Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello, this is Blair Stanislao with the Happy Lion Center. Welcome to our podcast, mystical and Infamous, where we have playful and easy conversations about anything mystical, getting to the heart of all things, strange and weird. Join us in a bit of magical tomfoolery, spreading the alchemy of love and light. And now we invite you to enjoy the show and light.

Speaker 2: 0:27

And now we invite you to enjoy the show. My great passion right now is how to actually create truly connected relationships, because I think, deep down, we all really desire love, like we but love not in a way that our parents and our grandparents knew, but in a way that we deeply know like we want, want to be seen, we want to be loved, we want to be deeply connected with people. But we really struggle. And so I was at a friend of mine's who she paints these beautiful paintings and she's been channeling this work for 30 years. She's in her late 80s, she's the most interesting woman in the world and I went to see some of her latest work and she had this beautiful square painting. I went to see her last weekend and she had painted this square painting and in the center was this tree, like the tree of life, and and there was an angelic being on each side and the title was something like I wish I exactly, but I think it was peace in duality, and I realized that this is one of the foundational challenges we have, you know. So we have this facilitator training right now, running about the divine union of the masculine feminine, and it's such an interesting discussion amongst everybody how actually difficult it is to find peace and duality in many of our relationships, especially the ones that we love the most, that we're most connected in. And I realized like I was just awestruck by this picture, this painting that she had made, because it was like because of millennia of struggle, conflict is all we've actually experienced, and even in loving relationship there's still some distance.

Speaker 2: 2:06

You know I was raised by wonderful people. I was raised by Ward and June Cleaver. You know I wasn't raised in a difficult home at all, and yet you couldn't show all of you because that would be too much and you didn't want to do anything that was weird, because that would be too much, that would cause conflict. So I was actually raised to never create conflict. We were raised to be people pleasers. We were raised to be codependent. We were raised to never cause any problem, so that we would always have this peace within duality. But it wasn't authentic, and so this is a huge thing for me, because I believe that peace and duality is what we're meant to have.

Speaker 2: 2:45

But we're coming from this conflict and duality, and so afterwards we were about 12 of us that had gone to see the work and we were sitting and I asked the woman who paints them. I said you know, you always talk about the journey from 3D to 5D, you know, and she has all these paintings depicting that and in the center there's this 4D. And I said what exactly is 4D Like? What is this 4D that nobody talks about? And she said you know, I don't know, because she just paints whatever comes, she's just channeling. And then my friend, who's a medical intuitive, she said well, in ray analysis, the fourth ray is harmony in conflict. And I really what I wonder about right now is is that the transition between this conflict in duality and peace in duality, that we actually have to expect some kind of conflict, but our journey as a soul or as souls is to actually find harmony within the conflict and in that way then we'll actually develop whatever philosophies and skills and into emotional intelligence that we need to actually live in peace and duality.

Speaker 1: 4:08

So what's really interesting to me is that you started with art, visual art, and the reason.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Well, I have a background in that, right, and when I got this degree, the thing that I learned really, really well was that you learn to speak about what you're observing. Because you're critiquing art, you're looking at art itself, so you're trying to think about it. You're supposed to feel through it. All there's, you know, all these things that you get to do with it. But one of the hardest things that I noticed um, the people who don't have experience with that don't easily do is to talk about something in a way that we would say is objective. I mean, nothing's truly objective, right, but so what that means in the art realm is you'd say there's a circle in the top right corner, that is you know, and then they would describe, okay, so the other and and what that does. Is it? It kind it actually does sort of what we do when we're meditating? Is it really makes you pull back and say, because you have to communicate with somebody in a way that they can understand where you're looking before you even start talking about it. It causes you to kind of pull back from the artwork and step back and think about how you feel about it or what you think about it or what have you. And so we use these terms. So there's elements and principles of design which are like color, shape, form, you know, and then there's things like rhythm, balance, that kind of thing. So you use those terms and you're talking about artwork. And one of those things is contrast. And I'm sure many people are familiar with the uh channeler who, well, the entity abraham hicks, channeled by uh esther hicks, and she uses that term contrast, and I just adore it because I had a.

Speaker 1: 6:00

I went, I was just, I was trying to learn about photography. I was, I was young and I just went off with a photographer. One went, I was just, I was trying to learn about photography. I was, I was young and I just went off with a photographer one time and he was doing a wedding and he asked me a question I think it was like 20 ish and he says you know how, how would you get a picture of this wedding cake to look really good? And I don't remember what his question was, but the answer was contrast. The thing was that it's this white cake that has white decoration on it and you can see it with the naked eye, but to make it stand out in a photo you have to have contrast. So, you know, in images we create, we usually make them a little more dramatic so we can see them better.

