Man: A Quest to Find Meaning

The Truth About Love: Why Your Relationship Shapes Your Entire Life - Part 2 | Matt & Rebecca Albiges

• James Ainsworth • Episode 52

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In this powerful episode of Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, James is joined by therapeutic coaches Rebecca and Matthew from Align with Love for a raw, heart-opening conversation about emotional connection, masculine embodiment, and what it really takes to heal relationships.

Together, they explore why lasting change doesn’t come from a quick fix — like a holiday or a wedding ring — but through deep inner work, emotional responsibility, and the courage to face what’s truly alive in us.

They unpack:

  • Why emotional connection is the key to fulfilment in relationships, parenting, and purpose
  • How men can start doing inner child work — even if it sounds fluffy or unfamiliar
  • The difference between loving from fear vs. loving from truth
  • What stops men from feeling — and why feeling isn’t weakness, it’s leadership
  • How trauma, addiction, and disconnection often stem from emotional malnourishment
  • The power of somatic awareness, embodiment, and “what’s alive in me now” as a spiritual practice
  • Practical insight into when a relationship needs repair, and when it’s time to walk away

This episode speaks to men who want to live with more honesty, depth, and connection — and aren’t afraid to look within to find it. It’s also a powerful invitation to rethink what being a “real man” actually means in today’s world.

“You’re not broken — but you may be disconnected. And healing that disconnection is your path home.”

Visit AlignWithLove.net for their programs, resources, and free scorecard.


About Matt & Rebeeca

Matt & Rebeca are genuinely passionate about helping their clients turn around whatever relationship challenges they are going through, so that they can experience more love, passion, connection and joy through their relationships. As well as providing the award-winning Relationship Breakthrough Programme, they are the hosts of the Relationship Breakthrough Show with Matt & Rebeca podcast, and Matt's book "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" is an Amazon top-10 bestseller. They have also featured widely on broadcast and printed media including the BBC.


https://alignedwithlove.net/

In this episode, we talk about how elastin change in relationship requires inner work, shared responsibility, and sometimes professional guidance, not just a quick fix. We look at emotional connection and how this is the key to a fulfillment. We look at how inner child work is not fluffy and how this is the foundation to truly healing our wounds, patterns, and traumas. Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights. Struggling with career, relationships or personal growth? We've got you covered. Join us on Man Quest to Find Meaning. Now, let's dive in.

James:

Just quickly, I know. Women are a lot more open to this kind of stuff, and they, they're a lot more, I think generally they're a lot more intuitive because they've got, they're more connected to their bodies and their own emotions. Now for the, obviously the podcast I'm run in, there's a lot of men listening and so what would you say to the men out there who perhaps are a little bit like, Hmm, I don't kind of believe this, or kind of are a bit stuck with regards to the inner child healing. What would you say to them? Should I go

Matt:

on?

Rebecca:

Oh, I can go as well. Yeah.

Matt:

Yeah. I would say, um, well, I'd say firstly, I mean, only. I only work on something if it's important to you, you know, so if you're listening, thinking, you know, my life's great. I've got an amazing relationship, I've connect great with my kids, you know, I'm happy, I'm engaged, I'm having a lot of fun. So if everything's working, then you'd maybe don to engage with anything. Who's to say people need to engage with their, any child or anything else? Um, the question is, if you're blocked, are you having struggles? Then could an ability to connect better with your emotion be a key to help you unlock some of those problems? Could that be a, a, a part of the answer here? And if you think it is, then well, you could just sit and hope for the best and maybe someone gonna change by a miracle, or you can do some work and you can probably guess, by the way, I, I stated that what I'm suggesting. You know, if you, if you, if it is something important, then you need to get some help and unpack some of those things. And just remember there are lots and lots of men doing that kind of work. You may not be one of them, but that's okay. That doesn't mean you can't become one of them. It's gotta be important to you. So I would just invite men to consider, you know, would your relationship or would your life be better served by being more connected to your emotion, being able to express yourself more clearly, like from the heart and connect with your partner. And if you feel that that would be good for your relationship, then maybe you need to do something about it.

