[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Julie Kraftcheck, and I'm UASU.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the Psychology of Relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ever feel like you're almost there in a relationship, but something inside you keep hitting the brakes, you care, you walk closeness, and yet commitment feels heavy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Overwhelming or strangely unsafe, or maybe you've been in a relationship with someone where you can feel this energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The push pole doesn't always look like avoidance on the surface, but it can be just as powerful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last week in part one, we talked to Mark Groves about how he was able to create a secure relationship 2.0 with his now-wife Kylie McBeth.
[SPEAKER_01]: After really healing their anxious avoiding co-dependent cycle.
[SPEAKER_01]: In part two, we shift the lens to Kylie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Relationship educator co-author of Liberated Love and someone who didn't just study these patterns around avoidance, she lived them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kylie opens up about the moment she realized that even with an incredible partner, like Mark, something deeper was standing in the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of pushing forward or blaming the relationship, she did something radical.
[SPEAKER_01]: She ended it and committed to what she calls a no-man diet.
[SPEAKER_01]: This wasn't about rejecting love.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was about getting honest with herself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, how Kylie was eventually able to return to the relationship with Mark from a grounded and powered place, ready for a true relationship to point out.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever felt torn between closeness and freedom, this episode will help you understand why and what to do next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember to subscribe to the Psychology of Relationships on Apple Podcasts Spotify or wherever you listen and leave a five-star rating.
[SPEAKER_01]: If this episode resonated, drop us a review and let us know what shifted for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the Psychology of Relationships and your listening to an episode that just might change the way you show up for love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Enjoy!
[SPEAKER_02]: We are very much looking forward to this conversation because as you know, we spoke to your husband Mark about how you were both able to rebuild your relationship into a relationship 2.0.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, I'm not gonna speak for Kylie.
[SPEAKER_02]: The person in the story I cannot tell.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's very nice, but also Julie and I thought, okay, there are some holes in this story that we need to fill, and we need to get Kylie so happy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for being on the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so grateful to be here, and I'm happy to fill in all the gaps.
[SPEAKER_03]: All the gaps in the story that definitely need to be told in order to, yeah, bring it all to life for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, we might as well just start at the beginning because when he was talking about it, he was telling us how he felt this nudging feeling like you weren't fully in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you try to share your perspective?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I, oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so for some context for the listeners, it's like, you know, you really start to tell a story like, where do I want to begin?
[SPEAKER_03]: How far do we want to be?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was about 10 months on the heels of a divorce, actually, when I was like, when Mark and I kind of had our first initial conversations.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so for those of you who've been divorced, you know, like, well, maybe you don't, but for me, I had swung from an anxious attachment style in my marriage to like complete a void and after divorce.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I want nothing to do with love.
[SPEAKER_03]: I never want to go through that experience again.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was so incredibly painful.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I had my guards up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had my hands like this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the things after my divorce that I had uncovered in my healing journey was I need to make sure that I am financially competent.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I'm able to stand on my own to feed to not fall back into codependent patterns or codependent dynamic against.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was very clear on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was like full steam ahead in my business.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, we're getting this off the ground.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going, and that's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then Mark enters said picture.
[SPEAKER_03]: And was my whole financial situation buttoned up?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, but Mark was all of the things.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was the guy who was focusing on the growth.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he could meet me, he was empathetic.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was like, it was a yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, there was like so many parts that were yes, but there were still some fundamental pieces that I had not actually integrated from my divorce that I knew were imperative before moving into the relationships.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I had that kind of on the shoulder, but the yes outweigh the no so I entered into the relationship because I was excited and all the things now is like, well, I can just build the financial foundation from within the relationship and, you know, from a logical perspective or from looking at it from a rational perspective, like yeah, that that actually tracks for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: But as life would have it about six months into our relationship, I had a dream.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know if Mark talked to you about the dress.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to hear more.
[SPEAKER_03]: The dream is the juicy one.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a dreamer.
[SPEAKER_03]: I receive a lot of messages from my dreams and guidance from my dreams.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm in relationship with them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so this dream came and it was a dream of a burning house.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Mark and I were in the burning house.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the only message that came through.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was a benevolent voice, very calm, but it was like, it's time to go.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I woke up with that dream, like, just like, in my face.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like,
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, what does that even mean?
[SPEAKER_03]: So I went into a full panic, you guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm like, no, I don't want to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're probably already feeling yet a little too, and it like reconfirmed something.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was reconfirming that you still had work to do that you haven't done, and it's not the right time and dotted at it at it up.
[SPEAKER_03]: But no, of course, I was not letting that fly.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, no, that's just trauma.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, instead of taking the dream into further consideration, I kind of just stuffed it into the deepest part of my recesses and let it live and fester there until it came back.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Mark could feel that we could all feel that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I named the dream to Mark and he was like, well, what does it mean?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's just trauma for my divorce.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I'm afraid to get closer.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm afraid to move into committed partnership.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm afraid to get married again and all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's kind of how I labeled it.
[SPEAKER_03]: which worked for a little bit which is all true right which is all it's all true and that's just it like you know with more capacity more awareness now I can kind of see all of the different shades of that dream but in the moment that was my truth was like I'm just gonna label it is this because to be honest what took over in the driving seat at that time was the fear of being alone the fear of not actually being financially competent yet and still hooking into the relationship
[SPEAKER_03]: He's my savior, he's the one that can protect me, he's the one that can save me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it was like very small in comparison to my previous marriage, but it was still operating.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I'd still not fully addressed that part, that piece.
