Romantic Love and Your Spiritual Journey

Do you feel that your dating and love life are completely different than your spiritual life? Maybe you want to merge the two and find a spiritual partner? In this episode, we discuss romantic love, dating, finding the one and how your spiritual path plays into the whole soulmate search.

• Sure signs you are dating from your ego
• How to use spiritual work to create the conditions for true love
• We get personal and share our personal experience meeting each other. How did I know I found the one?
• How to discuss your true self for love
• What makes people fall in love

This is an extended show because the topic was so rich. We mention our new Love Persona Type Test, you can take it here: https://www.creativemindlife.com/q/love-persona-type/

Join us live in our Facebook Group each week where you can interact with us and ask us questions. https://www.facebook.com/groups/creativemindcoaching

Episode 8 Transcript

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.

00:19

And I’m Dr. Robert Maldonado. And I’m here with my lovely wife and co partner and in everything we do, yes. Debra Maldonado. So today we wanted to talk about to romantic love, which is really our, our specialty. You wrote a book on it, you’re writing another book on it. You have tons of experience. My interest has been really on kind of exploring the theme a little bit of

00:57

what is romantic love

00:58

psychology, psychology.

00:59

psychological perspective from the spiritual perspective. So we’re going to talk about romantic love in the context of people’s spiritual journey. Not in not religion, we’re not talking about religion. We’re talking about people’s individual spiritual journeys, and how love plays into all that.

01:20

So,

01:21

yeah, I want to start off with just saying that, you know, when I first started my spiritual journey, it was driven by my desire for love. I was trying to figure out how, why I wasn’t getting married. I was 23 years old. And every single one of my friends was married that year, like five people. I caught every bouquet and no husband, I went to every wedding alone, and I just felt like, why is why is it so easy for everyone else? And why not me? So my friend handed me the book by Louise Hay. You can heal your life actually dated her brother and she said You need to start working on yourself because our brother was kind of a bad news. And, and that’s when I started my journey. And so if I didn’t have this desire for love, I wouldn’t have probably had a, you know, a need to seek it seek spiritual knowledge. And so I think a lot of us, that’s really where it starts is that desire for love, and then we’re seeking spiritual knowledge to help us find love. But what we’re talking about here is that that can sometimes lead us to using spiritual knowledge to get a material thing and putting the man or the money or whatever we want in life above our spiritual journey. Yeah.

02:47

And, you know, when we started talking about coaching and this question of love,

02:57

we knew for example, that

03:00

There was a there was a big gap in the literature as to what is love? What is the psychology of it which is ridiculous because if you think about human history, it’s always been love is is one of the universal questions that we have to answer live who’s gonna post century when they started? Well, I think that’s a misconception I yeah I think it’s a very Western idea that that we invented love in Europe somewhere. Yeah yeah. Romantic with the troubadours and yeah, but look at Rumi’s work he was in the 12th century I think he’s you know, he’s writing already about this incredible romantic love. So I think it’s, it’s just the way we define it. Perhaps you say that we define it as love this romantic love should lead to marriage and kids and kind of in that context but The if you look at all history all the world, it’s always been a universal question. Like, the other universal is what are you going to do about work? Like, what is your purpose here? and work in love, like Freud said, are the two primary things that we have to come to terms with. Now, it’s okay if you if somebody says, Well, I’m single and I’m happy. You know, if that’s a choice, great, but if we know that a lot of people are choosing that the

04:38

sense

04:39

yeah, it’s almost like a defense or the psychology of, you know, of love is not there and they think, well, it’s just too difficult. I don’t need it anyway. Yeah. Or I, I seem to have bad luck. I meant to be alone.

04:54

And so we decided to make a choice that I don’t want to pursue love you because it’s not happening and then You’ve kind of retained claim your power. And hey, but it’s more of an ego returning to safety versus actually truly feeling powerful.

05:09

Yes. And so when we started talking about this and how it had played out up to this point in history, we saw that there was no real psychology for the ordinary person. Yeah, a lot of it was therapy like fixing after things go bad, you know, couples,

05:28

their couples, there would be

05:31

by randomness. And then let’s see, let’s fix your childhood issues after the after the fact.

