How many social norms are you accepting in your life because it is what you are told to believe and be? What about my current environment am I accepting because it's a social norm? Marriage is one of those that is entered upon and not fully creating a conscious relationship.
Chip and I have a conversation around relationships and the abuse that happens with men.
One of the commonalities that I have been noticing in my conversations is that men often lose themselves in their relationships, especially when they are in a traditional religion relationship. As Chip shares, he served a mission and then did the next step of finding a wife and put his wife and his children above his own wants and needs. This is so common.
Did you know that about 1 in every 6 to 7 men will be a victim to domestic abuse?
Did you know that:
We create our own experiences. Sometimes things happen we cannot control, but how we respond we can control.
The more you can step into the learning in each relationship, with eyes open, it will propel you into more and more of yourself asking to be seen.
Have you been building a life be design or letting life push you around and creating a world that you do not love? We have the ability to build a life by design. Our lives are defined by the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others.
To Chip, the phrase strive satisfied shows the ability to be okay with what is and hope to have dreams and desires.
To follow Chip Hopper, head over to his website: https://www.bookjedi.com
IG: @chiphopper
FB: @chiphoper
Wanting to be apart of my upcoming group mentorship program? Email me aj@amandajoyco.com for more info. Starts July 6th.
Grab my latest book! https://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Religion-Those-Leave-Behind/dp/1952566487/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1FUQQ23L4I458&keywords=leaving+religion+%26+those&qid=1655217437&sprefix=leaving+religion+%26+those%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-1
Let's stay in touch!
IG: @amanda.joy.loveland
FB Amanda Joy Loveland
www.amandajoyloveland.com
YouTube: Amanda Joy Loveland
How many social norms are you accepting in your life because it is what you are told to believe and be? What about my current environment am I accepting because it's a social norm? Marriage is one of those that is entered upon and not fully creating a conscious relationship.
Chip and I have a conversation around relationships and the abuse that happens with men.
One of the commonalities that I have been noticing in my conversations is that men often lose themselves in their relationships, especially when they are in a traditional religion relationship. As Chip shares, he served a mission and then did the next step of finding a wife and put his wife and his children above his own wants and needs. This is so common.
Did you know that about 1 in every 6 to 7 men will be a victim to domestic abuse?
Did you know that:
We create our own experiences. Sometimes things happen we cannot control, but how we respond we can control.
The more you can step into the learning in each relationship, with eyes open, it will propel you into more and more of yourself asking to be seen.
Have you been building a life be design or letting life push you around and creating a world that you do not love? We have the ability to build a life by design. Our lives are defined by the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others.
To Chip, the phrase strive satisfied shows the ability to be okay with what is and hope to have dreams and desires.
To follow Chip Hopper, head over to his website: https://www.bookjedi.com
IG: @chiphopper
FB: @chiphoper
Wanting to be apart of my upcoming group mentorship program? Email me aj@amandajoyco.com for more info. Starts July 6th.
Grab my latest book! https://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Religion-Those-Leave-Behind/dp/1952566487/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1FUQQ23L4I458&keywords=leaving+religion+%26+those&qid=1655217437&sprefix=leaving+religion+%26+those%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-1
Let's stay in touch!
IG: @amanda.joy.loveland
FB Amanda Joy Loveland
www.amandajoyloveland.com
YouTube: Amanda Joy Loveland
Welcome to my podcast, if you've noticed, it's had a recent little change in the name, but it's still really similar to what it was. And I've had a lot of feedback and even just me energetically, this whole leaving religion and then those we leave behind. Oftentimes, we don't leave behind anyone. And so I wanted to take that out of the title. So now you'll notice that it is leaving religion a guide, and really this podcast is it my main motivation for doing this, this podcast is to assist those that are leaving religion to really coming back to themselves, what that looks like how to find your spiritual center. And in that I get to have beautiful conversations with individuals who have navigated it and who have had some really significant experiences in their life to coming back to themselves and how they did it. So my next guess is no, this conversation, you guys was so fun, it's a little longer, truthfully, we could have gotten hours long in our in our conversation, and maybe I'll have him on again. But this is a really beautiful conversation, diving into relationships, and abuse and my goodness, all sorts of things, and deconstruction of systems, and whatnot. So I'm excited to dive into this conversation. But first, if you haven't picked up my book, please go over to Amazon and grab it. This book, you guys, it's a simple read. It's a really short book, but it is a powerful book. And it has tools in there to guide you back to yourself to remove and to help to deconstruct those places that are still active within your psyche and within the subconscious mind. So if you head over to Amazon, the book title if you search, leaving religion, and those really behind, you will find it and it looks like Amazon is actually it's been doing so well that Amazon is discounting the Kindle version right now. And it may discount the paperback version, I'm not sure. But either way, it's really inexpensive. It's 30 or $13.33. And then on my website, Amanda loveland.com, forward slash leaving religion tools, I was guided to do a four part series of guided meditations to go even deeper with deconstructs deconstructing religion within your energetic system. And those are very, very powerful. So you can head over there and grab those. And then last but not least, but I have a group mentorship that is starting July 6, that I have a few more spots available. And this is a six week course. And as I've stated before, for those that are wanting to dive into this program, message me I will send you more information. And because you are one of my listeners, I will send you a signed autographed book. My leaving religion book I will send to you for free. And that book is for those that are people that are going through transitions, we get to assist each other and help each other and this course will be you know, will there'll be a lot of amazingness to it. So if you're feeling a yes, message me on my social media sites or email me, I'll put my email down below. But let's now dive into the more fun part of this podcast in my interview with Chip hopper. Well, hello, hello. Well, hello. We've been sitting here for over 42 minutes now just chatting away. We just recorded the podcast without recording this amazing conversation. And I'm really grateful. I'm sitting here with Chip hopper. Did I say your last name? Right? Yes, yeah. We have known. We've known each other but don't know each other. And so that's why I think it's so fun to have this conversation of Oh, wow. We have the same. We think like, yeah, yes, I've been very close friends with your brothers for many, many years. Yeah. We were in the MBA program together. You were. I don't think I knew that. Oh, man. So it is it is it's so fun when our Pat when paths cross and it's like, oh, wow, how many years later? 2030 years later? How long has it been since exact days? It's been a long time? Yeah, it was 2005? I think so when when your dad was still here. And in fact, he passed. Right as I was coming on board. Oh, so they delayed it. Because of that. And, and so that's what I joined exact where was when he around the time he passed. So you didn't ever really get a chance to know him? He was an amazing man. I only met him a few times. But yeah, he was amazing. Yeah, I had quite quite a bit and all his kids. So yeah, we do have a lot of him in us. And anyway, that's a whole other conversation. But it's so fun to cross paths again. And as we've been chatting and kind of, I guess laughing a little bit about the conversation that we're naturally having that we're going to discuss here. It's not a whole lot rooted in religion, although you were Mormon. Yeah. Were you born and raised Mormon I was born and raised Mormon. I was born in Utah, northern Utah in Ogden. And the funny story was actually In a beauty pageant when I was younger, I was the junior Prince of sunset. So I won. I won a beauty pageant. So now when I work with people in the pageant world, I'm like, oh, yeah, I've been in the pageant. I was like, one, one and a half. Oh my gosh, that's so awesome. I had this really large head. And I guess that was apparently really adorable. That is hilarious. I love it. But yeah, born and raised in the Mormon Church, went on an LDS mission to New York. While on that mission, I read just about every religious text for every religion that you can imagine. And really, that started my journey of personal development and understanding the mind and how we think my dad was a was a doctor, he was a chiropractor. And when he was in medical school, we lived in Chicago, and he would take me to the cadaver labs when he was dissecting bodies and put me up on the table when I was five years old. Wow. And yeah, you know, people look at it like, wow, that's disgusting. But for me, it was like, it was amazing to learn the muscles of the body. Yeah. And I fell in love with the body and then as a teenager, and I fell in