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There is one person that you choose at a certain moment in time, and with that person you try to create the most beautiful relationship you can.
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But you could have done it with others.
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Timing is involved, lots of things are involved.
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So there is no one and only.
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There s no soulmate?
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Soulmate is God.
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You can think that you have a soulmate connection with someone, that you have a deep, deep meeting of the minds of the souls of the heart of the bodies, but it s a metaphor.
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It s not a person.
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It s the quality of an experience that feels like soulmate.
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That s number two.
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Number three, there is no unconditional love.
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We live with ambivalence in our deepest love relationships.
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There are things we like and things we don t.
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And things they like about us and things they don t.
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And moments they can t be without us and moments where they wish on occasion they could be away from us.
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And that s normal.
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Number four,
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the happiness mandate, continuously evaluating how happy I am.
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If you continuously pursue happiness, you re miserable a lot of the time.
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What should we pursue instead?
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We pursue integrity, depth, joy, aliveness, connection, growth.
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Those things that ultimately make us say, I feel good, I m happy about this, but I don t pursue happiness.
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Happiness is the consequence of a lot of things you put in.
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You pursue caring for someone, having their back, feeling they have your back, wanting the best for them, what the Pali people call compersion.
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You know, those things you can pursue.
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Compersion, what s compersion?
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Compersion is feeling joy for the happiness of the other person.
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Is this a polyamory relationship?
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Where it s like they re with another sexual partner.
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Yes, but I think the word is bigger than just contained within the poly community and culture.
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It is the notion that you want good for the other person even when it doesn t have to do with you.
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You re proud of them, you admire them, you enjoy their growth, their successes.
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What about when...
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Someone says, you know, I m with this person.
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They make me happy What does that happen when you re looking for someone to make you happy in the relationship?
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Well the day they don t you will say they make me unhappy or they don t make me happy, but it s day They do to me.
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I m the recipient of what they do.
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They have the power They can give they can withhold
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I depend, I crave, I long, I yearn, I respond to them.
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And what should we be thinking of instead of this person makes me happy?
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How should we approach that?
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We give each other a good foundation from which we can each launch into our respective worlds.
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A home is a foundation with wings.
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Or I like to think a good relationship is a foundation with wings.
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So you feel the stability that you need, the security, the safety, the predictability, as much as you can, as much as our life allows us.
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And at the same time, you have the wings to go and explore, discover, be curious,
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be in the world, sometimes together and sometimes apart.
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But maybe one or two or each of the individuals don t accept something fully about the other person.
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Maybe there s like three things that they really don t like or don t accept or wish they changed.
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I don t know, I m just trying to think of something where you re like, I love so much, we have this great connection, we have so much fun and we re growing and building a relationship.
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But behind their back, you re telling your girlfriend or your guy friends, I wish they d change this, this or this.
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I don t like this thing, I don t like this thing.
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That s ambivalence.
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What does that mean?
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Meaning that you have to be able to live with the contradictory thoughts and feelings of what you like and what you don t like.
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What makes you want to be here and what makes you not want to be here.
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What happens when we don t accept that though?
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And we like, you know, hopefully they ll change out of this or grow out of this thing that I don t like about them.
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What happens?
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when we re in that space.
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We re not fully accepting.
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That means that when you get married, you re not just making a deal with your partner, you re making a secret deal with yourself that this is gonna change.
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And then when it doesn t, you get very upset or pissed because your deal with yourself, which you never said out loud, it s a private bargain you do with yourself.
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And all of us, when we pick someone, make private bargains with ourselves too.
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And it s often that bargain that is broken more than the one, because the partner never promised you that this would change.
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Right, exactly.
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And so it just creates more resentment.
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When we want something to change, we don t accept them.
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Expectations are resentment in the make.
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The more expectations you have, the more things you can be disappointed of afterwards.
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Especially when they re not articulated.
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I think what you need to know is what are some of the things, if you are with someone who, if you go back to the erotic connection, if you re with someone with whom you have a very difficult erotic connection,
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And you know that this is something that really is important to you.
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Being seen, being touched, being held, being kissed, being stroked, being made love to is really a language that is very important to you.
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And you don t want to live without it.
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Then listen to yourself.
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If it s not an important part for you,
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because that is not the way you express yourself most, then you know that this is not the centerpiece of your relationship.
