Leigh-Anne LoPinto The Art of Conscious Relationships

[Speaker 2] (0:00 - 1:46) Welcome back to the Here for the Truth podcast. My name is Yerasimos. I have my co-host with me, Joel Rafiti. We have another really amazing guest today, Leanne Lopinto. We dive into a bunch of different subjects around relationships, male-female dynamics. We explore some of the polarity teachings and the pitfalls that you may be seeing, like, take a greater hold in social media these days. We discuss sexual sovereignty and just a whole bunch of other topics, like, that are just really, really important wherever you are in the stage of your relationship, whether you're single, wanting to be in a relationship, whether you're in partnership, whether you're going through a divorce or navigating challenges. It's really a timeless conversation. But before we bring Leanne on, Rise Above the Herd, round nine. If you're a listener of this podcast, you know what it's about. We're doing an early bird sale, a promo that actually, it's going on right now. So, if you're listening to this on the Sunday, the 18th, this promo ends tomorrow, the 19th, Monday at 11.59 p.m. So, really, if you've been wanting to join this program, now's the time to take advantage of it. It's an amazing discount. So, you can go to riseabovetheherd.co to take advantage of that. Other than that, anything else you want to add, Joel? No, not much. For ease, there's the link in the show notes for Rise Above the Herd. And just for those that are hearing for the first time, this is a deep dive, an eight-week group coaching program with myself and Yerasimos. We have powerful transformations. And I think you said it all, man. Awesome. Well, without further ado, here's Leanne. [Speaker 3] (1:47 - 1:53) You are now listening to the Year for the Truth Podcast, hosted by Joel Rafiti and Yerasimos. [Speaker 2] (1:57 - 2:23) Leanne Lopinto is a Los Angeles-based psychologist, relationship coach, and breathwork teacher with over 12 years of experience. She's worked with thousands of people all over the world to heal relationship wounds, develop healthy self-love, and attract incredible relationships. She specializes in conscious relationships and spiritual partnership, using relationships to evolve on a soul level. Leanne, welcome to Hear for the Truth. [Speaker 1] (2:23 - 2:26) Thank you so much. I'm so excited for this conversation today. [Speaker 2] (2:27 - 3:02) So are we. We've had relationship topics. We've had a few podcasts on this topic, and it's always nice to get new perspectives and glean new insights and build that whole picture with the different angles that people bring to it. So excited to see where you're at on it. One of the first questions I have for you, which is a regular question here on this podcast, is firstly, I want to dive into your hero's journey and a bit deeper into your personal story. What are some of the major transformative and catalyzing moments in your life that really pivoted you into the path that you're on now? [Speaker 1] (3:03 - 5:57) I love that you start with this because it's really just showing me that you understand the alchemization of people going through suffering and pain in their life and how you can really turn that into being of service in the world. And so that is 100% what I've been able to see. And if you asked me this question maybe eight years ago, I don't think I would have actually been able to answer it because it really was through my own healing of childhood, sexual abuse, and just a damaged relationship with men starting from day one with my father that I had to go through. And I was really stuck in victim mentality around that for so, so long before I started to take personal responsibility to heal myself and then to be able to see, oh my gosh, I can actually start to help other people with this. And when I started to unravel all of that is when my marriage actually crumbled 10 years ago. And that was my dark night of the soul. So it was a two-year period of time where I was just on the ground. It was the worst pain I've ever experienced. And I've been through hard things, but that was the hardest thing for sure. He and I met when I was 18. We were together almost 20 years and we have a child together. It was awful. And I was able to kind of go through that two-year intense period, come up and out, and it was a completely different person because I was really kind of forced against my will to do all of this shadow work, which I didn't even know that's what it was back then. It was basically like you have been forced to look at all of your shit. So it was a great blessing. I can say that now, but going through it, I thought I was the only person, all of that stuff. It was horrible. But when I came up and out and I started to, I was running women's circles at the time, but I still had a lot of shame around the fact that my marriage didn't work out, that I was going through a divorce, that I was now a single mother. Oh my God. It was like, I had so much shame around it, but I started to kind of test the waters in my women's circles by sort of like sharing little bits of my story. And then all of the women in the circle, they were able to relate to me and they were able to be like, I totally know what you're talking about. So then I was able to see I wasn't the only person struggling with relationships. I honestly believed I'm the only person who doesn't know how to do relationships. But I realized pretty quickly that that's not true. And so then women started to actually come to me for support with relationships. And then I eventually decided to specialize in it. And so that's a little bit of my story. Thank you for asking that. [Speaker 2] (5:57 - 6:02) Yeah. What were like some of the big insights that you had when you were in the dark night of the soul? [Speaker 1] (6:03 - 8:25) Oh my gosh. So, so much. I think some of the hardest pills for me to swallow, um, that my, my therapist, thank God at the time helped me to see all of these things. Number one, I was blaming him for doing all of this stuff to me, right? He was treating me disrespectfully. He was, um, not emotionally available, right? All this stuff. And so I was really good at pointing the finger at him. And I'm not saying that those things didn't actually happen. Like if you video recorded our relationship, like you would see it, you know, I wasn't totally delusional. This stuff was happening. However, what she guided me to see was that all relationships are a co-creation of two people coming together, bringing all of your stuff. So it wasn't like I was just in this vacuum with stuff randomly happening to me. And so from that point, I was able to see that despite this behavior continuing for almost 20 years, I stayed with him. Like I stayed with him. And so some people, they, um, hear that we were together for that long and they're kind of like, wow, that's incredible. Like it's this badge of honor, but like for people who stay in relationships way too long, this is like a lot of the codependency programming too, that we can get into. It's not always a good thing. Um, and so there was low, very low levels of self-love and self-worth from my childhood wounding that I was carrying in, um, that was kind of sneaky, honestly. So that was the first thing. I also didn't have any boundaries and I was kind of like one of those cool girls where I'm like, you know, I don't really need, I don't need very much. I'm good. Right. And I used to kind of make fun of these women who, um, in my eyes, they had high standards in relationships and therefore they were creating all these problems for men. What I know now is that they actually just had healthy boundaries. I'm not saying there's some women who don't go overboard. That's true. But like, I was just trying to be this, like, I don't want to rock the boat kind of person. Right. And so these were some of the big things that I had to own. Um, and I also was really good at sweeping things under the rug, not speaking things that didn't feel good. Um, just tying all into like not wanting to cause problems. And he also was very good at that too. So we were just not good at, um, really having open, loving communication with each other. Those were some of the big ones. [Speaker 2] (8:26 - 8:49) Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. There is so much shame around divorce and separation. Right. You know, and it feels like when someone's going through that, it's like a lot of the pain and like the burden that people may be experiencing is what are others going to think? How am I going to be judged? How am I going to be perceived? Can you speak into that a bit? [Speaker 1] (8:50 - 11:25) I absolutely think that that's still happening to this day, which is crazy. I mean, this was 10 years ago that all of this crumbled for me. And I think for me on a personal level, watching my parents go through a divorce and it was really handled very poorly, like it was just not a good situation. Definitely was an approach in a conscious way. And it caused, it did cause damage for us as kids. Um, and so I, honestly, I remember this one point in our marriage, this was before everything kind of, you know, came to a head. I had tried so many times in our marriage to have hard conversations, you know, of like really pointing to the fact that things weren't going well. Right. So, so can we maybe read this book together? Can we maybe go to this workshop together? And so I did try, but he just, he never took any of it seriously. So I remember like one of my last attempts at that, I just completely collapsed. And I just was like, I'm going to be in this forever. Like this is going to be the rest of my life because divorce was never an option for me because of that shame and the stigma. I was like, I am never doing that. I am never going to be a single mother, right? This is just not an option. And it actually took us a long time. We were in therapy together for two years. We went every single week as a couple. And then we also simultaneously did every single week, our own individual session. So it was like the most intense period. And I think that shame that you speak about actually kept us together longer than we maybe would have if that wasn't there. In addition to having a child together and all of the fear around, are we going to like, are we going to ruin our son's life? Right? And so we actually, once we did come to the decision to part ways, we continued to work with our therapist to move into co-parenting in a really healthy way to just kind of really, really cleanse and clear any last bits of resentment or ill will towards each other. In addition to working with her to support our son through the process. And honestly, I'm just going to be straight. Like, yes, if people can stay together when they have a children, that's the best case scenario. But if it is something where both people are not happy and in the air, there's all of this stress and tension and the child is not getting a model of a healthy relationship, then it is not good for the child ultimately. And so too many people stay in relationships where they think that they're doing it for the kids, but it's actually having detrimental effect on them. So that's what I can say now, but I didn't know that then. [Speaker 2] (11:27 - 12:07) Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely curious your thoughts on that because, you know, I, I, again, it's up to each partnership and each individual to decide, but like you think in the old days, you know, people stay together and a lot of times people stay together and they work through things and they build a bond and they're not just like dropping the relationship with the first time, like the first time there's any type of like drama or trouble, which I feel like in our culture today, or maybe the last couple of decades, we're seeing more of that. There isn't that like desire to stick with something, to deal with challenges, to grow through the pain, to communicate, you know? So again, it is that fine line and only the partnership and the individuals involved with it can make that decision. But I just feel like people are so quick to just be like, all right, cool. Like we're done. [Speaker 1] (12:08 - 13:23) That's the other extreme. I told, I love that you said that because I definitely am a fan. I'm pro monogamy, pro commitment, pro marriage, all of this stuff for people to be able to stick it out with somebody. And this is now what I teach. Right. But, but there's also, you can also see through my story, I was kind of on the other end of like, I literally was going to stay in that marriage for the rest of my life and it was going to be horrible. Right. And so there's kind of at least like two extremes that people can either stay way too long when it's really, truly not working despite your best efforts. But, you know, for people listening, I