05:37

Yes, but nothing to really help us. I mean, if you think about work, like we spent 12 years and you know, in school as children, getting trained to be workers or to do something with our lives, not almost nothing on what do I do about love,

05:57

and not even just love in general, but social Like how do we behave? How do we have confidence all those things aren’t taught in school, it’s really driven to work. So we get thrust into this world thinking that you know, you’re going to randomly meet someone, you’re going to fall in love. And it’s this magical thing that happens that it’s like a almost a lottery you know, like, Oh, you won. And and then you fall in love and then this this fairy tale and then you get married and have kids and you get the house and, and everything’s beautiful on the outside. And inside people are just who did I pick? And why am I here? And especially now people are probably thinking, wow, I’m really getting to know this person because we’re isolated together. And and really, I think that and then the people that get lost out of that lottery, you know, this love lottery, like I felt like my friends all were lucky in love. And I was like, well, I must be lucky at cards because I’m not lucky in love. I always felt unlucky in love, and I felt like there was just it’s just a matter of time. When everything the stars will align some guy had my astrology done 50 million times and psychics telling me, When is it going to happen? So I really didn’t have anything to work with, except for the fact that, like the therapy books were telling me I was codependent and oh, that’s that’s the problem. So I have to work on fixing my codependency and then maybe then I’ll fall in love. And so then it started getting into this whole idea that something’s wrong with me. And that’s why I don’t have love into my life. And if I, if I was okay, and normal, then I would have love and I just have to get to normal. And I think that’s what really, I think, was a kind of a, it worked against me in my search because I felt like, you know, already coming from this place of a deficit that I had some kind of lack or deficit that I had to overcome before I found love. And I see a lot of my clients is they find me they get frustrated with the whole process of what’s available.

07:58

Yeah, there’s definitely like a tendency In the west to pathologize or to medicalize, everything, you know, not childbirth, for example, it’s medicalised. So there was this when we started, I guess, around 20 2010 around there. We certainly saw this idea in the culture that our parents had screwed us up somehow, and that we all needed therapy. We all needed something to fix us because we were messed up. And we see a lot of coaches use, like, addiction models in their work. There’s nothing wrong with that. That it is helpful. Anything that helps us understand the mind and the emotions and working with the with our, with our own psychology is good. We saw that yawns model was really interested. Interesting. I mean, He started out really young. Yeah, yes, yeah, Carl Jung. He worked along with Freud back in the early turn of the century. Still very famous, still widely read, still taught in every psychology class in all over the world. But anyway, he came up with this these ideas of logos and arrows, so logos and arrows, Greek gods, right Greek concepts, philosophical concepts. So arrows is the emotional aspect of our life. The passion, the emotions, the dreams, the instinctual drives that we have towards each other, kind of that that primal attraction. That’s their logos, he said is the masculine element of the mind, divine logic, right. We tried to think we can solve problems through our thinking through our rational understanding. And he says these two opposing forces are always kind of in that interplay, including in men and women,

10:12

or men are typically labeled as the logical ones. And the women are emotional, but that’s not always the case.

10:17

Not always a

10:18

candy. Men are just as emotional as women. That’s the

10:22

right exception, because I wanted to ask you about this. He then goes into those two concepts becoming the Anima and animus in human beings and especially human relations. So what did you want to ask me? So that that interplay of like, like you were saying, it’s, it’s not that logic is specific, specific to men, but women in their, in their internal psyche there, they’re actually having to To get in touch with Logos with the

