Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 1: And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
Speaker 1: the conversation. It's time to question everything. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of us walk through life believing that we know
Speaker 1: who we are. We're shaped by our experiences and our
Speaker 1: roots and the people who shaped us right. But if
Speaker 1: we stop and look closely, so much of what we
Speaker 1: call our identity was formed before we even had the
Speaker 1: language to question it. Those this could be good and
Speaker 1: bad things. I'm too much, I'm not smart enough, I'll
Speaker 1: always be left. I'm a person who takes care, who
Speaker 1: gets stuff done, who is self reliant. It's the things
Speaker 1: that we believe about ourselves. Today's guest is best selling
Speaker 1: author and therapist Katherine Woodward Thomas. If you don't already
Speaker 1: know her name, you most definitely know her work. She's
Speaker 1: the author of Calling in the One which is lauded
Speaker 1: as helping millions of people call in their partner. And then,
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, when Gwyneth Paltrow popularized Catherine's term conscious
Speaker 1: uncoupling during her breakup with Chris Martin, everything in Catherine's
Speaker 1: world exploded. Now back then, Catherine who's asking us to
Speaker 1: reframe how we manage the end of our relationships with others.
Speaker 1: But today she's inviting us to re examine our relationship
Speaker 1: with ourselves. Her brand new book is called What's True
Speaker 1: About You? Seven Steps to move beyond your painful past
Speaker 1: and manifest your brightest future. The title alone is a provocation,
Speaker 1: because here's what Catherine wants you to hear. Those stories
Speaker 1: running on loop in the back of your mind, that
Speaker 1: I'm not good enough, I'm too much, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be left. Those are not facts. They're old beliefs, beliefs
Speaker 1: that were handed to us often before we could push back.
Speaker 1: And the really unsettling part, most of us aren't just
Speaker 1: living inside those stories, were actively and unconsciously recreating them.
Speaker 2: We're not just having hard time getting over the false
Speaker 2: beliefs because of what happened thirty years ago, Because of
Speaker 2: what happened thirty minutes ago. Beliefs were formed in relationship.
Speaker 2: That's why we have to transform them in relationship.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of not thinking about memories or
Speaker 1: stories I've told myself as what happened to me, but
Speaker 1: instead what am I continuing to create? So today we're
Speaker 1: talking about where these stories come from, how they show
Speaker 1: up in our lives and our relationships, and what it
Speaker 1: actually takes to interrupt them. Oh and we're also talking about.
Speaker 2: This The game is not in manifestation is not to
Speaker 2: get what you say you want. One is to become
Speaker 2: who you would need to be to manifest and sustain it.
Speaker 1: Catherine is an expert in calling in, So the big
Speaker 1: question we're circling today is a simple but important one.
Speaker 1: What am I assuming is true that might not be?
Speaker 1: And what am I calling in because of it? It's
Speaker 1: time to question everything With Catherine Woodward Thomas. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about your book. It's called What's True About You?
Speaker 1: And I love questions so much, and I think that's
Speaker 1: such a deceptively simple question. How do you, Catherine, answer
Speaker 1: today versus ten years ago.
Speaker 2: About what's true about you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I think ten years ago I was
Speaker 2: still kind of under the cloud of the false belief
Speaker 2: that I created about myself and really in relationship to
Speaker 2: the many things that I went through when I was
Speaker 2: really young and just forming a sense of self. You know,
Speaker 2: when you're in the womb to maybe seven, you're kind
Speaker 2: of a nebulous receptivity like who am I? And where
Speaker 2: do I fit into this world? And who am I
Speaker 2: for others? And who are they for me? So you're
Speaker 2: trying to figure out identity and a lot of these
Speaker 2: things lodged as and I'm alone, or I'm not lovable,
Speaker 2: or I'm not good enough. So I really struggled with
Speaker 2: you I'm not good enough, which I think was a
Speaker 2: glass ceiling on being able to write this book for
Speaker 2: many years because the material that was coming through me
Speaker 2: and that I was seeing as I was working with
Speaker 2: my students was so profound, really kind of challenging of
Speaker 2: the current status quo of how we're all engaging personal
Speaker 2: development work where we're looking backwards at nausea and we
Speaker 2: every eye and cross every tea on how we became
Speaker 2: who we are and why we are this way, which
Speaker 2: doesn't really access the power to have the breakthrough. So
Speaker 2: I think where I am now is that we're all imperfect,
Speaker 2: we're all growing together, and we all have value that
Speaker 2: we're bringing to the table. There's no question about whether
Speaker 2: I'm good enough or not good enough. This is the
Speaker 2: material that's wanting to come through, and it's my gift
Speaker 2: to share, and I'm so grateful to do it. So
Speaker 2: i don't feel stopped any longer because I'm standing in
Speaker 2: the truth of my value, my inherent worthiness. There's nothing
Speaker 2: to prove, and the power, the agency that I have
Speaker 2: to get the message out is unencumbered.
Speaker 1: Now I want to dig deeper into that word identity
Speaker 1: that you used, because a lot of self help tells
Speaker 1: us to be ourselves, to be our most authentic selves,
Speaker 1: and your work suggests something a lot deeper and actually different,
Speaker 1: that we often don't know who that self is. So
Speaker 1: when did you realize that identity is something that we
Speaker 1: can consciously create?
Speaker 2: Oh, you know, you can trace that back all the
Speaker 2: way to calling in the one. The first edition back
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four called it your false Love Identity,
Speaker 2: and basically the false love identity is also in the
Speaker 2: new work called Your Source Fracture Story, The Original Break
Speaker 2: and Belonging, or the separation where you realized maybe you
Speaker 2: weren't up to par in some way. Twenty two of
Speaker 2: them that I've distinguished is the most common ones that
Speaker 2: most of us struggle with. And I realized that if
Speaker 2: you got what we call triggered pointed you they didn't
Speaker 2: call you back, or you got ghosted, or you know,
Speaker 2: start talking to your friend instead of you at the
Speaker 2: bar or whatever was going on, it dropped down into
Speaker 2: these Oh I'm not you know, sin enough, I'm not
Speaker 2: pretty enough, I'm not rich enough, I'm somehow you know,
Speaker 2: not lovable or not wanted. People don't want me. So
Speaker 2: we have these stories that are kind of well worn sweaters,
Speaker 2: you know, our default place. They're fixed self, they're a
Speaker 2: younger self. We're trying to scratch that itch to get
Speaker 2: it out of the space because we know intuitively that
Speaker 2: when I am emotionally centered in that story, I'm going
Speaker 2: to start doing things like under presenting myself. I'm going
Speaker 2: to disappear myself self, abandoning to people please so that
Speaker 2: person doesn't leave me. I'm going to start auditioning for
Speaker 2: the part of girlfriend. All of these things that covertly
Speaker 2: communicate to others that we are less valuable than them
Speaker 2: and really not standing in the center of our power.
Speaker 2: So in Calling in the One, I was talking about
Speaker 2: how to shift centers so that you can actually not
Speaker 2: source how you're showing up from that old center. One
Speaker 2: of the radical ideas in the book. And I'm a
Speaker 2: psychotherapist and have been training people for years, and I'm
Speaker 2: a little at odds with my profession. Or let's say,
Speaker 2: I have a little cattle prod to go at a
Speaker 2: particular direction that we've not yet gone, because we've gotten
Speaker 2: really good at going backwards to heal our lives, whereas
Speaker 2: in on our bodies, how to regulate ourselves, you know,
Speaker 2: the meaning that we understand it's a younger self, it's
Speaker 2: a child's self. So we've been floating around those conversations
Speaker 2: for a couple of decades. John Bradshaw with his Inner
Speaker 2: Child work, which is great back in the eighties and stuff.