[SPEAKER_03]: So my old narratives of being small, like a damsel in distress, I need to be Steve, we're still at play in our relational dynamic and really blocked me from being able to see that dream in a different way.
[SPEAKER_03]: which is all a part of the process and we talk about in the book is like, why resourcing for me was imperative to even reach a different truth or a different interpretation of the dream?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you went through this journey of interpreting the dream in one way and then ultimately coming to the end of that first iteration of your relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was that moment of epiphany where you came to that conclusion?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh gosh, it was like many moments.
[SPEAKER_03]: First of all, the dream, the dream started coming back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I had a dream like another six time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, you're like, I can't ignore this at a bar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Six times a jar, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was just that I could not ignore it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And from a developmental perspective, when I look back on that whole journey in relationship 1.0, what I still remain committed to in that relationship, building the internal and external foundation of financial competency.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that was a really big piece.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's so many parts associated with that for me of being able to trust myself, my work, my vocation, my needs, like I had to work on all of those things to be able to step forward in my life's work
[SPEAKER_03]: receive financial compensation for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So by the time I got to the dream reoccurring, I was actually bringing in revenue.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I was actually financially competent.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why the dream shifted.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why there was enough safety in my system to be like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to listen to this dream in a new way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Does that make sense?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's like, through the journey, my nervous system had enough safety to orient to the dream in a way that allowed me to make a different choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when Mark was talking about your relationship one point out, he was talking about like, you know, you guys were living together, you were talking about marriage in the future, but there was still that something that felt like you were holding back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, can you identify that now?
[SPEAKER_01]: All these years later, like, what it was?
[SPEAKER_01]: That was that gap outside of, like, obviously trauma, divorce, the internal stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so the biggest gap for me was it came down to, I didn't trust myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did not trust that I could be okay on my own and alone.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so there was this part of me like where I was still orienting from a child like place or an immature place in the relational dynamic.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was the gap.
[SPEAKER_03]: How could I move forward and have children if I was still in this like immature feminine or maiden role?
[SPEAKER_03]: It was like no, you need to mature.
[SPEAKER_03]: in growth was to honor the dream and honor my intuition again, to honor what messages were coming forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the gap was the gap was small, but it was deep.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was an invitation to reclaim my soul, myself, my agency, my fire in ways that no one in my lineage had done in a very long time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because me breaking free, me breaking free from those roles was a disruption of all of the intergenerational scripts I had been running in my matrilineal line, my mother line for for thousands of years.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was big, small, and deep.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was all of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kylie, it's wild because I took inventory of all the women in my family the other day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I came to that conclusion to I am the first woman to truly experience this next level of
[SPEAKER_02]: and I don't really have a model for it in my family.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, on one hand, it's a beautiful thing, it's a privilege.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the other hand, it's fucking scary.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, wow, I'm the first woman truly just on my own.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, on my own.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So then back to when you had these dreams in this realization, you know, most people will say you can heal within a relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do this with your partner.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: Was so clear to you that you have to do this on your own.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and that's a really good piece.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Mark and I actually lived in that through the very long time actually.
[SPEAKER_03]: We were like, we can heal this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can heal this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We did everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: Every therapist, every book, everything you could possibly think of.
[SPEAKER_03]: We tried it on.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was just it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like at the end of actually going all in to try to heal whatever was in the way of us being able to progress and move forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: You get to the point where like, well, the only thing we haven't tried was actually listen to the dream and honoring that this might not actually be right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, that's like from the more rational perspective, somatically, Mark and I were both energetically draining and dead.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I was very sick towards the end of relationship on point out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, so sick that I almost couldn't even get out of bed.
[SPEAKER_01]: only work you got your relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, you both wanted to work so bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that was what makes it so hard, you know, in relationship 1.0, is there?
[SPEAKER_03]: We never did anything bad to each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we were both kind and loving and we wanted it to work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's what makes it more challenging.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, there's not a lot of material to be like, oh, I'm going to leave because of this.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, I'm going to leave because they're loving and they support me and they want the best people are like, are you off?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, why would you
[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, it ultimately came down to trusting something bigger, wiser and deeper for both of us that didn't make rational sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: And really, it was trusting the unknown.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think what you brought up is something that people think about too a lot when they're going through something, whether a relationship, like, am I with the wrong partner?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, did you have any of those?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or did you know, like, this is something going on with me?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, what I can share my strategy for staying in the relationship and what kind of made marks, Mark and I is wounds kind of puzzle piece together as Mark had always historically taken on the savior role of like, I can fix it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can help you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can support you.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he's the coach.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's the relationship expert.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, and I'm the problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I have all this stuff that I need to fix.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it was just kind of that dynamic problem in fixer.
[SPEAKER_03]: And oh gosh, the amount of shame I just kept swallowing to stay in that role of like, I'm broken.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's something wrong with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's an, and eventually Mark got to the place and luckily he did, where he's like, if you have to stay broken to stay in this relationship, this isn't gonna work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, you're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Boom, right.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: This isn't going to work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so yeah, we both got to the conclusion that you know what for whatever reason the way this relationship dynamic or blueprint the way it's connected right now is limiting and not in service to us both and that's a good.
