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Welcome to the Stay or Go podcast, where we're changing the dialogue around divorce so that no woman ever stays in her marriage out of fear. Get ready to dispel myths, learn life-changing tools, and build a solid foundation in yourself from which to make your decision. And now your host, me, Britta Joe. Hello, y'all. So I just got back from my workout this morning. And on the drive home, I was listening to a couple voxers from some of my one-on-one clients. And um, after listening to their messages, I just felt this like, oh, I need to record a podcast episode just acknowledging what all of us are going through right now. Um for those of you that don't follow astrology, there's been um we're in an eclipse portal currently. There was another one like two weeks ago before this, and I am just seeing all around me just it being really intense and kind of fucking crazy for a lot of us. Um so a heads up, I had originally, you know, I had written this episode earlier this week. Um, I would had a really witchy magical morning. Um, I think it was like maybe Tuesday morning, where I'd woken up at 4 a.m. to um these big great-horned owls in my backyard hooting, and I was just like, ooh, the magic is afoot. And I'd gone through just one of the most intense journeys I've had this year in the two weeks, you know, prior to that. So it was really like soaking and percolating in all of it. So I wrote this whole episode, recorded it. It was like an hour and a half long. I dove really deep into a lot of my personal journey and experiences. And then my um my assistant goes to check it and you know, start editing it to get it up. So it wasn't Tuesday of this week, it must have been Tuesday of last week. Or, anyways, everything's running together at the moment. But needless to say, she goes to edit it this weekend and the sound is messed up. And I don't have an explanation for what I mean, I don't have a logical explanation for why that was. I tested my mic, everything should have worked well. Um, and it was not the case. And so, you know, whole hour and a half long episode just scrapped. And that's why the episode didn't drop on Tuesday. And initially, you know, my brain was a little bit like, ooh, that's interesting. Okay, I guess that episode that I was like so passionate about maybe wasn't meant to come out, or maybe there, you know, just that wasn't the message that needed to be heard. Um, so I'd kind of been sitting this week and just letting that percolate. And this morning was the first time that I'd felt that like that energy come back through around wanting to say something, having something to share. And I can feel that there are themes from that episode that I'm gonna end up talking about in this one. Um, but I think with just a deeper, powerful transmission to you, that I see you right now and I feel you in all that y'all are going through. I mean, I've met a couple of you on 90-minute intensives this week, and even then I'm hearing from you guys that stuff is just picking up and shifting. Um, I mean, I have clients in the last, it's now three weeks, right? But in the last three weeks who we've been working on stuff for like a year, and all of a sudden they've just like up and told their husband in very like whoa, unexpected ways, um, or just partners doing crazy shit that was not expected that moves things forward in a really dramatic way. So I think what I want to start off the episode with is just like framing for you all that you're not alone in this shift. So it's not just you. We're all going through this. Even someone, I know a lot of you listening to the episodes, listening to this podcast may think like, oh, Britta's done so much work, she's got her shit together. Like, babes, I am definitely, I am still human. I have CPTSD, I have all the humanness going on in my own life as well. Yes, as a coach, and especially with my clients, um, I get to take this incredible role of really, you know, seeing what they can't see for themselves. But when it comes to myself, it is a beautiful, wild, crazy ride over here. And what I keep seeing in all of us, my, you know, myself included, I've I've done a lot of work around it in the last few years, but especially in these two clients, is this feeling of like, oh my god, there's so much change, it's so out of my control. I must not be doing it right. Like this idea that there's a right way to do this. And I just I am realizing more and more, I don't think that's the way the world actually works. I think the generations before us really compressed, and like, you know, look at my parents' generation, my grandparents, they thought they could control what was happening in their lives and they could live these predictable lives. And maybe that was the case in those generations, but it is not the case for us now. There are so many left-hand turns and unexpected, like, whoa, that the old ways of operating, of finding your safety in external security, in external predictability, in um a life that you know can be tracked by a spreadsheet, just doesn't work anymore. And that is simultaneously terrifying. I'm watching so many of us like have to live these lives where we're like, holy shit, where's my anchor? Where's my grounding? Right. So it's simultaneously terrifying. And at the same time, I am so passionate about how exciting this can be to live lives that are very soul-led. And I do think there's so much more growth that's possible when we open to the unknown and we let life take us where it's going to take us. Now, that really leads to the heart and soul of what I want this episode, what you know, the episode I recorded previously was about, and what I want this episode to focus on, which is this bigger picture for all of you all that the journey you are on right now around considering divorce and trying to like connect with your soul and clear out old beliefs and really find your truth on making the decision. That that journey is just like a microcosmic place for the big macrocosm of your relationship with life and changing how you interact and relate to life itself. And that's something that I like love knowing. I mean, so many of you come to me and work with me and absolutely we're working, you know, on this decision and through this specific journey of considering divorce. But I know that the skills I'm teaching you, the things we are learning, they are not just going to be for this period of your life. They are going to be for the rest of your life. They are something that they are shifts in your identity, shifts in your ways of relating to yourself, to others, to life that are going to change everything going forward. And I I I just feel super passionate about that because I think that is the work right now that we are experiencing in this new age of Aquarius, like so many illusions falling away, so many old ways of being and relating to life that are dying. And I look all around me and I'm like, man, lots of people are getting wrecked by this. And it it the wreckage is if you will allow it a gift, because from like the Phoenix, from the ashes of the old passing away, something new can emerge that is even more amazing. This is this is the work of like new world building. So welcome to the big picture of why I'm so passionate about what I do, and that the work I do, the the ideas and concepts I'm sharing with you in the podcast, and those of you that I work with one-on-one, and ultimately what I'm wanting to create in this community is a way of life, basically, of relating to life instead of in the old ways of we have all this, you know, predictability and we know what's gonna come next, and we know what's gonna happen, and that makes us feel safe, and that's how we function. Instead, finding safety and security deep within yourself and living your life from that space so that when the inevitable left-hand turns of life show up, you're able to ride those waves instead of being completely thrashed and destroyed by them. So to illustrate that, you know, it's like, okay, how do we? I love taking these big ethereal concepts that you can feel when I talk about them. I'm like, ooh, this is the magic, this is the unknown, this is the, you know, this is the space beyond space kind of stuff, right? But like, how do we take that and then really bring it into a personal, understandable, like digestible format? And what I always fall back on is just using my own experiences in my own life because one, I can convey that much more easily. Um, I know what I'm conveying because I went through it myself. And I do feel like story is what connects us. When we share our stories, when we share our perspectives, we become mirrors for each other and we reflect our own brilliance to others and they see themselves in us. So with that in mind, I want to dive into just a few key instances over the last year that I've been like, as I was thinking over this theme of like a much bigger picture and really wanting to illustrate for y'all that even though I have done so much beautiful healing and beautiful like journey over the last seven years, I am I am not immune to left-hand turns and to life just being like, hey, guess what? Now we're gonna do this. So um I never want I guess I don't want the illusion for all of you that you're gonna get to some point where it's all gonna make sense and you're gonna sit down and be like, ooh, I've arrived. Um and I don't know, you know, also take that with a grain of salt. Some of you, that may be your life path, but for me, um, and I think I've I maybe have mentioned this on the podcast before, I really resonate with the path of the mystic. Um, there's a card in the Kim Crans Wild Archetype deck that I just, it's the mystic, and I love it so much because it describes this journey of forever being open to the unknown and forever allowing there to be questions and uncertainty. And that is definitely a huge piece of my gift. I think it's why I'm here in whatever this big thing is that we're doing called life, um, because it allows me to stay open and receptive to life unveiling more and more of me to myself through my non-resistance and my opening to what it has