Speaker 2: But what we don't realize is that the future that
Speaker 2: we're living into says as much about what's motivating us
Speaker 2: to show up the way we're showing up today in
Speaker 2: this moment, whether that be a negative future or a
Speaker 2: positive future. The positive future, I'm going to be an
Speaker 2: award winning actor. The negative future, I'm going to be
Speaker 2: an out of work actor who's always struggling in waiting tables. Right,
Speaker 2: So whatever future we're kind of living into or avoiding
Speaker 2: is informing how we're showing up today as much or
Speaker 2: more so than our past.
Speaker 1: You've said so many interesting things that I want to
Speaker 1: touch on a few that I have questions about. The
Speaker 1: first is, at the beginning of your answer to my
Speaker 1: original question, you said something about these twenty two stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, source fracture stories.
Speaker 1: You say that understanding it can help us wake up
Speaker 1: to a new or truer sense of who we are.
Speaker 1: Almost at the beginning of your book, this is a
Speaker 1: big part of the book. How do you think we
Speaker 1: honor those experiences? Some of them I think are probably
Speaker 1: deep in childhood, as you're mentioning, they are very old
Speaker 1: stories without letting them define us. And what does that
Speaker 1: look like in practice? And I'll give you an example
Speaker 1: when you shared that, My original thought was two big
Speaker 1: wounds I had from childhood. One is in eighth grade,
Speaker 1: right before high school. I went to a really large
Speaker 1: high school, and the night before high school, my best
Speaker 1: friend for ten years called me and said, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be your friend tomorrow, like basically pretend you
Speaker 1: don't know me when we go to high school. And
Speaker 1: I was wrecked. And then I had another one. And
Speaker 1: I think in like fifth or sixth grade, my mom,
Speaker 1: I think a gift that she gave me. She always said,
Speaker 1: go for everything you want, And so I asked a
Speaker 1: boy out and he said no, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be your boyfriend or something in fifth or sixth grade.
Speaker 1: And those are two stories that I think I've moved
Speaker 1: on from. But if you were to ask me a question,
Speaker 1: I could very easily point back to. So using those
Speaker 1: just as an example to harness for people who are listening,
Speaker 1: how do we honor that and then let it go?
Speaker 2: So the book is written like in a seven step
Speaker 2: process so that it's very accessible to people. You can
Speaker 2: actually do it on yourself as you're asking, like how
Speaker 2: do I actually do that? Not just an idea about that,
Speaker 2: and what are the keys to being able to transform
Speaker 2: our lives for good and really graduate from codependence or
Speaker 2: toxic dynamics or whatever the patterns are under earning that
Speaker 2: goes on forever. You know, we want to graduate, We
Speaker 2: want to start to live the lives that we feel
Speaker 2: that we intuitively came here to live, and the key
Speaker 2: to doing that is going to be in our relationship
Speaker 2: with ourselves. And what I mean by that is being
Speaker 2: able to differentiate that younger self, and that probably lodged
Speaker 2: some form of the sources facture story. I'm not wanted
Speaker 2: other people reject me. I can't really count on knowing
Speaker 2: what my place is in the world. There's a tentativeness
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're so right that second part. I do feel deeply.
Speaker 2: Right, like it could just disappear at any moment. So
Speaker 2: always having to be vigilant to kind of assert myself
Speaker 2: here because I have to keep my place here. That's
Speaker 2: the ways of relating. Now. I'm going to come back
Speaker 2: to how you create that relationship with yourself. But there's
Speaker 2: another piece of this, which is how are we the
Speaker 2: source of the ongoing evidence. We're not just having hard
Speaker 2: time getting over the false beliefs because of what happened
Speaker 2: thirty years ago. It's because of what happened thirty minutes ago.
Speaker 2: What we don't yet see collectively is how did I
Speaker 2: recreate that? Because it feels like something sitting on your
Speaker 2: stars keeps happening again. God made the mountains. God made
Speaker 2: the sun, God made me to be unwanted, and I
Speaker 2: have to work extra hard to always find my place
Speaker 2: in the world. But if you're working extra hard, what
Speaker 2: that means is, now, this isn't you. Because I'm not
Speaker 2: hanging out with you enough to know you tend to
Speaker 2: be a little bit overly assertive and a little pushy sometimes,
Speaker 2: which makes then people back up from you, which registers
Speaker 2: as more rejection.
Speaker 1: Interesting, so the overcorrection actually creates more of the issue.
Speaker 2: Yes, it perpetuates it. So that's one of the things
Speaker 2: that we're not dealing with yet in psychotherapy. Am I
Speaker 2: creating this in my relationship with myself? With others and
Speaker 2: even with life? So with yourself? Going back to how
Speaker 2: do you create this relationship? First of all, I like questions.
Speaker 2: So one of the first questions I might do if
Speaker 2: I notice the collapse, and it could be a collapse
Speaker 2: into anxiety, a collapse into depression, just a contraction away
Speaker 2: from life. I'm starting to feel deflated. You intervene and
Speaker 2: you say to yourself, sweetheart, what are you assuming is true?
Speaker 2: You talk to yourself in the third person. Studies are
Speaker 2: showing that really helps us. You so sweetheart, and some
Speaker 2: people can't say sweetheart, So you have a pet name.
Speaker 2: Just be kind, soft and kind to yourself. And you say,
Speaker 2: you know, Catherine, honey, what are you assuming is true
Speaker 2: right now? Well, I'm assuming that they don't want what
Speaker 2: I have to offer, or I'm assuming I'm always going
Speaker 2: to be alone, or I'm assuming that I'll never amount
Speaker 2: to anything in life, you know, whatever the assumption is.
Speaker 2: And then you say how old are you?
Speaker 1: Oh? Interesting, because the part of what you shared, I
Speaker 1: don't know that I don't feel wanted, but I definitely
Speaker 1: feel vigilant that I'm thinking about how old is that?
Speaker 1: And it's almost like five years old? It's very old.
Speaker 2: There you go, it's just right there. She's really young.
Speaker 2: So then you know you as the adult, grand journey
Speaker 2: of expansion and growth, the you that would be a
Speaker 2: good friend to a best friend having a bad day
Speaker 2: or to a child that needed your solace. We turned
Speaker 2: towards that little five year old and say, sweetheart, you're
Speaker 2: fine just the way you are. I want you just
Speaker 2: as you are. I love you. You don't have to
Speaker 2: try so hard. It's already done. You've already shown your
Speaker 2: worth and your value and people do want you, So
Speaker 2: you start speaking truth to the trauma. Most of us
Speaker 2: when we feel something like the pan out, they're going
Speaker 2: to leave and I'm not going to be okay, and
Speaker 2: then we go after that we identify with the feelings.
Speaker 2: We just buy into it like it's true. We don't
Speaker 2: question it. So one of the things the book does
Speaker 2: is it's teaching us how to press the pause button
Speaker 2: and say, I think that's old trauma. I don't think
Speaker 2: that's truth. What's actually true. Well, what's actually true about
Speaker 2: you is that you have a very prominent place in
Speaker 2: the community. I mean, out of all the podcasts we've
Speaker 2: been doing, you know, there's a few that when they
Speaker 2: came in as an invitation, we went yay, and yours was.
Speaker 1: One of them. Thank you Catherine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like we were like, wow, great, oh we're going
Speaker 2: to get to talk to Danielle. How exciting is that? Right?
Speaker 2: So that's who you really are, that's the reality of it.
Speaker 2: So you start to shift centers into that, and then
Speaker 2: you walk into the room with more calm, more command.
