Speaker 1: So were to hear people well like if you guys
Speaker 1: broke up, like we're fucked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: It was like their own dreams and fantasies and hopes
Speaker 1: and Disney movies.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I was like, great, that's good for you that it's
Speaker 1: coming up. We're just living out of fear you have.
Speaker 1: But hopefully you can witness how we've walked through this
Speaker 1: to see that there's actually nothing to be afraid of
Speaker 1: because love's not on the line.
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to separate bathrooms. We would like to
Speaker 3: acknowledge the Gadigle people of the Eora Nation, the traditional
Speaker 3: custodians of this land, and pay our respects to the elders,
Speaker 3: both past and present. My name's Cam Dado and I'm
Speaker 3: Ali Daddo. We've got a wonderful guest.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's early morning in Australia as we are recording this.
Speaker 3: But I'm not eating any breakfast and no protein and
Speaker 3: I'm a little big word because I want to be
Speaker 3: on my game today.
Speaker 4: And we also had a bit of a late night,
Speaker 4: which is not the norm for us. We went to
Speaker 4: see an incredible band last night, Sons of the East.
Speaker 4: Yet if you've never seen Sons of the East. Look
Speaker 4: them up, go see them by their albums. Absolutely fantastic, joyful,
Speaker 4: so much fun.
Speaker 3: I was standing behind at Ali and Body, our youngest
Speaker 3: daughter while these guys were doing their thing up on
Speaker 3: stage and they're bouncing up and down, the arms in
Speaker 3: the air. Body's singing, and it was just like, and
Speaker 3: it's packed, it's a great vibe. It was super Fununs
Speaker 3: of the East.
Speaker 4: Well, look, many years ago when I first jumped on
Speaker 4: Instagram for some reason or another, there was an account
Speaker 4: that I actually stumbled across, and it was called Create
Speaker 4: the Love. It was run by a fellow still run
Speaker 4: by a fellow called Mark Groves, and I remember he
Speaker 4: was this very wild eyed, earnest and blunt swearing Canadian
Speaker 4: with really really great information. He was just very point
Speaker 4: blank and so enjoyable. CAM started following him as well,
Speaker 4: and that gave us a lot of great conversations around relationship.
Speaker 3: Yes, so cut to seven and a half years later,
Speaker 3: Mark Starr has risen to great heights. He now has
Speaker 3: millions of followers, he's got his own podcast, he's a
Speaker 3: keynote speaker, and he's written a book with his wife
Speaker 3: about codependent patterns and how to change them. He's also
Speaker 3: a new dad.
Speaker 4: He describes himself as a human connection specialist, and as
Speaker 4: we mentioned, he is the founder of Create the Love
Speaker 4: and he also hosts the Mark Groves podcast.
Speaker 3: The book he wrote with Kylie mcbeeth, who also happens
Speaker 3: to be his wife and mother of their child, is
Speaker 3: called Liberated Love. Release codependent Patterns and create the love
Speaker 3: you desire. We are so happy to have Mark Groves
Speaker 3: with us today. Grab a notebook. We have some questions
Speaker 3: you might want to remember the answers too. Let's welcome
Speaker 3: into the bathroom Mark Groves. Hey, Mark, thank you for
Speaker 3: your time.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 3: Where are you?
Speaker 1: I'm in Vancouver or Canada?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: We love Vancouver. We spent well, Actually Cam spent more
Speaker 4: time than I did. He worked there for a while,
Speaker 4: but I would travel from LA to go visit him.
Speaker 4: And as we always say, we were hair's breadth away
Speaker 4: from moving there because we fell in love with it
Speaker 4: so much.
Speaker 2: Did you grow up in Canada?
Speaker 1: I did. I grew up in Calgary, big scar country.
Speaker 1: You don't hear as much. We were a hair's breath
Speaker 1: away from moving to Calgary. You don't hear that as much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 4: So how did a Calgary boy get into being a
Speaker 4: human connection expert?
Speaker 2: How did that come about?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 1: You know, like childhood wise, I was pretty blessed in
Speaker 1: that my father actually would talk to me a lot
Speaker 1: about my relational experiences. We would often sit in the
Speaker 1: living room and talk about my relational woes and we'd
Speaker 1: talk about human behavior. And I feel really blessed that
Speaker 1: he was very he was very much modeling that it
Speaker 1: was see to be emotional and communicate about emotional things,
Speaker 1: and he was the one who was like my mom
Speaker 1: still was curious, but my father was really curious about
Speaker 1: my experience and wanted to be there for me in
Speaker 1: that and my first year of university, I started in
Speaker 1: a career in sales. Like I just worked at an
Speaker 1: electronics store. So career is a strong term for that,
Speaker 1: but it was like the forty year old Virgin. Have
Speaker 1: you ever seen that movie?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, like total electronics store. I sold extended warranties, but
Speaker 1: I was like obsessed with understanding how to get people
Speaker 1: to buy something right, to change their behavior to sell
Speaker 1: the extended warranty. And then when in university, I was
Speaker 1: really obsessed with understanding that from a marketing perspective, and
Speaker 1: my favorite classes in university, although it wasn't my major,
Speaker 1: were actually classes in psychology. And then I started a
Speaker 1: career in pharmaceutical sales. My father did heart research, so
Speaker 1: he connected me into that world, and so my real
Speaker 1: interest in human behavior began from a manipulative perspective. It
Speaker 1: was like how do I get people to change their choices?
Speaker 1: And it was when I was in my late twenties
Speaker 1: I went through an engagement ending and I remember thinking
Speaker 1: to myself one how did I get so disconnected from myself?
Speaker 1: Like how did I end up walking down this path
Speaker 1: that I didn't really actually want on a conscious level.
Speaker 1: And the person I was engaged to, she was incredible,
Speaker 1: so that made it hard, like why did I not
Speaker 1: want to be engaged to somebody who's really a great
Speaker 1: choice by everything on the checklist? And I also thought
Speaker 1: to myself, why am I so good at talking about
Speaker 1: everything about my feelings? Like there's a there's a skill
Speaker 1: I have and so it's not a skill set issue,
Speaker 1: there's actually something more going on. And when my engagement ended,
Speaker 1: I thought, why do I feel so connected to myself?
Speaker 1: Like I finally have honored myself and chosen something for me.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, when I feel most connected
Speaker 1: to myself, I feel most judged and shamed by the
Speaker 1: not everyone around me, but a lot of people around me.
