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Why do some men seem to remain as adolescents and refuse to grow up?
What does this mean about you if you are attracted to a Puer Aeternus?
How can you have a mature relationship or be drawn to someone who is adult enough to have the capacity for real love?
Join our lively discussion in our Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/creativemindcoaching
Transcript
Debra Maldonado 00:03
Welcome to Creative Mind Living, a podcast for personal growth based on the works of Carl Jung neuroscience and Eastern philosophies. We’re your hosts Debra Berndt Maldonado, and Dr. Rob Maldonado, founders of Creative Mind Coaching. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our soul session this Saturday. Hope you’re doing well. How are you, Rob?
Robert Maldonado 00:27
Good. How are you doing?
Debra Maldonado 00:29
I’m doing excellent. I’m so excited about this topic. It’s one of our favorite topics. It is the eternal boy and romantic relationships, the story of my life story of your life and then the story of all the men I dated before I met you. So I think it’s really appropriate to talk about our experience, as you mean an eternal boy at one point, and me being the one who dated the eternal boy and yeah, they show up in mythology how it shows up in pop culture. Yeah, how it shows up in our life and why are we attracted? Why are women attracted to the eternal boy? Or why do they feel like they’re stuck with an eternal boy in their in their relationship life, and then why men have a hard time breaking free of that dynamic in themselves?
Robert Maldonado 01:17
Yeah, and before we get into all that, I just want to say we’re not pathologizing human behavior. You know, as coaches, we like to talk about these things. As part of our nature, it’s part of the beauty and complexity of being a human being, especially in relationships, you know, it gets really interesting. But the these are important aspects of human relationships that very few people talk about or understand. So we want to bring them into the open because relationships are difficult. They are complex and complicated.
Debra Maldonado 02:02
It’s not as easy as just meeting the right person. That’s right. And then everything’s just gonna fall into place and everyone should assume how to behave and how to treat each other and what to expect and there’s all these rules that people should follow and it’s your, your invite inviting another human being into your world. They have their own past experience that they’ve been conditioned to, to use your stuff kind of interacts with each other. And in a way, that’s good because that’s how we grow that’s a lot of times we can’t see things that we need to get our unconscious in ourselves until we get into that intimate relationship.
Robert Maldonado 02:41
But we asked you to resist the labeling another person or human being with these labels, yeah, these ideas and just thinking of them as purely those things. You know, we hear a lot of people talk about narcissism and and kind of labeled their exes or other people as Narcissus, that’s not really a good way to think about other human beings,
Debra Maldonado 03:08
because they can’t really be anything besides that if you project that label onto them, and they it’s a, there’s something deeper to everyone, even if they can be destructive or mean or whatever happens in a relationship, we have to see that there is a human being underneath. Absolutely. And a lot of what we experience in relationships that break our hearts are people that are not broken, but they’re like hurt themselves. And they don’t know how to treat another person because they don’t how to treat themselves and so we have to have compassion, not tolerate bad behavior, but we have to have compassion for the human condition like we all have didn’t have perfect parents.
Robert Maldonado 03:52
I’m sure we’ve all come short of the kingdom of heaven. Yes.
Debra Maldonado 03:55
And by the yardstick, we measure others, we measure ourselves. And that’s what this isn’t about making fun of the eternal boy, but about recognizing what their challenges are and why that dynamic shows up. in relationships and in in men.
Robert Maldonado 04:13
Well, we talked about the Puella Aeterna. Yeah, which is the eternal girl. So now we’re talking about the eternal boy. And keep in mind, we all have aspects of these are the we have these traits and qualities, just to different degrees and different at different stages of our development.