Speaker 2: You don't have to push your agenda. People are just
Speaker 2: responding to energy. So if we're pushing our agenda, they
Speaker 2: will back up a little bit. They will put up
Speaker 2: some things, so you're going to get that resistance, but
Speaker 2: that then registers and is interpreted as further proof of
Speaker 2: the I'm not wanted.
Speaker 1: May I ask you what story comes up for you?
Speaker 1: Are you willing to share anything? Was there a story
Speaker 1: that came up for you that made you think of
Speaker 1: these twenty two.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it all started with, you know, loving relationships,
Speaker 2: because that's where my root is. And I'm a marriage
Speaker 2: and family therapist. That's all about relationship with me, and
Speaker 2: I always felt inferior to people. I had a mom
Speaker 2: who somehow she came out of the wound looking perfect.
Speaker 2: Everything was just proportionately perfect on my mom, and even
Speaker 2: to this day, she's in her late eighties and people
Speaker 2: the first thing they say is, oh my gosh, you're
Speaker 2: so beautiful. Wow, it's amazing. So she was gifted with
Speaker 2: beauty and thinness and stuff. But I kind of took
Speaker 2: after my dad. And this is back in the sixties
Speaker 2: and seventies when you're supposed to be like twiggy and
Speaker 2: my thighs are getting big, and she's given me sideways
Speaker 2: glances and I just kind of collapsed into I'm inferior,
Speaker 2: I'm not good enough. There was a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's still a lot of pressure
Speaker 2: on women to look a certain way and that equals
Speaker 2: our value and stuff, and we're making progress there, but
Speaker 2: it was out of control back in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 2: So I really lodged this I'm inferior, and it then
Speaker 2: informed a lot of the ways that I was relating
Speaker 2: were I would overgive all the time to try and
Speaker 2: prove my value. I'd overfunction for people, I'd bid off
Speaker 2: more than I can chew because it never felt like
Speaker 2: I was doing enough to prove my value. And basically
Speaker 2: I formed this personality where I was a little bit
Speaker 2: subservient to people, like I would find people to idealize
Speaker 2: and then be their second. And I also had an
Speaker 2: eyeb alone, so it was kind of a combination of
Speaker 2: those two things. But people say I'm inferior, They're going
Speaker 2: to leave me alone. The I'm alone is about, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to self abandon I'm going to do anything
Speaker 2: to make sure you don't leave me. So basically I'm
Speaker 2: leaving myself alone all the time because I'm more preoccupied
Speaker 2: with how other people think and feel and what they need.
Speaker 2: I get out of touch with myself and I start
Speaker 2: creating relationships where there's really only one person in the
Speaker 2: room because I'm not really even there. I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to secure that they're not going to leave me, right,
Speaker 2: So our whole personalities kind of form around as compensations.
Speaker 2: There's a thing in psychology now we're you know, we
Speaker 2: lean towards compassions. We say, oh, weren't you clever to
Speaker 2: figure out you know, how to do that when you
Speaker 2: were three or four, to be able to, you know,
Speaker 2: create safety for yourself. But what we're forgetting to say is,
Speaker 2: but that's the most dangerous way to be now, because
Speaker 2: now it's costing you your life.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times we don't even know it.
Speaker 2: No, it's in the invisible. I call it like water
Speaker 2: to fish. Fish don't know what water is. We're swimming
Speaker 2: in our own consciousness. We're assuming it's all true. We're
Speaker 2: assuming that this is how we are made. One of
Speaker 2: the great things about seeing yourself is a source like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's something I'm doing, it's not who I inherently am.
Speaker 2: The moment I make a shift in my energy and
Speaker 2: for you, you can just start to experiment in the
Speaker 2: next week. Just walk into the room and contain your energy.
Speaker 2: Just hold your energy close to the vest and see
Speaker 2: how people now come towards you and ask you to
Speaker 2: start to do the things you want to be doing.
Speaker 1: You know, I actually made that, which I would say
Speaker 1: like five or six years ago. I didn't have the
Speaker 1: language because your book wasn't around, But I did have
Speaker 1: a friend who was very spiritual and she was like,
Speaker 1: you should test this out, like, see how the universe
Speaker 1: will come and conspire to help you. And it did.
Speaker 1: It is so true. I felt the shift, and in
Speaker 1: hearing some of your wounds, I think there are pieces
Speaker 1: of that for me too. So I think for everybody listening,
Speaker 1: it would be really interesting to think about the pattern
Speaker 1: of frustration in your life, because everybody has one, and
Speaker 1: then dig into your book and figure out what it
Speaker 1: really means and where it's coming from, because you lay
Speaker 1: them out very clearly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the second part of the book, I'm actually showing
Speaker 2: how you are generating for that story is very important
Speaker 2: that we understand something that I think is also a
Speaker 2: little off our radar. A lot of the current psychological
Speaker 2: structures that we're living into or a lot of the
Speaker 2: assumptions we have we're being led by men, and men
Speaker 2: do tend to think differently than women. They're not as relational.
Speaker 2: They're like, you know, solo independent thinkers, and you know,
Speaker 2: and I know I'm broad stroking, So please forgive me
Speaker 2: if I'm offending anybody, because we're all a little bit
Speaker 2: of each and a lot of us women are in
Speaker 2: the masculine paradigm pretty primarily, but beliefs are actually relational.
Speaker 2: The person doing research on this right now is Dan Siegel.
Speaker 2: That guy's onto it. He gets it. So what I
Speaker 2: mean by that is whatever mirroring I'm getting from you
Speaker 2: is actually reinforcing my own sense of self. We tend
Speaker 2: to think of beliefs as we just have this belief
Speaker 2: that I'm a lone ranger or you know, I'm unlovable,
Speaker 2: and we connect the dots. There are certain things that
Speaker 2: happen to us that kind of imprinted us with that impression.
Speaker 2: But we are relating to it as though it's just
Speaker 2: hours and hours alone. But it's a dynamic thing. It's
Speaker 2: an a live thing. It's happening right now. How I am
Speaker 2: responding to you is generating something for you who or
Speaker 2: responding to me that you're not just wandering off or
Speaker 2: reading a book while I'm talking, waiting for me stop talking.
Speaker 2: So this is important, This matters. So it's feeding into
Speaker 2: how I then construct myself. Beliefs are relational and how
Speaker 2: we show up with other people. What our projections are
Speaker 2: really matters.
Speaker 1: So you're making me think, tell me if I'm understanding
Speaker 1: correctly or not. You know, oftentimes when I ask people
Speaker 1: what do you love about your partner, a very common
Speaker 1: answer is I love who I am around them. And
Speaker 1: I'm now thinking that is a belief because you like
Speaker 1: who you show up as because of how they relate
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: And how you're relating to them. So one of the
Speaker 2: things that we're a little weak in collectively right now,
Speaker 2: this is a place we need to start to grow,
Speaker 2: is the recognition of what the projection is onto others.
Speaker 2: So I talked about that I'm alone either people are
Speaker 2: going to leave me or no one's really there for me,
Speaker 2: or the I'm not wanted others are going to reject me,
Speaker 2: or the I'm not safe others have ill intent, or
Speaker 2: others are going to hurt me. So if you're out
Speaker 2: with somebody, you know you're on a date. You like
Speaker 2: this person, but you're not sure about them, and you're
Speaker 2: sitting there. You know, with this, I'm not safe to
Speaker 2: be close to people. I long for closeness, but I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I'm safe because I've been hurt in the past.
Speaker 2: And you're kind of coming into the conversation because you're
Speaker 2: centered in that story. What you're projecting onto that person
Speaker 2: is that they have ill intent. They're going to use
Speaker 2: you in some way, They're going to take something from you.