Speaker 1: Why do I feel like a failure when I actually
Speaker 1: feel like a success? Like it was this strange, opposing,
Speaker 1: energetic force that was going on, and it made me
Speaker 1: want to deeply understand marriage and relationships. And I grew
Speaker 1: up Catholic, and I chose my way out of a
Speaker 1: story that I was taught to live, which was you
Speaker 1: get married by your mid late twenties, which is probably
Speaker 1: now early mid thirties in the story, and then you
Speaker 1: have kids by you know, shortly thereafter, and then you
Speaker 1: stay together and you stay in love. And I noticed
Speaker 1: when I ended my engagement, I was like, wait, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who aren't happy, and holy shit,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of divorces I haven't noticed because of
Speaker 1: my biases. And now my bias was everyone's unhappy. They
Speaker 1: just don't know it yet, you know so, but no.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the Louis c. K bit where
Speaker 1: he said, you know, marriage is great and if you
Speaker 1: want to get married, great, but then get divorced, because
Speaker 1: divorced is the best experience ever, you know, because he's
Speaker 1: now been divorced and he said that the joke, he says, and.
Speaker 2: Divorce is forever.
Speaker 1: So I've felt myself really just noticing that I wanted
Speaker 1: to really understand what separated real masterful people in relationships
Speaker 1: and love, like what made them different and what made
Speaker 1: the people who stay together and hate each other? Why
Speaker 1: does that happen? And then what made it so people
Speaker 1: didn't believe in love anymore and actually avoided relationship under
Speaker 1: the guise of independence, which is obviously not a judgment,
Speaker 1: just like often is true. And you know, I would
Speaker 1: hear someone say I never want to get married, and
Speaker 1: I realized, well, marriage isn't actually the cause of divorce,
Speaker 1: you know, although it's exactly like without it, you don't
Speaker 1: get it. Yeah, but it's like dysfunctional relationships or misligned
Speaker 1: relationships or what lead to divorce. So it's like, regardless
Speaker 1: of whether we choose to get married or not, if
Speaker 1: we're going to enter any form of relating, why don't
Speaker 1: we be active in deciding what that looks like, what
Speaker 1: it feels like and stop just inheriting the patterns relationally.
Speaker 1: And I started to notice in my writing about what
Speaker 1: I was learning, because that's really what started to happen,
Speaker 1: was I was writing, and I was using writing as
Speaker 1: an opportunity. I would say, it was like a way
Speaker 1: to excise my shame, you know about poor choices aren't made.
Speaker 1: And so what I would do is just talk about
Speaker 1: the mistake I made or the thing I learned, and
Speaker 1: in hopes that other people would learn from that and maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, see more of their own humanity. And it
Speaker 1: started to do really well, and then I started to
Speaker 1: speak at conferences, started a podcast, and everything just really
Speaker 1: I just had immersed myself so deeply in it that
Speaker 1: it was just like this and continues to be just
Speaker 1: this really deep passionate obsession with like how do I
Speaker 1: continue to deepen my mastery? And can we all actually
Speaker 1: practice unconditional love which is not the same as unconditional tolerance?
Speaker 1: And how do we hold that bar for one another?
Speaker 1: And so yeah, that's that's how a boy from Calgary
Speaker 1: came to be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, fantastic of all the bars, and your Instagram was
Speaker 5: how we found you.
Speaker 3: Ali actually told me about.
Speaker 2: It many years ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know how I stumbled upon it. I
Speaker 4: was saying in the open it. What immediately struck me
Speaker 4: is that you weren't you weren't just giving advice. You
Speaker 4: were talking about what you had learned. You said it
Speaker 4: in such a bold and honest way, with lots of
Speaker 4: swear words that I was immediately captivated. I was like,
Speaker 4: this is great, Like this guy's real, Like this guy's
Speaker 4: really honest and just calling bookshit on himself.
Speaker 2: And then it was like, Cam, check this out.
Speaker 4: And then that sparked conversation with us, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: And that was when you were just a mere one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand followers or so on Instagram.
Speaker 2: And I look at you now, so.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: So, mate, what is you've got create the love? Can
Speaker 3: you give us an idea? What is the most surprising
Speaker 3: thing you've learnt about love?
Speaker 1: You know, early in my exploration of all of this,
Speaker 1: although in hindsight I can see that it was obvious,
Speaker 1: you know, when you look back and you're like, should
Speaker 1: have figured that out? Then that would have been helpful?
Speaker 1: Is that to me? Like love is just telling the truth,
Speaker 1: Like love is being with what's real. And you know,
Speaker 1: when my wife and I we've been together now going
Speaker 1: on nine years. But in our first relationship we were
Speaker 1: together four years and then we broke up, and then
Speaker 1: we were apart for nine ten months. But what we
Speaker 1: realized in the coming back together and even actually in
Speaker 1: the departing, what was so beautiful about the departing. It
Speaker 1: was like there was just we were coming to the
Speaker 1: reality that we just couldn't make this work to you know,
Speaker 1: intentional loving caring people, as that saying goes like, love
Speaker 1: is sometimes not enough. You know, you have a timing thing,
Speaker 1: you have wounds that are bumping up against each other
Speaker 1: that you don't know the way through. And we realized
Speaker 1: that when we made telling each other the truth ahead
Speaker 1: of needing to stay together, we were actually free. Like
Speaker 1: then our choice was now free to be made. And
Speaker 1: the argument I make to people today a lot is
Speaker 1: if you don't have access to and know, if you
Speaker 1: don't have access to discernment about what you want to
Speaker 1: create in your relationship or your life in general, then
Speaker 1: you're yes is actually not real, it's not authentic. So
Speaker 1: your choice has always come with small print. And so
Speaker 1: for me, I'd say the greatest thing I've learned is that,
Speaker 1: like all of my relationships, when we put truth ahead
Speaker 1: of everything, and of course there's subjective and objective truth,
Speaker 1: but that there's the space for the subjectivity within the objectivity.
Speaker 1: So there is that I'm actually curious about what comes
Speaker 1: up for my partner. One of the rules for principles
Speaker 1: of liberated love that my wife and I talk about
Speaker 1: is if something's coming up for one of us, it's
Speaker 1: coming up for both of us. We just might not
Speaker 1: know it yet. Interesting, So there's like a wisdom in
Speaker 1: the trigger themen, in what's in the resistance, and that's
Speaker 1: really served us well because instead of orienting to that
Speaker 1: from like what's wrong with me that this is coming
Speaker 1: up for me and it's not coming up for you,
Speaker 1: Instead we're like, well, what's right with you? That this
Speaker 1: is coming forward, and let's just get curious about it,
Speaker 1: even if that makes me defensive, even if that makes
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, especially if it makes me defensive,
Speaker 1: you know, because there's always some truth in these things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, understanding why the defensiveness is coming up. I
Speaker 4: actually remember when you broke up with your now beautiful wife.
Speaker 1: Highie al ways been stalking you.
