Relationships Why You Keep Falling for the “wrong” person (Jung’s Answer)

Episode Transcript

Debra Maldonado (00:01.122)
Hello everyone, welcome back to Jung on Purpose. I am Deborah Maldonado.

Dr. Rob (00:06.47)
I’m Doctor Rob. Welcome to the program.

Debra Maldonado (00:09.186)
We’re so glad you’re here for another episode. We’re continuing our series on non-duality. And we always want to make it practical. So last week we talked about non-duality, how it applies to success and money and how we look at that in the world. And now today we’re talking about our favorite topic: relationships, romantic relationships, to be specific and and how non-duality works in a very practical way of

Dr. Rob (00:18.375)
Yes.

Debra Maldonado (00:38.642)
relationships in our life and the ups and downs of romantic love. So before we begin, I do want to ask a favor from Rob and I. Please subscribe to our channel if you’re watching us on YouTube. And if you are listening to us on one of the podcast services, you can subscribe there and make comments. Tell us how you feel. Share what topics you’d like us to talk about. And and don’t forget to visit our website, create a mindlife.com to find out more about us. All right, Rob.

Let’s talk about love, baby. Let’s talk about you and me. I’m dating myself here.

Dr. Rob (01:13.818)
Well, you know, if you think about how much happiness and and unhappiness relationships bring into our lives, it should be the main psychology, the main focus of study. But unfortunately it’s not. even emotions, they’re it just recently people have started to

Debra Maldonado (01:24.258)
Hmm.

Dr. Rob (01:42.588)
take it seriously. And but I’m what I mean by recent is in the last twenty years or so. before that they were considered, you know, you can’t measure emotion, therefore why included in a psychology? so self report, they’ll ask people, how do you feel?

Debra Maldonado (01:57.453)
And so how do they measure emotion?

Debra Maldonado (02:02.442)
Okay. I guess zero went to ten, the intensity type of thing. And then the valence, what what the what it means to them. Yeah. Yeah, so

Dr. Rob (02:09.477)
What does it mean to you? Yeah. So there’s ways to study. It’s simply that people psychology suffers from a kind of an in inferiority complex in that it wants to be a bona fide science and therefore it gravitates more towards neuroscience than the actual kind of soulful work that we see in Yong and humanistic psychology and

Debra Maldonado (02:31.863)
And behaviorism.

Dr. Rob (02:39.439)
existential psychology. But those are so important. Again, because they get at really what makes us happy, what makes us creative as human beings, what makes us light up. instead of just how how functional are we? Can we figure out math problems and and word problems? Yeah, the those are IQ tests essentially. They they measure your academic proficiency, bas visual spatial and motor things too. But

It they’re primarily focused on can you read and write and think.

Debra Maldonado (03:12.79)
Yeah. And you know, Warren Buffett, the famous billionaire, said the most important decision you’ll make in your life is who you choose to marry. And I do feel that because you need a partner, l you have dreams, whether you want to create a family or you want to create an empire.

Dr. Rob (03:27.118)
Mm-hmm.

Debra Maldonado (03:31.116)
you want to have that lifelong partner that will stay with you and and grow with you and and be on your side. And it it it just like anything in life, you can’t do it alone. You need you need help, you know, with other people, you need companionship. It’s part of being human. And to have that right partner, I know for me I feel so fortunate to have someone that wants to be an entrepreneur with me and and and share psychology and share those ideas. And I think it everyone

wants something like that, like wants that partner that fulfills like, you know, these these kind of big dreams they have and a partner that can go the distance. But I feel like I know for me it was like a doubt that that person was even out there. And so today we’ll talk about well, how do we find that person without like being on every dating site, but really talk about the psychological reason why we’re attracted and the non-dual aspect of that because

We’re really not looking for the one out there. we’re looking for the one in here first.

Dr. Rob (04:32.689)
Yeah, and we should say, just to be fair, it is a choice. I mean, some people choose to be alone and that’s fine. When it’s when it’s a real choice, in other words, they’re not alone because they can’t find a partner or they can’t make it work that they’ve chosen to be alone. that’s fine too. you can be a healthy, well rounded human being without having a partner.

Debra Maldonado (04:40.172)
Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (04:50.56)
Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (05:01.781)
Yeah. But I’ve known so many people over the I mean I’m doing love coaching for twenty years and I’ve known some people that were adamant about being they’re consciously saying they wanted to be alone and then they finally met that person and they’re like, if relationships could be like this, then I don’t so sometimes it’s not conscious. Sometimes it’s you know the you know, a fear or whatever. But we do invite you to explore it and explore why about that. But

Dr. Rob (05:22.777)
Absolutely. Yeah. It

Debra Maldonado (05:30.977)
So what makes us fall in love anyway, Rob? Like what it makes like how do you know? I could get this from my clients many times over the years is how do I know if this person’s the one? Am I really feeling love? Is it something else? So let’s talk about you know, what Young thought about love and relationships.