11:03

Animas

11:04

And so yeah, what I see is that we both men and women both have the, the, the logos and the arrows for women, arrows is conscious. So we’re very soulful, we’re very emotional. We’re, you know, generally we’re conditioned, we’re socialized to be, it’s okay to show emotions. It’s okay to, you know, little girl cries and everyone wants to cuddle her, you know, a little boy cries and he’s labeled this week and, you know, be a man. And so, so men, they are just as emotional as women, but they’re socialized or conditioned to kind of create the persona of the logical, rational person. And the woman is socialized to be the romantic, the, you know, the one who with the heart and the soul. And what happens is that when we meet romantically, we are seeking that other side of ourselves that’s been repressed. So for a woman, she’s drawn to a man She’s turned off by a man who’s too emotional. Because she’s not in touch with she, she’s seeking that rational side of herself. And a man is looking for that emotion. He’s looking for the emotion in a woman. So when we come together, it really is more of a spiritual connection because the man is looking for his own soul, and conditioned as a human man. He’s denied his soul. He’s told to think logically think rationally, do something less creative, like men aren’t driven to do the creative work or you know, play with dolls or art. He’s, you know, the trucks and the you know, that kind of a do math. And women are put, you know, actually discouraged from doing math, and they’re encouraged to do like, the softer skills and be teachers and nurses and socially be a mother raise yourself to be happy raise a family. And so we’re cut off from the the other part of ourselves and this society doesn’t give us permission. So the romance Love is a way for us to connect. But we’re what we’re really what we forget is that that’s what, that it’s really enough that we’re seeing in the other person, the projection. And so the journey to romantic love is really a spiritual journey. It really is finding the missing aspects of ourselves through connecting with another. And sometimes it’s the things that we don’t like about ourselves that we deny about ourselves, or also the things that we adore, like the divine in us. We see in that partner and we, they both people project the Divine Self onto the partner and don’t realize it and then they confuse it to be this human love thing that that person owns that magic that we don’t have inside ourselves. And so really the true spiritual journey in Young’s work is to find that completion within ourselves, and we can do it through other people. But we’re doing it in a conscious way. Right? Is that what you were asking?

14:07

Right? Because

14:10

like we were talking about the there’s this pathologizing, right? This kind of idea that there were wounded somehow that were broken, and that we need fixing. And when you started to teach me about relationships, the idea was not that there’s anything to fix or like there’s not this wound that that’s stopping you from from being able to give and receive love. But that it’s more internal understanding of your own projections.

14:47

Yes. So what we talked about is that a lot of times people will tell us, you know, this isn’t showing up. I just got a post today from in one of our groups, one of our clients is dating online and she said, when I put the sexy pictures up, it’s scary. I get scary men. And when I put the motherly pictures up, I get boring guys. And I said, it’s in your mind, it’s in your mind. And so we want to really say what we’re seeing out there through dating and relating. There’s something about our judgment about those things about us that we’re seeing show up out there. And one of the main thing when main questions we ask, you know, we get asked a lot is okay, I’m at this workshop, I’m doing this work in this group. I’m growing myself. We’re all the guys and I keep meeting men that are evolved. And I’m afraid to keep growing because I’m going to not have you know, there aren’t going to be any there’s nothing left and the little man is going to shed they pull a man is going to shrink. And so, again, it’s coming from that is that we have to have that understanding that we’re seeing our own projections. in relationships, there’s nothing outside of it. So you can argue that, oh, there’s more men in Colorado than there are in New York City. It’s true there actually are physically more women, single women in New York City than then there’s more single men in Denver. So when I voted Denver, I was like, yeah, we’re gonna meet someone, it didn’t change, because I was still me seeing the same projection seeing the same reflection back

16:27

where we know in neuroscience, that the brain operates on that principle that whatever we expect to see our assumptions of what is real and what, what we can expect. When we take an action. That’s what we see. Our mind kind of subtle lacks, it has a confirmation bias. And so, like you were saying, your friend, they’re saying, every time I put a sexy picture up, get these creeps or something like that. Well, that’s probably what you He’s expecting to see Yeah.

17:02

And it’s not even conscious. That’s the key is that a lot of people say, I know my patterns I know, you know, I’m insecure. I know, I tend to have these problems with boundaries. You can know everything on the conscious level, but the unconscious is really where the magic happens. And so we have an unconscious. So when we have that experience, we have to say to ourselves, well, what am I assuming about being sexy? What is that? What does that mean is that only creeps like sexy people, or when I’m sexy, it’s not safe. You know, whatever that is, you have to go deeper into that. And so if i if i look normal, No, man, will I wear this? You know, it’s kind of like these two sides of the coin. If you’re you’re too just conservative looking, no guy will look at you. Right, so there’s that. If no guy will look at me. I have to be sexy. And then there’s that resentment and then see look, I look sexy and then I get creeped. So you feel this. of powerlessness of the the unconscious assumption on the core of it is I don’t get what I want. What I want is an out there. And so we you have that assumption. Guess what you see?