Speaker 6: No, I've just been watching and I remember that feeling great,
Speaker 6: and I remember that feeling of like, oh no, like
Speaker 6: the expert's broken up.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure many many, many people.
Speaker 4: And then it was really exciting when you got back together,
Speaker 4: hence marriage, and now you've got a beautiful little one.
Speaker 4: Did it keep you more accountable in any way? Or
Speaker 4: is it more challenging doing that publicly? Did you think
Speaker 4: that changed the experience at all by being that honest
Speaker 4: on a social media platform?
Speaker 1: Well, I think for me it might be different than
Speaker 1: my wife's experience. Is certainly the challenge of I'm teaching
Speaker 1: relationship and my relationships ending that comes up, of course,
Speaker 1: because it gets projected on you too. You know, when
Speaker 1: I was single and I started teaching relationship, people would
Speaker 1: say to me, well, why would we listen to you
Speaker 1: your single, to which I would say, well, you don't
Speaker 1: have to, And that's the beautiful thing. And the other
Speaker 1: part is that's also operating under the premise that people
Speaker 1: in relationships are good at them and people who aren't aren't,
Speaker 1: you know, so that your relationship status is indicative of
Speaker 1: your success, which I would say is maybe a marker
Speaker 1: of it, but certainly not the truth. But the second
Speaker 1: thing is that I had always lived my challenge is
Speaker 1: pretty out loud, So there was like, to me, it
Speaker 1: was like the way that Kylie and I navigated our
Speaker 1: ending was so filled with such love and reverence that
Speaker 1: I would say deep in my relationship with the people
Speaker 1: who followed my work, and they also got to witness
Speaker 1: that you didn't have to choose sides. You didn't have
Speaker 1: to like there was a way that love could exist
Speaker 1: when the relationship changes its shape or what the structure
Speaker 1: of the relationship is. And so it was definitely challenging
Speaker 1: because you don't want because what happens a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: as I would hear people, well like if you guys
Speaker 1: broke up.
Speaker 5: Like we're fucking yeah, like we really like, why can't
Speaker 5: you just work it out? Everything can work out, Like
Speaker 5: it was like their own dreams and fantasies and hopes
Speaker 5: and Disney movies.
Speaker 1: We're resting on our relationship. And you know, I was like, great,
Speaker 1: that's good for you that it's coming up, because you know,
Speaker 1: we're just living out a fear you have. But hopefully
Speaker 1: you can witness how we've walked through this to see
Speaker 1: that there's actually nothing to be afraid of because love's
Speaker 1: not on the line. And I would say that that
Speaker 1: actually set us up to come back together. You know, unknowingly.
Speaker 3: You've credited your relationship with your wife and had a child.
Speaker 3: How as having the child, has it changed your relationship
Speaker 3: with Carley?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean realistically, you know, you guys have kids,
Speaker 1: you know, the you go from being a couple to
Speaker 1: being a family, and so there's a true transformation that happens.
Speaker 1: The one thing that I think has been really powerful
Speaker 1: is noticing how important being a couple and staying a
Speaker 1: couple is, like, is that you are each other's priority first,
Speaker 1: and also navigating the complexities of like shit, I thought
Speaker 1: I was a really good communicator till I got really tired,
Speaker 1: you know, and so realizing that I remember stand Tech
Speaker 1: and saying to me, he's a famous psychologist. He said
Speaker 1: to me, well, everything that comes up when you have
Speaker 1: a kid is things that they were not resolved before.
Speaker 1: They're just amplified by And I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean I can I can get down with that,
Speaker 1: Like this is just the gym. I'm just in the
Speaker 1: This is more of the things that I need to learn.
Speaker 1: And so my wife and I were very transparent about
Speaker 1: each other's process and that like we're dealing with postpartum
Speaker 1: hormones and we're dealing with all the complexities of having
Speaker 1: a child that we don't know what the hell we're doing,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think it also brought up like
Speaker 1: how important community is and how little we're often supported
Speaker 1: or we've built systems in order to support mother and
Speaker 1: father and child. So yeah, it definitely changed our relationship,
Speaker 1: but in a way it's deepened it a lot.
Speaker 3: Is a boy or girl a boy jasper and how
Speaker 3: old's jasper? He's thirteen months And the sleep tap profession
Speaker 3: is absolutely part of it, and how to get the
Speaker 3: thoughts together when you've been up ale not changing dapas.
Speaker 1: I've ben lucky though, like Kylie has been mainly co
Speaker 1: sleeping and one night I got back from a trip
Speaker 1: and she was like, I got back pretty late and
Speaker 1: I was tired, and I said, hey, can I I'm
Speaker 1: going to sleep on my own in this other bed
Speaker 1: right now, but I'll sleep with you tomorrow night. I'm
Speaker 1: co sleeping with him. I was always like kind of
Speaker 1: afraid I was going to bump them or because you know,
Speaker 1: if you wake them, you're in trouble. Yeah. She The
Speaker 1: next day, I go to Sata like I'm building up
Speaker 1: the courage to say, like, hey, I had a pretty
Speaker 1: good sleep last night, Like what do you think about
Speaker 1: me staying in a different bed? And she's she says
Speaker 1: to me when I get into the room, Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: Jasper and I slept pretty good last night, and like,
Speaker 1: what do you think about like? And I was like,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you really need me to, I could
Speaker 1: do that. I could stay in that other room. So
Speaker 1: the sleeping has actually not been too bad.
Speaker 3: I got to say that. She's like, we've only just
Speaker 3: figured this out.
Speaker 4: We've been married for thirty two years, by the way,
Speaker 4: so we've been through many seasons of marriage.
Speaker 3: They're out of the house now, except for our ten
Speaker 3: year old, who seems to be more out of the
Speaker 3: house than not in the house now. And I don't know,
Speaker 3: fellas get older, I'm gonna throw old fellows under the
Speaker 3: bus here. The old snoring wants it comes in and
Speaker 3: you trial lots of things I haven't done. The sleepet machine.
Speaker 3: I'm going to draw the line of that. But it's
Speaker 3: become a bit of a you know, well, honey, you
Speaker 3: sleep in that room and I'll sleep in this journal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll and then all of a sudden everyone's sleeping good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then you're happy.
Speaker 1: Then I love it.
Speaker 2: It's really important.
Speaker 1: Well, I also think that we don't like if you
Speaker 1: don't make it mean things like of like comparing it
Speaker 1: to quote unquote traditional Yeah, it's like and you have
Speaker 1: the space for us right now. This is the setup
Speaker 1: that works best for me to be able to show
Speaker 1: up in my brain work and like for her to
Speaker 1: show up and him get and so we like take
Speaker 1: turns during the day taking care of him and relieve
Speaker 1: her if she needs of course needs an app or something,
Speaker 1: and we have support. So yeah, it's sleeping in separate beds.