Dr. Rob (05:50.117)
Yeah. Yeah, and and here you’re spot on in talking about Young because n there’s no other psychology that really gets at the depth of human emotion and love as Young’s model. All right. If we take a a cognitive behavioral approach, let’s say, we’d we’d say that

People are compatible and therefore they you know, there’s opportunity for them to share these goals and that these goals bond them in specific ways. It all makes sense, of course. But that’s not really love. It it’s not explaining what is really going on in the inner life of a person when they fall in love and they meet this amazing person that changes their lives. So Jung

Jung’s model gets at that. So and and keep in mind that we’re talking depth psychology here. We’re not necessarily just kind of talking philosophy. Jung studied these questions deeply and he worked with people directly so that there is a way to verify it for ourselves.

Just like we’re saying, maybe we cannot measure love with an EEG machine, an electroencephalographic machine, but we can certainly experience it ourselves and therefore verify it. So, what’s going on in love? Jung would say it’s a major projection that’s happening. Now, this doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Debra Maldonado (07:24.897)
Mm-hmm.

Debra Maldonado (07:33.335)
Mm-hmm.

Debra Maldonado (07:42.381)
And no one wants to hear that, right? They think that other person has this magic.

Dr. Rob (07:48.571)
Yeah. It doesn’t mean it’s not real. It simply means that that’s the way nature designed us so that we could bond with a stranger. You know, a few minutes ago or or a few weeks ago, depending on how long they’ve been dating, this person was a complete stranger. They knew nothing of them. And now as you fall in love, you’re you’re willing to die for this person.

You’re willing to, you know, move across the country, you’re you’re willing to leave your family, your friends, your your home to be with this stranger. That is an awesome proposition. How does nature do it? How does the psyche do it in order to overcome all these barriers and let our guard down and be able then to meet a person heart to heart?

So young sis.

Debra Maldonado (08:48.205)
Well, I think that’s a well, there’s a lot there, right? Because you talk about like falling that falling phase, infatuation. And then you say, then we have to let our guard down. And so I always talk about the ABCs, which is the three stages of attraction of b of a relationship. And there’s the attraction phase, which is that

This person can do no wrong and they’re so beautiful and their hair is sparkling and their skin is glowing and their body’s so sexy and I just can’t stop thinking of them. And then the B is the bonding where they start to gel and and sh that’s where the guard comes down. That’s where we kind of fall, you know, get to know each other and have these sharing our our childhood stories or what we’ve done in our life or our dreams, and we’re starting to really bond. It’s not

just a physical attraction anymore. And then C is commitment. And so each stage has a threshold for that attraction. And the thing that stops us from staying in that euphoric stage is our inner work, you know. And so we’ll talk about that. So so when we’re in that intoxication phase, I would call that the attraction phase. And and some people like over the years, like I said, I’ve worked with thousands of people.

There are clients I’ve had that just go from one infatuation to another infatuation to another infatuation, and they’re always getting their heartbroken. They’re always going for the unavailable person. I think I was like that too, and never got to that bonding stage. So they kind of feel like they feel like they’re in love, but you’re really not truly until you get to see. You’re really not truly like in that deep psychological and spiritual love and soulful love that you get to.

Dr. Rob (10:29.168)
Mm-hmm.

Debra Maldonado (10:35.721)
So the the projection, what causes this projection, Rob? Like according to Young, we feel like this person can be the answer to all our prayers and they they finally came in, you know, like it has so much power.

Dr. Rob (10:36.624)
Yeah.

Dr. Rob (10:45.756)
Yeah.

Dr. Rob (10:50.426)
Well, we it has to do with what we’re projecting. So we’re projecting more than an idealized image of a lover, let’s say. Because that kind of would make sense that okay, we have this this idealized image. people have the list of the things that they want in a partner, and that we’re projecting this idealized version of what a great

Debra Maldonado (10:53.601)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rob (11:19.046)
Partner would be onto an individual. But that’s not really what’s happening. Jung says there’s a deeper element in the psyche called the anima or animus, which is kind of the soul image in a in the individual. The soul image is we can think of it as the divine element in us. Not divine in a religious sense, but

In the sense that it’s pure, it transcends human nature. But it it’s very much us. In other words, it it’s a it’s an aspect of the individual, not a list of credits that are projected onto another human being. That soul image is what is projected onto this other human being.