[SPEAKER_02]: framework for people to think about too because I think we often think about, oh, it both people try hard enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: If we use all of our resources and all of the therapy and books and everything we can get through this together, but there is a scenario where you both try your best and you've done as much as you can, but there needs to be work done independently
[SPEAKER_02]: we are very much looking forward to understanding what a sacred pause is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you like take us through the beginning of this breakup and the sacred pause?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so when we finally reached the end of our emotional rope in relationship one point out, there was yeah a breakup a closing and
[SPEAKER_03]: one of the things that I just want to name for your listeners and also for you, it was really cool about that is Mark really made sure that I was taking ownership for my truth.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he was not going to let me just like, him take control.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was like, no, you need to say it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You need to name it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you need to be an integrity with your internal world, with your intuition, with your soul, with what it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, oh gosh.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to be the one to have to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, now you're making me be the one that breaks.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was back on it now and I'm like, I can't believe that was ever me, but it was like, yeah, I was just so in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But just even the contract of me having to break it was so liberating and so necessary.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we had that conversation and then we both entered into our own separate healing journeys.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things that we were very clear on it, Mark was super crystal clear on.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was not as clear as him was that we were not getting back together.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a pause.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: It might work.
[SPEAKER_03]: There might be, you know, of course I'm hooked into hope, I'm like, there's a possibility because you never know.
[SPEAKER_03]: So one of the things that really emerged in that rupture with Mark and that breakup was just how disconnected I was from anger, just how disconnected I was from my whole internal experience and how I've been living in a state of freeze.
[SPEAKER_03]: A state of disassociation not being able to actually be in relationship with my own internal
[SPEAKER_03]: emotional realm with my own needs, with my own voice, and yeah, the breakup opened the door to doing a lot of that intergenerational healing work that I did not know I needed to do and also a lot of the work to process and metabolize the reality of being a woman under patriarchal
[SPEAKER_03]: system, system, that's the team rule.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love GM events for all of our listeners.
[SPEAKER_01]: The dictatorship, all of it, all the shame, all the shame.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I always say that when I give a caveat, like this is just such a longer conversation, but so much started to come into focus for me of like what I what was actually in the way because one of the things that was really clear about after that breakup was whatever was in the way needed to be addressed.
[SPEAKER_03]: because I never want to get to that place again where there's stuff in the way of me being able to like access choice and agency.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that led me in a lot of different directions, but one of the most pivotal conversations for me was with Mark Wolen, the author of, it didn't start with you, who does a lot of work with family systems, family constellation therapy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyways, I was on a two hour call of this guy and before I got on the call, I was like, I don't really need this conversation or session, like I'm already doing the work and I'm good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Within 15 minutes he had nailed my core pattern in relationship and he was like if you want to change the way you relate with men You need to enter into I think I forgot what he called it, but you need to remove men from your life for a specific amount of time
[SPEAKER_03]: The man died.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna ask you about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, the woman died.
[SPEAKER_01]: No man died.
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes it worse.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's so much divinity to this path.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when you say yes to walking in alignment with your healing journey and your truth, and you just kind of fully surrender at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was so fully surrendered.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, okay, give it to me all.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just whatever's in the way I need to clear it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So give me the right guides, people support, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm saying yes to everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: So he was like, okay, so here's the deal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Based off of your court imprint with mother,
[SPEAKER_03]: you learned that at a very young age in order for you to be okay, you need to orient your consciousness around them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Make sure they're okay so that you're okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, them being men or them being your mother's the mother's face.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, he's like, man is mother.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the way you oriented towards your mother and really childhood.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, orient towards men now until you do the mother work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, with that's the mother wound then.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a component of the mother wound.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the mother wound.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, could you explain this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's the juicy center that we don't like to touch in our culture.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's so much there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, right, like we come born into the planet, 100% dependent on mother to take care of our needs and to support us and to become who we are today.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, our society in general in culture does not honor mother, does not honor the mother baby diet, does not support the family system and being able to attune to a child and meet their developmental needs in the way that they would need in order to become whole sovereign, interdependent, confident beings.
[SPEAKER_03]: Instead, we have a lot of disruption in our core attachments.
[SPEAKER_03]: Based off of the way our culture orients towards this very important relationship, the mother baby diet.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyways, if our mothers aren't able to be regulated attuned to our needs over time, when those needs aren't met consistently with care, with regulation, then right.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's ruptures that take place.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as a young baby, what you learn is like, okay, well, if it's, it's obviously not them, it must be me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm the problem, I need to fix it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, we start to learn how to find safety and security by managing our external environment, by managing mother at the expense of our connection to our internal world.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I know that's a lot of words.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, are we abandoning self in order to cater to the external relationship?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You disconnect from yourself.
[SPEAKER_03]: So at the core of that pattern is I'm going to disconnect for myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to orient my consciousness around other mother men into it what they need.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what do they need?
[SPEAKER_03]: How can I support them?
[SPEAKER_03]: How can I make them okay?
[SPEAKER_03]: So that I'm okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, at the expense of self-intelventually, that pattern is no longer sustainable and things implode and whether the relationship blows up, etc.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, that same core imprint from early childhood will then be translated into partner ships and young adulthood and then adulthood if we don't actually address them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was gonna ask you like sometimes you know when people break up There's a camp of people that's like, oh, it's all on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just find someone that fits me better Like I don't need to change anything on my side, but it sounds like you immediately went to like what do I need to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or like it was kind of on me like is that something that you've seen like baked in to your psyche like with this mother wound Even before this situation like how did you like immediately go to I need to do the work?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think there's, there's many shades to that narrative specifically and I think the emotional root of that narrative really matters in this conversation because before where it's like I'm the problem I'm broken was coming from a root of shame like there's something wrong with me I need to fix it I'm taking on more responsibility than is actually mine and that's very dysfunctional and unhealthy right and I find that
[SPEAKER_03]: a lot of, well, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm it's hard to say because I know that a lot of women actually relate more with Mark's story in the book sometimes than mine.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes, we're presenting that too.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's like it's so interesting to kind of feel that and like navigate that because I'm like, is it more women or is it more men that actually resonate with being the broken one?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know at this time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's all I think it's
[SPEAKER_01]: both for what we've done.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the different emotional root of me saying the same thing was actually coming from like instead of shame, it was coming from anger of like, I'm so frustrated because I want a partnership so bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to move forward in my life.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to move
[SPEAKER_03]: forward and create a family.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I was so upset that I was like, I'll do anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it came from more of like a deeply loving and surrender place instead of there's something wrong with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I need to fix.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the difference.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's a key distinction.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is big.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was something because I know you were saying like before you met Mark, you were like, I don't want to do relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to do love.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like by being with him, you realized you did want that stop.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there was still something getting into your way.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like so terrified of love and intimacy that I was like how do I keep my hand like this at a distance?