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You have other things that you share.
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If you know that you don t want children, or the reverse, that the other person doesn t want children, don t go in there hoping that they re gonna change your mind, their mind, because that is not fair to you nor to them.
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If you are with someone who says, I do not wanna marry,
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And you do, or if you are with someone who says, I see love plural, I do not see myself just with one partner, and this is clear to you that that s not okay or that you want it differently, listen to yourself.
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Those are values that involve life decisions that you don t sit there waiting till they re gonna catch up with you.
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And what happens when two people s values are not in alignment?
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Can they still have a beautiful life story, or do you feel like there s always going to be some type of unnecessary struggle?
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No, I think it depends on the degree to which people can live with what we call a sense of differentiation.
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Meaning, if I am okay wanting to go to church,
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And that s not part of what you do.
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We come from the same faith or we come from different religions.
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And one of us wants to adhere to their tradition and wants to participate in the practices of their religion.
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And it s okay doing it without the other.
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doesn t feel that that needs to be shared.
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Doesn t experience every time they sit in church, I wish you were sitting next to me.
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Why do I have to come here alone all the time?
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That.
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So it s accepting someone s choices.
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It s accepting that your choice, if you practice it,
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you can accept to do it without your partner.
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So it s you accepting that.
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It s you accepting it.
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Of course, the other person.
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But the other person can often tell you, you go if you like to be there.
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I don t wanna go there on Sunday morning.
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I have other things to do with my time.
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Religion is a major one on that.
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Travel is another one on that.
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Children, work, et cetera.
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It s difficult to say to someone, I ll have a child alone.
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You don t have to participate.
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But it is easier to say, I will continue to practice my religion because it is central to me.
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You don t have to be a part of that.
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We have other things that we will share.
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But you need to know to do that and feel okay about it.
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If all the time, now that doesn t mean that on occasion you don t miss and you wish your partner, there s a great sermon, I so wish you had been there to hear it, great.
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But if it s chronic and you just feel this hole all the time, and you know from the beginning that it is a unifier for you, and your partner doesn t show curiosity,
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Because you can come from something else and say, I m interested in this.
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Let me see what this is.
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If you want to go back to living in your home country, and your partner has zero intention of leaving where they are, listen to them.
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Don t hope.
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If they tell you, yes, I would like that at some point, then listen carefully.
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If they re saying this to pacify you, if they re saying this to make sure that you don t leave them, or if they truly intend to do this at some time.
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And don t hope something s gonna change.
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Don t hope they re gonna do something later after you get married or come into a relationship.
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No, start from the place that it s not gonna happen.
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See how it is for you.
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Can you accept that?
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Can you accept that?
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Then, if things change, all the better.
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But don t start with the hope that it will be different.
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Right.
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And how does jealousy play in relationships?
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I used to be extremely jealous and insecure.
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I remember that.
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And then something switched in me, I don t know, five years ago, six years ago maybe, somewhere around that time where I was like, you know what, this does not support me or my relationship at all.
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This jealous nature or this, you know.
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That you knew even when you were jealous.
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Oh yeah, I knew, but I couldn t let it go though.
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So it s not what you said to yourself that changed what you experienced.
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Something changed, yeah.
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I don t know exactly what it was, but I remember just being like, I m tired of this.
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I m tired of feeling this way.
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So what did you change?
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Not what did you say to yourself.
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I think I changed fully accepting the person s decisions and lifestyle and what they were doing and trusting that everything was going to be okay.
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and not needing to be jealous.
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I think I was just afraid, like, are they talking to some guy?
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Is there something behind my back that they re doing?
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I don t know.
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It was a worry of like an anxiousness, right?
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And then I was just like, yes.
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Part of what accompanies jealousy, you know, jealousy starts at one and a half year old.
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It s not an early emotion.
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It needs a sense of self first.
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It needs the beginning of self-awareness as a baby to be able to experience jealousy.
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It s not like fear and joy and disgust and sadness.
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So where does it come from?
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Where it comes from and how evolutionary psychology has all kinds of explanations for jealousy, but where it comes from interpersonally is that it requires having a sense of who you are before you begin to experience how you respond to what other people are doing.
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I want that too.
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I don t want to lose something.
