And men and women both receive conditioning around probably the same things like anger. We just receive different messages about it. And like for us, like, you know, there's just there's just a different biological reality to men in anger than there is with women because we can hurt people. We can really hurt people. ⁓ so and I know a lot of men are really afraid of letting any anger out. and it's difficult. I mean, in going to the gym, I mean It will make you tired. Like I do yoga and it and I do a style of yoga called ashtanga. It's physically exhausting, and that's kind of the point of it. But you're not processing anything. You're just like, you know, you're saying it may be cathartic. I don't even know that it's that because you're just venting something. But the thing is when you vent something, it comes back. It fills back up. You know, the energy comes back and like you're not really getting to the source of the anger. So the the hate writing I really like. Is that what you called it? speaker-0: ⁓ release writing. Release writing. Fuck you letter. Yeah. Fuck you let's writing. That's a great one too. Yeah. speaker-1: I like Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just gonna hate write about this. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's just like it's a good burn. You just like you're in it like a scenario and you're so probably like, I'm so gonna hate right about this later. Yeah. speaker-0: And with release writing, you don't want to reread it. You want to tear it up or burn it. Like once it's out of you, it's out and you and you get rid of it. speaker-1: And then what kind of like nourishing practice would you use after? speaker-0: Yeah. I mean, it's anything that feels good to you. It doesn't have to be anything big. Like it could be, you know, it could be taking a bath. It could be putting on really cozy clothes or pajamas and curling up with your favorite cup of tea or a really silly T V show. Just something that shows your body like you did such a good job of taking care of yourself. Good work. speaker-1: Beautiful. Yeah. I'm trying to think of the things you described and I'm imagining the men listening to this podcast. Something cozy. speaker-0: Okay, men go for a walk, men. You could you could even take a shower and just imagine like the rest of the anger and the residue of everything you just released, like just washing off of you and going down into the drain. you could yeah, like what do men do that helps really refill their cup? speaker-1: I don't know. It's a good question. ⁓ it's a good question. I mean, I again it goes back to what we've already talked about. You have to start with whether or not men are even interested in doing that or they're aware of the need to do it. I and I really do think there's a big there's I think there's a biological difference between men and women and how we feel inside. Interoception is the the neuroscience term for it. I think women are just have a far greater capacity for it. So when something's going wrong emotionally, women are just much more likely to know about it quicker. Men, we get ulcers. Like, you know, that's the thing. Or or or coronary heart artery disease or whatever. So I was thinking, yeah, probably eating something really unhealthy would be, or drinking beer or something like that. Like we have a lot of ⁓ maladapting coping mechanisms, but a a a sauna would be good. I think there's a lot of men that would do cold plunge and sauna. One of the problems that a lot of men have is that they'll look at something like cold plunge and sauna as a performance enhancing thing. Like it's a means to an end, you know what I mean? It's so that I can be better. You know, so I can do more, I can produce more and ⁓ I I think it would sort of almost defeat the purpose of what you're you're saying. Like it's a basically a way to self care. speaker-0: Exactly. It is. It's a way to self-care. It's to take the performative stuff off or how can you be better or a better provider or better whatever and just like a a pouring into you, which I mean most of society is not great at. speaker-1: Yeah. What got you interested in this work? speaker-0: ⁓ Lord. Okay. Well, one, I was talking to a client about this yesterday. I again feel very fortunate that ⁓ I would not call myself the generational pattern breaker in the family. That title and award goes to my mother. My mom is in the middle of writing her memoir right now and has had, you know, had a really tough childhood in a lot of ways. And She did so much healing work and just sort of passed the baton to my sister and I. So I've I've already I already grew up in a family that valued this kind of work. So I have to give that credit where it's due for sure. And I'm so grateful and so blessed that that is my experience. ⁓ and, you know. I always had an affinity and a curiosity around this work. I I had I'd, you know, gone in and out of therapy my whole life whenever I feel like I wanted it or needed it. but it wasn't until I got into a really toxic relationship. And called off my engagement where I hired my first coach. It was actually a guy based out of Canada. I found him on Instagram and I was reading all of his posts, and it felt like I was reading pages out of my diary. Where I hired him and my whole world changed. And I just knew I was like, this is what I'm meant to do. I had seen signs throughout my life that this is the path I was meant to go down. But I didn't quite know what it meant or or even to trust it. I didn't really believe in myself. I did not come from a family of entrepreneurs and people starting their own b well, my mom did start some of her own businesses, but still it just it didn't feel natural to me. So it took it took a lot of work to really believe that I could do this in the first place. But ⁓ what really started it all was a very toxic relationship. speaker-1: What is a what makes a relationship toxic? speaker-0: So lots of things. ⁓ there's lots of different layers and levels to this, I think. I never suffered physical abuse, which a lot of women do. ⁓ I did suffer from emotional manipulation for sure. Some I would say financial manipulation. but being in a toxic relationship, there is typically a lot of coercion or control. you feel like you're walking around on eggshells with this person. You tend to sometimes they tend to isolate you from friends and family so that they can have better control over your decisions and when you're s where you're spending your time and that sort of thing. and I and I will say I used to say there's not like a toxic person. It's just a toxic connection and relationship. But normally there is an abuser and a You know, person that's trying to survive that. ⁓ but for me, in my toxic dynamic, there was a lot of jealousy, a lot of manipulation. For example, when we got engaged, have you heard people say the moment we got married, everything changed? Okay, for me, it was the moment we got engaged, gloves were off. It was like these little speaker-1: Yeah, I've heard that. speaker-0: Inklings of things that I'd noticed throughout our relationship that I saw glimpses of just the spotlight was on all of it. So, you know, my ex-fiance at one point said, you know, if you don't quit your job, we probably need to get a prenup because you care more about helping that man's family make money than our family make money. So I was coerced into quitting my job. And where I screwed up is I should have called it right then and there. Like you're not gonna dictate what job I'm gonna have and I'm not ready to leave my job. And I left kicking and screaming, but I should have just I should I left my job kicking and screaming, but I should have left speaker-1: So kicking him and screaming at him. speaker-0: Yes. Yes, exactly. So so what I did instead is I was the good girl and I quit my job and I resented the hell out of my fiance for it and punished him for it. And ⁓ you know, I I can't remember how many months later we were only together for about eight months before we got engaged. So it was really fast. And then we I I called it off five months later. So it happened Pretty quickly. But ⁓ speaker-1: Is intensity you think intensity is a feature of these relationships as well? Yeah. speaker-0: Yes. ⁓ God. Yes. Yes. And I mean, I've had intense emotion before with healthy partners for the amount of like love and adoration and passion that I experienced being with them, but not like that. Not like the toxic relationship. It it is like a roller coaster ride where the highs are so high, but the lows are so low. They're so, so low. Right. Like I had my first and only knock on wood. I had my first and only real panic attack in that relationship. And I've never had one since. yeah, just by just by something he said to me. That was it. He said something and I had a full-blown panic attack. speaker-1: So what does the process of recovering from something like that look like? speaker-0: Yeah. So my first course as a coach, I when I long story of how I became a coach, but when I finally decided I'm doing this, I'm going all in, my first course made the news in Texas, which was awesome. I was so shocked. ⁓ but ⁓ that course, as I like to say, was hand delivered to me. It was just given to me and downloaded from above. I don't even feel like it was mine, it was given to me. Because one Christmas I was sitting with my family and I remember telling them, You guys, I really think I've done it. Like I really feel like I have finally healed this and I will never have a toxic relationship again. And I haven't. And they're like, Cool, what'd you do? And I was like, Yeah, what did I do? And it was just boom, it came to me. So what I teach is exactly what I did, which is what I believe heals, ⁓ begins the healing process of a t of healing from toxic relationships. First we have to I I call it remembering, releasing, and reclaiming. That's the it's the three step process process, but there's a lot of work that goes under each process. It's not just like one, two, three, you're done. ⁓ so remembering and getting really clear as to why I picked these partners in the first place, which was always sort of a Very I don't know how to describe it, a very confusing place for me because I grew up with two parents who are still married, who have a very loving relationship. I would not call it toxic in the slightest. They loved me. I have not suffered any capital T big trauma, which is ⁓ unheard of. I feel like such an odd man out that I didn't suffer any like really big T trauma. I of course have my stuff. Every human does. But I was just like, where did this come from? Why, why have I picked some people like this in my past when I came from such a loving, healthy household? So I had to really dig into what that was about for me. Then I had to release a lot of the shame that I carried for picking the relationship in the first place, choosing it. choosing it over and over again because a lot of toxic relationships, you break up and make up and break up and make up and you know it's it's embarrassing in a lot of ways. so releasing a lot of the shame that I carried around staying in something like that or choosing something like that in the first place and then reclaiming, reclaiming the truth of who I am, what I really want, what I really think, what I really believe in, what I really desire for my life. That's my process of how I really healed. Might talk about relationship pattern. speaker-1: Pretty comprehensive to me. I mean, I've had similar issues with toxic relationships in the past. I do, you know, you mentioned you don't you don't want to say that there was one person who's toxic. And yet we do have patterns, as all people have patterns. And one thing I found ⁓ is that I'm very, very growth oriented. And that is that's like catnip for manipulators, because they'll just convince you that you're that you're at fault. I mean, if you're if your instinct is just to look to yourself first, they will help you do it. You know what I mean? Do you think that has to do with how you ended up with some of those type of men? speaker-0: Gosh, yes, yes. And for people who would call themselves like empaths or being an empathetic creature and values growth and really cares about people and wants to understand people, we're we're very understanding. You, you know, you hear about the person you're dating that's you're in the toxic relationship with, you hear about their trauma, you hear about what's happened to him, and you start assigning. reasons and justifications for why they do what they do. Like, well, of course he yells at me and gets belligerently drunk because his father used to do this to him. Of course like you're just so forgiving and so understanding too. And it it it's like catnip for the manipulators. speaker-1: Women are tend to be a good bit more compassionate than men as a group of people too. So it makes sense that like women are more likely to put up with that kind of stuff. Although there's I know a lot of men, I I've been one of them that would put up with a similar kind of thing for similar reasons because it's like you want to see the best in people. And there's also a very you know, I think a lot of the toxicity that I've looked at in my own relationships has been like, where have I been toxic? Like what are my patterns that just lead to toxicity? And one of them is like the the tendency to want to rescue. Yeah. You know, that's a