Debra Maldonado 04:32
So for a woman, it’s the puella aeterna, which is the eternal girl. And the pruer aeterness is the eternal boy, the eternal boy and we’ll
Robert Maldonado 04:43
just revert Yeah, we’ll just refer to it as the eternal boy,
Debra Maldonado 04:47
just to make it easy. We’re not speaking Latin the whole time. So when we think about the eternal boy, this was Jung actually brought this to the attention of brought this into the world of psychology, this type of something that shows up in men that are, there’s something going on where they’re not growing up, they haven’t transitioned from being their mother son to being an adult male, psychologically, now physically, yes, that happened. And a lot of times, if you look at ancient history and indigenous tribes, they had a ritual for men to go become a boy, you know, you had a man become a man. They would steal the baby from the mothers to the adolescent, adolescent from the mother’s tent, and they would take, you know, the men, the elders would take him out and have some kind of ritual for him to become a man. There were other you know, very different variations of that. And in modern culture, we don’t have that ritual. So what did he see as that eternal boy, what are the How would he define it?
Robert Maldonado 06:04
Yeah, so if we think about the trajectory of becoming a man as well as a woman, but here we were specifically talking about them the male journey. Definitely. We, we grew up as children being dependent on our parents, and especially our mothers. There comes a time when we reach puberty, adolescence, where we’re meant to break away from the mother to strike out on our own, to individuation, essentially to become our own individual self. And that process is a psychological process that is meant to take place
Debra Maldonado 06:58
naturally. Mm hmm. You go to a to college, or you start your first job, and you start to make your own money and you start to have responsibilities that are your own. That’s right. There is mommy’s taking care of everything for you.
Robert Maldonado 07:12
Yeah. And we can say those are the external signs of somebody individuating becoming their own their own man. But psychologically, what Jung was saying is that there’s a tendency for some men to want to remain as children, or as adolescence, being dependent on the mother archetype. Now, not the physical mother always. But the mother archetype meaning they want to be enveloped, they want to be on conscious Hmm. They don’t want to think for themselves, act with themselves, act in the world.
Debra Maldonado 07:54
So it could be really a woman that becomes their like that mother role in their life.
Robert Maldonado 08:00
Now in relationships, yeah, that would be part of it that they might be looking for a woman who substitutes the mother Mm hmm. And becomes in an essence, emotionally, their mother their or their connection to the mother.
Debra Maldonado 08:18
So it says if the the stage that we every man goes through as an adolescent is that stage of rape before that stage he was he really is raised by the mother, she does everything for him. He she, he looks to her for guidance and support and, you know, to be there for him when he needs her. And then there is a stage where he has to start, you know, basically break away. And so this is saying psychologically, he hasn’t made that step yet. In some aspects of his life. He could have his own business, he can be successful on the outer, but psychologically he hasn’t really grown up to be the The adult from the mother from that like kind of grown up way, kind of like a witty playboy, maybe someone like that kind of like a playboy who’s that’s just kind of like doesn’t have responsibility. Maybe someone who’s non committal?
Robert Maldonado 09:18
Yes, but you could also have somebody that’s married and has children, and has taken on all the appearance of a responsible male, adult male, but internally, emotionally, they could still be the eternal boy.
Debra Maldonado 09:38
So what does that look like emotionally for a man?
Robert Maldonado 09:42
Well, if you think about really taking responsibility for yourself, it means that you feel confident to to survive on your own first of all, but not only survive, but to define yourself online. on your own terms, instead of without defining yourself by the attachment to the family, to the mother to your past,
Debra Maldonado 10:09
so it would be like kind of a man who’s like, kind of dominated by the wife, you know, the witness, the guy that’s like your steer and kind of like she’s, I’ve heard, actually, Tony wolf talks about the mother and a lot of men say the mothers will say, I have five children, and we’re actually six, including my husband, that kind of like role where the husband’s not really leaving in the family, where he’s just kind of another child that another hand mouth to feed another person to support.
Robert Maldonado 10:43
Very much so. Yeah, exactly. And we see that, you know, Von Franz, who wrote more about the puer aeternus saying that there’s in the culture in modern culture, there’s an epidemic, this eternal boy syndrome. The Peter Pan syndrome and all this idea so
Debra Maldonado 11:03
well youth is idolized now in our culture versus the wise man. It’s not idolized anymore.