love with the mind. And I've just always loved that development side. Oh, that's super cool. So you did you stay Mormon for a while? I did. I was married in the temple. I was married for over 20 years, I think we were together 25 and married almost 22 of those. And because we had made that commitment and that agreement to to be married in the church, I kept that in kept in the in the faith for when till after our divorce. Yeah. And then what happened for you to decide that this wasn't for you anymore? Well, I, I read a book a week for over 20 years now. And and, you know, about 10 years ago, I really started to my Trent, my mind started to transition my thinking of religion and religious constructs and things. And I really don't think that I was fully in on the religion for at least a decade. But again, it was something that, you know, was a beautiful thing, right? And or there's a lot of beautiful elements to it. And I opened up to only a few people about how I was feeling about it. One of them was my wife at the time. And she would say, how can you continue to have the state callings or go to the temple or any of these things? If you don't know it's true? And I would always say, Well, my 32 Faith is the hope for things not seen. And I would be like, it would be lovely if if we could have our family for eternity. And if this was just a piece of our experience, and you know, so, so it wasn't, it wasn't like I was betraying myself. But it was challenging because, for me, I've always been one, to question everything, and to really use the scientific method and to look at things and say, Is this true? Is it really true? And you know, one of my favorite things about the scientific method is, when you put out a hypothesis, your job isn't to prove that it's true, your job is to try and prove that it's wrong, right? And, and it only holds up until someone can prove that it's wrong. That is what science is, science is right. And so I've always loved that approach, and to look at myself, and to be able to peel back the onions of myself and say, Okay, now that I have new information, what does it mean about this? And it can be an exhausting work, right? We often get into that space of just flowing with the beliefs that we have, because every time you have to question a belief, it takes decision making processing, which is, which, you know, we only have a certain amount of decision making processing every day. And that's why will people like Mark Zuckerberg wear the same outfit every day. It's why Obama had all of his meals and his suits and everything planned for him and so that he could focus his decision making on what was necessary in the role that they were in. But, but when the when the relationship ended, I was able to really look at it and go, Okay, now that I don't have the constraints of saying, I've agreed to be in this. What's really true for me, and the structure of religion just doesn't resonate with me in that way. Yeah. So did you wait until after your divorce before you left religion or did you Yeah, yeah. So well. Kind of I mean, when when, when things ended kind of dramatically with all of my stuff in the in the yard. You know, that was was about a year and a half before the divorce was final. And you know, I did stop doing a lot with the with the organization. But I still had, you know, I had state callings, I actually had to stay callings clear through 2019, I believe, you know, and I was the steak auditor. And so I was responsible for, you know, monitoring all the finances of the steak and steak athletic director. And so I was very heavily involved with the youth always loved coaching, I always loved working with youth than a football coach and a basketball coach and a soccer coach, and you name it so. So I wasn't really actively participating, but I also wasn't just fully stepping away. Yeah. Well, then we're gonna as you were sharing a few things I, I asked you if you'd be open to talking about it on our podcast, because it's been really, I don't believe in coincidences. And I just shared a Post this morning about some things that had been in my arena, as far as things that we experienced, and you were sharing some aspects that you've experienced as a male in your relationship, that it does not get spoken to very much at all. And so I would love to talk a little bit more, you know, one of the things I thought was fascinating, and it's something that's actually paralleling in my life right now. And I'll share a little bit about that here in a minute. But I'm, like, I'm trying to figure I'm trying to fill into how to open this up. In my personally, I'm going through an interesting shift in my relationship. My husband and I, who he'll be on my podcast these days, and we will openly talk about this. Because I, I believe that as we share the places that we're going through in our lives, and you help people write books, and I've written books, it allows for our healing to be open and to be talked about instead of being quiet and slowly dying inside thinking, we're alone in our, in our pain. And the more I feel like we're open and vulnerable to the things that we've experienced it, it opens up that conversation, it opens up the possibility to new ideas and new thoughts that we can maybe move through our experience a little bit differently. And in my relationship with my husband, I got together seven years ago, there was a lot he had hid a lot of who he had been for fear that I wouldn't choose to stay with him. And he, when this came out, and it was because the universe was conspiring, it's like, Oh, you don't get to hide. And the amount of people that came out of the woodwork to kind of to open up this, these things that had happened was quite fascinating. And I chose to stay with him. And I and we had very open conversations about it. But because that had happened in the rest of our relationship he went forward with, I need to prove that I You can trust me, I need, I need to prove myself to you. And my needs were more valuable than his. And now fast forward seven years later, we had some things that recently happened. And a lot of it was because he had lost himself in a relationship trying to always please me now, it wasn't something I ever asked for. I'm also a strong, dynamic woman. And so it's easy for me to over to consume a little bit more in a relationship. And you had share some things that I feel like there's not there's no again, there's no coincidences. So I don't know exactly where you would like to start with this. But if you're open to it, I'm an I'm an open book. You Yeah, talking about your previous marriage. How old were you guys when you got married? I was 23 or 24. We got married in July and my birthday is in August, so I can't remember. Which it was I think that I was 23 Turning 24 Yeah. How healthy was your relationship in the beginning? Um, you know, I think it struggled from the very beginning. You know, I came as I said, I was LDS and I came home from a mission with the belief that the next step was marriage. Right. And most missionaries have that they're taught or Yeah, yeah, you're taught that. You know, it's, it's the steps, right? You grow up, you go on a mission, you come home, you get married, you go to school, and you buy a house as a title with the American dream and you have kids and you raise them in the religion and you have as many as you can. And I was the oldest of eight and growing up and so came from a very large family, but I met this amazing woman and you know, the very first time I met her We were we had me and my friend, as returned, missionaries had crashed his younger brother's birthday party, who was getting ready to go on a mission. And I met her at that time. And we were all playing volleyball and one of the players got injured. And she immediately went into mom mode and went out and pack some snow and put it on his ankle and raise it up. And then like, wow, this is like a motherly figure, and she's hot. So, you know, we had, there were beautiful parts of our relationship from the very start. And I don't want to diminish any of the beauty that we had, even through our whole relationship. But there were also challenges and difficulties. You know, many of those tied around jealousy and other things on both sides and the difficulties in those spaces. And you know, for me, a lot of jealousy comes from lack of self worth, right and not feeling worthy of of yourself. And so when you see praise given to others, it's hard to see and feel. Well, do you also feel like for me, I feel like this conversation you and I are about to have is somewhat deconstructing the traditional relationships that we have been taught and programmed that this is what it should be. And it within religion, there are a lot of rules within the relationship and a lot of things that you do and you don't do in a relationship, you don't go to lunch with someone of the remember having released any conversations makes, make sure that you're not going to lunch, even if it's a business lunch with somebody of the opposite sex just alone, like that's too, it's too tempting, you know, the the Satan's going to tempt you to do something more, or make sure you satisfy your husband before he goes on a business trip, because he may be tempted, like all of these things, this whole idea that there's someone out there pulling the strings trying to destroy everything, fear base, it is fear based. And we have we have so many social norms that we come to accept as the norms. And I love this discussion, I could talk about this on anything, right? It's, it's not just religion, but everything, everything that we believe from the way we look at education and the way we look at relationships to the way we do anything. And one of my one of my favorite conversations actually is talking about things like Hitler. And would you follow Hitler, and for me, the people that are the most adamant saying that they would never follow a man like Hitler, because it's morally and socially wrong, are the ones that I think would most likely fall into a scenario where they believe, because they're in that environment. It's