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, that's the funny thing about looking back now.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was like, oh, you were just so hurt.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you were so much pain, so scared of ever having to feel those feelings again that you were like, let's take the safe route.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, what Mark and our relationship taught me was like, I am capable of being with the grief of endings and truths and hard stuff and that can all be in service to deeper levels of intimacy and love in ways that historically we're not modeled or template it out for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I'm understanding you're journey correctly, basically you find this man who is your ideal.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is the guy we all want to be with, who's committed to growth, who's committed to growing with you and healing with you, and you still felt that there were obstacles.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was something standing between you and this happiness that you could have and who is right in front of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you start exploring with another mark.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that the other guy's name is Mark too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who lets you know that there's this thing called the mother moon where you've kind of like oriented your needs around this other person who is man, mother and you've abandoned itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So because your universe is centered around this other person, you haven't looked inward and understood what you need and how you can stand independently without the other person, which then leads to the no-man diet because that's what the other mark suggests.
[SPEAKER_02]: So tell us about what is the no-man diet consist of because I am very interested in letting my friend know.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's very interested in what a no-man diet is.
[SPEAKER_02]: She just doesn't know where to even start.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just did a beautiful job of explaining my journey on like two sentences.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I'm trying to understand because this is so fascinating.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well done well done.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been right.
[SPEAKER_03]: You must set it better than I could ever say it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm just going to take that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So his recommendation was I forgot his recommendation in terms of like, actually how to create a container where I remove.
[SPEAKER_03]: men, any romantic interest from my life.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I didn't need to do that work under his guidance.
[SPEAKER_03]: He opened the door of like, you need to do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then Kendra Kunov, who is the creator of the no man diet, dropped into my field, divinely.
[SPEAKER_03]: I reached out to one of my girlfriends in Australia.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like talking about John Weinland.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, yeah, I'm going to look into the, and she's like, no, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't need to work with John Wyland.
[SPEAKER_03]: You need to work with the female counterpart, who actually is like, dialed and just beyond.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I was like, oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I go to her website and sure enough, enrollment for the no man diet begins tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a woman.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, okay, didn't even know this person existed or something like this existed.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I enrolled in this no-man diet and it brought up everything that I did not know existed in my unconscious realm.
[SPEAKER_03]: I said yes to this container, which for the listeners and for those who haven't read the book was a three month agreement to remove dating relating with men, specifically romantic interest, so no sexting, no, no seeking, no reaching out on Instagram, no, no none of that, no romantic kind of any kind.
[SPEAKER_03]: No men.
[SPEAKER_03]: not a zero.
[SPEAKER_03]: And for me, I've always felt safer with men than I did with women.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was a really big deal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I would always kind of lean into my male friendships to build companionship than just relating with women because of my sister wounds and all the wounds that I needed to heal with the feminine.
[SPEAKER_03]: But this was why this container was so important for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: But initially when I entered into it, my nervous system went full tilt.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I'm gonna die.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that's how deep the
[SPEAKER_03]: being alone and being without men or having a man to lean on to support me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just like, oh my gosh, because it couldn't even be in like a couple of tonic sets.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean, yes, and no, like everybody has their own container that they create.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, knows, maybe.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did have platonic male friendships, but I did not resource from those friendships in the same way that I
[SPEAKER_03]: have historically.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I still allowed them to exist, but instead of reaching out to a man to soothe me emotionally and like talk to you, I was actually now devoted to reaching out to a few very trusted sisters and friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're not like, I'm cutting you out of my life, but you're like, I just won't go to you first.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I just and another key component was a family boundary that I need to put in place so I as somebody who related as like the damsel and distress and always needing guidance and somebody helped me save me, et cetera, I had relied heavily on external guidance and especially.
[SPEAKER_03]: from my father and I love my father and he's a very integral great man.
[SPEAKER_03]: But like his voice, the father's voice took up so much space in my consciousness.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if there was like a comment, it would like take me weeks to kind of come back to my center and like figure out who am I and like disentangle from those narratives.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I knew that was a part of my sticky point.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I put a family boundary in place where I was like, I am not open to receiving guidance, advice, thoughts,
[SPEAKER_03]: my relationship on where I'm living on anything because at this time it's crucial for me to get really clear about what's going on internally and reconnect with myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can relate to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like even, you know, in my 40s, sometimes I'm like the voice of my parents is like so loud and you're like, I need to just trust myself a little.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you're not orienting yourself to men in any which way, not just romantically, but even for guidance.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Given that choosing Kendra Kunan's container, there was an email guide.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a female guide.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a woman who actually walked through the path who could actually support me and hold me to something that I don't think a man could.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's interesting that you were going to go to a man first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that you were thinking of doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of women do go to John Violin.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's part of this journey.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's really interesting that this person intercepted.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of just like patriarchy or stuff too of like that men know.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like there's a lot of that stuff that bleeds unconsciously.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it's so internalized.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_03]: So much of our work right now is to like externalize that and really dismantle all of those patriarchal narratives that are still interfering with our ability to stand in congruency with self and soul and the feminine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what did you learn from doing the No Man diet?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh, what did I learn?