Speaker 2: This is the love avoidant pattern, by the way. So
Speaker 2: if you're there, how does that land for them? You know,
Speaker 2: where your body language is a little bit arms crossed,
Speaker 2: or you know, a little tentative, a little held back,
Speaker 2: a little bit vicious, you know, maybe flirty. You've got
Speaker 2: it all going on in there. It actually creates a
Speaker 2: lack of safety for them because you're not just seeing them,
Speaker 2: You're projecting something onto them. They feel it and it
Speaker 2: brings out the worst in them, and then they start
Speaker 2: kind of push pull, misbehaving, not sure about you, and
Speaker 2: it destabilizes the connection. It looks like it's them doing
Speaker 2: it to you, but you actually generated it inside of
Speaker 2: how you were holding them energetically.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a co creation in any way?
Speaker 2: It could be.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: A lot of times couples couple up they have the
Speaker 2: same source fracture story, so they're kind of bouncing off
Speaker 2: of each other, and then they're trying to get to
Speaker 2: the bottom of it by explaining why they are. Well,
Speaker 2: my mother and my father and this is what happened
Speaker 2: with my brother, and if you just understood, you know,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't really get complete at that level. You
Speaker 2: can just kind of devolve into forever processing in a
Speaker 2: way that's kind of irritating, and you never really come
Speaker 2: out the other side or get what you need. It's
Speaker 2: wonderful to be able to say, wow, I'm centered right now,
Speaker 2: and you can say to your partner, I can't have
Speaker 2: this conversation right now because I am identified with the
Speaker 2: four year old me and I think you're going to
Speaker 2: hurt me. I need to talk to myself here. And
Speaker 2: the power statement for that we go into step three,
Speaker 2: is like, what's actually true, I'm the source of safety
Speaker 2: for myself and for others. I have the power to
Speaker 2: learn how to create safety in my relationships. Now we
Speaker 2: might not know how to do that right. That's what
Speaker 2: I call the missing development. And you know, we've been
Speaker 2: working now on ourselves for a while, most of us
Speaker 2: here that are in this conversation, we've been looking at
Speaker 2: ourselves and examining our history and connecting the dots. So
Speaker 2: we're doing good work. It's not an either or a
Speaker 2: world healing matters. It's important to connect those dots. But
Speaker 2: we've got to go into the future because the future
Speaker 2: is what activates development, and it begins to show you, oh,
Speaker 2: you're having problems connecting with people because inside of your
Speaker 2: assumption that other people are going to leave you, you
Speaker 2: don't rock the boat. Conflict is dangerous the beginning of
Speaker 2: the end. So we'll avoid conflict. But if you don't
Speaker 2: engage conflict in a healthy way, you don't ever really
Speaker 2: bond at the deeper level. You need conflict to bond.
Speaker 1: I think that's such a beautiful and important statement because
Speaker 1: a lot of the teachings we hear growing up is
Speaker 1: that it's supposed to feel easy. If you have conflict,
Speaker 1: something is wrong. One of the things I took from
Speaker 1: your teachings in this book is the wise self and
Speaker 1: the wounded self and figuring out which voice is which
Speaker 1: I think you started to touch on it a little bit,
Speaker 1: but I'd love for you to elaborate, because I do
Speaker 1: think that, at least in my work, the noticing how
Speaker 1: has helped so much, and I think it is actually
Speaker 1: very easy to notice the wise self versus the wound
Speaker 1: itself before you start deep diving.
Speaker 2: Look, some of us who've been, like you know, meditators
Speaker 2: for years, we've had, you know, a lot of spiritual
Speaker 2: practice where we understand these different dimensions of self. We're
Speaker 2: able to access a higher perspective. One of my practices
Speaker 2: every morning that I love to share with people is
Speaker 2: I'll write a dear wisdom letter. It's done, like, please
Speaker 2: help me sort this out. This is happening, it's bothering
Speaker 2: me and really irritable and blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. You get it all out. Can you help
Speaker 2: me to see this from a larger perspective? Please write
Speaker 2: through my pen, Thank you, and then dear Catherine, And
Speaker 2: it clicks right in. So it's a practice. You get
Speaker 2: better at it as you do it. You sort of
Speaker 2: find these different parts of the self. However, not everyone
Speaker 2: has access to that, but most of us have access
Speaker 2: to you know, we're a teacher and we show up
Speaker 2: in the classroom and we're great teachers and we elevate
Speaker 2: our student. You know, that's a strength that I have.
Speaker 2: I had a sponsor of the greatness and students, or
Speaker 2: I'm a very good leader at work, or I'm a
Speaker 2: wonderful grandparent. Whatever it is where we find our strength
Speaker 2: and go into that self. So I'm looking for that self.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you one of my favorite stories in
Speaker 2: the book is the way I discovered this. I was
Speaker 2: in my twenties and I was an actor at the time.
Speaker 2: I want to be actor. I went to Tish School
Speaker 2: of the Arts, I completed NYU, but as I said,
Speaker 2: I had a major, I'm not good enough. So every
Speaker 2: time I'd go to an audition, I'd kind of collapse
Speaker 2: into that and underpresent and get laryngitis or all sorts
Speaker 2: of shanetiicuants would go on. So I never was able
Speaker 2: to get any traction. And I had this group of friends.
Speaker 2: We waited tables together, and one night after our shift,
Speaker 2: we're all hanging out and I'd had a bad audition
Speaker 2: that day and I'm kind of crying in my wine
Speaker 2: and complaining to my friend Billy, and I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: just never going to make it. I'm never going to
Speaker 2: amount to anything here. I am twenty five, right. My
Speaker 2: stepfather used to say that to me late at night drinking,
Speaker 2: and I'd listened to him because I was so deprived
Speaker 2: of parental attention. I was hungry, so I just sit
Speaker 2: there and listen to him tell me I was never
Speaker 2: going to amount to anything. So beliefs were formed in relationship.
Speaker 2: That's why we have to transform them in relationship.
Speaker 1: I just want to reiterate what you said, because that's
Speaker 1: so profound. Beliefs are formed in relationships, so they have
Speaker 1: to be transformed in relationship. Yes, that is so big.
Speaker 2: It is That's why these new ways of relating and
Speaker 2: you get new feedback. Is to graduate your identity from
Speaker 2: the old identity.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to co opt your story. I want
Speaker 1: to share this so that people have something tangible to
Speaker 1: hold on to. I had a belief for a while,
Speaker 1: and it was my mom's voice saying, you really can't
Speaker 1: have it all. You can't have a husband and kids
Speaker 1: and a big career. They don't coincide. And I held
Speaker 1: onto that. I believed it deeply, even though I wanted
Speaker 1: to not believe it for a long time, and I
Speaker 1: worked on that belief, but I don't know that I've
Speaker 1: fully gotten rid of it, because I think I need
Speaker 1: to rid that in relationship with somebody who supports a
Speaker 1: new belief.
Speaker 2: So that's in calling in the one it looked like
Speaker 2: to expand. So then you see a partner who's actually
Speaker 2: enhancing your ability. Isn't that beautiful?
Speaker 1: And really how it's supposed to be? Okay, I just
Speaker 1: want to share so people have like a tangible something
Speaker 1: to grab onto because your words are so profound.
Speaker 2: Billy reaches across the table here. I am sobbing, you know,
Speaker 2: like poor me being the dramatic actress that I was
Speaker 2: trying to be actually but really feeling it in my heart.
Speaker 2: And he grabs my hand. He cuts his hands over mind.
Speaker 2: He says, Catherine, I'm so glad you're facing this now.
Speaker 2: And I went, oh, how dare you say that to me?
