Speaker 1: Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, Hello, My Love's Welcome to this latest
Speaker 1: episode of Holy Human. It is jam packed with lots
Speaker 1: and lots of information. We will be diving into two topics,
Speaker 1: mostly with internationally acclaimed life coach Stephanos se Fondos. The
Speaker 1: impact of the father wound and how we can keep
Speaker 1: our trauma from our childhood from seeping into our romantic
Speaker 1: relationships and our sexuality is a lot all that and
Speaker 1: more on today's what We're hearing yet, Stefan, did I
Speaker 1: get the right Okay, I'm going to call you Steph
Speaker 1: because I don't want to mess it up a step
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on the Holy Human podcast.
Speaker 1: It is an honor to have you on here the
Speaker 1: Honors Mark. Thank you for having me. I. I have
Speaker 1: followed your work on socials for a while now, and
Speaker 1: I love your presence, I love your heart. It's just
Speaker 1: so wonderful to have a man in your energy speaking
Speaker 1: on the topics you're speaking on, and I I was
Speaker 1: just wondering if you can share with people and myself
Speaker 1: how you came to be a life coach and get
Speaker 1: involved in in the work that you're in. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I often get asked that question. And what what immediately
Speaker 1: comes to mind, if I have to distill it into
Speaker 1: a few words or a sentence of one word, it's pain,
Speaker 1: and it's it's obviously I can unpack that. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that, and what I'm referencing internally is
Speaker 1: I grew up in an environment that didn't really facilitate
Speaker 1: the things that I yearned for. I yearned for as
Speaker 1: a child and yearned for as an adult. Safety connection, intimacy, consistency, um, significance,
Speaker 1: feeling enough, like worth worthiness essentially, And so my desire
Speaker 1: to explore my own internal state, my own feelings, you know,
Speaker 1: my own pain, my own shadows, my sadness, my anger,
Speaker 1: my rage as a as a young man, as a teenager,
Speaker 1: my despondency, and my tibid nous as a child. It
Speaker 1: came from those early childhood experiences and my family unit,
Speaker 1: my family environment. And you know, it's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: Trauma is a is a very it's an interesting and
Speaker 1: intricate beast. And when we experienced trauma, and I'll speak
Speaker 1: very directly for myself, but also just understanding how trauma
Speaker 1: works in the body and in social circles, we tend
Speaker 1: to suppress and repress, and we do that consciously and
Speaker 1: unconsciously because it can be so overwhelm me. And so
Speaker 1: for much of my life I didn't know why I
Speaker 1: was the way I was, and I couldn't quite change
Speaker 1: my behavior because I was in constant avoidance of my trauma.
Speaker 1: So the way that I dealt with it, to even
Speaker 1: answer your question a little more directly, was oh, if
Speaker 1: I can help others, if I can support others on
Speaker 1: their journey, then maybe at some level I'm going to
Speaker 1: find reprieve within myself. There's some element of truth to that,
Speaker 1: and it helped and it supported me on my journey.
Speaker 1: But the reality was that because I wasn't really looking
Speaker 1: at my stuff directly and wasn't able to touch that
Speaker 1: in safe ways and revisit it, not retell the story,
Speaker 1: but to actually release what was trapped inside of me,
Speaker 1: I kept perpetuating the same pain, the same fear, and
Speaker 1: the same unhealthy patterns in relating as well. Interesting, So,
Speaker 1: so you kind of got into this work before you
Speaker 1: fully started to be able to touch upon these darker
Speaker 1: I guess that I would. I would sometimes call them
Speaker 1: darker and more the more traumatized places within us. I
Speaker 1: find that really interesting because I mean that is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I started this podcast was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've and I have touched on on my pain deeply,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's a multilayered experience. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about it. I wanted to be here in
Speaker 1: my humanity because the strange thing about celebrity, I think
Speaker 1: is our humanity gets cut off in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to relate and share what I've gone through,
Speaker 1: what I've learned, in order to hopefully help people on
Speaker 1: their journey. But I think you're right. I think there's
Speaker 1: there's always places that are left untouched or have yet
Speaker 1: to be unearthed. And I find that as I have
Speaker 1: these conversations through this podcast, I find that I'm having
Speaker 1: to meet myself in those deeper places more and more. So.
Speaker 1: It's once you put yourself in in it, there's no
Speaker 1: way of getting around it, for sure. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: very much resonate with what you're saying and what I
Speaker 1: add to that as well. And another layer is that
Speaker 1: the richer and deeper relationships that we engage in and
Speaker 1: the more willing we are to see ourselves in the
Speaker 1: other and see the other in ourselves those layers of
Speaker 1: call it trauma or nuance that resides within us, it
Speaker 1: unravels itself at a in a more profound way, and
Speaker 1: we're able to touch greater depths within ourselves. I've found
Speaker 1: that in my relationships, the more willing I am to
Speaker 1: go to those places that are quite uncomfortable, that that
Speaker 1: provoked the sense of will they reject me, will they
Speaker 1: abandon me? Will they will they humiliate me? Will I
Speaker 1: be humulated rather through what they think of me or
Speaker 1: how they see me? But can I still be in
Speaker 1: my truth? And the more I go to those places,
Speaker 1: and then the more I am met. So when that
Speaker 1: that sense of vulnerability or truth, that rawness has met
Speaker 1: and reciprocated with love and understanding and compassion and empathy,
Speaker 1: that's when even more profound layers are revealed and more
Speaker 1: growth occurs. And that's been so true in my own life.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. And it's it's interesting you say that,
Speaker 1: because it is I've I've gone through so much, and
Speaker 1: I think that people can relate to this of I'm
Speaker 1: I don't trust the other person to meet me there
Speaker 1: because I wasn't met in my early childhood, and so
Speaker 1: I've had to I've had to stop projecting my early
Speaker 1: childhood onto those around me in order to give them
Speaker 1: a chance to meet me there. And the thing that
Speaker 1: I've learned, you know, is can I how deeply vulnerable
Speaker 1: can I be without abandoning myself? Because ultimately that's what
Speaker 1: we're I feel ultimately, that's what we're deeply worried about,
Speaker 1: is that we're we are going to not meet ourselves there.
Speaker 1: It's not really about the other, yeah, of course, and
Speaker 1: and and very true. And it is because we're so
Speaker 1: We're so in our bodies, were so in our being.
Speaker 1: It's all about the self preservation and self tection at
Speaker 1: some level, especially at a nervous system level. Something that
Speaker 1: I say that I say to my clients often is
Speaker 1: ensure you are not projecting. You know, your partner, your
Speaker 1: husband is not your mother or your father. Your wife
Speaker 1: or your partner is not your mother or your father. Honestly,
Speaker 1: just you have to remind yourself that because there's so
Speaker 1: much unconscious protection that's taking place where we when when
Speaker 1: when our partners do something that reminds our nervous systems
Speaker 1: of something that happened thirty years ago. There's there's our
Speaker 1: body just gets online and says, that's the same things.
Speaker 1: They're the same things that happened thirty years ago. We
Speaker 1: need to protect ourselves in the same way we did then,
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, you're treating that person as
Speaker 1: if they're your mother or your father, or the hurt
Speaker 1: that you experienced from a bully when you were younger.
Speaker 1: And we have to remind ourselves. And that's where, you know,
Speaker 1: we start really working with trauma and learning how to
Speaker 1: regulate our nervous systems, and learning how to speak to ourselves,
Speaker 1: and learning how to communicate with others and being each
Speaker 1: other's presence and set healthy boundaries and all those things.
Speaker 1: That's when we start to really undo the past so
Speaker 1: that we don't keep coming from the past and we
Speaker 1: can come from that new version of self that isn't
Speaker 1: greater along with who we truly want to be. Absolutely well,
Speaker 1: you started to talk about the mother and the father.
Speaker 1: We on the last season we took a deep dive
Speaker 1: into the mother wound with Bethany Webster and I had
Speaker 1: She Is, and it was so eye opening that whole conversation,
Speaker 1: and we had so many listeners that wanted They were like,
Speaker 1: is there a father wound? And what does that look like?
Speaker 1: Can you address that? And so when I started to
Speaker 1: dig into who talks about the father wound, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of people, by the way, who actually discussed
Speaker 1: this topic. And I thought that you talked about this
Speaker 1: in depth, um and so beautifully that I that's one
Speaker 1: of the main reasons I wanted to have you on
Speaker 1: was discussed the father wound. So let's just started with
Speaker 1: how how do you describe the father? What is that exactly?
Speaker 1: How would you define it? You? So before I even
Speaker 1: define something that I want to speak to, I think
Speaker 1: that's important about the father wound is we have this
Speaker 1: this image of the father, and so we're children, were small,
Speaker 1: we're literally quite small compared to these adults in the
Speaker 1: world that are a lot bigger than us. And that
Speaker 1: masculine presence that father for a little girl represents, represents
Speaker 1: what my relationship to men can be. This is, you know,
Speaker 1: at the beginning stage, it's very visceral, it's very feeling,
Speaker 1: basis kin aesthetic. As we get older, we start to
Speaker 1: visualize and verbalize and understand this relationship for little boys,
Speaker 1: it's more about what is the type of man that
Speaker 1: I can be. And so if there's a disconnect in
Speaker 1: that father child relationship, if there's abandonment, if there's rejection,
Speaker 1: if there's unavailability, if there's violence, if if that source
Speaker 1: of love and protection is also the source of terror
Speaker 1: for you, it becomes very confusing in our nervous system,
Speaker 1: becomes very confusing the way that we attach and so
Speaker 1: that father wound, and to clarify thing, this is an
Speaker 1: important point as well. There's no formal psychological diagnosis around
Speaker 1: the mother wound and the father wound. Um However, the
Speaker 1: mother wound and the father wound is something that we
Speaker 1: refer to to really understand developmentally, how we've formed our
Speaker 1: self identity and how we end up in a in
Speaker 1: a whole from a whole perspective, how we end up
Speaker 1: relating to our intimate partners, how we relate to intimacy itself,
Speaker 1: how we relate to self worth, and how we relate
Speaker 1: to protecting ourselves in relationship. Because we all do that,
Speaker 1: we all have layers of protection. Some are more extreme
Speaker 1: than others. For me, it was it was a great
Speaker 1: deal of emotional abuse. I would push my partners away
Speaker 1: in the past by being hyper defensive, by being hyper aggressive,
Speaker 1: by attempting to be in control because I as a child,
Speaker 1: I was so out of control. And with specifically my father,
Speaker 1: he was very violent, he was averant, he was unpredictable,
Speaker 1: he was very moody. There was a great deal of
Speaker 1: uncertainty and unavailability. So I didn't have structure and stability.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel stable within my own nervous system, within
Speaker 1: my own mind. And so when we're talking about the father,
Speaker 1: when we're talking about structure stability, we're talking about that
Speaker 1: masculine presence that is safety that we can trust, that
Speaker 1: we can lean into, that we can be ourselves and
Speaker 1: be met for who we are and as we are
Speaker 1: without judgment. When we miss that, when we don't have
Speaker 1: that stability in our lives, the cascade effects as adults
Speaker 1: is immense. Yeah, I can relate to that completely. My grip.