[SPEAKER_03]: I learned how deeply afraid I was to be alone.
[SPEAKER_03]: I learned that not only my fear of being alone, I also learned how afraid I was of my own power.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, because for so long, I'd been disconnected from my power from my inner fire, my inner gatekeeper that I was terrified to open the door to yeah, more of me.
[SPEAKER_03]: to more of what I know and more of what I believe and more of what I stand for.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the reason I was terrified of that is because I knew that opening the door to reclaiming that power, that fire, that agency would disrupt every single relationship in my life, especially the key ones.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like the ones I had with my mother, the ones I had with my father, the ones that I've had with longstanding friends that had related to me in a previous way of being the guy that, you know, for the most part was like,
[SPEAKER_03]: easy going, yes, not a lot of confrontation, didn't really speak up, didn't really stand for anything, but kind of just went along to go along.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now, as you can probably tell, my energetics have shifted drastically where I have a lot to say, and I feel very clear and passionate about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: What really took place in that is like in the reclamation of my own power, I handed back stuff that I was carrying that wasn't mine to carry.
[SPEAKER_03]: The responsibility of people's emotional wellbeing is not mine to carry fully.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, yes, I'm in relationship with people, but I'm not gonna carry all of your stuff and caretake.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the example of just something that you were carrying that you realize that you're like, I don't need to be carrying this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think so, for instance, in Mark and I's relationship 1.0 dynamic, I was carrying the burden that it was all my fault that I was the broken one, it was not all my fault.
[SPEAKER_03]: There were patterns I played from my side that were just as dysfunctional.
[SPEAKER_03]: and bring brought into awareness just as much as on my side, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then, you know, other ways that this showed up is I took on a lot of internalized shame, like again, you're probably hearing a theme here of like, yeah, I'll just swallow everybody else's pain and not actually hand it back to them because it's easier.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've absorbed it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I absorbed it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I absorbed a lot and I'm sure many of us can relate to that of like taking on other people's pain and absorbing it without actually being like, I can't carry this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it mine to carry?
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's actually not even loving to carry.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's not loving to carry other people's emotional pain and to remain small or to remain complicit in dynamics that are not actually deeply loving and reverential.
[SPEAKER_03]: where that really came in for me was in my relationship with mother truly like that was a big piece is like for so long I had just been a caretaker and emotional caretaker of my family system and I was done doing that so I kind of handed everybody back their bags and was like we're not playing the game anymore like we're gonna have real conversations I'm gonna actually share like when things hurt me and
[SPEAKER_03]: what's not mine and I didn't always have to have the conversation with so fascinating to me about this work is just even in my devotion to like no longer be the emotional punching bag and no longer be the one that's the broken one or the problem and instead actually bring voice to all the shadows and all the shit that I see happening.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it really liberated everyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's also liberating to hear just that analogy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm picturing, you know, someone bringing on their bags to you and they want to check it with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, here's my check bag.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, no, no, it's a carry on only policy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: You carry that shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so much dynamic in that if you think about it because if you're checking in someone's bag,
[SPEAKER_02]: you are bearing the burden, the weight of that bag, even if it's for short amount of time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they get to fly with both hands and they're light to their free.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is that on you when they're the one that packed that bag in the first place?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I guess like with you here, no band diet, you think, well, okay, I just won't ever talk to man again, especially if I'm feeling this good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm uncovering all the
[SPEAKER_03]: stuff obviously that's not the case like how did you kind of ease back in and decide like okay I do want men in my life but I want to still be able to like stand on my own at the same time yeah I got so comfortable in that container it was the first time I truly like it was like oh my gosh I was like so relaxed and so soft and so open
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I don't think we realize how disconnected we are from our bodies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, when you actually remove something that we're all of your consciousness and I kind of depict this, the codependency is like, all of our consciousness is moving up and out and instead of down and in, in our energy, instead of going down and in to the roots to the to our feet, it's going up and out and it's like being siphoned in all these different ways.
[SPEAKER_03]: I started to feel my body and it was like, it was like so emotional and tender.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, this resensitization process that happened in that container was like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I can feel my fire.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh, I know what it feels like to have my feet on the ground for the first time in my life I could feel it that could feel the energy and it was it was something that I had not experienced before And so it's like not only was that just so empowering for me, but once you start to feel that You don't want to lose it and that was what I was very clear on.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, okay I feel really good and
[SPEAKER_03]: I now have some contrast for my previous experience in relationship to what it now feels like to be embodied and to be connected and to be in congruency with myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I got to the point at the end of that no man died that I was like, I cannot.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will not go backwards.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will not disassociate.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will not self abandon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, of course, those patterns still show up here and there, but they only last for minutes now, because I can't sustain it anymore.
[SPEAKER_03]: But towards the end of the container, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: For some reason, I felt so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: I felt clear, but I also felt ready.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I was like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm ready to feel what it feels like to be in relationship as this new version of me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what is relationship look like when I'm
[SPEAKER_03]: in my mature feminine when I'm in my adult embodied sovereign self.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it was like so foreign to me too, but I also felt really confident because I had connection to my body to my anger, to my boundaries and my limits and ways that I had not historically had access to.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now with that being said, of course when I opened up the conversation with Mark and we agreed to explore relationship 2.0.