Speaker 2: He said, thank you. You see, because it clicked in
Speaker 2: the part of me that knew that wasn't true. That
Speaker 2: was a wake up moment. But I'm giving that story
Speaker 2: because all of us are holding parts of us that
Speaker 2: do know that's not actually true. We have to ask
Speaker 2: ourselves what else might be true?
Speaker 1: What else might be true? That's a really nice way
Speaker 1: to reframe the question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what else might be true? So you start to
Speaker 2: creatively think, you know, well, it's probably not so black
Speaker 2: and white. I mean, the truth about life is it's
Speaker 2: not black and white. When you have these kind of
Speaker 2: knee jerk old stories come up, they're very black and
Speaker 2: white because when we were young, when we created them,
Speaker 2: we lacked the ability to hold shades of gray complexity.
Speaker 2: We wor say, well, mom is in her bedroom ignoring
Speaker 2: me because she has clinical depression and she needs to
Speaker 2: see a doctor. No, we're going to say, you know,
Speaker 2: Mom's in her bedroom ignoring me because I'm not valuable,
Speaker 2: I'm not worth anything, I'm unworthy of her love, or
Speaker 2: I'm not good enough to fix her, or however we
Speaker 2: interpreted it. So we want to name how we interpret it.
Speaker 2: It's very subjective, and you name it from your body.
Speaker 2: A lot of us think, well, I have this belief
Speaker 2: and we're trying to work it out mentally, but lives
Speaker 2: are actually in the body.
Speaker 1: Say more about that. Is this what you mean when
Speaker 1: you say a big part of the work is life
Speaker 1: which like the words that we use to describe ourselves
Speaker 1: and then noticing the shifts or is that a separate concept.
Speaker 2: No, it's related for sure. So what you want to
Speaker 2: do when you ask yourself, okay, sweetheart, how old are you?
Speaker 2: You send love to yourself. You can even say to yourself.
Speaker 2: We have this practice called the self love power practice,
Speaker 2: and you say to yourself, sweetheart, what are you feeling?
Speaker 2: And you just listen for a feeling. You name one feeling,
Speaker 2: and you just mirror it back. I can see that
Speaker 2: you're feeling. What else are you feeling? Name one feeling,
Speaker 2: mirror I can see that you're feeling. Wow, that's a
Speaker 2: big feeling. I got it. Not changing anything. But what
Speaker 2: you are doing is now there's two of you in
Speaker 2: the room. There's your adult self, who's thinking more rationally,
Speaker 2: who's holding containing that younger self because we want to
Speaker 2: get the younger self out of the driver's seat. If
Speaker 2: you act from the younger self, which means you're in reaction,
Speaker 2: will generate more evidence for that story. We press the
Speaker 2: pause button. We do not take action from a false center.
Speaker 1: So this is actually one of the things I think
Speaker 1: people at least the question everything, audience is going to
Speaker 1: grab onto the most because your audience, Catherine loves manifestation.
Speaker 1: I think the question everything listeners do too. But you're
Speaker 1: careful to say, we can't manifest from a false self.
Speaker 1: So how does getting clear on your identity change actually
Speaker 1: change what we're able to call into our lives?
Speaker 2: Oh? Everything, Identity is everything because wherever we're centered at
Speaker 2: the level of identity, generating our lives from and one
Speaker 2: of the things about manifestation, and this is one of
Speaker 2: the core essences of the book, let me get the
Speaker 2: context of the book. Okay, So the context of the
Speaker 2: book is, first of all, you know, we're at a
Speaker 2: precarious time collectively where it looks like our future is
Speaker 2: at stake. So this idea that we can create from
Speaker 2: the future, that we have agency to influence the future
Speaker 2: but there is no fixed future, is a critical skill
Speaker 2: for us all to be building right now right And
Speaker 2: so when we're looking at the fluidity of life and
Speaker 2: we're looking at our own effectiveness in being able to
Speaker 2: generate life, we're really talking about how do we stay
Speaker 2: out of reactivity, which is only going to create more
Speaker 2: of the same. Truthfully, you can't really make progress when
Speaker 2: you're stuck in the reactive mode, which we could also
Speaker 2: call victimization. I'm victimized by what's happening. I'm at the
Speaker 2: effect of what's happening. It's stronger than I am. And
Speaker 2: how do we stay generative of a future that looks bright,
Speaker 2: the future that we desire? So once you actually claim
Speaker 2: a positive, possible future. And this is like we have
Speaker 2: to train ourselves. Something's happening, I don't really like it.
Speaker 2: It's not going my way, and we tend to go
Speaker 2: towards the complaint, we go towards the suffering, we go
Speaker 2: towards the analysis of why it's happening. That's a habit
Speaker 2: now that we have where I want to start to
Speaker 2: develop a habit is to say, what would I want
Speaker 2: to be happening, and how can I actually begin to
Speaker 2: show up in a way is generative of that. Well.
Speaker 2: In order to do that, first of all, you have
Speaker 2: to feel worthy of the future you desire. You have
Speaker 2: to feel powerful enough to be able to move in
Speaker 2: that direction. You have to know that the universe is
Speaker 2: supporting you to move in that direction, and you want
Speaker 2: to be non victimized and self responsible. Sometimes you just
Speaker 2: have to get off it. Look, the reason why we
Speaker 2: get stuck in victimization is because we get victimized. I mean,
Speaker 2: can I just give that to all of us? Like
Speaker 2: bad things are happening, we didn't necessarily create all of
Speaker 2: them ourselves, and we're at the effect of them. Other
Speaker 2: people behave badly. Other people are being greedy and selfish.
Speaker 2: That's happening.
Speaker 1: But I think the pushback from people is that they
Speaker 1: think they do feel worthy. I was on the phone
Speaker 1: with a friend last night who felt frustrated by the
Speaker 1: lack of outcomes or the lack of feeling like the
Speaker 1: universe was conspiring to support her hard work and she
Speaker 1: is working hard. And I said to her, I think
Speaker 1: that your outside life is a reflection of your inside beliefs.
Speaker 1: And she said, I'm very pointed about what I'm asking
Speaker 1: for and I'm doing the work. I could see it
Speaker 1: for her the way that maybe I couldn't even see
Speaker 1: it for myself. But what do you say to someone
Speaker 1: who's saying, I do believe I think I'm worthy. I
Speaker 1: want the number one show on TV, and I think
Speaker 1: I'm doing the things. What is your reply?
Speaker 2: It's true, and I think it's great, and that's what's
Speaker 2: gotten her so far, and that's why she's there talking
Speaker 2: to you and your colleagues and your friends. So yes,
Speaker 2: it's all true. And the value is to go and
Speaker 2: look at the parts of her that don't want that,
Speaker 2: the parts of her that might be ambivalent, that might
Speaker 2: not really trust, that might not want to have to
Speaker 2: change in the way that she's going to need to
Speaker 2: change or be responsible for what she's going to need
Speaker 2: to be responsible for. So that's the value of looking
Speaker 2: at that. And I think, you know, learning how to
Speaker 2: tell on ourselves in a searing right, like I'm kind
Speaker 2: of a hard line or about this. I don't just say, well,
Speaker 2: I learned that when I was young and had to
Speaker 2: do this thing where I disappear myself a little bit
Speaker 2: and you know, the hopes of people choose me or
Speaker 2: like me better or whatever.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: You know where I'm softening it. I might say it
Speaker 2: like I don't want to be responsible for you know,
Speaker 2: the amount of power that I actually have, and so
Speaker 2: I disappear in my power so that you know, I
Speaker 2: can lean on other people and I don't have to
Speaker 2: own my power. I really tell on myself, like what
Speaker 2: are you really up to? Catherine, like, what's the part
Speaker 2: of you that doesn't really, you know, want what you
Speaker 2: say you want. It's not really committed, that's looking for
Speaker 2: the squirrely out.