Speaker 1: 6:38

So, given that, and the concept of duality, which is right, is contrast right, and the concept of duality, which is right, is contrast right. But the key is, like you're talking about, is that harmony with that experience, which, of course, is the it seems to be the real humdinger, if you will, about existing in this world and like making a, like a major shift from coming from this place of total consumption in the world that you live in and in the sense that you are just experiencing it. You're going through reactive, that kind of thing, versus seeing both sides, or seeing at least more than one perspective and being able to understand that and be at peace with either one. So that's what you're referring to. But here's the funny thing about visual art I know this for certain, and it actually works in all different realms too is that if you give somebody a blank canvas, so that could be like, you know, you write any kind of book you want. You can live anywhere you want to live.

Speaker 1: 7:46

Whatever it is, it's a blank canvas and you give them no direction. There's no contrast, there's no restriction. Most of the time, people don't do well at constructing something. They don't do well at the experience of it. They get overwhelmed, their mind has difficulty, like focusing on one thing or another. So what that contrast does is it says, okay, I can't do these things. So that means, what can I do? Right, and the same thing applies here is that the really unique thing is, yes, that's the goal for us to experience contrast and bliss at the same time. But do we really even know what bliss is without the contrast of it?

Speaker 2: 8:33

what's interesting when you imagine, say, the masculine and feminine it's. It's fascinating to think of it as contrast, because very often we think of masculine and feminine as simply the male female roles in a heteronormative society that we've always lived in and the idea is to get along with as little contrast as possible. You know that we'll just separate everything out and you take care of the, the lawn and the garbage and the air quote manly things and I'll take care of the soft things that require, you know whatever energy, you know emotional intelligence and blah, blah, blah, blah and we'll get along just fine. And we kind of imagine that this is sort of the, the masculine feminine harmony. But what that really is is everyone's in the masculine. We've just separated chores out, right? True, masculine, feminine polarity that creates bliss is contrast, but it's not negative contrast, it's just like that. It's like if you have a darker backdrop for a white cake, you see the white cake better, and vice versa like you see it with more clarity. So let's say, for example, someone's grieving.

Speaker 2: 9:57

So one of the classic masculine feminine dynamics is order and chaos is order and chaos and unfortunately in the past, if we're trying to minimize contrast, the person who likes the order will try to calm you down, get you lots of tissues, I don't know, pour you a drink, do something to kind of minimize the chaos you're feeling. And in the same way, if you're kind of a really expansive, creative person and you're married to someone who literally everything comes down to a spreadsheet, you are going to be constantly throwing stones in the road trying to make them more chaotic. Right, because we want, we think that the sameness creates more peace. But instead, imagine, imagine we lose someone really close to us. What we actually? We are thrown into almost unfettered chaos. If we're lucky, if we're lucky, we actually can go into those deep, deep emotional wells that are actually being, are being triggered here.

Speaker 2: 11:00

The best thing another person can do is come along and be pure order, pure structure, and what they do is they are the shoulder to cry on.

Speaker 2: 11:11

They don't cry with us necessarily.

Speaker 2: 11:13

They hold us while we cry to go the crazier we're allowed to cry, the ugly crying and everything, and the other person.

Speaker 2: 11:28

All they do is provide the contrast. We need to go as deeply as we possibly can, and the wilder we go, the stronger they become and the contrast gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and they become so big and strong, we go so far and deep we actually get to cry all the way out and then at the end we're completely tired and we sort of hold each other and it is a kind of bliss, like it's not like euphoric happiness bliss, but it's a kind of euphoric happiness bliss, but it's a kind of fully human experience bliss. And that's where the contrast is, the magnetism that allows us to have these full human experiences, you know. And obviously the same experience could be taken into something in sexual intimacy, it could be taken into something like raising children. It can be all the human experiences, but it's the contrast that allows for the huge experience. I've never thought of it in terms of contrast, and now I'm, that's all I can think of.

Speaker 1: 12:38

Yeah, well. Well, it's kind of interesting that you say that, Cause I remember. So I was teaching at the time. I was teaching journalism at this school and we were actually doing a newspaper. So the kids were doing everything that was involved in doing creating a newspaper, so taking pictures, writing, planning, all that kind of stuff and we were talking about pictures and how to get them and I was trying to tell the kids because we had, I remember, what we printed it on, but it was a machine at the school so it wasn't like super fancy or anything like that. So you had like a limitation of how minute your details could kind of be in a way. And I think I was also doing a yearbook at that time and I was talking to the kids about how do you get a good picture? Again, we're going back to photography and so I was pointing out things like you know, if they're wearing, you know whoever's in the group, if they're wearing you see these things together, kind of separate them out so you can see them again.

Speaker 1: 13:37

To develop that contrast and being in the southeast of the United States, sometimes you have to tread on like people, even my children. I mean like, but you know, children evolve through their understanding of bigger concepts. And so, to say, the word black down there, sometimes a very naive person will say, oh, you know, that's racist or whatever all this stuff, they'll just throw it out there. So I had to. It felt like I had to tread because I was dealing with middle schoolers, so I had to tread lightly, like okay, we just need to talk about the objectivity of this. That is the color white and this is the color black. So if those two things are right, okay.

