Love Shaman on Why Marriage Is Broken: 5 Principles to Stop Divorce & Rethink Relationships with Kenya K. Stevens

In this episode of Awaken with Oliver, Oliver sits down with Kenya K. Stevens – self‑proclaimed best love coach on the planet, love shaman, and divorce stopper – to radically rethink what marriage, relationships, and commitment really mean. Kenya shares her five foundational principles for a thriving partnership and explains why ownership, shame, and blame have no place in modern love.

Topics Discussed:

• The five base principles of a strong marriage: no shame and blame, no victims or villains, no cop‑outs or dropouts, purpose is growth (benefit is love), and “I create my life”
• Why open marriage won’t make you happy – but ownership‑based monogamy won’t either
• The three parts of the self: animal (feelings), ego (storyteller), higher self (solution‑finder)
• How to stop shaming and blaming your partner by recognising you’re looking at a reflection of yourself

Episode Highlights:

[00:00:03] – Kenya K. Stevens introduces herself: “I’m the best love coach on the planet. I stop divorces.”

[00:00:14] – How she stops divorces: changing the underpinnings of marriage – no more ownership of another human

[00:00:31] – Why an open marriage will not make anyone happy (and what actually works)

[00:01:52] – The five principles of Kenya’s own marriage: no shame, no blame, no victims, no villains, no cop‑outs, no dropouts

[00:02:55] – Oliver’s observation: 30‑year‑olds getting married, having kids, and becoming unhappy – they don’t even like each other anymore

[00:05:18] – The “up‑level” system: every challenge in your relationship is a reflection of yourself

[00:07:45] – Breaking down the animal, ego, and higher self

[00:09:30] – Can a submissive man become dominant again after years of being the “little bitch”?

[00:11:14] – The alpha woman who wants her man to lead but can’t stop leading herself – can she truly submit?

[00:12:32] – The pattern: a submissive husband often had a dominant mother

[00:13:04] – Polyamory and jealousy: why higher self solves jealousy, but ego never will

[00:14:25] – Humans are hardwired for community

[00:15:34] – The third option beyond animal urge and intellectual control: higher self

[00:16:22] – “It takes a village” – and why one person can never give you everything you need

[00:17:06] – When kids are involved: community becomes even more necessary, not less

[00:18:20] – 40‑60% marriage failure rate for 80 years

[00:20:15] – Oliver’s personal journey: polyamory or just searching for one real connection?

[00:22:53] – Kenya’s final message if she had one day left to live: “I’ve been here since the beginning of time. Death is not real. Live as if you are infinite.”

[00:23:18] – Kenya’s advice to Oliver: “Take my course. The paradigm shift will be unreal.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Right, tell me who you are, what you do, and why you do it.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

My name is Kenya K. Stevens. I'm the best love coach on the planet. I'm a love shaman. I stopped divorces and I've changed the atmosphere and world tone and tenor of relationships.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

How do you stop divorces?

SPEAKER_00 0:14

So I stop divorces by changing the underpinnings of marriage, what marriage means, how we communicate with each other, how we view partnership and relationships.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

You can have a happy marriage with it being open for them to see other people. And is that the secret to actually a happy marriage being free?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

No, an open marriage will not make anyone happy. A marriage that has principles surrounding the real purpose of relationships is what I do and help my couples with. Some of my couples remain monogamous, but they no longer feel as if the ownership is the base principle of the relationship.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Yeah, so I find a lot of people my age, they're about 30 years old now, they're just starting to get married, they're starting to advocate, they're starting to have a family. And you can see that they're becoming unhappy.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I I think that what you're saying is true. I think on a deeper level, they're seeing a reflection of themselves and their partner. Shame and blame. It's you, it's your fault. I'm the victim. Victims are villains. If I'm thinking I've got to get away from you in order to stop this problem, no cop-outs, no dropouts. So I teach my couples all of the methodology needed in order to have a new form of sight. So whenever they see a challenge, now they can understand that they're looking at a reflection of themselves and that there are specific ways in which to address the challenge without shaming or blaming your partner or yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Right, tell me who you are, what you do, and why you do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

My name is Kenya K. Stevens. I'm the best love coach on the planet. I'm a love shaman. I stopped divorces and I've changed the atmosphere and world tone and tenor of relationships.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

So, what do you mean by that? How have you stopped divorces? Give me some examples.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Oh, I stopped divorces. That's my primary job. So I stopped divorces by changing the underpinnings of marriage, what marriage means, how we communicate with each other, how we view partnership and relationships.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

So, what does marriage mean to you in this modern world?