would say, if you have a sense that, that, you know, maybe things are headed in the wrong direction, like you have to fight for it. You have to literally give everything that you have. You have to step up to the plate and try to make it work. And we did. And honestly, at the end of that really intense two year period for us, we both could say that we literally gave it our all. Right. And so that was actually the only reason that we could step away is because we had that internal knowledge that we tried. But I agree with you. And now, so now this other extreme that you're speaking of is all over the place. And we can get into that too, you know, with dating apps, with hookup culture, with all of that. It's none of that is good. [Speaker 2] (13:27 - 13:56) Yeah. What do you think are like the psychological roots of the whole stigma around separation and divorce? Like, obviously I agree with you guys, you know, that people should absolutely fight for it, you know, right to the end and leave it all on the table. Otherwise there's always going to be those what ifs. But like, I think about religion, I think about culture, I think about the psychology of the crowd and the herd, you know, in your opinion, like, what's the foundation of that? That's off the table, you know, that we can't go there. We can't even think about it. [Speaker 1] (13:57 - 14:51) Well, I think it ties into the shame that we were speaking about earlier. And so that shame is also programmed from maybe people who, from religion, you know, from this, these expectations of what marriage is. And I do think that in addition to us being able to step into a new paradigm of what relationships could actually look like, we also need to kind of really, I guess you could say reclaim marriage in a different way, maybe cleansing and clearing that whole idea out of whatever isn't really working. And that's a big conversation. But yeah, I mean, I would think it's, it's just what I experienced was that there's, there's so much stigma and shame. And I literally, I was programmed to believe as most women and maybe most people are programmed to believe that you just grow up, you find your person and then you get married until death do you part. There's just no other, there's no other option. [Speaker 3] (14:51 - 14:51) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (14:52 - 14:57) Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's, that's really the core of it, but I'd love to hear what you both think on that. [Speaker 2] (14:59 - 16:45) Yeah. I mean, I agree with you, you know, and I even think about, you know, even the modern quote unquote, like truth movement, I think it's even continued, you know, like I think about, you know, the Jordan Peterson's like, this is the worst possible thing in the world, you know, it's basically like, you know, suicide for the child, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I just think there's, there's got to be more of a circumstantial basis. Like I'm sure there's kids that come from separated families that grow up healthy and they get everything they need and they're able to thrive and be whole successful human beings moving into the future. I just don't like, you know, people thinking that there's no, there's no hope if this happens, like, you know, all the lights diminished, nothing can be salvaged. You know, we can't, my child's going to grow up, you know, and be whatever. Yeah. I think it's like what we said earlier. Like, I think there are extreme cases. I mean, do whatever you can take personal responsibility, work on the partnership, whatever you can, because that fracture does have an impact on the child, whether consciously or unconsciously, but again, if both parties involved are absolutely miserable, you know, like you said earlier, Leanne, you know, what is that going to do? You know, there was a teacher once I went to some workshop and he said, and again, this is the extreme version. He said that like, if someone did what divorce does to your kid, you'd like be justified in like killing the person, you know? And I'm like, I'm like, that's like hardcore, you know, like I get it on one level, you know, like if you're just going to be like, well, this is hard, I'm out, you know, but like, have you exhausted everything possible to work on yourself? And this is the other thing I want to bring up to you as well is that it's very easy for people to just point the finger and to want their partner to change. And it's like, well, what the fuck are you doing to change? [Speaker 1] (16:45 - 16:45) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (16:45 - 17:04) And very often, not all the time, but often sometimes, yes, it takes two to tangle, but sometimes if you change your behavior, you have no idea how that change is going to then impact the dynamic and your partner. So it's like, why not start with what you have control over, which is your own behavior, your own nature, your own psyche, your own shit. [Speaker 1] (17:05 - 18:42) A hundred percent. I totally agree. That was literally the greatest blessing that I got from that experience was like, I have to take responsibility for all my stuff. Up to that point, I had never done any heavy lifting in therapy on my own childhood wounding, never touched my sexual abuse, any of that until my late thirties after all of that was done. So it's like, I think that we have to really start to take responsibility for this much earlier. And so, yes, I agree. Best case scenario, if you have a child, then stay with that person, if you can do everything that you can. I'll say that a million times. I often have gone back and really asked myself, what could Chris and I have done earlier? What could we have done earlier? We ended up going to couples therapy at literally the final hour, which happens all of the time. This is why I say to people like, please do not see this as something that is you solving like a fire drill. This is not good for couples. All of the stigma around couples therapy should be that really ideally in a perfect world from the very beginning, you're getting support to help that relationship because God knows right now, nobody knows how to do relationships. So please, if you are invested in this relationship, you will get support from day one with it. And so there's so much that I can say going back. However, when it's at that final hour, oftentimes the reality is that you can't save it. You can't, and you just have to be real about that. Now, my son has the opportunity to witness a happy, healthy relationship. His father and I are both in healthy relationships that he can now witness. So that's the best that we can do. [Speaker 2] (18:43 - 19:08) Yeah. I think it needs to shift to being seen as something that can, you know, fill the cup even more while there's still water in the glass, you know, as opposed to something to try salvage in the last minute when you're dealing the drugs. Right. This is probably a question that every relationship coach or, you know, gets, but like, what makes a successful relationship? [Speaker 1] (19:08 - 21:06) Oh my gosh. Such a good question. I mean, I think for me, I think about taking responsibility starts with understanding basic relationship psychology. I kind of have this model where it's like, there's so much available to us in the realm of relationships, like we're just scratching the surface. The potential is so vast, right? You can move into conscious relationships. You can move into even spiritual partnerships where this can be a path of enlightenment, right? And individuation. However, you have to start with a strong and solid base of basic relationship skills. So learning about basic relationship psychology is so key. This is actually Laura Matsu and her husband, Baron Hart Gunther and I, we coach, we teach together. I'm a guest teacher for them. And we're all on the same page with us. You have to understand attachment style. That's one that is so popular right now, but I do agree. It's really, really valuable to understand what your current attachment style is and to make moving towards secure attachment, really your North star in relationships. That's a huge foundation of healthy relationships, I would say. In addition to really, you know, this whole deficit of internal self-love and self-worth is absolutely something that everybody has to tackle. Otherwise you're going to go into relationships seeking externally to fill that void inside of you, right? This is codependency programming. So that's really important to understand, just reclaim that so that you're not over-relying on other people to fill that for you, right? Understanding just basic boundaries, right, is huge. Understanding how to have open, honest, and loving communication. Some people are good about speaking their truth, but they don't speak it in a way that it's coming from love that creates problems. The other end is like that they just stay silent because they don't want to rock the boat. And then along with the communication, just learning how to get through conflict in a healthy way. I would say those are the basic ones. [Speaker 2] (21:07 - 24:02) Yeah, I agree with that. And I was going to say something that I think you kind of just touched on the end is like repair, you know, how important repair is because like we're human. We have many parts of us. We have many aspects to us. Shit's going to happen. You know, a wound is going to get triggered. We're going to say the thing, you know, our partner may say the thing to us or do the act or the behavior. And it's like then we're in our little worlds and things are happening and we're just like, okay, I got to step away and process. And we're probably going through that place of wanting to blame the other person. But if we can like point the finger towards us and go, well, what role did I play in this and take responsibility for it? And then how do the partners come together and communicate that and take responsibility, whatever, whether it's like, hey, listen, I was an insensitive dick. Like I shouldn't have said that to you. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings or whatever the case may be. And it's like that repair that can happen, I think really tightens and strengthens the bond because you're like, okay, wow, we just went through this thing. And depending on the wound, the childhood wounding a person's gone through, like sometimes a person may have gone through something where if they like raise their voice or their partner raised their voice, that means they were like, they're going to leave them and they can't be together anymore. And it creates so much pain. But like when you're able to like go, hey, listen, I'm not leaving you. We just had a disagreement, we had an argument, like we can work through this. Like again, that bond just gets more solidified and there's more trust moving forward that you can get through things. But when you push things under the rug, when you don't assert yourself, when you don't speak your mind, your truth and that truth may come out a little ugly at times, you know, it's like this is the work. This is the work on the individual level when you're like, oh, if you're someone who hasn't been expressing yourself, like, well, when you first start expressing yourself, it may not come out super consciously where you're like standing in between opposites and like communicating, listen, I have something I need to tell you, you know, it may come out like with a charge, with an extra push behind it. But what do you do afterwards? How does the partnership like come together? How do they communicate? How does each person involved take responsibility? Because like you said before, more often than not, it takes two to tango and both partners are creating this dynamic that are playing into it. Yeah. I think like what you're striking at is actually something that's really fundamental, which is we don't see relationship as work, you know? Yes. We enter a relationship thinking, you know, it's just going to be, you know, kumbaya, you know, we're just going to fit perfectly together. But this is meant to be a vessel of work. This requires effort. This is going to cause you to exert yourself consciously. It's going to cause you to mentally sweat, you know, if you really want to use relationship as the alchemical body for evolution, then it requires effort. But again, this is the aversion to responsibility that we're dealing with. And, and I would love for you to comment on this. And we get fed the fantasy. Yeah. We get fed the fantasy in the media. Like, I just met you. Oh my God, we're going to fall in love. And then that's it. Like, rarely are movies showing you this process and everything that we're talking about right here. You know? [Speaker 1] (24:02 - 26:16) Oh, none of them do. I love that you say that. None of them do. This is part of the codependency