Speaker 1: I think that's a hard question to answer. It's necessary,
Speaker 1: but I think it requires some digging. I don't know
Speaker 1: that I could come up with mine right away.
Speaker 2: It's being able to ask the right questions. Most of us,
Speaker 2: when we get stuck in a pattern, we ask ourselves
Speaker 2: questions about that, but the bottom line question always comes
Speaker 2: down to what's wrong with me? Why is this not working?
Speaker 2: Like your friend, what's wrong? What am I doing wrong?
Speaker 2: But you know most of us will we ask ourselves
Speaker 2: kind of why questions? Why do I keep doing this?
Speaker 2: A why question is a little bit leaked with shame.
Speaker 2: It's one inch away from you know, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: That's so funny that you say that. I find that
Speaker 1: my why questions and interviews are harder for people to
Speaker 1: answer than how's.
Speaker 2: So then I might say, well, how are you giving
Speaker 2: your power away to this person? What's motivating you to
Speaker 2: do that? You know what might be more true than that?
Speaker 2: What's a generative action you could take to move things
Speaker 2: in a different direction? So you have to ask questions
Speaker 2: that are forward moving.
Speaker 1: And can it be a very simple answer, like can
Speaker 1: the answer be I believe I'm bad with money? Like
Speaker 1: is it that simple?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And then the next question might be I wonder
Speaker 2: who could help me with that? Or I wonder how
Speaker 2: I could prove by five percent better with money. Right,
Speaker 2: it's training ourselves to be developmentally oriented, you know when
Speaker 2: we had these traumas way back when. And by the way,
Speaker 2: can I just say something is that in the womb
Speaker 2: consciousness is being formed. There's a wonderful book called, Oh
Speaker 2: my Gosh, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child or
Speaker 2: something that's been around for decades that I quote some
Speaker 2: of it in What's True About You because their research
Speaker 2: was so interesting. But they basically, if a mother didn't
Speaker 2: want to be pregnant, very often that child will come
Speaker 2: into the world already in an I'm not wanted center
Speaker 2: and defending that mother and already formulating a personality. But
Speaker 2: I think that there are people who do pass live stuff.
Speaker 2: So who knows, you know, maybe we bring these strands
Speaker 2: of consciousness in. Maybe it's in the lineage, certainly in
Speaker 2: the culture. A lot of things that we're fighting against
Speaker 2: the crazy systems of untrue hierarchy and how we value
Speaker 2: human life. So we're learning the technology of how do
Speaker 2: you actually stand for a positive, possible future that isn't
Speaker 2: going to happen unless you actually generate it and you're
Speaker 2: standing in the part of yourself where you do have
Speaker 2: access to the power that you need to create that future.
Speaker 1: I learned a few years ago reading a book that
Speaker 1: imagination is a form of brilliance. It is a form
Speaker 1: of thinking. I always thought of it more as creativity.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's categorized as intellect and wisdom. You connect
Speaker 1: these ideas of identity and imagination, which I found so riveting.
Speaker 1: You say that we have to get creative enough to
Speaker 1: envision a new life before we can live it. How
Speaker 1: can we use imagination as a tool instead of just
Speaker 1: this wishful thinking.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's very important with manifestation is
Speaker 2: to make sure you actually have hunger in your heart
Speaker 2: for the thing that you want to manifest, which is
Speaker 2: not a small statement, because sometimes you know, we have
Speaker 2: ideas about our lives. We're supposed to be married, we're
Speaker 2: supposed to be successful, We're supposed to have this or
Speaker 2: have that. It's not something that we actually really hunger for.
Speaker 2: It's kind of an expectation. So that's going to be
Speaker 2: a harder lift to manifest that because desire is what
Speaker 2: the universe responds to. But if you have desire that's
Speaker 2: angered and I can't have what I want story, you know,
Speaker 2: because I'm not good enough, or because I'm alone, or
Speaker 2: because I'm damaged. Goods is another one. So if you're
Speaker 2: kind of somatically centered in that story, hard to feel
Speaker 2: desire because it's kind of tortuous because you just assume
Speaker 2: you can't have that and then it's painful. So a
Speaker 2: lot of us will shut down our desires. So in
Speaker 2: order to awaken our desires, we have to try on.
Speaker 2: There's meditations that I give and when you buy the book,
Speaker 2: that's part of the bonuses is that I created these
Speaker 2: meditations for people or take you through the practices that
Speaker 2: are in the book. But you start off a miracle
Speaker 2: has happened, you already have this. Let's go into the future.
Speaker 2: What does it feel like to have this? What does
Speaker 2: it sound like? What does it taste like? You're just
Speaker 2: using your imagine, you're giving yourself prompts, and you're just
Speaker 2: giving yourself snippets. I mean, I think this is what
Speaker 2: a vision board is. The vision boards have no power
Speaker 2: in and of themselves. By the way, you don't want
Speaker 2: to just create a vision board and stick it in
Speaker 2: your closet. The value of the vision board is that
Speaker 2: as you're creating it, you're owning something, You're opening to something.
Speaker 2: So it's about opening you up to the concept of
Speaker 2: trying on having this in your life. So then you
Speaker 2: keep it in a place where it's visible because you
Speaker 2: want to recreate your intention for what you're committed to
Speaker 2: creating every single day. It's not just a one time
Speaker 2: event or a weekend workshop. You want to sit for
Speaker 2: ten minutes a day and do this practice about Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm bringing my future in them, and then you want
Speaker 2: to start walking through the world as that future yourself.
Speaker 2: Most of us, if we really sit and listen to
Speaker 2: our soul, you know, you want to sit with yourself
Speaker 2: every day. Just sit for five minutes, just be with yourself.
Speaker 2: Don't be on social media, don't be listening to other people.
Speaker 2: Just sit with yourself so that you can find your
Speaker 2: soul and you start to listen to what it is
Speaker 2: you are uniquely coded for you know, what are you
Speaker 2: here to do? Well? Daniel? You know you're a mouthpiece.
Speaker 2: You're the bringer of good news, You're the bringer of healing.
Speaker 2: Like you are someone who is destined to be in
Speaker 2: the public, destined to bring wisdom, your wisdom keeper, destined
Speaker 2: to bring this to the world. You feel that in
Speaker 2: your soul, like you just know that. So you start
Speaker 2: living into that future. But you're not living into the future.
Speaker 2: Like what do I have to do to make this happen? Now?
Speaker 2: Where you want to start is who would I need
Speaker 2: to be being in order for this to happen? To
Speaker 2: be a woman who is wise? Actually, I need to
Speaker 2: be someone who has something valuable to say. So then
Speaker 2: you start holding yourself accountable to be that person, You
Speaker 2: start adjusting your body language. How do you walk through
Speaker 2: the world. I tell a story in the book We're
Speaker 2: Thirty years Ago. I started to feel like I was
Speaker 2: going to be talking to thousands of people, which didn't
Speaker 2: make any sense to me because I was super shy
Speaker 2: and the Internet wasn't on board yet, So like, how
Speaker 2: would that ever happen? I was like a crazy thought.
Speaker 2: First of all, I didn't even know that I wanted
Speaker 2: that because I was so shy, but I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: well that's what I'm feeling the future, I'm going to
Speaker 2: be talking to thousands of people. I better have something
Speaker 2: to say of value. And I started holding myself accountable
Speaker 2: to being a woman of integrity. I started to my
Speaker 2: wisdom practice, like listening for wisdom, you know, and really
Speaker 2: holding myself accountable for being that person. But I had
Speaker 2: this little fun practice because I used to go into
Speaker 2: Starbucks every morning and get my morning coffee, and my
Speaker 2: old typical habit of being because I was so shy,
Speaker 2: was I punched down and maybe speak softly or something.