when you can challenge the environment that you're currently in and say, What about my current environment is, am I just accepting because of what has become that way? And marriage is one of those things where most of us step into marriage without a contract without any discussion of what it looks like and what the rules are, because of two things. One is we have this preconceived notion of what marriage is and what it means. And the second is because as soon as you say, let's talk about it from a kind of a contract and business perspective, everybody's like, Oh, that's not love. You know, all of a sudden, you're not speaking in terms of what everybody's like, Oh, wait, love means that we just, it all works. And it's all easy. And, and so not true. So not true, right? We all know that. Yeah. And from that young perspective, you have no idea what you're about to walk into. Because, right, we don't talk about the, the consciousness that goes around relationships. Yep. So and, you know, when you when you talk about showing up in a relationship, you know, in relationships that end and, and why they ended, you know, that we are creating our own experiences. And obviously, there are things that happen that we can't control, but how we respond to them is completely in our control. And I can look back at every relationship I've had and see the things that I could have worked on and could have improved. And, you know, my, my recent partner, Brooke, and I both work in this space. And I one of my favorite things to say is like, we're only here because every previous relationship failed, right? So it's a constant learning and evolution and the more you can step into that, I think the the more you can find and and come back to who you really are. Yeah. And you had mentioned you know, as I was kind of sharing some things with my current relationship, you had mentioned that in your partnership, a lot of the things you put your partner above you for quite a while your kids needs above yours. Do you mind speaking to that a little? Yeah, absolutely. I I've always been a giver. And I don't know if you've seen Toy Story, but the dinosaur in Toy Story was, was very much my personality. I don't like confrontation. And so I would look at people's needs, and I would try and meet them in their needs. And often I would use humor to deescalate tension and things like that. But when you start to give yourself in that way, it's easy to get lost in it, because the minute you see something not flowing smoothly, and there's contention or possible disruption, you try and step into that space to smooth it over, which often means that you're taking away your the things that you want, and doing it for other people. And that was one of the things that that it's easy to look back now and see, but it was one of those things that I didn't really even recognize through most of my relationship. And the other was the true spirit of giving. Right? Often. Often we talk about giving, and we talked about being giving. But it's very rare that you find giving that doesn't have some level of expectation. And I believed that I was a giver that didn't have expectations. But I can look back now and say, Well, yeah, my expectation was I wanted people to at least recognize that I was being a giver. Yeah, just to thank you was plenty, just see that I'm giving right. But even that just being seen as a giver is you know, somewhat of an expectation. And so yeah, that that created a space where I really lost myself in that. And had to figure out who I was after I came out of that relationship. Yeah. Well, I think the male perspective is really fascinating. And I did a podcast episode a few ago, where it's not just men, but because we're talking about this, a lot of men are going through the motions, so do women but especially with where, you know, you go on a mission, especially within we'll talk with Mormonism mission, here's the rungs of the ladder that you need to climb, just in your life, mission, work money, you know, wife, kids, continue to provide, and, you know, where, where are you and all of that. And not to mention, you know, as you're sharing some of these things, as far as being a giver, what you shared with me before it was because you were such a giver, it was so taken, and then abused. And you had some abuse that happened in your relationship, and not very many men talk about this, because it's usually and like you shared earlier with our conversation before the episode that in our court systems, even in that court system, it's people have a hard time really seeing that, actually, women can be the abuser where they can be physically and emotionally violent. And I feel like this is something that if you're open to it, it gets to have a voice today. Yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm open to it, I, I want to preface it by saying that, you know, I think that there are things that we can all do to improve. There are things that that happened in, in my marriage, and in many things in life that, you know, aren't aren't necessarily things that I want to bring up as negative things or point out to people, we've all done things that we that we wish we hadn't, you know, for me I've always been one that has tried to not air dirty laundry, right, because it's when we are able to, to work through our dirty laundry. Other people don't see that. And they still, you know, focus on the, on the dirty laundry that was aired to them. And so, so there's, there's some element of it, that it's like, what to talk about and what not to, but I do feel it's important to talk about these things so that people that are going through them can can see outside of them. Because when you're in this space, it's very hard to to see it and in my marriage, I spend a lot of my time doing what I would call now damage control of you know, things that would happen that I wouldn't want my partner to look bad and so I would frame it differently and I would you know, try and make her shine in the in the best light possible. So much so that even going through our divorce, I have a couple of siblings that shifted away from having a relationship with me because of because of the divorce and one of them said interesting thing to me once and he said, he said, Chip, if yours was the true story, he's like, the person that has the truth is the one that is sharing their story. Interesting. And I said, No. For me, the one who wants their story to be heard is the one that sharing their story. And just because I'm not talking against the story that is now being given doesn't mean that, that my story isn't, you know, accurate. And, you know, clearly, we all live in our own reality. And the only way we can see life is through our own lens. But there are there are absolutely abusive things that happened in my relationship, in that marriage. And there are things that I often covered up and didn't share. And, unfortunately, that went against me when she decided she wanted to be done. And she shifted those beliefs to be things that I had done. So much so that you know, I have, I have kids that have repressed memories of things that didn't happen, that were very abusive, and very slanted the other direction. You know, I had, I had times where, and especially, especially as my partner was significantly smaller than me. You know, even even in court, you know, that there was no ability to look at the conversation and go, Well, okay, how'd that happen? Right? When I, at times were. And this is, this is hard to share here, because I don't want to create a negative and negative view of my partner or anyone else, but, you know, I think it's important to have these things and have these conversations. And there were times where my partner would run and throw herself against me, and then sprawl onto the floor as if I had attacked her, right. And there were times where she would jump on me and then pull me down on top of her. And for me, when those things were happening, and as she would do them in front of our kids, my thought would be, my kids can see what's happening. This is like, so obviously, you know, manipulative and controlling, and abusive, and, but but because I didn't speak up, and because I didn't say, Hey, wait, this isn't, this isn't good, this isn't. And I would cover it up, and I would be alien, I was systematically alienated from all of my friends from my family, when the divorce happened, you know, I allowed myself to be kicked out of my own home that I was paying for. I allowed myself to lose all the relationships that I that I even had at that point. And to be really vilified, as as, as this awful person, and because I was shamed, I had guilt, I didn't feel worthy. I mean, in 2017, there were a number of times that I was contemplating how to take my life. And I think, I think there's this part of me that just wants to live forever. But there's also this part of me that doesn't want to be remembered as a failure, if you will. And so I would try and come up with these ways where I could die, but not really die, so that my life insurance money could go to my ex into my kids, because that's where I measure my value was my financial worth. And that had been beaten into me throughout my marriage that my worth came from, from my financial. And this, this actually ties back to exactly where I left exact were in 2016. And spent the rest of the year building a business and really wanting to move in this direction of more into the personal development space full time and, and my ex would be very frustrated by it. And I hadn't realized until then, how much she relied on the steadiness of the paycheck and then the financial elements of it and I wasn't when she would pull away I wasn't there for her emotionally and, you know, I did a lot of things that looking back I was like, wow, you know, I'm in working with with Brooke. After my divorce, you know, I learned a lot of things where I'm like, Wow, if I had known this and how to respond here, I'd probably still be in that relationship, although I wouldn't, I'm glad I'm not because there's such better, better things out