programming that I believe is intentionally being blasted at us, right? Not just as a result of trauma, but also from music, media, television, movies, all of this stuff is programming us. So I just recorded a video teaching on codependency that everyone should watch. It's really, it's very comprehensive. I have it on YouTube right now for free. Just email me or look at my LinkedIn bio and Instagram. But it really covers the codependency program, this idea of this fantasy partner. And then you end up putting them on a pedestal and all this stuff. And then they're really just human. So eventually they're going to fall off the pedestal for those of us that do this to people or project all of these fantasies onto our partner when actually they're just a human being like all of us. Right? And so this is huge, but like, I love what you say about it builds trust, right? When you are able to get through bumps in the road with your partner, it absolutely strengthens the relationship, right? It builds resilience. It builds that staying power, that trust in each other to be able to get through hard things, to have hard conversations. And yeah, as one of those people that was so afraid to speak my truth and so afraid to rock the boat, when I started to, it was totally awkward, right? Like I just felt super awkward doing it. But the only reason that I had the fuel and the motivation to do that is because I saw that the other way will completely collapse our relationship. So it's crazy because we think that, oh, we're going to just sweep this under the rug because we have fear that if we face it, it's going to make everything collapse, but it's actually the opposite. If you keep sweeping things under the rug, that energy doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't go anywhere. It leads to resentment. It leads to all this stuff in the air that's lingering, that creates barriers between and I keep, I call it just keeping it clean and clear, right? Having open communication as things come up is so huge. And that relates to intimacy as well, because especially for women, if stuff is like in the air that hasn't been spoken, then all of a sudden they don't want to sleep with their partners, right? They just don't have that desire. Maybe for men it's easier, but for women especially it's not. [Speaker 2] (26:17 - 27:21) Now a short break from the episode. Just a reminder, the early bird sale for Rise Up of the Herd round nine ends Monday, February 19th at 1159 PST. This is our signature eight week group coaching program with Joel and myself. We also do have Dr. Sophie Fletcher on board with us. She handles the nervous system component of this program, which is super important if you're in partnership, if you're in relationship, conscious communication is key. And it is very challenging to communicate consciously when you're dysregulated and you don't have great capacity within your nervous system. So if you want to start getting into this very important work, come join us for eight weeks. The link is in the show notes. Back to the episode. Like in my view, it's only like floor code dependence. Like it's only when that disillusionment takes place that real love is actually possible. [Speaker 1] (27:22 - 27:24) I love that. I love that. Can you say more about that? [Speaker 2] (27:25 - 27:51) Well, because that's when the work is required. That's when, because to me, like love is an act. Love is something which requires effort. It's not something that, you know, just is, it's a movement. And so, you know, putting yourself in the position to do the work of loving an individual and moving towards love, you know, that's only possible in the disillusionment phase. Like that's when the relationship really begins. [Speaker 1] (27:52 - 27:53) Yeah, absolutely. [Speaker 2] (27:53 - 28:43) Well, the honeymoon period isn't love. Yeah, right. You know, like those first four months, there's some deep shit happening on a psychological level in terms of why you attracted a certain person into your life, what they're caring for you and vice versa and the magic. But like, once again, like you said, y'all, once the first thing happens or the behavior that you thought was initially cute because they're different than you then starts annoying you, then it's like, oh, okay, let's see what work needs to happen here and like what does this person have for me? Because my view is relationships are there to, they come into your life to highlight aspects of yourself, parts of yourself that you don't have access to that maybe you've repressed and disowned and subconsciously you're drawn to this person and they very often have the medicine for you to become more whole and to integrate these lost aspects of yourself. [Speaker 1] (28:44 - 29:17) That's it. And this, so now here's where we get into conscious relationships and practicing them consciously. And I think we're primed and ready right now to step into this way of relating, which is a hundred percent true. But you'll see that, you know, a lot of times what we talk about is like, you either have a growth mentality with relationships or you have a fixed mentality, right? If you want a comfy relationship where nothing is going to come up, you can probably find a partner like that who's not going to challenge you, right? And both people are just going to like keep really quiet and like keep the peace, right? That relationship, some people, you know, that's fine, right? You can have that. [Speaker 2] (29:17 - 29:25) And that's the kind of relationship that the masses are pretty much all involved in. Like that's the inauthentic path and they've chosen that. [Speaker 1] (29:25 - 29:45) Exactly. And it's not going to have the friction that you need to be able to create massive growth and evolution. And so you do have to have not only a basic understanding of relationship psychology, but you have to have the wherewithal to be able to stay with someone through the fire sometimes to be able to get through bumps in the road. This is huge. [Speaker 2] (29:46 - 30:38) Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I love M. Scott Peck, the psychologist. He wrote the book, Road Less Travelled. He defines love as basically, I'm going to fumble the definition, but being vested in the spiritual development of another person, right? And so he says that like the in love or the honeymoon phase or the incredibly magnetic period, like that's not love. He doesn't really believe in love at first sight as per se, because he says that initial incredible like magnetization or whatever it might be, it's always driven by like a procreation urge, right? And he thinks that's kind of what flavors and textures that. And to him, that's separate from the work of what love actually is. [Speaker 1] (30:38 - 32:41) Yes. And it just ties to what Yerasmo said about, you said something about how it's, you're magnetically attracted to be like trauma bonds, right? Like all the unconscious stuff, it's like a magnet, right? So, yeah, I love that definition because I think, you know, in the codependency programming video, I do encourage people to be very wary of that thing when you are very magnetically pulled to somebody and there's all the fireworks. So many of us know that, right? And yeah, it's not always a good thing. You have to kind of be wary of that and take it slow with somebody to get to actually know them over time. You said something else with that quote that I, it'll come to me, but yeah, I think, oh yeah, this is one piece I just wanted to add. So the honeymoon phase I think is when you start to, when you actually are at a higher level of consciousness, right? Maybe you've done the work over time, your eyes are open to kind of what we're talking about, like relationships are mirrors. They're going to bring up all your stuff. This is not a bad thing. It's actually a good thing. When you start to understand some of this, the honeymoon phase is a phase for people who are in consensus reality, who are not aware of this. What I found is that the honeymoon phase actually tends to go away with the two people who are coming together initially, who are aware of some of this stuff. They don't fall prey to the honeymoon phase because they're awake and aware of what's going on. So I have a colleague, Michael Bates, who's great. We did a wonderful podcast episode on the current state of love, sex, and relationships, but he and his partner teach something called the reverse honeymoon, where if two people who are conscious come together and they know all of this, at the very beginning, all your stuff's going to come up, right? And you're going to work through it. And so it's almost this reverse honeymoon period of intensity at the beginning while you do that cleanup work and that healing. And then you come up and out of that into something that feels a little bit less charged, if that makes sense. [Speaker 2] (32:42 - 32:54) Yeah. And just for those listening, I don't want to freak people out and think, oh, my relationship started this way. That means it's not real love or whatever it might be. That's not the case at all. And that's not what I'm trying to say. Many, many relationships start this way. [Speaker 1] (32:55 - 33:02) Right. Yeah. So at any point, you can actually do this work to be like, whoa, okay. It really depends on where you're at with all of this. [Speaker 2] (33:03 - 34:35) Yeah. There's no one specific formula and every relationship has to go like this and follow this chronology. You're dealing with two individuals and each individual is a universe unto themselves. And then you then get into partnership with another person. Like what's capable, what's there, what's driving behavior, you know, like, again, I think having the just the desire as an individual, the intention to go, I want to work on myself. I want to work on myself. I want to be curious about who I am, why I have the behaviors that I have, where they come from, what wounding do I have, you know, and then if you find another partner that's in the same boat, you know, a lot of times I think just adds a lot of value to your life. And I think that's what conscious relating is. It's not roses and fucking butterflies 24 seven. I love that you said that, man. Sorry, sorry, Leanne. I feel like we're moving into this. We need to be wary of moving into this place where we feel like there's a generalization of there's only like a single path to healthy relating, you know, but it's so unique. Like every relationship's arc and heroic journey is so individualized. Like we talk about the individual journey, but when you're together, it's even more unique, it's even more individualized because there's two of you and you're bringing your unique combined essence together, you know. So every single path to bring out, you know, the culmination of the gifts that a healthy relationship and going through that journey together can bring forth is unique for every single person. [Speaker 1] (34:36 - 35:27) Absolutely true. And I do think that part of the programming too, with this becoming available to us, this new paradigm, right, that I teach, that I talk about, it's like people do have this romantic fantasy about, oh, conscious relationships are just like, so whatever, right? And they're just like, oh, we're just meditating. And like, no one ever gets angry. It's like, no, they're actually the complete opposite because you're actually working with all the stuff that comes up very consciously. That's hugely different. And I'll say that some people are not going to always be ready for this. You have to build a certain amount of tolerance to be able to, number one, face your stuff, take personal responsibility, take ownership for your stuff, right? That's key. Also to understand the co-creation aspect that we talked about, there's kind of a preparation period before you can truly start to practice relationships consciously. [Speaker 2] (35:28 - 35:42) Yeah. But if you're ready for it, what is there to do? How can you ever, at every fork in the road of your relationship, whether it's six months in or 10 years in, there's going to be something you're not ready for, right? [Speaker 1] (35:43 - 35:54) Right. Well, that's true. You can only prepare to a certain point. I totally agree with that part. Shoot, there was something else I was going to say. Yeah. There's a million different directions we could go. [Speaker 2] (35:55 - 36:20) Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's go in here, this direction first. I'm curious your thoughts. We're seeing on social media and in the relationship communities, it's like hardcore polarity teachings that are happening. So I'm curious your thoughts on polarity teachings. What are some of the positive elements? And then what are some of the things that maybe are a little bit too simplistic from a psycho emotional standpoint? [Speaker 1] (36:21 - 38:01) Yeah. It's so wild for me to see the popularization of polarity teachings right now, because we're in 2024. I remember back in like 2016 here in Los Angeles, I was starting to kind of play around in that scene here. I'm not going to name names, but some of the bigger people here, and there's definitely, there's pros and cons for sure. I would say that the positive side of it is the understanding that we all, of just masculine and feminine energetics, huge, hugely important, right? So that's very, very important for people to understand. I think women are waking up to the fact that maybe they have abandoned, you know, their feminine energy, feminine side. And yes, when you look sort of zoomed out at the last, you know, 50, 75 years, like that, that is the process that has happened for women. And then conversely for men as well. So it's almost like a reclamation of our feminine energy as women, vice versa for men. You see with men's work and all of the men's groups coming up, there's a reclamation of masculine energy, which is great. However, the downside that I'm seeing is that some of the popular polarity teachings are actually bringing people back in time. They're trying to bring them back into the 1950s and these traditional roles. Whereas, you know, the process of Carl Jung's path of individuation that I work with, there is a component before you actually reach the state of union with the divine that includes anima-animus integration, which means basically inner union. We all have both internally. So if we're not allowed to cultivate both internally for that balance of yin-yang, then you're actually, in my eyes, preventing people from stepping into true wholeness. [Speaker 2] (38:02 - 38:06) How dare you say a man has feminine energy and a woman has masculine energy. [Speaker 1] (38:09 - 38:11) So I didn't hear what you said. Sorry. [Speaker 2] (38:11 - 38:24) He was making a joke. I'm being sarcastic. Like there's just so many people out there proposing this idea that it's ridiculous that men have any kind of feminine energy and women have zero masculine energy and just purely, you know. [Speaker 1] (38:25 - 38:50) I mean, okay. First of all, these words are so triggering for people, especially men. I get it. Men have been programmed so much. There's no part of me that's feminine, right? Oh my gosh, if I was a man, I probably would be the same. And it's just like, I have a great podcast episode with Michael Holt, it's called Masculine Vitality. He is a big believer in, you know, just call it the integration of the head and the heart. [Speaker 2] (38:51 - 38:52) Yeah, they're just words. [Speaker 1] (38:52 - 38:52) It's semantics. [Speaker 2] (38:53 - 39:13) It's semantics because you say feminine. It's like people think female, you know, see masculine and think, you know, male, but it's different, you know, from like a psychological archetypal standpoint. Yeah, that's the problem. It's a misunderstanding of archetypes. Like people, which referring to like qualities and attributes, which we all have access to. [Speaker 1] (39:14 - 39:38) A hundred percent. Yeah. And so I think people really need to sit with this because what I'm seeing is like, people want to go back in time and you know, it's fine. I get concerned sometimes, right? Cause whatever, this is just my field. However, I think what's going to happen is that if people go back in time and they abandon parts of themselves, eventually they're going to wake up to the fact that this is not the way that's just what I see. [Speaker 2] (39:38 - 40:26) Well, I agree. And I think anyone who's a student of psychology and the human psyche and Carl Jung's work or other people that speak about wholeness and integration, they understand this. Like I mentioned earlier, we have a universe within us. You know, if you disown parts of you, they're going to come out in ways that aren't ideal, you know, down the road as the relationship evolves. And so it's like this evolution. And I think maybe this is what's going to happen. We go from one extreme to the other extreme, then hopefully come to a place where there's like a more integrated balance. But it's like, I found in my life, this is necessary. Like, I don't want to disown parts of me, but can I be the conductor of my own inner world and understand what aspects of me serve a situation best, serve a relationship best, you know? So, yeah, I'm on the same page. We're speaking a similar language, so I appreciate it. [Speaker 3] (40:26 - 40:27) Yeah, totally. [Speaker 2] (40:28 - 40:46) Yeah. And particularly like I'm seeing like, you know, a rise within, I guess, the male relationship influencers and coaches who are imbued with, you know, their own personal Christian ideology, like they're calling Carl Jung a new age, right? Bringing Jung's ideas into relationships as a new age. [Speaker 1] (40:48 - 41:29) Wow, that just represents a real repression on their end. And like, I'm picturing it's just, they're putting a lid very tightly on something. And what you just said in terms of it coming out in weird ways, we're seeing that all over the place, right? I believe that these people who believe that they're being born into the wrong body, it's like, if we actually went in the direction of really helping people to understand this integration process, and that it's okay in a female, in a woman's body to be full spectrum, it's okay. And I can still call myself a woman, right? I do believe that that urge is unconsciously really an urge for integration internally. [Speaker 2] (41:30 - 42:18) Yeah. And there's so much nuance to this too. Like what I'm 100% masculine and 0% feminine. And like, there's nuance, you have men that are a little bit, a little bit, maybe more feminine versus other men that are a little bit more masculine. And like, there's reasons that even if you get into like Germany medicine, and you talk about Dr. Homer's work, and like the different conflicts or traumas that people had earlier in their life, and how that impact certain aspects of them from a masculine and feminine standpoint, and how that then manifests in their behavior, or their sexuality, or who they're turned on by, or whatever the case may be. It's like, to overly simplify like male, female, masculine, feminine, like it takes away the complexity and the beauty of the human experience. It removes the intricacies of the dance that makes a relationship what it is. [Speaker 1] (42:19 - 42:54) Oh, that's so beautiful. I like that because I also call it a dance. You can actually develop internally both and have it be a dance. I call it energetic agility with your partner to be able to, you can create sexual spark by working with polarity consciously. You can, because yes, you do need the masculine and the feminine polarized in order to have sexual spark. It goes way beyond just sexual benefits. Of course, it has to do with wholeness internally. But yeah, when you learn how to, I think you said earlier, you asked most like what in the moment, what is required of me? And then being able to bring that to the front, very misunderstood. [Speaker 2] (42:56 - 43:30) Yeah. Like there's an individual, do you know how to push your own buttons? Do you know how to like shape shift or adjust? Or again, this is where I think wholeness comes into play is like, you have access to more of you. And the more access you have, you're moving away from this very rigid way of being to a way where you can dance with life more fluidly, you know, dance and partnership in a certain ways, you know? I don't know. It just seems a little bit more fun, more exciting, more, I guess, whole, you know, we're not just limiting ourselves. [Speaker 1] (43:30 - 44:21) Yeah. Right. When people do play these roles of like, oh my God, I'm just going to be in my feminine all the time. Right. You're going to be in your mask. It's really just performative roles. And what I've seen, what I did see in the LA polarity community is that this is what people were doing. And then also there was this eroticized component where they were getting off sexually because of this, right? Then you pull in the dominator submissive stuff, which is really just the control game playing out sexually through us. And all of this is like, people are just, it's unhealed trauma, honestly. And then, so when they were playing these fixed, rigid roles, what I was seeing is that even in my own life, when I sort of went through this too, because I wasn't perfect back then, is that it does collapse eventually because you're like, oh shit, like I'm totally like abandoning these parts of myself. At a soul level, those are not going anywhere. [Speaker 2] (44:22 - 44:38) Yeah. And this doesn't say that you can't explore these dominant submissive roles and play around and have fun even sexually. It's just, if you're just pigeonholed into this, this is who I am, this is it. This little cluster of parts is how I'm going to behave 24 seven. It's quite limiting. [Speaker 1] (44:39 - 44:48) Absolutely limiting. Yeah. And so we can speak to this too, but some people actually have to kind of go down that road and to experience it themselves. [Speaker 2] (44:48 - 45:43) Yeah. And I don't have all the answers. I don't have it all figured out. I think I have a lovely conscious relationship, but we have issues, we have stuff we have to work through. Like what we've been saying this whole thing, it takes work. It takes conscious relating. It takes personal responsibility. We're always evolving. We're always growing. As an individual, you're going through many phases of your life that are going to present new challenges. The same thing goes for your partner. And then you're trying to interact together while individually you're going through new things. So like it's a never ending, this whole something with Joel and I talk about often, this whole process of awakening, like there's no end point. Like it's not going to be now I'm 90, I'm the most awake person in relationship. I'm awake. Like, no, there's going to be a new thing. Like you're going to approach death and is your partner still around or is she not around? Like there's just so much juice to life. So many different opportunities to relate and engage and learn and grow. And like, it never ends. [Speaker 1] (45:44 - 46:46) It never ends. There's always other layers to peel back. Right. And so like, also what I've found too is like, yes, the work never ends, but often there is a period, especially if you're really with someone and you're like in a powerful, you're really working with this stuff, like very consciously to get through a lot of stuff. There is a period of time where you can, I'm not saying that you can be totally healed, right? Of like childhood stuff, but you can actually really do intentional healing to remove a lot of the charge from some of these triggers. And then all of a sudden you can actually with your partner come up and out into a period of, instead of it being focused on healing, now it's about growth and expansion and evolution together to the heights. And that is what is available to us because it's not always about staying stuck in the trenches. Yes, that's part of it. But it's this other, like this other expansion that can happen that I feel like if people are stuck in the wounds all the time, let's just say they're not practicing conscious relationships, then this whole expansion is actually never going to become available to them. [Speaker 2] (46:47 - 48:00) Yeah. You know what the hardest challenge is? It's navigating this part of relationship early on when you have young children, and there is so much responsibility and so much energy being exerted in raising young kids. And then in the interim, all this stuff within the relationship is coming up as well. The bandwidth for most people just does not exist to be able to deal with those multiple fronts. It's like getting, especially when babies are so demanding of their mothers, they need them 24-7. They're totally exhausted. They're on the boob all the time. And it's like, where is there to give to actually consciously dealing with the relationship, whether it's with a therapist or whether it's even just being able to have the energy to communicate properly with a partner. So getting through those first four or five years to get to the point where then you can allocate more energy to the relationship is key. I feel like so many crumble in that phase. Yeah. And also back to what I was saying before, where it's like, even if you did do those three, four years, then you throw a child or you throw another responsibility into the mix. And then that's a new thing that you have to navigate together. [Speaker 3] (48:01 - 48:01) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (48:02 - 48:19) Right. So that's the part where I say it doesn't end. Even if you've done the early healing work, then you're like, okay, what's