Robert Maldonado 11:10
Yeah, and we all kind of we all grow up kind of thinking that freedom and happiness is this kind of doing whatever we want to do with them taking responsibility,
Debra Maldonado 11:22
kind of like a fun, the kind of like, Don’t commit to something too long even, I guess are like 50 years ago, it was honorable to be in a job for 25 years and work at the same company, the same factory and, you know, you’re just kind of a company man. And now it’s that flighty, you know, like freedom and bouncing around creative where there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s like if it’s if it’s expressed externally, and psychologically, you’re still not taking response. It’s really you’re using it to avoid responsibility. I would think that a clear definition The eternal voice, a man who’s not willing to take responsibility for his life, that he’s depending on a woman, whether it’s his mother or his woman to take care of him, basically, like you’re in charge of, you know me,
Robert Maldonado 12:15
right? So we think in stereotypes and this is, you know, purely for for kind of clarification of what the type is. If you think of somebody remaining at home, living in the parents basement basement kind of playing video games, smoking pot all day, yes, being close to 40 and still kind of doing these things, not really being able to, to step out into life. Now psychologically, what that means is that they’re betraying life. It’s because life is giving you this opportunity. And your job as a human being is to make the most of it. That’s the only job it gives you. Make the most of what I give you.
Debra Maldonado 13:02
So the men, the masculine energy of the will just self directed will is not there, it’s more of a just more of a feminine, even receptive, kind of childlike and even entitlement that the world is supposed to take care of me, I don’t have to take responsibility for anything. That’s where the person who complains about life, we’ve all had those dates where the guy’s like, no one, you know, nothing works out for me. And you know, that kind of worries me and I they don’t have that sense of, well, I’m responsible, I’m gonna make it happen. It’s more that kind of whining and even. Actually, I think a lot of those men that do that those dominating the player, what do they call the men against women, you know, that are like angry about women. I think a lot of them are, they haven’t grown up yet and they’re blaming women for their lack of, you know, women are taking over our life and you know, Do what do they call this seduction guys. And it’s that kind of almost it can show up in that way where they’re just feeling like a victim to a woman. And, and like when I was single, I would date some boy, some boys, the eternal boys. And it was almost like if you didn’t like them, they would have like a little temper tantrum and it like if you didn’t give them what they wanted another date or call them back and they’re like whiny and kind of immature. There’s like an immaturity about it. Yeah, yeah. not honoring and then other people where you’re saying you’re not interested in they’re like, Okay, well, thank you very much. It was great to meet you. But then you get the kind of whiny boys that have like a little tantrum. And you feel like, Oh, I didn’t touch a bullet there. And I think women, you know, especially now I think women’s roles have changed too, because women have taken a lot of initiative. There’s a lot more opportunities for women, and they end up becoming a force in the world where they weren’t before and I think For some men, it’s it’s a way for them to drop the drop the responsibility because the women are taking over. I mean, what do you think? Yes. And in generally in a culture not in every situation.
Robert Maldonado 15:16
Yeah, I think, you know, there was a, an old SNL skit where the guy was actually tied. That still had the umbilical cord.
15:28
Oh, I never saw that with a mother. Yeah, it’s an old one. But
Robert Maldonado 15:33
it’s that idea that the, you know, the person never was able to break away from them, their mother. I mean, it’s it’s what, what was typically called the mother complex. Now, this is not to blame the mother because essentially, it’s not really the physical mother that creates this. Although of course, that that dynamic place In Jung says it’s the archetype of the mother. It’s it’s the internal mental representation that the, the man has of the mother. That is, in a sense, kind of holding them back holding them hostage.