Speaker 1: My dad was really angry. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: anger in the house. And um he also loved me deeply,
Speaker 1: and I think there's yeah, very confusing. Um know, someone
Speaker 1: who was constantly a part of my life and helping
Speaker 1: me sing and like you know, we connected through through music.
Speaker 1: Was also you know, very um, very angry and very
Speaker 1: unapproachable at times. And I've noticed it's really interesting around
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the afternoon. Three, Um, this is something
Speaker 1: I've started to recognize. Um, I'll start to get really,
Speaker 1: really anxious and I I'm like, why, why is this
Speaker 1: happening at the same time every day? And it was okay,
Speaker 1: that was when I got picked up from schools, when
Speaker 1: I started coming home, you know, coming home to the
Speaker 1: house that then he was going to come into buy
Speaker 1: five o'clock, and I didn't know what I was going
Speaker 1: to get. And I can totally relate that my nervous
Speaker 1: system is still even though I'm completely safe in my home,
Speaker 1: I have a wonderful husband, and that I had that
Speaker 1: sense of safety, my nervous system is still as much
Speaker 1: as I've worked through so many pieces of it, it's
Speaker 1: still stuck back in that time of not quite knowing
Speaker 1: what I was going to get with my father. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that trauma by association is your body telling
Speaker 1: you that there's something that's unresolved within you. Because if
Speaker 1: that's you know, if you're and the interesting thing is
Speaker 1: you may say, but I've never had this before. It's
Speaker 1: just come on. And there are a few There could
Speaker 1: be a few reasons for that. It could be because
Speaker 1: your body and your being, your entire mind body complex
Speaker 1: is actually ready to deal with that and close the
Speaker 1: loop on that trauma. It could meet because you've done
Speaker 1: deeper spiritual exploration and it's unearthing some old stuff and
Speaker 1: it's presenting itself in this way and it is a
Speaker 1: beautiful opportunity to actually work through the core wounds of
Speaker 1: that um And it's also really challenging and very painful.
Speaker 1: Like and what do we do when something is really
Speaker 1: challenging and really painful. Now, yes, we sometimes can meet it.
Speaker 1: We can meet that pain and that challenge where where
Speaker 1: it's at. But more often than not, we check out.
Speaker 1: It's like, well that's too difficult. I'm going to check out.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to what I'm going to
Speaker 1: work a lot. I'm going to focus on more pleasure
Speaker 1: in my body. Could be eating, could be drugs, could
Speaker 1: be alcohol, It could be distractions. It could be adrenaline.
Speaker 1: It could be shopping, It could be t vehic or
Speaker 1: whatever it is that puts more pleasure in our body,
Speaker 1: that that compensates for the big pain that we're attempting
Speaker 1: to avoid. The thing that we missed though, And this
Speaker 1: is what I missed for so many years in my
Speaker 1: own life was I didn't quote unquote no, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't quite get that if I simply lean into
Speaker 1: this thing that's presenting itself, I didn't even have to
Speaker 1: pursue it or chase it. That's another conversation we can
Speaker 1: come to that. But this thing that's presenting itself is
Speaker 1: discomforting my body, this thing that feels a little quote
Speaker 1: unquote abnormal, out of out of sync for me. If
Speaker 1: I sit with it, if I address it, if I
Speaker 1: move it through my body, if I share it with
Speaker 1: a coach, a therapist, et cetera, if I if I
Speaker 1: start to be in deeper communion with it, what would happen?
Speaker 1: And what ended up happening when I when I surrendered
Speaker 1: to all of that, I said, I have to face
Speaker 1: my stuff because I'm reaking havoc on every relationship that
Speaker 1: I'm in, including myself. I'm in great avoidance. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, and this is years ago. I'm in massive debt.
Speaker 1: Nothing is really working in my life, and I'm blaming
Speaker 1: everything and everyone but me. I'm not looking at me.
Speaker 1: I'm not taking response to me when I did. And
Speaker 1: this is the paradox, right, the more we lean into it,
Speaker 1: the fast we moved through it. That and that that
Speaker 1: has been so true for me and so true for
Speaker 1: the thousands of clients that I've worked with, thousands upon
Speaker 1: that that's the truth. Yeah, it's It's interesting because when
Speaker 1: we're in that situation where it's super super uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: you want to reach for you want to reach for something,
Speaker 1: whether it's the remote or the drink or cigarette or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, how do we begin to find Okay,
Speaker 1: so that that discomfort is there, but we're looking for pleasure.
Speaker 1: So how do we begin to find the pleasure from
Speaker 1: the inside even with that discomfort that's there? Like, how
Speaker 1: how can we hold both of those things? And how
Speaker 1: do we start to summon the pleasure from the inside out? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have to learn to be with the pain, and
Speaker 1: I can't. I might want to. I want to get
Speaker 1: to the pleasure part. I just want to. I guess, Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: you do have to learn to be with pain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that means feeling it. But here's a thing, right,
Speaker 1: like it's easy for me to say, just feel it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not coming from a place where I haven't experienced,
Speaker 1: you know, immense trauma and chronic and acute trauma and
Speaker 1: so forth. And I'm coming from a place that I've
Speaker 1: worked through that and I continue to work through that.
Speaker 1: It's not just not a it's unless I'm enlightened, which
Speaker 1: I don't believe I am. I'm going to continue to
Speaker 1: work through that stuff and the layers that come up
Speaker 1: right because of the work that we do previously that
Speaker 1: prepares us for the present moment in the now. But here,
Speaker 1: here's the thing is, we learned to sit with a
Speaker 1: pain in relationship, not only in relationship to that thing
Speaker 1: that's within us, but in relationship external to us. And
Speaker 1: so one of the greatest things that we can do
Speaker 1: for our nervous and for our healing is to being
Speaker 1: the presence of safety. And what that tangibly looks like
Speaker 1: is being the presence of people that see you through
Speaker 1: and beyond your pain with no judgment and with compassion,
Speaker 1: and there's a softness to them that you're through. Our
Speaker 1: new reception of being in the world, the unconscious ways
Speaker 1: in which our nervous systems assess our environment. We feel
Speaker 1: that this person is safe. They're not judging me, they're
Speaker 1: not going to criticize me. Because we're talking about the
Speaker 1: father wound. We're talking about the you know, the father
Speaker 1: wound referring to absenteers and emotionally or physically, which can
Speaker 1: be interpreted as rejection. We're talking about the father women
Speaker 1: being that critical, negative, even abusive character, and and it's
Speaker 1: that that impacts our sense of self worth. And so
Speaker 1: when we're talking about being with the pain, one of
Speaker 1: the greatest things that we can do for ourselves is
Speaker 1: see to be in the presence of people that will
Speaker 1: nurture our pain. They won't appease us, there, won't be
Speaker 1: complacent with us and allow us to be in this negative,
Speaker 1: perpetual state of being. But they can hold us without
Speaker 1: this is this is the interesting thing, without their own
Speaker 1: pain being triggered because they've done their internal work. Here's
Speaker 1: an interesting thing, right whenever you when you in business
Speaker 1: circles or you're in athletic circles, you'll often hear a
Speaker 1: phrase very similar to this. You know, surround yourself with
Speaker 1: people that are better than you, like if you want
Speaker 1: to make a million dollars. Go speak to someone that's
Speaker 1: made a million dollars. If you want to make a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars this year, then get a coach that
Speaker 1: knows how to do that. If you want to lose weight,
Speaker 1: then be with the coach who is has gone down
Speaker 1: that path, who is understands a body who shows and
Speaker 1: demonstrates that themselves. Right, it's the same in healing. Surround
Speaker 1: yourself with people that have walked that path that you
Speaker 1: want to walk because that confidence, because that's the thing.
Speaker 1: We lack the confidence to go into the pain. So
Speaker 1: when we are surrounded with people that have been there
Speaker 1: and we feel that, we don't just know it, but
Speaker 1: we feel it, that gives us confidence, and that gives
Speaker 1: us an inspiration to move into the pain. And we
Speaker 1: move into the pain. We equilibrate it, and there are
Speaker 1: methods to do that, of course, and it happens over
Speaker 1: a period of time, and then the conversation of pleasure
Speaker 1: naturally occurs. It's not something that needs to be forced
Speaker 1: because we're not in avoidance, we're not numbing. That's that's
Speaker 1: the beauty of sitting with our stuff in safe spaces. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess when you're numb the pain, you also know
Speaker 1: the pleasure, so you're just yeah, you can't have one
Speaker 1: without the other. Yeah, well it's interesting you say, you
Speaker 1: know people that can hold your pain without it triggering theirs.
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of us. I know, for
Speaker 1: myself in my family, like I'm the first generation. I'm
Speaker 1: an only child, but the first generation that is taking
Speaker 1: care of their own pain. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people can feel very lonely and this journey because
Speaker 1: they are the first and it's in our our family circles,
Speaker 1: in our closest circle, sometimes you are the only one.
Speaker 1: So it's like, where do I start to find those others?