Speaker 1: 14:21

So there was a student, this beautiful lady, young lady, who was very, very dark, just had the darkest skin you could see, and she happened to have on a white t-shirt, flat out white t-shirt, and, um, as we were talking about that, you know she definitely should have been in the picture. She was part of like the, she was a leader kind of, in this, in this scenario, and so they take the picture and I was so incredibly disappointed because this picture was a really good picture but the problem was with the camera as it was. She had this really bright white shirt and the lighting the way it was and this really dark skin. I couldn't actually go into the computer and actually fix that so that we could see her.

Speaker 1: 15:02

It was like this bright white blob and this dark blob right and, as you're talking about going into that extreme, that's kind of what it reminds me of. It's like pure, pure one side right, pure brightness and pure darkness. And what I tend initially, when you started talking, I was thinking well, we tend to like try and not only gravitate towards sameness but a sense of balance. So when one somebody, you know, one person's got the light, light or whatever you would call it, the yin and the yang, they've got one side of it and the other person's got the other side, it seems like it it really has to balance out in terms of whatever extreme they are right, like if one person can go to extreme of the feminine, then the other person can actually go to the extreme of the masculine, but it's knowing that you have that leeway to do that in a safe space where you really can experience the wholeness of being human.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Totally, totally and even what's beyond, like I think one of the challenges is that we've lived these half lives. You know, we've applied a portion of ourselves to living because we've spent, you know, eight hours a day working and commuting and da, da, da, da. And we've actually not remember. I love Thoreau and and one of the things that you know Henry David Thoreau like, what he wanted to prove to the world in the 1800s, was that we weren't beginning to plumb the depths of the human experience because we were spending so much time, you know, at the wheel kind of idea. And that is what I truly believe and it's sort of like that sameness.

Speaker 2: 16:41

It's like, you know, imagine, say, a color wheel and you think of the opposites on the color wheel and how that contrast is so appealing to our eyes. But it's almost like we've been raised to almost let's create the most muted versions of these, these, and you know that's kind of comfortable. Yeah, that doesn't raise any feathers at all. We'll just do sort of the lightest yellow and the lightest whatever, you know, and it's like, but what if we actually went into the deepest blues that we have? And then we would, like you said, then I get to go into the. I don't even know if blue and yellow or orange okay, orange, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:19

Orange and blue, yeah, and then yellow and purple, yeah, oh yeah, yellow and and then yellow and purple, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:23

Oh yeah, yellow and purple. I love yellow and purple, let's do that one. So imagine, like you know, you start kind of deepening your color, like deepening your purple, and the other person's like, whoa, I can deepen my yellow. And that, I think, is the journey that we may start kind of a muted yellow, a muted purple, but then and this is why it's so interesting in intimate relationships that when we identify the polarity, that we are strengthened in expanding. You know, I was on this, I was actually on a podcast yesterday and the woman described being in the feminine as purring, as a cat purring, and as opposed to a dog barking or something kind of thing, right, and she said she had so many friends who had lost their purr because they'd had to be so masculine in life and all that.

Speaker 2: 18:19

And so there are people, for example, male and female, who actually would love to expand their purr. It's almost like that, and it was the most. I'm still thinking about it, this idea of which polarity do I want to expand in. Well, for me, that vibration, that relaxation, that openness, that surrender, that expansion is, for some reason, what my soul wants to experience more of. And so, to find someone who actually deeply wants to experience that divine masculine energy running through them.

Speaker 2: 18:56

Well, the more that masculine energy comes to me, the more my purr happens, and then they feel that vibration which then brings in more energy and more energy. And then we start expanding out on that color wheel. But it's a very gradual thing, like we don't, you don't jump to a hundred percent, because we're human and we're organic and we have a million moving parts that all almost like one has to kind of get in line and then another one gets in line and we do this thing and then and what's beautiful is say, for example, every time you make love or something, you kind of start where you left off, because you knew that well, that kind of worked, and you kind of go there and then you keep sort of trying and it's really really exciting.

Speaker 1: 19:48

You know it's like the dance, yeah. Yeah, I'm curious what you had to say. I don't want to stay on this too long, but as I you know you're talking about that like you, you know one person adjust a little, then the other person adjust whatever way. You're kind of constantly finding that balance and the degree to which each of you is presenting at the moment. Again, okay, so one thing is this factor of time, that's um, I think it's, at least for me, it's a little harder to wrap my head around, not like from a knowingness, like that totally, totally makes sense, but in terms of like the linear thinking that the human mind usually does.

Speaker 1: 20:32

It's a little more difficult to kind of wrap your head around like, in what dimensions are we doing that? You would take one to one direction for male, one direction for female. Now we have to go, you know, vertical or expand out the other way. But it's this um going into that space without running up against somebody's um. I don't want to answer. This is not the right word, but it really is. This is the word that we use. I don't think it's a correct word is issues. You know, like you're, you become a little more masculine and then, or somebody becomes a little more masculine, the other person, do they feel more comfortable to go into the feminine, or do they get triggered by that masculine Right and then start to have a negative response? But again, over time it feels like it really doesn't matter where you get triggered or how that adjustment occurs. It's more of like this experience of the range and always knowing that you can kind of go back to centered.