Debra Maldonado 16:20
Tell me more about that they’re born into, they’re born into with the archetype, and we have all the archetypes in us. And so when they’re born, that mother, the mother, basically awakens the mother archetype in the son. And then he projects all these, basically the divinity of that beautiful archetype onto the mother. And there’s that kind of bind, that’s what creates the bind with the Father. And then they those, whatever that is, or the the mother needs to. He doesn’t realize that it’s coming from inside of him. It’s a projection, very much so.
Robert Maldonado 16:57
So if you think of the this powerful Mother archetype which we see in religious icon iconography, right? The the Virgin Mary, the the beautiful Mother of God, kind of Sofia wisdom. But you also see the opposite. And some, some traditions you have Kali, the destroyer, right? The mother who is not only able to create life but also take it away, snuff it out, crush it. And in mythology also see the witch, which is a kind of mother figure but in in the dark shadow elements,
Debra Maldonado 17:39
the cold refrigerator mom remember when autism was first labeled as a disorder. They were saying that initially they said it was because of the refrigerator mom, that’s why the boy, the kids were that way but then they realized that wasn’t the case. But that’s kind of this idea that that refrigerator mom or the cold, abandoned mom. And a lot of times, you know, if we think about just our patterns in life, our mother, if you’re looking to that mother archetype, to be this certain idea that this is the world, this is the person that’s going to keep me safe and support me. And that mother’s depressed or that mother is working and not there all the time. There’s also the step of the, a lot of times people feel connected to the women that take care of them. Like they’re their nannies and things like that. So they have these other mother figures that and so if you have a lot of people just taking care of you, but you never break away and you’re dependent on that other person. And you never become like basically aware of your own power. You can be tethered to it. It’s like a dick. Yes, I can almost like an addiction to
Robert Maldonado 18:53
Yeah, so let’s go back to the archive because that’s kind of where we start to get a sense of what’s going on. There. So you have this very powerful archetype that’s activated like you say, with your mother with your physical mother, because she’s taking care of you and nurturing you. So you are projecting this, this immense power onto her. And you experience it, as she’s magical. Basically, she has the power to give life, but she also has the power to take it away. In other words, you’re not only in awe of her, but you’re also afraid of her eye because she, if she removes her love, if she removes her blessings, you will be crushed emotionally, and physically you will not survive.
Debra Maldonado 19:44
And even Freud, which in the pleasure principle, he said that the mother he called it the joyful return is that with a mother with you know, feed the baby sleep, and then when the mother that you know, you ever notice a kid when the mother comes back, you know, they’re passing the baby Be around all of a sudden, then it gets to the mother. And it’s like, Mom, and there’s a kind of connection there. And that anticipation of that return to the mother. And so it is kind of she moves away, and then she comes back and there’s that, waiting for her to return again.
Robert Maldonado 20:17
That’s right. So now the breaking away from that, right, the being able to, to overcome that
Debra Maldonado 20:25
it’s almost like an addiction that you’re breaking away from, in a way psychologically,
Robert Maldonado 20:28
it’s a dependent. Yeah, I mean, because you are physically psychologically emotionally dependent on the mother as a child. So now your task is can you be brave enough? Can you be strong enough to break away from that spell? Right from whether it be positive or negative, and it’s usually both. Can you can you be strong enough to break away from that, that you don’t call it the the numeral power, which is kind of a mystical religious aspect of, of that projection that you have of the mother. In many mythologies, he says the the dragon, which the hero slays is that connection with a mother Hmm, you have to be able to overcome that terror for that, that terrible power of the mother in order to become yourself.