2
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What changed for you is that you became more confident.
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You felt less that your sense of self-worth is in the hands of the other person.
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And they turned away from you, that means that you are not enough.
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Or that you re gonna lose them, or that they re gonna leave you.
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That s what changed.
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And then I d be like hurt, or empty, or sad.
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in pain because of their actions.
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And I think that s 100%.
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I think I didn t feel like I was good enough or something, where I was just like, you know what?
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It s all gonna be okay.
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You know, if they do something or... But this, it s all gonna be okay, followed in different sense of yourself.
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Absolutely.
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where you were less in a panic, less in the grip of they re gonna abandon me and I m not good enough.
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And from that place, you began to say, it s okay.
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Nothing bad is gonna happen to me.
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That s how we diminish jealousy.
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It s not how we react to what the other person does, it s how we feel about ourselves that changes how we react about what the other person does.
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What do you see is the difference maker for healthy, long-lasting love for decades versus those that stay married a long time but aren t happy and those that eventually get divorced?
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I think the statistics are something like 50%, right?
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So 50% of all marriages end in divorce.
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The illusion is that the 50% that are left are happy.
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No, they re not.
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No, they re not.
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Maybe 15%.
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Maybe, right?
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And we don t really know.
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I mean, like if you went and polled everybody, you might be even shocked.
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It s 5%.
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Maybe, right?
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Gosh, why are they so challenging to be healthy and happy long-term for so many people?
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Well, I think part of the deal is the bar s very low.
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So the bar s something like we get along.
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Like that s it, I ve got t-shirts I get along with.
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So then what s it really all about?
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If that s the struggle, if the struggle is to get along, like I said, that s a very low bar.
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Get along with lots of people.
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Right, right.
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I mean, I get along with the person who, you know, makes my coffee at Starbucks, right?
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You know, I mean, but really what I ve found to be the case, and it s not, I m not looking at like particular people, for example, right?
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But I m going to look at like, what keeps a human being involved in anything, right?
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So like, why did somebody, like, so I love to play guitar.
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Why?
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Why?
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Because I engage with that thing.
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I m curious about that thing.
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I want to get better at that thing.
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I like how it feels when I accomplish something in that thing.
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If you take that in any aspect of your life, the same thing holds true.
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So my relationship with my wife is a function of who I am in it.
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And I need to keep bringing that to it.
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There s no time when this is a done deal.
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I have to keep showing up here, not for longevity, which is, I think, where a lot of people get messed up.
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People look at the relationship, well, I can t do this for the rest of my life, and I m like, well, you don t have to, you just have to do it right.
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It s like being on a diet.
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I don t need to be on a diet for three months, I just need to be on it right now.
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And it is moment to moment to moment to moment to moment, because that s really all you have.
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But so what I do notice is that the areas of life
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where you are flourishing most, there is some profound relationship you have between what you say and what you do.
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There s a profundity at play.
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So if you look at any area you re successful, you are literally doing what you said you would do, even when what?
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I don t feel like it.
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Right?
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Marriage is the same.
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Marriage is the same.
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Marriage, and I talk about this in the book, I say, especially in the Western world, but you look at, and I m using marriage as kind of a model, but it applies to all relationships, right?
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But in a marriage, there s this ceremony, there s this coming together.
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Or you make an agreement, a commitment.
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Very good.
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And you use words.
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And it s a vow, right?
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And I talk about the bankruptcy of the vow in a marriage because nobody vows anything anymore.
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Or they vow it, but they don t live up to the... Well, because they don t have a relationship to a vow.
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So we re not going around in life going, I vowed to meet you at three o clock.
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Right, right.
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Nobody s saying that.
2
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But 200 years ago, when you vowed something, the American Declaration of Independence is just people vowing.
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They brought something in the existence on the strength of what they said.
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Yes.
2
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There was no fighting.
2
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Well, there was some fighting, but they created a nation from words, right?
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I mean, that s what that is.
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That s like, well, it was a declaration, right?
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We re declaring we re independent.
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What would you mean you re independent?
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Well, we just declared it, so we are.
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And we vow our lives and our sacred honor.
2
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And most of those people gave, literally gave their life for that.
2
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They literally gave their life to that promise.
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I bet they were scared.
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Absolutely.
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I bet they were intimidated.