Speaker 1: You know, whether it's you know, some people don't have
Speaker 1: the money to hire a coach or a therapists Like, okay,
Speaker 1: well where do I start? Where do I either start
Speaker 1: to find those communities of people that can hold me
Speaker 1: and or can you create that for yourself to like,
Speaker 1: how do we create safety when there's when we don't
Speaker 1: have another to hold us in that space? Yeah? First
Speaker 1: see your generational pattern breaker. So congratulations, I know, right,
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful thing. Yes, it's a beautiful thing for
Speaker 1: the people that you come into contact with. Including your family,
Speaker 1: because you're not going to pass that down to your children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've that was one of my key reasons, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll be forty in August, and I've I've never been
Speaker 1: going home about having kids of my own because that
Speaker 1: was that was one of the things. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not passed. I can't pass this down. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing it. Um, And I maybe I don't know if
Speaker 1: kids from my own. I have two stepsons that I've
Speaker 1: been so fortunate to be a part of their lives,
Speaker 1: but um, I don't know if that's ever a part
Speaker 1: of my life. And that's okay. But I was really
Speaker 1: adamant about like, I can't. I can't pass this down.
Speaker 1: It has to it has to end with me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can't And I can't pass it down. I
Speaker 1: can't pass it on because every interaction that we have,
Speaker 1: if we're coming from that pain, or we're coming from
Speaker 1: a place of wanting and needing to avoid that pain,
Speaker 1: we're wearing masks in every interaction we have that take
Speaker 1: away from the true essence of who we are now
Speaker 1: what that does. And we spoke about new reception early
Speaker 1: around and to get a little just very briefly technical,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just our nervous system through enteric system,
Speaker 1: just picking up on vibes in the environment, right, And
Speaker 1: it's it's an assessment that we developed over millions and
Speaker 1: years of evolution. And so if that person is picking
Speaker 1: up on you wearing masks, that will trigger them to
Speaker 1: wear masks. And now all of a sudden, you're having
Speaker 1: inauthentic conversations, and there feels like something's missing. Because we're
Speaker 1: far more intuitive, we're far more connected than what we
Speaker 1: give ourselves credit. We can't can't tap into it because
Speaker 1: of the clutter that exists in our lives or mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, sexually.
Speaker 1: And so now we've got billions of people having inauthentic
Speaker 1: interactions and almost triggering traumatic interactions, which perpetuates more of that.
Speaker 1: And I want to I want to honor the question
Speaker 1: that you asked around well, how do we do that?
Speaker 1: How do we create say space, do we create s spaces?
Speaker 1: Do we do we seek them? What do we do?
Speaker 1: I think it's both and and I think what we
Speaker 1: do as a starting point is we at some level
Speaker 1: we have to take self responsibility. We have to we
Speaker 1: have to be be responsible for how we see ourselves and
Speaker 1: how we see the world and the life that we
Speaker 1: want to live. And so what feels safe enough? Here's
Speaker 1: here's the key from it's enough. It's not safe, it's enough.
Speaker 1: It's because it's the same thing. I'll go to the
Speaker 1: gym when I lose ten pounds, right right right, and
Speaker 1: it will be right back with more steps offndos right
Speaker 1: after this quick break, welcome back, my loves. We were
Speaker 1: just talking with steps Offndos about how we can start
Speaker 1: taking responsibility for the way that we view ourselves and
Speaker 1: our relationships. So can you as an individual, Can we
Speaker 1: as individuals make a commitment to ourselves and say, I'm
Speaker 1: going to share something with someone, I'm going to test
Speaker 1: the waters that I wouldn't normally share. And if it
Speaker 1: gets quote unquote rejected, which is a whole other conversation
Speaker 1: around rejection and if that even actually exists, but we
Speaker 1: can get into that later. But and if I get humiliated, rejection, rejected,
Speaker 1: abandon whatever my call wound is, you know, sense of loss,
Speaker 1: whatever comes from that interaction, can I be okay with it?
Speaker 1: Because what I've shared isn't too deep or isn't too
Speaker 1: much of a risk now when we look at that
Speaker 1: and having that conversation that requires self assessment, and self
Speaker 1: assessment leads to self awareness, and so we have to
Speaker 1: be active and commit to ourselves, even if it's ten
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes a day, to assess where we're at internally,
Speaker 1: to have those inner dialogues with each other, you know,
Speaker 1: in a child work, internal family systems um you know,
Speaker 1: somatic work, trauma release work, even just cognitive behavioral therapies
Speaker 1: can can all support and assist. Right, it's a combination
Speaker 1: of all these tools and techniques that we use. But
Speaker 1: can we feel safe enough to begin to share and
Speaker 1: then when we get feedback that that that thing that
Speaker 1: we shared wasn't rejected next time, we can do a
Speaker 1: little more. In trauma, it's called expanding our window of tolerance.
Speaker 1: It's edging right, and not edging in the in the
Speaker 1: sexual sense, it's edging in them in. We're coming close
Speaker 1: to the edges of what's really uncomfortable. We're not diving
Speaker 1: into the pool that is too deep. We're still in
Speaker 1: the shallows, but it's uncomfortable. And the more we can
Speaker 1: do that, the more we expand that window of tolerance,
Speaker 1: the more we can share ourselves more with with greater
Speaker 1: clarity and more more vulnerability. The easier we will notice
Speaker 1: groups in our environment that we can then seek that
Speaker 1: are in greater allowment with us because we're creating that
Speaker 1: in our reality. Yeah, I mean, you can't that whole
Speaker 1: saying if you know, people can only meet you as
Speaker 1: deeply as they've met themselves. And it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: how can you You have to be able to be
Speaker 1: honest and open with your own self in order to
Speaker 1: to be able to share, because I know that was
Speaker 1: a big thing for me, was what am I hiding
Speaker 1: from myself? Like, you can't you can't unfold, you know,
Speaker 1: and be be vulnerable with someone unless you can start
Speaker 1: to do that with your self. And that's been the
Speaker 1: key that you know, that's where the journey begins, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what I hear you saying, And it's
Speaker 1: it's definitely like I said, there's there's layers too, you know,
Speaker 1: I know I we all still lie to ourselves. I
Speaker 1: think in certain ways there's always the shadow of where
Speaker 1: am I truly not being honest with myself? And um,
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with a friend the other night
Speaker 1: of you know, is there truly a relationship where you
Speaker 1: are completely open with one another? And for me, I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't, I don't know if that's If
Speaker 1: there ever is that was just from my point of
Speaker 1: view because I I feel like there's still things I
Speaker 1: don't know about myself. But as soon as I start
Speaker 1: to learn and open up that piece of myself to
Speaker 1: myself and I start to process it, I begin to
Speaker 1: want to share that with my husband as soon as
Speaker 1: I understand that piece of me. So yeah, as soon
Speaker 1: as you're in deep communion with it, right, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Something that came to me when you when you ask,
Speaker 1: and I agree with you, I you know, we're constantly
Speaker 1: evolving moment to moment, day by day, week to week,
Speaker 1: month to month, year to year. We're unraveling more of ourselves,
Speaker 1: were exposing more of ourselves to ourselves into the world.
Speaker 1: The question I have, and it's a question for you
Speaker 1: while we're here having conversations, is you asked the question,
Speaker 1: you know, can can I share all of myself? I
Speaker 1: don't know myself? What if we ask the question, and
Speaker 1: even if you did know of yourself, which we probably
Speaker 1: never quote unquote will even if you did do we
Speaker 1: need to share all of ourselves? Yeah? No, I I agree, um,
Speaker 1: And this is interesting for me on and you're you're
Speaker 1: also in the public eye, so you're you're and you're
Speaker 1: sharing tons of you yourself and your own relationship. So
Speaker 1: I agree, do we um? I think it for me,
Speaker 1: it really is it's about what feels right in the moment.
Speaker 1: I feel like, it's what how I It's like, how
Speaker 1: can I connect with the person in front of me?
Speaker 1: And also, you know, I guess for me, I'm always
Speaker 1: wanting to share from my heart and from a place
Speaker 1: that that builds connection that also makes the person in
Speaker 1: front of me feel welcome and can and and welcome
Speaker 1: to be all of who they are. And I think
Speaker 1: that's for me. It's like it's a moment to moment
Speaker 1: thing and what like you're saying, do I feel safe
Speaker 1: in this experience? And I'm also sharing when you're sharing
Speaker 1: on a world stage and you For me, like my
Speaker 1: deep parts of myself inform my creativity. They inform my
Speaker 1: writing and it's sometimes the most uncomfortable things that I
Speaker 1: can't speak about I can sing about, so all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the places that are really really tender or
Speaker 1: scary for me become songs and then am I finally
Speaker 1: able to actually have those conversations. So for me, I
Speaker 1: know it's it's definitely multilayered when it comes to what
Speaker 1: and how and where and who I share it with um.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a constantly evolving thing. And I
Speaker 1: do think we need to keep pieces of us for us.
Speaker 1: I think that's really important. I think there's value in that.
Speaker 1: I think there's deep growth now. I think from that place,
Speaker 1: we're able to actually give more of ourselves in meaningful
Speaker 1: ways to others that really need it by by saving
Speaker 1: something sacred for ourselves. And again, the paradox and the
Speaker 1: universal joke, you know, depending on what you you know,
Speaker 1: what ethos or philosophy you adhere to, is the universal
Speaker 1: joke is there's such a deep interconnectedness that we're all
Speaker 1: one and the same anyway, but we don't realize that
Speaker 1: because we're under this illusion of such deep separation and
Speaker 1: and to some extent that exists in our reality because
Speaker 1: of the reality that we choose to live in, and
Speaker 1: that separation causes fear because there's unknown and uncertainty in
Speaker 1: the separation, and so we what I've seen in the
Speaker 1: world is that we remain then closed, We keep our
Speaker 1: cards really close to our chest, and we don't reveal
Speaker 1: who we truly are. And I come back to what
Speaker 1: I said earlier around if we're doing that, others pick
Speaker 1: up on that unconsciously, and then they begin to do
Speaker 1: that as well. And so we're in this these relational
Speaker 1: dynamics that just aren't real because we're unwilling and or
Speaker 1: unable to really just look at ourselves and who we
Speaker 1: are and who we want to be in the world.
Speaker 1: There's fear with making a declaration and making a statement
Speaker 1: of I want to be this, I want to be
Speaker 1: free of this, or I choose to be living in
Speaker 1: this way, because what if it doesn't happen, especially if
Speaker 1: we were promised so much when we were younger. You know,
Speaker 1: I promise I'll be home at six pm, and your
Speaker 1: dad just keeps coming home at ten pm or whatever
Speaker 1: it may be, right, and that we we we live
Speaker 1: we have lived a life of broken promises, and we've
Speaker 1: made that mean that we're not enough, we're insignificant, or
Speaker 1: we're less than. Then making bold statements or declarations around
Speaker 1: how we want to live is very challenging and so
Speaker 1: there's so many nuances that are underneath that. On the surface,
Speaker 1: it looks like just say you want to live this life.