Debra Maldonado 21:28
And we need that power early on, because we need to survive. So it’s the natural, but then there’s an evolution where we have to break away, and then the women have to do the same thing. It’s not just the men, but women have to
Robert Maldonado 21:40
well, so so we would need a lot of help. So, if you think about you know, you mentioned the rituals. That was the culture helping the individual with that task, because they the culture understood intuitively, this is a difficult task. This is not easy. You gotta like,
Debra Maldonado 22:01
take you in the middle of the night and stick you in a cave where you can’t find her to break that bond. That’s right, well, it’s not breaking the bond, it’s actually just changing the dynamics of that bond to you’re becoming an a grown up and adult. And so it becomes a different connection, the the adult son, with the mother versus the child son with the mother,
Robert Maldonado 22:21
well, the the child has to die. Hmm, the old person has to die. And in many of the rituals, it was a symbolic death and rebirth, that you had to undergo the death of the old child. And often they did not give you your name until you underwent that transformation. So
Debra Maldonado 22:42
is that why my little boys are eternal voice that these this archetype, there are people that are possessed by this, they have a heart, they don’t want to let go of their childhood, they do childish things they want to be, you know, playing games and you know, it’s like, a lot of them like are kind of like Hang out with the boys and drink beer all day and when to do silly, stupid, reckless things and
Robert Maldonado 23:06
yeah, so let’s go back to the myth then because Okay, you have this very difficult task that requires a an almost Herculean effort, and the culture is not there to help you. Now you have a mother who is perhaps neurotic and is really not willing to let you go.
23:32
That’s a child. Yeah,
Robert Maldonado 23:34
the child gets trapped. Hmm. Not only are they there’s no external help and assistance in helping them do their transformation. But the mother has is essentially devouring them. It’s that’s what you can call the devouring mother, where the mother wants to keep her claws in the child and is using the child as a substitute. Perhaps for the absent father and husband,
Debra Maldonado 24:04
So would that be the reason why? A lot of you know you hear people man get spooked when a woman asks for you to be the man to be more responsible to, you know, kind of put boundaries on the men and they run away they they feel like the woman is trying to control them is that that type of person is trying to get away from the mother and then they get into a relationship and they’re recreating that same event. It’s the woman may not be devouring, she just may be like, Hey, dude, you know, like you said, you were going to call me and we’re going to go out Saturday and you didn’t show up. And, and the guy internalizes as she’s devouring me already, she’s trying to control my life. And so that’s what we’re dealing with. So a lot of those, you know, dating tips that tell you don’t do this and don’t do that it for a normal adult man would react differently than someone internally who has that conflict within themselves. So they want the nurturing in the mother, but they also fear it at the same time. Absolutely. And so they’re kind of they depended on it. But then they hate it at the same time. So it’s kind of like they can’t really break free.
Robert Maldonado 25:14
Yeah, they, they would not be able to form really strong bonds in a relationship with a woman, primarily because they don’t feel confident enough in themselves to be able to, to receive that kind of love from the woman. Because love essentially what it’s asking you to do is to transcend your ego. And in other words, it’s asking you to grow up. And that’s exactly what they’re running from it. That’s exactly what they haven’t been able to do. Mm hmm. So the demands of a relationship are going to trigger them into withdrawal into running back into that a response ability of, you know, I can’t do that. I want to be free, I want to be a poet or a rock star, you know, something that, that takes away
Debra Maldonado 26:12
their little artists, you know, they’re like artists that just, you know, they, they’re not really doing anything with it, but like, they’re those guys that are the music, the music guys, that, you know, I’m going to be famous one day and I’m going to work on my music in the basement of my mother’s house. And one day I’m going to be you know, be able to do this and just kind of like not willing to take a adult job and kind of feel like that kind of almost in a fantasy of something, you know, I’m gonna be like a, like a teenager, basically,
Robert Maldonado 26:41
pretty much. So now, keep in mind, we all go through these adolescence stages. So we all have those kind of tendencies in those periods. So don’t think about everyone kind of being this eternal boy.