to teach me. And, you know, when I one day end up on my deathbed, that's what I want most. I want to be able to look back and be like, fuck yeah, that was such a wild ride. And I was here for, you know, as much of it as I possibly could be with all the complexities of my trauma and my CPTSD. So um coming back to that moment that I was speaking about earlier of waking up, it would have been last week. Um, now that I'm thinking through the chronology, you know, 4 a.m. in the morning, going outside, and these beautiful um great-horned owls hooting back and forth to each other. And while I was standing there out under the stars, just listening to them and letting those sounds just kind of thrum and vibrate through my body, I found myself being reminded of another um instance in my life a while back when um I had also, just after the burn, been down in San Francisco and in this beautiful there, it's called the Muir Woods. I was down there with some friends and um happened to be woken up in the middle of the night, same thing, very early in the morning, and ended up walking up the hill by myself in the dark. And while I was hiking in these beautiful, deep, dark, mysterious woods, once again heard these owl calls and like stopped and just sat there and was like, oh my God, I can't believe this is my life. Because, you know, a year ago I had just gone to Burning Man. I was in these woods that, you know, my ex-husband and I had lived in Oakland. So we'd been down in those woods before. And so here I was in this location that I'd been in previously, and yet my life looked nothing like it had just the nine or 10 years before when we had lived there. So I think encapsulated in that, and something that's kind of a theme in my life that seems to come back around over and over is being in locations that I've been in previously, and then having moments further on in time where I'm in those locations and I'm like, oh my God, I remember back then who I was, and now I'm standing in a similar location, and I'm somebody completely different. And I want to reassure you all that I think this is part of a much bigger plan. Um, I don't know who's in charge of the plan. I don't know, I can't tell you all that piece. But I see it all around me of people waking up and as I've said before, having very different trajectories of growth over their lifetimes. And I want to emphasize, especially when it comes to us as women, this seems to be the writing on the wall. Like women are realizing that, you know, we have more rights than we've ever had before in the millennia of humanity. And we are realizing that we are not gonna go back to the dark ages of men and governments telling us what we can and can't do with our bodies and taking away our rights to get divorced without fault and being able to have access to birth control, like, and and even like beyond that, like our rights to decide if we want to stay in a marriage or not, our rights to have a career, or in the span of my own lifetime, y'all. I've seen what I see on the macrocosm happen in my own, right? Going from a super controlling patriarchal religion that really defined my role as a woman, and it was so, so tiny. And through the process of my life, shedding those beliefs and being like, no, I trust myself. I this doesn't work for me. This doesn't feel good for me. My body is collapsing under the weight of these cultural ideas, and over time steadily reclaiming my right to have autonomy over myself, to be a true adult without other people kind of, you know, controlling or telling me it was always like my mother or um my ex-husband or my religion, some identity in my external world or that had infiltrated my internal systems, telling me who I needed to be and what the right kind of life was. And through that journey, coming into more alignment with following my truth. And that feels really scary as a woman. Like, this is such an incredible journey to do, and it is not easy. And I want to acknowledge that, especially to those of you like my clients this morning that are messaging me, just like, holy fuck, this is hard. And just saying, Yes, I see you, and the work you are doing is so vital and so needed. This is, like I said earlier, this is the work of building a new world, of building a world where we exist not in patriarchal structures of power over, but where we are in relationships of mutuality, right? Of interdependence. And something that I do want to emphasize, especially as we are coming up on the election, and oh, I've just been feeling it so strongly watching all of this that, you know, for those of you that don't know, and this is something I really, I you know, I really have not, I was not involved in politics. I was not, it's just such a caustic area to like be in at all. And as Joe will tell you, as Quinn will tell you, I really don't watch the news very much because it's just so heavy for me. But one thing I have researched and been really um wanting to talk about on the podcast and just make all of you aware of is legislation that it has been talked about of getting rid of no fault divorce. Like, I don't know how many of you know about this, but this is a really big fucking deal for this community, for women considering divorce. These plans to roll back no fault divorce in project 2025 are very, as I've thought about it. I mean, my feeling has been like, oh my God, thank goodness I I've already made that decision and I will never have to like, well, who knows if I'll never have to worry about it, right? Never say never. But as of right now in my life, I don't have to worry about losing my right to leave my marriage without having to prove fault. Um, but that is very distressing to me that you know, in Project 2025, that is part of the agenda. And I think it's so, I just want to encourage all of you, like there are powerful entities at play right now who are considering things that will directly impact you. And I want all of you to have the rights. I think it is an incredible, very, very special right that we have in the US right now to be able to get divorced. Um, and especially I'm gonna include in the show notes an article all about this and just how important it is. I remember reading some research that just blew my mind that, you know, there was an 8 to 16% decrease in female suicides after states enacted no-fault divorce. And as I've said in previous episodes, the majority of, you know, percentage-wise people filing for divorce are women. So there are big things going on in the world. You can see how people are afraid to let the old ways of relating go, the old ways of governments being in control and people having to defer to them. And I get it. I I think if you look at the evolution of humanity over big stretches of time, change is what scares us the most. Right? The unknown. Will it be better? Will it be worse? And I just want to like kind of reach out through the space and the distance and say, like, I truly believe it's gonna be better. I think we are headed, I see it all around me. I see, especially like in my relationship with Joe, which I'm gonna talk about a in depth a little bit more later on, that there are those of us making big changes, being willing to go look at our childhood traumas, being willing to heal, to open to new ways of relating and interacting with the world and honoring ourselves and believing, you know, this is another piece that I don't talk about much, but like healing our relationships with money and changing that. Like money is a huge piece of what keeps people trapped in lives where they don't actually ever give what I believe are their truest gifts to give because they're just struggling to get by. So just know that more than ever before, I really believe that we, specifically as women, are being called on to trust our inner knowings and to do the work of clearing out the self-cannibalizing programming of the external forces that in the past and even still benefit from cutting us off from our truths. And that is not pretty work, and that is not, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it or say that it's easy, but damn, is it needed because it is the brave work that shifts society, that shifts the world, right? Um, and I look around me and I see so many people who are really afraid to do it, you know, and especially I feel um over these last two weeks, as I'll talk about, I saw I got to see how much the masculine is just floundering at the moment. Um, even in our conscious community, um, I was really a lot of illusions fell away from me, and I realized, like, oh my God, the masculine just the patriarchy has fucked them over as well so badly. And with this wave of women, you know, rising and really expanding into their biggest selves, they don't know what to do. And um, and that is like hard and difficult. I see it in so many of you when you're watching how like your choices, watching your partner instead of rising, watching them like crabs in a bucket, try to like pull you down or um frantically control you or put you back into a power over situation. And to that, I just have to say, like, keep going forward. This is the crumbling that has to happen. This is the the painful price of society and and us as uh as a species evolving into what I what I'm not even gonna say I hope, what I know will be better in the future. So, with that kind of I know on this episode I'm gonna like go into like big overarching themes. I just am gonna, because that's that's how my brain works. But this is this is that bigger picture that I'm just gonna keep coming back to of framing your pain and the hard work you are going through right now, clearing out those beliefs through the lens of how you are through your own personal work setting off these ripples and these cascades out through the people you love around you. And if you have kids through them that echo out through the future and create a future that is really what I think so many of us desire and want for ourselves and for the generations to come. Okay, so one of the key tenants that I wanted to emphasize to help kind of ground us throughout the episode is that this work of evolving yourself, what it really comes back to in