18:12

So how would you work with somebody like that? So she’s she’s seeing her own projection, let’s say her own unconscious assumptions about what’s going on and in the dating

18:23

apps and all this stuff.

18:24

Yeah. Well, here’s the thing is that there are so many people. I’ve seen dating coaches talk about this a lot of like, if there’s an independent reality, and keep away from toxic people and keep your boundaries in us all this behavior stuff, but the way we see the world is the way Jung saw is that everything in psychology we see it’s a projection, and that we’re kind of seeing our mind as we do. So you have to first of all understand that and the second of all, is, you really can’t see the unconscious. You can’t go in and you know, when I was a hypnotherapist, it was I’m going to rewire my unconscious subconscious thoughts. Well, you don’t know what they are because they’re not conscious. So how do you know what you’re rewiring? So here’s a really easy tip, you have to see your response to the results. This is not the response itself, because a lot of times we just jumped to conclusion like, Oh, I must be believing and creepy guys are out there. That’s like too, too easy. We have to look at what’s my response to that result? What’s the emotion? And what is the story that’s arising? And then we go deeper into it? Well, why do I Why do I have that story? What do I really believe and you can actually read, it’s called reverse engineer, and you start going backwards. Oh, this is what I’m believing. And we see the same thing with spiritual people. And here’s here’s another one too, is it’s not only what people’s get get in dating, like, their personal response, but what their friends tell them when I was single. All my friends told me to Why do you need a spiritual guy? There aren’t many spiritual guys out there, they’re you know, you’re not gonna you’re being too picky. And so your friends will actually show you your mind as well what they tell you about about the world you think well Mary’s telling me that there aren’t spiritual guys out there know that you believing that’s what you believe on some level if you agree with her, you know if you’re kind of like I kind of are you’re triggered by that. So we use what the feedback we’re getting on our journey to understand ourselves. So the goal isn’t how do I clear my head and make myself whole? I mean, well, you want to make yourself whole but how do I fix myself so I can get the man it’s more like how can I use my desire for love and the path of dating and relating and working through my my fears, to become more of who I am and through that if you make the goals The spiritual journey using dating or search for love as a spiritual journey, then you will get first of all, you will have enlightenment you will feel more free. And you’ll also get a great partner because it’s you need to grow into become your true self in order to find true love. And Jung says if you don’t know who you are, the universe doesn’t know who to match you up with, or I think you said that but it’s that if you don’t know who you are, the world will tell you and so you’re gonna keep seeing that reflection back and I tell you, this is the hardest, hardest, most difficult, arduous part of the work is to take responsibility for your experience and say, this is showing me my mind without beating ourselves up. Without say blaming ourselves and feeling we did it wrong. But to take an honest look and go, this is information I’m getting information. This is a this is my teacher. I love That idea is is this is my teacher right now, I’m triggered. This is showing up for me, this is my teacher. And, and in that, imagine how love, the search for love will change for you because you’re not going get out of the way, I got to make it easy. And when it’s hard, I feel bad. And when it’s flowing when the guy calls, I’m happy. You’re You’re still attached. But if you say every challenge is going to help me grow, and every time I grow, I’m closer to that. What I really want that will make you go out online. I tell a lot of my clients, they don’t really want to date online. I said I want you to date online. And I want you to take away the idea that you’re going to meet someone and I want to use it use it purely for your own self awareness. And then they go online and they meet people because they’re not attached. They’re like, I’m using it. Because if you’re not taking any action and you’re not moving toward your goal, you can’t see what’s stopping you. So that’s the journey is the journey is to find those Rumi says your journey isn’t to seek for love but find all the obstacles that are in the way and if you can’t see obstacles if you’re not doing anything if you’re not moving toward it but you have to move toward it with without the with the intention that you’re going to experience obstacles and those obstacles are your teachers versus how can I get the easy quick fix How can I tap away my my emotions and clear the energy and raise my vibration so I can magically find love? That’s that’s the egos journey and you’re going to end up not growing. You’re going to end up bypassing it’s called spiritual bypassing that you’re going to end up with the same pattern you may meet meet someone and he may have this magical quality, but it’s ego.