Speaker 2: 21:35

Well, and it also begins with, it begins with a solid connection, right's sort of like it. You know that redefinition of love, to say that all relationships have to begin with agape, that is true. Trust, connection, respect for each other's journeys, like even admiration of each other, right? So then, because then, let's say, you're playing in the masculine, feminine dynamic of giving and receiving, so you're making love, and the one who wants to be in the masculine is touching the one that wants to be in the feminine. Well, for a lot of people who want to be in the feminine, they may have been handled rough in the past, they may have been abused, they may have had all kinds of experiences where they couldn't trust the person in charge. But because we begin with a trusting, loving relationship, the person who's giving starts to give and the person receiving says, wow, this is hard right now. This is really triggering a memory or it's triggering a, an emotion right now. And then the one giving slows down and says do you want me to stop, do you want me to keep going? And then the person who's receiving tunes in and says, no, keep going, I might cry, but that's okay. And then the one giving continues giving and and the person receiving, the person giving, knows it's okay because they're actually alive right now. People often ask me about tantric healing and it's like tantric healing happens in relationships. I mean, if you're not in a relationship you can do it otherwise, but in a relationship, this is ultimate intimacy, you know, to actually be able to be that vulnerable. For some people it could be the person giving and this is very, very hard that they maybe have been criticized so much in their life, not even just in intimacy, but as a child. You know, my, my first husband, he, he used to say that when he was growing up that even if he did it right, he didn't do it fast enough. You know, that's a deep, deep training. So all of a sudden the person giving is actually more afraid than the person receiving because I don't know. And the person receiving has the grace to say just try, you know, and if it feels good I'll tell you, and if it feels wrong I'll tell you and we'll just shift gears. But there's no, it's not a grade, it's just an exploration. Right, we just it's a, it's a trial and error thing. But that requires this loving connection that the person giving knows that this person is still going to love them after and they really are on an adventure together. And so the person giving is like and they do something, and the person receiving makes sound right, and suddenly maybe they stay right there for like 10 lovemaking sessions and then maybe the next time the person's like well, I had an idea. And the person is like let's try it. And it really.

Speaker 2: 24:50

I really feel that because we've come out of so much conflict and again because we had it as children, especially at our age like you know, I'm 54. By this time we have a lot of relationship experience behind us, positive and negative, painful and good. So it really does feel like baby steps. But the wild thing is, once we take those baby steps and we really like create the visceral memory of this positive experience, it's all good, like it really I don't know. And we really find and I think that's where this harmony in conflict comes in where, ooh, something's happening and it feels hard and both people kind of take a deep breath and go okay, so what's? Where's the harmony here? Not to fix it, but to how to? Well, it is to fix it. But how do we ride this? How do we play with this so that everybody heals and it's really beautiful and it really bonds people.

Speaker 1: 25:59

Yeah, I'd like to touch a little bit on something.

Speaker 1: 26:02

I don't know if we recorded it or not, but you did say early on something that reminded me.

Speaker 1: 26:08

It was like you know, we want to feel deeply connected, like you're talking about here, but we want to be deeply connected in the way that we, you said, the way we know. Okay, now, what I take from that is the way that our soul knows. So, for example, regardless of whatever anybody's experiences growing up, most of the time, if they're honest with themselves, if they're connected to their inner being in any way, they have a good feeling for what feels like a good relationship. Now, of course, that's all mixed in between with also our programming and what we've learned, right. I find that the driving force behind people, especially when they're really connected with themselves, behind being able to either select or and or experience that like adjustment, where you know it needs to adjust this way or you know it needs to adjust that way, comes from that knowing, which is, to me, doesn't even seem like it's a human knowing. It's more like the soul level awareness of what, what balance would be at any given moment it's funny.