Debra Maldonado 26:57
Ever, ever every day, you might think His relationship like with your mother, and a lot of it is, most of its unconscious. It’s these men don’t realize that it’s happening. They think it’s normal to you know, kind of assume things about the women they date and they’re looking maybe who they’re attracted to. And they’re, you know, who they have sexual chemistry with. But they’re not realizing that dynamic is happening unconsciously. And so I want to, so we talk about a lot of the, in our, in our courses, especially our new course, the creative love course, we talk about the four archetypes that women embody as their primary persona, but with a with a kind of take on and there’s the mother, the mother, wife, the lover, the professional and the mystic. And so when I think about this, I think about, well, the mother type would want to take care of this puer aeturnus, the eternal boy, emotionally, the professional tends to get in relationships with this Eternal boy, as she takes care of him financially, the lover is definitely the type that just enjoys that lack of responsibility, and you
Robert Maldonado 28:11
almost get triggered by him to
Debra Maldonado 28:13
get triggered by it. But I think a lot of times I see two people that don’t want to commit, and they’re kind of playing and they’re partying or, you know, let’s go to Mexico and drink margaritas all day. And they both are kind of playing, helping each other, like enabling each other in their immaturity never wanting to grow up. And then the mystic wants to to awaken like, fix the guy with spiritual You know, I’m gonna like for me, I was always I think, I wanted to help a guy like you read my spiritual books and let me show you how you can change yourself and, you know, help them reach enlightenment and you know, read Carl Jung or something and So there’s all depending on the woman, she’ll interact with the eternal boy in a different way, depending on your persona. So if you think about who you’re, what type you are, that’s basically what shows up for you. Now, I think a lot of times two, a lot of women think they can fix them, like, I’m gonna, he’s my project, I’m gonna get him to grow up, I’m gonna help him get a job, I’m gonna, you know, like, they kind of, and that would be more than mother, right or, you know, kind of trying to get him like to take care of him and
Robert Maldonado 29:34
where there is something to that, I mean, because love is asking us to grow up in a sense, to mature to break away from our childhood and, and create a new relationship. Some people do use it to, to individually to grow up and you see it all the time. Where can be where our relationship You know, comes into a person’s lives, and it changes them, they step into that, that higher mantle kind of way of being.
Debra Maldonado 30:11
I think women have a capacity
Robert Maldonado 30:13
or lever to wake up a man soul guys, women for men, you guys are angels. You are the Divinity for us because you you represent the soul. The the power of the intuitive emotional, the unconscious life, you know, and you can bring that out in in a man. But there are men of course that
Debra Maldonado 30:42
they they have to be willing.
Robert Maldonado 30:44
Yeah. Or are they just not capable of doing it? Right. They just don’t have the resources to do it at you not that they need it. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes
Debra Maldonado 30:56
they need to be an eternal boy for 10 more years before They’re ready to, to transform.
Robert Maldonado 31:02
And I’ve seen some people just go through most of their life and still not being able to do it. It does require kind of a lot of elements to come together. Like you say, the individual has to be willing, they have to be at least a little bit conscious to where they say, Okay, I know I’m not stepping up to the responsibilities and I, I need to consciously make that choice. And then the assistance from the external has to be there.
Debra Maldonado 31:35
And so I also think another element, which you didn’t mention is that the woman needs to check in with herself as to why am I attracting this pattern? Why am I so attracted to this person that and what is it about me so it couldn’t be maybe like they have to work with their persona and their, their shadow about why they need to support someone. The feeling of They, they only someone can only love me if they, if I give them something like the mother or financially or emotionally. I think a lot of times to over the years I’ve worked with so many women and one of the biggest fears they have is to have an adult man, they want one. But there’s kind of a fear because they’ve gotten so independent and successful and, and, and they don’t want a man to come in and basically who has that power to take over their life. So we have to, as women come into terms with our own power, and know that a man is only going to mirror the power. They are they can never overpower you unless you allow them to you project that onto them. So a woman needs to do her own shadow work as to why she has this situation. But I definitely think the eternal boy is a safe place for a lot of women because they’re not threat, it’s no threat to their They get to kind of be the power they actually can feed off the power that the man the eternal boys projecting onto them. Of You can save me. And and a lot of women will tell me that, you know, they feel like they’re their mother, you know the mother of the