23:50

So I have a test for you. Oh good. Yes. Okay. See if you can tell me where this is from. Yeah. So it says Yours is the light Which my spirit is born. Yours is the darkness of my souls return. You are my sun. My moon and all my stars.

24:12

Did you write that for me?

24:14

I didn’t know. Rumi. Nope. Close to Gore.

24:21

He Cummings. A lot of people think it’s Dr. Dre go to saying it to Khaleesi Oh, yeah. The Game of Thrones.

24:32

Oh, yeah. Could you read that again? Now that I know it’s easy.

24:36

No, it’s not it’s up coming.

24:38

But but that’s where he got they got it from this.

24:40

Yeah, that’s probably where the writer got it from.

24:43

Yours is the light by which my spirits born is born. Yours is the darkness of my soul return. You are my son, my moon and all my stars. Oh.

24:56

So we know that there’s these mystical elements and love They had been there for forever, pretty much and the Pope, you know, Freud himself said, everywhere I go in my psychology, the poet’s have been there before me. A lot of the ideas that he generated and including young came from poetry from literature from mythology. So, the, the question would be like, what, what is spirituality have to do with love, right? Because you’re talking about these, this dating and these behaviors and these projections. What is the spiritual element in all this?

25:42

This love stuff. And the spiritual element is is that when you truly fall in love, not the human romantic love that’s kind of it gives you a it’s almost like a glimpse of it. The taste of immortality there’s a little sip of immortality is when you’re truly in love from you. your higher self. It is feels like you’re connected to the universe. And a lot of people ask, like, how did you know Rob was the one and I will say, because I felt like I was home. Like it was like a feeling of familiarity. And it was a calm, it wasn’t this. Oh, I mean, we had that too. But it was underneath it there was it felt like there was a foundation that could not be broken. And it was not that was it. It was like almost like we unconsciously, I was connecting to something much deeper in myself. Not that you brought that to me. But you helped me see the deeper home within myself. And that’s a Can you imagine, that’s a beautiful journey to be on with someone is to not feel like and we used to always to it was so intense when we met that we used to say to me all the time, I love that I created you, you know, like this kind of riff. We kept reminding ourselves in the beginning, that this is a projection like what we’re, you know, the romantic part and that we’re seeing each other in our selves in each other. And, and because then you don’t get lost in it you don’t get like we’re the neediness and the they’re disconnected. But you could still have all the human experiences of romance in the homes that you wrote to me in the romanticism, but it feels, you know, have a lot of people said to me when I first met you, you gave me this wonderful poem. And my one girl friend was a friend of my, my roommate, she said, Oh my God, if I got a poem from a guy, I would be run for the hills and I was like, This is what I’ve been looking for this. I’m so happy that I got this and it’s like, it shows how open you are. When you’re ready to be romanced. If you are if a guy gives you a poem and you’re running for the hills, that means you’re in ego that you’re you’re really defense defended against true love because when someone is coming towards you with their heart, your and your heart is open. You welcome it in You don’t find everything wrong with a guy and tear him apart and say he’s too needy. And he’s, you know, look for ways to, to kind of get out of it. You’re you’re going, welcome home, Rumi says that if you want to be held open, open your hands. It’s like you have to be open to it. And the opening is really not just for another person, but the deeper parts of yourself. And that’s where I see this spiritual journey. And what Jung was talking about back to the inner atom, or the inner Eve, as we call it, the Anima animus is that we’re connecting with our own spirit, a woman is connecting to her deeper self, so that she will feel safe with when she’s out in the physical world, that she knows herself and that she’s not going to get caught up in lost in it. And I think that you know, there’s the teasing of romantic love that we we love the chase. We love that. That I can’t have what I can’t want, you know, we want a taste of it. We want to take it just a sip, but we don’t want to take the full cup. And that’s the spiritual journey is when we take the full cup of ourselves, our hearts open to the full experience. And I, you know if anything ever happened to you rob, that if you ever left me, which I know you wouldn’t do that, but you know if anything ever happened, God forbid, I don’t feel. I feel like I know. I’ll be okay. Like, as far as like my soul, I mean, I’ll urine miss you. But I feel like I would be able to be open again to love again. And I’m sure you feel that same way too. It’s just like, the other person opens you up to the deeper parts of yourself where they’re no longer just your survival. Does that make sense?