like its most simplistic terms is understanding your current beliefs and then allowing those beliefs that are no longer serving you. So you realize your beliefs are what create your reality and they are what create the future. And so if you want a different future, you have to look at the beliefs that have created your past and change those beliefs to get something different. And this goes back to that quote that's like, you know, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always had, or something like that. I'm paraphrasing it. But if you are not changing the fundamental beliefs that you have about yourself, about the world, then you're just gonna repeat what you've had in the past. So I wanted to give you some of the beliefs that I went through, that I was like developing the new beliefs that were coming online for me when I was considering divorce. And, you know, just to like I guess framework it a little bit, you know, some of the beliefs I had coming into that process would have been like, you know, divorces, divorces is never a good choice. Um, I don't get divorced. Um, I need to trust God and the prophet. My husband is, you know, in authority that I need to work with and listen to. Um, I can't trust myself. There's something wrong with me. Okay. Those were all things that had gotten me to that point in my life, which you guys know was like super depressed, having lots of suicidal ideations and like the lowest point I've ever been, as far as like wanting to be alive and also, you know, how I was showing up as a mother. Now, through the process of all of that therapy and the coaching work that I did, I changed those beliefs into these new ones. New ones that fueled my ability to take the actions that led me to leaving my marriage. So those new beliefs were like I have a right to have desires for my life. I no longer abandon myself to make others happy or to not rock the boat. I fill my cup first and others get the overflow from that. It is safe to say no to people and they get to be mad. That's a lot of like cleaning up the people pleasing, right? Um, if it doesn't resonate in my body or light me up, it's a no. So it may blow your mind now to think that I didn't believe those things. But guys, for real, at the beginning of my journey, I did not believe those things about myself. That was a huge piece of the work. And when you're doing that work, you've got the it's like the old beliefs are online, but they're slowly being like taken down. So those are those neural connections, those neural pathways that the less you keep going down them, they it's like they get old and then they collapse and dissolve while simultaneously practicing and bringing online the new neural pathways. And I'll give you a like an imagery to help you understand this. I was actually sharing this with a client this week. It's like your old ways, the old ways that have gotten you where you're at right now, are like that six-lane highway. You know, it's just you get on it, you don't even have to think, and you just fly 90 down the freeway. 90 here in Texas. That's how we drive. Like you're just on autopilot. But now you've realized, wait a second, yes, I can go really fast on that freeway, but it's not actually going where I want to get to. You're saying the destination isn't actually what I want. So to change that, you now have to slow the fuck down, put your car in not your car, your SUV in four-wheel drive and get off the feed, you know, onto the feeder road and then start trekking through the jungle, like out into the wilderness. And Brene Brown is so like big on this. So if if you're like, oh my God, this is speaking to me, I need more, go start reading a lot of Brene's Brown, Brene Brown's books about, um, I know she has one that specifically speaks about the wilderness, but it's this idea that you have to be brave enough to slow down and go start creating a new path, trekking a new way instead of just what feels the most, and I'm gonna put this in air quotes, comfortable. And that's where so many of you get hung up because you're like, why is this so hard? Why does this feel so awful? Yeah, because we're having to slow down and actually feel and actually hack through the jungle that nobody else was willing to do. But in doing that, you create a new way, a new path, a new reality, a new world, a new future for yourself and for anybody who, you know, you inspire or your children that come after you. So another shift. So I want you guys to think. So I had these beliefs, you know, before I went through my considering divorce, while I went through the journey of considering divorce, I created new ones that allowed me to actually make my decision. And then, as those of you who've listened will know, I then went through a whole period of my journey where all this shit went down with my family and, you know, my best friend and I, our relationship split apart. And through that whole piece, guess what I did? I did the work of bringing online new beliefs and letting go any that were holding me back or not supporting the new growth. So some of the new beliefs that came online with that whole experience were like, I can trust myself first and always. Um a big one that was around my dad, right? And testifying at his, what is why is that word escaping me? His trial. There we go. Um, was a belief that my story matters and I have a right to speak my truth. A new one was I powerfully show up and protect those I love. And I do not protect predators or remain silent when I see or experience abuse. So I'm just having a moment too where I'm like, oh my God. And can you guys all see how the work that I did in creating those new beliefs is now greatly serving me in my podcast. Like this whole my story matters and I have a right to speak my truth. Like I know that viscerally because I went and walked that path. I hacked that jungle. And now I get to enjoy a life and the benefits of living in a way where that is my truth. And that truth, that new belief that's online and like vibrant and powerful now, leads to me taking all these actions of having a podcast, starting a community, making big, beautiful waves in the world in the ways I want to. That wouldn't have been possible without that piece of my journey coming in previously. And that's I just get like the jitters and the excitement because I'm like, do you all see it? Do you see how just like those two episodes I gave you guys before this one, your journey is perfectly tailored to you. So, yes, whatever you're going through right now may not make sense. And it may be like, what is going on? Why is this happening? I don't understand. But I guarantee you, it is giving you a piece of the puzzle, some unlocking, some kind of code or belief for you that is gonna be needed in the rest of your journey. Right? And I just have to say too guys, when I tell you about what's happened these last two, three weeks, a friend of mine, after she'd heard it, was like, oh my God, it's like you wrote those last two episodes for yourself, right? The one that was like, your journey's always unfolding perfectly and you can trust the timing. Because boy, did I get to like ride, I got to say all that, and then I got to ride the waves of actually experiencing and having to like it's it's not putting my money where my mouth is, because that sounds mean, but you guys get it, right? It's like, oh wow, I get to actually like live and experience what I'm teaching. So I want to say too, I just want to like, I want you all to know, like, make no mistake, this work opens you to a whole other reality. And when I say this work, I'm talking about the the deeper work of looking at your shadows, looking at your trauma, getting to see yourself clearly, and as a result, changing your beliefs and changing your life. And that's why I'm so passionate about taking the time when you're considering divorce to allow all of that journey because it's not just for this decision. It is it is gonna end up being for every decision to come. Like I'm not just teaching you what you need to make this decision. Together, once again, as I said at the beginning, we are learning a new way of life. So now that I've like really impressed that upon all of you, have I said it enough times? Maybe I'm just trying to avoid having to talk about my own, oh, my own experiences over these two weeks. Whoo! Cause it was it was quite a bit. Um so let's circle back around um to explaining how once again I was I was out in San Francisco, I'm hearing these beautiful owls, and I'm realizing like, damn, pure fucking magic. Look at me. This is my life. I had just made that big send of going to the burn, which wasn't a huge, like that came out of one of my beliefs that like I trust myself first and always because I'd gotten that invite a month before, and that burning man was never on my bucket list. I'm not one of those people that's like, I would love to go do that. No, but I trusted this deep, intuitive, like, aha, when she asked me. And I was like, okay, I guess that's where we're headed. Let's go. And it was just a moment of like, oh shit, I can feel that life is about to speed up and open in ways I can't even fathom yet mentally, but energetically I'm feeling it. So notice that because a lot of you may be experiencing that too, where you're like, there is a lot of energy like coming through me right now. You may not understand it mentally, that's okay. Um, this really takes me to like more of that somatic body processing of like sending down grounding cords and putting your feet in the grass and really letting the energies that are moving come through you without too much tightening or controlling or thinking you need to understand all of it ahead of time. So, another big thing that happened while I was on this trip in San Francisco with these, you know, with my friends, um I met a couple new friends and one of those friends introduced me to the idea of co-housing. And y'all, it lit me up with a fire. I was so into this idea. I was like, oh my God, this is this is what we as a society need. And I still I know somewhere in my future it will come back around. Um, but it was massive. I was like, this is where I