our common vision? What do we want to create? How do we want to move forward? That process alone of just living and moving through life is going to bring its own challenges as well. [Speaker 1] (48:20 - 49:25) Absolutely. And so I see that there is kind of a, it's like this, it goes back and forth sometimes. It's not just like, oh my God, we're done. And like, now we're just all over here. Right. But yeah, I would say that having kids in the young, whoo, like it's a lot. And, you know, as a mother myself, that first year was brutal. I didn't sleep. Right. I didn't sleep. And I think that having compassion, understanding that it is a phase, it's not going to last forever. That's first and foremost. Allowing yourself to be messy to, right. And taking away some of the pressure. Let's just say before kids came into the equation, you were practicing relationships really beautifully and well and consciously and perfectly. And then kids come in having the, just being like, yeah, it's not going to be perfect. In addition to understanding that that is a time when you can really call in support. This is huge. Right. Like we don't have enough support in those days. And to, and I know this isn't possible for everybody. Right. It's not, but if it is possible for you to get some help to make it a little bit easier, I mean, there there's so much parenting is a huge topic. [Speaker 2] (49:26 - 49:29) Yeah, totally. What is sexual sovereignty? [Speaker 1] (49:31 - 50:29) So for me, sexual sovereignty, this is kind of a new body of work that's coming out of this larger, you know, I have, I have to frame it into what I call the war on love, sex, and relationships, which is really kind of an attack or a spiritual war on, that's eroding healthy relationships, especially between men and women. So we've already spoken a lot about how you can actually work with the material that comes up in relationships for healing, for growth, for evolution. So sexual sovereignty in my definition is really being able to reclaim our true sexual essence, cleanse and clear it of trauma, programming, conditioning, right. That actually forms it and shapes it into something that's not truly ours. So that's, that's the definition. So there's, there's so much here to go into, but but I feel like we're being purposely programmed in a different direction and especially sexual energy, the easiest energy to hijack, and it is being hijacked right now. [Speaker 2] (50:30 - 50:32) Can you talk about that a little bit more? Yeah, please. [Speaker 1] (50:33 - 51:48) So there's, okay. So I think we all know that our sexual energy is very easily pulled, right? Very, very easily pulled. First of all, right now we're in this culture that has a celebration of anything goes sexually. Okay. Now it's, it's great on the one hand, because it's we're coming out of this. I'm 45 now, growing up as a kid, there was a lot of shame around sexuality. As we've moved forward, there is sort of like sex positivity, right? Let's just all embrace all of it. And so there's a good aspect to that, right? There's nothing wrong with sexuality. We shouldn't have shame around it. But right now our culture, the pendulum has swung to hypersexuality and to a celebration of sexuality, all of it, right? Even if it's actually born out of trauma, even if it's sexuality that is really taking us down into the lower realms, it's anything goes right now out there. And so I think that we have to understand that it's a result of trauma and then trauma being celebrated and these eroticized wounds that people have that they just continue to get off on and get off on. In addition to keeping that in place through being blasted through programming, through the media, through music. [Speaker 2] (51:49 - 51:53) So what is the process of one reclaiming sexual sovereignty? [Speaker 1] (51:54 - 52:42) So for me, it's actually, it's a parallel path to doing any... The bigger perspective of us as individuals reclaiming our sovereignty. And really, I do mirror it around the path of Carl Jung's path of individuation of first realizing that we have a persona that's not truly us. It's been shaped and molded by external influences, right? Waking up to the fact that we also have a sexual persona that maybe isn't truly us. One example is pornography. Pornography is totally programming preferences that are not authentically people's preferences into their brains, especially men, right? And so we have to really get honest with ourselves. What is ours? What's not ours, right? That's the first step. [Speaker 2] (52:43 - 53:16) Yeah. And that's the tricky thing is like when you get exposed to stuff so young, how do you even know? How do you realize what's the difference between what is so deeply programmed within me versus what I really want? It's like when you think about sexuality, when you think about the things that turn people on, it's so deep, it's so nuanced. Why is a person turned on to this? And can a person then go, oh, what would my life be like if I wasn't turned on by this? What would I be turned... I mean, it's very deep. The conditioning is really deep when it comes to sexuality, I've found. [Speaker 1] (53:17 - 54:10) Yeah. Hugely, hugely deep. So this whole thing around sexual sovereignty really came up for me and I actually do help people to rewire their sexual, yeah, just their sexuality in general. When I work with people one-on-one, this is something that we target. I also have an article called Sexual Sovereignty on Substack. It goes very, very deep and takes you step-by-step through how you can actually reclaim your sexual essence. But I think the first step is to really understand my sexuality has been shaped and programmed by an external stuff. And just as I would do this on a zoomed out level, just with myself as a whole, I can also do this sexually. Now this is difficult for people. Not everyone is going to want to do this because people cling so tightly to their sexual preferences and they do not want to let them go, even if they have been shaped and molded by the external. [Speaker 2] (54:11 - 54:18) Yeah. What are your thoughts on, obviously there's the love languages, but then Jaya Ma created something called the Erotic Blueprint. Are you aware of that? [Speaker 1] (54:19 - 54:24) Yeah, I am aware of that, but yeah, I don't really use it. [Speaker 2] (54:24 - 55:41) Well, I was just saying like, you know, with the love languages, there's like, you know, words of affirmation, physical touch and all that. She had created something called the Erotic Blueprint that depending on how you answer the questions, like you have certain preferences, you know, or you fall under a certain category, like one is kinky, two is, or one of them, not in any order, kinky, sexual, sensual, energetic and shapeshifter. And so depending on how you answer these like multitude of questions, like you have a certain Erotic Blueprint. So now, yes, that Erotic Blueprint, if you're answering the questions based on from coming from a place of like deep, deep, like wounding, you know, that's going to impact that. So maybe like 10 years later, you go through the questionnaire after you've done personal growth work, and maybe it's different. But again, I'm just curious if you... But can't that same context be applied to the love languages? Like what if trauma and wounding is informing one's love language? Well, yeah, I mean, if like physical touch for some people, if it wasn't safe, and if let's say you were abused, you know, maybe physical touch doesn't feel safe in your body. And so that may be low on the love language. But then, as you work through stuff, and did work on to heal your nervous system, etc, then maybe you're like, Oh, I want to be in contact. And that might move up the list. So anyway, that was... [Speaker 1] (55:41 - 56:32) Yes, no, I mean, the thing I'll just say is that, yeah, you're absolutely right. It's just a reflection of where you're at now. If you haven't done the deprogramming work, it's just going to be a reflection of where you are currently. It could be helpful for some people, right? I mean, there is a multistage approach here. Like if someone has not done any sexual healing work, then you do have to go through a stage a lot of times of sexual exploration, sometimes completely throwing off the reins, right? If you grew up in an environment where you were told sex is bad, wrong, dirty, whatever it is, then yeah, like that's part of the healing is to go through that. But most people get to a point where they actually realize that, you know, they kind of come home to self after, you know, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, you guys. And like, you realize you want something a little bit deeper, a little bit more mature with somebody that's not just based on sexual urges. [Speaker 2] (56:33 - 57:00) Yeah. And even you see it in the polyamorous communities, you know, like you have conversations with people who are hardcore in it and then like they come out of it. Not everyone. And they're just like, yeah, I'm actually for monogamy now. You know, this is what I want in my life. Now, again, this isn't for everyone, but I'm just saying that relates to your point that like maybe you have this experience and you go full and you get full towards the other side of the spectrum, then you come back and you go, you know, this is actually something that's more valuable to me. [Speaker 1] (57:01 - 58:19) Yeah. And there's so much programming there around like, isn't it just wild how polyamory right now is like becoming norm and like open relationships. There's like, trust me, in my younger years, I was very, very progressive, open minded and liberal. And like, so I'm not coming from like a place of being at all close minded about some of this stuff, but it's just, there's something about a lot of these things that are happening where you have to question whether this is truly organic. And I would say that absolutely, if you're into the higher levels of practicing conscious relationship or even divine union or spiritual partnership, that is only able to be done in a monogamous container. And so the open relationship trend is a lot of times, yeah, it's coming from people who have some wounding, some trauma, or they witnessed that maybe their mom and dad, you know, went through a horrible marriage, got divorced. And so they're abandoning monogamy completely. But I do see that most people are using it, or if they're in a monogamous relationship and they open it, right, usually it doesn't end well. There are a small percentage of people, maybe you can say that are wired for multiple partners, but it's a much smaller percentage than we actually see right now. [Speaker 2] (58:19 - 58:38) Yeah. And I also don't want to discount, like, I know people that have been in that world who like have learned so much about themselves through conscious relating, conscious communication, because a lot of new shit, like whether you're polyamorous or you're monogamous, like you're going to deal with challenges. You're going to deal with issues. You're going to have to navigate them. They just may look a little differently in some way. [Speaker 1] (58:38 - 58:49) Yeah. Yeah. What I don't like is how it's being sold as this like spiritually advanced, like, you know, path where you're like, we're just like above everyone because we don't have any attachment. And it's like, for me, that's bullshit. [Speaker 2] (58:50 - 59:12) Well, again, you mentioned something earlier, like it's a spiritual bypass of relationship. You know, you don't really deal with the shit. You can just go after the new exciting thing, the new relationship, energy, whatever. And again, it's not always this way, but when you really have to be in it with someone and deal with it and not just go, well, I'm now I'm going to go hang out with my Thursday partner because I don't want to deal with this shit on Wednesday, you know? Yeah. Yeah. [Speaker 1] (59:13 - 59:23) This is people just have to really get honest with themselves. I'm not saying it's not possible. It doesn't work for some people, but I do believe it's a much smaller percentage than we're being kind of told. [Speaker 2] (59:23 - 59:28) Yeah. I think it's very appealing to circles that tend towards disassociation. [Speaker 1] (59:30 - 59:50) Yep. Yeah. You just nailed it. And bypassing all of that stuff. Like we all spoke about earlier, it takes a certain amount of grit and resilience and being able to stick it out with somebody to go through the long haul with them. So many people, especially with the dating apps, onto the next, right? Next person, next person, next person. It's just like this endless cycle for people. [Speaker 2] (59:50 - 1:00:24) Again, like it just harkens back to like, the problem is like education. Like we're not educated about, you know, what is required in a real authentic