29:43

Right. So it sounds like you’re saying that we don’t need the other person. Essentially, we could we could do it on our own. No,

29:52

but I’m just saying you’re not afraid of losing it. You know, it’s like I don’t wake up every day going. Oh my god, Rob’s on a call with one of our pretty good Clients he’s gonna leave me you know, it’s not that kind of, it’s more of that openness of being together. And and I don’t know how to say it but it’s it it’s not that i would i guess i’m saying it the wrong way it’s just there’s no neediness that’s what I’m trying to say that it’s like I don’t feel well yeah, like you know, I my everything is where I think when we fall in love sometimes we put all our survival onto that other person. we’re projecting everything onto the other person. I’m saying, I’m not projecting every like I I still have a part of myself. Yeah, I don’t look, I didn’t lose myself.

30:34

Right. A real cost is something like that. He says the real love is giving each other space and incense guarding each other’s solitude. Yeah. That because we are in control you Right, right. It’s not about kind of the physical possession. Yes, that’s

30:55

what I mean. Yeah. So I don’t have that were in before I did this work. I would always feel on edge all the time. Is he going to meet someone else is he gonna? Not you but like other men I’ve dated, you know, it’s always like, kind of feeling like it’s very fragile. And this kind of like everything is about if this guy stays or leaves my all my, my, my heart and security is dependent on someone else. We’re in true love. It’s it’s like you of course you’re going to care about the other person, but you’re not putting everything on that person and that’s a burden for someone else. Don’t you think? That if I was always it would be make your relationship miserable. If I was constantly scrutinizing. Do you love me enough today? Did you love me today?

31:41

Yeah, well, certainly there’s that that element of exclusivity in relationships, right? The couple gets to a point where they say, Okay, what are we doing here? Are we exclusive or are we seeing other people and all that stuff? So that there has to be a little bit of that? Yeah.

32:00

obsessiveness of you know, jealousy and all that but

32:05

but you’re saying, if you’re, if you’re mature enough and I say if you’ve done your spiritual work, you come at it from a higher perspective, that it’s not, you’re not using the love to fulfill your your, like ego needs your your persona needs. You’re not saying I just need a partner so that I can look good to my parents and

32:31

their expectations and all that stuff.

32:34

We’re like emotionally like, what I of course, if anything happened you I would like be devastated. You know that. But I’m saying that, but I still feel like I would die. You know, I wouldn’t I would survive because I knew I’m connected to myself. You know where I think a lot of women they get so every little text, is he going to call back? Does he love me? Is he going to commit to me? Is he cheating on me? You know, that kind of walking on eggshells. That’s, that’s kind of that we like that romantic like uncertainty. But that’s not really going to help a relationship lasts. And I think having that kind of solidity within myself gives you freedom gives the other person freedom, because the burden isn’t on you every day to make me happy. You know, you’re not it’s not always like, Oh my god, Debbie, she’s constantly needs reassurance, I need to tell her I love her 10 times a day for her to feel good. And that’s not real love. Real Love is giving that person space to love the way they want to love you. And then you love them the way they and it’s not that pressure and, and it’s the openness that I think is really important. But only we can only do that if we’re connected to our spiritual center within ourselves. And that’s the spiritual journey. It’s an inward journey to connect for a woman to her animus and for a man to connect to his Anima and that’s really where the, the deeper connection can be.