Speaker 2: So I would just say, how at a world class
Speaker 2: leader of enlightenment and love order their morning coffee, you know,
Speaker 2: And I would just speak up the ball boys, you know.
Speaker 2: Because I'm practicing being the self of my future, I'm
Speaker 2: stepping into it. I have no evidence out here at all.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to be that until the world catches up.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, the meditation that I'm talking
Speaker 2: about too, where you're using your imagination and you're just
Speaker 2: you're stretching yourself to get these snippets like wow, what
Speaker 2: does it smell like when you know my beloved's making
Speaker 2: dinner for me, you know, my favorite dinner, and you're
Speaker 2: just kind of being in it and basking in it.
Speaker 2: Then you end with three questions. People can write these
Speaker 2: down if they want. Where Then you come back into
Speaker 2: present time and you say to the universe, what will
Speaker 2: I need to give up in order to manifest this future?
Speaker 2: What do I need to let go of right now
Speaker 2: in my life? What doesn't belong here anymore? And you
Speaker 2: just listen for a minute or two, and usually we'll
Speaker 2: get an answer of some sort. The next question is
Speaker 2: how will I need to grow myself? What skills am
Speaker 2: I going to need to develop in order to prepare
Speaker 2: to receive this? The third question, what's my next step?
Speaker 2: What can I do today right now to start to
Speaker 2: move in the direction of that dream, to start to
Speaker 2: grow myself in the direction of the dream. So the
Speaker 2: gain and manifestation is not to get what you say
Speaker 2: you want, is to become who you would need to
Speaker 2: be to manifest and sustain it.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the books behind you. You have your
Speaker 1: newest book, What's True About You? You have Calling in
Speaker 1: the one, and then you have conscious Uncoupling. And in
Speaker 1: your new book you talk about uncoupling from old identities.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you see conscious uncoupling as being just
Speaker 1: as much about separating from an old version of yourself
Speaker 1: as it is from separating with a partner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the technology of what's true about you that I'm
Speaker 2: making available is at the heart of calling in the
Speaker 2: one and conscious uncoupling. One of the things that happens
Speaker 2: in a breakup that makes it so hard to get
Speaker 2: over and turn into prolonged grief where you don't really
Speaker 2: get over it for a really long time is the
Speaker 2: meaning that you make at the level of identity. Usually
Speaker 2: we choose a partner because we think that they're going
Speaker 2: to kind of be the healing that we need of
Speaker 2: the old identity that wasn't good enough. And now I'm
Speaker 2: like the as salt of the earth for this person,
Speaker 2: and they're going to pledge their whole life to me,
Speaker 2: and I'm the one they choose. So it becomes like
Speaker 2: this great emancipation from the old identity. But as the
Speaker 2: relationship then goes on and then moves into a breakup,
Speaker 2: what will tend to do is villainize the other person
Speaker 2: or blame the other person. That's kind of common in
Speaker 2: a breakup, and it's almost like a little thing that
Speaker 2: happens in the brain where you start to devalue the
Speaker 2: relationship and suddenly that person now is rewounding you in
Speaker 2: the very place that you thought they were going to
Speaker 2: heal you. And people get stuck in that story and
Speaker 2: there's probably still energy where that person is still blaming
Speaker 2: and shaming. So one of the key emancipations that happens
Speaker 2: in conscious uncoupling is the ability to reconcile that and
Speaker 2: to recognize that, yeah, I got triggered into my I'm
Speaker 2: not good enough and then I started showing up is
Speaker 2: less than who I am. I convinced you that I'm
Speaker 2: not good enough. I'm going to take responsibility for that.
Speaker 2: And how I showed up because I would gropvel, because
Speaker 2: I'd give my power away, because I wouldn't negotiate my
Speaker 2: needs or whatever that is. You're taking responsibility for it
Speaker 2: and how you generated that, how you actually enrolled the
Speaker 2: other person in your old story when you were triggered
Speaker 2: and centered in that story, and generating life from that center.
Speaker 2: What I lead people through is what I call the
Speaker 2: soul to soul meditation to a very formal kind of
Speaker 2: ritual so that you're safe. If the other person feels unsafe,
Speaker 2: can make them really tiny in front of you, but
Speaker 2: you bring them before you and you explain to them
Speaker 2: who you really are. It's not who I am. I
Speaker 2: misrepresented myself. I take responsibility for playing that story out.
Speaker 2: Please forgive me. I'm asking you to relate to me
Speaker 2: in the truth of my value and my worthiness. I'm powerful,
Speaker 2: I'm worthy, I'm valuable, I'm lovable. I am more than
Speaker 2: good enough, just as I am to be loved and
Speaker 2: worthy of love, and certainly I'm worthy of your respect.
Speaker 2: You just do it formally and it begins to liberate
Speaker 2: the person, and then you have the non local kind
Speaker 2: of quantum physic realms where there's all sorts of you know,
Speaker 2: stories that that then shifts the other person and they
Speaker 2: start to change. But I don't really go into that,
Speaker 2: you know, deeply, because I'm not writing about that particular phenomena.
Speaker 2: But I do touch on that in conscious uncoupling a
Speaker 2: little bit about the non local phenomenon and how much access.
Speaker 2: But I mean, look, you've been with somebody, there's plenty
Speaker 2: of proof that we're still energetically connected. So you do
Speaker 2: have to make peace with that person. But the piece
Speaker 2: you're making is at the level of your own identity,
Speaker 2: liberate you from prolonged grief, and then it becomes a
Speaker 2: really tough lesson learned out. Boy of those life lessons
Speaker 2: hurt sometimes. But if we're growing and we're learning, and
Speaker 2: we know we're going to do it differently next time,
Speaker 2: that's the golden prize that we're aspiring.
Speaker 1: Toward all the questions that you've asked me this last
Speaker 1: hour and asked us this last hour, they gave me
Speaker 1: an exhale, and I don't know that I've had that
Speaker 1: in a while, so thank you. But also I can
Speaker 1: imagine you have asked yourself so many questions, especially over
Speaker 1: the last two years while you've been going through this
Speaker 1: painful cancer journey. Do you feel like you have given
Speaker 1: the world what you are called here to do? Have
Speaker 1: you reached that.