want to raise my kids. This is the kind of life that I want to live. This is how we go back to like having community support while still having our individual spaces. Um and I was so passionate about it. Um, and also this with the burn realizing I needed community that I was full-blown moving into like, okay, I'm gonna move to Reno. Like, I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast yet, but I was like, I'm doing this. This is my this is obviously super important. It feels like a life calling. And I'd moved into like letting my kids know, letting my ex-husband know, we were I was moving towards this. I was taking the steps to start preparing. And that is like no small thing, y'all, to consider like moving away from my kids and all the repercussions of that. But I'm I'm sharing that to give you the perspective of like this was kind of the mentality up until that point that I had really needed to have based off of the three or four years of my life before this, right? I'd had to do a lot of full fucking sends in my life of okay, I'm a stay-at-home mom uh that has no job or career whatsoever. And I'm gonna get divorced and I'm gonna invest in myself and I'm gonna go start my own business. That is a huge send. That is a like, I have no safety net, you know, beyond like I had definitely had resources coming out of my marriage, but um let's go. I'm gonna trust myself. Same thing when everything fell apart with my family. It, it, you know, when I lost my best friend, just a lot of having to trust and be like, okay, it's gonna work out. I don't know how it's gonna work out, but it's gonna work out. So all signs were pointing in that direction. And then out of left field, y'all, 18 days before Christmas last year, I end up getting served. Okay. So I had been involved in this big neighborhood activism I'd led earlier that year, and I ended up getting sued. And I was like, what? Like, and it was so beautiful. I remember in that moment, like realizing what was happening, and I had like abject terror for probably 30 seconds, and then I just was like, douche, like, okay, universe, this is a huge stop sign. This is not expected at all. I guess we're not moving right now. And once again, a lot of the work I'd done over the last two to three years was around surrendering to what life was sending. And so I just surrendered to the flow, and you know, that life outside of me was in control and it was taking me somewhere that I didn't know. And I handled what I needed to handle, right? I reached out to the people I needed to talk to. I relied on others for support. And then I really just like slowed down and moved back into more of a body space of like, okay, what's now that I'm staying here, the bigger picture that I thought was gonna happen isn't what's happening, which some of you might relate with this right now, right? What's next? And I really moved it back to like just little next steps, like what feels good. And where that led me was New Year's, New Year's Eve, um, at the start of this year, that led me to being in Fort Worth. So, you know, I live outside of Dallas, but the Dallas Movement Collective was doing a big New Year's Eve dance night. And I had wanted to go for a while, but just hadn't timing-wise worked out. And that event was just another like moment um because I showed up and I I mean, just once again, y'all, can we just I knew no one there? Uh and to put it in perspective for you for you guys, even though I do a lot of like being there for myself, trying new things. I mean, come on, I went to Burning Man like with a friend who I'd never met in person, right? But still, even then, I am still human and driving to this event, you know, I was driving, I'd gotten a hotel. I was still nervous. I was like, oh my God, I don't know anybody here. And I was, I remember stopping at the hotel and sitting on the bed and just having to like breathe and be like, I've got you. It's okay. It's okay, I've got you. So I show up to the event um and walk in, and it's like, oh my God, like probably about halfway through the event, I was like, fuck, here's my people. There was like over a hundred people there. We did this, you know, conscious connecting activity, the dancing, the way everybody was dancing. I was like, oh wow, I am home. And I ended up staying there till like 6 a.m. the next morning. So once again, a big like, whoa, left hand turn. Here, this thing I thought I was missing that I needed to go to Reno to create. I think it actually might be here in Dallas. Like, what? And then a week later, at a party that I'd been invited to at the New Year's Eve event, that's where I ended up meeting Joe. And where I was at at that time, y'all, I was not looking for a partner. I was very deep in being self-partnered and really loving my singlehood. I was having a lot of fun sharing energy and interacting, but I was not looking for something serious. I wasn't also avoiding something serious. I was just in this really beautiful, grounded, like, okay, life. Obviously, I don't know what's going on because I thought we were moving to Reno and we're not. So I'm just gonna flow with whatever you're kind of doing here. I'm gonna trust. And I don't know if I've said this in the podcast earlier, but you know, even when I'm even when I met him that night, like once again, it was this beautifully synchronistic, just crazy um intersecting of our lives at this like perfectly like oosh moment. Like the fact that we ended up sitting next to each other the way we did was really, really not meant to be. Like I was I was trying to like miss there. Was a big tequila tasting that night for this birthday party. I was gonna miss it. I don't particularly enjoy drinking. And I show up and it's just starting, and I'm like, God damn it. Like I was hoping to miss this. Um, but because of that, I ended up sitting next to him during it. And this is the kind of like magic I want to tell you all is waiting for you when you stop trying to live your life by all of these preconceived ideas of like, here's what we're gonna do, and this is what we're gonna do next, and then this is gonna happen, and this and this and this, and you open to the magic that's just waiting to be elicited all around you. Um, so super magical the way we met. And then at the end of that night, when he hugged me, and I'm I'm like so sorry if I've already told this on the podcast. I have such a terrible memory. Welcome to CBTSD. Um, we hugged, and once again, something way bigger than me, out of my control, created this just deep feeling of like my heart like melting into his chest and combining with his energy and me being like, oh my God, what the fuck is that? And so from there, so much of mine and Joe's journey together has just been felt so much bigger than us. Um, you know, not necessarily anything that we are like intentionally forcing or creating or making happen as much as we're just relaxing into this really beautiful connection that you guys know. I've spoken about it on the podcast. It is deeply healing, deeply um fulfilling in ways that I've never had before. And that is not a small thing. And why I'm taking the time to illustrate this and talk to you guys about this, it just knows it's all in prep for what's about to come when I tell you what happened the last two weeks. But I want to really illustrate that, you know, this is this has been this incredible gift of this effortless and instantaneous, on a very deep, energetic, like subconscious level kind of connection, something that feels like soulmates. And um, I definitely think we I don't know how much I've talked about on the podcast, but I think we have past lives. And with Joe, that feels certain to me that we have we have this connection and this knowing that transcends the amount of time we've actually spent together here. Um and the really other beautiful thing about it, although I've had, you know, similar feelings of like, oh my God, this is someone from a past life with previous partners, with Joe, he's the first, as you guys know, the first partner I've dated that is secure. And because of that, in this relationship, my close friends, my family see what it like can actually see the gift that it is in my life. Like my kids see it, Quinn sees it. Everyone who loves us um sees how deeply happy we are together and how much our relationship, instead of burdening either one of us, which is what would happen a lot in my previous relationships, right? Just the weight of the conflict and the triggers would eventually be too much for me. Together, we make life easier for sure. In fact, we were at a nail salon last night. Um, we go get Manny and Petties together. And we were watching some like HG TV show about people get buying tiny houses together. And I was like, oh my God, that sounds awful. I would like, that does not sound like a good plan for most people. And then as I was sitting thinking about it, you know, just such close quarters, I was like, you know what, but I think we could do it. And he was like, Yeah, totally. And I was like, absolutely, I could live in a tiny house with you. And then somebody else was like buying a boat house and I was like, oh my God, that sounds awful. Why would you, you know, just because most relationships are not set up for that close of contact all the time. And once again, I was like, oh my God, that sounds awful. And then I was like, actually, that'd be great with you. I think we could totally do it. And he's like, Yeah. So we have definitely been through our fair share of triggers and growth. But one thing I want to make very clear is that with Joe, he has never attacked me in those moments or projected onto me or gaslit me. And that I'm as I'm saying it aloud, I'm like, oh my God, that should just be like baseline normal, but it hasn't been for me. And wow, it makes such a difference when that is the case in your relationship. And the other thing I love is that through each of those triggers and those things we've worked through, we have supported each other and come through them stronger and closer. Um, and that just hasn't been the case in the past. So, with that kind of really helping you all feel like where I was