Speaker 1: I hear that a lot about couples. Now, Actually that's it.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who's getting married and it's their
Speaker 1: second marriage. They both have sons who are in their
Speaker 1: late teens, and they're living separate places and they're getting
Speaker 1: married at the end of the month. And he was
Speaker 1: saying to me, well, we're not getting in the same
Speaker 1: place like I have. My wife has no interest in
Speaker 1: living with three men.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was laughing about it. Yes, look I get it.
Speaker 1: It works.
Speaker 3: White change much and that's right. This is the thing
Speaker 3: that I have struggled with so much. My mum and
Speaker 3: dad have been together sixty three years and they still
Speaker 3: sleep in the same bed. They live in a two
Speaker 3: bedroom cottage. They're very happy. Yes, they have the typical
Speaker 3: things that go on in a relationship. That's been my
Speaker 3: example of relationship is my mum and dad. So when
Speaker 3: things have changed in our relationship and evolved, like say, honey,
Speaker 3: can you sleep in the other room so I can sleep,
Speaker 3: I've really railed against it, and I've struggled with it,
Speaker 3: and you know, I've had my moments of real stress
Speaker 3: and this is not why it should be. And other
Speaker 3: times I'm very accepting of it. Here's a question for you.
Speaker 3: How do you differentiate between healthy compromise and sacrificing of
Speaker 3: needs in relationship? How do you solve that?
Speaker 1: Such a good question, because I would argue that the
Speaker 1: majority of people sacrifice their needs in service of a relationship,
Speaker 1: thinking it's romantic, you know, they think it's the altruistic
Speaker 1: thing to do. But that's called self abandonment, and that's codependency,
Speaker 1: you know. And in our book Liberated Love, we define
Speaker 1: codependency as any relational dynamic where we source safety from
Speaker 1: something or someone at the cost of our own needs,
Speaker 1: our own sense of self and overall well being, and
Speaker 1: really the keywords there at the expense of And so
Speaker 1: what I would say the difference is is that compromise
Speaker 1: is in service of the greater needs of the relationship.
Speaker 1: So what we're giving up, we recognize is actually in
Speaker 1: service of the expansion of the relationship and the connection. Now,
Speaker 1: the catch to this is that self sacrifice or self
Speaker 1: abandonment would probably be accompanied with resentment, So you would
Speaker 1: know that because sometimes we don't know that we're giving
Speaker 1: up something really important to us till it shows up
Speaker 1: after And that's actually the value of emotion and resentment
Speaker 1: is one hundred percent of the time because you are
Speaker 1: prioritizing something or someone over you. So resentment is always
Speaker 1: a great indicator where you're violating your own values, your
Speaker 1: own boundaries, your own needs. The key I will say
Speaker 1: that really healthy couples do when compromise is negotiated by
Speaker 1: one or both people to meet one person's need or
Speaker 1: one person's need more than the other, is that the
Speaker 1: relationship holds space for the loss that it actually can
Speaker 1: hold the grief because a lot of the times the
Speaker 1: other partner might feel a sense of guilt for being
Speaker 1: prioritized or for asking of this thing, and so they actually,
Speaker 1: because of the guilt and the shame they have, they
Speaker 1: actually can't hold space for the loss and the processing
Speaker 1: the other person wants to have. So that the container
Speaker 1: of the relationship holds both people's experiences and it's prioritizing
Speaker 1: the growth of the relationship and compromise. Also can say like,
Speaker 1: let's try this. I'm a little afraid of this, but
Speaker 1: can we check back in because it might not be
Speaker 1: what I want, it might be different. And that way,
Speaker 1: you're you're realizing that the connection, as you guys have
Speaker 1: experienced over thirty two years, you're not the same people
Speaker 1: you were thirty two years ago. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: the same person I was last week. Just to keep
Speaker 1: things interesting for my wife, I like, you know.
Speaker 4: Yep, you do an Irish accent and you know call
Speaker 4: yourself petty.
Speaker 1: I think it's all she cannot stand when I do
Speaker 1: it like this. It's funny. I was like, babe, think
Speaker 1: about it, like so many people like you get to
Speaker 1: date so many dude, right, and you're with one dude,
Speaker 1: like this My German one really.
Speaker 4: Gets you're on different pages on that one. Well, when
Speaker 4: she goes to menopause and she becomes a completely different woman,
Speaker 4: then you'll get to be married to someone else as well,
Speaker 4: So it'll be fair play.
Speaker 1: We'll bring comedic relief there you go, bring.
Speaker 2: You'll need it.
Speaker 4: Speaking of humor and having fun, is that a key
Speaker 4: to sort of maintaining emotional intimacy when there is challenges
Speaker 4: in the relationship or is there Is it just simply
Speaker 4: again about being honest and communication.
Speaker 1: No, Like, I mean, I think we don't want to
Speaker 1: remove the joy that is required between connections, right, And
Speaker 1: I think a lot about the research of long distance
Speaker 1: relationships how they're often more successful or more satisfying, and
Speaker 1: it's because you're constantly on adventures. You know, you're still
Speaker 1: curious about each other, but you're actually sharing curious adventures
Speaker 1: of the world. If we just brought that insatiable desire
Speaker 1: for the exploration of mystery into our relationships, we'd all
Speaker 1: benefit from what we often shame or think is not
Speaker 1: a great relational structure. With that said, yeah, humor, I mean,
Speaker 1: in the research, humor is one of the best ways
Speaker 1: to resolve or dissolve tension and conflict. I think the
Speaker 1: key is, and you know I'm formally guilty of this,
Speaker 1: is using humor as a way to deflect vulnerability or
Speaker 1: to deflect responsibility. So you know where satire or sarcasm
Speaker 1: is being used in a way that's that's passive and
Speaker 1: actually trying to get out of discomfort myself and my
Speaker 1: own vulnerability. So you know, I think humor was used
Speaker 1: a lot by me as a kid, you know, where
Speaker 1: I felt uncomfortable in class or something. I became the
Speaker 1: quote unquote class clown. So I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the things we do, which I'm naming one survival strategy
Speaker 1: that we might have using humor, perfectionism could be another one.