relationship, you know, what to expect, you know, no one's, no one informed us. Like we're only getting to that point now where we have the opportunity to be able to teach our children and educate them and inform them in a grounded and authentic way. But, you know, the moment, you know, we enter relationships and, you know, conflict arises, then all of a sudden, it's like, we're projecting that something's wrong. Something's amiss as opposed to no, this is just guiding me deeper, you know? [Speaker 1] (1:00:25 - 1:01:46) Right. Yeah. And just to kind of get back to the sexual sovereignty and the process of reclaiming your authentic sexuality, like number one, I think the reason why we are being led astray is that sexuality is very easy to hijack that energy and create addictions to keep us very, very, very distracted and in the lower realm. So that's first of all. Second of all, sexuality is a portal to communion with God and the divine. And so when you can actually start to work with it on the higher levels like that, it is a tool that you can use for true divine union, which is union with God, right? And so the possibilities there are, yeah, pretty profound. And so there's always reasons why these paths are being blocked and actually directed into the opposite realms, right? And so just another quick thing that you can do is first recognize that programming is real and that we're being sort of pulled in the wrong direction. Second of all, get really intentional with your sexuality, right? You can start to really think about how your sexuality shaped, developed over the years, really work deeply on any sexual trauma that you have with a professional and to be able to really start to kind of pull apart, like what is mine and really what is not mine. If it's coming from trauma, I would say that start there because I do see that a lot of people are just spinning out celebrating their sexual trauma right now. [Speaker 2] (1:01:47 - 1:01:54) Sexuality and sexual relating as a path to union with God. Can you speak more into what that looks like in practice and experience? [Speaker 1] (1:01:55 - 1:04:34) Yeah. So let's actually just start from a level that's really accessible to people, okay? So like, because there's different levels and layers to this. I think we all know the base level of sexual relating, which is just coming from the genitals, right? A sexual pull to somebody having sexual relations from that level is it's purely animalistic, physical level stuff, right? Is it wrong or bad? Whatever. I mean, some people do it. It's fine. However, that's not a path to the higher levels. If you can just actually combine that lower level sexual energy with the heart, with somebody where you actually have an emotional connection, that in and of itself is starting to go on the path. Okay. I hope that part makes sense. And so just on that level alone, where you're combining the heart level, deep healing is available to you there because now you start to have care and concern and empathy for the person that you're relating with. This is another thing where pornography is very much taking us into only the sexual realms. There's a vast land available to you beyond that, right? And so when you actually see this person as an object, there is not the potential for healing on an emotional level. When you start to combine it with the heart level, sometimes when you actually exchange sexual energy with another person, deep healing can happen. Deep trauma healing can happen. Tears can come when you're actually having sex with your partner because there's a lot of that happening. And so it's beautiful. You can also, when you have a mental intellectual connection with somebody that can deepen the connection as well. And then also the spiritual connection with a partner, not only where you feel maybe that, you know, this person and you are meant to be on a higher level, right? There's maybe a soul connection there. But then during sexuality, when you actually merge together energetically, it is a portal to the divine. Because speaking about that wholeness that we spoke about earlier, when you merge with another person energetically, it really does, it connects you to the all, if that makes sense. There's some women out there and maybe men, this idea of being fucked to God is real because you actually all of a sudden you're connected to this energy of ecstasy, which gives you an embodied taste of, you know, our potential as humans is far, far more vast than we actually realize. So, and then you can get into really the study of sacred sexuality, maybe working with Tantra and other things to really bring it up, right? Bring it up into the more spiritual realms versus being pulled down. [Speaker 2] (1:04:37 - 1:05:02) Yeah. Like I'm wondering like how, like people say being fucked to God, like how does one differentiate like pure ecstasy from like just a sensation level versus this ethereal, like divine union, God, like, you know, what do you even mean? Like those words are so like, what do you even mean by divine and God? Like those words get thrown around very often. So, I just want to kind of keep pulling on this thread and if you can go into that some more. [Speaker 1] (1:05:03 - 1:05:15) I love it. And this is actually why, like, I don't think it's a prerequisite for you to already have a spiritual practice and a connection to God, right? Before you start to practice this. However, like, you know, it can- Real quickly, what's God to you? [Speaker 2] (1:05:15 - 1:05:17) Because you're saying it. So, what is God? [Speaker 1] (1:05:18 - 1:06:05) So, I mean, for me, it's really a connection to the all, right? This higher power, this, yeah, the divine is something where it is the everything, that's for me, right? And so, I don't think that God is a man or a woman. I don't think it's gender. I think it's actually everything. It's probably both, you could say. I have a spiritual practice in the morning where I kind of lay on the earth with my belly down and I connect to the divine mother and just give thanks and energy to her. And also really, it's an energy exchange where I then pull that energy up into me. Then I flip over, face the sun, and I actually give thanks to the divine masculine, right? And so, for me, it's both. However, God is everything. And it's the higher power, right? What about for you? [Speaker 2] (1:06:05 - 1:06:13) I know I interrupted. Why I interrupted you just so I would only get clarity on that, you know? Because that word, again, it holds so many different things for different people. [Speaker 1] (1:06:13 - 1:06:33) Yeah. No, I think you have to reclaim it on your terms too. We all, it's our birthright to really develop a relationship with something higher that actually can inform and drive our lives, right? And to really, if there is religious programming or trauma that makes that word charged for you, if you're triggered by it, then I would say there's an invitation for you to actually reclaim it on your own terms. [Speaker 2] (1:06:34 - 1:07:30) Cool. Yeah. I think maybe what Erasmus is hinting at with this line of conversation and questioning is like, what's on the other side of the experience with the divine? It's like, we talk about it, and it's like, how can I best put this? For example, in New Age conversations and New Age circles, I feel like sometimes we talk about 5D and the astral and all the rest of it. It gives people this intangible, unrealistic thing to be striving for. It's like, what happens to me once I have that connection? What happens to me once that takes place or once I achieve that thing or do that thing? But I hear you. I love the word God. I resonate with the word God. I use the word God myself. But yeah, do you know where I'm getting at with that, anyone? [Speaker 1] (1:07:31 - 1:08:24) Well, I also just, yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I just wanted to kind of expand it because I didn't finish what I was saying before about how do you know that you have a connection to God? I think for everyone, it's different. But for me, when you are in that space with another person where it is so connected and intimate, the fact is that although we are striving for wholeness, we aren't completely whole. And so when you are with your lover, your person, it is emerging. And so then that the true experience of wholeness can be felt in that moment. And so for me, it really is almost like getting you into an altered state where you can have these transcendent experiences. You can actually have these experiences of connecting with the oneness that can be pretty profound and there's not really words to describe it, but that is different than just a feeling of pleasure or ecstasy on a physical level. [Speaker 2] (1:08:24 - 1:08:26) Yeah, I get it. I understand. Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:08:27 - 1:09:14) And so why would you want to do this though? For me, this is part of not just understanding how to clear intimacy blocks and really heal sexual trauma, which can be done in this exchange, but it also gives you a taste of your divinity, if that makes sense. Because I think we all know that we're being programmed to be much, much smaller than we actually are. And so when you can experience you as a part of this greater whole, it's pretty profound. I know some people aren't going to love this, but Bringers of the Dawn is one of the books that I really like. I don't like all the channeled material, but they do have good chapters and descriptions there on how you can actually use sexuality for exactly what we're speaking about on your spiritual path. [Speaker 2] (1:09:17 - 1:09:19) Is that Masseniac? [Speaker 1] (1:09:19 - 1:09:49) Yeah. And I speak about that in the article on sexual sovereignty. I pull some of the bits of that book and that's not the only thing that informs my work, but I do really like that because it's basically saying that we have been taught to either kind of abandon our sexuality because of shame, or we're not supposed to go there. Or it's a celebration of the over-sexuality that's actually pulling you into the dark realms. Either of those paths aren't going to actually lead you in the direction that I'm talking about. [Speaker 2] (1:09:50 - 1:10:25) Yeah. There's a short-term gratification piece to this versus delayed gratification that I think long-term relating brings you towards as opposed to like, oh, that felt good. I'm not saying that you can't have that because you'd like to have both sides. You'd like to be balanced. But I just feel like there's an overemphasis of like, I need to feel the thing right now. And then what's the next thing that can make me feel the, and then the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing. I think that's part of the hyper-sexualization. That's part of the dopamine dilemma that we have in our culture as well, that sexuality plays into that as well. [Speaker 1] (1:10:26 - 1:10:52) Yeah. And sex addictions are very, very common right now. Porn addiction, sex addiction, even you could say women are more prone to relationship or love addiction. It's all kind of tied in together. But as we've been saying, how easy it is to manipulate and hijack sexual energy, keeping people stuck in low-level sexual addictions with that impulse control thing you just said, it's like, that's the addiction energy running, right? That's not who you truly are. [Speaker 2] (1:10:53 - 1:11:41) Yeah. This is too, from, again, I'm not a parent, but from a parenting standpoint, you have to be vigilant in terms of what content is being exposed to your child because that innocence, that aspect of them when they see a porn video at six years old or seven years old or something else, that impacts them deeply depending on how that their psyche perceives it as well. And that I think plays into a lot of this stuff that we're seeing in the world and this gender confusion or just the differentiation between masculine and feminine within an individual. And then again, when you throw on top of the programming where it's like, we talked about this earlier, where it's like, well, maybe you're just a tomboy. You don't need to go cut off your breasts and then go through the whole process. And then maybe that'll shift or evolve later on in life. You know what I mean? [Speaker 1] (1:11:42 - 1:12:18) A hundred percent. And it's not a joke that pornography is now accessible at just the click of a button for people. And yeah, my son didn't have a phone until much later. He's now a teenager, but I do remember that he came home from school in elementary school, like fourth grade, and said that one of the kids that had a phone at that age, which is absurd, absurd, had pulled up pornography and they were watching it and he was deeply traumatized. And that's one of the things that happens. It's like, this is not age appropriate and it's traumatizing our kids. So like, you know, trauma-based mind control is part of this. It's like, this is like, everybody is actually being- Of course. [Speaker 2] (1:12:19 - 1:12:32) Why do you think it's free? Right. Yeah. Right. And people are being exposed earlier and earlier and earlier, which is playing into so much of what we're seeing in the world. Right. Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:12:32 - 1:12:44) And like, you know, for girls too, girls and boys are opting out of relationships and sex because they're seeing this violent, dark pornography that is like, this is what it's supposed to be. Like, no thank you. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:12:44 - 1:13:14) Or they're opting in and thinking that's normal because they watched it and they saw it or like their friends are talking about it. And that's what it means to experience pleasure or to relate to a man or vice versa. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what is like the positive imagery or the positive material that's out there and accessible to like, you know, kids that are moving into, you know, understanding and moving through puberty and beginning to, you know, grasp these concepts, like what's available to them? [Speaker 1] (1:13:15 - 1:14:30) Yeah. It's a good, that's a really good question. And I think every parent has to kind of grapple with this, right? Like, and this is where knowing your kids so deeply and being able to sense intuitively, like when they're even ready to start having these conversations is really key. You know, there's a great book, it's called Conscious Parenting. I think she touches upon some of this and how in an age appropriate way. But yeah, every child is different, right? Like you have to know your child very deeply to know when they're ready and also go off of their signs and signals to when they, my son comes to me and asks questions, right? And so like I, it's not like I'm always going to wait for him to sort of come to me, but we have a very open, safe relationship where anything is welcomed. And you know, the flip side to this is that sex education is being sort of pushed on our kids, especially in the public school system at completely age inappropriate ages and the kids aren't ready for it. They're getting confused, you know, under the guise of sex positive parenting, which sounds great, right? It sounds like, oh yeah, like sex is beautiful, right? But that is just be aware of that term because it's morphed into something that has its own agenda where it's pushing this stuff onto kids way early. [Speaker 2] (1:14:31 - 1:14:49) Yeah. I mean, you have eight, nine, 10 year olds that are being taught this stuff and then they come home, they go, I'm a they, I'm a they them. Like, do you even really know what you're talking? You know, like, and again, I'm not sitting here and people who navigate and grapple with this stuff, like, but like when you're eight, nine, 10, like, do you really know like at that level, like how much of it is programming? [Speaker 1] (1:14:50 - 1:15:09) No. And then parents, you know, and then parents are obviously programming, programmed and they're manipulated to believe that, oh, we just have to affirm everything. And if, if you don't, then you are at risk of losing your child. Like we have completely lost our mind, completely lost our mind, you know? [Speaker 2] (1:15:09 - 1:15:45) People have such, people have either none at all or such fickle morals that they're so immediately drawn to whatever moral code is handed to them as a pathway to being enlightened, you know, like, oh, this, this is now the pathway towards enlightenment is to like, you know, not affirm anything and to just be completely wishy-washy and become nobody and, you know, put no flags and hold no stakes in the ground whatsoever, you know? And this is the complete, it'd be the complete opposite. Like, oh, maybe I'm traumatizing my kid by affirming what's, what, what reality is echoing to us. [Speaker 1] (1:15:45 - 1:16:16) Right. Yeah. I totally agree with you. And this whole, like, this is, that points to the bigger problem here of moral relativism where it's like, anything goes, right? Like we can't anymore, we cannot question or judge people. And there is such a difference between healthy shame and toxic shame, right? We're a culture that is completely shameless. Now there is such a thing as healthy shame. When we do something that is wrong and off track, we should actually feel shame. That's a healthy internal director and shaper of our consciousness. [Speaker 2] (1:16:16 - 1:16:20) All the conscience. We've been speaking about it for thousands of years. [Speaker 1] (1:16:21 - 1:16:21) Right. [Speaker 2] (1:16:22 - 1:16:22) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:16:22 - 1:16:34) And so parents have to really wake up here, you know, just as the herd mentality has caused them to go into all of these directions, you know, because of the, the, the woke mentality and agenda. It's like, wake up. [Speaker 2] (1:16:34 - 1:17:05) Waking up requires effort. It requires work. It requires responsibility. Like the reason that we have sleepiness is because really the original sin is laziness. Right? Laziness of the mind, laziness of the, of consciousness, the laziness to put in the effort required to do things properly, to question whether your kids even need to be in school, to question what's informing your kids, to question what shows they're watching, to do all of this requires you to be fucking vigilant. Totally. And it's a hard, it's a hard task. [Speaker 1] (1:17:05 - 1:17:38) It's hard. And it also requires you getting real about your own stuff and your own childhood stuff that you're then trying to play out with your kids. So we came from a lot of authoritarian parenting. The pendulum has swung way over to very permissive parenting where parents are just like, oh my, I can't, I can't like the child has to just lead the way. And like, I can't do anything. And then the child is like running the show. They don't have any sense of their parents being in charge. Right. There is a middle way with parenting. Permissive parenting is a big problem right now. [Speaker 2] (1:17:38 - 1:17:44) There's too many feral kids running around, you know, there needs to be a little bit of a balance. Bring them in line. [Speaker 1] (1:17:45 - 1:17:47) There is a middle way. [Speaker 2] (1:17:47 - 1:18:28) There is a middle way for sure. There is a middle way and it's called moving towards like we've discussed, like we've just been discussing like psychological wholeness, like being able to properly relate to your kids, like have a conversation with them, take the time to explain things to them in their terms, build a relationship where they're happy and open to come to you to ask questions and where they can actually have trust in your own personal judgment as well. You know, sorry, baby, I don't want you watching that show. I've got this feeling it's not good for you, you know, like, and they're okay with that. Like, but that takes effort to develop that kind of relationship. And modeling healthy boundaries too by setting them and honoring them as well. [Speaker 1] (1:18:29 - 1:18:38) Absolutely. That right there is one of the hardest things for parents. And it's causing all sorts of bad outcomes for kids. It really is. [Speaker 2] (1:18:38 - 1:18:54) Well, I think again, at the individual, at the individual level, if you haven't done the work, if you're dealing with so much wounding and then it's like, you can't deal with even someone not liking you, you're like, well, I don't want my kid to not like me. Like I want my kid to think I'm the best and the coolest and I let them do whatever they want. And it's like, well, that's not the role of a parent. [Speaker 1] (1:18:55 - 1:19:11) Yeah. In fact, at both ends of the spectrum, the authoritarian and then permissive, it's, you could say it's child abuse at both ends. If you let your kid run around and be in charge of the whole show without having any boundaries, I'm sorry, but that is really, really not appropriate. [Speaker 2] (1:19:13 - 1:19:54) No. Yeah. I agree. As someone who's an observer and not someone who's actually, you know, involved in the art of parenting. Yeah. And like, kudos and massive shout out to every parent in 2024 who's putting in the work to do this consciously, right? Because it is a big load to carry. This is not work for the masses. You know, they're not engaging or partaking in this. My hat goes off to every single person like who's doing their best on all fronts, like have a healthy relationship, raise your kids consciously, like walk your own authentic path and move towards your own individuation process. Like this is this juggling act, like it's a lot. [Speaker 1] (1:19:55 - 1:19:55) Yeah, it is a lot. [Speaker 2] (1:19:55 - 1:20:33) And having compassion for yourself too. Like what's perfection? There isn't perfection. Like, especially you watch podcasts, you read books, you do this, you're like, I'm not doing it right. I'm doing it wrong. And you know, they said this on that podcast and I'm not doing that. And it's like, yo, just like take in the information, do what you can and have compassion for yourself. Nothing is going to work out pre-planned like you expect it to, because you read a book and you said, well, now I'm going to have kids and I'm going to raise my kids in this way. And this is exactly how it's going to be. It's like, probably not going to turn out exactly how you're planning it. So do you have the space within yourself, within your nervous system to navigate these things when they come up and to have compassion for yourself? [Speaker 1] (1:20:34 - 1:21:08) Absolutely. Like there's no perfect parenting. I know that for sure. And this is where the repair comes in that we spoke about earlier, right? Like I've went to my son so many times and I've had to say, I'm sorry. Right. And repair with him. And we have a great relationship. Sometimes we do butt heads. That's just the nature of our relationship. And so the repair work is key. So yeah, everyone's human, right? Just do your best. I think it's important for all of us to get in touch with your values and what your ideal is, right? We all need something to shoot for while simultaneously being able to understand that we are human. We're going to stumble and fall along the way. It's okay. [Speaker 2] (1:21:09 - 1:21:52) Yeah, that's right. We need something to aim at, but it doesn't mean that we have to achieve it to the exact degree that we wish. But we need to orient against something. So there has to be an ideal. There has to be a vision. There has to be something that we're shooting towards. And ultimately, that's just going to drive us towards our own personal growth, towards shaking off the debris and being able to integrate and become more like, this is the whole process of life. It's a journey. It's a verb. It's ongoing. But I think a key problem is your eye, just the passivity, not having a goal, not having a target, just aimless, just being leavers in the wind on all fronts in life. [Speaker 1] (1:21:52 - 1:22:00) Very dangerous, especially in this day and age when there are people that are happy, horses that are happy to kind of take advantage. [Speaker 2] (1:22:00 - 1:22:27) Yeah, you just kind of get blown with the wind of the current zeitgeist of what the environment, what society is saying is the way to be, as opposed to really, again, knowing who you are, knowing what you value, having convictions and standing by that, whether as a parent or in relationship. But you need self-esteem for that. You need to do the work. You need to heal the wounds. And that's a process. We talk about all the time on this show. [Speaker 1] (1:22:29 - 1:23:02) Well, I love that you said that because even though it might seem simplistic to people, this idea of self-esteem or self-love or self-worth, it is the foundation for everything. Because if you have a sense internally that there is a void or a deficit, then you will continue to seek externally. Or just think that you don't have it all figured out and you need to be addicted to listening to other people's opinions about things and all this stuff. There are people that need external stimulation 24-7 and they can't take a moment to actually just be with themselves. [Speaker 3] (1:23:04 - 1:23:05) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:23:07 - 1:23:20) Yeah. Just a classic quote. I think it's Goethe, but sometimes it's attributed to Bruce Lee. Knowing is not enough. We must apply. Willing is not enough. We must do. [Speaker 1] (1:23:20 - 1:23:21) Right. [Speaker 2] (1:23:22 - 1:23:29) Yeah. Sorry. I'm sure you're going to say something very, very important. Hopefully, I haven't robbed all of us of that. [Speaker 1] (1:23:29 - 1:23:29) Go ahead. [Speaker 2] (1:23:29 - 1:24:10) It was more of a question