Speaker 1: It's simple, but it's actually not. Man, what you just
Speaker 1: said hit home with me because I know I have
Speaker 1: lived my life a lot of my life in avoidance
Speaker 1: of disappointment, and that's exhausting and it's it's sad, it's
Speaker 1: it's there's a lot of grief I know around that
Speaker 1: for me because not only of the disappointments that have
Speaker 1: happened in my life, but the avoidance of it. It's
Speaker 1: like all the dreams and all the desires and things
Speaker 1: that I'm not living out or haven't lived out because
Speaker 1: of wanting to dance around the fear of disappointment. And
Speaker 1: then under that, like you're saying, is the self worth
Speaker 1: issue of I'm not worthy of my desires? And um,
Speaker 1: I think all of us can relate to that. I've
Speaker 1: said so many times. I feel like self worth is, like,
Speaker 1: is the core issue we're all living with. It's like
Speaker 1: the basis of everything that gets built upon it when
Speaker 1: it comes to the father wand like, how do we
Speaker 1: know maybe the the avoidance of disappointment, how do we know,
Speaker 1: like when this is showing up in our lives, like
Speaker 1: how how does that look? Yeah, yeah, so I'll give
Speaker 1: you some UM. And this may relate to you. This
Speaker 1: may relate to some of the audience, like some of
Speaker 1: these characteristics or or you know, levels of experience may relate.
Speaker 1: They may all relate. They may you know only some
Speaker 1: of them. But let me let me go through a few.
Speaker 1: So so, as an adult, you may experience oppressive, controlling, subjugating,
Speaker 1: and aggressive behavior that maybe you and the world towards others,
Speaker 1: especially when you feel threatened or when you feel someone's
Speaker 1: making you wrong or they're telling you that you could
Speaker 1: be doing something better. The way that we interpret that
Speaker 1: is all about coming back to what you said about
Speaker 1: low self worth and low self esteem, and then we
Speaker 1: transmute that into control and oppression and anger and rage.
Speaker 1: Hyper competition, so excessive competition to be the best, to
Speaker 1: prove oneself right, to seek that validation at any cost.
Speaker 1: And this can happen both in men and women, in
Speaker 1: all adults. It's not just this is not just for men,
Speaker 1: by the way, and be really clear on that these
Speaker 1: are expressive states of being UM struggle to have healthy
Speaker 1: friendships because it's it's a trust issue again. Rather, there's
Speaker 1: so much trust that's vested in the father, and if
Speaker 1: we cannot trust ourselves and others, we will struggle to
Speaker 1: create intimacy in our friendships, very little mastery of our
Speaker 1: over our sexuality, and so that can look differently in
Speaker 1: men and women, but essentially it could be um either
Speaker 1: a promiscuity that takes place and a hyper hyper sense
Speaker 1: of aroused like excessive reliance and addiction to pornography or
Speaker 1: having sex, or validation through intimacy. In other words, how
Speaker 1: someone you know, code dependence, how someone sees us really
Speaker 1: like we really need someone to see us in a
Speaker 1: particular way for us to feel okay about ourselves at
Speaker 1: a bare minimum, and that can really show up in sexuality.
Speaker 1: And it can also not just show up in hyper sexuality,
Speaker 1: it can show up in being withdrawn from our sexual
Speaker 1: expression as well. Our sexual expression isn't just the act
Speaker 1: of sex. It's about our personalities and how confident we
Speaker 1: are in our bodies and how confident we are in
Speaker 1: our beings and how we move through space and time,
Speaker 1: not only in relationship but in accordance with what we
Speaker 1: value most as well. Um, you know, I've touched on
Speaker 1: the validation, but I'll elaborate on that through through accomplishment
Speaker 1: and through status, and that can show up differently. So
Speaker 1: for you know, if we use a conventional example, it
Speaker 1: could be in the business world, it's about how quickly
Speaker 1: can I climb the corporate ladder, you know. In a
Speaker 1: more sexual, intimate example, it could be how many people
Speaker 1: can I sleep with or how can I attach myself
Speaker 1: to a high status person and being intimate relations ship
Speaker 1: with them so that I'm then seen as a high
Speaker 1: status person as well. Right. Um. Otherwise, that you can
Speaker 1: potentially tell you've got the father wound or you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're in that unresolved wounding is you feel a sense
Speaker 1: of lostness within yourself. So you feel lost, you don't
Speaker 1: feel whole, you feel fractured and broken. So again you
Speaker 1: don't feel enough. So then we need to compensate for that.
Speaker 1: So we seek the validation. We seek feeling better about ourselves.
Speaker 1: And that pleasure can come in so many different ways.
Speaker 1: We may lack drive, inspiration, vision, and purpose. Um, that
Speaker 1: can be another indication that there's a there's a disconnection
Speaker 1: there because we never got that. Again, that structure we
Speaker 1: never got that from our father. Maybe that father was
Speaker 1: very driven in his own hyper selfish ways or self
Speaker 1: absorbed ways, but never implemented that or that ethos into
Speaker 1: the family dynamic. Um, if you're purely driven by our
Speaker 1: goal orientation when it all costs attitude, that can that
Speaker 1: can be part of the father wound. Um, here's an
Speaker 1: interesting one. And I'll share a personal story here on
Speaker 1: this as well, unconscious seeking of father's approval and acceptance.
Speaker 1: And I'll share something with lean on this. I still
Speaker 1: do this. I will I will have like a win
Speaker 1: in my life, whatever the win is, right, And I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just thinking of my daughter. So I'm some
Speaker 1: tears are coming because a new father. But I will
Speaker 1: say in my head, I will say this. I say,
Speaker 1: if only Babak would see this. But the Greek word
Speaker 1: for dad, right, And he's still alive, by the way,
Speaker 1: just lives in Greece, so you know. And and he's
Speaker 1: not in my life at the moment because he's a
Speaker 1: physical distance, right, But we talk um, And there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of reconciliation that's had to take place, but
Speaker 1: there's still passed me like if I if I do
Speaker 1: something really cool, in business. It's like, oh if if
Speaker 1: Barbark would see this now, you know, and I'd say
Speaker 1: it in Greeks. I usually I speak Greek, and I
Speaker 1: speak when I think of my dad. I speak Greek
Speaker 1: even when I'm talking to myself. But it's that like
Speaker 1: it's still exists. And even though I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of work, and I have done a lot of work
Speaker 1: in this area, you know, at least something funny. You
Speaker 1: know that song Um the Living Years Mike and the Mechanics,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, oh god, that song kills me
Speaker 1: every can't listen to it every time, every time and
Speaker 1: guarantee it every time. And and that there you want
Speaker 1: to talk about father Wound. That is a beautiful example
Speaker 1: in music of the Father Wood. Yes, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: a couple more top of my head. But there's the
Speaker 1: self loathing, the self hate, the self destructive behaviors. And
Speaker 1: you know, this is the this is the you know,
Speaker 1: the enough is never enough attitude. But let me go,
Speaker 1: let me go back to the self loathing, self destructive behaviors.
Speaker 1: This is very prominent in men and adolescent boys wanting
Speaker 1: to prove to their father that they're enough. Females will
Speaker 1: do that tend to do that a little differently, and
Speaker 1: it tends to not always but tends to come through
Speaker 1: either in hyper masculine behavior in in the corporate world,
Speaker 1: or it will come through hyper promiscuity. And again men
Speaker 1: do this as well, they just do it in different ways.
Speaker 1: But for men, it's more the adrenaline. It's more how
Speaker 1: far can I push my edges, how can I do
Speaker 1: the really difficult thing, or the really dangerous thing, or
Speaker 1: the really intense or extreme thing, or the thing that
Speaker 1: makes me the most money, Because it's about resource gathering,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the ways that we identifying the
Speaker 1: world as as as masculine embodied men um to get
Speaker 1: my father's attention. So there are some of the ways,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there are more, but there are some
Speaker 1: of the ways that you can, you know, tell if
Speaker 1: you have some disconnection with the with the father there
Speaker 1: and that relationship needs to be mended. I was like, check,
Speaker 1: check check, check check, Yeah, very sure. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, my dad, My dad and I have had
Speaker 1: a very fractured relationship and I don't talk to him
Speaker 1: very often. I love him, and I I have done
Speaker 1: enough work on myself to have empathy and understand where
Speaker 1: and why where it came from, why why he made
Speaker 1: some of the choices that he made. Um. But it
Speaker 1: is still you know, there's not a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of reconciliation that has that has gone on in
Speaker 1: that relationship. You know, as if people are strange from
Speaker 1: their father or you know, they maybe their fathers passed away.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you do you recommend that those conversations
Speaker 1: actually happen with with the father to to reconcile or
Speaker 1: is there are there other ways to go about starting
Speaker 1: to heal this relationship or fracture with ourselves. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that per saved factor within ourselves because ultimately, true essence
Speaker 1: is wholeness. So I believe that at least, Yes, agreed.
Speaker 1: But look, you know, healing, forgiveness, all the things that
Speaker 1: we strive for, it's an inside job ultimately. So the
Speaker 1: answer your question, the very direct answer your question is
Speaker 1: yes and no and more off and then it's a no.
Speaker 1: And I'll be really transparent with you to like I've
Speaker 1: had very direct conversations with my father and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: do you remember doing this, this, this, this, and this,
Speaker 1: And He's like, no, I never did that. I was
Speaker 1: a great father, Hi, my mine to my mother too,
Speaker 1: like I mean, they'll be they'll deny, deny, deny, and
Speaker 1: I get it. I understand why, but go ahead and no, no, no,
Speaker 1: but you're right, like we understand why as adults, but
Speaker 1: as children, this is where in a child work is.
Speaker 1: So as children, we don't and nor should we get
Speaker 1: the why. It's not it's not it's not our our
Speaker 1: responsibility to understand why. It's it's for us to feel safe,
Speaker 1: and so our our role as adults reparenting ourselves. And
Speaker 1: this is where this where is an inside job is
Speaker 1: to help that that part of us. And I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about fracture and fragmentation here, but we're gonna be
Speaker 1: very careful with that language to to the to the
Speaker 1: point where we know we're not referring to a a
Speaker 1: cognitive disorder or a diagnosable mental illness or anything like that.