Speaker 1: And these are really things that we call our personality,
Speaker 1: but they're adaptive strategies. And these adaptive strategy I believe
Speaker 1: are really over developed skill sets, you know, because hypervigilance,
Speaker 1: people pleasing caretaking. These are often skills that make people
Speaker 1: really good at being a nurse or a doctor, or
Speaker 1: a coach, or a therapist or a dietitian. So they're
Speaker 1: graded intuiting other people's needs. But when it's still correlated
Speaker 1: to our self worth and when it's still correlated to
Speaker 1: trying to prevent ourselves from experiencing fear, a lack of safety,
Speaker 1: a disconnection, vulnerability, openness right, because not just bad triggers,
Speaker 1: but good triggers. The vulnerability can be a trigger because
Speaker 1: we don't trust it. So when we take these over
Speaker 1: developed strategies that we use for survival and we actually
Speaker 1: stop sourcing worth from them, because if I'm someone who
Speaker 1: caretakes people and I charge money for that, but I
Speaker 1: still need you to need me, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: a hard time creating the type of education or structure
Speaker 1: in our relationship that you're going to be free eventually.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And so that's why not to say that there isn't
Speaker 1: a need for consistent intervention with something, but eventually someone
Speaker 1: should need to grow away from the requirement for something,
Speaker 1: right like once you've learned the thing and integrated the thing.
Speaker 1: So I say all that because like when actually seen
Speaker 1: as the genius, it is through the over development is
Speaker 1: actually brilliant. But you look at like stand up comics,
Speaker 1: often there are people who have some of you know,
Speaker 1: the most like shadow experiences. It can be a way
Speaker 1: to not be with hard feelings.
Speaker 3: I don't know about how it is in Canada, but
Speaker 3: it's certainly in Australia. I think it's the most popular
Speaker 3: show is a show called Married at First Sight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's crazy concept.
Speaker 1: That's the most popular I think it is.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, you know, and people become stars from
Speaker 3: it today. And one of the big clickbity things in
Speaker 3: it which they tend to go to is the word cheating.
Speaker 3: And it seems such a big thing today. I hear
Speaker 3: about a lot where couples are falling out of love
Speaker 3: because of a lack of trust. Do you have strategies
Speaker 3: to rebuild trust in a relationship.
Speaker 1: Well, in the context of infidelity, but I think we
Speaker 1: could speak about any violation of just any betrayal. Infidelity
Speaker 1: is certainly a tough one because, you know, the first
Speaker 1: thing I always say to a couple, which is always contextual,
Speaker 1: but it's like the cheater's not the villain, you know,
Speaker 1: like we have to as soon as we make them
Speaker 1: the villain, then there's no opportunity for them to repair
Speaker 1: or come back or even step towards the shame. Now,
Speaker 1: if someone's hearing me say that, that could be triggering
Speaker 1: for them because they could be very much betrayed and
Speaker 1: villainized by someone who's cheating. I get it. Also, the
Speaker 1: reason people cheat is so complex because sometimes someone can
Speaker 1: leave a relationship within the relationship, and the relationship is
Speaker 1: so void of any intimacy and connection. Sometimes unconsciously we
Speaker 1: want someone to cheat so that we can leave them,
Speaker 1: and then when they do it, we get to act
Speaker 1: really offended, and then we want to work it out.
Speaker 1: I mean, the human nature is just so fucked up
Speaker 1: the things that we like we do unconsciously we want
Speaker 1: to break up with that one they break up with us,
Speaker 1: and now we want them like it's just the wildest thing, right,
Speaker 1: But what an opportunity to play out our wounds and heel.
Speaker 1: So I say all that because the healing of betrayal.
Speaker 1: What I will say in my own experience and what
Speaker 1: I know to be true but I'm open to be
Speaker 1: wrong about it, is that every external betrayal is preceded
Speaker 1: by an internal betrayal. As in, like, when you finally
Speaker 1: get to this and we're going to just actually like
Speaker 1: add a caveat here, We're not talking about narcissistic, sociopathic, manipulative,
Speaker 1: gas lighting, chronic cheating people. I would argue that they
Speaker 1: are not really it's not possible to repair with them
Speaker 1: unless they're doing their own deep work with a psychologist
Speaker 1: or a psychiatrist. There's no possible repair when both people
Speaker 1: are not in the compair. One is performative and the
Speaker 1: other is authentic, and no possible relationship can exist with
Speaker 1: one performing another authentic. So the betrayal itself when both
Speaker 1: people are ready to actually move through it that recognition
Speaker 1: that usually you bypassed or dishonored or ignored a feeling
Speaker 1: before that required you to betray yourself that then led
Speaker 1: to the betrayal of the relationship. Does that make sense yep.
Speaker 1: So what I see with that is like, maybe you
Speaker 1: didn't speak up. Maybe you tolerated a behavior that wasn't okay.
Speaker 1: Maybe you were starting to not honor your own values,
Speaker 1: your own needs and instead of actually and you agreed
Speaker 1: to relational circumstances that weren't something you actually wanted. I
Speaker 1: say all this because, like I remember, I was dating
Speaker 1: this woman in university. I was super in love with her.
Speaker 1: She got a scholarship to go to a different school
Speaker 1: in the United States for sports, and we agreed that
Speaker 1: we could see other people. We'd just tell each other.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do that, but I agreed to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then five months later she's coming back home to
Speaker 1: visit with a guy who's a friend of hers, who
Speaker 1: she's you know, having a quote unquote affair with, cheating
Speaker 1: on you with. But that is the exact circumstance you
Speaker 1: end up in when you agree to something you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have agreed to. You violated your own values, your own needs,
Speaker 1: your own wants. So if we can actually see where
Speaker 1: the early betrayals are, we can start to take responsibility
Speaker 1: for our side too. And what has to also be
Speaker 1: created in the space of repairing any sort of betrayal
Speaker 1: and of gain, as we were mentioning, not just something
Speaker 1: to do with infidelity, is that there has to be
Speaker 1: a toning. There has to be a toning for what
Speaker 1: the violation of the relationship, the injury to the relationship.
Speaker 1: And when we're actually saying we're going to work through this,
Speaker 1: the person who is, let's say, the victim of those
Speaker 1: circumstances gets to say what actually they need in order
Speaker 1: to rebuild trust. And the thing is is that the
Speaker 1: other person, let's say I need access to your phone,
Speaker 1: I need you to end this relationship. I need to
Speaker 1: see the message. I want to talk to them. Like,
Speaker 1: we can have all types of requests and they're all valid.