there. And the approach of this, or something better is always a huge one. And I feel like I'm just talking and talking, but I was gonna, oh, this is perfect. And I know that this is an uncomfortable. And I appreciate that you. And I understand why you're prefacing this with me going to six, my first book that I published was about my relationships. And the first time I published it was under a pseudo name. Because there is this really fine line between, I feel called to share my story so that it may help others and with the belief that I have the belief that you have we choose into these situations. So while we may have been a victim to some of the things that we've had happen in our lives, we don't operate from that victim mentality. And a lot of people, when they tell their stories, it's vindictive in nature. You know, it sounds like with your ex wife, whatever she was how she was flipping the script, because she was the abuser. Of course, she's gonna flip the script. And of course, you allowed her to do that, because of the dynamic that was created in the relationship and, and a lot of times the mental, right, the mental pieces that started happening, especially with the tie and the bonds that started happening in that relationship under the neath those circumstances. And as a man, like, you know, I know, it's, it's hard for men to, to come out and communicate clearly, or to whoever's listening right now that I was in an abusive relationship where it was physically and emotionally abusive, with my partner, and I allowed it to happen. Yeah, I think there is a an aspect of them of the masculine ego, that steps in of admitting that must be a little challenging. And yeah, I applaud it, I celebrate it. And I am like, Thank God, somebody's talking about this. Yeah. And for me, like, and we talked a little bit about this before, you know, I have no problem sharing how I feel. And what happened from that perspective. The challenge for me is that I still do love this person. And I, and I fully accept that. And you mentioned the word dynamic in a relationship, and the dynamic in a relationship is, is often something different in each relationship, right? You can, there's a lot that we'll do that we recreate, in relationships, things that we haven't fixed before. But in this case, like, I believe she's in a, in a much better relationship. Now, I've been in a much better relationship as well, and the things that I was doing in that relationship. You know, as things were falling apart, there were a number of recordings that that happened. And I actually went through and listened to a few of them before coming here a couple days ago. And in listening to those, absolutely. There were a lot of things that were being done to me that were just really awful, but, but my responses weren't, weren't great either, either, even than just the being present and listening. And I know that she didn't feel hurt, she didn't feel seen, I didn't feel hurt, I didn't feel seen. And those pieces are such powerful pieces in a relationship when you don't feel heard or seen. Things can spiral into in the places they they weren't before. And, you know, most of our relationship, I wouldn't consider most of our relationship as abusive. It was a shift in the, in the status quo that really changed that, right. And like 2016, for example, is a fantastic example of that I, I left exact were in April of 2016. And as I was building my business, I went many, many months where there was no income at all. But towards the end of the year, I worked for two and a half months, and made more in that two and a half months than I had made any year previously. And so we ended 2016 with me having made significantly more than any year previously, but in my in my wife's mind at the time. It was still I wasn't contributing, I wasn't working most of the time. And and she began to preach that to the kids that I wasn't contributing, I wasn't what I was doing wasn't working. And, and so you know, there are all these pieces that go into it of where her needs being met or my needs being met. So, again, for me the My hesitancy and talking about it is more because I care about these people. And, you know, I don't want to approach her as a villain or me as a victim. In fact, I believe strongly that most of the ways that we act out are because of things that happen to us in our past that we carry with us. You know, there were a lot of signs from her about things that happened to her before our relationship that I wasn't, like, I grew up. And at least the parts that I remember, right, it was a great childhood. You know, I didn't, I was lalalala, you know, I was a pageant. Right? You know, I mean, in high school, I was one of the, you know, little good goody two shoes, kids in my junior year of high school. And, you know, I remember, between my junior and senior year, I made it onto the cheerleading squad, which at my high school was, was a really big deal. Like the, the male cheerleaders were like, cooler than the football players. And it was, we had a squad of like, seven guys and 14 Girls, and we traveled for different events and things and competitions. And, and I was kind of like the odd man out a little bit, because we got in there. And even though they were all LDS, I was the only virgin, I was the only one that didn't drink and didn't do parties. And, but I was really opened up to this new world, and I would walk down the same hallways in school. And I'd be like, I know that they're being, you know, having sex, or they're doing drugs, I knew all these things that walking down the hall the year before, and no clue. Right. And that was similar with, with the relationship, it wasn't until I moved into a new relationship with Brooke, who does work with trauma and, you know, went through a lot of trauma herself as a, as a child. She would say, you know, she would open up to me about some of those experiences that I was sharing with my, with my ex, and she's like, you know, and I was like, wow, I just didn't see how would you have I didn't see it, because that would didn't even resonate with me. And you know, so it's, it's one of those things where it's like life has continually like, the more you open up to seeing it differently, and allowing yourself to see things and open up to things. The world just continues to shift. And, you know, that's why like, when we talk about religion, I don't have anything against religion. For me, I've, I feel like I've moved to a different space in my life. But one of the books that I like, I love writing, right, and one of the books I've been working on for many years is this concept. And I don't know, maybe I should give, I'll give away the concept here. It's a sixth sense type of thing, but, but the whole premise of it is, is that if I were to take myself now at 48, and I would put myself with myself, and now 48, maybe there's enough of a gap now. But if I had taken myself at 35, and at 45, those two human beings would have both felt very secure in who they were and the way they perceive the world. So much so that both of them would look at the other one and say, Wow, I wish you had some of the insight and information that I have. My 35 year old self, I was married fully LDS for kids, great job. My 45 year old self, I'm divorced, I don't really have I'm not really in religion. Okay, I'm not in religion. Unless less, it's like the religion of science or AI or whatever, I don't know. But there's, there's a but every, we all live in religions in a way but but you know, to see to see this person who is, you know, just such different people, but both of us seeing life from our own lens. And so that the concept of the book is that there are these two individuals that are opposed to each other throughout the book. And it's only as it gets to the end that they realize that they're actually the same person just separated, you know, the bride into the same time. And you know, I've always had a fascination with writing books that make you switch your thinking. Like the idea, you know, we talked a little bit about him early on, but starting the book, where and I'm going to remove Hitler as the example but let's say well just start a book with somebody who, as you get to know them, you start to believe what, what they believe and how they're aligned and you see how they're You're trying to be good. But then you switch to the other person's point of view. And by the end of the book, you're like realizing that, well, the the one that would normally not be considered good is the one that I had first fell in line with and liking what they were talking about. And I love trying to make people think that way. That's one of the reasons I love writing, I believe that empathy is a skill that can be grown. I didn't used to believe that I used to have a fixed mindset on empathy. But I believe empathy can be, can be grown now. And the best way to grow empathy is one on one conversation, right. And you know, travel is a huge way to grow empathy. But then, to me, reading is a huge path to empathy, when you can sit down and listen to someone else's words, and really step into those words. You can really grow empathy. And that's, that's one of the reasons I love to write. And I love to help people tell their stories. I love that we're going to talk a little bit about what you do in a minute. But one of the things that keeps coming to my mind is, I love this idea that you're you're sharing because, you know, if my 25 year old self, or 22 year old self knew my 42 year old self, I don't know that she would be really scared by my 42 year old self of like, Wait, what are you doing? And who are you? And no, that bumps too much against my world? I'm out. Yeah. And, you know, everything that we're sharing, and even everything that this podcast does. We live in a world where we are so taught all these things outside of us, right? God's outside of us religion is is, hey, do this, do this, do this, everything that you're sharing you're experiencing, was really outside of you, well, I'm a giver. So I just give to everyone else. And meanwhile, the person that you