Debra Maldonado (11:48.663)
Pure almost like a magical.

Dr. Rob (12:16.08)
That’s why we experience love as transcendent. Like, you know, you need poetry to explain it. You need Rumi, you need Rilka, you need some great poets, to Yeah, Dickens, Dickinson, all these people that have the the words to transcend kind of the typical I like you or I love you.

Debra Maldonado (12:28.535)
To gore.

Dr. Rob (12:43.902)
and to explain that deeper connection that happens. This this this sense of I’m in touch with something that’s much bigger than me, than my life. And I seem to have burst the bounds of my the my limitations and be connected intimately with this other human being at the soul level.

Debra Maldonado (13:08.173)
So I have a question. So if the soul of we’re seeing our soul in the other person, would it be fair to say that if we don’t know our own soul, we we tend to look, we’re looking for it, right? We’re seeking spirit like this spiritual transcendence in life. I mean, that’s kind of we’re here to survive, but then we’re also seeking that that in us, you know, and and and we don’t look within ourselves.

And we’re looking and projecting that onto the world. So the more you know your own soul, the less you’ll fall for every Tom Dick and Harry or Jane, Mary, and and Susie that goes by. You’re you’re going to kind of be more grounded when you look for love. Would you say that is true, or is that just hopeful, wishful thinking?

Dr. Rob (13:59.224)
I I it it is yes. I I would say it it it helps. It helps to be aware of what is a psychology of projection and and love. but because it happens to us. In other words, it’s not something we consciously do. You can’t create love, in other words, you can’t say, I’m gonna fall in love with that person.

Debra Maldonado (14:00.066)
Like you’re less like needy and attached and and lose yourself.

Dr. Rob (14:28.026)
If it’s there, it’s it’s there. If it’s not there, you can’t make it, you know, you can’t generate it.

Debra Maldonado (14:34.837)
I think though that there are there are I have to counter that. I think there are people that can manufacture feelings of love, like convince themselves they’re full they’re in love with someone. It’s not that same level. It’s just more like like a a social social fitting in or I don’t know, something of I like for someone who wants to get married and is desperate to get married, like I was before I met you.

like kind of wanting to manufacture it in a way, like wanting to fit it to make it work, just so they can get their things. Yet the other things of life, yeah. It wouldn’t be love, but it would be like a kind of the romance and trying to like manufacture a romance and and be romantic and have our romantic anniversaries. And it’s not really love. It’s just kind of like playing house and playing this.

Dr. Rob (15:09.372)
Yes. Yeah, I mean th that’s a good question, right? That that’s why the e

Debra Maldonado (15:30.837)
role. I mean I I’ve seen that happen and and then like that’s not really love.

Dr. Rob (15:34.266)
I yeah. You’re describing you’re describing the reason why most psychology didn’t didn’t attempt to measure these things because you have all these gray areas and all these possibilities that, you know, you they they’re beyond kind of the the standard measurement of research. But

Debra Maldonado (15:46.924)
Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (15:56.248)
But you’re talking about when you get like pulled away, like you’re you’re like floaty here and that I I’m not I out here, I’m not grounded, you’re in like the clouds kind of thing.

Dr. Rob (15:59.428)
Yeah, when you when you know that

Dr. Rob (16:05.296)
Yes. Yeah. for those of us who have been lucky enough or unlucky enough, depending on the outcomes, to have experienced this, it it is a transcendent experience that puts you in touch with the Garden of Eden, let’s say, or the original source of creation. You feel it.

Debra Maldonado (16:15.86)
Ha ha ha.

Dr. Rob (16:34.126)
In other words, it’s not simply like a a thought or a list that says, yeah, this this person is good for me. It’s beyond you and it’s out of your control. And and that’s you know, that that’s what Jung was talking about. That that that emotion, that feeling, that that passion that arises within you is arising from deep in the unconscious mind.

Debra Maldonado (16:47.916)
Yeah.

Dr. Rob (17:03.258)
And that it has an image or a a soul image that press possesses the mind so that the individual is not able to control their thoughts. Their their their thoughts go to this person and they they imagine this person in this angelic transcendent aspect, right? Of we’re one.

We’re one, we’re connected.

Debra Maldonado (17:33.015)
Would it be kind of a similar just like when someone gets like enamored like in a cult with the guru, they would project that same kind of idea onto the teacher that this you’re you’re divine and I’m gonna, you know, like hand over all my powers, you know, you’d again, not consciously, but this like seeing it in the guru, not in themselves.