33:57

Yeah, to me, it sounds like another level of social definition of what romantic love is. Because the old definitions, they seem to be based on like, the 1950s and 60s or before that, you know, the kind of the, the, the specific role of a man and specific role of a woman, which is, it really doesn’t apply anymore. The world is so different now. But there hasn’t really been that catching up of the social structures

34:36

of relationships to to make it work for people,

34:40

you know,

34:40

it seems like they’re forcing it right people,

34:43

they’re forcing themselves to say, he’s my soul mate, he’s my best friend and it feels like in a way like sometimes I’ll watch weddings and just be like, the kind of lane and I’m pretty thick there. You know, it’s like this. Kind of like almost like the shadow of that, you know, the opposite And I think again, a lot of people are projecting and they’re, they’re, they’re, you know, when things go wrong or the husband does something wrong or the other person they don’t see their part in it they don’t see their projection their own reflection of their assumptions in that. And, and so yeah, I think it’s the, the desire for love. We have that inborn in us we have a right, a divine right to have that expression romantically. We wouldn’t be we’re built for it. And so we always say that the divine in you wishes to express itself a desire is that divine, wanting to express itself. So if you have a desire for love, that means on a deeper spiritual level, the divine in you, the spiritual aspect of you wants to have that experience. The problem is the ego takes credit and starts making stories up about how wrong you are because you don’t have it. And that’s really the battle that we’re fighting is we’re waking ourselves up. So we’re not So putting so much pressure on the person that we’re dating, to fulfill where we feel like we lack

36:06

so could you In theory, let’s say as a could anybody find spiritual fulfillment in relationship exclusively without, let’s say, bringing in some psychology, some philosophy, some spiritual practice from the outside or, you know, what’s the deal there?

36:27

Well, I think there you need to go through a process of individuation, which what Jung talked about, which is you have to get from your center of what you see in the world. From that ego perspective, which one’s security safety, and, and no challenge comfort, comfort, too willing to be have find within yourself the courage to get your heart broken, open up, you know that that’s not that’s what I was saying before it wasn’t that much. It’s just that I was not afraid of getting my heart broken. You know? There’s just kind of like, I know, I’ll survive where before, I was very cautious. And I think if you don’t go through that process you’re going to pick either settle for less. Because you think, well, I’m 40 years old that when I have kids, I’m gonna just pick someone. And I’m, you know, I’m just going to force myself to convince myself that I love this person, or you just avoid and keep avoiding relationships and avoiding relationships. And but you have to find a way how do I transcend my ego self, to step into who I really am. And that’s the process of individuation. The first step is working, understanding the projections of your own personal history, your own shadow selves, and then connecting with the inner atom, the deeper the pure you you that you can bring into a relationship and I’m telling you that when you go through this process, what happens is that you you feel more confident naturally. You don’t have to tell yourself I’m confident and I’m good enough. I’m strong enough and listen to tapes to tell you that you actually become more confident. It’s a natural confidence because you realize that you’re connected to everything so much deeper. You start thinking, I want something real and then you just feel it. A draw to someone who’s more real and you’re connecting from a different level. It’s like your heart. Like I saw you with my heart. And I don’t think I’ve ever had that experience before you. You said I really I started seeing you with my heart. I mean, everything else was wonderful. But there was something laser like I could see inside of you. Like, you know, that kind of feeling. Yeah. I want to ask you a question. Because a lot of the women ask what is your when you met me? What was your experience as a man meeting a woman?

38:49

Well, my experience in 20 words or less

38:56

I think it is a choice.

39:00

I had done some internal work, and not not that it’s let’s say internal work is like learning something new, you know, polishing up your, your persona and your resume and all that. internal work is really difficult in the sense that you have to look at yourself and be honest with yourself. And right before I met you, I was going through that process of individuation where young calls individuation, which is often called the dark night of the soul, so you can you can imagine what it entails. Now, it is difficult, but it’s also the way we grow. It is the spiritual life. You have to face everything you feel you’ve done wrong in your past. You bring it to the forefront and you say, What is this about? Clear whatever it is, you’re going to have to deal with it because if you push it away what you want Is is you’re creating this unconscious shadow that is going to end up appearing externally. He says the internal conflict that you repress becomes your external situation. And sure enough, it was showing up for me in work in relationships and everything because it was that splitting. This is who I am. And I’m not the shadow we should away. So the darkness of his soul entails facing all that dealing with it. And in that process, you get in touch with your soul.