were was just getting lost and lost and lost. When you talk about you and your wife, both were wanting to be seen and heard the truth in the matter. And even what I'm experiencing with my husband, now, there are pieces that he was looking for me that I could never satisfy for him, because he actually was looking for that for himself. Same thing with you. Same thing with your wife. And that's what I think is fascinating, that we really hungry, this is such a deeper conversation and a longer conversation that that gets to be happen one of these days. But at the end of the day, our society has been so focused on consumption, consumption, consumption, consumption, from food, to sex, to money, to relationships, to greed to power, I mean, you look at how much of it and it is all external to try and satisfy something within. And for me, I feel like there is such a huge call on the planet and for all of us to Okay, it's time for that to stop. Like when you're seeing something in your external world, that is just and you're allowing for these things to happen. This is what I posted today with when we stopped the immune abuse of ourselves first. Because I was in an abusive relationship, I had to really get honest with myself of where am I abusing myself that I would even allow this because this wouldn't be in a resonance. And I'm sure you have looked at that. This wouldn't be in a resonance for me to experience outside of myself, if I wasn't doing that to myself first. Where am I not loving me enough? Where am I not feeling like I'm worthy enough? Or else these things wouldn't be coming in my world. And it is this time for us to really start shifting into asking those really crucial questions within ourselves, so that we can satisfy those pieces within us so that we're not continually attracting abusive relationships or attracting these things that we're constantly a victim to going, why on earth does this keep happening in my life? It's like, well, something's screaming for you to look at within you. And do you have enough courage to look at what that is, because it's time for you to own your shit, we need a whole nother we need to spend hours on that one. You know, I think that often people and this is another concept that I speak to a lot as well as very similar to what you're saying is, we often feel like we're living in dissonance with ourselves and not resonating. And a lot of people have this focus of, well, if we can just get balance in all the elements of our lives. And, and for me, like, again, I'm not, I'm not trying to push against that. But I for me, it's more about harmony, right? To me, balance is a state of standing still, if you're imbalance you're standing still the minute you got to take a step you're not imbalance you're moving. And for me, one of the things that I have people try and look at is, are your actions and your desires aligned, right? And if they're not, then you're then you're in dissonance and you're and you're not resonating with yourself and that comes to relationships too. And, and religion and everything else, is what you're doing resonating with what you want to be. And one of one of the things that I see in religion and in many in many aspects of life, right? Even in relationships, is you'll find something that resonates with you. And you'll find that in this person. And you'll say these things are great. So 20% is resonating really well, you know, 50% is like, yeah, that works for me. And then then you've got this section of space, and I'm not gonna do the math right here. 7050 2030, but you've got this part that doesn't resonate with you at all right? And, you know, I found that in religion, that there were parts of it that really resonated with my soul. And there were other parts that I was like, Okay, this feels okay. And then there were other parts that was like, this doesn't resonate at all. And, you know, going to the, the LDS religion when I was growing up, and, you know, the issue with blacks and not having the priesthood, I would see blacks in church, and I'm like, why would you choose this? Right? Why would you choose something that made you a lesser human? And so there were always the parts that didn't resonate? And, and I think that the the concern that that most people run into is that concern, I don't know if that's the right word. But we often allow the parts that don't resonate with us to stay with us, because we got into it, because of the parts that do resonate. We almost ignore it, or like, or it's like, the I'm just gonna put that on my shelf. Oh, great, great comment. And the religion is, that'll all work itself out. Yeah, right. All right. I don't understand that part yet. But I'm sure one day I will. And, you know, there is to the what you mentioned earlier with, you know, we only have so many decisions that we can make during a day, there is some truth of that of like, okay, when I'm ready to look at that, or when I'm ready, but then it isn't a place of openness, at least for where I'm at in my life right now. It's like, I don't know the answer to this right now. But I'm open to receiving whatever it is, and I know, it'll come when I'm ready. And that's a little bit of a different mindset versus ignoring it. And I'm just not gonna have the conversation around it. Because the truth is, I know what's wrong? You know? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not, I'm not saying that you need answers for everything. In fact, I believe that the healthiest way to live is to be able to sit in a space of unknowing, and not having answers to everything. And, you know, when people come to me now, and they're like, Well, if you don't believe in religion, what's the meaning of life? And what's that? I don't know. I don't have an answer I have, I have such a deeper meaning for what life is for spirituality for what the divine looks like, to me than I did when I was in with with when I was in religion, and this is kind of what I'm speaking to before we are constructs of the world that have been built are so focused on how can we make this outside of someone else so that we can be the puppeteer, frankly, that's what it is. That's the system that we bought into. And religion is one of those pieces. So if we can program you to actually do what we tell you to do. Awesome. Hey, keep up, keep giving us your money. And we can start to talk about linguistics in there, too. Like, the way the language works. But, you know, one of the reasons that, for me that religion is prevalent is because for civilizations and collaboration and community to thrive, you need to have a common underlying belief system. Right. And one of my favorite authors is you've all Harare in sapiens and 21 lessons for the 21st century and Homo Deus and hit the whole series is fantastic. But, but really, there's this everything that we do, is built on story. And all the stories are fiction. Right. And but it's what shared fictions do we have, we have a shared fiction that the US dollar actually means something, right. And because of, because of that shared fiction that we have, we're able to build and thrive on it. When you don't have those shared stories, you don't survive. And religion is one of those unifying stories that says, hey, not only is this something that we can share a belief, but this belief is worth dying for. So if if a group comes out of the woods to kill your little tribe in the cave, instead of just scattering, because you want to live for yourself, you stand and defend, because you have this belief of both, you know, those that you're with, and also this belief of something that is beyond, you know, and a faith. So there's so many places we could go with this conversation. I really am enjoying this, but let me fill into where this gets to go. I don't know. One of the pieces that keeps popping up is Plato's Allegory of the Cave, right? There's these people since birth, or when they were young, they are chained up, and they only see the wall of the cave and there's a fire behind them. So all they ever see are the shadows and then one prisoner breaks free goes out into the world and is so blinded by the light that can't even you can't even see really it takes them how long to be able to see and asking the people there. What is this? Who what what is all of this? It's like it's this cognitive dissonance is happening. And yet there's evidence of him right in front of him where he can touch it and see and feel Do it, and then finally realizes, Oh, it's this thing called the sun, that is giving light. And so when he goes back into the cave, right and tries to tell the prisoners, hey, holy cow come out, come out, come out. And they're freaked out, they won't, they won't believe in whatever he's presenting. So these are the stories, I think that it's fascinating that you bring that up, because the narrative that gets to be created and who's creating it, and what are you choosing to buy into is a fascinating question to ask yourself, and I'm saying yourself as far as not YouTube, but all of us right to ask that question of, what are we buying into? And when we have cognitive dissonance? Maybe that's actually an indicator to recognize that, okay, this is what I'm having, having? And can I be open to looking at it just a little bit deeper to see if there isn't truth underneath it, because there has been a story I bought into, and now I'm choosing not to buy into it anymore. So my world feels like it shifting in such a way I don't even know what to do. You know, when people leave religion, the waters afterwards, trying to navigate those waters are very challenging. Because their perception, their filters have now shifted. And they're navigating in a world that is colored now very differently. And at first, it's often gray. Because these things that I bought into that were light, and I knew where I was going, and somebody could, you know, I bought into it. And I felt like it was spirituality. And I felt like I had a testimony. And I felt that. And now I'm choosing out of that. And now that's dying. What are the new stories that I am creating for myself? Or that I'm buying into