Dr. Rob (17:39.826)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rob (17:56.856)
Well, we know there’s a lot of overlap between spiritual, religious experiences and love. If you notice, a lot of the language is very similar. And in in some traditions, like there’s a beautiful sculpture of Saint Teresa in ecstasy in Rome.

Debra Maldonado (18:05.613)
Mm.

Debra Maldonado (18:20.984)
yes, that was beautiful.

Dr. Rob (18:23.378)
She’s she’s totally enraptured by the divine. In other words, she’s marrying God. She’s she’s in love with God. And that’s her ecstasy. Not the not the human affair, but a divine connection with this transcendent power that itself is very similar to what lovers describe. You know, what Rumi talks about. Like he says the lover

Debra Maldonado (18:28.118)
Mm.

Debra Maldonado (18:33.997)
Hm.

Debra Maldonado (18:52.255)
So this feeling is really the soul, we’re seeing the soul image. So we’re so it’s not like an indication that this person is the one, this human being, but we’re projecting onto this human being all this stuff. And which is why when someone likes you and you and you don’t like them, it feels very uncomfortable because they’re like, You’re so great. And you’re just like, what? Like, what are you seeing? Like it’s almost like you’re not on the same track. It has to be.

Dr. Rob (19:16.592)
Yes, that’s right.

Debra Maldonado (19:21.397)
Kind of that mutual kind of pulling together. And I I I don’t think it’s fake. I think we need that to get together. Because if we didn’t have that, why would we even waste our time with each other? Right?

Dr. Rob (19:34.0)
Yes. So it gets to the second point then. We we talked about what is projected. So we’re saying what is projected is this divine image or the soul image. What is projection then? Projection is very similar to what we t say a projector is. The image is inside the projector, in other words, the individual.

But it’s projected, meaning it’s thrown out there to where we see it in the external world. So in in love, we see it in the the beloved.

Debra Maldonado (20:01.803)
It’s like the film is in there. Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (20:16.139)
We see ourselves.

Dr. Rob (20:16.176)
And for us, we see the that soul image that is part of us in this other person. That’s what’s projected, or the and that is what projection is. It’s seeing it clearly externalized. So so you can imagine the power of that. That here is my soul image externalized in this human being. That’s why it’s so powerful.

Debra Maldonado (20:20.107)
Soul image.

Dr. Rob (20:46.038)
It forces you to, like we were saying, abandon your whole life and give up everything.

Debra Maldonado (20:51.629)
White people leave thirty years of marriage for the fling, right?

Dr. Rob (20:58.086)
That too, yeah, exactly. you know, the the one of the best psychologists was was William Shakespeare. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you kind of see the the the absurdity and the kind of the complications that can arise out of these kind of situations, where the God of love is kind of playing.

matchmaker, Cupid, and he sends Puck, who’s a trickster kind of figure, to deliver the potions to make the the lovers fall in love with each other. But Puck forgets the instructions and so he mixes them up and he has the wrong people fall in love with each other. And th this often happens in human affairs, of course. That

Debra Maldonado (21:43.373)
Mm-hmm.

Debra Maldonado (21:48.237)
Ha ha ha.

Dr. Rob (21:55.484)
People fall in love with each other in the wrong situation. It it appears to be completely irrational sometimes. I remember when we were in our teen in our teens, this very straight laced from a good family girl fell in love with one of the worst amongst us.

Debra Maldonado (21:56.204)
We don’t choose it. People we don’t choose who we love. Yeah.

Dr. Rob (22:24.62)
He was just terrible, a terrible human being in in many ways. But she loved him so much, and and he loved her too. totally didn’t make sense socially, psychologically in any way. Yet it’s like the gods mixed the potion up and and got it wrong. They made two people that shouldn’t be together fall in love with each other. So

Debra Maldonado (22:53.301)
Or th on paper on the outside. I’ve had a a many clients tell me they when they were getting divorced that he looked so good on paper. He had everything I wanted. He even looked like me, like we had looked alike, we had the same background, the same family, and it was blah. And she said we just made a logical choice. And what you’re talking about is this other force. And I think we f

Dr. Rob (23:02.93)
Mm.