Speaker 2: 27:24

I have a vision of like water and water being like stuck in a jar, and if the jar just tipped over, the water would just do what it was naturally designed to do, like it would just flow. And that's like us. It's like somehow we know, we just like you said, on a soul level, we know that it's meant to be closer and it's interesting because that's what our soul knows. But then we also have this personality that perhaps is affected by karma and samskaras and all these other patterns and habits that maybe we've experienced for thousands of years. And so maybe we choose a relationship for its security. Maybe we don't even choose it for this kind of romantic bliss that I'm talking about, but even within that secure relationship, there's still something inside that says well, I still want to be able to talk to you and I still want to be able to share. If we don't get it, we may still stay for the security and just give up on that for a time. Or maybe we stay with someone because we actually need to fight, right? I mean, sometimes we go to the extreme. We need a sparring partner, like you know, like I remember, when I was, I was raised in in, you know, a Christian home, parent, grandparents as ministers, all that kind of thing, right, and. But I had struggles with the church, I had struggles with what was going on and I found a good friend who I could fight with. When I moved out to the farm, I married a religious person and he had a huge religious community and I found a friend who was a very, very critical thinker and we would spar. Right, we don't spar anymore 25 years later, but we did in the beginning, when we were younger. We don't spar anymore 25 years later, but we did in the beginning when we were younger. And sometimes we choose partners like that. We have something. It's almost like we have a strength inside. We need to develop, and we find someone and we fight with them and for some reason it's what we're supposed to do. But even within that, we're seeking connection. We're seeking that connection, but then at at some point we stop choosing the fighters, we stop choosing people for security, we stop choosing people for all kind of these karmic reasons and it's like we move into a dharmic relationship where we actually want to experience our soul's path, like we actually don't want to experience the past patterns any longer, and then we cut, and then that's where I think a lot of us find ourselves going. Well then, what if I'm not here to win the fight and I'm not here to provide security or get security? Then where's the where's the excitement, where the joy? And that's where we get to start playing in these more vulnerable spaces, like we actually get to start.

Speaker 2: 30:20

Like for me, I've been teaching and studying tantra for you know, decades, and yet every time I make love, I am amazed that I can surrender even more and I can trust my intuition even more and I can receive even more. Like there's still. And one time my partner actually we were just talking about this the other day he said do you think there's a ceiling? Do you think at some point we actually reached the ultimate thing? And I don't think so. I think it's a good forever thing.

Speaker 2: 30:55

But there's no conflict in it, you know, and, and except in that moment, you're kind of, you're making love or whatever, and you're like, and you just say, wow, I can release even more. And then suddenly tears come for some reason, and there's not even stories in them anymore. But yet as you release I don't know, maybe the liver releases, the nervous system relaxes a bit more and you become that little bit more I'm going to say orgasmic, but it's it's like on a subtle level, like crazy stuff, like because I know you want to know this making love the other day and I was in this completely released, relaxed state and he was in the masculine and I felt this urge or this, this, this vision and I'm not a Reiki master or anything like that, like I. I'm so heady, right, like.

Speaker 2: 31:50

I am so I'm such as I'm such a student more than anything Like I'm not. I'm such a student more than anything like I'm not. I'm not energetically sensitive like that and all I knew was I was supposed to place my hands, kind of my fingers, by his hip bones and under his ribs and I just placed my hands against and suddenly he just like lit up and I lit up and this subtle vibration just, and you just, and he suddenly just took this deep breath and went, oh, and the two of us were just like in this like suspended animation, and afterwards I kind of just stopped and he went oh, what was that? I said no idea.

Speaker 2: 32:29

I have no idea what that was and I don't even think it's like some technique, I think it's just this. It's like it's like the journey of discovering all of our bodies, our subtle bodies, our auric bodies, like all of what it is to be human. And and I mean I don't even know if I'll ever even try it again Like it was just, it was the weirdest thing, it was just this well, that was fun, and I don't know lovemaking in life.

Speaker 1: 32:57

It just becomes this exploration you know, yeah, well, as you're talking about that, it's funny. I mean, everybody enjoys the conversations about sex, but but if you really take that idea and then you, you can even easily, as you're talking, I'm thinking about, you know, I know many people who are in very difficult relationships and several of them, you know part this is part of their, their path, like some of it's karmic, but some of it is exactly what you're talking about. You're still seeing connection. But you also need, on some level, this experience to create the contrast so that you can go within yourself and really learn how to do that balance and the connection and so forth. And I kind of even see it in those situations where you're in a relationship, whether it be a romantic one or a friendship or a work relationship, where you're really just sensing what needs to happen. So if it's harmonious, of course it feels like it's easier. If it's lacking harmony, it doesn't mean that you don't know to say something to somebody at a particular time or you don't respond to somebody's doing something or saying something to you, but it's that dance between you know this other, this other entity. I mean you know there's the idea of you know everybody that we bring are into our existence is a reflection of us.

Speaker 1: 34:29

So these people who are experiencing these more contrasting, um, these more contrasting relationships, are experiencing that contrast within themselves, right, and it's not that it's bad or good. I mean, of course, abuse is bad, right, like we don't want to have that. But even in the most difficult times like you were mentioning grief, right, or abuse of any kind you still have that ability to go into that space where you're recognizing oh, I'm on this side of it, you know, or you're kind of going through that dance. But that, what you're talking about there is like this knowingness of how to respond in a particular situation. When you're having, when you're making love, it's really about the physical body, like we're completely present in the physical body. But even if it's not really all about the physical body, maybe it's about our mind or it's about our just our energy body, kind of knowing where to go in a room or with somebody else it's still that dance of does this? What happens when I do this energy?