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But their word was greater than that experience of themselves.
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That s the same in any area of your life.
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You have to start realizing that what you say is a big deal.
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And what you say to yourself is a big deal.
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A lifetime of constantly bending, shaping, and breaking your word to yourself will leave you with a diminished relationship to you.
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You ll never do great things because somewhere in there, you think you re full of it, because you ve broken your word to yourself so many times.
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You re out of integrity with yourself.
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Very good.
2
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There s no power to those words anymore.
2
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What happens when we are out of integrity so consistently with ourself, or even one time with ourselves?
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What happens to ourselves?
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Well, I mean, you gotta start relating to what you say like it s important.
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Just like it s important.
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Start there.
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I said I was gonna, and this is important, not because the thing s important, but what I said to myself and my relationship to that thing.
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is what s important.
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So any area in life, like I said earlier, where you re powerful or successful, you ll see you have a very strong relationship to what you said, very strong one.
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Sometimes- You re committed to that thing.
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There s just no question for you.
2
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It s on like Donkey Kong, you re just doing it.
2
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Why is it easier in some areas of life than it is in others to be consistent with what you say and what you wanna do?
2
SPEAKER_01
Right, and that s eventually, it s great that you kinda put it that way because that s the path you ll follow.
2
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But the real strength of you is when you can say something.
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Like, for instance, when I was in my mid-40s, you know, I said, I m gonna produce authentic wealth.
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What s the difference between authentic and inauthentic?
3
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Yeah, I m doing it for that, not for anything about me.
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Which was wild for me because everything up to that point about money was all about fixing something about me or my life.
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And I was just doing it to see if I could do it, which I d never done before.
3
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And I d never fully given it that attention.
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Like, just for that.
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SPEAKER_00
And so I put a number on it, which was a crazy number for that time in my life, like crazy number, like- For your 40s or what?
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How much you wanted to make?
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I was 45, yeah.
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And I said, I m gonna do it.
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I m gonna use my 50s for that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m gonna produce it, right?
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SPEAKER_00
I produced it by the time I was 52.
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SPEAKER_00
And I only really started when I was 48.
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So I did it really fast.
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The amount of money that you wanted to make.
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The amount of money that I said, but it was wild because I had no attachment to it.
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SPEAKER_00
What do you mean?
3
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Like there was no emotion in it for me.
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There was no like desperation.
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No, like I got to do it and nothing, no burning.
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It was just like, I said I was going to do it and I m doing it.
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And so I ended up with this really kind of flat relationship between my words and my actions.
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Like it was flat.
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Like there were days when I felt like doing it and there were days when I didn t feel like doing it.
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But the interesting thing for me was when I declared that, when I said I was going to do it,
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Like the Declaration of Independence, I had no idea how I was gonna do something like that.
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Like I don t know how you even, I m not a money guy, you know, I m not.
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But now it s game on because I created the top of the mountain in my speaking.
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So I spoke the top of the mountain in the existence.
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And then you figured out how along the way.
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But that s not the game now.
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The game, people say, well, you know, how do you even do such a thing?
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Well, that s the first question.
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How do you even do such a thing, you know?
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And you might have to engage with that question for two years, or three years, or four years, but you ve got to be actively resolving some of that stuff for yourself.
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Well, it s the same in love.
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Like, I m committed to the most loving, passionate, and adventurous relationship that s possible.
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That s the top of the mountain.
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The top of the mountain speaks to me every day.
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I can tell whether I m walking that path or not.
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That influences this.
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It s not even necessarily about that.
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It s more about what that does with this.
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Well, how does that shape me today?
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How does that, am I lining up with what I said or not?
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And if I m not, I might have a lot of reasons, excuses and justifications for that.
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But at the same time,
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Am I gonna treat that like it matters to me?
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Or am I gonna just be like, well, you know, so far so good, or it s been a tough week, or, you know, there s a lot on my mind.
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Or, you know, are you being a jerk?
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Why am I loving with you?
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Because I said I would.
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And that s what matters to me.
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That s what matters, that I said I would matters to me.
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Someone once told me that the key to his success in relationships was 80% of it was who you choose.
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80% of the relationships, success is how you match well with the person you re choosing.
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You only spent, I guess, a year with the person that you chose.
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Did you know that when you were choosing this person?