Debra Maldonado (23:21.715)
maybe we just wait for that feeling. Like for me, that’s what I wanted. I was like, if I have to feel this feeling in order to see if this person is the one for me. And I would always have the feeling for unavailable men. So I was like, okay, how is this working? Why am I, you know, there must be something wrong that th they’re not choosing me back. And it’s like because I was my my Cupid was shooting the arrow, but not in the wrong place, but in another place is what we’re going to talk about. It’s like what are we

What’s the content of that projection besides the soul? Because at first, maybe it’s that beautiful light from the projector or the camera. And then guess what gets overlaid over that? The film of the movie drama of our life, the patterns and conditioning start filling in. Like at first it’s light, and then it’s like, you start to see the psychological aspects of yourself that you don’t know that you’ve patterned on to this other person.

Dr. Rob (24:18.534)
Yeah. Exactly. And now back to this importance of how important the this relationship with the other is and how little understanding we have of this process. We should study this intensely and learn as much about it as possible. And so what is going on then when

When our individual experience with our own family

plays into that projection of the divine onto this other person. So Jung says, think about your relationship with your mother for a man, right? that relationship is going to be important in the woman that you project onto. Right? Because your your my the relationship with your mother is kind of giving you a powerful template.

Of what is a good relationship and what is a good woman and and how should you feel and and how should she make you feel? All those assumptions kind of go instinctually into the makeup of who we become as young adults. So now

Debra Maldonado (25:46.326)
And so so that’s what Jung would call the imago. So we have this internal image of the mother or anima, the feminine principle that we put on. And again, if you’re not if you’re not straight, this applies not gender. It could be any kind of masculine, feminine. We’re talking about more the energy. and so we project that on and the and so we’re s like if we have let’s say

Dr. Rob (25:50.865)
Yeah, Margo.

Debra Maldonado (26:16.525)
a a guarded relationship with our mother because she was always kind of controlling and the devouring mother. And we and we decided as a man that I gotta like not give her too much, because she’ll take. And so it was the way you related, you will do the same thing with your wife. If she whatever she does, she will or relationship, maybe not a wife yet, that threatens that same energy, that’s how you react and respond. And you don’t even realize it most of the time,

I would say most of the time our patterns are not conscious. You know, we know we we know some of our patterns, but we we don’t even what we don’t know why and what that drive is. And it’s not just, I’ll decide to be open now. Like you can’t just decide. You have to really dig into what is that dynamic, right? What’s the fear? The protective energy.

Dr. Rob (26:50.258)
That’s right.

Dr. Rob (27:05.955)
Yeah, yeah. So we can think yeah, we can think of this then the soul image that we all have is conditioned by our relationship with our individual parents.

Both our our mother and our father. And in general, we can say the relationship that we saw between our mother and our father, or our parents in general, is imprinted and overlaid over our images over our our our soul image that would then is projected outward. Right. So like you say, most of it is unconscious. Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (27:46.431)
And unconsciously again, yeah.

Dr. Rob (27:48.944)
Yeah, most of it is unconscious. We simply learn by observation, through feeling. You know, when we’re kids, we we don’t reason out stuff, we simply feel it, and we we’re very good at sensing when something’s off. And so all that is imprinted in our individual experience and then projected outwardly as well through this soul image.

Debra Maldonado (28:17.207)
So another example, let’s say the the boy isn’t re pulling back, but the mother’s very like helpless or needy or like always unhappy. And the boy decided his job is to make her happy. So he’s always, you know, be he’s being the one who’s through that to the mother, like taking care of her, nurturing her. And then as w he grows up and he has a relationship with a woman and she’s like not feeling good. And then he ends up being extra needy to fix her. And it’s like that pattern just plays out. And

They may or not be conscious of it because many times these patterns are so subtle. We don’t even realize we’re doing it. We’re we we think they’re rational thing. yeah, I should make sure she’s okay. But it’s like, it’s coming from that deeper need to connect, like the way you can have a relationship or how you relate to that image. And so the woman, for women, it’s men typically, the the father, and it’s the animus, that eternal image of the father and how that relates.

Dr. Rob (28:51.974)
Very some yeah.

Dr. Rob (29:05.243)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rob (29:16.348)
Yeah, yeah. And and and this is where complexes come in. So Jung says we develop all these complexes around our our actual relationship with our parents that then are internalized. So we don’t even realize them. Yeah, so a s a complex is is a constellation or a collection of experiences.

Debra Maldonado (29:33.805)
So could you describe what a complex is people in it?

Dr. Rob (29:45.496)
emotions, regrets, thoughts, associations that we have regarding our mother, for example. So if I say someone has a mother complex, what I mean is they are they are unconscious of the true feelings that they have and had with their mother. And it’s still

Debra Maldonado (30:13.537)
So

Dr. Rob (30:14.425)
is still in them unconsciously.