Robert Maldonado 33:15
of the man
Debra Maldonado 33:17
the man. Yeah, they’re they’re the responsible one and he’s not and how do I get him to be responsible with this money with his time with is the kind of men that don’t have like a direction in life or vision and kind of don’t know their purpose or kind of lost. And then they feel like I’m going to come save them. And I think a lot of women that do personal development, we’re so wise and we know so much about ourselves. We’re so self aware that I think in a way we may be more targeted to to someone like that because we are so knowledgeable and I used to feel that every time I said to my friend once I want a man that I don’t have to feel like I have to teach anymore. Like, I felt like I was always teaching them handing them books and read this book. I’m from Wayne Dyer, you know, understand yourself and have you heard about Deepak Chopra or Marion Williams, you know, all this kind of trying to help them along on their journey. And it was almost in a way, it was a superior role that I took. And I have to admit, I’ve dated the manchild before and it was for me, a fear of having someone on my level would be too intimidating like I felt like they would take over my life and it was a way for me to keep not get too intimate with someone It was kind of a block of my heart to really let myself let someone in. Yeah. And that changed. You know, obviously, I agree that manchild How about you like when you were younger? What what really shifted for you as
Robert Maldonado 34:54
well. It is a struggle, especially these days like I say the culture Kind of encourages people not to grow up to remain in that adolescent stage. And so you really have to find your mentors, find people that you can look up to and say, you know, I want to be like that. And there was certainly men in my life who, who I admired and I thought yeah, that that’s the way to do it. And my grandfather was certainly one of those people is very responsible, very stable, kind of, you know, willing to on to take on the world for his family and all that. And at least there are ideal, we know well, I can never really be fill his shoes. But I can try right I can, I can move towards that. And, and unfortunately, there’s not a lot of role models for men these days. And Ed, I had to do it in pieces almost like, you know, I had to strike out on my own try different things.
Debra Maldonado 36:11
Because your father was like the eternal boy was pretty much yeah.
Robert Maldonado 36:17
And you’re able to do it because instinctively we have that drive. We want to become ourselves. It’s, it’s what we’re here for. It’s our it’s our kind of our, our nature to do it. What what holds us back again is is that fear or that we’re, we’re too afraid with too tied to the past. And of course, higher knowledge helped me a lot. Again, the Gita came in very early into my life. Jung came in very early into my life. So I knew about these things already. I did not know exactly how to do them, but I knew the concept There was these, these, these energies and us that were helping us individually.
Debra Maldonado 37:10
Yeah, it’s a it’s an amazing process and, and I always say, whatever showing up for you is this is showing you something in it and we instinctively know that it’s something’s off. We think we even when we fall for someone romantically we have that chemistry. There’s a little voice in our head that’s like, are you sure you want to go here? I don’t know. And, and it’s that kind of what will why that every person that comes in is really showing you something about yourself. And if a woman is aware, and she in the man comes into her life, that’s the eternal boy. There is a possibility for her to ignite his own PR boss s
Robert Maldonado 37:57
are both. Really that’s what an ideal Relationship does. It allows both people to transform.
Debra Maldonado 38:06
I love that. Because I think a lot of people think I gotta do all my work. And then when I’m perfect enough, I’ll find someone. But we really, I mean, I feel like I’ve grown. I mean, we’ve been together almost 15 years, I’ve grown so much since we’ve met. So I was definitely not like, all perfect and aware and awake. I mean, it’s every year I just keep growing and we support each other in that. I think that’s really important. There’s this kind of idea of without I learned early on in self help is like clear all your blocks and then your ideal person will show up and then everything’s easy. But it’s, it’s it’s, it’s just the beginning. When you meet someone, it’s just the beginning of another journey. But you have to be willing to take that journey. You have to be willing to say I want to know deeper parts of myself and that’s what we’re really doing in romantic love you Inviting that deeper part. Now for the eternal boy, what would he be his barrier to the relationship? Why? Because he will, because he’s still dependent on the mother a psychologically need to kind of have a conflict because I love her, but I also fear her.