40:37

Your Anima for more

40:38

Yeah, you would say that’s the Anima The, the inner, emotional core of your psyche that you’re going to have to come in contact with sooner or later. He says what most most men do as they expect or they look for a woman who fulfills that aspect for them. externally. So it’s like saying, you you handle the emotions and in the relationship, and I’ll just be the breadwinner, or I’ll be the guy and all that and you, you deal with the, the emotional part of it

41:15

and the guy is for a woman’s you give me stability, financial security. And I know this is kind of not modern, but we do unconsciously that’s we’re looking for a success symbol versus a sex symbol. And so when we connected, we kind of have this idea that people have this idea of soulmates, but what we’re really seeing in them is our own piercing your own soul through me, and I’m seeing my own spirit or deeper self through you. That’s what true soulmate is, is that we have to find that connection conscious. And this matter and spirit needs to be aligned, feel like there’s an empty piece that I need to fill versus coming from a whole place and they’re just reflecting that other side. And that’s it. That’s where I feel like when I met you, we were like it was like unbreakable. Like it was like, because I can’t separate myself from myself, so that you feel that kind of connection. And that’s what I was trying to say before again, not that I would be devastated, I think happy, but it was like, I’m seeing that your wholeness and me and I don’t have that fear of whatever I’m doing this week. And, you know, we work with a lot of beautiful women. And if it was the old me, I would be always worried and jealous of you know, he likes this client. I wonder if he wants to date her, you know, and I don’t have that at all. Like, I don’t have any jealousy around you. And maybe because I know I’m so awesome. But it’s like that, isn’t it great to have that confidence that you know that like you trust me to like, you’re not always like worried like I’m at on a business trip. I’m gonna,

42:50

you know, life’s too short to like,

42:52

yeah. So we want to feel that wholeness and we want to feel that sense that we’re connected to we’re connected to ourselves. And then that connect interconnection reflects it in our relationship. So if you so this is a quick test for you, if you’re dating and you feel triggered and anxious and fearful, you’re an ego, you’re not connected here, you’re dating from ego. If you are dating from spirit, it feels as though everything that’s showing up is your teacher. All the conflicts in the lead me It’s my spirit is showing me more about myself. And it really is that it’s like you’re working internally to reveal who you really are, through the process. And then through that, revealing who you are you find your match out there that matches who you really are. And so it’s it’s a beautiful process. So we flip it on the side where a lot of people think, Well, let me do the spiritual work and then I’ll meet my partner. The goal is really to find your own spirit and then the partner appears versus the goal is to find do the spiritual work and then find the partner. And the reason I say this is because so many people I’ve talked to over the years, you know, they’ve done a lot of personal development work. And then a lot of them say I’m so exhausted from doing all this work on myself. And if you’re exhausted, if you feel tired, if you feel that you’re frustrated, you’re It’s not that I don’t want to say you’re doing it wrong, but you’re approaching it in in a correct way. you’re approaching it as with attachment, and that’s just going to lead you it’s almost like you’re you’re keeping yourself caught in a loop, which is causing more frustration. So there’s something your approach to what you’re doing it like if you’re approaching it in fixing way, it’ll never be enough. It’ll never be enough. So whenever you feel caught or frustrated, I want you to take a step back and you might not know what you’re doing, but ask yourself if I’m frustrated and quiet that means my egos involved in this and your ego it will never lead you to true love your ego will never really it’ll lead you to you know good affairs and, and projections but it will never lead you to true love. So if you’re anxious triggered, you know, you’re an ego.

45:03

And if you’re open,

45:04

you know you’re coming from a different place. So easy litmus test.

45:09

So you heard it here, folks.

45:12

Is it.

45:12

It’s an internal journey. It’s an inside job. You got to do your internal work first. Yeah, your inner work. And thanks for hanging out with us.

45:21

Have a Happy

45:22

Saturday they will. And we’ll see you next time. Thank you.