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Well, marriage definitely does not mean ownership of another human. So that's the major underpinning of Western marriage. So, what I've done is really remove that underpinning and put some real underpinnings in. Like marriage means I choose to grow with somebody for the rest of my life. I would like to develop my character with through this interaction, through these experiences. There's so much more meaningful, there are many more meaningful ways that we can use principles in marriage that don't just involve what are you doing with your genitals and do I own them.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

So, do you think that you can have a happy marriage with it being open for them to see other people? And is that the secret to actually a happy marriage being free?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

No, an open marriage will not make anyone happy. A marriage that has principles surrounding the real purpose of relationships is what I do and help my couples with. Some of my couples remain monogamous, but they no longer feel as if the ownership is the base principle of the relationship. The base principle becomes the growth and the possibilities and learning through our challenges.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

So, base principle, what is that? The base principle of marriage?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Well, for my marriage, I have five base principles. Number one, there is no shame and no blame. There's no time in which I can point out that my partner should be shamed or blamed for what's going on in the relationship. Number two, no victims, no villains. Number three, no cop-outs, no dropouts. Number four, the purpose is growth, the benefit is love. And number five, I create my life. No one is doing anything to me. So those are the five principles of my marriage that keep it together and keep it strong.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah, so I find a lot of people my age, they're about 30 years old now, they're just starting to get married, they're starting to have kids, they're starting to have a family. And you can see that they're becoming unhappy. They've been with each other for like five years, they've been through the honeymoon phase and the sex, and they've done all the walks and gone out for dinner and holidays. And now it's like, okay, what's left? And you can sort of see that they don't actually like each other, forget the love, but they're not actually laughing, then they don't like each other, they're not even friends, they're just there because they're there. It's like they're together, so now we're gonna go out, we do it together, but they're not happy, and it's almost like they're expecting the other person to provide this thing to make them happy when actually they should be going within themselves and realizing I need to become whole myself, and what can I offer my partner? And hopefully he's gonna be whole or she's gonna be whole, and then hopefully him, he they in return can offer me something too. And these days we just focus on that marriage to complete us, and it's wrong, and it's just sad because they're looking for something that's never gonna be there, and it's just the train wreck from that moment, and it's very sad to see even my age going through that stage of they're probably gonna be divorced in three years, and they've just literally got married.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Yeah, I I think that what you're saying is true. I think on a deeper level, they're seeing a reflection of themselves and their partner. So I teach a system called up level that helps us understand the challenges that come up in the relationship. All of the challenges that come up in the relationship relate back to you or relate back to whoever is experiencing the challenge. So if I'm experiencing a challenge and I think it's you, it's your fault. Shame and blame. It's you, it's your fault. I'm the victim, victims and villains. If I'm thinking I've got to get away from you in order to stop this problem, no cop-outs, no dropouts. So I teach my couples all of the methodology needed in order to have a new form of sight. So whenever they see a challenge, now they can understand that they're looking at a reflection of themselves and that there are specific ways in which to address the challenge without shaming or blaming your partner or yourself. It's not my fault that looking at my reflection, it's not their fault that I'm looking at my reflection, but I am looking at my reflection, and what do I need to do in order to shift that? That's what I teach at Progressive Love Academy.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