Speaker 2: 35:31

maybe I just want to play with it you know well, it's like imagining driving cars right, like, let's say, you're a race car driver or something like that, the car is important, it's the cars actually racing. There's a driver in the car who has choice and has instant interesting instincts and interesting experiences and interesting training and stuff like that. And that's like our bodies, like our bodies are this. They're these amazing vessels where we can experience pleasure, pain, all kinds of things. But when we remember that we are well from a tantric perspective, to remember that we are well from a tantric perspective, to remember that we are also divine, like we are also really truly incredible beings, that changes everything. And it's the same even in, like an abusive relationship. Something funny happens there that obliterates our divinity.

Speaker 2: 36:33

You know I don't attract abusive relationships. I've historically attracted neglectful relationships Because again, I believe that you know, as I really started analyzing them and seeing them, I realized that was my own inner masculine that neglected me. You know, I sort of throw myself in front of a truck but not protect myself from whatever you know and not show up for me and not do what needs. You know that kind of thing. But one time I was dating, so like I was married for 20 years and then I dated for about eight years until my current relationship. And the weirdest thing is, at one point I was traveling, I was over in Greece and I met a man on on a dating app and it was so curious because he was an abuser. Like he was, like I don't know if he was physically an abuser, but he would do these little things almost I could feel it to groom me like it was, like I would. I would, uh, I don't know, he was giving me a miss. I had been super anemic and gotten very, very skinny and like, really skinny, like when I'm not a skinny person and so I'd become very, very skinny and he had said, well, I'll take you out for dinner. And blah, blah, blah. And I said that's great. I said I'm really taking care to eat a lot of meat right now because I need to get my iron back up. I said I'm trying to gain the weight back from becoming too thin.

Speaker 2: 38:02

And then, about an hour later, he's massaging me, he's massaging my legs, and he says yes, you certainly did store a lot of fat in your legs, didn't you? And I remember looking at him, thinking what a funny thing to say. And then you know I would be typing, I'd be working because he stayed with me for a while and I'd be working on my computer say, wow, you type really quickly. And I say yeah, and he says not as fast as my friend, though, and like he would do these little tiny things to kind of just, and like he would do these little tiny things to kind of just. You know, but the dance, this isn't my pattern, so it didn't work on me. I kept looking at him, thinking what are you doing?

Speaker 2: 38:43

But the weird thing is there was something about him that made me powerless and it was so curious because I'd never experienced that in this lifetime, like it was like something was being brought forward, because he actually was very mean and he was very controlling and very strange and he had traveled quite a distance to come and stay with me and I couldn't get rid of him. I couldn't find the words to say you need to leave now and I don't know why. And this is where it's very interesting when we are in abusive relationships or codependent or whatever, or with a narcissist or whatever, those things are very easy from the outside to say, oh, we'll just say this. It's like, but it requires a lot of grace for ourselves to realize, to even be able to watch ourselves and say why can't I get out of this, why am I not making these choices? And so for me, this is where, like tantra, even yoga, these are historically spiritual disciplines and this is where it's so important that spiritual means with God, with connection. We are not just animals, we are. We actually do have this connection.

Speaker 2: 39:58

And with this guy, for example, he drove me into deep prayer because I was literally watching this strange grooming that he was doing with me and I was 50, like I wasn't new, and I was 50. Like I wasn't new. It was four years ago and eventually I was praying for help. I'm like I need help, I need help. And eventually he said something so incredibly rude. I was finally able to say now you need to leave. That was too much and you know, he argued and he freaked out and he lost his mind, but finally it snapped me out of that Almost. It's not a brainwashing, it's just like you just get lost in a spell or something. And that's where it's really interesting, no matter what.

Speaker 2: 40:48

Like I remember, even when I was divorcing my ex-husband beautiful man, man we were just on different paths and I didn't want to hurt him, I didn't want it to be more painful than it had to be, and I remember needing to talk about finances, needing to, needing to talk about it was a fly on the, on the camera.

Speaker 2: 41:10

I needed to talk about this and he was so devastated that he didn't want to get divorced. Every day I wake up and I would just pray. I'm like is today the day? Is today the day? And then, when it was the day, it was like okay, how do I open this up and the words? You know to trust that the words would come. And that's where these really are spiritual practices to find our way in the hard times, to ask for higher guidance, because then we say something we've never said before and then we get to experience a pattern we've never experienced before and that's what? And then our partners like that's different, like everyone acts differently, and that's what I think also helps find that harmony in the in conflict yeah, um, your story reminded me of a relationship I had that that.

Speaker 1: 42:07

It was also a new experience for me. Not the whole thing, it was just like, like you're talking about subtlety, the little parts that were different. And we reached a point in the relationship where I noticed that I didn't like the way that I felt when I was around him and he was around all the time. He had moved in and I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know why. I didn't feel right. I was certainly wasn't good.