at in my relationship with Joe, the feelings of just like, damn, this is yeah, this is amazing. This is the best I've ever had out of any relationship. This is something really different. Now we fast forward, right, to what I was talking about of the two weeks previous, three weeks now. Um we were at an event with our friends, and I had a very hidden unconscious desire of mine come up as shadow. And I'm not gonna go deeply into the work around, like shadow work. This is something I'm kind of excited about and hope that I'll eventually feel ready to kind of work with people in the community around because it is so insanely powerful. But I do want to say that this is the work that I've been doing over this past year. At the beginning of the year, I read a book called Existential Kink. I know I've mentioned it on here before. And I actually ended up getting into um Carolyn Lovewell's coaching program called Penetrate, which is all about taking that work a lot deeper. And I've been doing it for the last three months. And holy fuck, it has taken me to the most insane levels of myself, my relationship, and really deepened my ability as a coach. And thank goodness I had Joe as my partner during all of this because I don't think I could have done this work with anyone other than him. It has required a lot of him holding space and me seeing parts of myself and opening to hidden desires and repressed shadows. That with anybody less grounded in themselves, I think it would have been quite a bit of a shit show. But with Joe, it has been like oof, oof, oof, just deeper and deeper between the two of us. So this repressed desire comes up when you're working with unconscious beliefs like that and and you're in the middle of it, you're really, I mean, they're called unconscious for a reason. When you're in shadow, you're just kind of acting without being fully connected and aware of what you're doing. And that was a hundred percent where I was. And thankfully, I had enough of a foundation to kind of do what I'd learned, right? Which was to just follow my intuition and what I wanted, but without a lot of slowing down to weigh the cost of what this choice was gonna do, or to like take into consideration my partner's feelings. And I'm just gonna like jump ahead to tell you all like, this is so clearly where my work is right now. Can you see how the beliefs I've had that have been very much like independent? I can trust myself. I I trust myself first and always. I always follow my intuition. Those are amazing for a journey where you are really needing to leave toxic relationships and clean out your um trauma and you know, let go of partners where there's codependent or narcissistic behaviors. But once you find a partner that's actually secure, those beliefs of just I follow my intuition at all costs need to be updated. Do you guys see it? Or they're going to start imploding the new thing that you're building of like a relationship. Um, you know, I can see it's like a download right now where I'm realizing that's in a relationship, those beliefs were creating kind of a power over dynamic where it was like, I do whatever I want. And I'm I'm getting to have this experience now of getting to learn what like true mutuality feels like. And I'm gonna talk deeper about like why that's so hard. But in this instance, I just I just sent it. I just did what I wanted, and it led to a huge upset and hurt with Joe, as it absolutely should have. These were boundaries I had set that I just like fucking went and broke. And thankfully, because like I said, I had enough of a foundation, I could really do all I could in that moment, which was just to be really honest about what I was thinking and feeling and to trust myself. And where that landed us though, was ultimately like Joe being like, this is a boundary that I just can't cross with you. And so, y'all, we went from being inseparable, like inseparable. He's, you know, living at living at my house now, like my boys love him. He's a huge part of my life, to perhaps never seeing each other again in the span of like 48 hours. I can't even tell you how like out of left field that was for me. So that had happened on a Saturday night. By Sunday is when it was like, okay, we can't find a solution. So I think we're not gonna be together. By Monday, I was just using the tools I had, right? I was getting coached, I was reaching out for help. Through that coaching, I was learning a lot more about myself. I had uh EK, Existential Kink, in our in our penetrate program friend who coached me and took me into this deep body, like somatic experience where I realized a lot of the emotions I'd had with Joe Saturday night mirrored this experience I'd had when I was a teenager with my mom, of feeling like I could trust it and, you know, been in my body and enjoying um interactions with my friends, and then having her really shame me for them and really try to control. And ultimately in that moment, I felt like I lost my ability to trust what felt good in my body. And I started just believing, you know, I can only do things in my body that make other people happy, basically. And I've healed a lot of that, but this is just like another layer. So that was huge. Realizing, like, oh, you know, a part of me, um, because there was a lot of kind of rebellious energy on Saturday night for me, and tying that back into like this time period of my life where I was a teenager and I wasn't allowed to rebel against my mother, who was just, you know, all-encompassing and crushing. You did not go toe-to-toe with her. She would beat you every time. Um and then, you know, encapsulating and all of that, like I'm I'm having to start telling my boys what's happened. My middle child was so devastated. I was like, oof, this is hard. And so I'm through a really important process, I'm starting to also see like what this is and how much it means to me, which is just like, I'm like, I know y'all, you would think I I got it, but sometimes I just have to learn, and we all, I think we all do at times through like the hard experience of losing something to really go, ooh, wait a second. Um maybe instead of just clinging to this belief in this way of life that I think has to be, maybe there's a different way. But by that time, by Tuesday, it was it was starting to really sink in for me of like, oh my God, I think this is gonna be it. And I couldn't see a way, a different way for this to go down. Um, but I was having to be honest that like losing him was truly devastating for me. And bless Quinn's heart, she coached me so much during those two days. I was like galling her a lot, a lot. So I love you, Quinn. Thank you. So this is where I want to share once again some of that just amazing magic that is so a huge part of my life and that I think I know is waiting to be allowed access into all of yours. And it's already there. It's just as you start to open to it and like let it work its ways, you can't miss what's meant for you. And this is a huge example of that. So by Tuesday, it's pretty clear, you know, just to provide some framework or where where Joe was out on his side, he was at a point where he was his reaction to all of this was that he was going to leave entirely. Like he was working on making peace with his brain, was like, How could he have been so wrong about us? And really moving on. Like, I'm gonna move, I'm going to quit my job, I'm gonna go live somewhere else, work somewhere else. Where I had been in the relationship, existing in a more temporary mindset, because you know, the reality is I have my own trauma around commitment. And that's that piece I was tying into later, right? Of like learning how to be in true mutuality. Because the majority, I would say, yeah, all of my romantic relationships and then my core ones with my parents were not healthy relationships. I have that disorganized attachment of like I simultaneously want it and I absolutely fear it. So where I'd been in the relationship still needing to have like unconscious mental space from thinking of this as like a long-term thing, Joe was not doing that. He had known from the beginning what he was looking for and what he thought we might become. So this break was really devastating for him on an even deeper level. And, you know, it was it was a big, it was a it was a really, really intense moment for him. And he he just handled it so beautifully. He he didn't manipulate or try to keep me it all right. He's about to lose something that's super important to him. And he just maintained and held this beautifully secure ground of I love you and I can't do this. And I know you've got to do what's right for you. So you've got to go do you. So Tuesday night that night, I'm like really wanting to call him, but I'm not. It was super intense. And on his end, he was feeling like he did need to talk to me. And so he, and by talk to me, like he'd left some stuff at my house. So in getting the details from him around this, I loved hearing that he's like, I just felt like I needed to talk to you. And so I just had the impression to start driving. And so he gets in his car and he starts driving without calling me or letting me know that he's coming. And he's planning on hopefully when he gets here that my lights will be on and he'll be able to talk to me. Well, he shows up and because I'd been wrecked so much that day for the first time in a long time, me and my boys were in bed by like nine o'clock. So he shows up and all the lights are off. And instead of turning around and leaving, he like pulls into my driveway and my garage is up, which, y'all, that is not normal. I don't normally leave my garage open. And so he's like, Oh, she must be still awake. So he he finds himself getting out of his car and kind of like in a daze a little bit, like not fully. Once again, I think this is just the beauty of like the universe will take you where it needs to take you. He ends up walking through my garage and opens the door. But when he opens the door to the house, everything's dark in the house. And he's like, Oh, shit, the lights are off. But he finds himself continuing to walk. And he walks all the way to my bedroom. There's no lights