that's a bad thing for men to get into. Probably women too, but like there's again, like gender roles play a certain role in this and yeah, wanting to rescue a woman, wanting to provide can and we also receive a lot of messages about things like containment, like wanting to offer masculine containment and that being a good thing, and it is, but it's important to understand the difference between when someone is in need of a little containment versus when someone is completely unstable. speaker-0: Yes, exactly. Distinction. speaker-1: It's a it's a hard it's a big distinction, but the thing is if you don't know, it's very hard to know. You're always in self doubt and there's like this self gaslighting, right? Where you're like, Well maybe I'm just not being compassionate enough. I mean of course you want to blame yourself. Yeah. So what do you think that like there's anything else that you know in your life that made you like do you c if you don't mind would you reflect on like what was it that that about these relationships that appealed to you at that time that is different now? speaker-0: Yes. yeah. ⁓ my gosh. So much I could say to this. Well, one, I just want to double tap on the compassionate piece real quick. For so many women, compassion like being compassionate to me, especially in my work, is a superpower. Like my I have had clients and friends that I've known for 20 years tell me, Megan, I could tell you anything and you will not judge me. And they're right. You could you could tell me anything and I will not judge you. And being in a relationship where someone treats you so poorly, that's that's where the line in the sand has to be drawn, which I I used to not draw ever. Again, my my boundaries were so low to the ground I could trip over them. They they were non existent. So ⁓ what was your speaker-1: Because anger was forbidden. Anger is forbidden. Yeah. No, well that's that's I'd like to stick with that for a second, because like if you if you literally can't get angry, you can't have boundaries. That's what boundaries are. Like boundaries are the limits of our authenticity. Literally, that's the limit to how far I can be my authentic self beyond which if someone goes beyond the boundary because you can't set it, you can't really be who you truly are. Right. Like you have to suppress a part of yourself if you can't set boundaries. So speaker-0: Anger was forbidden, yes. Okay speaker-1: That just kind of was like a ⁓ and aha, of course. Like, you know, you had probably people that might have been, let's say, technically boundaryless. ⁓ and those people can be really infuriating. Like it's they can really test you if you don't if you don't have good skills with setting boundaries or having a healthy anger. speaker-0: And I I didn't like who I didn't like who I became in that relationship. Like I had never yelled at anybody before like that. I'd never screamed at anybody. I mean, it was horrifying. It was awful. I felt so awful in my body. And, you know, another thing I will just say too, I I really discovered this as I started to deepen my work around helping women heal from toxic relationships. for a lot of women that You know, are constantly programmed and given these messages like you're not pretty enough, you're not skinny enough, you're not this enough, you're not whatever enough, the big box of bullshit. growing up, I like as a little girl, even, I did not feel very pretty growing up. I was around so many like tall and lanky girls, and I was like shorter, a little bit on the chubbier side growing up. So growing up, I just didn't feel very pretty. So then when I got into high school and like started to like slowly come into my looks, not much. And like the hot guys started paying attention to me. ⁓ My little girl just lit up. I was like, ⁓ I'm finally pretty. Okay. This guy can treat me like absolute dog shit, but he's so hot. So I'll just be okay with it. So that was another piece too. If you don't feel beautiful growing up, which not a lot of girls do, not a lot of women do even to this day, and a attractive man starts paying attention, we sort of we we diminish the other qualities. Like who cares about his character? He's hot. And it's it's so immature in so many ways. And that's, you know, it's another big piece of my work is helping women kind of take their little girl out of the driver's seat. of their dating lives and put her in the passenger or maybe even the backseat. She's not bad. She's not wrong. She doesn't have to go anywhere. She just doesn't get to be in the driver's seat of your dating life anymore. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ I was just kind of chuckling at what you were describing because I'm like, well, men have the same experience with hot women. Yeah. I mean, it's just and it can be total kryptonite where it's like judgment just gone. Like it was there, but then this woman in particular is really into me and it's like, man, and then at at a certain point, instability almost becomes part of the becomes part of the appeal. Yeah. Like because then it's because also one thing about toxic relationships is they're very exciting. I mean I'm not I'm not saying that in like a that in a good way, but like you're never bored, right? And some people just kind of get off on that. Like they just kind of thrive on the chaos. yeah. So it's just I was I thought that was funny, but it is was very kind of you to share. You share a lot about your own personal story and you're very vulnerable with it. And you share a lot online and in public. Is that just was that ever a decision for you to share things like that about like your engagement or no? It just came naturally to you? speaker-0: Yeah, I'm kind of wearing my heart on my sleeve kind of gal. I'm I mean no, my even my family are like, you'll tell everybody everything. I'm like, I know, I just I I want I want to hear more people's stories. I'm so fascinated by people and humans and the the depth that we all actually do have and possess. And I just feel like I have to lead with what I want to receive too from other people. So that's why I do it. But it also just, it's just me. I just do that a lot. And sometimes I think I need to reel this in. Maybe I don't need to share all of this at in real time online. Because I will also, I've kind of learned this too. I've I heard the saying like share from the scar, not from the wound. Don't share while you're like bleeding and in it. But I kind of do that sometimes too. But I try to teach from more integration versus like real time. heartbreak or pain or whatever I'm going through. There's lessons in the real time stuff, but I think to be able to teach courses and master classes and give talks, I want to teach from a more integrated place. And that's why it's so easy now for me to talk about my toxic relationships 'cause that is so complete. speaker-1: Well, and it's also but it's highly teachable. There's a lot of people, I mean, y there's just something human about wanting to know that other people understand what you're going through. And so like I'm sure there are so many women that will see your story online and be like, ⁓ my god, I know what that I mean, I think many of us who are middle aged and still single like can relate to have having had some toxic relationships, have having thought that this was what you wanted and then realizing what it wasn't, now I have to start over. So there is something About just having that, you know, the common experience. But then there's also a and this is what I did about it. Yeah. You know, like this is what I learned about it. This is how much better my life is because of that really hard thing I went through. And that's something I resonate with a lot. Like I've had a lot of challenges of my own. I've been pretty open about them. People get sometimes a little bit surprised, shocked, I guess I would say, like at the candor with which I or the sense of humor that I have about some of the things I've been through. But the thing is, like They're in the past. You know, I went I went through them and like I'm better now because of them. And I think one of the biggest problems we have in our society with mental health is that people don't talk ⁓ more openly about their experiences. And so it's very easy where you see some influencer online and they look like they got all their shit together. And maybe they don't. In a lot of cases I think they they maybe don't. They don't, you know, especially if they're like fitness influencers or beauty influencers. What a nightmare. Like I mean, I would never want to do that. You know, and you know, I mean I just I I feel so badly for those people that have to always look perfect. but there is something about being like, Yeah, like this is the experience I've had in the past, it was hard. This is what I've learned from it. ⁓ it's also a really attractive quality I've learned. Yeah. And not just like speaker-0: It's not lost on you too. You know, it's like it's not all just for you. It's it's to teach, it's to serve, it's to add value. That's like, Yes, you're not alone in this and here's how you can heal from it and work with it. Sorry, I interrupted you. speaker-1: Have you read Man's Search for Meaning? Do you know that book? Long time. Yes, Victor Frankl, yeah, yeah. I mean he he you know, he went to Auschwitz, ⁓ and he kinda went voluntarily. I mean he could have gotten out of there, but his parents were too old to travel, so he stayed in Vienna. And, you know, the he survived the camps and w out of that came this field of therapy called logotherapy, which means meaning therapy. Logos means meaning and it was it's really all about you know, the people that really made it through the camps and that survived were the ones who could speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: find some meaning in what they were going through. And for me, like the idea that other people could benefit from my experience. Yeah, we as a species, I I'm really interested in evolution and evolutionary psychology of people and what makes us human. Basically that's one of the best places to look for that. And we have this thing I think a lot of people take for granted, which is called collective knowledge or collective wisdom. Like Cumulative knowledge is what it is. So like if I learned something, now we have the internet, I can I can just put it out on the internet and lots of other people can learn what I know without having had to go through all the bullshit. Right. Inevitably we do, many of us do still need to go through the bullshit. Yes, we do. Like there's some there's some lessons that just can't be taught. Some lessons can't be learned, some wisdom can only be earned is from a poem I wrote. So like there is one of these things where you just have to go through it. What is it like when you're working with with women and you're kind of you're giving them information that from that you've had the benefit of experience and you just see them like, no, I think they need to I think they need to have the experience for themselves. speaker-0: Yeah, well, I will say, I mean, I've been I've been in that situation, but ⁓ but I love that I still get to be by their side while they go through it. 'Cause I didn't have anyone by my side really when I went through it. I mean my family never stopped talking to me, but I mean I had best friends and we're still best friends to this day, but of twenty years be like, I can't I can't I cannot be in connection with you if you're gonna be in this relationship and would stop talking to me. And for me personally, what I needed in that moment was exactly that. Because growing up, I've talked about this before where I don't feel like I built a lot of resiliency growing up. I had an amazing mother. She's still an amazing mother to this day, but she would take over ⁓ some things for me. Like if I wanted to quit something, I could just quit. If I didn't want to go to school, I don't have to go to school that day. Like I just she kind of took care of everything and in so many ways that was wonderful. But the flip side is I didn't learn to really sit with a lot of my stuff and and build a lot of resiliency. And I would always look outside of me for advice. I would call psychics, I'd call my sister, I'd call my mom, I'd call my best friend, I'd get a text message. What do you think about this? Now I think people are doing that with ChatGPT. Like they're not actually feeling into their own intuition. They're just like chat, what do you think about this? So when when my best friends just stopped talking to me, that made it forced me to feel for myself and actually discern, okay, what do I think about this? What do I feel about this? Does this actually work for me? And, you know, I ended the relationship a few months later. So, ⁓ but when I'm working with a client, sometimes they do. have to just kind of flail around and and figure it out. That's part of what I would call as like their soul signature. It's what they're meant to experience. But I I consider it such an honor and such a gift that I still get to be by their side through all of that. And I'm not telling them what to do. I'm just sort of I I'm measuring up what they say they want up against what they're actually doing. And just shedding a light on where things might be out of alignment. Like you say you want a healthy, loving, committed partnership, but you keep dating the guy who doesn't