If you've got, say, a nagging wife who is always taking the lead, always leading, planning, preparing, you know, visioning the whole family dynamic, then you've got the husband that's just like, well, there can only be one leader here. I'm not gonna try and say, let's go out for dinner, because you're gonna end up getting what you want. So I'm just wasting my time, wasting arguments. Just fucking take control. You're what you want. We're going there, great. I'll drive. Are we going? Fantastic, right? I call them a little bitch, but actually that's wrong because actually, what in this situation the woman wants is the man to step up. But the man knows that if he does step up, there's gonna be arguments because there's two leaders. What she wants is ultimately the control and the leadership, but what she wants is him to step up. So they're contradicting exactly what they want. The woman doesn't realise in this situation that if she wants the man to step up, she has to step down, and she's not gonna step down. So, in this situation, when somebody comes home from work, sits on their phone all day, woman's in the kitchen cooking, doing her thing, and she's looking at the man like, Will you just do something? Go and like do something, like do the bins or whatever. He's always been micromanaged until the partner says to do it. How do you flip that dynamic? How does the woman say to him, Look, why don't you do anything? You just sit on your phone all day. Why can't you do it? How do they approach it in a way where you actually it registers and they want to change on their terms, not because keep the wife happy, which is the usual fucking 50-year pattern?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah, we don't believe in happy wife, happy life over here. Again, I would rearrange my my clients' thinking. First of all, who is speaking? That's where we start. We start with my system called up-level communication. It is a framework to help you frame who is thinking. Who is thinking that my wife is always taking the lead? Is that your ego? Is that your animal, or is that your higher self? And so most people don't know what those three parts of themselves are. So I start my couples by understanding what is your animal. Your animal is your feelings body. You are going to have emotion about a lot of various things. We understand that. There's nothing wrong with that. Number two, you have an ego. Your ego job is to listen to what your animal is saying and create a story. So your wife is acting, she's being bossy. Your animal is triggered by that. Your animal is angry by that. Your ego creates a story that says, My wife is bossy and it's always going to be this way, and she's doing this because she doesn't respect me. Your higher self, on the other hand, has no likes, no dislikes, and knows the solution to all your challenges. So most people can never get to the higher self solutions because they're stuck in their ego, because they don't even know that it's their animal and ego having a discussion round and round, and they have no way of venting that out, getting to a zero, feeling better, and getting to the higher self solution. So that's the process that I take my clients through. This man or this woman who's having these concerns does not know that it's the ego having the concern. And they really don't know that they have a higher self mechanism that knows and can intuit the solution to any of these concerns and challenges.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

So can somebody who just steps back and allowed the woman to be, I call it the boss for so long, can they ignite that animal flame in them to take charge after literally like stepping down and being submissive for so long? Is it possible? Or can you let it change its spots?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Of course it is, but still, you and your ego currently are creating a scenario. The higher self may have a whole different way that that should be dealt with. We are not tapping into. Let me tell you about the higher self. The higher self runs your heart without your ego's help. Your higher self runs your digestion without your ego's help. If you had to digest what you ate yesterday, you would be dead if your ego was trying to digest that. If your ego is trying to figure out how to operate 70 trillion cells in your body, you would be dead. So why do we want our ego to figure out what the solution is to this concern? We need our higher self to do that, and that's the path that I take my clients on in my coaching.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

How many of these people that have these usual call it marriage issues end up fixing it completely? And is it the same method every time that ends up fixing them? Is it like a universal law of do this and this will happen?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well, it's a universal law of getting the order of what I just shared with you operating correctly. If you know you have an animal, you know you have an ego, you know you have a higher self, we have to start identifying who is speaking. And then we go through a series of many initiations to support you in being able to allow your animal to vent, allow your ego to vent, and allow your higher self to solve your problems. It is a very serious framework, and it does, in my view, it does brain surgery on anyone who tries it.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

In your situation, if you've had a woman who's the dominant the alpha, right? Who always takes charge, always makes a decision, she wants the man to step up, but he knows that he's also as dominant, and therefore he knows the rule of step down, there's another leader. She wants him to lead, he steps up and leads, but then naturally she wants to take control again, which is when he steps down again. Can that person truly, truly, the woman submit and step down and stop leading? Like when they're driving, man's driving, she's leading, she's saying you're going left, you're going right. Why'd you do that? Brain not switching off. Is it possible for that person to truly switch or not?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Of course. Again, what I'm sharing with you is that they both need a reorder of their thought process. First of all, if he thinks that it's her doing something to him, then he's not realizing that his mother was also dominant. He's not realizing that he hasn't done the work to heal that and to not be a little boy in a grown-up relationship, expecting to be dominated, literally wanting to be dominated because that's his comfort zone. So again, just getting out of the discussion, the usual discussion. Why isn't she do this? Why is she doing that? That's the ego. It's othering, it's saying somebody's doing something to me instead of owning that I create my life.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Do you find that's the same pattern, regardless? If the man steps down with the dominant wife, it's because he had a dominant mother.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

It does it's there are thousands and gazillions of variations. Some people who had a dominant mother become super rebellious and never let anybody dominate them again, and they become a dominator. Some people you know fall back into okay, well, being dominated is just where I'm comfortable. It depends on the situation, but there is but a singular solution in my practice.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