Speaker 1: We're talking about parts that were made of Like the
Speaker 1: way that we see the world is through a different parts.
Speaker 1: Are you show up a little differently to your husband's
Speaker 1: and how you may show up to a friend, And
Speaker 1: it's not that you're being inauthentic, it's just different parts
Speaker 1: of you will come out in different relationships and different environments.
Speaker 1: That's that's what we're made of us. We see the
Speaker 1: world in different, in compartmentalized ways, and so it's working
Speaker 1: with the parts of us that are really hurt. And
Speaker 1: so it's really an inside job. And you know, there
Speaker 1: are tools and techniques. There are there's in a child work,
Speaker 1: there's somatic work, there's m. Gastult style therapy. There's there's
Speaker 1: journal prompts and and letter writing and cathartic releases that
Speaker 1: can take place. There's so many different avenues that we
Speaker 1: can go down right in terms of the modalities and
Speaker 1: the tools that we use to start healing and repairing
Speaker 1: that relationship. And part of it is understanding and part
Speaker 1: of his releasing and feeling what was unfelt, because I
Speaker 1: think like yourself as violence was abuse, it was volatility, right,
Speaker 1: and so what did your little girl, your little girl
Speaker 1: meaning you, what did she do in those times? Did
Speaker 1: she freeze? Did she want to flee? And and flight?
Speaker 1: We've got to get to how was happening in the
Speaker 1: nervous system, because even if you were fighting or in
Speaker 1: flight right where you're taking more action, that's great, and
Speaker 1: there's some level of self preservation protection that's taking place,
Speaker 1: that's more active, so you feel more empowered as opposed
Speaker 1: to just freezing. But there's also emotions that were unexpressed,
Speaker 1: and so we've got to get to those unexpressed emotions
Speaker 1: and those unexpressed bodily somatic movement which are stored in
Speaker 1: our bodies at a cellular level, and get them moving again.
Speaker 1: And again, the foundation of that is creating a safe
Speaker 1: environment for that to happen. So when all of that happens,
Speaker 1: and it takes it's a process. It happens over time
Speaker 1: with intention and attention and care. And as that happens,
Speaker 1: your relationship the way you see your father, your mother,
Speaker 1: you meet any on us that's listening to this, it
Speaker 1: shifts and changes. And we are going to shift into
Speaker 1: a very brief break right here, but we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, my friends. Steph and I were just discussing
Speaker 1: the significant shifts that can occur when we cultivate a
Speaker 1: safe foundation within ourselves to process childhood trauma. And because
Speaker 1: of that, remember we spoke to about new reception earlier,
Speaker 1: right because we are now on all these different levels,
Speaker 1: including subtle levels, and layers are reacting or rather responding
Speaker 1: differently to our parents, they actually respond differently to us,
Speaker 1: so they don't perpetuate the old parental dynamics that they
Speaker 1: once did as well, because we don't need to be
Speaker 1: in that dynamic anymore, because you're not living from that
Speaker 1: seven year old girl that was terrified. You're now living
Speaker 1: from an empowered place where she feels safe. Sang. That's
Speaker 1: the money, right, That is so true. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because I I've noticed I'll oscillate back and forth between
Speaker 1: both of those. There are some days my mom and
Speaker 1: dad could call me and I'd be like, I love
Speaker 1: you and all as well, and I can you know,
Speaker 1: I can make those choices from the adult space. And
Speaker 1: then there's other times where I can't even pick up
Speaker 1: the phone because I'm frozen in the trigger of just
Speaker 1: seeing their name. Just depends on the day. And I
Speaker 1: think that's natural for so many of us who have
Speaker 1: been through you know, trauma with our parents. For sure,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, very very much. Sure. And it's also a
Speaker 1: beautiful you know, in those momentsly and if I if
Speaker 1: I may, um may make a suggestion, yeah please, yeah,
Speaker 1: in those moments, you know, it's not about picking up
Speaker 1: the phone you're gotta, you've gotta, you've got to be
Speaker 1: self honoring, right, whatever that looks like for you. But
Speaker 1: in those moments, it's taking advantage of that that somatic,
Speaker 1: that bodily thing sensation that's coming up and working with that.
Speaker 1: And and even if it's putting a hand on your
Speaker 1: chest and a hand on your belly, on your on
Speaker 1: your nurturance canal, which activate your vegas. Now that tells
Speaker 1: you body that hey, we're safe here, right, like even
Speaker 1: skin to skin, ideally under the under the shirt skins. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: some slow breathing and asking that part literally in your
Speaker 1: own mind or even out loud, what do you need
Speaker 1: right now? And it may need to run and walk
Speaker 1: and may need to drink a glass of water your
Speaker 1: body knows, it may need to scream into a pillow,
Speaker 1: it may need to sob. But if you can do
Speaker 1: more of that, and again the safety and confines of
Speaker 1: your own space, that starts to shift, and what happens
Speaker 1: is less and less. Do you have that old reaction
Speaker 1: of freezing when you see their names on yourself phone?
Speaker 1: I mean I had that for years with my brother
Speaker 1: or on an unknown number, because my brother went through
Speaker 1: many years of being a drug addict in the way
Speaker 1: that impacted our family and getting calls from police and
Speaker 1: drug rehabilitation centers and all the all the things, and
Speaker 1: you know, or from my mom and and even when
Speaker 1: I saw my mom's name for years, I would be
Speaker 1: like that, because Okay, what needs to happen? Now? What
Speaker 1: do I need to do? What actually do I need
Speaker 1: to take? Like? Who don't need to beat up? Like?
Speaker 1: What needs to happen? You know, he's gone through all
Speaker 1: of that now where best of friends. And I miss
Speaker 1: him immensely. He went on his journey and he's been
Speaker 1: drug free for over a decade um, and he's a
Speaker 1: phenomenal human Being's got three beautiful children. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: just amazing father. I aspire to him. He's my old
Speaker 1: younger brother. I looked to him to be a father.
Speaker 1: You know, he's just so good, Um, in all different ways.
Speaker 1: Goose bumps talking about it. And I get what you're
Speaker 1: saying around the freezing peace. It's intense. It is intense,
Speaker 1: And I love that you just said. Something that clicked
Speaker 1: for me is the self honoring peace. UM, when it
Speaker 1: comes to our parents, especially when we've gone through codependency,
Speaker 1: and we are. We've always put and had to as children,
Speaker 1: put other people's emotions and feelings ahead of hours in
Speaker 1: order to feel safe. We don't self honor. And for me,
Speaker 1: you know, when I when I don't answer their phone call,
Speaker 1: like the guilt that can come up around that because
Speaker 1: because I self honored because I didn't, and it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know I'm in avoidance right now, and I also
Speaker 1: know within that avoidance, I'm also taking care of myself
Speaker 1: because there's a piece of me that I know is
Speaker 1: really triggered right now and it and it's uh, there's
Speaker 1: a for me. I've had to recognize that both can exist.
Speaker 1: I'm in avoidance and I'm also taking care of myself
Speaker 1: and I don't have to feel guilty as an adult
Speaker 1: woman about saying no, not right now to my parents.
Speaker 1: And I think when you when you deal with you know,
Speaker 1: the mother and the father, and you know still as
Speaker 1: adults those we feel we can feel such guilt around
Speaker 1: placing ourselves, you know, before our parents, especially if we've
Speaker 1: grown up in that kind of situation. So I love
Speaker 1: that you just said self honoring is such a key
Speaker 1: piece to our own healing and recognizing that it is
Speaker 1: okay to say no and to set boundaries and take
Speaker 1: care of ourselves are round our parents. It's necessary because
Speaker 1: remember that little one didn't have that voice. That little
Speaker 1: one didn't have the authority that you do as an adult.
Speaker 1: They didn't have the opportunity to say no or stop
Speaker 1: m especially more extreme cases. It's not even more extreme case,
Speaker 1: but you know, in case of sexual abuse or physical abuse,
Speaker 1: any any invasion on that boiler. As little children, we
Speaker 1: didn't have that voice. We didn't have that capacity, and
Speaker 1: so saying no is so important. And honestly, the more
Speaker 1: we say no when it's needed, the more we create
Speaker 1: space for authentic yes is to come into our lives
Speaker 1: and what we want to say yes to, the relationships
Speaker 1: that we want to say yes to, the way we
Speaker 1: want to be treated. But again, this is a muscle. This,
Speaker 1: this muscle of confidence needs to be built over time.
Speaker 1: And again the more we're practiced in saying no and
Speaker 1: not feeling the guilt, the guilt and shame, because that
Speaker 1: guilt and shame is and we come let's come back
Speaker 1: full circle for a moment around, you know, looking up
Speaker 1: to the father, because again, you know, it's not just
Speaker 1: what the father can be or what what kind of
Speaker 1: man can I be? Or a little girl looking up
Speaker 1: to the father and saying, you know, what can a
Speaker 1: man be in my life? We're talking about the deifying
Speaker 1: of our parents, or we do that. We deify our parents,
Speaker 1: we see them as God's because we're so helpless and
Speaker 1: hopeless as children, and there's that projection and perception there,
Speaker 1: and it's a hard fall from grace because a we're human,
Speaker 1: but be especially if we're unhealthy parents, or we we
Speaker 1: have unresolved within ourselves. And so that father is also
Speaker 1: the the you know, the big sky father is what
Speaker 1: what's the ultimate the ultimate symbolism of healthy masculinity and
Speaker 1: and protection all those things that come under that banner.
Speaker 1: And so when we when we learn to be with
Speaker 1: those parts of ourselves that have been hurt and we
Speaker 1: learn to not feel that will choose not to feel
Speaker 1: the guilt, the repetitive guilt, will then make more self
Speaker 1: honoring choices that places in a position to simply be,
Speaker 1: in the most simplest language, be better humans. That's it.
Speaker 1: I love that. I want to I want to now
Speaker 1: kind of go into a little bit of a different
Speaker 1: typic because you mentioned though a bit tis into this.