anything that that's a really fascinating thought to sit with of what are the stories that I'm buying into? And are they my stories? Or are they someone else's? Yeah. And that that, like, I get chills here? And that question, I think that's fantastic, right? It's one of the one of the fascinating things about life, is that it's impossible to remember the exact way we felt before finding out something different because as soon as our knowledge and information changes, we can't go back and be that person that we were or think that way. And memory. You know, the studies and things show that every time we access a memory, we change that memory. And one of the one of the discouraging statistics is like our memories are at most 50% True, right? And that happens in relationships, like going back to my 25 years in that relationship. You know, I didn't stay in 25 years of just hell and awfulness, right? There were many, many beautiful times in, in that relationship, and, you know, things that made it worth that, you know, we often don't shift or change until the pain of stain is worse than the pain of shifting. And but it's it's easy now. And I know on both sides, it's easy to look back and, and be more focused on the things that yes, it was obvious, I should have left that like 10 years ago, right? Well, hindsight, hindsight is 2020. But really is it it's only because that's the way we've shifted our memory to align. Because we have this need to feel this consistency in ourselves and believe that the choices that we're making have meaning and movement. You know, one of the quotes that a lot of people say is that everything happens for a reason, right? And are successful people know that everything happens for a reason. And for me, that's a little bit. I don't quite buy into that. And instead, I shifted just a little bit to say, successful people give reason to everything that happens. And if you can build on your experience, and give it reason and purpose to help you move to a new space, that's powerful. And that's taking, again, that's going from the external like you were talking about to the internal and it's taking that power into yourself, instead of giving it to some external force or somebody externally that's pulling the strings, you know, go to lunch with a co worker, if it's about business, and be the strong enough when to say that internally, I have the power to make whatever choice I want to hear, you know, it's that I don't need some external force saying I'm gonna make you attracted to him because, you know, take ownership of your decisions take ownership of what you're doing. Yeah. Well on that that was something that we talked about too before we started recording was the constructs of relationships in general, I do believe are asking to be shifted. And we can have, when I write about this, you flipped up on my book, I was showing you some of my books and I end up writing about sacred sexuality and how oftentimes the connections that we're asking to have with another human being it doesn't matter if they're male or female, there still can be a charge there with another person that actually could be just creative energy. in general that you're feeling, but often we confuse it for sexuality, or it gets to be this taboo taboo experience of will shit if I'm, if I do this, and that's crossing a barrier, or a boundary or a line. And really, I feel like in relationships to what you spoke to earlier, when you go into more of a conscious construct within a relationship of hey, for me, I choose monogamy, this is something that I prefer to have in a relationship for a lot of different reasons because of my, my belief system. And in that, however, I totally trust you, I trust myself and how I'm going to navigate I trust you and how you're going to navigate. And if something down the road happens, then let's have a conversation about it. You know, other people, I have a really good friend who believes that to experience love, in a deeper way it gets to be through an open relationship, and then she has a construct with her husband, and it works for them. And I think this is where we get to start being open to how relationships get to be recognizing that some people are going to have a pendulum swing. I mean, I've seen that. I don't know if you've seen that. myself. I've seen that very much. So yeah, like, Hey, let's go explore all this. And, and I do you know, especially out of religion you go from, we're married for all time and eternity to you're divorced, I'm divorced, been divorced, a few times relationships, and we learn things from each relationship. And now what do I get to create and life of, you know, I believe multiple, we have multiple lifetimes. So maybe we've had multiple lifetimes together? And will we know each other in the next lifetime? Or after this life? Absolutely. Whether we're married or not, whether we have this paper piece of paper or not, like, we know that energy continues to move, it doesn't ever die. And we are energy. So it is my favorite quotes by Einstein, right? Is the his quote on where energy. So do you remember what the quote is? I would butcher it, but it's like, you know, we are all energy. And it's, it's not religion, it's, it's science, it's just science, or physics or something like that. And so you're gonna have to pull out the real quote, and like, just edit me out of this. I'm supposed to be the quote guy. And all I can remember is that, like, I put you on the spot, actually, you put you on the spot, I did put myself on the spot. And for me, like, I often remember quotes, but I remember them as a feeling. And so there are some, you know, and this is just different personalities, there are people that, like, you know, Brooke is one that is very, very good at remembering words. And in fact, she sees a lot of her life as words on a chalkboard, right? And for me, I remember feelings about words. And it's beautiful, when you can bring those together and see see from each other's different things. But are you trying to look, I'm trying to find it, but I don't. It's not even a big deal. But I mean, Einstein has so many amazing, amazing, amazing quotes. Um, one of the things that I want to touch on here is something that you and I had talked about before that was, there is a really interesting, fine line. Where Yes, when we get to a point in our life, where we own our ship, right, we own the pieces, you got the quote, hey, let's hear it. Okay, it says, Everything is energy. And that's all there is to it match the frequency of the reality you want. And you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics. I love it. Why does this quote say I? That's insane, right? I believe it's Einstein, the internet, he taught, he's told me that on the internet, so it must be true. The interwebs says, Oh, my goodness, I didn't mean to cut you off. That's perfect. I know where I was that there is this really interesting, fine line. And it's something that I'm going through right now, when we go into personal development and self development. We get really good with claiming and owning our ship, we get really good with, you know what I attracted that because of this. And there is I feel like a subtle shift that's asking to be happy happened, where I recognize this with my kids. I protected their dad all day long until something happened. And it was like, we're done. We're done. And now I get to actually start and their dad is a good person. And right now we have a really good relationship. And he's a much better person with his partner than he was with me. I feel the same about my I just want to make sure that that I that was and and I got to a point to where, yes, I could continue protecting, or I could start teaching my kids, hey, this behavior is actually not normal. And this is the tools that I would invite you to start using and learning. And so their data has been a really huge gift to them with how to recognize different behavioral patterns and how to navigate it. And at a very young age, they're learning these things that I had no idea About and had I known about that I probably wouldn't have attracted different aspects in my life. And even more recently, I've personally been going through some things of where am I allowing myself to continue to be walked on, because I can see my part in it. Instead of owning my part, it's a difficult. Yes. And you had spoken to this about your children, because of the things that you allowed to happen, you don't have a really great relationship with a few of them now, which is heartbreaking for me to hear. And these are some of my best friends, right? You You always your kids are like some of your closest friends. And it's, it is tough. Yeah. Because they, and I believe that they choose into us as their parents, they chose into what they were going to, you know, to some degree, what level of experiences we were all going to have together, even to what you're at now. And I feel like there is a call more to Hey, yes, we can own the things that happened, it doesn't change what happened. And I can still acknowledge, hey, this was really shitty behavior of what you did, and I'm not okay with that. And this is a boundary that actually will communicate that this is a boundary and communicate these pieces and take my ownership in my part in it, but also the ownership of what happened. Yeah, because what happened was real. And I feel like there, this is a very fine line that gets to be navigated. And this comes to the more and more we know ourselves and become more aligned with who we are, then we get to know when we get to open our mouths, and say, Hey, by the way, these things that you're being told are not true. And this is the truth of the body. And that's such a tough one. Because, you know, especially being in personal development, we, one of the first things we teach is that your feelings matter. And the way your your memory, your truth is important, right? You know, I like to talk in terms of and I do this with a lot of words, but like big T and little t so they're big T truths and little T truths. And we all live in our own little