Debra Maldonado (30:16.929)
Would you say everyone has a mother complex and a father complex? I mean, it’s not a negative thing. It’s like we all have these ideas that it’s not pathological. It’s it’s a normal way.

Dr. Rob (30:19.422)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Dr. Rob (30:26.352)
Yeah. It’s just your your your sense of who your mother was and what your your overall experience with her communicated to you. That would be complex.

Debra Maldonado (30:39.125)
And so when we’re younger as a child, we’re looking for those templates to kind of how we navigate the world. So the mother’s a template, the father’s a template, they’re the the spirit and the heart and the will and all these things we learn from our parents, love and power. And and then that prepares us for, you know, being in the world. And so we all always want to look at this as not bad or wrong. If you have a mother complex, we all do.

It’s just figuring out what that is so we’re not just reacting and or even choosing to be stay in relationships that aren’t working or even how to be in a relationship with another person to understand your drives and what you’re projecting onto that person.

Dr. Rob (31:21.5)
Yeah, so in relationships and what comes up is not really like our friend Hollis says, it the thing is not the thing. The problem in the relationship is typically not the money or or the affair or whatever happened externally. Again, it has to do with those internal complexes that now are playing out and interfering in the connection.

In the projection, if you will, between these two people, and it’s surfacing. So the unconscious begins to surface in deep relationships because there’s a lot of emotion involved. There’s a psychological connection here. And therefore, you you can’t expect the unconscious to remain unheard in this situation. It’s going to play out.

Debra Maldonado (32:21.599)
And so what we’re really seeing, we have to learn that what like drives us crazy about our partner that upsets us or what we think they’re doing to us. It’s not that they’re innocent, like when we talk about like harsh abuse or anything like that. We’re talking about well, why why are we together? Like why is this person in our life? And you said that Young had a term called complementarity. Complimentarity.

And it’s unconscious. And what I call it is they we fit together like puzzle pieces. So we’re always going to so if if you’re if you’re used to a mother being distant, you will probably be attracted to people that are like that because it fits, you know, it fits the dynamic. Unless you change your piece, it fits together. And if we don’t do any work on ourselves, and we don’t I don’t work.

Dr. Rob (32:55.826)
That’s right.

Debra Maldonado (33:16.233)
ourselves but more inner exploration and understand our motivations and our patterns, we end up just repeating them over and over. And so let’s talk about that a little bit. What is that part of the the puzzle piece? How does that work?

Dr. Rob (33:31.674)
Yeah, uncont unconscious complementarity. So it’s like this.

The complexes in each one of the partners is going to begin to surface so that now not only the beautiful projection of love is holding the couple together, but the complexes now are starting to surface between them. In other words, they’re starting to see through the illusion or through the the projection.

And starting to see the the person as they truly are. Complete with complexes.

Debra Maldonado (34:15.965)
Like the divine falls away and it’s like, you’re just a human. It’s like it’s like Superman when he puts on his glasses and he’s a normal person and they can’t tell the difference. He takes his glasses off and he’s divine. I never understood that one. The good disguise, but it is that funny, funny idea that we we take, you know, we we put the glasses on and now we’re this imperfect person, right? The and we I think truly maybe it’s the d I I wonder if it’s the ego.

Dr. Rob (34:31.964)
Yeah.

Dr. Rob (34:38.94)
Mm-hmm.

Debra Maldonado (34:46.207)
Wanting to be perfect and wanting to not look at its flaws. And so it projects it on to the other person. And it’s like not accepting parts of themselves. the ego is like rejecting those parts and then it annoys it annoys them. The ego, when it sees it in other people, we want to give it to let that other person be the carrier of that that neuroses or that annoyance or the anger.

So if we suppress our anger, it’ll show up in that partner.

Dr. Rob (35:19.258)
Y yes. so you start to see the subtleties, like you say, and the and also that there is no one way of being. Let’s say you know, two people have a a critical mother, they might react completely different to that. One might create a defense mechanism against it and not care what other people say about them.

Debra Maldonado (35:20.353)
It could.

Dr. Rob (35:45.65)
And that’s kind of a defensive stance and it works for them. That’s fine. and and another one might be overly sensitive to any criticism, to where they can’t, you know, they’re thin, too thin skin where they can’t handle anybody criticizing them. So two different situations or two different responses, let’s say, to the same situation. That’s why you have to work with every everyone individually and help.

them untangle this personal history, right?