of... Because again, our audience consists of people who are single and maybe happily single, or a single and craving relationship, or in partnership and want to get the fuck out of partnership, or in partnership and want to grow deeper into partnership. I want to say, what's your message to each one of these quadrants? Based on what I said, what is your final message to these groups of individuals and what can they take from this? Yeah. Or anything else that's really just on your heart or mind that you feel like you want to share? [Speaker 1] (1:24:10 - 1:26:11) Yeah. The first thing that I'll just say is that taking self-responsibility, getting really humble, turning towards yourself and understanding, maybe I don't really know how to do relationships perfectly or very well at all. That was for me, it was the hardest thing to admit that. It's okay. Don't have shame around it. This is the first step to admitting that, hey, maybe I have something to learn. Maybe I have a lot to learn. It all comes to the inner work within for you to be able to really go back, see what were my core childhood wounds around relationships? Do I have wounding around my relationship with my mother or my father? Did I have formative experiences when I was younger that have shaped my relationships to this day? Just getting really clear on that. We talked about some basic things that you can learn about relationships like attachment style, communication. One of my favorite books is called Conscious Loving. It's by Gay Hendricks and his wife, Kathleen Hendricks. I love that book. That's literally the only relationship book that I even recommend. There's a lot other good ones, but I would say every little step forward can make a difference. Every little step forward, even if it seems like a minor thing, is you on the path towards that. You're going to stumble and fall sometimes. That's okay. Pick yourself back up. If you need to take a break, if you need to just put all this inner work to the side, that's fine too. I think we talked about a lot that people can just sit with and digest. People can reach out to me with any questions. People can always book a free call with me. There's no pressure to work together. I literally go deep with people. You all should think about maybe having some kind of a conscious relationship, maybe dating something, because one of the things that I get all the time is that people come to me who are single and who are looking for people like us, and they find it difficult to connect with them. [Speaker 2] (1:26:14 - 1:26:17) You're saying they find it difficult to connect? You mean like find people? [Speaker 1] (1:26:18 - 1:26:18) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:26:18 - 1:26:20) Like they find them and then it's difficult to connect with them. [Speaker 1] (1:26:21 - 1:26:22) No, I mean like actually find them. [Speaker 2] (1:26:23 - 1:26:33) Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a growing market and demand that I think a few people putting something out there in terms of connecting. Do you mean like truth seekers or like-minded freedom-thinking, freedom-minded individuals? Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:26:34 - 1:26:35) Right. Is there a dating app for that? [Speaker 2] (1:26:36 - 1:27:04) I think there's a bunch now. I feel like there's a bunch now. But even then, like, you know, this is a tricky thing, like the truth community. It's like what, because you have certain ideas on what's going on in the world and you're aware of certain things going on in the world, as if that automatically means that you've dealt with your childhood wounding and trauma and you've done the inner work necessary. You know, like it doesn't always go hand in hand. You'll have to do is look at social media and look how people are communicating to one another because they disagree with one thing you put out there. [Speaker 1] (1:27:05 - 1:27:24) That's true. A lot of people in the truth or commitment movement don't actually have those basic relationship skills down. But I mean, I would say just in general, having more spaces for people who are just awake and aware and us talking about working with relationships consciously, like just people who have like that starting level of understanding, right, is huge. [Speaker 2] (1:27:24 - 1:27:58) Yeah, that's right. The starting base of shared values, you know, can't be understated. But yeah, your response to this point, there's plenty of, plenty of psychopaths calling at the agenda as well. Yeah. Or just dissociated or emotionally, you know, retarded. And I mean that in the term, in the way, like, not that like someone who is going to yell at me for being on PC, but I mean, in the definition that there's just like a arrested development from an emotional intelligence standpoint that shows up in their, you know, intrapersonal and interpersonal, interpersonal, you know, relationships. [Speaker 1] (1:27:59 - 1:28:07) Yeah. Relational immaturity is huge. I think we're stuck in, you know, maybe an adolescent version of this collectively or childhood maybe. [Speaker 2] (1:28:07 - 1:28:27) And something I've talked about often, like we are young, like as a species emotionally, like our emotional intelligence, even from a human design standpoint, you know, like the solar plexus, the emotional center is the newest. And so, you know, we're, we're bumping along the way, you know, you see it in the world, there is emotional immaturity is more, immaturity is more the norm than emotional maturity. [Speaker 1] (1:28:28 - 1:28:29) Absolutely. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:28:29 - 1:28:30) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:28:30 - 1:28:41) And I feel, I would argue, I would argue it's also being eroded too, you know, on purpose. Emotional immaturity, relational immaturity, basic relationship skills, all of it's being eroded right now. [Speaker 2] (1:28:42 - 1:29:06) Yeah, totally. Leanne, thank you so much for being here with us. We so appreciate it. I love this conversation. I mean, we've talked about this, you know, over the course of so many podcasts, it would still feel like, you know, we're having it for the first time, because there's so much to get into. And there's so much we're navigating as time moves on as well. How can our audience connect with you? How can they find what you're offering and if they just want to get in touch? [Speaker 1] (1:29:07 - 1:29:51) Thank you both so much. This was such a beautiful conversation. We could probably talk for hours and yeah, I would love to do it again sometime or just chat with both of you individually, always available for that. But yeah, people can get in touch with me. My website is love-evolved.us. I'm sure you'll post all this. Instagram, you know, is a great way to get in touch with me. I don't post too much on there, but people can DM me and I also have a podcast called Love Evolved, Substack. There's a couple of really good pieces on there that go deep, deep, deep into my work. Yeah, so just reach out, you know, even if you just have questions about relationships or if you know internally, yeah, I have some maybe work to do, then just reach out, you know, book a free 30-minute call with me and we can go deep together. [Speaker 2] (1:29:52 - 1:34:07) Awesome. All right, guys. Thanks for being here. Stay tuned for the wrap-up. Take care. What did you think of that episode, bro? Oh, what did I think of the episode? That was great. Well, it's great to connect with Leanne. Great to dive into these categories, these topics like on multiple fronts. You know, relationships are the cause of so much pain, whether you're wanting to be in one and what that impacts or not, or you are in one and it's not going how you wanted to. But I think, again, like the focus has to come back to you as an individual and like, what are you doing about it? So easy to want to point the finger. I'm right. You're wrong. You're the reason why this relationship isn't working, you know? And it's like, maybe there's some truth to that, but like your energy is just best served looking in the mirror and going like, what do I got to do? Like, how can I shift? What are my blind spots? You know, where's my conditioning playing out? Where am I playing out my mommy and daddy issues, you know, or the conditioning from my younger years? And it's just such a deep and nuanced conversation. Then we throw sex into the mix, you know, and sexuality and why you're, why you have a certain way of being or what turns you on, what doesn't turn you on. Then you throw kids into the mix, which, you know, like this is so many layers to this process of relationships. Yeah, man. It's like a, since the beginning of time, like this is a fundamental aspect of humanity, like relating, like how we relate to ourselves, the environment, you know, it's a partner's, you know, like procreation, like, you know, is obviously a symptom of relationship. And, you know, since the beginning of time, no one's mastered it, right? Like, it's like a constant, it's a constant work in progress. There's always work to be done, you know, it's like there is no Bible on how to relate. And yeah, man, like it's a vessel and a vehicle for enormous spiritual evolution and enormous growth and enormous self-reflection and a way for you to know yourself deeper and understand the intricacies of your own psyche and, you know, how you can become more whole, more grounded, more stable. And at the same time, like you mentioned, the immense pain that is possible through the vehicle of relationship, you know, as well, which again is, you know, obviously another teacher. But yeah, man, I love having these conversations. I'd love to do a relationship round table, you know, down the road as well. I think that'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, for sure, man. And I also want to highlight this. We didn't talk about this on the episode, but like there's so much projection that happens with social media where like people are sharing pictures of them and their partners and it's like we have the perfect relationship and this is how it is always. And it's like, man, like this is not the case. Like everyone that I know is going through something, like sure, some relations might be more harmonious and more conscious than others, but it's like we're all in it, man. We're all doing it. Some things might flow better than others and other things are like, fuck, you know? And so, it's like check yourself before you look at someone and you go, oh my God, everything's perfect. It's like fucking nothing is perfect, whatever you want to say about that word, you know? Just know this as a fact, without a shadow of a doubt, that everyone is dealing with their shit. Everyone, regardless of what's projected through social media, through whatever it might be, everyone is navigating this. And you know, yeah. Like on an individual level, each person in the partnership is navigating their shit. Then you throw the two shits together and have the relationship. That's a big shit, right? And of course, there's lovely, beautiful, amazing things to it, but it's just like we have to like cut this projection field where we just assume all these people are in the perfect relationships and it's amazing and they figure it out and like, wait, I'm single. I'll have it figured out. I need what they're having. What did you say? Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:34:07 - 1:34:08) Yeah. Right. [Speaker 2] (1:34:08 - 1:34:45) Yeah. I need what they're having. This happens. There's this vice versa projection that happens all the time, that often too, you know? So anyways, it's a trip. I love having the conversations. We're in process. We're navigating these things. We're having these conversations. Also, how can you bring the lightness too? This shit can be so fucking heavy, but how can you kind of like have like some compassion and also some sense of humor and make lighter things too? Like there needs to be that quality to it also. Yeah. Yeah. My opinion. Guess who I could join with your partner every now and then. Bro, I can't believe you just said that. [Speaker 3] (1:34:45 - 1:34:45) Okay. [Speaker 2] (1:34:45 - 1:34:53) I don't fully 100% agree with him, but you know, maybe you decide. Experiment. All right. Love you guys. [Speaker 3] (1:34:53 - 1:34:53) Thanks for listening. [Speaker 2] (1:34:56 - 1:35:25) You hit a good point there. Like the openness to explore and to experiment and to try new things, you know? But it takes, again, self-esteem. It takes like knowing yourself. It takes like taking a risk too in partnership, you know, by saying a thing, by speaking something that's on your mind. Again, going back to the things we said in this episode, like if you don't like how things are, then you got to try something different. Yeah. Are you done? All right, everyone. Peace.