Speaker 1: 42:29

That's not my nature to say, oh, it's your fault. You know, like I'm not going to this knee-jerk reaction, so it took me a while to really figure it out and and it just got stronger and stronger. So that's the contrast we're talking about, like the, the last words that the guy in Italy I think you said Italy said to you right where you were like okay, that's it, I'm done, it's over, I don't care what anything else is is happening. And the same thing happened for me. It it was like this feeling of this, like I don't know what it is, and it was. I didn't have any direction, I didn't have any help. I had already heard everybody else's opinion of it, but I knew what we had experienced together, or what have you. And actually for me it was the strangest thing because I'd never done this before. But I actually just typed in what I felt on the computer. Now, of course, this wouldn't have happened 30 years ago, right, but I just typed in some words and I got maybe a little hit here or there, but I just kept trying to figure out what that feeling was and it came up, this information came up, and I was like, oh, there's a word for it. I didn't know there was a term for this thing and it was what it was was emotional manipulation.

Speaker 1: 43:36

Okay, and it is not necessarily a judgment on anybody in particular, because what I read about it was you know, really everybody does it. It's just a matter of how do you use it and you know, have you taken it too far? And you know, is it appropriate in a given situation or what have you? And? And so in that sense, I wasn't, you know, there wasn't necessarily anything negative about it. I just knew that I didn't like it.

Speaker 1: 44:01

And it was really interesting because that having the awareness and the words to be able to articulate, which is kind of the same thing you're talking about, where you just open up with your partner and say, yeah, I'm a little uncomfortable here, right, it's the same thing. It's just bring it out to the service and talk about it. It gave me the ability to have because we were very mental, both of us were very mental at that point have a conversation about this. Now, the conversation didn't go very well because emotions got involved, right, but that was okay because by then I had decided but it's this unique ability to actually have those conversations you get pushed to the point where you have to say something at a time that you're not used to.

Speaker 1: 44:47

What I find, um, for me and I think it's true of everybody is that if, like, you're talking about being pushed to go inward, like you were basically you were for you were kind of pushed into I have to pray until I get a solution to this, right, um, if you're, if you don't go inward and you're constantly going out, outwards, outside of you, then you don't get that clarity, don't get that flow of the words that need to come, or you know the knowingness of where to put your hands or where to move your body or whatever it is, and so, like it's, it seems like it's. It's really just the foundation, just like you're talking about. You know, yoga being the spiritual experience, because that, that is the thing that's driving, sitting in the driver's seat right totally well.

Speaker 2: 45:34

It's interesting, like even um. Another thing I'm really thinking a lot about these days is how important it is to be able to control our mind. This is, like you know, if you I was reading, like rudolf steiner and he was talking about like one of the six things that every human has to do is be able to control your mind. And it's interesting when we think about how we allow our mind to just go anywhere at once, like it's almost like there's wild horses in there and we have no idea where it's going to go next and it's just going to take me down this rabbit hole, and then, you know, this thing comes out of my mouth and it's like our mind is fully within our control. It should be, and it's sort of like and like.

Speaker 2: 46:15

One of the fascinations I have, like you know, right now, is comparing our mind to a penis, because in Tantra, for example, we talk a lot about, you know, non-ejaculatory sex, and not in like classical Tantra, but in Tantric intimacy. And not in like classical tantra, but in tantric intimacy, because for many men, for most men, the penis is kind of this wild card. You know that it just could go off at any time, and it goes off too soon or it doesn't go off and whatever, and it's like all these things and whether it's part of our cultural conditioning that sex is taboo and penises are bad and you know all this kind of thing or whatever but there's this disconnect that, whereas in tantric intimacy to really understand that I mean there's a lot of benefits to being able to actually have mastery over this right, because not only do you have mastery over it, energy can now flow through it freely without it, like I keep having this picture of like a garden hose, like over the place that you actually are, like no, this is part of my body and I have full mastery over it, in the same way that I have mastery over my arm. But we are sort of trained that, oh no, no, penises are crazy and you don't know what it's going to do, in the same way that we treat our mind Right. But it's like to actually imagine that in every single moment, we get to choose what we think about. Because when you really think, where are these thoughts coming from? Are they even mine? Are they floating through the ethers? Are they thoughts from the neighbors? And sometimes we could have 12 channels running at any time, that's crazy. That is not ultimate human performance. So to even simply say I'm going to choose my thoughts all the time In relationship, this is huge.

Speaker 2: 48:08

In relationship, this is huge, you know, because you're like, well, sometimes I just can't control myself. Who can't control yourself? Like who's in the room right now, who's lighting your fire, who's speaking for you? And this is such an important thing to ask ourselves. And again, this is this journey of yoga, of tantra, of meditation. Why do we sit and meditate? Why is meditation part of all spiritual traditions? We have to be able to control our mind, and not in a negative way that we, if I'm going to sit, I'm going to sit and think about nothing and to actually and, but but only we can do it, only we can actually go into our mind and see all the players, and we have to do it with our eyes closed. We have to do it in a contained environment where we're not interrupted and actually say, wow, there is no stimuli right now and my mind is going at a million miles an hour. I need to find you know the reins here, like I need to understand how to sort this. Then imagine how different relationships are.