text you back, who treats you like shit, who cheated, you know, whatever. It's like, do you see how these things don't exactly line up? So it's it's really fun for me. speaker-1: So the when you were just describing it earlier, it almost sounds like dealing with an addict. You've told me that before. That like dealing with hot toxic relationships are addictive. They're literally addictive. There's a there's a neurobiology of it. ⁓ I was dating a woman who was so toxic, she knew she was toxic, and was asking me, Why am like why do men who are have addictive personalities, why are they so into me? speaker-0: Hundred percent. Yeah. speaker-1: And I kind of had to explain it to her. Yeah, I know. It was a weird moment of lucidity where like it was stable for a minute and I could explain to her how slot machines work. ⁓ which is like basically the neurobiology of addiction and reward is that if it was the same thing every time, it wouldn't be addictive because what we get addicted to is the surprise. Dopamine acts on surprise, basically. So like for example, would be you put five dollars in a Coke machine, if you get a Coke, you get what you expected. Well, whatever. You don't you've done that however many times and you don't remember. But if you put $5 in and you get two Cokes, it's like, ⁓ my gosh, this is amazing. And so your brain will create dopamine to so that you will remember it and then you can incorporate that into your memory and your learning. ⁓ but if every now and then you put five dollars in, you get two Cokes. But every other time you put it in, you get hit in the head with a shovel. Like, and now the stakes are really, really high where you're like, I really want two Cokes, but I know that it could be something else. And that's basically how why slot machines are addictive. There's lots of bells and whistles and things that, you know, that trigger docam dopamine, but at the end of the day it's called intermittent reinforcement scheduling. And people that grow up with inconsistent caregivers, inconsistent parents, or where there's a history of addiction in the home can create a lot of inconsistency, have this addictive personality where that toxicity is very exciting, right? And so you're like, what's gonna happen next? And the the makeup sex is amazing. It's the best ever, right? You know, the intensity is it. Yes. The intensity. Well, that's literally what she was asking me. And I was like, it's the intensity because there's a relief of like, okay, we're not fighting for a minute. Yes. And there's also an openness. Like it's just as in like you've beaten each other's armor up so much. Like that and there's there's, you know, toxic relationships hate boundaries too. speaker-0: Exactly. speaker-1: So like boundarylessness is also like there's a merger that can happen, especially during sex, where there's there's literally no boundaries left. You know, physically none of that. And yeah, it can be it is a it is an addictive cycle. speaker-0: You know too, while you were talking about that, you know how w you were talking to me about the bridge date theory or what is it called exactly? speaker-1: The yes, yeah, the bridge experiment. The bridge okay. For first dates, yeah. speaker-0: Do you it could that also be a a part of why you think toxic relationships ⁓ it because you go through such hard things emotionally, it's almost like the shadow side of bonding. Does that make sense? speaker-1: Yeah. Well there okay, so there's a a good way of dis what talking about what we're saying is toxic relationships are extremely sticky. Yeah. Like they're sticky. You just get stuck together and you keep coming you try to get unstuck, but then you come back together. The bridge experiment that I was telling you about ⁓ is there was an experiment these researchers did. I should find I should pull the paper and do a video on it. Yeah. They wanted to study, you know, first aids. And w the basically the experiment in this ⁓ the way it worked is they would bring college students together, males, females, And they would send them off on first dates and they would make them go on a walk down a particular like a particular trail, and that was the date. One trail had a stone bridge, like think like you would see in Central Park, like the stone thing that you go over. And another one had a bridge that was like a rickety suspension bridge that like was like swaying in the wind and then like something from an Indiana Jones movie. And it's kind of scary, right? And so the couples that went on the suspension bridge felt much closer, much more bonded after the end of the first date and were more likely to say that they wanted to go on a second date. And that was the only real variable that was changed. Whereas this, you the Stone Bridge was stable. And the reason is because they went they had a shared emotional experience. And I'd love to kind of shift into talking about what dating goes well with you, because it's mainly what I'm interested in. but ⁓ the shared emotional experience, that's what bonding is. But like mortal terror is a shared emotional experience. I mean, that's why the bonding that men have when they're in war together. You know, the band of brothers is having its 25 year anniversary right now. And there was a couple episodes set in and during the Battle of the Bulge in Baston where these men are in these foxholes together. And the closeness of the bonds that existed between them is probably unlike anything else that exists anywhere else with people because how often do you f repeatedly go through life threatening events together with the same person and you're just trying to save each other. So I do think it's a great point that you raise that there's also a sunk cost to it of I've put in so much emotional investment into this relationship. And there's this thing called the sunk cost fallacy, which is like you keep throwing good money after bad because I've already thrown so much good money at it. I got to keep investing in it, right? And yeah, these the we're all susceptible to these things. And then when you add Hormones, when you add hormones, all bets are off. I mean, I love learning about how rationality works and you know, it's in it's fascinating that we're ever rational at all. Like most people are mostly irrational most of the time. And n there's nothing greater than hormones that will contribute to that because falling in love is kind of a process of becoming temporarily insane. Yep. You know, I think I really think our survival as a species sort of depends on it, and yet You know, like and yet we're we're in we're insane temporarily. Yeah, because it makes us want to just forget about everything else and just make babies. You know? Yep. So ⁓ what are let's ⁓ I'd like to move on to talk about what dating does well. I mean, it it's an interesting background though that you have with toxic relationships. It probably suits you really, really well to help women find good relationships. So what does that look like for you? speaker-0: Yes, that is where my work has really taken a turn. I mean, so much of so much of helping women get out of toxic relationships was necessary and I loved it. But to your point, it is like working with addicts, which is a little bit beyond my scope. So now and and I got to a place, in fact, I was going to relaunch my In Toxic Dating program last Valentine's Day, because I always do it on Valentine's Day. speaker-1: Of course you do. Yeah, that's perfect. Right. Yeah. speaker-0: For women that don't have Valentine's Day plans and they want to, you know, have a different experience. But I was like, why don't I want to do this? I've been doing this for three, four years now. Why don't I want to do it? And I was like, I because I've I've I have outgrown this frame of teaching. I I'm I'm working with women now who a lot of them are very high-achieving, very professional women, brilliant women, so smart. And They have all these boxes checked. They have all these things going for them, right? Not that their lives are just, you know, perfect with family or whatever, but it's like they they have a lot of beautiful things in their lives that they're very grateful for. But they feel like the the box that's still left to be checked is the relationship and they can't understand why. So I love being able to support women now who want the relationship. But for me, what I really enjoy is helping women truly become alive in their lives and live a life that they're so excited to be in before the man shows up. And you know, my clients, I have my clients have gotten married multiple times, engaged, they have had babies, like the the big thing at the end that everybody wants, the relationship, absolutely happens. But for me, I feel like we've won. As a duo, a coaching and client duo, we have one when the women truly feel so much more connected to themselves. They feel alive and turned on by their own lives and are are so excited to share it with someone, but that's not the main focus. Like that's the cherry on top of an already beautiful life that they've created. speaker-1: Yeah, well, creating a beautiful life is also the best way find to to attract the well, that's not just more men, it's the right men. Well, I I I would give liter this, I've I've really thought of this mostly in men's terms, that doing everything so that you can get a girlfriend is you will probably get a girlfriend. Yeah. Like that could happen. ⁓ but that's a separate issue from attracting the right partner for yourself. And women also seem to Women also seem to want to know they want to join the man's life. Like that that's ordinarily the the dynamic is like men need to build a life that's is that's the kind of life a woman would want to be a part of. and that would be the the the main approach I have with men is dating tactics, pickup tactics, bullshit like that, like it that stuff doesn't work. If you need to ask, it's not gonna work for you because you're gonna be too nervous. And if you If you you know, if it would work for you, you wouldn't need to know what the tactics were 'cause you would you would feel safe in your body. ⁓ but yeah, it's really about building a life that you want that's authentically yours because nothing's more attractive than authenticity. speaker-0: Yes, and and things that you have been subtly putting on pause, waiting to do with a partner. That was a big the just ⁓ I don't know, lock that I unlocked for myself of experiencing so much more enjoyment and aliveness in my life is to start doing the things that I have been subconsciously putting on pause for a partner or for a man. speaker-1: Do you have any examples? speaker-0: ⁓ I went to Europe for an entire month by myself. I wanted to, so when I was engaged, ⁓ we had planned to spend our honeymoon in Greece, because I've always wanted to go to Greece. I've always wanted to go to Italy. I'd been to Paris once and Germany, but that was the only time I'd really traveled ⁓ to Europe. So I decided I'm not waiting on my next, you know, fiance or husband to go to Greece. So I went to Europe and I went to London, Paris, Italy, Greece. I feel like I'm missing one. I went for an entire month by myself and I would have never in a million years done that or thought that I could do that. You know, it's like I need the protection of a man there and I need him to help, you know, navigate the train system that are in a different language and I need help with my bags. It's like, no, I didn't. I could do I could not only could I do it all, there were plenty of men in Europe that were more than happy to lift my luggage for me. It was fine. speaker-1: Were there any countries where the men were more friendly? speaker-0: Yes, Italy. ⁓ my god. When I was in Florence, I was there for four days and I just I mean I probably had thirty thousand steps on my I I walked all day just taking in the c scenery, visiting with people speaker-1: Italy. The men are quite I'm speaker-0: Talking to people and on my fourth day in Florence, I literally felt like Belle in the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, where she's like walking around and it's like there goes the baker with and everyone's singing and they're like, ⁓ it's Belle. People were Megan, hey Megan, like waving at me in the streets of Florence. I was like, I am the queen of Florence right now. This is amazing. So very friendly in Italy. speaker-1: What and were like and it okay, so it's not like men were like catcalling you, or were they? Is it just better in an Italian accent? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, it's just fine. speaker-1: Better better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ d do women appreciate being cat called? No. Yeah. Okay. So like ⁓ one of the things I've been wanting to ask you is I w I have this mission Unless it's in unless they're Italian, right? In this case it's kinda like, okay, it's their culture. Yeah, right? Like, you know, the men in Greece are in speedoes, but the men in Italy are like ⁓ Speedos are fine. You're okay with speedos? speaker-0: No. It's Italy, but Totally fine. Yeah, it's basically just America. When you're in Europe, I just feel like when you're in Europe anything goes. Like you're just like, Yeah, it's fine. speaker-1: Okay. Right. Yeah. It's just like whatever, the people are half naked on the beach, it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to help men understand women better. And I would love to know your perspective on what are men not understanding. Like the cat calling thing, like I think some men they I don't they're not doing it because they think she's gonna like it. I think they probably get a rise out of them not liking it, but there are things like that where it's like I think men think that they're doing things that women want, but they're not. speaker-0: They're not. You know, there's a big thing that my clients and I have talked about a lot, it feels like lately. And I feel like ever since the Me Too movement, which was amazing and wonderful and necessary, that a lot of good men have become a bit more trepidatious when it comes to approaching women. They don't, I've heard so many men say, I don't want to be a creep. I don't want to be that creepy guy that goes up to the girl in the gym or whatever. And there is some truth. Like when we're in the gym and we've got our headphones on and we're like in it, we don't really want to be hit on. But when we are in coffee shops, if we're going on a walk with our dog, ⁓ if we are at a party or at, you know, I don't know, a lounge or a bar or God, even the movie theater, any anywhere we the grocery store, we actually do want to be approached. We do. We we are kind of sick of feeling like we now have to be the ones to do it because, you know, I'm not saying they're good men and bad men, but men that I maybe aren't aren't looking for a serious relationship. It feels like those are the guys that are like, ⁓ I'll just, you know, approach you. They'll approach anything with a skirt on. But the good men that really want a relationship and really value and respect women, they're kind of holding back a little bit. So we as a as a group, I'm just gonna speak as a collective right now, I think we're desiring more of that. And it seems like men are doing less of that. And I'm curious what your thoughts are. And maybe you're approaching women left and right. I don't know. speaker-1: I have so many thoughts. I I have so many thoughts. ⁓ so the thing is the Me Too thing, you're right, like it was necessary. The problem with what happened there was nothing it was completely well motivated and there were some obvious predators out there that got called out and exposed publicly. The problem is the people that needed to be deterred by Me Too were probably not going to be deterred because they're fundamentally shameless. Mm-hmm. Like I think that and I mean I mean this like from a pathological perspective. What causes a man to serially abuse women like that is a is an issue of shamelessness or or a defect of shame. And or or he's riddled so full of shame that it's a way of absolving it. But either way, you can't shame them into not doing it. We need we need the criminal justice system for that. But there were probably a quarter of all men are like anxious, nice guys, basically. Yeah. And they Took the message and they were unfortunately the the last ones who really needed to take it. I definitely was was part of that for a while. I was like, ⁓ God, like I, you know, if your biggest fear is being seen as creepy, and I've known men who were literally traumatized by being told that. it's a it's a big risk. It's a big risk. Also, you mentioned it's something I hadn't really thought about, but it's a good point. Men that are just looking for something short term or not serious, the stakes are lower for them. Yes. They'll hit on anything with a skirt. So no one skirt becomes the one that's gonna destroy your your self-esteem. Whereas a guy that's really looking for something long term, if he sees a woman, it's like, ⁓ my God, that could be the woman I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with. Well, if those are the stakes, yeah, you know, it's like, well, and so now you're nervous and you're self-conscious. And it is one of these things where repetition helps. Like abundance really, really, really does help. ⁓ and it's I mean it it's it's kind of a hard thing to say to talk about, but it it is helps to have options. It helps to talk to lots of people. But not necessarily you know, when you say approach, ⁓ I talk to women all the time. I love talking to women. I love to ask them about things like I just asked you now. I love to ask their opinion on stuff like that. Sometimes I'm also a photographer, I notice what women wear and a lot of times if like if I like it, I'll let ⁓ know. Like I'm like, I love what you're wearing. That's an awesome dress for you. Or I love this color. Or what the hell are these earrings are amazing. ⁓ But it I'm not doing it as a means to an end. Okay. Like I'm doing it because I really just want to talk to the person. And you know what I mean? Like, ⁓ there's a saying flirt with the world. Mm-hmm. And and I also and I talk to a lot of men too. I find that I have just I I think I probably just enjoy talking with women more and I think they enjoy being talked to more. ⁓ but I also make it a point to go into public on a regular basis. I go where people are, which is I think one of the bigger problems that we have with dating is If you want to, you don't have to interact with another human being ever. Yes. Like you could do it online, but you can have food delivered to your house and you can even set a thing where it says don't knock on my door, just leave it on the doorstep. Right. So I have to see you. You know, and you know what I mean? Like COVID, it you know, really like me too happened around the same time as COVID. I think COVID was the bigger, more devastating factor for us because we're just used to being on the couch and staying home and The biggest problem I see with dating apps, in my like this is a fatal flaw, I think, strategically, is that women cannot feel my nervous system through a dating app. Right. You just can't like all the information that really matters to her, which is how does she feel when he's around, is not available. And it must be so overwhelming because I think a lot of men also are like, how women have all they get, you know, you'll get hundreds of matches a day. And like, you know, and my men, many great men might get speaker-0: That's right. speaker-1: might get one or two a week. and they're from women that they then they're from women that they don't want to date. Well, because, you know speaker-0: Actually it doesn't comp yeah, keep going. speaker-1: It doesn't shock you. speaker-0: No, because again, men are they're the ones putting out the likes more, which is kinda like asking the girl on the date. We're on the app kind of like waiting to get asked out. And men are the ones sending the likes. I mean I have a guy friend here who is so handsome. I mean he looks like freaking Clark Kent. He's so good looking and he's smart and he's he's a great guy. And I remember ⁓ l a while ago, months ago, He was like, Let me see your dating app or something. And I show him he's like, My God, you have three hundred likes you haven't looked at. I was like, I know, it's t it's like it's overwhelming. I don't wanna look. He's like, I got speaker-1: Twenty four hours since you looked at it. Yeah, yeah. speaker-0: I was like, what? And I'm like, this isn't a bad looking man. So it just it is interesting. speaker-1: Well, ⁓ so here's an interesting question. How many of those guys do you think have been in you buried in your 300 that you've never found? I mean, like, I imagine there are some women that probably are kept up at night that are agonizing over like because how do you pick? Because you because there's also a risk factor, because the guy might be a a total jerk. Like you don't know. Like, I mean, just until you meet the person. for me, like, I don't use dating apps. I've used them as an experiment, basically, to learn ⁓ Yeah. What people were doing because I realized okay, I think I want to help men with you know fine love. And so I needed to know what was going on out there and to understand why do people hate them so much. And I got it. Two or three months, it was really clear why people hate them. Because I've had some experiences where typically I know within well within 60 seconds if it's gonna go any further once I meet someone in person. And the biggest problem is I, as a man, would invest so much effort. Then I mean literally invest 'cause you gotta spend money, you know, typically to get seen. And you you know, I mean I got pictures taken, I did everything 'cause I was like, I want to just see, put in no effort and then medium effort and then more effort. And there are definitely things you can do as a man to increase your chances. Professional photos have a lot to do with it. Having a woman or a gay man help you with the clothes you're wearing in those photos, like that makes a big, big difference. Men really don't get how important that is to women at all. But the biggest problem is you invest all this time into things that go nowhere or they get you get ghosted or whatever. But then the ones when you do meet, it's like, ⁓ I never would have asked this person out if I just met them in person. So it's just a bad way to filter, I find. And just being in public. And it also the benefit is it forces you to have a life. You know, like it forces you to get a life that someone might want to join. And you might find someone who's got a similar interest that Wants to have the same life that you wanna have. speaker-0: Right, right, lifestyle, it's so important. Okay, but you just said something that still to this day boggles my mind, which is and and I've had I've had another male dating coach tell me this, I've had male friends tell me this, you are now saying it, and it's still it still kind of boggles my mind. To your point earlier though, we are nervous system based beings. We are meant to be in rooms together to feel how does my animal body respond to your animal body? So a hundred percent. And that doesn't really translate in dating. I do my the best that I can to help women display more of who they are on dating apps, because a lot of women treat the dating apps as a vanity metric. Like how many likes can I get? How cute can I be on there? How witty can I be? How clever can I be versus Putting their actual heart and soul on there and saying, like, this is actually who I am and this is what I'm available for. So I try my best, but the at the end of the day, it's still a screen. It is. But you said you know in about 60 seconds. Like when you sit down in front of someone, you know in about 60 seconds, is this a yes or is this is a no. How do men do that? Women don't do that, by the way. We don't. speaker-1: No, that's amazing. Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that. I'm really glad I mentioned it because now we can get into this. This is fascinating. Women, well, because a lot of the things that women are, you're so sensitive, right? You're picking up on things that are invisible and are intermittent. They're not just right there. And I'm not just saying that men are judging women purely on their appearance, but we do. ⁓ and and it's just that it's the first filter of ⁓ you know, a lot of people talk about like ⁓ of like a 10. Men are looking for a 10. I think in reality, if men want a 10, they want to impress other men. That's the only motivation for thinking those terms. In reality, men do not rate women on a scale of one to ten. We we rate women on a scale of zero to one. Like would I or wouldn't I? And that's basically it. Like that's the truth of this is either a yes or a no. And that is instantaneous. Okay. Like like of like would I could I see myself being a sexual partner with this person. That's an instantaneous decision. But then there is Assuming it's a one, like assuming it's a yes, then there's a bunch of other considerations that become more important at that point. Right, right. Exactly, where it's like, okay, so things in this person's life have changed since, or you know, whatever. And ⁓ but also ⁓ because I have such a like a background with ⁓ mental health. speaker-0: Well, then that's just speaker-1: You can just tell by the way people carry themselves sometimes that there's just issues there and like they're not things that we typically will talk about, but you can tell by a person's posture, the way that they that they carry themselves, how they feel about themselves. And people put off an energy. And I think most men are probably not as sensitive to that as I would be. I'm I have some particular experience with it in education, and I'm just unusually sensitive for a man. But ⁓ you can tell when someone is like very unhealed. I can tell that. ⁓ and they're just very much still in their trauma. And you know, so or it's like, okay. And then there's also, ⁓ I would say this is maybe not within the first 60 seconds, but very, very quickly. sometimes like for a good partner for me, I'm very gregarious. I talk a lot, and I need someone who can talk back. Like, and I don't mean like, you know, I don't mean someone who can talk back to me, although it's very important, you know. One definition of a nice guy is someone who can just who's just never able to disagree with a woman. Right. and women that can't disagree with me either, like it's so boring. And you can't really trust them because you don't really know where you stand with them if they'll agree with whatever you say. And it doesn't make for anything there's no chemistry. It's I I need to find a better word than chemistry for that. There's