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Did you were like, okay, I feel like we re gonna be in a great alignment with our values and our vision and our lifestyle?
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Or was it more of just a feeling that you felt connected to this person and you decided?
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I did what everybody does, right?
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What everybody does is they get in a relationship because they feel as if this person resolves something about themselves.
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That s what I did.
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And so there was something about this woman that I thought, wow, like being with her, everything seems right.
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Like I feel good about me.
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Right?
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I didn t feel good until I met her.
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Right, like there s something getting fixed here.
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So no, I m not that pragmatic.
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And I think most people aren t that pragmatic.
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And I think there s an illusion out there that somehow you ll find the one.
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And really, I feel as if the job is to explore what s possible between you and this person.
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whoever that person is and their potential and your potential.
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And so it was less about having, like finding something that matched up with me, which I don t know if that would work for me.
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It might work for some people, but I don t know if that would work for me.
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What was really captivating for me at the time was being with her had me feel a lot better about me.
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And I think, I really fundamentally believe that that s what most people go into relationships for.
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Is that the right thing to look at, or is it?
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No, that s an absolute.
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It s a recipe.
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Yeah, it s a complete.
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Because then you re always relying on that person to make you happier.
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Well, because whatever that thing is that they satisfy for you is something you haven t sorted out for yourself yet.
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Right.
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And so eventually, you re gonna have to do that.
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Otherwise, you re always needing that from someone else.
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Right, so you go in there, and they re the solution, and you end it with the notion that they were the problem.
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Ah, wow.
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and what s consistent in all of that is you.
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I mean, I don t know if anybody s ever noticed this, but in every crappy relationship you ve ever had, it s got one common denominator.
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That s you.
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Right, it s always you.
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There s a big awakening I had after my previous relationship ended.
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I was like, man, it s been 10, 15 years of relationships that started and then that crumbled in some way or that fell apart.
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And the core of all those things was me.
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Was my choices, was my getting into, attracting those relationships, was this commitment to those relationships, was the unwinding of those relationships.
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And so why was I choosing these types of relationships?
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What was unresolved within me that I get to take a look at now?
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Or am I gonna keep repeating this pattern until I address the thing inside of me?
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So what s great about your kind of pathway, if you like, you can t, first of all, you ve got to be able to look at that distinct from blind, right?
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And I know a lot of people just heard what you said and thought, well, what if it is them, right?
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I know a lot of people sitting there right now going, dang, I did say that to myself.
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And I say, well,
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If you take away, like, who s to blame?
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And so sometimes people say stuff like, why do I keep attracting these kinds of people?
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And I say, well, what if it s not attraction?
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What if you are literally looking for them?
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What if it s you re seeking something about that person that initially solves what you re dealing with?
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but will allow it to keep perpetuating, like it keeps showing up and showing up.
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I call that an identity relationship.
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There s something about you, and it s the same for the other person, that when you get past all the stuff, whatever s incomplete will keep getting activated there, it ll keep showing up.
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So when you start to see it like, oh, these are just two human beings doing what human beings do,
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then it s not personal, which is radical when you get it like that.
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Like, it s not personal.
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It s not personally them, personally me.
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Like, these are just two beings trying to work this out.
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And work what out?
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Well, essentially work themselves out.
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So that s why I insist with people, the greatest work you ll ever do, you ll ever do.
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is to get complete with your first 20 years of life.
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First 20 years.
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Because everything after that is a reflection of it.
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I spent 26 years in Glasgow.
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26 years.
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I ve been longer here.
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And I still identify with that like it s me.
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But I ve been longer here.
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And it s some of the colloquialisms and the traditions, like I identify with that because it became so imprinted.
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In my second book, I talked about, you re the little magic sponge, and you re not soaking up all of life, you re soaking up the bits.
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And then when you hit about 20, that little sponge just hardens.
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And whatever s in there, that s it.
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It s in there.
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And that s what you use.
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That logic.
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And until you awaken to that and realize,
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that all of that that s there is really only a potential you.
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There s so much more.
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If you think about it like quantum physics, right?
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Like multiple universes, endless universes all happening at the same time, multiple potentials.
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Well, that s every second of your life.
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Every second of your life, there s a myriad of potential yous that could be talking right now.