[SPEAKER_03]: there were some nerves that came forward of like oh my gosh am I gonna fall back into old patterns and am I gonna you know create the same dynamic and so I had to really know where my tender spots were know where my weaknesses were and what I was still like strengthening within self so I created agreements we create shared agreements in that dating container which for your listeners we agreed to date for three months before we had a conversation around whether or not we were gonna move forward and committed partnership again and give it a
[SPEAKER_03]: given another go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of the agreements that were very important for me in that container was no penetrative sex and no financial support, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because so much of my journey with money was like, if I received something, it could have been a financial hook and I would have felt obligated or I kind of would have hit me in the wrong way to distort my ability to connect with myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I knew like, okay, if I received support in that way right now, not for the first three months, because it might muddle your ability to see or feel clearly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, those are the big ones, monogamous.
[SPEAKER_03]: Menogas.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes, yes, sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was another big one.
[SPEAKER_03]: We were no longer dating other people, but for that three months, we would be a monogamous, and we would be exploring our connection together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that three-month container is what allowed me to exit the Nome and diet, I believe, because there was containment around it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that containment allowed me to feel safe in the exploration of what was actually right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was more gradual.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were just like, I'm not going to talk to any man now, just like fucking everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's like exactly what I have to be at.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's in for now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a full-hand diet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hungry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, damn.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait, but how did you decide that it was Mark that you were going to experiment with?
[SPEAKER_02]: Was that very clear during your no-man diet?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's so funny.
[SPEAKER_03]: So much of this stuff, I feel so guided by my soul and divine, just like it came in.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was just like, let's see what's here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I really wanted to see what was possible.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was still in my consciousness.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I really, like, really big way I would say.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what I will say in the No Mandai, though, I fully had to release Mark.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like fully released the idea and possibility of us getting back together.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was a key component that I needed to actually process and metabolize in the container of the no man diet before this dating container would even emerge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because if I hadn't fully released the idea and processed and grieved the ending, I don't think it would have been possible to actually create a new dynamic.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I just share that for clarity purposes.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I emerged on the other side and I was like, I want to see what's here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to see if there's a different way for us to move forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always like timeline because it helps put it in perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are three months, no van diet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many months later was this that you reconnected with Mark since when you broke up?
[SPEAKER_03]: Ten months.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so a lot of time had come back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, a lot of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of time.
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of time.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you do this on a touch?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I can see people asking, how do you release someone when you still have so much hope within that relationship?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you get over the fact that maybe this person already moved on?
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's time you came out of this no-man die.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, trust me.
[SPEAKER_03]: met both of those narratives full on in that container was like, and actually one of those narratives specifically, the one that drove me to break the container, which I talked about in the book was, I'm going to lose him forever if I don't reach out.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I actually broke my container and my word to myself and reached out to Mark inside the No Mandai container.
[SPEAKER_03]: which I mean was the biggest teaching point in lesson point for me in that whole journey because it hurt real bad to like start to feel myself again and feel empowered and feel like solid and then break it because that fear took over and was like you're going to lose him forever and so then I was like oh my god I'm going to lose him forever so I broke the container yeah my body literally wanted I literally was in a trauma response for 48 hours like shaking just like wow I
[SPEAKER_03]: and it was a big learning moment for both Mark and I and in the wake of the pain of that rupture with self that's when I doubled down on my devotion to my soul where I was like okay you're releasing this all together you will never break your own word again and so I had to go in even deeper into the container and actually expand it because I had broken the container so I was like okay now I need to double down even more because there's still more work to do here so
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, those fears are going to come up and need to be metabolized for sure and how we do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll look different based off of our own specific journeys.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you mean by expanding the container and going deeper even more?
[SPEAKER_03]: So I broke my no-man diet container.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had set a container for three months and I think about two and a half months, I broke it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I actually reached out to Mark.
[SPEAKER_03]: We connected in person.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had sex and it was like that fear.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I'm going to lose him forever if I don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I broke my own container.
[SPEAKER_03]: went all the way, and my body after that engagement, my body was so upset with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it was really hard moment for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was necessary.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had to break that to even become aware of how strong that narrative was for me specifically of being able to lose them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then I'd be like, okay, well now you've got to grieve that because you have to be open to losing him forever now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you need to be over this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so what I mean by expanded it, I added another four weeks on to the container of the no-man diet.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, God.
[SPEAKER_01]: longer contain it's almost like a relapse you know like it like showed you it was a relapse like you hear this like with you know in a and stuff it's like that breaking point and then oftentimes it compels you to like double down on it more because it's a wake up call right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So obviously, you two, you know, went through this container, you're down married with the child, so things are things worked out, we could say, but how did you, like, you started off saying that there were so many like fears that were getting in your way of entering this, like,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know going all in like from your last marriage obviously you did a ton of work in that ten months that got you to a different place but how else did you start to overcome the fears to be like okay this marriage isn't going to be like my last one or when I get married I can still stand on my own to feed and be my own person.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's, I no one's asked me that question yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm sitting with that for a second of like, how did I get over it?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm trying to locate like how, how much space fear actually had in my consciousness.
[SPEAKER_03]: After a few really big conversations in that dating container, where I modeled to myself that I would not abandon from my truth, from my, by knowing from my values.