just there's no dynamism ⁓ between them. So that is basically how we do it. But I'll I'll give you a little it lets you on a secret of what I why I believe women are so embodied ⁓ more than men. I see women it relates a lot to spirituality. I do a I travel in a lot of like spiritual circles and so there's always a a sound bath or a yoga thing or there's Reiki or and you'll just see women are so blissed out. And I'm like I think they're feeling blissed out on a deeper level than most men can. And I believe the reason for that is that our like sixty percent of our sensory cortex is dedicated to vision. And for the other 40% goes to everything else. Women, much more evenly distributed. And one of the senses, we have more than five senses. That came from Aristotle that we only had five, but we actually have more. One of the most important ones is this sense of interoception, to perceive what's going on in the body, which by the way is where emotions happen. So it's a part of why women are so much better at identifying emotion and are more likely to pay for therapy. We're coaching because you have to you have to know how you feel. And a lot of men are just not aware we're we're alexithymic is the term emotionally colorblind. So everybody knows can relate to this, where like a man will be at dinner with a woman and he might just be out of his mind in love with this woman and just you know, a hot blonde will walk by and he'll go, huh? Like I mean you just can't help it. Like we can't help it. Now at a certain point it does become like we you know, it does become something that we when you don't just stare you know and be rude about it, but we're just hyper visual creatures and it's kind of like it's amazing, but it also can be kind of a curse. Yeah. This is why men are particularly vulnerable to the kinds of adult entertainment that men I I can't I don't want to use the word on YouTube because they'll they'll destroy me. But it's visual, right? Like what do what do women do? They read. They read their their adult entertainment, right? Like they read bright Twilight books, right? Or or Fifty Shades of Grey, right? You know, it's a b vampires are just there's a whole thing we could get into about why women love vampires, and it's really fascinating. But men are men are we were dominated by vision and ⁓ so that leaves less room for interoception. And ⁓ I think that's why like it's I think is a real gift that women have is you have all these other senses. It's also why your noses are Partly why it's they're so sensitive, because that's way more important to women to be to be discuss sensitive than men are. We mainly need to hunt. Yeah. You know, or look for, you know, another tribe throwing projectiles in our face. We need to be able to aim. ⁓ and so vision's really, really important evolutionarily for for hunting and gathering. And for women, you know, we would traditionally do more of the gathering. Yes ⁓ being able to smell if something is a little bit rotten. or overripe or whatever, or if the food, you know, the meat that is brought back is a little too old now to feed to the children. so this I think has a lot to do with why we're so different. And so why like women are picking up on things that are much more subtle and to me kind of mysterious and magical that women have this capability. ⁓ because it's so often where to me, asking a woman to explain wh why she's attracted to someone or what she finds attractive. Or they'll Well, I'm looking for this and this and this and this and then a guy comes along and he's not any of that and she's just in love with them and it's like a mystery that I love but it is one of the amazing things about you is that you're so complicated. speaker-0: We're very complicated creatures. Yeah. I love all of that so much. And I'm gonna ask you a question in a minute, but I just wanted to also say, like, it's so fascinating learning about how we were in primitive days. Like I r are you familiar with Alison Armstrong's work to the kingdom? speaker-1: I know Yeah, I don't know that book, but I know who she is. Yeah. speaker-0: I I learned this from her, but I I remember reading in her book, learning about yes, men being hunters, women being gather gatherers in primitive days, and how for me I've noticed, not so much now, really, as I as I'm saying this out loud, but in the past, I've known a lot of men to repeat stories. Like they will tell the same story over and over again. And I've even had some clients be like, this guy just told me this story again. Do you think he's dating multiple women and he's like forgetting who he told the story to? I was like, no, he's just he's retelling like that was a huge part of the hunt and and telling the story of what it was like. For women though speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: We ne we will even say, forgive me if I've told you this before. Because for women as gatherers, it's very important for us to gather also certain information to come to the tribe. And asking her to repeat herself was like insulting her intelligence. So I'm just it's so crazy. speaker-1: ⁓ Fascinating. I've never heard that before, but that is fascinating why we do that. First off, it's just really validating to know that I'm not the only one doing this. Because again, like you know, I've been told that I mansplain things too sometimes. And like honestly, that hurts. Like, you know, 'cause I mean I am sitting here talking to you, a woman, about how men and women work, but I'm fascinated by it, you know. but yeah, no, I've definitely told the same story many, many times. They're great the first time though. You know, like they're speaker-0: You guys don't do that to each other. You don't say, Forgive me, sorry if I'm repeating myself. Men don't say that ever. Just women. So it's just it's it's interesting. speaker-1: Yeah, no, we wouldn't say a sorry if I'm repeating myself, although sometimes I've learned, just this might just be a me thing, to sometimes it can be good for the dynamic between men to sort of acknowledge another person's ego and just be like, you know, I apologize. You might know this already, ⁓ but like and you just explain it like you may already have this knowledge, but yeah, it's that we don't 'cause we don't really we don't often tell each other stories. Yeah. ⁓ you know, that's usually something we do with with our women that when they're around. I mean I'll tell a man a story, but men don't spend the kind of time with each other that we spend with women. Right. Like when we're in a relationship with a woman, we we spend a lot more time with her than we spend with our friends. It's one of the challenges that men have is men are absolutely devastated by divorce in a way that women are not or emotionally devastated because when like there's a saying that when a woman gets divorced she loses a a relationship and when a man gets divorced he loses everything. Yeah. 'Cause is because we kind of outsource friendship, our social life. our emotional life, you know, all of that kind of gets outsourced to our female partners because women are, to your credit, so gifted at it. But ⁓ I think it's important for men's well being. One of the reason I think women are saying they have a hard time finding good men, I don't I'm assuming you're hearing this, ⁓ is we just women have become economically have just like shot way forward, like have just really closed the gap. rapidly since basically having the legal right to do it, along with I think the pill also has a lot to do with it. Men have not yet closed the gap on like emotional intelligence. Yeah. Yet. And but it seems like women are demanding more of that from men, especially as women are making more money. Where it's like, I mean, I've got this side of the thing covered as well. So like what are you bringing to Yeah, and it needs to be more than just economic. Even if d I'd love to have your opinion about speaker-0: What are you adding? Yeah. speaker-1: Do women find it hard to be with men that make less money than them? speaker-0: If all women ⁓ here's what I have to say that my my personal opinion is no, I don't think it's a problem or an issue. for me, the my stance has always been I don't need the man that I'm with to be more financially successful than me. He doesn't need to have already kind of built his kingdom. If I believe in him, but if he also believes in himself, I'm in. Like if he believes this is where I'm going, I'm not there yet, but this is my vision, this is my mission, this is what's set on my heart, this is what I'm gonna do in the world, then I'm all in. Where women get tripped up is we often see the potential in a man, and that's a project, because he doesn't see the potential in himself. But if the man sees the potential and he has you know, a abundance mindset or a wealth, you know, abundance mindset or growth mindset, then I don't think it fucking matters if if a man makes less than the woman. No. speaker-1: What isn't it it's interesting because this is the thing that so many men fixate on. There's this there's a manosphere, right? But there's also like I think they would say there's the six six six thing. Do you know about this? No. Well, women are looking for a man with six feet, six figures, and six inches. ⁓ my speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And that I think the thing is when you compound the the ne none of those three things is common. Like there's by definition they're exceptional. If you multiply the three together, I mean you're you're talking about much less than one percent of men, but it's just not of which of course it's like saying every woman wants to be with the you know, ninety nine point nine percenter. and yeah, like there is something about like there is just something about women wanting someone taller. Mm-hmm. And it's interesting that those things are related. ⁓ you know, the six feet and the six figures of wanting to make someone that is makes more or is taller that does seem to be there seem to be good biological reasons for it, but ⁓ I think now today, the six the the taller thing seems to be a bigger factor. Do you d would you do you find that there are more women that would be less likely to date someone shortly speaker-0: I'm the weird one out though because I've almost always dated men who are shorter. I mean, not shorter than me, but like five ten or under. Some I mean, I'm just a short person too, so it doesn't speaker-1: So you have that right. Yeah. You have more options. I guess. It really is. Taller men and shorter women just have more options. speaker-0: I do. Yeah. Yeah. But I did once date a guy that was six five and he was like, ⁓ the shorter the woman the better. I'm like, Bro, like, there's plenty of beautiful tall women out there that would love to date you and you're six five. Like, you do not need to be dating five three people over here. But you know, I I always encourage women to turn the height filter off. I just think it's hilarious. I mean, I have a friend that I can think of right now from Louisiana who is good. Gorgeous. She literally looks like a supermodel, stunning. And her husband is shorter than her. Like not as tall as her, shorter than her. My sister's husband is just as tall as her. And they are incredible men. And my sister and my friend I'm talking about are both wildly attracted to their partner. So I just think it's so silly. I think that is one of the dumbest, most least interesting things about a man. And like you were saying earlier. It seems like a lot of men are fixated on like I need to be financially set. I need to have all my shit together before I can even think about committing to a woman. When having an ⁓ who talks about this? ⁓ my gosh. Alex Hermosy. Do you Alex Hermozy? He's talked about this with Layla before, that having Layla in his life, his wife, is what catapulted him into hundreds of millions. Like having that support and someone believe in him as much as he believed in himself, that's why he built so rapidly. So and I think billionaires have talked about this before of like having a wife is what made them. speaker-1: I know Warren Buffett's relationship with his wife, Susie, was very important to him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it I think that ⁓ they say behind every great man is a great wife or something like that. ⁓ and yeah, I think that with Alex and Layla, they're they're not just espouses, they're partners. So and he believes in her and he's helping her have her thing and she's helping him have his thing. And so and that's great. A lot of ⁓ for me personally, that's like the dream. But for I know a lot of men, and I think their and their wives are probably be happy with this too. The man takes care of the money, the wife stays home with the kids, she has no idea what's going on with the money. I know so many men who I feel bad for these men. They can't talk to their wives about their business. That's it, you know, but I think that it's comfortable. I think that ⁓ it's not a ⁓ it does seem outdated, but I don't think it's a ⁓ speaker-0: But yeah. speaker-1: It's not like a patriarchy thing. It's just more like a division of labor in their families kind of thing. But I also think that women receive messages around money and being loved in a way that young that boys don't. Like I know a woman right now who is drop dead gorgeous, like literally drop dead gorgeous. She's a model and was, you know, in