on at all in the house. And he's like, Oh my God. Like eventually he ends up where he's standing, just right next to me in my bed. And he's like, Oh shit, she's actually sleeping right here in front of me. And he said the bulk of his mind just did not have a plan and just kept moving through the space without thinking ahead. And this is not like him at all. I remember when he told me this, I was like, babe, and he's like, Yeah, no, this is not like me. And so I actually had just fallen, was like falling asleep. He seriously showed up like maybe six minutes after I'd gone to bed, and I hear this hey next to my bed. Um, and I'd heard someone moving through the house, which I assumed was one of my boys, because everybody had just gone to bed. And I roll over. Y'all, and it was him, and he's standing there, and I was in utter shock. This person who I thought just, you know, a day before I might never see again. That's how bad this break was, is standing there in front of me. And I jumped up and I grabbed him to me and I held him, and we just stood there for probably a good seven or eight minutes, just holding each other, and him just acknowledging so beautifully. Like he the only thing he said was, it's just so painful. And I will forever be grateful to him. I think this is such a beautiful example of a healed masculine that can be vulnerable enough to not come and say, you know, I need you to change this, or can't we make this? You know, he was not here to strategize. He literally just showed up and vulnerably admitted what both of us were feeling, which was it is just so painful. And it was to believe that we were not gonna be together. So after we'd stood there, you know, and I I want to like, I'm gonna give you the details because I want you guys to see the messiness of the process. So we've just had this like beautiful, oh my God, we're both acknowledging, right? It's so painful that we can't be together. We start communicating though, and we are right back into the triggers and the overwhelm and the confusion and the stalemate. And looking back on that conversation, we reached a point where we were just at the stalemate again. Like we could not see how to move forward without one of us having to abandon themselves, basically. And neither of us were gonna abandon ourselves. That was just that was what was. And I hit this moment of just grief at like, oh my God, is this really what the universe is gonna ask of us? That like he's gonna come back to me and then I'm gonna have to lose him again. And I got really emotional, and I love in that moment. That once again, Joe went even deeper and he got even more vulnerable. And he shared so honestly with me what this was all meaning to him, what he was giving up. And it was like in that moment of hearing him and understanding what this really meant to him, something within me shifted and I felt it. It was like an energetic click. And I said out loud, like, no, I'm not gonna let you give up. Cause he was his feeling was like he was gonna give all of this up, walk away from the community, move away so that I could have the space to play and to explore in the ways I wanted. Um and in that moment, I was like, nope. And I just said it aloud, I was like, nope, we're not, we're not, I'm not accepting that. Um, and we will find a way. And I felt his entire body soften in my arms, and I just knew, like, okay. And actually, funny enough, in that moment, new ideas came through. I was like, wait, what about this? And he's like, Yeah, actually, I think that might, that might actually be a fit. So once again, like nothing was going wrong too. I realized like that whole process of being separated, coming back together, it seeming like this was a stalemate. And then all of a sudden we have a solution that seems to work, which, you know, we're still sifting through and and sorting through, and we will be in the future. But it's like the, oh, nothing was going wrong. This was just this huge, beautiful journey to figure out a bunch of stuff about ourselves, about our relationship. And as I'm gonna take you into this next part, like huge openings for him around who he wants to be and what he wants to do with his life that I don't think could have happened any other way. So we're coming off of that night, and we were gonna go to a big festival that weekend. And he's like, What do you want to do? And I'm like, Hell yes, I want to go to this festival with you. He had like four days off of work, we'd already planned it. So here we're going from like Monday, I think I'm going to the festival by myself, to now Tuesday night, we've decided we are gonna go to the festival and we're gonna use it as an opportunity to like drop in and really see if this is still what we both want. And no joke. What happened from this point? So, this is what I've told you is like the first half of the two weeks, what happened from this point on was nothing sort of short of miraculous for me, especially because over the next week I woke up to a whole different reality. Like big illusions of my mind were stripped back. So in this weekend, you know, at this festival that we went to, I was able to see from such a condensed container, right? Of being with people that are in our community for, you know, multiple days, seeing them over those days. Here I had thought that some part of me had thought that Joe, the mine and Joe's relationship being so special was like an aspect of our community. And what I woke up to was it was not the community that was making our relationship special. Like it's what Joe and I have that makes it special. And that was because I saw over the weekend so much more clearly the inequality that is still in so many relationships. Even in a conscious community, the patriarchy is still alive and well. It, you know, it may be wearing a different mask of consciousness and awareness, but there is still a lot of broken and toxic masculinity. Um, and obviously I'm focusing on that lens. I'm sure, you know, it's probably I don't even want to say that. I I was gonna say, you know, it's probably just the same on the on the side of the women, but it it's different. This dynamic is very different, and it's because of the overarching patriarchal lens that we've all been raised in. So the journeys are different for women versus men. And what I'm seeing is there's a lot of women that are doing the deeper work and are stepping up. And what I was shocked to see was that in the conscious community, where I thought that there were a lot of men also doing that, I was startled to realize, oh my God, there's still a lot of like toxic masculinity happening that's just hiding underneath new ideas and new masks. And what it did was I saw Joe. Like I'd never seen him before. I really saw how much he gets what we're doing together and cares about it. And not in just a like say it but can't do it kind of way. So over that weekend, you know, he was the one when we were headed down that was like, hey, the intention is, you know, I really want to drop into us. I really want to connect with you and to really talk through things and figure things out between us. And damn, did he do that? Like we had so many deep discussions. We dropped in, we emotionally connected. There was so much love and affection. Um, I remember I have just like incredible memories from that weekend of like packing the entire fucking car on Thursday to drive down. That man, I love him. He packed the entire car. I had work to do that morning. He went to Walmart, he went to Academy to get us stuff, he thought of things that I hadn't thought of to add. It was like having a true and equal partner. And then when we got there, setting up the tent and everything, where I have definitely trauma around camping from my childhood stuff and my parents, and it was always just like stressful and so much negative energy around the whole thing that doing it with Joe, I was like, oh my God, this is amazing! Like it doesn't matter what we're doing, it's great because we do it together. And there's none of that, like, oh, we need to hurry and get this done so we can go do something fun because whatever we're doing is fun because we're doing it together. Whether it's setting up the tent or going and playing after we've set up the tent, both of them are equally as great because they're together. That is amazing. And I had definitely from just thinking like, oh, this is kind of what people in our conscious community are experiencing, and then seeing the contrast, I was like, oh no, this is not what everybody's experiencing. And then through that process, too, as I'm starting to see the contrast, I got to, and through Joe being opening up and telling me things that he had out of love for me, not that he hadn't kept them hidden or not shared, but I got to see more clearly how over these eight months of dating, Joe early on in our dating, realized, I think the way he's put it is like I could see that you needed control. I could see that you had been really hurt and you needed control. And so he had really energetically, I would say, although he held a lot of presence, he had stepped back from like having a lot of opinions or saying, you know, a lot of things and let me really lead out and let me really shine over these eight months. Let me be my full, like I don't really like this word, and he's told me it's not a good word for it, but the only word I can say is like my full, like bratty, bossy, like all in big loud self in our relationship without any kind of like tempering or trying to like control me, or and not that that's even who Joe is, but I would say there were instances where like maybe he wanted to do something different or he had an opinion about something. And instead of like having to always interject it or always have a say, or always like he softened and let me have that space, knowing that was what I needed to feel safe with him. And holy shit, y'all! Over that weekend, I like saw it. I was just blown away. I could see for the first time how he had won not only my love, yes, I've loved him over these eight months. But through that, through being that secure masculine presence that could the only word I really