Speaker 1: The other person gets to say no, And if they
Speaker 1: say no and it doesn't align for you, then you
Speaker 1: have to be willing to walk away because trust can't
Speaker 1: be rebuilt unless the requests you're making can be actually
Speaker 1: resolved or negotiated right in a way that feels good
Speaker 1: for us. If for someone who bypasses our own needs
Speaker 1: and our own wants, I would argue that that might
Speaker 1: still occur in the repair process. So it's like, can
Speaker 1: we use the pain of the betrayal to actually stand
Speaker 1: in what we truly desire and stop abandoning ourselves? Like
Speaker 1: that's what I see so often in those circumstances and
Speaker 1: a lot of the times within betrayal. And I know
Speaker 1: it's such a complex conversation about cheating, but it's like
Speaker 1: both people forgot about the relationship long ago, the intimacy
Speaker 1: within the relationship. Sometimes people cheat the relationships because it's
Speaker 1: like burning a bridge they don't want to go back to, right,
Speaker 1: Like sometimes people cheat because they feel like they want
Speaker 1: more attention in the relationship, and they're not getting it there,
Speaker 1: they're not feeling hurt. Again, none of it is validating
Speaker 1: the choice to betray because that is, you know, that's
Speaker 1: what always here. You always have another choice other than cheating. Sure,
Speaker 1: but if society shames leaving relationships and the only way
Speaker 1: you unconsciously know how to leave it is to cheap
Speaker 1: because you know society will then support the leaving of you,
Speaker 1: then that becomes unconsciously your only option. Now obviously it's
Speaker 1: not consciously you're only option. But if your community is
Speaker 1: going to exile you, if you leave somebody and that
Speaker 1: feels too painful to do by choice, then you might
Speaker 1: just burn it all down. Yeah again into human nature.
Speaker 3: And it is so interesting because it gets so many
Speaker 3: people's hackles out. Yeah, because I guess you took pretty
Speaker 3: much anyone they've had an experience of being betrayed.
Speaker 1: It's a trauma, you know, being betrayed as a trauma.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I guess that's like anything, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Because the trauma of childhood, the experiences of your life
Speaker 4: leading into that relationship, is pretty much always going to
Speaker 4: play a part in how you relate to the other
Speaker 4: person anyway, you're pretty much not that you're guaranteed to
Speaker 4: have a relationship that's messed up, but of course that's
Speaker 4: going to interplay with how you relate to your significant other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if like if your community or your parent
Speaker 1: or parents didn't model how to work through trauma and
Speaker 1: how to work through the experience you had, you know,
Speaker 1: because of course there are people who go through tremendous
Speaker 1: traumas who can completely chanes through life and have really
Speaker 1: healthy relationships. So it's really like, can we hold the
Speaker 1: space as a community or a family for what someone
Speaker 1: has been through? Like, look at how many families are
Speaker 1: don't talk about dad's alcoholism, don't talk about mom's infidelity,
Speaker 1: don't talk about the uncle who touches who had touched people.
Speaker 1: We organize our systems around not pointing to the truth.
Speaker 1: So everyone's adaptive strategy is to keep the system alive
Speaker 1: so no one points at the elephant in the room.
Speaker 1: And then you finally have the black sheep of the
Speaker 1: family who's like, hey, what about this thing, And they're like, yay,
Speaker 1: we don't do that. You're going to have to go Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's why I think, like the black sheep of
Speaker 1: the family often are the people who are actually inviting
Speaker 1: the healing of the family. Yeah and so yeah, like,
Speaker 1: if we don't confront what's unconfronted, we will confront it
Speaker 1: in our adult relationships.
Speaker 3: Okay, Mark, So how does the black sheep make the
Speaker 3: difference with the people that do not want to accept
Speaker 3: what they're especially in taught families. Like someone's throwing a
Speaker 3: grenade in a taught family, right, and the victim becomes
Speaker 3: the you're the one who missed.
Speaker 4: This up rather than the victim keeping it quiet.
Speaker 2: What the betrayal is becomes the.
Speaker 3: Victim's fault or can they be reparation from them?
Speaker 1: Well, first, let me just give the context to that,
Speaker 1: no matter what I say, will never be enough to
Speaker 1: like actually acknowledge the pain of that type of eruptor
Speaker 1: especially when a family has not been orienting around reality
Speaker 1: and the truth and so we're like, we're the family
Speaker 1: that never fights, but then you realize that there's something
Speaker 1: operating underneath the system of the family. So just the
Speaker 1: pain of the rupture just needs to be acknowledged. Now,
Speaker 1: with that said, I'll say that it depends on what
Speaker 1: the definition of healing is because What we often do
Speaker 1: is when the system's been disrupted, and this could be
Speaker 1: in a romantic relationship, I can all of a sudden say, hey,
Speaker 1: I miss you. I feel like we take each other
Speaker 1: for granted. That's reality that I'm pointing to that we
Speaker 1: haven't talked about in ten years, and there's been a
Speaker 1: ton of build up of resentment, and we don't communicate,
Speaker 1: we don't have intimacy anymore. So I'm like the black
Speaker 1: sheep of our relationship. I'm bringing forward the thing our
Speaker 1: system has been orienting around not talking about, through busyness
Speaker 1: and other jobs and kids and whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually saying, in service of this relationship and
Speaker 1: in service of love, I'm interested in actually building something
Speaker 1: with you that oscillates around these values respect, honesty, curiosity,
Speaker 1: and a mutual desire for growth. Right, So, if I'm
Speaker 1: bringing forward a truth to a family that causes disruption
Speaker 1: in the family, what the system does is it attacks
Speaker 1: the person changing the system because now everyone has to
Speaker 1: get out of their functional role in the system. So
Speaker 1: what it then shakes everyone's system because they're like, oh fuck,
Speaker 1: I haven't resolved this in my current adult relationships, I
Speaker 1: do this in my adult relationships. My whole life is
Speaker 1: about taking care of everybody else. This is what we do. Now,
Speaker 1: you're forcing them to look at everything in their life
Speaker 1: that's like that. Now for the person who's going through
Speaker 1: like we had a really tight family and now I'm
Speaker 1: the problem. I'm the one who's caused all of this.
Speaker 1: That could be because we're someone who doesn't have the
Speaker 1: past deed to hold, which is what I would say
Speaker 1: is like externalized shame, right, because you have the shame
Speaker 1: from the family saying you're the one causing all of this,
Speaker 1: even though you've pointed to a truth.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So if we can actually hold and find community outside
Speaker 1: of our family that can hold us in the transition,
Speaker 1: that will be the most important part. Because what's happening
Speaker 1: is the systems around us are starting to reorganize around
Speaker 1: what we're offering to them, which is, hey, there's another way.
Speaker 1: We're going to have to go through some growing pains
Speaker 1: to get there, and we're going to have to actually
Speaker 1: start to confront some things we've all been avoiding. But
Speaker 1: if you're on board, I'm on board, and I stand
Speaker 1: for love and I stand for truth, and this is
Speaker 1: what this looks like. And if you speak to me
Speaker 1: that way, I'm going to have to hang up the phone.
Speaker 1: But when you're ready, I'm here for you. If you're
Speaker 1: ready to have this conversation in a loving and safeway
Speaker 1: that might not be available on a phone, but that
Speaker 1: could be available through email. And if you say to
Speaker 1: someone like just think about if you were to say
Speaker 1: to anybody relationally, I love you. I'm committed to respectful dialogue.