T truths. And frankly, I don't even know what any big T truths are, I think that the more little T's that align, the bigger the, the bigger, the big T seems. But you know, I don't know what Big T truths would be when we all live our own realities. But when I have, you know, when we have beliefs, even if those beliefs are inaccurate, you know, approaching that in a way that people feel seen and heard, is still critically important. You know, I look at my kids, and they have their beliefs, and I have my beliefs and me opposing their beliefs isn't going to draw us any closer together, right. And so all I can do is work on me and being the best version of myself that I can be. And one of the goals that I have set for myself is, you know, I've, I've done a lot of books in the background for other people, but I'm moving more into the space of sharing my own voice and my own words, so that, as my children seek that out, they can they can find me, yeah, you know, but we all live in these spaces. Like, I haven't, I haven't had any communication with my oldest for several years. And it's a space where, you know, I look at it, and I, I see things that I did, and I see things that I would do differently. And, and I can see places where I could have done it differently, but it's where we are and the more that we can live in a space where we can set goals and intentions that don't require time travel of changing the past, the more happy that and more joy that we can find. But I'll tell you, like, the grief of not having my son in my life, is the closest I can liken it to is if I had a son go off to war. And he didn't come home, but they never found his body. So it's a space of Do you grieve that loss? Do you do you bury that relationship? Or do you continue to hold out hope that it might someday come back and I and I'm in no way trying to imply that it's the same as losing a son to death. But there is a good analogy, elements of parents that are in that situation it is what do you do? Yeah. And for me, I don't even know if my son is married. My ex won't tell me anything about his life. I could be a grandfather. I don't know. I just don't know any of those things right? But being able to settle in and be at peace with what is and you know, I love how Brendon Burchard uses the phrase strive satisfied. And I've always loved that phrase because that that shows the ability to to be okay with what Is but to still have hope and dreams and desire to to create something different rather than just so it's that space between just floating with the world or, you know, we talked about on the one end you're like wanting to make everything happen your way. And on the other end, you're like, I'm at peace with everything that is and and I don't feel comfortable in either of those spaces, right? Well, I think that we're we never I think we never well because the truth is the reality is if we ever get to I used to always think I would, especially after leaving religion, that I would go to my mountaintop, I would be evolved. And I would like I would figure out life secrets, and I would sit on the mountain top and I'd be peaceful. And for me what I found it actually I climbed that mountain top and then they're like, oh, shit, there's another mountain top. And it's been a much harder journey and a lot of ways because this is that personal development piece, right? That has come since me leaving religion. But I believe like water, you know, when water goes stagnant, has no flow, it's gross water, you don't want to drink out of that you don't want to touch that you don't even want to be near it. Because the nastiness that's coming off of that we are always meant to be evolving and growing. So I don't you know, we can have satisfaction with where we're at in our lives. But then something will come in that will be like, Oh, well, let's go look at this, or let's go, why don't we go try and create this thing. Because when life gets to, we get to have curiosity and play in life. And we get to have more, more fun. And at the end of the day, I do believe that it would be nice if we can start all shifting into this what gets to be created? Yeah, you know, and, and I think it was Buddha that a friend of mine was telling me about how Buddha, there's a philosophy that when we can look at everything as curiosity, then there is a lot more lightness and more fun of oh, this is interesting that this is happening. That's, you know, how can I be curious about this? And how can I ask the question, so it is not so holy shit. Why is this happening to me? What did I do wrong? What how is God punishing me? What did I do to deserve this? Yeah. Which we all do. We all do to a certain extent. And I think that the more that we can move into a space of realizing like it's a very childlike belief, and children believe that everything that's happening around them is because of them. Right? Even, you know, children, young children that go through divorce, see the divorces is their fault, often, right? I had my, my youngest who I think he was nine or 10 at the time, like so this was, Well, maybe he was 11. But this is, you know, two or three years ago, he came in and he sat on the bed. And he said, Dad, everything changes, nothing stays. And I said, yeah, yeah, that's true. And he's like, so what's the point? He's like, he's like, what's the point? If nothing lasts, and we happen to be we happen to have a box of Oreos, or in container Oreos on the bed. And, and, you know, I just in kind of a moment of wisdom, like I gave him one of the Oreos, and I said, Do you want this? And he said, Yeah, and, and I said, Well, once you eat it, it's gone. And he's like, that's true. And I said, but did you enjoy it while you were eating it? And he said, I did. And I said, Well, that's that's the point. So did you enjoy eating the Oreo? And we still to that this day, use that analogy. He'll be like, he's like, I enjoyed that Oreo while it lasted. So I love that analogy. That's a beautiful, and what a beautiful teaching point with your son to have. So our time is probably should. I know. And I'd love to have here's part two, we could we could record a few episodes together. But tell me a little bit about what or tell our listeners a little bit about what you do. Because I think it's quite fascinating. Yeah. Okay. So I, I love to help people tell their stories. And the company that I have is book Jedi. And I do retreats. To help people tell their stories. I work with a lot of celebrities and professional athletes and executives, to help them write their stories. But even more than putting stories into books. To me, what I love to do is to help people see the stories in their lives, and recreate the stories in their lives to be able to build a life by design. I believe that that we have the power within us to live whatever life we want to live. And our lives are defined by the stories that we tell ourselves and by the stories that we tell others and helping helping people find the story of themselves that resonates with themselves is what I'm all about. I'm a big believer that, you know, we're all in sales. We're always constantly selling and this You know, you can realize you're in sales, the sooner you can shift your life to be the life that you want it to be. True, true. But you also and you also offer retreats you? Yeah, I do retreats, we call them book Jedi masterminds, we go to unique locations where, again, curiosity, creativity, all those things help people get into flow help them get into those mindset. So I work a lot with, you know, one of one of my good friends is Steven Kotler. And I've helped him so much on some of his recent books around flow and peak performance. And we really take those concepts into writing as well. You know, when, when you are in a state of creativity and curiosity and things those those energies can flow in when, when we take you and put you in? Spaces like Well, we went to Costa Rica, and we would sit there and we would say, Okay, what is the challenge that you're working on? What is the story that you're telling? Okay, now, now hold that in your mind and we're gonna go whitewater rafting. And or we're gonna go out and we're going to teach everybody to do surfing and, and go to whoops, sorry. I put this on her anyway, I put it on, put it on, do not disturb. Do not disturb me. I had to create a personal note on my phone. That's like nobody can call through because even on Do Not Disturb people who are on your favorites, or Ken will still come through. Yeah. So anyway, so you go whitewater rafting, and then we come back. And then we sit down, we say, Okay, what came to you, because our brains are designed to connect dots. And often why we say Hindsight is 2020 is because our brains can connect the dots of our lives and create this illusion of consistency. And we are the same as who we were. But as you mentioned, you know, your 20 year old self would be like, Who is this? Right? And we continually, like, I believe in multiple lifetimes, as well. But I also believe that within this lifetime, we've all lived multiple lifetimes, could write a story about different parts in your life where you're like, I don't even know who that person is anymore. But I know that was, that was me at the time. You know, I had Lyme disease, when I was 20. And it it almost killed me like they they sent me home from New York with the intention of me dying with my family. And, you know, I look back on that, and I'm like, I don't even like, that's hard. Even that's hard, even put that person into who I am. And, you know, even even being married for 25 or 20 plus years with in a relationship for 25, my 13 year old who was the same one that asked about the Oreos, he'll be like, Okay, tell me some of your favorite memories from this time. And I'll be like, Wow, I would have to sit down and pull those up. Because, right? It's not because they weren't meaningful, but it's a different life now. And it's a different space. And you know, Brooke always uses this phrase of beauty and destruction. And what that means is that life is constantly changing. And we're always going to