have for it is like this this energy of like the word isn't gonna be the best, but I can't think of anything else. It's it's like when Jesus talks about like somebody, you know, when you want to be the master, you have to be the servant. That is what he did. He served me. And obviously it was mutual in so many ways, but like because of the depth that he has, he served me in ways that I just can't serve him at this point, just yet. Whether it's because of my age or my growth, I don't know. I don't know what it is, but that's just what it is. Because he's more secure than me, which you can tell I struggle, even admitting. But through being more secure than me and being okay with that and not needing me to be anything other than what I was, he won my trust and my respect through giving me the space to be me by unconditionally loving me for just being me. He didn't need me to be more, he didn't need me to be less. I was enough exactly as I was. And that, y'all, was like a whoa seeing that he had paid the price that a true partner was always going to have to pay to have me truly respect him. Like I finally realized holy shit, because of all the crap I've been through. Yes, I've loved a lot of people, but I don't truly respect and trust people without a pretty significant investment. I didn't really understand that about myself until this moment. And then seeing how he had seen that in me, known it, and been like, yeah, I'm here for it. I will, I will be here for her in whatever way she needs. Instead of like coming in and demanding that I respect him or coming in and demanding that I trust him, he saw me better than I saw myself and gave me what I needed. And the price of giving me exactly what he knew I needed, he gave that to me without needing me to pour back into him or build him up. Which, you know, a side note, of course I did naturally, as like just because of who I am to the full extent that I could. But it's like he could see, he had the foresight to see if I really want to have true mutuality with her, it's gonna have to be a little bit unbalanced for a while because she's been so fucked up over time by people just taking advantage of her. And through investing in that, like y'all, I have seen over the last eight months, like I've done more in my business than I've probably done in the last two years. Like I have, through being loved for the first time in my life in the way that I most needed from my parents in childhood, I have flourished. I have been able to see what I've kind of dreamed of, right? That like there could be a relationship where you could heal and together you could be more. Like I've been able to see that it truly can be exponentially life-changing to have a secure partner. Like in this instance, it's not like one plus one equals two. It's one plus one equals 10. That's how much this relationship has made me bigger in my business, bigger in myself, bigger as a mother. I don't even want to use the word better because I don't like like that idea, but just expanded me. And y'all, this is like as lovely as it sounds, this is new and foreign to me. Like so much of my beliefs, as I said earlier, that I've relied on in the previous past, you know, four years have been about trusting myself and relying on me so that when the partnership collapses, I can get out and make it on my own. So that was like, oh my God, seeing in a different way our relationship the last eight months, seeing him more fully, watching too, as you know, just getting that beautiful contrast of seeing the way he cares for our relationship, how he cares for me, and other relationships that just aren't like that, but and really realizing like whew, this is this is true partnership. Like this is a partnership that umce again, like I couldn't understand mentally. I I don't think you can know until you're like in it. But now that I am, it was like, oh, this is this is what I'm looking for. So here's the other super crazy thing, you all. So, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, this is what we're doing together. This is the work. It's beautiful, it's amazing, it is deep. I am falling more and more in love with this man, and I am like, holy shit, this is so many things that I didn't even realize were happening, feeling deep appreciation. And I want to share this other piece with you all to just be like, there's always, there's always gonna be those left field moments. So even after all of this love and reconnection and like re-choosing him and recommitting into our relationship, Saturday night, I still had a crazy moment happen where I met someone like out of the blue that I had this insane alchemical spark and knowing with. Now, in the past, y'all, this moment, this feeling, this like, oh my God, I know this person. I feel once again, it was like I feel like I know you and I've never met you before. And in the past, this would have derailed me because I went so much off of that intuitive, you know, I am what's the word? I am central to myself. Like I am an island a little bit, and I gotta do what's best for me. And I'm so proud of myself because although it was messy navigating it, because this is the messiness of like I had old beliefs still online and new beliefs that were being built. I navigated it the best I could, though, with those, you know, old beliefs currently being released and the new ones coming online. It did scare me a little. It was rocky for Joe as well. But I fell back on trusting myself. I was able to communicate honestly with him, with Joe, with what had happened and very wide open. And although it was rocky and messy coming through it, and I didn't do it perfectly, we found our way through it again and came out the other side stronger because of it. And I was actually talking with a friend yesterday who was like, What do you think that was? And and and kind of mentioned, like, I wonder if that was just not the word's not gonna fit. I'm putting it in air quotes, like a test, because I don't think that's how the universe works. I hate that word actually. That sounds kind of like God, like testing you. I don't think it was a test, but I do think it was an opportunity sent in for me to once again get to choose where so much of my life and my work up until this moment has been a lot of like having to trust the impressions to go, to go, to go. This was me having a moment where something's calling me to go. And I and I got to pause and really check back in with like, wait, do I want to go? And realizing, oh my God, I want to stay. And I get to choose to stay. If I want to, I can choose to stay. And this ties into this, like, you know, a belief I'd had previously that it helped a lot of like it's always better, it'll always be better. And grounding into the like, oh my God, it's better right now. Like, this is beautiful and it's safe to stay. And I am so grateful that with Joe in this partnership, that we are able to be honest with each other about the realities of the messiness of life and like two independent independent humans who are trying to go through those lives together while being on their own journeys, right? This is like, oh my God, what this is why I'm like, when people are like, get married, have kids, I'm like, oh my God, it's so much more complicated than that. Like, maybe we all just slow down on making those big life commitments of trying to do a life with another person. Anyways, every journey's their own, right? We're all on our paths. But where this took me was the deeper work. Like, where I'm at now in my journey is the deeper work of healing my relationship with connection and long-term commitment. Do y'all see it? Right. Like I have trauma and shadows around this from my childhood and even from my first marriage that have led to these parts of me that are now like, oof, I don't want to be tied down, that see boundaries as a loss of freedom, that associate, you know, guardrails, I guess, as being controlled or manipulated. And I'm just so grateful that Joe like saw that ahead of time and held space for it all. Um, and that even though he knew what he wanted from the start, right? That he wanted something more with me, he never pushed that on me. Like he never, not once, has ever, when our paths were maybe about to split apart, tried to convince or manipulate me into staying. And in fact, you know, in many ways, he erred on the side of holding back his energy and not so that he would not overpower me when we were dating, because he wanted me to truly be deciding from my clear and clean desire rather than wanting to please him or his influence or my fear of losing him. So through this whole process, I feel like I really woke up to just the certainty of the two episodes I sent you guys previously, right? Of like, oh my God, timing and your journey is unfolding perfectly. And like when we think things are going off the rail, breathe deep, ground in, you're gonna find your way through best by like trusting that inner knowing. And even for someone like me, that doesn't mean it's not messy. It doesn't mean it didn't look like breaking up, finding each other again, going to, you know, a festival, and then also having a moment of like, oh my God, what's that? Right. But I think the the bigger picture is understanding this way of relating to life, where instead of finding safety in like, this is who I am, and this is what I believe, and this is what my life is gonna be, right? Like trying to find certainty and all of that. Instead, moving into a space where you work with life in this constant evolution of your beliefs. And that's really where that weekend was for me is I went through those experiences to learn and see key things that unlocked my ability to have new beliefs, to realize, oh, wait a second, these beliefs of I choose growth at all costs, I see where those came from. Yes, they served me. And are they serving me now? And in this instance with my relationship with Joe, thinking. I'll pay any cost for growth, even if it means losing Joe. I learned through hard experience, whoa, wait a second. Maybe there are really important things in my life that I'm not willing to give up at any cost. And when I move into that space, I