Debra Maldonado (36:18.081)
This isn’t something you can read a book on and say, okay, I know my type and like the archetype role archetypal roles that that’s something that g like it blanketly just one thing that’s gonna it’s it’s a it’s a a discovery and you don’t want it to be easy because the more you peel away of these parts of yourself, you start to become more conscious each time. So you don’t wanna just be let me turn on a switch. And I used to have a program called the Love Switch where you turn it on.

And my coach was like, You gotta make it easy. But it was very misleading. And I I don’t use that anymore. I’ve never used it for a long time because I felt like it’s not fair to tell people, yeah, it’s gonna be easy. And then you track people as a coach, those are your coaches and you know, want to help others in in relationships. Let’s say make it too easy. You’re gonna track people that want it like in 30 days, you know, everything changing. And then really not wanting to work on themselves. They just want the result. And again, when I say work on ourselves, it’s like

I think of it as being in a shop, like a sculpture studio or art studio. You’re working on your art project. It’s like you’re you’re you’re giving it attention. It’s not like I gotta fix it, but more like I’m working it. I’m opening myself up to see parts of myself.

Dr. Rob (37:34.864)
Yeah, and it’s not as difficult as it might appear on the surface because the mind is designed to observe itself. It has all the mechanisms needed to observe itself and to understand itself. So this is a unique aspect of human psychology that we have this self reflective witness mind that is able to observe our own.

Debra Maldonado (37:38.733)
Hmm.

Dr. Rob (38:04.316)
Thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and and kind of think through things in a rational way and say, maybe there’s a better and more creative way of responding to this situation instead of the typical condition reaction. That saves us right there. And that allows us to grow. And relationships, I have to say, are probably the best.

Medium for human development. It allows us to grow in very powerful ways if we’re willing to accept some of these constructs that we’re talking about. Primarily that we tend to project both our good and our bad onto the other person. So instead of always blaming and always fighting and always saying it’s your fault.

Debra Maldonado (38:55.671)
First the good, we think Yeah. Go ahead, sorry.

Dr. Rob (39:03.554)
that we start to ask, well, what part am I playing in this situation? And and in this problem that’s ca coming up or arising in the relationship? What can I do to shift that, to change that?

Debra Maldonado (39:18.719)
It’s really comes down to the word responsibility, that we have to take responsibility for the people that come into our life that we’re seeing our own mind, the things that trigger us, the things we tolerate. and then the reason why we’re attracted to them in the first place, if they’re not right, is because that’s where we’re our our default is set up. Our patterns are set up to be in a relationship like that because of our early life dynamics.

And so until we examine that and open it up and understand that, you know, when we were under under 10 years old, we didn’t, like you said, didn’t have the rational, like, I I think I should behave this way, or I I need to, you know, be more standoffish here, or I need to be more aggressive here or or sweet here. We emotionally, intuitively, instinctively.

create and shape our our behavior around and we I think early on we try different things and then something works and we’re like, we’re gonna keep doing that again. And and then we it becomes part of our our life. And then and then we we end up repeating it. We’re and it’s so subtle that we can’t even know that we do that. And and I think one of the best things about having a conscious relationship is that your partner must be willing to tell you too.

Do you notice you’d keep like you’re very good at that? Like, have you noticed you do this sometimes? And not, and then I’m okay with getting that feedback. Where if you’re in a relationship where it’s very guarded, any type of feedback or perceived criticism would be, you know, rejected. And so we have to have that softness with ourselves. And then also the person that we’re with is re is has their own stuff they’re projecting onto you. And it’s understand that dynamic. So we can.

have a healthier relationship versus I just need to keep my boundaries with this person and and communicate better.

Dr. Rob (41:13.978)
Yeah, and it used to be that because this kind of work was only done in a type of analysis, either psychoanalysis or analytical psychology, as in the the Jungian form, that it was considered kind of a path pathology or or the approach was essentially there’s something amiss with the psyche of these individuals or the relationship.

In young end coaching, though, we drop the pathology. There’s no need for that. All we’re talking about is growing our awareness of these complexes and, like you said, accepting responsibility for them. Right? We’re not letting the other person off the hook. We can call them out on whatever we need to, but we also understand that most of it is coming from us, that we have a big part to play.

in the way our life, our relationships, our work evolves and plays out. And if we

Debra Maldonado (42:18.893)
So in a non dual philosophy, wouldn’t it be everything is coming from us in a way?

Dr. Rob (42:25.808)
Well, depends what you define as us. Yeah. Who who is the you?