So, your thoughts on polyamory in this modern world is it is it sufficient for more humans to get into those dynamics and will it last, or will it just simply always go back to you're always gonna be jealous of your mates being with another mate, and therefore it won't work. But even though it won't work, marriage really won't work either because it's a man-made law saying you've got to live with this person, sleep with this person, eat with this person, fart with the person, fucking walk with this person. They're there, they can't get rid of them.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Again, we're putting the cart before the horse. Polyamory cannot work if we haven't suited out. Where is where when is my animal speaking? When is my ego speaking? When is my higher self speaking? And how do I allow those forces to speak without in a safe container so that I can analyze myself and get the higher self to solve my problems? If you're saying, well, uh open relating may not work because of jealousy, then you're still caught in the circle of ego animal, ego animal, no higher self because higher self solved the problem of jealousy, higher self solved the fear of insecurity. Those are just fear-based conditionings of the ego. Higher self is needed to solve those things. And if that's not in the person's relationship, forget about Polly.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Do you find that a lot of people that are thinking about, you know, other partners because they're not happy in their relationship, that when you fix them, they actually don't want or didn't want somebody else. They just wanted this thing in their relationship that they weren't getting that they can and could get by understanding why they're not getting it.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Well, no, because humans, all humans want a community. That's the basis of human existence. That's how we have survived in the jungles and the forests, is because we've had community. So we're always going to be conditioned toward community. So there's no way to get humans to stop loving each other and stop wanting community. So that's just it's just it's a human ordeal. And it's a beautiful ordeal.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

And do you think that, you know, if you were in that community dynamic with the opposite sex, that even though someone has this marriage and family lifestyle at home, majority of people would they be able to resist the urge to be present in that moment with somebody because they're not getting that thing with their partner? Or is their intellectual brain able to kick in and say, you want this because it feels magnetic, which is animalistic, but you know, if you do this, it's gonna fuck up that, which means you're not gonna have that in the future. How many people are able to choose their intellectual brain and say no versus just let the natural side take over?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Well, I think those are not the only two options. Again, the third option is always higher self. And higher self that there says that there is a way for all humans to be harmonized with one another. And so if we don't download and intuit those ways, which my husband and I have written about for the past 20 years, for instance, one way that we can understand this is that one human is never gonna provide everything that my body, heart, mind, spirit desires. So, what does my body, heart, mind, spirit desire? And how do we meet the needs and get those things in community rather than trying to drill them out of one person? That's what the higher self can resolve. The other pieces, like how do we stay away from each other? How do we get over the animal? That's never going to be in place until we actually download this higher self part of us, which has always been part of us and it's running your heart right now.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

So just to let you know, we hear the term it takes a village to raise a kid, not just a mother or father. It's absolutely true. You can't do everything yourself. So, do you think that we are supposed to get different things from multiple partners and not simply just try and get everything for one person just because we're married and we have to stay with that person forever?

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah, we wrote a book called The Nine Expressions of Love that explains and outlines how humans are never going to be a monogamous species. So we're not meant to section off and go with one person and go into a nuclear family. As you can see, the whole thing has is corrupt from the inside. It does not work, you know. So we've already outmoded that system. It's really a little boring to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

And if there's kids involved, does that make this ability to be free and get certain things you're not getting from this partner with other partners more complicated? Or is it simply just you gotta be pitless for it to actually work?

SPEAKER_00 17:19

No, when children get involved, it's more necessary. Parents complain of not having enough support, not getting any sleep, not having any more sex, not having any time to go on a date night. Their whole lives are taken over by kids because they're out of community. So again, the higher self would never resolve the problem of jealousy or insecurity or even infidelity by saying get away from other humans. That's not how the higher self would resolve it. But that does sound like an ego solution.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Do you think that the Western world will adapt to it finally accepting that there's like 60% of marriages don't work? We've maybe stopped gotta stop to try and model model life like that, like the Christian background and you know, the church and the marriage and kids. At what point will evolution say, okay, this pattern, this evolutionary path isn't working. Maybe we should stop trying to get people to do this and to do that because it's just not working.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, we've already done that. And as I said, for the past 20 years, we've written the 12 books of the new paradigm that already give the solutions to those problems. This is what we do, this is what we've done, this is what the universe has provided. We've worked with thousands of clients and we're already past that. We know it doesn't work. Anyone looking at it can say it doesn't work. If your kid came home with a 55%, a 40% of F on every test for the past 40, 50, 70, 80 years, then you missed a boat. If you don't think that it's time to build new models, we've already built the new models.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