[SPEAKER_03]: After noticing and being witnessed to myself in those dynamics,
[SPEAKER_03]: all of my fears really kind of dissolved because I was like oh I'm good I've got my own back like I can trust myself now right like I think into the day what it comes down to for me where the trust outweighs the fear was like I know that no matter what happens I'm gonna be okay like no matter what happens in my relationship with Mark I'm gonna be okay I've already survived everything
[SPEAKER_03]: Since I have that felt sense of okness of like trust in self, trust in the path, trust in truth, trust in whatever is unfolding, there's just so much more softness around it where there's nothing, I've got nothing to hide.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Mark and I have nothing to hide.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just such a different orientation towards marriage, towards partnership, unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life, which is why we wrote a book about it, but any fear that came up was voice, but I got to tell you, Julie, not a lot of fears.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it was weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you got to care with yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right,
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, ultimately trusting yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And how did you get over the dynamic of the savior versus the broken one?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I can see two people coming back into that relationship and being like, oh, I'm healed and the other person be like, I haven't changed at all because I was the fine one.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do I know that?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's so beautiful about Mark, because he's willing to take responsibility for his side of the street.
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually, one of the main reasons why it was safe to get back together was because Mark started to name how that specific pattern of him being the savior and him always needing to fix was actually his own survival strategy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And actually was disempowering to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he was sourcing from that dynamic as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: So just even him having the awareness to be able to notice that and pull things out of his shadow, really allowed us to have enough safety to bear witness to all of these patterns in a new way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Luckily, there are points of that, but I will say, like, there's been openness and curiosity on both sides in our relationship 2.0, where it's like, we know that neither one of us is fully healed.
[SPEAKER_03]: We both have our blind spots, who both have stuff that we're working through.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the beautiful thing that Mark and I always talk about now and even through relationship 2.0 is, is when something's coming up from one of us who's coming up from both of us, and we orient to that in a new way of curiosity, of love, of grace, to explore what's really going on here between us.
[SPEAKER_03]: because it's all information, it's all medicine if we turn towards it in a good way.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was a big piece.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then also, you know, when you become securing yourself, like you said, it shifts the dynamic, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So like when Mark and I got back together in 2.0, that narrative of like being healed and fixed and nothing wrong, completely had to shift because I was like, no, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: you have your own stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have my stuff and we're going to look at it together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'd see most of that work that happened in that dynamic was actually him moving his more anxiously attached nervous system into a more secure place through me being in security.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like he was able to trust him.
[SPEAKER_03]: through my solidity, my clarity, me again, which allowed him to soften that anxious alarm and like over time, soften it, soften it, soften it, restore trust with self, restore trust with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're now he feels, yeah, more connected to his self, his needs, his stuff that he had historically not been connected to at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, Mark and I always say like our healing has been a leapfrog where it's like one person will heal and grow in a the other person.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so true though, because it's like if you're always like anxious and focusing on the other person, it doesn't give you the opportunity to like look at what's going on within you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like the other side of the same point, I mean, yeah, like I know when I listen to you guys on another podcast and what you said about the part about like when it's one person stuff, it's both of ours, that really resonates.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like it's so easy to be like, this is your
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is your thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess what advice would you have for anyone that's like in the thick of it right now, whether they're single or partnered, that feels like they're, you know, falling more on the anxious or avoidance side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what's kind of like something you would, I know there's probably so much advice you'd give them, but maybe like one thing you would give them to like start to move towards their healing journey.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think so much of this healing journey, you know, for me, but also within partnership has to do with understanding the shared nervous system.
[SPEAKER_03]: So really being in connection to your own nervous system, to your own, like self-attlement to your own system and your own nervous system needs so that you can resource and have capacity.
[SPEAKER_03]: capacity to show up in new ways is really crucial, but also right, like as you have more capacity within yourself, you start to notice different patterns and ways of being in other and you can orient to those patterns in different ways of being in new ways where historically you might have just responded or reacted in a historical way.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's now more space and capacity to turn towards it to change how we're yeah, how we're meeting certain things.
[SPEAKER_03]: So one of the things that always comes to my
[SPEAKER_03]: It's funny because it's like, yes, what comes up for one is for both, like to be shared and work through together.
[SPEAKER_03]: But on the other side of that is like, staying your own lane.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you balance the two?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you not absorb their baggage?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, we talked about earlier.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's like this really big dance that's happening in all of this interpersonal realm of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so there was times where it's like where I would notice the heightened activation in an nervous system.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, you know, of course I wanted to respond and maybe move towards it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was just like, stay in your own lane.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let them be in their own activations.