Robert Maldonado 39:15
Yeah. I’ve learned this from working as a therapist for many years. The it boils down to this, if the individual is flexible in their emotional life in their psychological attitude towards life. That is, they’re open enough to learn something new, hmm, open enough to say, Okay, I might not have this right. I might need to figure this out somehow, right. There’s a flexibility there. an openness and a little bit of openness at least, then there’s a pretty good chance of growth. Hmm. When the person gets very rigid. They’ve they kind of find Find a way to react, to respond to live. And they’re not willing to let that go. Right. They insist that no, I can wait more. Yeah, that people hurt me and God damn them and get you know,
Debra Maldonado 40:16
I hate my mother. Yes, my mother’s the only one that loves me. Women suck.
Robert Maldonado 40:21
That rigidity keeps people stuck. It does not allow for growth for transformation. Because they be they’ve kind of learned that this works for me, and I’m not going to give that up.
Debra Maldonado 40:35
You know, it’s like having a curiosity about yourself, you know, being curious, instead of assuming that you know it all. It’s like that flexibility and the rigidness of I know it all is really, you know, for me, I used to I got to that point sometimes after I did a lot of personal growth because I just didn’t want to open up any more stuff. Like I felt like I would just I’m tired. You know, they kept saying it. I had to fix myself. And after a while, I was like, I know it all. Okay, I’m ready, you know when to open up anything else. And I think sometimes people feel that way that they. So we have to constantly be curious and be willing to keep looking at ourselves not as this broken person that needs to keep repairing itself, but a person that’s growing and it’s constantly evolving. Yeah, it’s an evolution. You know, I just read something today and one of the Jung groups that Jung said that growth is not a linear process. And he when he found out that it was like, I can’t think of the word but he said, it’s like the circular process that you’re kind of constantly kind of returning back to some things. And that’s really true evolution. That he said it gave him such relief, because there’s no like, okay, I finished these tests. And then when finished, it’s it’s always growing. So I know when we have difficult times that we have different relationship or relationship doesn’t work out or fight with our partner. We think I’m not grown yet. I’m still broken. I got to keep working on myself. It’s like no, you invited in with a curiosity of something else is going to take me to the next level, we’re always going to the next level. And if you feel like you’ve done it all, and there’s no other level you want to go to that’s that rigid type of idea. We always should be curious. I mean, it’s an awesome, amazing journey to go inward and figure out who we are.
Robert Maldonado 42:29
Mm hmm. That’s right. And it’s that that openness gives us then opportunities. Yeah, those those, those stumbling blocks, right, the the the things that trip us up become now opportunities for growth.
Debra Maldonado 42:51
The key is to become an adult ourselves. And I think the last piece is that We tend to have the eternal boy or the eternal girl, when we don’t become the woman that we need to be. And we’re still hanging on to her childhood in a way, but not in a I want to play. But more things that happened to me in my childhood, I just want to hang on to and I like, I just can’t let it go. And I want to keep processing and processing and processing and individuation we see that the there’s another element of us, the unlived self that becomes awake and when we start to become her, the woman she’s different from the child and like you said, it’s almost like you have to let go, let the child die in a way and but it’s transform. It’s it’s no longer stuck in the past. And I think a lot of women and men still hang on to the past and I need to you know, their story is still this happened to me when I was seven. And that’s how they define themselves. Still It’s not that you want to forget that and say it didn’t happen or it’s not important that it happened. But it’s like if you keep going there, you’re you’re kind of not allowing yourself to take the next step. You’re hanging like you’re tethered down to the past still,
Robert Maldonado 44:15
very much so, yeah.
Debra Maldonado 44:17
So it’s time to grow up. It’s time to step into the power that we are and become the eternal divine adult,
Robert Maldonado 44:28
instead of the eternal boy. Yes,
Debra Maldonado 44:29
yes. So great conversation. Take care, everyone.
Robert Maldonado 44:33
Take care. See you soon. Bye bye.