Speaker 1: You mentioned sex and sexuality. You have a book coming
Speaker 1: out in September. Can you tell us what that title
Speaker 1: isn't a little bit about it? Yeah, of course. So
Speaker 1: the title is tuned in and turned on bringing a
Speaker 1: sacred connection and sacred sexuality into intimacy, and the book
Speaker 1: essentially is about that. It is about sacred intimacy, it
Speaker 1: is about connection in relationship with self and with others,
Speaker 1: and it's about clearing the clutter of our past. It's
Speaker 1: about doing our inner work. It's about healing our past
Speaker 1: traumas so that we don't continue to bring those traumas
Speaker 1: into our sexuality, into our intimacy, into our adult relationships,
Speaker 1: so we can start to live fuller, more whole lives
Speaker 1: and not come from a sense of fracture because we
Speaker 1: haven't dealt with the stuff that's really hurt us, that
Speaker 1: we keep compressing and avoiding a numbing which I love
Speaker 1: this so much. I cannot wait to read your book
Speaker 1: because you know, I'll be forty like I said in August,
Speaker 1: and sex is I think for a lot of adults.
Speaker 1: I know I'm not the only one like sex and
Speaker 1: money obviously are too hot topics that it's difficult to
Speaker 1: talk about and I'm finally, like, finally, I think starting
Speaker 1: to be able to have these conversations consciously, um, because
Speaker 1: there's so much shame around There's so much shame around sex.
Speaker 1: I mean, as you talk about it being you know,
Speaker 1: connected to the father wound. For me, I have been
Speaker 1: very connected to my sexuality and I've been disconnected at
Speaker 1: the same time. It's like this push poll and to
Speaker 1: not be able to have these conversations, I mean, to
Speaker 1: bring consciousness to it. We first have to have these conversations.
Speaker 1: So how do you suggest, as you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think there's so much even shame around not being
Speaker 1: able to have the conversation as an adult. So it's
Speaker 1: like layer on layer of type of shame. How do
Speaker 1: we begin to approach this topic, um, consciously and with
Speaker 1: care and Greece, Yeah, well we live in your your right.
Speaker 1: We live in quite a repressed society, in in so
Speaker 1: many different ways, in quite a hypocritical society. And to me,
Speaker 1: hypocrisy is a natural part of progression and growth. Actually
Speaker 1: it's actually a healthy part of progression and growth. I
Speaker 1: think the quote unquote mistake that we make as a
Speaker 1: humanity we remain in hypocrisy too long without actually moving
Speaker 1: beyond it, and we never really learn and grow because
Speaker 1: you know, the hypocrisy pieces, there's an old idea or
Speaker 1: an old version of self, and then there's a new
Speaker 1: version of self that is an idea, and we're moving
Speaker 1: towards a new version of self, but the old version
Speaker 1: likes to being familiar patterns because it's safe and comfortable,
Speaker 1: and so there's this tug of war, and then it
Speaker 1: gets a little too difficult, we'll just go back to
Speaker 1: the old ways, and we just stay in the old ways. Right,
Speaker 1: So when it comes to sexuality, it begins with us
Speaker 1: again because what often happens and what I've found in
Speaker 1: my own life, I couldn't actually simply being conversation with
Speaker 1: myself around what my sexual desires were because I had
Speaker 1: so much shame and guilt around it. I couldn't just
Speaker 1: be honest with myself. I couldn't even just get a
Speaker 1: piece of paper and write down what am I sexually
Speaker 1: curious about? What are some of my sexual fantasies, my
Speaker 1: sexual dreams, because I was so judgmental. And so we
Speaker 1: can we can have the conversation around you know, what
Speaker 1: does it look like to have a conversation around sexuality
Speaker 1: with someone else. But the reality is when we again
Speaker 1: we were layers, right, we're peeling back those lasers. So
Speaker 1: much self judgment that we have. We can't have those
Speaker 1: conversations with ourselves that alone someone else. So we have
Speaker 1: to address the judgment. We need to address the judgment
Speaker 1: where we have about all areas of our lives, including
Speaker 1: our sexual expression, including our self perception of our self image.
Speaker 1: Do I like my hands? Do I like my genitals?
Speaker 1: Do I like my feet? Do I like the way
Speaker 1: my body looks, like the way my body moves like?
Speaker 1: There are so many questions that we avoid, or rather
Speaker 1: the truth that we avoid about ourselves, that we can't
Speaker 1: possibly have these conversations with us. That's why they don't
Speaker 1: really exist. That's that's the that's the truth of it.
Speaker 1: That's why these conversations don't exist in our reality because
Speaker 1: they're too difficult to have because of the judgment that's
Speaker 1: layered within everything we do when it comes to a
Speaker 1: sexualitly so now it becomes let me operate from old
Speaker 1: wounding cool. So an example of that is I want
Speaker 1: to make sure you like me, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: do the thing that I think you want me to
Speaker 1: do so that you will like me. So in a
Speaker 1: sexual sense, that is, I'm going to be the sexual pleaser.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make sure that you're fully pleased, and
Speaker 1: you know, you have an orgasm and you're in pleasure,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to sacrifice my pleasure like I wonder
Speaker 1: how long that can last for right, I wonder how
Speaker 1: real that is? And I have I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many women will come to me and say, I
Speaker 1: just want my man to orgasm or ejaculate. I just
Speaker 1: want I just want my man to quote unquote finish.
Speaker 1: I just want him to feel good as well. Because
Speaker 1: sometimes men will practice seaman retention or there's a bit
Speaker 1: of an epidemic in our society with men and impotency
Speaker 1: and inability because of the numbing through pornography. And that's
Speaker 1: another rabbit hole. But all of that and and so,
Speaker 1: and you know what that does to the male psyche,
Speaker 1: to or to mainstream pornography. I'm referring to to to
Speaker 1: all psyches. But again that that goal orientated approach pleasure
Speaker 1: can only exist when we have a completion that's a masculine,
Speaker 1: energetic nothing wrong with it. But when that becomes the
Speaker 1: focus constantly all the time, and presence isn't present, we
Speaker 1: feel disconnected, we feel unsatisfied, we don't feel sexually connected,
Speaker 1: and so we crave for more and we and this
Speaker 1: is what we do, This is what I've done. We
Speaker 1: look for it in all the wrong places in the
Speaker 1: place says that give us a quick fix because it's
Speaker 1: a heightened peak experience. Right for me, it was I
Speaker 1: would be visiting prostitutes or the massage parlors with central
Speaker 1: and sexual massage there as well, because it was a
Speaker 1: peak experience. It would satisfy me temporarily. It would feel
Speaker 1: this emotional void that I didn't know I was feeling.
Speaker 1: It would feel this physical void until the next time,
Speaker 1: which wasn't that far after, and I needed more of it,
Speaker 1: and it became a compulsion and an addiction, and I
Speaker 1: kept feeling more empty and more shame and more guilt.
Speaker 1: And the way I would alleviate that is with more pleasure.
Speaker 1: And I would do that with the ways that I
Speaker 1: knew how, which was adrenaline and food and sex and
Speaker 1: all the things that we always use. It's a dopamine,
Speaker 1: are dopamine. All of a sudden, it gets changed, our
Speaker 1: level of dopamine, our line gets heightened, and then it's
Speaker 1: more and more and more, and we'd never we're never
Speaker 1: satisfied well dopamines and anticipatory hormone and so we're constantly
Speaker 1: in the anticipation. You know, you notice when you you're
Speaker 1: thinking about it, maybe going on a trip or something
Speaker 1: even Um, you know when you're single, you know, you
Speaker 1: think about dating this guy and all that's exciting, and
Speaker 1: then you sort of the thing happens, like you go
Speaker 1: on the trip or you go on the diet, and
Speaker 1: it could be okay, but it's nowhere near as good
Speaker 1: as the anticipation because that's the motivated that's what gets
Speaker 1: us there, right. Um, But we get addicted to those
Speaker 1: cycles as well. Yeah, absolutely, I mean so interesting. There's
Speaker 1: so many ways I could go with us, I mean
Speaker 1: and in a long term relationship. Then when you when
Speaker 1: you say where we can become? I get addicted to
Speaker 1: these cycles? How do we and if we're if we're
Speaker 1: thinking about for constantly thinking about the finishing because I know,
Speaker 1: I mean I grew up I think a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of us grew up that way of that's
Speaker 1: the end goal is why we have sex. It's not
Speaker 1: The connection isn't the first thing that we're we're thinking about,
Speaker 1: although now I know for me it's like that's what
Speaker 1: I desire more than anything. And it's like, okay, if
Speaker 1: we're if we now know that about ourselves, if we're
Speaker 1: desiring more connection out of our sexual experience, how do
Speaker 1: we beget end to start connecting in that way? Like
Speaker 1: is there a is there something that you would recommend
Speaker 1: as like a build up to sex, or like how
Speaker 1: do how do we start that that deeper connection so
Speaker 1: that it's not just about you know, five minutes of pleasure. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We've got to make presents the priority presence with each other.
Speaker 1: And so if I go back to what I said
Speaker 1: a moment a few moments ago around exploring our own
Speaker 1: sexual fantasies and own sexual desires within ourselves first and
Speaker 1: being very active that that's a great starting point. Then
Speaker 1: an intimate long term relationship, we're looking at communication or
Speaker 1: creating safe spaces for each other. Firstly communication, So say
Speaker 1: spaces again, just to clarify, is an environment in a
Speaker 1: space of non judgment? Can you actively choose to not
Speaker 1: judge your partners? If your partner says to you, hey,
Speaker 1: I really love you and I actually really enjoy having
Speaker 1: sex with you, and you know, we've been together twenty
Speaker 1: years and I feel like I'd like to be with
Speaker 1: someone else. How do you feel about that? Can we
Speaker 1: not necessarily take that personally? Can we pause? And can
Speaker 1: we not be judgmental? And we don't have to say
Speaker 1: we don't have to say yes to that just because
Speaker 1: our partner says it. But can we put this is
Speaker 1: the work? But can we pause and can we feel
Speaker 1: into what's happening for us and what's happening for them?
Speaker 1: I use that as an example. It's not an extreme example.
Speaker 1: It's a bigger example. But I promise you if there
Speaker 1: was less judgment in our society, how often would that
Speaker 1: conversation take place? I would say more often than it
Speaker 1: isn't now right, but we can we can settle that.
Speaker 1: Let me yeah, So so there's there's there's a communication piece.