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And what you typically do is the you that you did the second before and the second before.
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And so it perpetuates until you get aware, until you start to be like, oh, I m not stuck with this.
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I could literally be somebody else.
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What s been the biggest mistakes you ve brought to relationships?
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Me personally?
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That you ve later had to realize and take accountability for, oh okay yeah I was responsible for this or this or I could have shown up differently.
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Yeah for me definitely has been in the
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past codependency and what it looks like is it s funny.
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Relationships are funny.
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I mean I ve had some really beautiful relationships and I ve had some not so beautiful relationships.
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And that s why certain people are going to bring out certain things in you whereas others are not.
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But I ve definitely brought codependency and low self-worth to relationships like depending on my partner too much for my happiness.
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SPEAKER_02
Really?
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Yeah.
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What happens when we depend on our partner to make us happy?
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Catastrophe.
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So here s the paradox.
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I think that we need to be with someone who wants to make us happier and that we want to add value to each other s lives.
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We want to make the path easier but no one can walk our path but ourselves.
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And so what happens is that when – and it s unconscious, you know, and part of it is also conditioning.
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It s like be with someone who makes you happy, this or that, you know.
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The problem is that if you don t feel at least mostly whole, we all have our things that we re dealing with, but if you feel really fragmented and you think a relationship or another person is going to actually bring all the pieces together, then what s going to happen is that you re going to be really disappointed because then you re relying on another fallible, flawed human
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Imperfect human.
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Imperfect human.
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And you re going to have all these expectations and your shoulders are going to be crushed by the weight of failed expectations constantly.
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But, you know, so, yeah, I ve done that.
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Not really standing on my own two feet emotionally.
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I have brought stress to a relationship and not my self-awareness around stress to the point where I ve closed or, yeah, where I ve closed, you know, not been receptive.
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to love.
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Yeah, guarded or just tense and stressed and just totally expecting to be loved anyway.
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SPEAKER_01
And it s, you know, relationship is so filled with paradox.
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SPEAKER_01
It s like, yes, they should actually contribute to your happiness.
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SPEAKER_01
But you also have to know how to make yourself happy.
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SPEAKER_01
No, you don t have to love yourself completely to be in a relationship, but yes, you have to love yourself at some level, you know?
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SPEAKER_01
You learn to love yourself in a relationship, but also you can t enter a relationship hating yourself.
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There s just so many paradoxes.
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And I would just say that people just need to find sort of the balance for themselves.
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And like, the reality is that we should be adding value to each other s lives.
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We should want to root for our partner and we want to see them win.
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And we want to see like their path be just like paved with gold.
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And we will do anything to help them.
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but we can t actually pave the path for them.
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And that s the key difference.
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And we can t expect that from someone.
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Right.
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I think that s, you re speaking my language right now because, you know, over the last couple of years of doing my own healing journey, I was just like, if I enter a relationship again, right, it was kind of like if, you know, because I was just like, I d rather be happy and on my own.
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No, but I love intimacy and connections.
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It s like, okay, I want it but it s like not at the expense of like suffering.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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And abandoning my values and my vision and my lifestyle and my needs.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_02
But I was like, I just want to make sure that I m always taking care of it and loving myself and taking care of myself and creating my own joy and happiness and fulfillment independent of a relationship.
4
SPEAKER_02
Never needing someone, but the way they show up can just add to that joy.
4
SPEAKER_02
Add to that happiness.
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And I want to be in a relationship with someone that is a joyful person.
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It s kind of like their baseline.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because they ve processed stuff, they ve been on the healing journey, they re whole, not perfect, but whole and continuing to improve.
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SPEAKER_02
But they re just, their baseline is joy.
4
SPEAKER_02
When someone s baseline is joy, you don t have to do something to make them joyful.
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SPEAKER_02
They are joyful.
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SPEAKER_02
And so it s getting your place to a state of peace and joy and fulfillment in your own life so that you don t need the person to make you happy.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
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SPEAKER_02
And then you re not going to self-abandon, I think, or diminish your self-worth in the relationship if someone s abusive or acting out of character consistently.
4
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You re not going to stay in that.
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You re going to be like, well, that doesn t work for me.
4
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And that s really the key point because honestly with the epidemic in terms of what I see personally is just low self-esteem.