the fashion industry in New York and is incredible. But she was raised to believe that like large amounts of wealth or the only kind of love. Like no emotional availability, but a house in the Hamptons, sure. So that for her, it's like the people that she's picking to be with are like 70, but they have a house in the Hamptons, you know, and it's like and there's an awareness there and men are much less likely to receive that kind of conditioning because we're not going to be princesses. Like I as a man, I can relate to the desire, if I had a daughter to want to spoil her, I won't. I shon I sh I can't. But like, you know, I get it. And That unfortunately can lead to some toxic dynamics, but I feel bad for the men, especially because if there's a hiccup at work, I mean if they're worried about they can't share it with their wife. They've got to basically keep it from her because they don't want her to worry, because then that'll make it worse. You know, she's not gonna be helpful. And I think that it's a it comes from a feeling of loss of like not having any control. Apparently in divorce, like stay-at-home moms are the ones that fight the hardest too, because I think they're the most scared. Like they don't have control. They don't have the skills to be economically viable and they haven't really been informed. So they don't know where the money is. They don't know what's going on. And that's an unfortunate thing because I've just like I've known many men who have their businesses are like it's the thing that they're trying to build. We can't create people. So like we need something else that we can we can create in the world. And I couldn't imagine not being able to talk to my partner about it. Like I mean I I would want my partner to be my partner in it, ideally. But like I couldn't imagine not being able to tell her if there's a financial issue or there's a there's a cash flow thing, but it's you know, it I think that's one of the things that can lead to so I think one of the the number one cause of divorce is financial trouble. Yes. And if both partners aren't like don't have ownership of it, then like you can see why. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's there's that invisible, maybe not invisible expectation too, it sounds like that men feel and some women may put it on men, not all women, but some women may put it on men too, of like, yeah, you you're the provider, so you figure this out. I I don't know, I just speaker-1: Yeah. Well, especially if there's what else are you bringing to the table and if the answer is like not a lot. You know, if you're like a and look, I mean, if someone is just prodigiously good at making money and it's just kinda like, look, like I could totally see if I had a partner and she was just phenomenal at printing money to be like, Look, you do this thing, I will take care of whatever else we need to do and I'll support that because it's just like shit. I mean, if it's unusual that two people are equally good at making money. Yeah. And so I can see that, but like there still needs to be communication about the other things. Like I would never I you know, I want to be a a filmmaker, I want to be a director. I don't ever want to not know about any aspect of filmmaking. I I know about all of it. I've done all of it. I'm doing more of all of it. That's why I take acting. I don't want to be an actor necessarily. I love to do it, but I want to know how to direct actors. I want to understand their process. Like I you know, it's just because everything goes better you when you're responsible for all of it. And To me that seems like what an ideal dynamic would be is that the the communication for me is the the whole point. Again, like I'm a talker, I'm trying to talk for a living. And you know, I mean like again, so this is what I mean when I say like when I meet someone within sixty seconds or five minutes and I realize like they're not going to be able to participate in most conversations with speaker-0: Okay, but here's my question now with that. Have you ever met a woman where within the first sixty to five minutes that's what I that's that's like the sweet spot I've been told to. You're sixty seconds, I've heard five minutes. I'm like, Okay, God, you're speaker-1: minutes is is really is really more realistic of once you interact with someone for a little bit. speaker-0: But have you ever been on a date or met a woman where within the first sixty seconds to five minutes you're like, nah, this is a no. And then she grew on you. And you're like, ⁓ wait, maybe I was wrong. Has that ever happened in your life? speaker-1: No. no, I tell I mean so like I there have been I I'm not in the scenario that you're presenting. There have been people who when I w when we were younger that I was friends with and then all of a sudden you something happens and then one day you see them in a different light. But it's not like the situation you're describing where it's like a date. No, ordinarily not. ⁓ now there are some people who have surprised me. ⁓ and there are people who I continue to be surprised by who were interested in me and I was not interested in return. And then I've continued to see them and I've like, you know, this is a really cool person. And ⁓ this this she's becoming a cool person. There's an age factor in this too. So like if someone is ⁓ I there's one person I'm thinking of in particular. She's much younger than me and she's becoming a really cool woman. But she's just still is not my my person. I I just know that. ⁓ it's also the a big age gap. I've never had a large age gap relationship, but ⁓ this one would be a a big one. And women mature faster than men. ⁓ but there was definitely a sense where like at a certain point, maybe a year ago, I was like, This is a girl. And now I'm like, No, this is a woman. Like she's she's a really cool woman too. But no, I mean I kind of have a philosophy that I as a man am paranoid about not wasting a woman's time. It's not fair to do with the woman well, because like if you want to have kids, there's not an unlimited amount of time to do that. And so it it's my responsibility to know what I want. And for me, if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. Because if it's not a hell yes, it's eventually gonna be a no, probably anyway, I think. and although that's definitely like something that you you want an interaction with, but like if I just know on a first date, like this isn't it, I don't ask for a second date primarily. speaker-0: That's great. speaker-1: Now, sometimes there have been times where I'm like, I'm not sure. Okay. And if I'm truly not sure, I'll give it more time. And and things could progress there. But there's never has been a time where and I'll and I want to be clear, I'm not j I'm not making decisions based on the first five minutes. I'm not even thinking in those terms. It really is just a feeling I have in my body. Yeah. Of like by the end of the day, where I'm like, I mean, for for one thing, there have been some dates, I was reflecting on one this morning when I was on my patio. the worst data I ever had. ⁓ speaker-0: Wanna tell that story? speaker-1: Sure. Sure. she I so I saw her on Hinge and didn't so the most interesting dates I've had were people that I've seen on dating apps prior to going on the date with them, but that's not how we got on date. That's weird. Yeah, that's real weird. ⁓ when or people you've gone out with and then you see them on the app. So I saw this woman on an app and I remember her, but I didn't know w so ⁓ she was a waitress at the Soho house here in Nashville and speaker-0: ⁓ you just don't know Yeah, it's weird. speaker-1: I was just having my Sunday brunch or whatever I was having when I was a member there. And she came over and I was like, I don't know, I just started flirting with her and she was just I don't know, had a good time. She was funny. and she was like a makeup artist ⁓ in the film industry and real into jazz music. And I was filming some jazz shows. That's was some of the filming I've done. And so I was going to this jazz show and I ended up messaging her on Instagram, like, hey, let's go. And she was like, sure, she loved it. And basically as soon as she got in my car, it started going, well, now I drive a Subaru. Like and I think she was expecting me to show up in a big truck. There I've I've realized that there's a certain kind of woman that looks at me and they see like a conservative guy and like that's just not my deal. And sometimes women will just hate me on that basis. There's one in particular I can think of who just hates me. because I look No, no, it's true. She's a gender studies professor at Vanderbilt. We work out together and she hates me because I look like the patriarchy. ⁓ but yeah, so but like and that's that's that's not even women, that's just there are some people that are judgmental. ⁓ but this one woman, she was like a conservative trad wife person and she spent the whole day bitching about Cracker Barrel. Okay, you don't know about it either. I didn't either. There was some conservative moral panic about Cracker Barrel changing to be less country. Okay. People lost their minds. It was like the Dylan Mulvaney on the Bud Light Can kind of thing. Like just culture war bullshit. So for me, I mean things that for me like an immediate no would be like speaker-0: ⁓ okay. speaker-1: People whose brains have been like hijacked by political media, I'm like, I d I don't even want to know about the thing that you think is the most important thing ever. So like I feel bad for you 'cause you didn't know about the cracker barrel thing. Yeah. But now you're probably gonna have to look it and be like, what the f was this going on? What is it? It was just all about and I don't drink alcohol, I don't drink c I don't smoke cigars. And so like she just wanted a conservative guy who was gonna drink whiskey and smoke cigars and and hate Cracker Barrel with her. And that's all we talked about. So like I couldn't get that date over fast enough. speaker-0: The cracker barrel draw speaker-1: You know what I mean? Like I was like, I'm here. I took some photos. It was a pretty good jazz show. It was. It was an interesting I I got some good photos out of it, but like, yeah. So there's an interesting thing I want to ask you about. A lot of women, you know, for men, we've talked about our our objective if we're gonna use a dating app, which I maintain is still as a is a waste of energy. we should want to try to attract as many women as possible to get more potential matches. Women have an opposite problem. You have a filtering problem, right? Like you need to find how do I filter for the ones that I really want? Because you can't possibly look at the them all. There is an interesting strategy of just being like, I don't want to date people that are like this, which women will do, and I don't know that men do this, but there are women that will say, No conservatives. Like that's the overwhelm at ten nine out of every ten times it's no conservatives and fuck ice. Free Palestine stuff like that. One out of every ten, it's like I'm a conservative, but that th I actually I can think of one ever that I saw that did that. And I live in Nashville, Tennessee. So do you find that to be a good practice to just be like I'm not interested in dating? No. No, I don't either. speaker-0: I don't want I I always encourage for women to not put what they don't want on there and to put what they want to me. Like I'll talk about it from the female perspective when men do it, because men will be like, no drama. And I'm like, that man loves drama, trust me. Like you don't want ⁓ you know ⁓ speaker-1: What he really wants is to tell a woman she's being dramatic. You know what I mean? speaker-0: Exactly. Yeah. It's such a turnoff. Like I have a visceral re reaction in my body when I see men say stuff like that. Also for men, like your gym pictures, that's for your bros. Like you're you'll get credit. speaker-1: What kind of men are sharing gym pictures with their bros? Those guys are not on those guys are on grinder. No, that's a gay thing. I don't ever if I got a picture of a dude in the gym, I would be like, What the fuck you ⁓ 'cause like, look, ⁓ we talked about this for before women started paying attention, about a year earlier, gay men started paying a lot of attention. Yes. ⁓ and yeah, I would be like, ⁓ sorry, I think there's been a misunderstanding. speaker-0: Yeah, I don't know what it is, but you're not impressing us. Like you and your gym, you know, bicep photo. Don't do it. speaker-1: Jim Selfie, yeah. Jim Selfie. Okay, I have exchanged those photos with a with a guy friend before, but like that was when I was making a big transformation really fast. speaker-0: Okay, see, that's what I'm saying. Like men do that. Women, we don't care. We don't wanna like you do not get brownie points for that. Obviously the fish picture. But you know what? speaker-1: Picture with the fish, right? I hear this all the time. speaker-0: Men though, y'all don't y'all aren't taking selfies and like sending out like outfits to your girlfriends. ⁓ you don't take as much as many photos as we do typically. You're a photographer, you're kind of you know speaker-1: I don't take selfies. Right. I don't take selfies. I'm not using a phone and doing that. Like I'm using a camera, I'm looking through the lens. I'm lighting up a shot. I'm taking photographs of women, actually. Like you know, like I'm not taking pictures of myself. Women are really good at it. speaker-0: Yeah. And I mean, it's like I get it, like you don't have a lot of photos, but you happen to have your dad take a photo of you when you caught that marlin. So okay, it makes sense that that's what you're gonna put on. speaker-1: And it's unusual and it's a cool story and like I can see why men and and look, if you were trying to find your buddy actually actually like we should make a dating app for men that want to make buddies, although it would just become it would immediately devolve into a gay thing. It would ⁓ it would immediately, right? Yeah. ⁓ but yeah, it would be like a fish something you could do where like, hey, I went fishing With a bunch of other guys and like I work out at the gym and you know be men, it's like we like the same things. We can be friends now. Men are so good at being friends because like we're a lot of times men are just kind of limited to who their wives, wives or f wives, friends are married to. So it's like you kinda gotta play nice. So it's like, ⁓ yeah, this guy likes fishing. We can talk about that. You know, or sports. I went to the sporting event one time. ⁓ what are some I I wanna just also put a pin in the thing you said about don't no the no drama, your reaction, like the visceral. That's how I feel when I see like something violently political, basically. And the thing is like I'm not a conservative, but like the kind of person who would say I am not even open minded to the possibility of dating someone that doesn't agree with me on everything. I'm like, you're you you don't share a value of mine that's very important, which is tolerance. and like you don't seem like a very nice person. That's the biggest feedback I would give to so many women is You don't seem like a very nice person. I've there's been so many women where I'm like, Yeah, she's beautiful. I'll let all the other guys on here have her waste their time with her. 