Speaker 1: Now we can use tools such as imago dialogue and
Speaker 1: non violent communication, a very simple, powerful tools for communicating
Speaker 1: and practicing that. The Gottman Institute is an amazing resource
Speaker 1: for longer term relationships UM and we can use these
Speaker 1: tools to start communicating with each other right, and then
Speaker 1: we have to allocate the time. We have to make
Speaker 1: the space for each other. That can be date nights,
Speaker 1: that can be at the end of every day, sitting
Speaker 1: with each other and sharing what transpired in the day
Speaker 1: for you, What were some of your prominent thoughts? What
Speaker 1: were something that happened that maybe you weren't too happy about?
Speaker 1: Can you share that with me? What does that look
Speaker 1: like for you? How can I support you to My
Speaker 1: wife and I have every month, I mean, we we
Speaker 1: connect on a daily base. We were very blessed. We
Speaker 1: both work from home, so we spend time with each other,
Speaker 1: of course, but every month we sit with each other
Speaker 1: and we we give an overview of what the month
Speaker 1: was like. We have a series of questions that we
Speaker 1: ask each other and connected and connective practices as well
Speaker 1: that help us connect to ourselves physically, emotionally and intellectually.
Speaker 1: And we do that check in every month, and then
Speaker 1: we have weekly check ins as well. But we make
Speaker 1: the time and the space for otherwise, Honestly, it won't
Speaker 1: get done. Like I am a human being, I'm a
Speaker 1: man on a mission in this life. And I've known
Speaker 1: that since I was a little kid. I was six
Speaker 1: seven years old. I wanted to be a United Nations
Speaker 1: Secretary General. And again, yeah, it's awesome. And it came
Speaker 1: from pain, my own pain. Like I thought, I would
Speaker 1: watch National Geographic and I would watch TV with my
Speaker 1: grand parents, and you know, TV for me was actually
Speaker 1: just a side note, was a really big um. It
Speaker 1: was a savior watching movies and it was going to escape,
Speaker 1: you know, to escape from my reality. And it was
Speaker 1: really beautiful for me. And I love that. UM. And
Speaker 1: I'm a movie buff today because of that. I'm going
Speaker 1: to be careful it doesn't become an addiction to like
Speaker 1: I can. I'm out on it. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's making that time with each other. Um. And And
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm a man on a big mission
Speaker 1: in this life. And so if I don't make the
Speaker 1: time to be with my my wife and my family, UM,
Speaker 1: it won't happen because my time gets filled up very
Speaker 1: very quickly with other things that are not equally as
Speaker 1: important but deeply important to me as well. So we
Speaker 1: have to make the time so safe spaces, non judgmental,
Speaker 1: safe spaces. I want to really simplify for the audience,
Speaker 1: right could practice effective communication, make that a priority, and
Speaker 1: create space to be with each other before you're going
Speaker 1: to even It's like before we can even run, we
Speaker 1: have to learn how to balance on our bellies. Rather,
Speaker 1: there are so many stages and steps that need to
Speaker 1: happen before we get to that end thing. And if
Speaker 1: the end thing here is being opened in our communication
Speaker 1: around sexuality, we've got to learn how to communicate effectively,
Speaker 1: be non judgmental with each other, and be in a routine,
Speaker 1: in a habit, an established habit of spending intimate time
Speaker 1: with each other. Then the more risk a conversations around
Speaker 1: sexuality can take place, because we can't just go from oh,
Speaker 1: we've been together for ten years and three kids, and
Speaker 1: you know we work twelve hours a day each and
Speaker 1: maybe we get a little time on the weekend together
Speaker 1: and now we're going to have a conversation around our
Speaker 1: sexuality and our sexual fantasies. And does that happened the way? Yeah? No,
Speaker 1: I mean I have Look, I have a whole routine
Speaker 1: of taking care of myself, and I schedule everything into
Speaker 1: my life, and I schedule my work, and um, I
Speaker 1: remember one day when I realized, like I have to
Speaker 1: schedule Eddie and I have to schedule in time for
Speaker 1: one another, Like this just has to happen, and it
Speaker 1: might not sound sexy at all, but if it's there,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's something. Number one I look forward
Speaker 1: to it, and number two like, it's it's there. Else
Speaker 1: we will get sidetracked on a gazillion other things. And
Speaker 1: I think that is super key because you you have
Speaker 1: to have to create that. Um. Yeah, No, I still
Speaker 1: look forward to reading your book on all of this
Speaker 1: because it's it's definitely you know something that I know,
Speaker 1: my own ideas of sexuality and and sex and what
Speaker 1: I want from my life and how I want to
Speaker 1: connect is shifting. There's such an old view and I think,
Speaker 1: I know I'm not the only one. I think it's
Speaker 1: shifting in our our society throughout the world and how
Speaker 1: we view that connection. I one thing I know you
Speaker 1: talk about a lot is sacred connection. I just would
Speaker 1: love for you to to maybe define that a little bit.
Speaker 1: What is that? And that is something stuff is going
Speaker 1: to answer right after this brief break, Welcome back, my friends, staff.
Speaker 1: It was just about to break down his definition of
Speaker 1: a sacred romantic connection. Let me actually just I'm going
Speaker 1: to just instruitively follow that thread for a moment with
Speaker 1: respect of sacred connection and so because there are many
Speaker 1: different ways that I can elaborate on it, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure others would as well. Um, but let me speak
Speaker 1: to grief. You know, this is Grief is so sacred, man,
Speaker 1: It's so it's so important that we when we talk
Speaker 1: about the father wound, we need to grieve the father
Speaker 1: we never had, need to grieve the safety we never experienced.
Speaker 1: We can't experience open, vulnerable sacredness in connection without releasing
Speaker 1: our grief. That takes up so much psychic and emotional
Speaker 1: and spiritual and sexual space in our being. Like we
Speaker 1: have to grieve to be able to have open intimate
Speaker 1: communion with others. Grief for me is and I'll go
Speaker 1: deep into grief into into this book as well, because
Speaker 1: it's such an important part of psycrid sexuality and psycrid intimacy.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, okay, So I'll go down this path with
Speaker 1: you for a moment, because grief is really interesting. I
Speaker 1: actually this morning, before we got on here, I could
Speaker 1: feel so much sadness and grief in my body. I
Speaker 1: went upstairs and I started to move and make sound
Speaker 1: and just like bawl my eyes out. And it's so
Speaker 1: interesting because there's grief has come up a lot of
Speaker 1: times with me during sex. I will start crying and
Speaker 1: expressing that and then and I've had to explain it
Speaker 1: to my husband sometimes of like this is there's such
Speaker 1: a um, it's so vulnerable. It's such a vulnerable time.
Speaker 1: I was actually just talking about how being on stage
Speaker 1: is like having sex for me sometimes because I'm so
Speaker 1: open that it becomes this whole experience and with that
Speaker 1: can come this deeply embedded grief that I have yet
Speaker 1: touched upon. And I agree with you. I think that's
Speaker 1: such a beautiful piece um that can come out when
Speaker 1: we are that vulnerable, and sex is one of those
Speaker 1: places where when you are that open um, that grief
Speaker 1: can can show itself. And I'm I just love that
Speaker 1: you brought that up because I've literally been in it
Speaker 1: all morning in a beautiful way of like, okay, so
Speaker 1: this is here, I'm going to allow it to come up.
Speaker 1: But that's a conversation I've actually had to have with
Speaker 1: Eddie through my experience with him, because it's it does
Speaker 1: show itself often and there is a lot of grief
Speaker 1: around what I and I'm sure a lot of people
Speaker 1: did not experience in childhood. Yeah, So firstly, thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing that. That's that's really deep, and you're not
Speaker 1: alone in that. Me and my wife and I have
Speaker 1: experienced that. I've experienced that in previous relationships. We have
Speaker 1: experienced that in previous relationships. I mean we meaning me
Speaker 1: and my previous partnersan my wife and I as well.
Speaker 1: And I want to speak to that's a really important thing.
Speaker 1: And this is I want to commend both you and
Speaker 1: Eddie because for you to be able to actually for
Speaker 1: your body to be able to have that release in
Speaker 1: such a vulnerable state of expression, it means that your
Speaker 1: nervous system feels safe enough in his presence to have
Speaker 1: that release. I get that sometimes you have to explain
Speaker 1: certain things because it can be very confronting for all
Speaker 1: parties involved. But the fact that you can do that,
Speaker 1: that your body will naturally allow itself to go there,
Speaker 1: not repress that and hold back, that is a testament
Speaker 1: to the dynamic of your relationship as well. There's a
Speaker 1: depth there that you've reached, whether you intellectually or you
Speaker 1: know cognitively understand and know that, and I'm hope, hopefully
Speaker 1: what i'm I'm my intention here is to bring more
Speaker 1: light to that, because if you can recognize that I
Speaker 1: see life as a video game, you won't be able
Speaker 1: to progress to the next level unless the algorithm of
Speaker 1: the video game has recognized that you've done all the things,
Speaker 1: that you've killed the big bad person, and you've accumulated
Speaker 1: all the web and you've done all the things to
Speaker 1: progress to the next level. If you acknowledge that you
Speaker 1: actually have reached a depth that was unknown previously to you,
Speaker 1: it opens up the door for more depth, which can
Speaker 1: equally be as scary but also equally as beautiful and exciting.
Speaker 1: And so I just really commend you for a being honest,
Speaker 1: be having that relationship where you can share in that
Speaker 1: way with your your partner. That's very aspirational and inspirational
Speaker 1: for many and it's very possible for all of us.
Speaker 1: I want to be super clear on that. It's not
Speaker 1: like this this oh you have to be elite to
Speaker 1: reach that point. No, you just need to do your
Speaker 1: inner work and be willing to get uncomfortable and be
Speaker 1: willing to be real with yourself as a starting point.
Speaker 1: And what that opens up in your life. Is tremendous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. I love that you just went there. I
Speaker 1: totally didn't expect that at all, um, But I think
Speaker 1: for me, I mean, there's there there in lays the sacred.