Debra Maldonado (42:27.617)
Define as us. I knew you were gonna that. Yeah. So yeah. So when we say, yeah, so on a deep, deep level, we’re all connected and we’re seeing, you know, the wholeness within that person. It might not be a personal individual aspect of our psyche, but it could be a collective aspect of our psyche that we’re seeing in that person, you know, so not feeling that everything is you.

but also, you know, one thing I want to say before we go, what you said was really important about not being a pathology, like even the term complex, I always think of it as, ooh, that’s something needs to be fixed, like an inferiority complex, you know, a hero complex, and like something’s wrong. It’s it’s not atypical. and so early in my career or before I became a coach and and did this work, I was in just at the corporate role reading self-help books.

And I kept thinking there’s something wrong with me and I have to fix it in order to find that love, you know, and find that partner. And over the years I work with well, I haven’t worked very much recently, but with private, I take very few private clients now. But when I do work with private clients over the years, the biggest question the the the client would tell me is am I well enough or healed enough?

Dr. Rob (43:28.38)
Hmm. Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (43:50.668)
To to find a relationship now? Or is it like safe for me to go out again? Or if they have a bad relationship or something doesn’t work out, they feel like I still have more work to do, you know, and I have to fit like it’s almost like I’m not there yet, you know, kind of feeling. And I used to feel that way too. I used to feel like, this guy broke my heart. I must be something still wrong. I gotta go fix it. And saw that over the years. And I I wanna say that we’re never done.

evolving. And so when we think about personal growth, instead of thinking is fixing yourself, what if the it’s becoming more aware of yourself? Maybe that’s all you’re doing is like making the unconscious conscious, as Jung would say. And that process is going to be a lifetime. So there’s no like line in the sand where you cross or this threshold where you finally have all the answers and you’re going to make all the right decisions and everything’s going to be smooth in your life forever. There’s not going to be any more problems because

You’ve crossed that line. It’s like an an invisible imaginary line that we never cross because we’re always growing. And I just I want to just say that to people that feel sometimes exhausted and thinking, I got it more to work to do. Think of it more I have more discover about myself. I have more to explore and how more rich and meaningful my life becomes, the more I know who I really am and know my soul and I live a more soulful life.

Dr. Rob (45:06.257)
Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (45:15.645)
And it’s not about a finish line that we’re getting to. And no matter how awake we are and how much conscious we are, we’re gonna make mistakes. We’re gonna pick the wrong people or what we think are the wrong people. We’re going to, you know, make, you know, errors and hurting people’s feelings. And it’s like there’s no perfection to this model, to this idea of finding that partner and making love last. There’s no absolute perfection.

Dr. Rob (45:45.22)
I love that. And

Debra Maldonado (45:45.39)
It’s like unattainable. And so it is stop be beating yourself up if you make a mistake or make a wrong choice or act react in a situation that you wish you would react to and maybe blow up a relationship that you didn’t mean to. And then you’re beating yourself up. I must be still broken inside. I have to fix that. No, just this keep going and let’s see what this, this whatever shows up as an opportunity to me to know myself more.

And you don’t know if that blow up or that thing that happened is actually the thing that takes you to find love. You don’t know to find closer to what you truly want.

Dr. Rob (46:20.75)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and and the Jungyin approach gives us this sense that when we find meaning within ourselves, instead of kind of handing it over to the other person like it it’s your responsibility to make my life meaningful and and rich and full, the that’s un but that’s totally unfair to the other person.

Debra Maldonado (46:42.763)
I’m sorry I do that for you, Rob.

Dr. Rob (46:50.348)
You know, that that that’s your responsibility. You’re supposed to make your life meaningful and find that peace within yourself. And so it always points to what can I do? And how do I do that? And it and and and there are these wonderful tools for us to develop and cultivate our self-awareness to the point where then we can share it with others. And that is the basis.

Of a beautiful, harmonious relationship. Not perfect, like you said, there’s no perfection, but there’s a there’s a way to grow in relationships that is unmatched. I would say that even monks that spend all their life studying these spiritual principles, they don’t have an edge over someone who’s awake and alert in their relationship because it’s the most powerful way for us human beings to grow.

Debra Maldonado (47:50.614)
It is. Well, great. Well, we’ll see you next week on another episode of Young on Purpose. And I do want to say thank you for joining us. And yeah, pay pay stay tuned. We have a new program coming up this fall that we are going to offer. That’s not about coach trading. It’s a a a place for you to experience the work yourself, a little teaser, if you’re curious about it.

Send us an email and we’ll give you some little preview of it, but we’ll be making an announcement later this summer. And yeah, we’re really excited about taking you to a new level of relationship and find love and and live your life with purpose. That’s what this is all about. Have a great rest of your week, and we’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.

Dr. Rob (48:39.164)
See you soon.