So I think that if you love somebody, then you don't need marriage to say it, approve it. Otherwise, it's there or it isn't. And if somebody isn't getting something from you that you know you can't give them, and you'd naturally want to let them go. If you love them, let them go. But if you're in a marriage, you think well it's too much effort to let to split because I have to lose half my dog, half my account, half my bank balance, half my Bitcoin. So it completely defeats your whole object of marriage is love. Do you what why do you think that marriage is still this thing? Is it simply so governments can control and monitor people and they know that if someone lives with somebody and they split, that the other half isn't going to be left on the street homeless because they know that the partner's got some wealth? Is it is it financial reasons why we push marriage?

SPEAKER_00 19:44

No, no, no. Um, they just we just push they push marriage until they can't push it anymore. If you step out of a paradigm, then they can continue in that paradigm and you're out. As I said, I'm out, so I don't know why people still think marriage is viable. I don't know why people still marry in the same way with the same tenants that haven't worked for the past 10,000 years. I don't know why they do it. But we we have designed a new paradigm in love, and it doesn't include the old way that we look at marriage.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

See, I always thought that I was polyamorous growing up because I could never imagine being with one person because I was always aware that you can't just rely on this one person forever to give you everything forever. And then I realized it's maybe because I haven't found that one connection with somebody yet, and that the polyamory was simply just dating, but I didn't just want to date with no connection, I wanted to date with a connection, so it was almost like, well, if there's this connection here, why would we end it? So we can just see each other for as long as that is five weeks, five years, ten years, whatever. But that wasn't polyamory, that was simply just dating. And then I sort of think, if I found this one person, would I be open to or would I not want the need to be free? And when you say it like that, it basically says, Well, no, because I know that it's not really possible for one person to provide forever, even though you might have that one connection with somebody that's the strongest connection out of everyone you've met, still they might not be able to provide that everything for them. So, and I spoke to you about this before. So I'm on this path of am I Polly? Or is it just that I had never found that connection to to feel comfort to feel like that person has given me everything, so I'm not thinking elsewhere. Because if you're dating and you're open, you know, if you find someone, you just stop seeing this person and sort of go with that person. But if you find that one connection, maybe you wouldn't want to see that person. I was with somebody for 10 months, we were open, but I never saw anybody. And I at the beginning said, We're open, we're poly. She saw other people, I didn't. Because but but for me, the poly thing was about being free that if I found someone else, I can explore that path. It's not about just sagging who I want because I can, because we're open. I never saw anybody. So that told me maybe I'm not actually poly, and it's just longing for this one connection. And if people in marriage haven't got that connection, then Mine's gonna be elsewhere. And it comes back to this communication of understanding what your partner wants without sacrificing your own needs. Just provide what you can in the best form of yourself, and hopefully they can. And just communicate. If you're not giving each other what you expect from it, you know, can you give it? If not, then I love you. Let me let me go and let you go.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yeah, you've got to try it for yourself. But it sounds like it's time for you to take at least one of my courses. We've known each other for a very long time, and this would all be sorted out by now. I would highly advise you either do divorce proof club for singles or up-level communication or something to help you answer that question, but you will answer it and you will get to the solutions you're looking for. I enjoyed being here. I gotta run. Thank you so much for interviewing me.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

If there was one thing that you could say, if you had one day to live, what would it be? One day, two. If you had one thing you could say to the rest of the world, if you had one day to live, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Live each day as if you are infinite, you are an infinitely powerful being.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Alright, we'll end that there. Thank you very much. Anything you want to promote or anything?

SPEAKER_00 23:14

No, I would highly advise you, Oliver. Take my course. It is time. You will find a paradigm shift to be unreal. That's what I will say.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

All right, let me just stop the call. All right. Thanks for listening. If you like this episode, please remember to subscribe, turn the bell notifications on, like the episode, and comment below. If you want to follow me on Instagram, it's yeskingOliver. Take a look at the other videos to your side. And if you just want to listen to this podcast, you can do so at Apple Spotify and most other platforms over talkwitholiver.com.