Speaker 1: You know that that is the where all is welcome,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think that is I think for me,
Speaker 1: I know with my relationship with my husband, Um, it's
Speaker 1: the first space where I've felt that all of me
Speaker 1: is welcome and he sees he sees things or has
Speaker 1: seen things in the past and known things about me
Speaker 1: that I have been unwilling to look at. I didn't
Speaker 1: know about myself, and I would express something to him
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, yeah, of course, like he's seen
Speaker 1: it all along. But it's just like a new epiphany
Speaker 1: to me. So um yeah, I think that that is
Speaker 1: such a key piece. And I I, like I said,
Speaker 1: I look forward to reading your book. I would love
Speaker 1: to have you back on to discuss all things book
Speaker 1: when you're when you are when it comes out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because there's so many more places I could go with you. Um.
Speaker 1: I constantly asked my um my guest about music, of course,
Speaker 1: because it's my it's my deep love and passion, and
Speaker 1: I um, I would love to know what your holy
Speaker 1: five are. These can be I have songs from your
Speaker 1: whole life that you love, or like five songs you're
Speaker 1: really into right now, and just share away. Okay, Whenever
Speaker 1: anyone asked me about give me a top three or
Speaker 1: top one or top five, top five, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you seven or something. Anyway, I went to my
Speaker 1: best to just be five, and I'm going to caveat
Speaker 1: and say, here's a few bonuses. Okay, So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. I love orchestral music, and I love movies.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, it's very dear to me for
Speaker 1: so many reasons. Right, it was a savior at some level.
Speaker 1: And so there's certain music associated with certain motion pictures
Speaker 1: that touch me, touch the spectrum of my humanity in
Speaker 1: such deep ways that I can't even I can't verbalize.
Speaker 1: I just can't. And so I want, I want to
Speaker 1: share some of that with you, right And I'm sure
Speaker 1: you'll be familiar with most, if not all of them,
Speaker 1: at least most of them. So, in no particular order,
Speaker 1: have you seen the movie Cloud Atlas? No, I have not.
Speaker 1: Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, the end title from Tom tick
Speaker 1: War or tyke War Tom Tykwer. He's a combining as
Speaker 1: a composer. It's about seven and a half minutes. It
Speaker 1: is stunning. Oh wow, I have to go watch. It
Speaker 1: just brings up something in me that is I just
Speaker 1: can't explain it. And without the words, my imagination just
Speaker 1: goes even more wild. Yeah. I was just talking about
Speaker 1: this the other day with someone about how art we're
Speaker 1: constantly projecting upon our like our own our own imagination.
Speaker 1: And someone asked me about my new album like thinking
Speaker 1: because it was called God's Work, that it was this
Speaker 1: Christian record, and I go, sure it is, if that's
Speaker 1: what you want it to be. Or it is so
Speaker 1: subjective in that way, and we're always projecting, which I
Speaker 1: love and yes, and when there are no words and
Speaker 1: it's just full on triggering your own emotional experience, it's
Speaker 1: so cool. I love that. Yeah, Um, have you seen
Speaker 1: it's an older one by Centennial Man. Yes, it's been
Speaker 1: a while though, it's been a while. Robin Williams. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Gift of Mortality, that's the song. And I look
Speaker 1: at the movie and I look what it's about, and
Speaker 1: it's about it's asking the question what does it mean
Speaker 1: to be human? And it's man's journey. Who's a robot
Speaker 1: who develops consciousness or taps into consciousness and then goes
Speaker 1: on this journey to be humans so that he can
Speaker 1: be with the love of his life and he wants
Speaker 1: to be recognized, validation by the world counsel that he's
Speaker 1: human even though he wasn't quite unquite born or created
Speaker 1: as it's a beautiful story. Yeah, I remember that now.
Speaker 1: It is beautiful because you know you're a musician, and
Speaker 1: you I don't have to assume. I know you have
Speaker 1: an amazing ear, and you would sense layers of music
Speaker 1: and sound far different and deeper than I. I would
Speaker 1: love you know, if you just put a set of
Speaker 1: you know, noise canceling headphones on and and sat in
Speaker 1: some darkness and just listen to me. We aren't even
Speaker 1: watching the movies. I'm wondering what would come up for you. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure so much. I mean music for me, Like
Speaker 1: that's why I if I want to go cry, I
Speaker 1: just know I need to go put on a something
Speaker 1: that something that has a certain tone or feeling to
Speaker 1: it that it's just instant. So I totally um have
Speaker 1: you seen Dragon Heart? Nope, I haven't. Sean older one
Speaker 1: again Sean Connery. Um, think it's in the nineties. Sean
Speaker 1: Connery plays a dragon and the song is to the
Speaker 1: Stars Randy Elderman and it's man, I'm just talking about this.
Speaker 1: I can feel tears coming because this. I was very
Speaker 1: close with my grandparents, particularly very close with my grandfather,
Speaker 1: my maternal but my maternal grandfather, and we would watch
Speaker 1: movies together a lot, and this is one of the
Speaker 1: ones that we watched. And this dragon gives up his
Speaker 1: life for a human that he develops a friendship with
Speaker 1: that was trying to kill him. And the story is simple,
Speaker 1: but there's so much depth and layers to it, and
Speaker 1: he begins to represent the epitome of what is what
Speaker 1: what humanity could be. Yet he's an animal, he's a
Speaker 1: quote unquote beast right. It's a beautiful story. I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he just made me so set Um. Are you familiar
Speaker 1: with Paul Cardell. I'm not it. I love it. You're
Speaker 1: introducing me to all those new people in movies. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well this is actually this one isn't from the movie,
Speaker 1: but m Paul Cardell is an amazing amazing musician. I
Speaker 1: mean he doesn't sing m he just composes music. And
Speaker 1: there's two songs there if group one's Gracie's theme a
Speaker 1: New Life, and both are extraordinary. Just ex short car
Speaker 1: Um and I've got I've Got a couple more. I
Speaker 1: think that's more than fun. But if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: um Riddles of Steel Riders of Doom by Basil Polydus.
Speaker 1: That's a great title. Yeah. Yeah, well this one's from
Speaker 1: Coda and the Barbarian. Okay, yeah, so this is how
Speaker 1: old movie. This is about warrior essence, warrior king essence,
Speaker 1: very powerful, very powerful. Then there's the I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: seen Forrest Gump. Oh yes, yes, yes, the music, just
Speaker 1: the themes. Yeah, yeah, that brings in the best of ways. Yes,
Speaker 1: that movie. That's probably one of my favorite movies, like
Speaker 1: top five of all times. It's brilliant. And there are
Speaker 1: so many other movies that Awkward Hands Zimmer is just
Speaker 1: hands down phenomenal. I mean there's no yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: you know, the the um Last Samurai Inception. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many other motion pictures that have really moved
Speaker 1: me philosophically and emotionally. Um and Hand Zimm has been
Speaker 1: a part of it. I mean hand Zimmer is brilliant.
Speaker 1: He really, he really. I love this. You took me
Speaker 1: down a whole another path of like orchestral and moved
Speaker 1: you from that space. Um. It's interesting. I've been I
Speaker 1: was mentioning earlier that I went upstairs and just made sound. Um,
Speaker 1: you know for someone who's been singing my whole life,
Speaker 1: like actually like voicing sound is new to me, and
Speaker 1: I've been I'll sit with myself and sing, I'll start
Speaker 1: making melodies without words and just noises, and it's been
Speaker 1: so freeing because I feel like sometimes words like I
Speaker 1: feel like they complicate things and they also kind of
Speaker 1: cut things off. They can box things into where you
Speaker 1: like sometimes I feel like I have expression, but the
Speaker 1: words that can't hold it. And I love that when
Speaker 1: you when you think of orchestral music and like you said,
Speaker 1: the way that you can project your own imagery and
Speaker 1: emotion upon what's there, it's so beautiful. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for sharing that, because I can totally understand
Speaker 1: where you're coming from. You use a musician, really get this.
Speaker 1: It's so crucial breath, sound and movement, right you mentioned
Speaker 1: you know you went upstairs earlier, and you moved and
Speaker 1: you sounded, and there's sometimes it's deliberate breathing, but there's
Speaker 1: obviously definitely breathing unintentional, but it's in there either way.
Speaker 1: But deliberate breath, sound and movement is the is the
Speaker 1: foundation the practice of semantic healing. And we don't need
Speaker 1: to understand what's happening. But if you give yourself that,
Speaker 1: that's the release, that's the healing. We don't. We're so
Speaker 1: cognitive that we try to understand everything and we think
Speaker 1: that we will heal when we understand. Understanding is important,
Speaker 1: but it's often an after effect. It has to be
Speaker 1: in the body first. So you going and sounding and
Speaker 1: breathing and moving. From my perspective, you're doing the thing.
Speaker 1: You're you're healing yourself at deep levels. Thank you. That's
Speaker 1: a new thing for me because i've you know, like
Speaker 1: everybody like you're saying, I think that if I understand it,
Speaker 1: then I can you know, I can, I can work
Speaker 1: it out, and it's like, no, I know. It's so
Speaker 1: easy for me to go into story and the new
Speaker 1: thing for me is like, okay, no, story, what does
Speaker 1: this feel like? How can I express it and so yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on your new family, your new baby. Yes, and
Speaker 1: congrats on your new book. I look forward to reading it,
Speaker 1: and I just really appreciate you joining us today. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. That's awesome, Thank you so much. Thank you,
Speaker 1: And that, my friends, ends this marathon links Holy Human episode.
Speaker 1: I could have talked to him all day long, and
Speaker 1: I look forward to reconnecting with Stephanos in the future.
Speaker 1: So please leave any suggestions or thoughts you'd like to
Speaker 1: share wherever you're listening now, and share with anyone in
Speaker 1: your life you think would benefit from this episode. We
Speaker 1: truly do love hearing from you, and on our next
Speaker 1: Holy Human, you'll join me for an illuminating discussion with
Speaker 1: best selling author Gabby Bernstein, a self described spirit junkie
Speaker 1: and an undeniably authentic, inspirational human being. I really took
Speaker 1: so much away from our conversation. It was incredibly vulnerable.
Speaker 1: So I hope, I mean, what's not on this podcast,
Speaker 1: So I hope you will join us for another vulnerable
Speaker 1: conversation here on Holy Human. So until next time, please
Speaker 1: take care of yourself, take care of one another, and
Speaker 1: I look forward to seeing you soon. I love you.
Speaker 1: Holy Human with Me Leanne Rhymes is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. You'll find Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes
Speaker 1: on the I Heart app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get the podcasts that matter most to you.