realize, oh, it's it's okay to have things that matter to me enough to really stay. And when I can feel into like it's safe to stay, then the growth opens within the container. Like there's still growth here. There's still that's the whole like, there's got to be a different way. I will create a different way with you, kind of energy that I had that night when he came back. So I want to close out the episode by sharing with you like some of the beliefs, just this contrast, right? Of these beliefs that are changing. Because this is one of the most powerful things, like this episode that I will ever teach you. This idea of like how do you change your life? You change it by updating your beliefs and by being very aware of what you believe and then being willing to change it to get different futures for yourself. So I want to close it out by sharing with you some of the beliefs that really like I am so grateful for these beliefs. They fueled incredible growth for me over the past five years. And where those beliefs are it, what they are evolving into now, right? So we've got these present past beliefs, and then these new beliefs that are coming online that are fueling that next journey for me. So one of the beliefs that I have um really depended on over the last three years is I'm not in charge and I follow where flow takes me. And that is now evolving into I do have power and I get to advocate for what I want and find new ways of doing things. Another one is life just keeps getting better and better. So let things go. And the new belief is life is better now, right here, and it's safe to stay. One of the beliefs was I can trust myself first and always. And my new belief is that's being developed, right? It's not fully, but it's coming online. I have people in my life that have earned my genuine trust and respect. And I can navigate life with their insights and help. Another belief was I choose growth at any cost. I told you guys that one. And the new belief is I can have growth in tandem with a supportive relationship and a regulated nervous system. Another belief was I follow my intuition and soul calls, no matter where they lead me. And the new belief coming online is every single soul call doesn't always mean go B. Sometimes they can mean stay. And uh like a perfect example just to highlight that, and I want you guys to see too, doesn't mean these previous beliefs were bad, right? I follow my intuition and soul calls no matter where they lead me. That's not a bad belief. That belief got me massive growth over the last five years, like really key moments that like Burning Man, that that Burning Man came directly out of that belief. But this new one, every single soul call doesn't always mean go be. Sometimes it means stay, really comes out of me with that friend being like, Why did you meet this guy? Me feeling like it was just a moment for me to make a choice and to evaluate for myself, like, what do I really want here? Doesn't mean either one's good or bad, but I do get to choose. And um yeah, I just I'm like it's so much clearer to me now, um grounding into like the value of what I've created and respecting and honoring that in ways that I just didn't in the past because I was in such a clearing out die, die, die, die, die, get it all cleaned out mode. And then finally, which is gonna tie right into it, this belief that death always leads to rebirth. And the new belief for me is yes, everything dies one day. And let there be life lived fully and well in between each of the deaths and rebirths. It is safe to let what is good be good right now. And you can just see this. I just love it. I feel this, like, I don't know if it's a balancing, which that's resonating deeply. I think it's a balancing. I noticed so much in my own growth and in all of yours as well, this pendulum, right? Often we are way on this side of the pendulum, and then the pendulum has to swing way to the other side. And that's beautiful and what's meant to happen because it teaches us the extremes. And once we know the extremes, we can balance more to the center if we want to, right? We don't have to. I have definitely lived my life on some very like extreme edges and been totally fucking here for that. And where I feel like I'm at now is this balancing into this, it doesn't have to be death and it doesn't have to be birthbeat. It can just be the life that's lived in between those two events. Something doesn't always have to be ending or beginning. It can just be being right here, right now. So I share all this with you guys to just I think I want to encapsulate by by saying, like, this is not unique to me. I don't believe this is like something that only I get to experience. This way of life is absolutely available and what I want for anyone else who wants it. Like, and I have no idea what that will look like for you. Like, that's the beauty of the mystery is each journey is your own. And actually, I pulled again from the wild archetype deck, I pulled a card yesterday um called Gnosis, G-N-O-S-I-S. Um, and I really loved on the card it said, those who say they know don't. Those who say they don't know know. Let that sink in, right? This is the message I have for you of like anybody who's telling you they know, they're selling something. They're they're anybody who I'm I'm stepping away from the space of like teachers who will be like, here, here's this exact way to do it, and and everything's gonna unfold perfectly and you can control life. No, it's not like that. It's not. I can admit, I don't know. I have no idea where your journey is gonna go. I don't know if you're gonna stay. I don't know if you're gonna go. I'm just here to remind you that deep down, that's what you're here for, baby. This journey, this journey of living a life where you, through all the different facets of your life, come to know how to trust yourself and the unfolding of your life around you. And what I do to help with that, right, is just creating a space of love and support that hopefully you feel in this podcast and in the future in the community that we're going to build together, where we all get to acknowledge the like absolute, in some ways, terrifying reality that we don't know what's going to happen and we're not in control of our lives, while also balancing that with the deep grounded bravery and trust in yourself, knowing that you do have power and you do have choices that you get to make that can lead you to living a life that really honors I guess honors on the external what you know on the internal, right? Yeah. Yeah, this was a good episode. I'm glad I had to record it. Re-record it. So with all of that shared, um, I just want to say really, really fucking exciting and also absolutely terrifying for me is that we are getting so close to the community. Um, those of you that are my founding members, these are women that have worked on 90-minute sessions intensives with me, or that I've reached out to, that I feel like are just a really good fit for testing all of this with me. You will have received an email. Those of you that are on that list got an email from me this week that we are gonna be testing out the community. Like it's gonna be starting next week, and we're gonna test it out together, the small, intimate kind of group for the next two weeks, or maybe longer, just depending. Um, I'm really trying to give myself time with all of this, like pressure does not work for me. So I'm saying we're gonna test it for two weeks and then potentially open it up to the like, oh my god, so exciting, to the bigger, you know, community of all of you through the podcast. But I'm really excited. I'm I'm really excited to like start yummy and small and then just gradually expand from there. I am gonna have a podcast episode coming out that's gonna go in depth about my vision for the community and some really key ins and outs of what it will be like. Um and I want, you know, if you're at all come pretty much everybody who comes into the community will need to listen to that first. So um know that that'll be coming too. Plus, Quinn and I are in the process of recording that um I mentioned it earlier, but a two-part series on kids and divorce that we're gonna be releasing in the future. So that's really exciting. I highly recommend she is dropping some kick-ass episodes right now over on her podcast. Um, she was telling me about one she was gonna record the other day. I don't know if she's dropped it yet, um, about marital coercion. And I was like, fuck yeah. Um, I know she's been talking about misogyny, and I just yeah, I'm obsessed with the topics she is diving into at the moment and so grateful that I just told her the other day, like so grateful that she is another voice in the world that I can, you know, direct you guys to. And and her just making this point the other day where she's like, we want as many voices as possible talking about this, you know, it's not something that just one person can do. And um, so it delights me to say, yeah, she's got some some really fiery, beautiful stuff dropping over there. So go listen to that. And I think that's all. I think that's all for now. So for those of you that keep coming back each week, just know that I love you. I see you is a huge honor, especially for those of you that I get to see on 90 minutes, and we get on and you're like, oh my God, I feel like I know you. I listen to you on my walks, we spend all this time together, we're already friends. Just know I feel the same. Even in that moment when I meet them, I'm like, oh my God, I love you already. Yes, please. And then, of course, you know, in those 90-minute sessions, you basically tell me your entire relationship story. So it is like we get to be really deep, close friends. Um so thank you. Thank you for continuing to listen. Thank you for reaching out. Thank you for being brave and bold. I see you in the toughness of this journey. I see you in the reclamation of your wild woman's soul. And I'm here for every fucking bit of it. The highs, the lows, the darks, the lights, and as I'm learning, all the just being in between it. So know that I'm here thinking of you, sending you my love. Till next week.