Speaker 1: 49:24

Yeah, I, um, as you're talking about that, I was thinking, okay, talking about controlling the mind. Right, control, typically the word itself by itself is usually associated with the masculine energy, but what you're describing here is controlling it from a feminine experience where, um, you're not demanding that it does this or that, but but you're creating a framework. So I guess that's basically what would you say Kind of like, because it seems to me like the mind we can say. The mind is very similar to the, an entity within a relationship, in the sense that we think that it has this ability to go into chaos, or it has a bit of ability to go to one extreme or another, and maybe we don't know how to manage it or how to deal with it, but the mind is contained in our I mean, for lack of a better description- in our head right, like it's contained within our energy being and it can't go outside of that.

Speaker 1: 50:31

Um, so in a sense that's like a, you know, there's a container for the mind, so the almost the mind can be seen. That chaotic energy can be seen as a feminine sort of like, where it has the room to grow. But let me see if I can explain this better. Um, you know, when you're in meditation and you notice that your mind is going crazy or whatever you want to call it, who's noticing it? That's what you know. Michael singer always says oh, how do you know, like, who's watching it? Right, who is that thing? Okay, well, that's, that's the bigger part of you that's stepping back and can see this existence happening, this chaotic mind or whatever. And, um, you can do that in a relationship too. And I just want to add here a revelation I had after I didn't, I didn't know what I was doing.

Speaker 1: 51:22

Basically, I was doing spiritual work, um, healing after my husband's my first husband's death, and I had listened to a whole bunch of things. I've done all kinds of things and one day it just I was listening to something new. It happened to be deep etropa, not like I hadn't listened to him before. It's not like I didn't listen to other people, but he just said it in a way and it just hit me at that moment um, that thoughts are not reality and you can just watch them come in and leave. They come in just like they leave. If you just sit there and wait, right, you just allow it to happen, you can actually take the time to actually observe what was happening.

Speaker 1: 51:57

So I had a really unique I say unique. It was really fertile environment in which that could happen, in that I was struggling with grief and so I would have these. You know, the water hose was just going crazy, like all my mind was thinking about all these things that needed to be a certain way, or have you? And I had finally noticed. Oh, five minutes before I wasn't like that. Five minutes before I was completely calm.

Speaker 1: 52:22

Now this thing happened and all of a sudden, my mind is going somewhere and all it took was one time. I just noticed it. I took a deep breath and I realized, okay, I was fine before, I'm just going to let it go through. That's really interesting to watch it come in, let's watch it leave. And it did. And as soon as I experienced that thing I knew, boom, it's gone, I don't have to be at the mercy of the mind anymore and that's um, um, I'm just like the. What you're talking about here reminds me so very much of it feels like another person, like another energy in a relationship and it's doing and behaving a certain way, but it still has like a container, it still has and it's not you can't control. You can't control this other energy, but in a sense you can.

Speaker 2: 53:14

You just do it passively so yeah, so imagine it's a perfect example that when we think of the masculine and feminine, it's always healthy to think of them together, how they're working together, because we have a habit of, especially because of the patriarchal mindset, we kind of go, well, this is masculine and that's feminine and that kind of thing, but say, in your scenario here, it was your healthy masculine creating the structure, creating the clarity, creating that container for your feminine emotions, truth and and everything to flow, and it was the balance of those two things that allowed you to come to completeness. And I think what happens is because we do have a lot of us have a very, a great disconnection with our own inner masculine, because we've internalized the unhealthy, disconnected masculine outside of us. So, for example, we don't want anything, as you said, controlling our thoughts, because we're used to being controlled from the outside. That isn't for our benefit, it's for their manipulation, so it's almost like no one gets to control my thoughts. But there's real health in having a strong masculine clarity, a clarity of mind that says, right now I need to focus. Like, let's say, for example so I live in Canada, I live in a snow, um, um, wow, I've lost the phrase. There's a lot of snow here. So there are times in the winter when all of a sudden a blizzard kicks up and I cannot think about anything except driving on this road. Right now, all I can do is to make sure I am on the road right now. My masculine has to be acute and strong enough to obliterate all other sound so that I can focus on the chaos I'm trying to navigate.

Speaker 2: 55:19

This is really important, right? There is a healthy masculine within that says hold on a minute. Where are these thoughts coming from? They're going to take me somewhere. I don't want to go. This is all fear mongering in my own head. These things aren't actually happening. This is healthy masculine, right? So that beautiful, healthy masculine saying well, what is coming up for us right now, in this moment? Oh, wow, okay, let's look at that Like. This is the beautiful communication between the masculine and feminine within us and, like you said, it often does feel like another entity because there's so much contrast between this absolute clarity and this, these emotions that are arising. But that's the bliss state when we actually sit and we watch and say, wow, there's some big stuff coming up right now. It's okay, I've got you, let's go there, right, that's a really happy state.

Speaker 1: 56:25

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