'Cause like it looks like she what this person really looks like she wants is someone to pay for really expensive meals. Like 'cause that's a lot of times what women have pictures of is them having this really giant plate with a little bit of food and they're in Greece or wherever. And it's like, I've been to this place and it's like, Man, she looks really expensive. Like then we talk about that a lot. It's like this one's good, but she's gonna be very speaker-0: Yeah. I I those I've seen those reels on Instagram and they are really funny to me. It's it's a man, of course, so it's speak it's it's for a women audience. but it's a man saying, like, guys, women are expensive. Just pick your tier. Like, don't complain that you can't afford, just pick the one that you can afford. You can't afford every single one of them. speaker-1: Yeah. That's true. That's true. Like I mean, like it's the same way as cars. Like if you really want a Ferrari then you need to adjust your life accordingly. Right. What about men having pictures like if you own a Ferrari, I imagine having that on your dating profile is probably speaker-0: Bother me as much as like the gym and stuff. But it's again, if it's an isolated thing, like the car, but then you see him doing other just normal things in life. It's like if it's the car and then he's in his the private jet and then he's on the yacht, it's just like okay, you're all showy, flashy, like I don't care about that shit. speaker-1: Right, or his watch, like watch, car, jet, another car. Yeah. do you ever do you ever like audit men's dating profiles? Is that something you ever do professionally? speaker-0: I did once with one of my male clients, if I remember correctly, I think it was only just one male client that I helped him with his. I wish I could audit all of the profiles that I that I've seen, but no, it's not something I typically do. speaker-1: Do you think there would be any benefit in men auditing women's profiles? Or getting a man's perspective on it? speaker-0: Ooh. And I I asked feedback. I love feedback, by the way. I used to be so scared of feedback and then I got into coaching and now I freaking love. It's so great. It's amazing. And I like to I like to use it in terms of ineffective or effective, like what's working, what's not versus positive or negative. But but I got feedback from one of my speaker-1: It's the best hack ever. speaker-0: male dating coach friends. He just had a baby like yesterday, actually. So excited for him. He's speaker-1: Effective more than ineffective. speaker-0: Yeah. But I just I was like, what do you think? He's like, you know, you're wearing the same dress in two photos. Not most men will notice that, but I notice that. So change one of your photos out. We don't really care that like you've put your school on there or your hometown. I was like, Really? I mean, I just fill out the thing that, you know, Hinge says. He's No, we don't care about that. And we want like you need to make your first photo. Like, I want to see more of your, you know, in your joy, you're smiling, you're happy. So yeah, I I mean, I liked it. speaker-1: Yeah, your personality your personality comes through a lot in your photos. Like, I mean, women are again, you're they're better at photos, although like again, no selfies. Like it if you're in the front seat your car, please don't put that on the internet. Like, that's not what that's for. Now, maybe I'm being a little a little snotty because I'm like a filmmaker, but dude, like or anything in a mirror, like mirror selfies. ⁓ they sing your low effort, they signal low effort. Like if I'm looking at speaker-0: like the mere selfies. speaker-1: dozens and dozens and dozens of women's photos on a dating app. Yeah, yeah. Now look, sometimes women look amazing at the gym and their d and their thing, but it's also it's just weird. It's like, all right, you're in a you're in a bathroom. Like or and it just is also you can't really capture a person's personality, so it kind of looks a little bit vain. ⁓ like a like a selfie where it's like you're looking at yourself and you're like you're posing. It looks a little bit it looks a little vain. and whereas someone else taking the photo of you and you're smiling, you first off you wouldn't do it in a bathroom. Like so if you like if you had if you had a photographer there, would you choose this location? That's a good way to think of it. Like we want to see you know the that feedback that man gave you is great. If you look like you have a radiant personality, that's gonna make a big difference. And rather than you're just shiny object. Yeah. ⁓ because there's a lot of shiny objects and things on there, but then it's like, okay, ⁓ the biggest problem that I've had on there is I would again say overall, women who put no effort into their profile. And so I'm like, I'm gonna put no effort into you because it's gonna go nowhere probably, and I don't know anything about you. Like if I don't know anything about a woman except for that she's really a attractive, ⁓ I gotta pay for I gotta pay to message her. So like I'm not gonna use my dollar or two dollars or three dollars or whatever it is on this person when ⁓ there's this other one here who maybe is not quite as just, you know, shiny object, beautiful, but we have there's so many good flirtation opportunities here. Yeah. Based on what's in her profile or the things that she says that she's obsessed with. So I'm like, okay, I can like we can work with that. Work with that because the banter is so important. ⁓ so we're drawing somewhat to a close. ⁓ speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: I wanna ask, ⁓ you have an immersion coming up and if I wanted to know if you could tell us about that. speaker-0: Yes. So when I decided to no longer in toxic dating, it was because a new body of work was basically emerging through me. I went through a nine month feminine embodiment intensive training. And I was really sitting with like, what do women really want and need right now? Like not just my clients, even though they were a huge factor in me creating that, but what do I want and need right now? What do my you know, the women in my life, friends, ⁓ colleagues, like what do they what do we want? And the general consensus that I've received over and over again is Women really wanna be seen and known and loved for who they really are and not the masks that they wear or the performance that they give or you know, whatever they're doing in their careers right now. It's like we really want to be seen for who we are. So I created this program called Seen, which is a three-month embodiment program where you learn how to really see yourself first. Then in month two, you're seen by the women in the group. And then in month three, I bring men in. To practice being seen by the masculine. And I wanted to create an experience ⁓ like that virtually. ⁓ How do I say this? I wanted to experience I wanted to create an experience of like of that virtually compared to what I've experienced throughout my life in workshops, because so much of my healing has happened, yes, in coaching programs and working one on one with a coach, but also being in rooms with people. And there's only so much you can do virtually. I do as much as I can, but I realize the next part of this work is bringing it into a room. So creating a workshop. So yes, ⁓ it's two days, October tenth and eleventh in Denver, Colorado, where ⁓ it's just women for the first day, and we're gonna work with ⁓ a lot of different things, a lot of emotional release work, a lot of feedback, a lot of being seen in the truth of who you are. And then on day two, I'm having men come in to help support and serve the women in being seen by the masculine. I mean, there's a practice that it could be edgy for some women, but there's lots of different layers that we're gonna bring to it. But there's a beautiful practice I'm really excited about. ⁓ one is a boundaries practice and feeling in real time in your body. Is this person a yes or a no for me? Do I want them to come any closer or do I not? Based just on how you feel, not any words are being exchanged. There's also going to be like a sovereign sensuality practice where you ⁓ where the women really get to feel their own sensuality and their creative life force that circulates in their bodies and Getting to experience that where it's not in performance for a man. It's also not to get anything from him. It's just theirs. It's their sovereign expression. That I'm super excited about. And I'm having a male colleague, a dear friend of mine, fly in from Austin. He's a great facilitator. He's been facilitating for years to co-lead it with me. So speaker-1: Beautiful. I I have a few questions. I have a lot of questions actually. I mean, you're saying just the basic thing that women are wanting is to feel seen. Yeah. for those of us that are not women, can you try to explain, like put us in the experience of what it's like to be a woman and not feel seen? I mean, it it's I get this 'cause I'm a photographer and I I've seen the effect of women feeling seen, but I I don't really understand what it feels like. Yeah. speaker-0: To not be. Yeah. It feels like heartbreak. It feels like it feels like heartbreak. It feels like devastation. It feels like sadness, disappointment. you j like I've had women even say, like, I just feel like I'm invisible even in my relationship. Like he doesn't see me, he doesn't feel me, he doesn't get me. And it just, it's heartbreaking. and while, you know. Being seen, there is some reciprocity in that. Like i yes, it being seen by another takes another person seeing you, of course, but you know, we can only really see another to the degree in which we've been able to see ourselves. So really learning how to see ourselves, how to honor what we see, even the parts that we've made wrong, because that's another thing too. Women, it's easy to say, ⁓ I want a man to see my radiance and how magnetic I am and how beautiful I am and like all these amazing shiny parts about me. But what about the outlawed parts? What about the things that you've rejected or made wrong that you're so scared that you ultimately want someone to see and still love you anyway? But to reveal that is so vulnerable and is so scary. And that's what we're working on. That's what we do in my program and what we work on in the workshop too, because it's like, Once we actually get to see those parts and connect with them and not make them wrong or bad, it's easier to open and reveal to other people too. speaker-1: I yeah, I was gonna ask you, we when we were talking earlier about anger and the anger work that you do, ⁓ this is really how you deal with cast out with exiles. And ⁓ in IFS you talk about exiles, yeah. Cast out parts and like anger, someone has to see you in your authentic anger and be okay with it. Like there's a corrective emotional experience that needs to happen. Yeah. And so and this is and it's a thing that's important to me is shame. Like the only so the only antidote to shame is being seen because shame hides. It makes you hide what you have there. yeah, I was I was very moved by what you were saying about out feeling like heartbreak. I'm wondering ⁓ yeah, I'm wondering how many men feel this way. I there's a chance that men are feeling all the same things that women are. We just don't know how to talk about it. Right. I I don't think