Speaker 1: I'm committed to creating something really beautiful within us. I'm
Speaker 1: committed to healing together, and I'm committed to doing that
Speaker 1: in a way that honors both of us. And I'm
Speaker 1: commimitted to creating a shared space that's safe for us
Speaker 1: to do that. What does that look like for you?
Speaker 1: What does that look like for me? Are you in now?
Speaker 1: Most people would be like, oh shit, I'm like praying
Speaker 1: for a relationship like that, Like I wish someone would
Speaker 1: say that to me. So imagine if I bring that
Speaker 1: to any dialogue where there is challenges, frustrations, s ruptures.
Speaker 1: If someone says no to that, it's their lack of
Speaker 1: capacity to the old repair. But if I could just say,
Speaker 1: like this is the standard I'm holding, I'm not asking
Speaker 1: anyone to get a small shrink be in their adaptive strategy.
Speaker 1: I'm actually asking them to heal and to come forward
Speaker 1: and be committed to love. That's being committed to truth, right,
Speaker 1: and so that is an offer that the system then
Speaker 1: will have to orient around again. Now here's the hard
Speaker 1: human behavior pain of this is, like, you have the like,
Speaker 1: but this is my biological family, and like I need
Speaker 1: to be a member of them so that I'm safe.
Speaker 1: That's why it's so important that we have to have
Speaker 1: an other community that's able to say to us, you're
Speaker 1: not crazy. What you're standing for is actually so important.
Speaker 1: We got you, We're not going anywhere, and we love
Speaker 1: you even more for what you stand for. Like you
Speaker 1: are actually a testament to healing. You are a testament
Speaker 1: to love. And I know it might not feel like
Speaker 1: that right now, but what do you need from us
Speaker 1: to help support you as you hold change? Like what
Speaker 1: gets in the way of a human hold changing is
Speaker 1: their nervous system's capacity.
Speaker 5: To hold change.
Speaker 1: That comes with everything. So the way that we increase
Speaker 1: our capacity to hold change is to have community. If
Speaker 1: you could just know that when you need somebody, you
Speaker 1: can call them or they'll come over, or they'll stand
Speaker 1: at your side when you're about to collapse your boundary
Speaker 1: or take some bullshit that you just know that you
Speaker 1: have someone on your side. What will happen is you'll
Speaker 1: start to orient around health and healthy relating, and then
Speaker 1: you'll realize that the standard you've set for yourself, you're
Speaker 1: not actually going to compromise anymore. Everything comes back to
Speaker 1: do you have access to choice? And there's a saying
Speaker 1: that the opposite of trauma is choice because traumas are
Speaker 1: unexpected things generally that happen to us that we don't
Speaker 1: have like, it's unexpected. So if there's a betrayal that happens,
Speaker 1: I find out about it, it's unexpected. It comes out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. I get broken up with it comes out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. Often what I'll try to do is double
Speaker 1: down on things I can control. I'll become that could
Speaker 1: spark eating disorders, that could spark addiction, that could spark
Speaker 1: fitness obsessions because or religious obsessions, because all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we want to control the things we can control and
Speaker 1: try to predict life. We're trying to Carolyn Ma says
Speaker 1: this great saying that our traumas and our wounds are
Speaker 1: trying to control the pace at which life unfolds, so
Speaker 1: we try to move at the pace of the wound. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that's just such a brilliant way of
Speaker 1: seeing how this stuff can occur. So all that that
Speaker 1: was very long answered, dear question.
Speaker 3: It's a great answer, though.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm glad we're recording others i'd be writing it
Speaker 4: down just to change.
Speaker 2: Topic ever so slightly.
Speaker 4: What's your take on how technology and social media in
Speaker 4: modern relationships affect them and is there boundaries that couples
Speaker 4: should have to establish their continued connection. I guess to
Speaker 4: each other, I mean other than just put the fucking
Speaker 4: phone down, which is often what we say to each other. Well,
Speaker 4: not quite as mean as that, but no, I hear you.
Speaker 4: I'm railing against it enormously at the moment. And I
Speaker 4: was listening to a Brene Brown podcast and I came
Speaker 4: home to cam.
Speaker 2: And I was like, that's it.
Speaker 4: I realize how angry I actually get when someone picks
Speaker 4: up the phone when I'm in conversation with them, and
Speaker 4: I sort of like I would put it aside and
Speaker 4: keep talking, but internally I am like combusting because I
Speaker 4: just feel like someone's gone, You're not important, I don't
Speaker 4: care what you got to say, and I'm out of here,
Speaker 4: and it's like it's the third person in the relationship
Speaker 4: that I don't want to see.
Speaker 2: Sorry, that was just my spiel on it. All right,
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 1: No, No, I think it's I think it's great. I
Speaker 1: think it's great, and I think it really is pointing
Speaker 1: to a really important value that you're coming to your
Speaker 1: awareness of like how important it is and how you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's something that's recent or like
Speaker 1: maybe it's a childhood thing, like this sense ofivity to
Speaker 1: being important, the sensitivity to feeling like maybe you weren't
Speaker 1: attended to in the way that you felt like it
Speaker 1: was required. So there's a hypersensitivity to it, which is
Speaker 1: not minimizing the true need for it, right, But that
Speaker 1: like your hypervigilance is because you know that this is
Speaker 1: the canarian the coal mine, Like this is the thing
Speaker 1: that leads to the experience of disconnection and not valuing
Speaker 1: each other. And then what happens when we don't value
Speaker 1: each other We lose one another or connections dissipate, and
Speaker 1: is like really the message people send when they're on
Speaker 1: a conversation and they're like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It
Speaker 1: is this experience of there is possibly something more exciting
Speaker 1: or interesting happening right now here, and what's happening here?
Speaker 1: In the research, when a phone is faced down on
Speaker 1: a table, people are less vulnerable, So we know that's true.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't even take research. Like people understand that
Speaker 1: there's like a pole that's constantly happening. Is there's something
Speaker 1: exciting as someone need me? Is there a compliment here?
Speaker 1: Is there new news that will give me a flood
Speaker 1: of endorphins? Is is there more rage available to me?
Speaker 1: Is there more disagreement? Is there more ideological fuel for
Speaker 1: the fire? How mad is everyone at Trump today? You know,
Speaker 1: like all these kinds of stuff, And so, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that technology has been beautiful. I met my wife
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I built so much of my business through technology,
Speaker 1: So I think like it needs to have constant growth
Speaker 1: and more profits. So the only way to make more
Speaker 1: profit and more growth is to extract more attention. So
Speaker 1: you insert things like a doom scroll. You insert algorithms
Speaker 1: that don't give you the content you say you want,
Speaker 1: they give you the content you're Amigdala wants. So when
Speaker 1: someone says to me, can you have a healthy relationship
Speaker 1: with social media? What does that look like? I would
Speaker 1: say right now, what I think is Drew might change
Speaker 1: is that it's actually not designed for you to have
Speaker 1: a healthy relationship with it. It's actually not the purpose of it.