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And people, it s sort of like two camps.
4
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I see people either being selfish and not appreciating their partner.
4
SPEAKER_02
Not giving enough.
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SPEAKER_01
Or I see the people tolerating too much BS.
4
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And so to the people who tolerate too much, it s like you have to do something to raise your self-esteem.
4
SPEAKER_01
Something.
4
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Because what people tolerate out there is what I ve tolerated.
4
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It s unbelievable, actually.
4
SPEAKER_01
But part of that is also because people are so afraid to be alone, and they re afraid to start over.
4
SPEAKER_02
The time invested with that last person.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
Love your life single.
4
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You can really love your life single, but also really want a relationship.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to discourage.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think that life is better in a good relationship.
4
SPEAKER_00
It just is.
4
SPEAKER_01
And getting love from a partner and sharing and having that exchange is really profound.
4
SPEAKER_01
But you also have to give up your preferences to be in a relationship.
4
SPEAKER_01
I tell single people all the time, you want to lie in your bed diagonally?
4
SPEAKER_01
Go for it.
4
SPEAKER_01
You like get all that secret single behavior.
4
SPEAKER_01
Enjoy it because when you re in a relationship And you re living with someone you can t necessarily do that, but you have to really Like you said being in the position where you d rather be single than just in something subpar That is an amazing position to be in.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s huge.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s huge.
4
SPEAKER_02
Are you in a relationship right now?
4
SPEAKER_01
I m actually not, which is wild.
4
SPEAKER_01
Um, I mean, I guess it s not that wild.
4
SPEAKER_01
I, you know, so the whole reason why I do this is that I taught yoga for 20 years.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so yoga is like probably the most important thing in my life other than people in my life.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I had a really difficult marriage that only lasted two years.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was like, actually,
4
SPEAKER_02
How long were you together for before?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, we were together two years prior to that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And interesting, this is an interesting story.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I would say 90% was perfect before we got married.
4
SPEAKER_01
But the 10% that wasn t was so, so profound.
4
SPEAKER_01
And yeah, I felt seen safe, love, adored.
4
SPEAKER_01
I adored him.
4
SPEAKER_01
We we had amazing rapport.
4
SPEAKER_01
We laughed hysterically.
4
SPEAKER_01
I really like it when I make people laugh.
4
SPEAKER_01
If you can understand, I have a really dark, nasty sense of humor.
4
SPEAKER_01
So if you can understand my sense of humor, I immediately feel very connected to you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so we really connected.
4
SPEAKER_01
And but there were things that
4
SPEAKER_01
that I would never tolerate.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this is something like, we re cool.
4
SPEAKER_01
Things not working out with him, and then my mother died.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I went through a lot of tragedy to get to the place where I am now.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I m very cool with him.
4
SPEAKER_01
In fact, I have a joke that he should probably send me a bill, because I have this whole career based on this relationship that I had with him.
4
SPEAKER_02
The wisdom you gained from this experience.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, so I m actually very grateful.
4
SPEAKER_01
But there is an interesting story, which is that we went to, we were about eight months into our relationship,
4
SPEAKER_01
And I felt totally in love.
4
SPEAKER_01
We were both totally in love.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know what triggered this, because this was a while ago, and I just don t think about it anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not traumatic for me.
4
SPEAKER_01
But something triggered him, and he had a proclivity towards avoidance, and I had the proclivity towards anxiety.
4
SPEAKER_01
And my father was very, very avoidant and shut down.
4
SPEAKER_01
So here we are.
4
SPEAKER_02
Anxious and avoidant is not a good combination.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s not a good combination.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s a bad combination.
4
SPEAKER_01
But so he was shut down over something that I have absolutely, something that was not warranted.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we went to this show called- It was his own traumas.
4
SPEAKER_01
Totally his own stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
This was not something that, I mean, I could take a lot of responsibility and have, but this is not something that I did.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was something that he interpreted.
4
SPEAKER_01
So we went to this show called Sleep No More.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know if you heard of it, but it was like a thing in New York and it was
4
SPEAKER_01
It s really, really crazy and really cool.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you get there and they give you like these masks, like from Scream basically, like these crazy masks.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so you even know if you go with someone, it s a very, you kind of get separate, they separate you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s a very solitary experience and everyone s behind a mask.