it's quite that situation. I think there's a much more overlap between our emotional experience than we are most of us are aware of, but I think there are differences and this seems to be a very feminine desire to want to feel seen. What are some things that are there i i i anything that men can do to help their partners or just their the females in their life feel more seen? speaker-0: Yes, God, that's such a great question. Well, something that I'd love to tap on that you just said a moment ago too is I think one of the biggest healing hacks or biggest secrets in personal development, it's so simple, and yet a lot of us have a really hard time doing it, is just have someone witness us without trying to stop it, fix it, or relate it back to themselves. Like a lot of times, even like If emotion comes up and you're around someone who really loves you, sometimes even that person will be like, ⁓ don't cry, don't cry. They stop it. They suppress the emotion in real time. Or they try to fix it. ⁓ my God, look on the bright side, it's all gonna get better. It's gonna be okay. Or and I'm very guilty of this one. They relate it back to themselves, like, ⁓ my God, I've been through a divorce too. I get what that's like. You know, when it happened to me, this is what I did. So this is what you should do. And the person never gets a moment to just feel and and let that emotion complete itself. So it just kind of recycles back in. It just loops. So for me, being seen is not someone having these psychic powers and being like, I know she's gonna now want a matcha at you know, eleven o'clock, so I'm gonna go do that. It's not that. To me, being seen is really being witnessed in in whatever is coming through for me in the moment and the person being like, What else? I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. Tell me more. What else? That to me makes me feel really seen and cared for. speaker-1: That's beautiful. And that's a profoundly healing experience. I mean, I've I've been through this as a lot of the my own healing work that I've done. Just it requires that, especially if you've got things like toxic shame or a shame-bound identity. And it's very hard to correct that. Like is you it's very hard to trust anybody enough to be in that position. And what you're describing about the things that people do when someone's having an experience of like you try to suppress it or fix it or relate it to your own experience. It's kind of like a failure of holding space. And holding space I've learned is just a it's a skill. And what I've learned about holding space is ninety-five five percent of the work is paying attention to the person. The other ninety five percent is suppressing the urge to to manage your own discomfort. 'Cause we're it's like it's like I especially you don't know the person. I mean, sometimes someone's crying in a Walgreens and you're just like, I have to go. Like speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: You know, it's like, why do people open up to me? I'm not ready emotionally for this. You know what I mean? But it's just like I guess I have the face. Well I'm just like, How are you? And they'll tell me. You know, sometimes whenever someone says, How are you? Like, I don't I just I'm honest. Like that's the thing that it's a total hack. What I've learned is that that will invite them to be honest too. And people open up to me. And it's a gift now that I'm just calm enough in my nervous system and I can I can do that. But it is you really you gotta hold it. Like you've got you all this discomfort comes up of like I feel uncomfortable with this person's with how I'm feeling. I'm feel I'm feeling vulnerable. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. So, you know, one thing I've learned about not knowing the right thing to say is to say, you know, I'm not really sure what to say. That's the you know, just authenticity is the answer to every problem, basically for me. And there's something beautiful when I've been in a lot of circles, retreats. A lot of the retreats I go to are where people cry a lot. speaker-0: Yeah. Yes. speaker-1: And it's great. It's heavenly. Literally. It's it's it's so healing and holy. And there's something about someone's experience where it's like if you've ever been really constipated and then you finally get relief and you're just like and you see someone else and you're like, Good for them. Like, I know how that feels. You're just like, Good for you. You've been emotionally constipated for twenty years. Let it go. Yeah, but I mean, our culture definitely doesn't Love that stuff. That's definitely not the default. Say we're getting there. I mean, like you've said, there's a lot of people that are interested in this work now. Yeah. ⁓ we're we're as a society, we're rich enough to be able to afford to deal with these kind of problems. Yeah. And so now we're dealing with the last hundred years of generations of whatever or more. And yeah, learning how to hold space is a thing 'cause like you have to know what's going on in your nervous system first and have additional capacity to hold what this other person does ⁓ has going on. And I also I happen to think there is a very male female dynamic to that. Like a lot of what I I I w I need to make a video. Again, I've got a list of videos I want to make. what men what do women really mean when they say be more emotionally available? I think men men think that means talk about our emotions more. I don't think that's what women want. I think what they want is to be more available to her talking about. That's exactly what that means. If she wants to be mad, it's like, okay, let's be mad. Like you can be mad. Like and not and to not be moved off of Dead Center. I've got a clinical psychologist coming on in a few weeks. And he is also a kung fu black belt. and Chinese martial arts involve a root. Like your feet are your roots. And they're all about a midline of the body and not being and so But he deals with couples. And so he he's talking about conflict management. And I'm like, I really don't know if we're talking about karate or if we're talking about a fight with your spouse. Because the principles for him are the same. It's really fascinating. But he's like, it's all about not letting the other person move you off your route. Like you can kind of bob and weave, you can accommodate what's going on, but It does seem to me that like men are thinking that we're like, Well, you gotta understand that my mom did this thing and whatever, and women are No, no, no, no, no, no, no, like, it's a turnoff. I know I've I've known a lot of men that are like have felt like really upset about because they're like, I don't understand. I did the thing I thought she wanted and then she lost respect for me. And and I think there is a way to communicate our emotions with women, but for men it's good to have other men to do the speaker-0: It is very it's a vital to her. speaker-1: It's vital because you don't want your your female partner to become your source of emotional co regulation all the time because she'll feel like she's mothering you, right? speaker-0: That's right, exactly. And that's not a turn on for a man either. No. speaker-1: There's a woman named Anna Jorgensen who's ⁓ on YouTube. She's your wing ma'am, is her thing. And she says mother mode kills lover mode. It's true. It's true. Yeah, she's and she does content for men and she'll she'll go through, you know, in a nine minute video, but then every now and then when there's something really important, she'll be like, Okay, just the tip. And then she'll give the tip. She's good. She's she's really funny. But yeah, it's like mother mode kills lover mode, and I'm like, Yeah, that's a good message. Say it more than once, it needs to rhyme, and then we'll get it. speaker-0: It's so true. speaker-1: Yeah. So true. Yeah. But yeah, I mean being more emotionally available, it's about holding space. It's about knowing how to hold space without being like, Why are you crying? Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. I mean life life is a capacity game. How much can you hold? Truly. Like how much can you teach your nervous system to hold? speaker-1: What can what do you think that we can do to increase that? speaker-0: So many things for me in my business and in my relationships. And I'm swear to God, I'm not just saying this because I have an immersion coming up. I would say this if I was not doing this. To me, it has been getting in rooms and practicing in safe spaces with safe people because it's about getting reps, it's about practicing, it's about building space for Being seen and what you want to be seen in, saying what you really think, saying what you really feel. And if we can do that in a microcosm, we can take it out in the macro. We can take it out into our real lives. None of this stuff matters to me if I can't apply it in my real life. If I can't apply this in my business, if I can't apply this ⁓ with my partner, it it it's all lost. So to me, my biggest capacity builders have been practicing in rooms where I feel safe and doing things out of my comfort zone. speaker-1: That's it. That's basically it. That's how you expand capacity. I agree. You asked earlier, like, am I just approaching women all the time? Well, like I said, I talk to women a lot, but ⁓ the thing is I also had the fallacy for a long time. It was like when I I'll get my career figured out, I think one day I'm gonna make a lot of money, then I'll have tons of women around me all the time. And look, maybe so, but you will have if that's your strategy, you will have no idea what to do with those opportunities. Like you know, and also learning how to relate to people that are very different from you or that are of an opposite sex. massively transferable. Yeah. Like because you just feel like, okay, I did a thing that was like a little I took a little micro risk today. Although at the beginning it can feel like a mortally mortally tearing, terrifying, huge risk. For some men, talking to women is the most terrifying thing ever. But it's so liberating when if you if you've had that experience, because I think a lot of men start there when they're when we're younger or whatever, to conquer that fear and to be like, ⁓ yeah, this is not only is this not something I'm afraid of, I look forward to doing it. ⁓ that it's just it feels good to be able to just authentically relate and connect with someone and not feel like it has to be a means to an end. That has so man so much transferability. One of ⁓ the biggest problem I have with men with relationships is I can tell they're treating me like a transaction. And like there are so many times where I'm like in my life where I'm like, I know how women must feel in this moment, like maybe not for completely, but where it's like you know someone's got an agenda and you're just like, get get to the point, dude. What's the sale? Like what do you want? Like what do you want You know, like I know you just want something out of this. You're pretending to care and you're not doing a very good job about it. Like, you know what I mean? Or you're at the airport and the person wants to be your friend, but I'm like, I don't want your credit card. Yeah. I really don't. Like, you know, just know I'm stiff arming you. And men are ⁓ I think a lot of men fall victim to that where they see someone as like, Can you do so can you make me money? Yeah. Directly or indirectly, or can you can you can you do something for me? If not, then I don't care about you. Yeah. And That shows, like that really shows in business people don't really want to do business with people that are that shallow, that are that transparent. Yeah, that are that transactional. And so ⁓ just treating relationships like relationships and not transactions, that takes practice to get good and feeling comfortable and to being able to hold 'cause sometimes you ask someone how their day is and their day has not been good. Yeah. You know, and like you've got a guy friend and his life is falling apart. And now it's time to like to be a friend and hold space. So speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: It's it's cool what you're saying that you're creating this environment where in a physical space we can come and do it together 'cause again, we were talking also the problem with dating apps. You don't get these opportunities. Those those skills don't transfer to anything other than dating apps. And speaker-0: You don't practicing in the relationships where the stakes are the highest and we're having some struggles there. So it's like why not practice in other places so that you don't have such a hard time in the relationships that matter the most? It just kind of makes sense. speaker-1: Yeah. Well yeah. I'm excited for you. ⁓ where can people find you if they're interested in your immersion or speaker-0: Yeah, you can yes, you can just find me on Instagram. It's at Megan ⁓ E G A N underscore Toma T H O ⁓ A and it is in my bio. We have six spots left as of right now. So speaker-1: Okay. I'm excited for it. ⁓ thank you so much. I've had the most fun. This has been a great time. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm usually talking to neuroscientists and I admittedly it can get kind of dry. This has been really fun for me. So thank you so much for coming on. speaker-0: I had a great time. Thank you for having me. speaker-1: Thanks.