[SPEAKER_03]: Stop trying to fix, stop trying to change, and vice versa.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of like, when Mark would interfere or say, it's like, stay in your own lane.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't need that right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, so really just balancing those two pieces of like, understanding the shared nervous system, but also understanding your nervous system in relationship to other nervous systems and asking yourself, okay, how can I, in this moment, hit the pause button to create more space, more possibility to relate from the present moment instead of from historical scripts.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is where I believe real choice comes into play in our interpersonal dynamics and what I'm after and liberated love is like being able to access real choice in the moment based off of the present material instead of just being in loops of autopilot based off of historical material that hasn't been integrated in process.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a big answer to your question, but that's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's huge though.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the distinction of the two parts because I can see how someone can misinterpret that and take it on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you want to support, you want to be there, create the container to support, but with boundaries, that's what it sounds like, without sacrificing your needs and who you are, but also having this openness and curiosity around what does this open up for us, absolutely, in our relationship dynamic?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this has been such a fascinating conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've made so many takeaways.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm realizing that I did a no-man diet without actually going through a
[SPEAKER_01]: And I actually think like, you know, I, this was like after a huge breakup of mine, I didn't date or like have any interactions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I basically did a dating sabbatical for close to a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that time though really shifted the way, I think everything you were saying about just putting yourself first, like as women especially, sometimes it feels selfish, sometimes it feels like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to cater to the other person, but that was such a game changer for me of like one even knowing my needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think for so long I just like repressed them, but then also being able to articulate them and ask for what I needed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was a complete game changer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I actually had a reconnection with an ex.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not who I would today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my relationship to point out did not work out the same way.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we also did not put in intentional containers at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do remember him being like you're a different person than when we dated the first time because I wasn't afraid to like say stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that is something that has really changed the way I have a relationship today is that when something's on my mind, I bring it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I say it, like I don't hold back and I think in the past,
[SPEAKER_01]: I very much did and you know so much of what you said just like it shows where it came from like there's so much conditioning that's happening that we're just like not even aware of and like I think men deal with this but women there's different instances that affect both of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a huge takeaway for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think like in general to this whole notion of this Savior slash like the person that needs to get like it's broken that needs to get fixed like I think recognizing like you can only control yourself and also it's actually a better relationship when they do it on their own Like I think it's tempting to want to help someone out especially if you think you know the way like I relate to Mark
[SPEAKER_01]: I know the way, and I'm like, oh, did you just pull that back because like I don't know the way in this situation?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's also like something that builds the trust with other people, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is like if you're always telling someone what to do, that's not going to build that self trust.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I loved hearing that like for both of you, your relationship is actually 10 times better now, because you both stand on your own.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're not trying to work in that dynamic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's really beautiful the journey that we've witnessed from both of your sides of the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it shows that both people are working through stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody's working on something.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we really appreciated that when we spoke to Mark, he was able to own some of the, whatever he was working through and also say, listen, like we're both just real people working through.
[SPEAKER_02]: real issues and not one person is more evolved or more enlightened than the other.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're just trying to understand ourselves in this entire journey of love.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this no man diet is so interesting to me because nutritionally and medically when we try to figure out like what are we allergic to or what's biking or glucose we do the elimination diet, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We get that out of our diet and system and see what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't actually do that in relationships or in mental health.
[SPEAKER_02]: we just kind of, I guess a lot of times I find myself just falling into situations, falling into a relationship, falling into all this new form of meditation or this new type of therapy without doing the elimination process.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe there is something already in my system that is triggering all of this that, you know, I can be more experimental with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is something to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's probably way harder than just eliminating one thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we can be more open to experimenting with these different triggers that are already systemic on a daily basis for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And another big takeaway that I'm hearing from you is oftentimes we fly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's how we operate in life because we're going forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're like traveling somewhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we think that's progress.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what you did in your sacred pause
[SPEAKER_02]: down.
[SPEAKER_02]: You went in and down and that's also progress and that's a direction many of us have forgotten to take the rooting the grounding because we're just flying as high as possible and as far as possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we could all take that sacred pause at any moment in our life to go in and down root into the ground more.
[SPEAKER_02]: and related to that takeaway is do you have any practices or exercises that you do currently to get yourself to ground deeper?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, first of all, you A. I think this descent process is the medicine of our times and we need to we all need to look at that really deeply of why we keep going going going and flying up up up, you know, our culture loves this.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a model of transcendence and it's like actually we really need to connect back down into our roots and reconnect to the earth.
[SPEAKER_03]: like ASAP.
[SPEAKER_03]: How do I do that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think, you know, for me right now is as a mom, all of my practices have shifted dramatically.
[SPEAKER_03]: So for me, a warm shower is definitely a grounding practice at this time and, you know, being outside in nature, getting off technology, like shutting it all down for a second and feeling your feet on the ground, it can be as simple as that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are really big grounding practices, but this is a such a, I mean, I could talk to you
[SPEAKER_03]: on this conversation of the dissent and what we're doing right now as a collective, but yeah, my invitation for all of the listeners in the even the dissent process and, you know, Julie, even you talked to about it like reconnecting to your own needs and bringing voice to it, like that is a dissent that is a back inward down instead of up and out.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, giving yourself a pause, maybe even just two minutes a day, a pause just to check in, fill your feet on the ground and what's going on in your body.
[SPEAKER_03]: That can be a small dissent grounding practice that feels
[SPEAKER_03]: tangible and doable.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything else you want to leave our audience before we wrap up?
[SPEAKER_01]: You've had 70 words of wisdom.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I really enjoyed this conversation.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've had so much fun with you both.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been super sweet.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd say that I don't know the word that keeps coming to my mind right now is possibility.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think we've been
[SPEAKER_03]: told and shown and modeled, you know, what our minds believe is possible, but as we kind of metabolize and deem particleize all of those narratives and modeling and imprints, what opens up in terms of the realm of possibility feels really exciting for me in all ways in every way.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'd say trust the unknown, trust the unknown, and...
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, move towards that edge and whatever way, you know, is your way today.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whether that's bringing something to voice that you haven't brought to voice or sharing a need in a way that you've never shared a need or disclosing something that you've been holding for far too long or handing somebody something back that you've been holding of theirs for decades.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whatever it is, let it go and trust what's on the other side of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, additionally, we're supposed to talk to you at bark together, but we're scheduling, you didn't work out, but I'm so glad it worked out the way I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we were able to go super deep with both of you individually, so I'm really glad that's what I was thinking.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we could actually talk to you forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I think there could be three more hours of this conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for now, if people want to learn more about you and the work that you do and also get their hands on your book that you co-author with Mark, liberated love, where can they find all that information?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so the best place to get the book is at create the love.com backslash-liberated love or any place books are sold and then my website, KylaminkBeth.com where you can find me and yeah, join the journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll link all that in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you haven't done so yet, subscribe to the psychology of relationships today.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't miss an episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.