be losing things when we're gaining things. And that can be hard. I actually hate the phrase. Perfect, but the more I can lean into it, the better the better it is. But anyway, I love that. I don't remember where I was rambling on that one, just with how our minds do they can put together the pieces. Oh, yeah, yeah, so we and so. So these, these, these experiences are meant to help you pull together the pieces of your life that create the story that that helps you that serves you and one of my favorite questions is, is this belief serving you? So is it true? Is it really true? And is it serving you? Yeah. And, you know, you know, I talk about Brooke a lot. But she is she is fantastic at this, she has taken some incredibly difficult challenges through her life and turn them to a space of helping others. And, you know, I, I've done this with my marriage as well, I've been able to help other people moving out of relationships, much better navigate the relationship, not because I'm so good at it, but because I can I have tools now that I didn't have, and I can see things that I did that that broke. For me, I think one of the biggest things we do as as parents and as friends, is we often try and tell people, the way we did something that worked so that they can do it the same way, when what we really should be doing is showing them tools that they can use to figure out the way that works for them. And for me as a parent, I really try and give that to my kids of I don't want to determine the life they want to live. I want them to be able to determine the life they want to live. And what I want to do is be able to provide tools that help them get there more easily. So when you talk about refiners fires, that's one of my favorite cons. That's right. The coolest people, you know, are the people that have been through some of the toughest crap, right? But I don't want to have to go through tough crap to be cool. So So can I narrow? I have, right? But can I can I Is there a way that we can narrow the time that you have to spend on that, and I sat there, I love the analogy of the one I share with people. And I agree with you, I, the analogy I share with people is you can go to the gym every day, and you can just work out, and you'll eventually get into shape, right. But if you have a trainer, and you have someone that can say, this is the way that you can work through this, then you can get to the space, you want to be in much quicker. And I believe that that can happen with trauma and everything else. You know, I'm helping a friend, we're writing a book together. And one of the topics that we're talking about the other day was trauma. And you know, this is a really difficult space to be in. So I don't know that we can get into it here. But, but in essence, you know, everything that we are living now. You know, if if you're still feeling and trauma about something that happened 20 years ago, that that is the trauma is not happening to you. Right now. It happened then. And I'm not downplaying trauma at all trauma is very real. And we feel it and our feelings are real. But there, I do believe there are ways that we can approach it differently than we have traditionally. And different ways that we can look at it and take back are power. Yeah. And I think that's a huge thing that that is worth, it's totally absurd on its own. I agree. And I think to what you're speaking to is oftentimes when when we don't have the tools, then we are just going through the motions. And a lot of time the unconscious mind is running the show and the unconscious mind has all the programs that were created from the abuse from the trauma through and they were often created when we're like five years old. Well, it is from zero to what nine is when you know, and I, I because I'm an NLP practitioner, I love the mind. And it is fascinating. And, and, yes, this is a whole other podcast. And one thing that keeps popping up that I would like to make sure that I offer here because I know a lot of people are in relationship stuff. And we talked about relationships here. When our hearts and our heads are not aligned, which often they are not. It feels very chaotic and very confusing, especially in relationships. But one thing that I as as when you go through different relationships, one of the things that I I'll ask my clients, and I'll I forgot about this question, and I just came back up, I'm like, do you feel like you're done. So if anybody is in a relationship right now, where they're feeling really confused, because there's a lot of relationships that are ending, I would invite you to ask the question, do you feel like this really, you are done with this relationship? Because usually you will right now. And the minute that I asked that question, you just answered it, yes or no? And whatever that answer was, is your answer. Instead of getting into the head? It's your heart that's responding. You either know if you're finished with this relationship if it feels complete, or if not. And if it was a no, then you get to go navigate what the next chapter looks like. And if it's a yes, you get to navigate that part. But often it does come down to that simple question. Does this relationship feel complete? Is it done? And in my experience, we all know that the answer that question, we just get into our heads as far as all the other little things, and the How am I going to and how is this? Whatever it is, but when you can get really simple. And when we leave religion, trusting our intuition is tricky. And one of the easiest indicators, best indicators that I like to offer is your intuition is calm. It's usually quiet. But it's calm, your mind chatter, the all the other things is chaotic. Its world windy. And that is not your intuition that is not that God, Self that's communicating with you. It is the calmness where the answers lie. I love that. I think for me transitioning out of religion, one of the most difficult pieces was was the idea of letting go of someone else already seen what was going to happen having an answer for me if I just listened, right, or this idea of the Holy Ghost because we actually are taught and conditioned. And I write about it in my book, but we were taught and conditioned that and we don't realize is the Holy Ghost is actually our intuition. The Holy Ghost is the one whispering and giving me promptings. And actually, no, that was you. You just were taught that this was the Holy Ghost that was external that you can only have through baptism. And if you did anything that was bad, like swearing, you know, then that holy ghost would go out of the room. You said but oh my gosh, now the Holy Ghost is leaving I need to start singing a church him, bring it in, bring it in. And it's like, no, this is again, just part of that conditioning in that programming that no, this is been with you the entire time. Anyway, again, going off on a little tangent Holy crap. If people wanted to find you chip how, how would they find you? Yeah, the best way to find me is, you know, you can go to book jedi.com or chip hopper.com. And I'm also on a number of social media platforms as Chip hopper. So awesome. I will make sure I put it in the show notes. As we are wrapping this container up. Is there anything else you'd like to offer to the space to those that are listening? Well, I just want to say, Amanda, you are amazing. And our circles have floated very close for many, many years. And it's crazy that we haven't sat down more, but I absolutely intend to have more interaction with you. Because you already felt like a best friend. And I love your insights. And I'm excited about everything you're doing. Well, thank you and feeling is mutual. So it'll be fun to continue conversations outside of this. I'm looking forward to that. Well, thank you anything else? No, just love yourselves. Be kind be kind to be kind of what you've been through kind of what you're going through. kindness and love and acceptance are? Let's just, yeah, we, we all have stuff behind the curtain. Everybody, like I haven't worked ever worked with the client that it hasn't been just a list of, you know, things that they could have done differently might have wanted to do differently. But But except, you know that where you are like, I love when people ask the question of what would you go back and tell your 20 year old self. And I say I wouldn't tell them anything. Because if I did, I wouldn't be who I am today. And you are who you are. Because of everything that's happened to you the good and the bad. I wouldn't take away a lot of the trauma that Brooke has been through because it's made her who she is. And that person is beautiful. And you are beautiful. And you listener like Amanda is also beautiful. We all knew who you're talking to. So anyway, that's it. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for taking the time to two hours later. You're getting so much I appreciate you. So thank you. That was a beautiful conversation that I got to have a chip and the questions and the dynamics that were brought up. That really, my hope is that there are pieces within this that have really created some questions and some inquiry for you to sit with. So like chip mentioned, or like I mentioned, Chip shared his ways that you can get in touch with him that you can follow him and I will share his information down below. But make sure and grab my book, leave me a review. You know, I love to support. I love it when people message and say, you know how these podcasts interviews have assisted you It really means a lot. I don't make money off this podcast. That's why I pitch some of the other things that I do that where I do make money. But I just appreciate you guys and I appreciate the opportunity to do this to spend this time with you with the guests that I have and to be sharing our voices. And this just really assist us all and knowing that we're not alone. And I know I say that all the time because it is really important and we get to be seen and heard. So wherever you are today know that you are not alone. And that I see you I hear you and I am sending you all so much love