Speaker 1: I think from a somatic nervous system perspective, there's something
Speaker 1: that's going on with it that is not even the
Speaker 1: canary and the coal mine anymore. It is now the
Speaker 1: miners die, and it is the pervasive anxiety, and it's that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's I don't know that there is, but
Speaker 1: I'm living the question.
Speaker 4: Last question, I just want you to have a little
Speaker 4: chat about your beautiful book that you've written with your wife,
Speaker 4: Liberated Love, release codependent patterns, and create the love you desire.
Speaker 2: Can you just tell us more about that?
Speaker 1: Ah Man, Well, the book was so incredible to write
Speaker 1: with my wife. It was hard to write. It was
Speaker 1: good preparation for having a kid, you know, because you
Speaker 1: have two creative worlds coming together, two ways of language,
Speaker 1: two lenses to everything, creating this separate thing. It's like
Speaker 1: a kid, except the kid has a feedback loop. Now,
Speaker 1: the book, like really is about one the journey everyone
Speaker 1: you know, we believe is necessary for everyone to walk
Speaker 1: in terms of understanding what shapes why they do what
Speaker 1: they do in relationship. Here's the frameworks like attachment and
Speaker 1: how that shows up in the nervous system. But then
Speaker 1: how do you change, Like what are the actual steps
Speaker 1: you can take to actually change the way you relate?
Speaker 1: And we overarch a bit of our story from relationship
Speaker 1: one point zero, we call it the Sacred Pause, which
Speaker 1: is our breakup, and then relationship two point zero, and
Speaker 1: really what we're speaking to in all of these is like,
Speaker 1: what is your current whether you're single, dating, or in
Speaker 1: a relationship. You're married, you're not sure you want to
Speaker 1: stay together, or you're not sure you can find your person?
Speaker 1: What are the behaviors you currently have? Let's take a
Speaker 1: second regroup. What do we want to create? How do
Speaker 1: we create that? And what's possible for relationship when we
Speaker 1: create that? And you know, I have no word. I've
Speaker 1: not just written the book. I've done the book like
Speaker 1: I've worked I've worked the steps. It sounds like right
Speaker 1: like I've done everything within the book. And so I
Speaker 1: know that if you read the book and you do
Speaker 1: everything that's in the book. You can completely change your
Speaker 1: relationships in your life. And really the core premise of
Speaker 1: liberated love is having this fierce dedication to truth, this
Speaker 1: honoring of each other's path as your own first, and
Speaker 1: then there's this deep sense of positive respect and regard
Speaker 1: and reverence for your partner that that is actually operating
Speaker 1: at the baseline that the things that come up for
Speaker 1: you relationally are needing to come up because they need
Speaker 1: to be resolved to go to the next level relationally,
Speaker 1: whether that's together or not, it still requires being confronted.
Speaker 1: And if we see the challenges we have relationally as
Speaker 1: material that needs to be worked with, that's such a
Speaker 1: different way of orienting to it instead of being ashamed
Speaker 1: of it or like mad at it, or able to
Speaker 1: be like, ah, what is this asking of me? Like
Speaker 1: what's required of me to move through this? And that's
Speaker 1: such a different way to orient a relationship.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful. Mike, thank you for your time and your
Speaker 3: generosity with us and our listener today. It's been amazing.
Speaker 3: I we'll go on record, and so we could have
Speaker 3: gone for another hour, ye you know, maybe we'll do
Speaker 3: a part two down the road. Would you do that
Speaker 3: of course. Of course. Yeah, it's been fun. We might
Speaker 3: put this out. Two questions for any of our listeners
Speaker 3: because this has been really great in the way you
Speaker 3: explain things is very simple.
Speaker 1: One, I love you, I appreciate you guys. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much.
Speaker 3: Mark, I'm fool.
Speaker 4: There was so much good information in there.
Speaker 2: There was Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going to and this will be one to
Speaker 4: keep on listening back on for me.
Speaker 3: So yeah, a couple listeners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's got just a beautiful way of delivering it
Speaker 4: as well, because it's I just much prefer you know,
Speaker 4: I say this all the time. I want to listen
Speaker 4: to someone who's lived it. That's who I want to
Speaker 4: listen to. I want to listen to someone who's lived it,
Speaker 4: who struggled whose challenge and has made their way through
Speaker 4: and out the other side, and they can look back
Speaker 4: and go, yeah, I remember when I was like that.
Speaker 4: I remember when I messed that up, and this is
Speaker 4: what I learned from it, this is what I'm going
Speaker 4: to share with you. That's that that makes listening to
Speaker 4: someone so much easier for me.
Speaker 3: I'm actually looking back at my notes that I wrote
Speaker 3: and it's like I'm going to have to listen back
Speaker 3: to the recording. I've just got just got words written down.
Speaker 3: But one way the word that I have for him.
Speaker 1: Is golf is not golf, okay.
Speaker 3: But it's something to do with golf, which is authentic,
Speaker 3: you know, and if you swing like your authentic swing,
Speaker 3: you will do well. Now, he's just an authentic guy.
Speaker 3: And I love the way he brought himself pretty much
Speaker 3: what you were saying, he brings himself to it rather
Speaker 3: than speaking from theory. Yeah, yeah, that's right, it's lived.
Speaker 3: I love the bit when he said people who won't
Speaker 3: say no when they say yes, they're not actually telling
Speaker 3: the truth.
Speaker 4: Well, it's also that first the first signal that you
Speaker 4: get is as soon as you're feeling resentful, you know
Speaker 4: that you've said yes when you should have said no.
Speaker 2: That that too is also.
Speaker 4: A great little marker to go yep, okay. I thought
Speaker 4: I was okay with this, I'm not okay with this.
Speaker 4: I've given something up here.
Speaker 3: That was a powerful moment. When the resentment is there,
Speaker 3: you feel that pain, yes, and you're going, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: that's a red flag. Yes, lots to take notice of.
Speaker 4: And look, you can find mark on his website. He's
Speaker 4: got his book with his wife, and we've mentioned before
Speaker 4: Liberated Love. His podcast is available, so there is ways
Speaker 4: to access mark and we'd love to have him back on,
Speaker 4: so maybe we'll do part two.
Speaker 3: Thanks honey, thank you too, Thanks for listening.