Speaker 2: I do have cancer and I'm about a year and
Speaker 2: a half in and in this moment, I'm in treatment
Speaker 2: again because I went back into I had a little
Speaker 2: setback because it had gone down, and now you know,
Speaker 2: that seems to be the dance that we're in. But
Speaker 2: I'm seeing progress forward, So I'm very grateful ironically, and
Speaker 2: this is bizarre. I was writing Conscious on Coupling, I
Speaker 2: get breast cancer this time. I got ovarian cancer when
Speaker 2: I was writing this book. Isn't that weird? So of
Speaker 2: course that's food for reflection, Like what is that? I've
Speaker 2: come to see it as a grace because both teachings
Speaker 2: I felt the future of what was opening up. You know,
Speaker 2: I have this very privileged position of just pioneering new things,
Speaker 2: you know, calling in the one, even though it's so
Speaker 2: common now you know your inner beliefs and what you
Speaker 2: think your inner life reflecting in having something to do
Speaker 2: with who you call it. Calling in the One was
Speaker 2: the first one to introduce any of these ideas. As
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, I couldn't get a book deal
Speaker 2: on it. We had eighteen rejections and they all said
Speaker 2: the same thing. She's saying something exactly opposite of what
Speaker 2: everyone else is saying. So I do have that, really,
Speaker 2: and I take it like a sacred privilege. I don't
Speaker 2: even know how it descended on me, because I love
Speaker 2: it that I think creatively like that. Right, So Calling
Speaker 2: in the One conscious Uncoupling open something up this book
Speaker 2: the future that I feel for this book. First of all,
Speaker 2: I'm creating a new form of psychotherapy because I think
Speaker 2: psychotherapists are hungry to be trained in well, how do
Speaker 2: we begin to work with the future to graduate from
Speaker 2: old habits and patterns. I feel that this book can
Speaker 2: have a profound impact in how we're all engaging personal
Speaker 2: development work. And it does have new ideas and a
Speaker 2: lot more clarity, and I'm looking forward to people building
Speaker 2: upon what I've now presented presented the foundation of it,
Speaker 2: and I'm excited to see what's going to open up
Speaker 2: from that. So I do see that we have coaches,
Speaker 2: we're training and stuff to be able to get that
Speaker 2: work out in the world. But both times I had
Speaker 2: a vibrant future to live into that was very consuming
Speaker 2: and exciting to me. So I think I didn't talk
Speaker 2: about the cancer as I was writing the book in
Speaker 2: the book at all. But I was writing the book
Speaker 2: as I was in treatment. But I think that the
Speaker 2: adversity of it, the obstacle of it, the gravity of
Speaker 2: the situation, brought out the best in me, and I
Speaker 2: think the book is better for it now because I
Speaker 2: didn't hold anything back. We're only here for a minute,
Speaker 2: you know, and you better go for the gold. You
Speaker 2: better say what you as a soul came here to say,
Speaker 2: and contribute what you came here to contribute. So I
Speaker 2: think it embolded me. And now I have a ton
Speaker 2: of people praying for me. Every day I wake up.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm just kind of writing this magic carpet,
Speaker 2: like I'm just floating on their prayers. I can feel it.
Speaker 2: So just asking for prayer, being open and receptive to
Speaker 2: the love that people are showing me has been very
Speaker 2: transformative and beautiful. So the future I'm living into is
Speaker 2: full remission, and just speaking that full remission gives me
Speaker 2: creative ideas. Oh, I could do this today and I
Speaker 2: could do that today, So it keeps me generating healing
Speaker 2: as opposed to collapsing into the gravity of the seriousness
Speaker 2: or the drama of the situation. I also just have practices.
Speaker 2: I make it a practice, which doesn't mean I do
Speaker 2: it all the time perfectly, but I like turning things
Speaker 2: into practices. I don't complain. I just express gratitude because
Speaker 2: I can feel the energy lifting. Life is fluid. We're
Speaker 2: creating like all the time, so we want to be
Speaker 2: conscious of what we're creating.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions,
Speaker 1: if you'll indulge me. What is one belief about love
Speaker 1: that you used to have that you no longer believe.
Speaker 2: I think I used to believe years ago that love
Speaker 2: was just something you found and didn't generate each and
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: Is there a manifestation technique you advise other people try.
Speaker 2: I think this idea of you know, what's my next
Speaker 2: step is a really critical one. You want to take
Speaker 2: the next step grounded in power center. The first place
Speaker 2: you want to go a power center, which is you
Speaker 2: know I'm worthy of the love that I seek, or
Speaker 2: you know life is on my side, life is not
Speaker 2: against me. So you want to make sure that your
Speaker 2: consciousness is anchored in the having, and then you take
Speaker 2: action from there, and you want to move that needle forward.
Speaker 2: Whatever you can do, whatever you can clean up, whatever
Speaker 2: you can sort through make room for there's always one
Speaker 2: action you can take each day to move yourself in
Speaker 2: the direction of that dream, even if that's learning a
Speaker 2: skill like Okay, well, how do I have boundaries? How
Speaker 2: do I negotiate my needs to keep learning, keep growing
Speaker 2: toward the future you desire?
Speaker 1: What is what a tool that you learned as a
Speaker 1: therapist or in therapy that you use often.
Speaker 2: I think it's the ability to know what you feel
Speaker 2: in any given moment and to know what you need.
Speaker 2: I talked about the self love power practice where you
Speaker 2: say to yourself, sweetheart, what do you feel? You listen
Speaker 2: and your merit back at some point. Then maybe after
Speaker 2: asking five six times, you kind of clear yourself and
Speaker 2: then you say, and what do you need? So starting
Speaker 2: to learn the inner terrain and just really honor yourself.
Speaker 2: What do you feel? What do you need? You can't
Speaker 2: always give yourself what you need, but sometimes just the
Speaker 2: acknowledgment is enough. So keep working with yourself all through
Speaker 2: the day. Always know what you feel, always know what
Speaker 2: you need, what's going on inside of you?
Speaker 1: I'm going to take what do you need? And what
Speaker 1: is the next step? The question I have for you?
Speaker 1: Is there a question everyone should ask themselves once a year?
Speaker 2: Oh once a year? How about once a day?
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me once a day?
Speaker 2: Now what am I assuming it is true? Let's start
Speaker 2: living truth really from strength. You know, all of us
Speaker 2: born at this time have a job to do, and
Speaker 2: it's to elevate our own consciousness. It's to you know
Speaker 2: sort out old patterns. If you look at the trajectory
Speaker 2: of human becoming, you see that each era of humanity
Speaker 2: had things to create paras or railroads or cities. You
Speaker 2: know that we're moving somewhere and our generation is working
Speaker 2: in the inner domain of consciousness. So to start to
Speaker 2: get a handle on what's really happening within us and
Speaker 2: to sort ourselves out so that we have the power
Speaker 2: to live from strength, to live from truth, to live
Speaker 2: in a way that's generative and even generative of gifts
Speaker 2: given to future generations of people who'll never know our names.
Speaker 2: That's our job, so that you know, little girls, little
Speaker 2: boys two generations from now, just wake up knowing that
Speaker 2: they are inherently valuable. They're more anchored in truth. That's
Speaker 2: how it works in the human chain of becoming. So
Speaker 2: we have a job to do, and I love of
Speaker 2: your role in helping us. I'll do it.
Speaker 1: Daniel, You're a rock star. Thank you, Catherine. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to learn from you, truly. Is there a book that
Speaker 1: you've read that's changed your life, something you think everybody
Speaker 1: should read aside from your own three beautiful books.
Speaker 2: Well, going through this journey, I've gotten back to an
Speaker 2: old book that was written in nineteen twenty seven by
Speaker 2: a woman named Francis scobel Chin called The Game of
Speaker 2: Life and How to Play It. And she's just hardcore metaphysics.
Speaker 2: She's still hardcore generate the future you want. So that's
Speaker 2: the one I've been reading my life.
Speaker 1: That's been my last question is I do the question
Speaker 1: everything card game? Because we're virtual. You just tell me
Speaker 1: when to stop stop. Okay, what game have you spent
Speaker 1: the most hours playing?
Speaker 2: It's funny I just said the Game of Life, and
Speaker 2: I know I was thinking, gosh, you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: really a game person. Most of my attention is upping
Speaker 2: my own anti on integrity. There is this whole thing
Speaker 2: happening in our world, and particularly with the thought Later
Speaker 2: world right now, about integrity, and I don't know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of conversations coming out that the whole deepacting
Speaker 2: with Epstein is bringing out into the open, and I
Speaker 2: think it's a really beautiful conversation. But to me, integrity
Speaker 2: is everything, and you have nothing if you don't have
Speaker 2: your integrity. So keeping your word, doing what you say
Speaker 2: you're going to do, or clean it up, be responsible
Speaker 2: for what you're creating for others, just living clean. That's
Speaker 2: my game.
Speaker 1: So beautiful, Catherine, thank you for sharing your time with us.
Speaker 1: I'm really grateful.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day,
Speaker 1: to have a good day. I'll see you next week