Rebecca:

I love that. Uh, I, I would say j uh, J James, uh, uh, for those guys listening to this podcast, if you want to be a real man, you need to start feeling. Because a real man feels it's a human and, and humans have emotions. Humans are emotional beings. And, and I've seen a lot of guys, uh, dating and dating and dating and having sex after having sex, and they still don't feel alive. They don't feel they don't have enough. And why? Because they're trying to feel alive to by, by having sex. But actually, the, the, the only way they're gonna make themselves feel alive is by. Connecting emotionally with other people. And the reason why they don't connect emotionally with other people is because in the first place, they're not connected to themselves, they're disconnected. Uh, and when we feel our body is giving us such a critical information about whatever we need to do differently, start doing, stop doing, do differently, uh, and, and we are not listening to the message because we are disconnected with frozen, we no feeling. And why does that happen? Because, you know, for many men, when they are born, they, they just teach them that, don't cry. Uh, be strong, be a man, da, da da. And then emotional connection doesn't happen in relationships, but not just with the partner, with, uh, children. Uh, even customers, you know, at work, they disconnected and they need to give themselves permission to feel, to cry, to be genuine, to be authentic, uh, to be real. Uh, otherwise they'd like, uh, ai, uh, ma robots dressed up in human flicks. Hmm.

Matt:

I, I just want to add as well, James, a bit about addiction. If I may, you know, there's a lot of people where, you know, we, we sort of pick up bad habits and then it becomes a bit of a cycle. Let's just say porn as an example, but it could be any sort of drugs or, and you know what this, there's like research around this that says like, the reason people get into that stuff is because they don't have a sort of a rich and varied and high quality emotional life. You know, what they have is what they have is a situation that isn't fulfilling. I was reading this research about rats in a cage, and they put these rats in isolation and give them an opportunity to get addicted to something. Guess what they do? They get addicted. Whereas when they put the same rats into what they call Rat Park, where there's like lots of fun stuff to do and lots of other cool rats to interact with, they're not interested in, in the addictive substances. They just, they meet their needs in other ways. So yeah, if that resonates, then it may, it may come out in that way as well when we're not fully connecting properly with the world around us.

Rebecca:

I love it. Exactly. Uh. Yeah, I was also thinking James, uh, about, um, emotional capacity, which is so important in relationships. Uh, but I said, as I said with everybody, everybody not just part intimate relationships, emotional capacity, the ability to give love, feeling, love to, to share your feelings, express your feelings, but also the ability of receiving it by receiving it with empathy. And, and, and that's, that's key. And it's not gonna happen if we are suppressing our feelings because we are telling ourselves that we should not feel, uh, because we should not share these feelings because it's not manly. What is, man, maybe we need to re redefine what man is. And woman, I can tell you James woman, absolutely freaking love a vulnerable man. A man who is able to share their feelings, uh, is, is powerful. It's unique. It is not abandoned. That's a gem. And, and, and it is also very nice to, um, for, for the children of vulnerable men who embrace their emotions, uh, for, so then, so they can have a role model, a, a healthy role model of the healthy masculinity.

James:

As you was saying about that and how we have conversations and our general go-to conversation is, how are you? And then the person will reply, I'm good. And that seems to be the common answer to how I ear now, I don't know whether it was a podcast or whether it was on the internet. I saw, I heard, I think I heard it. I think I did hear it and I think I wrote it down and it, the question that came to mind here was, what's alive in me now? And that just kind of allowed me to go into my own body and think, okay, what's alive in me now? And if for, for me, it's that sense of being able to do a podcast, to be able to speak con, connect with people, like-minded people, to be able to talk about our passions and to spread that into the world. But Zeke, the question with regards to aliveness is so important because how often do we go through the day as probably zombies? And really we need to connecting to our own alive aliveness.

Matt:

That's a great point.

Rebecca:

What's alive in me now?

Matt:

Yeah, I completely agree, Jane. It's like connecting with our passion, isn't it? Um, you know, for how often are we just like going through the motions and getting through the day? And if you just think, if you take that as a, as your mantra for living, like how am I gonna get through the day? Then you can predict you're probably not gonna feel that inspired and excited and motivated then. Yeah. It just depends. And, and that's where, uh, again, this is really important I think for everyone, but particularly people with a masculine stylist that have really great goals that align with our values, that matter to us that we can work towards, and that tends to underpin our mental wellbeing. You know, having the, like a sense of working towards something meaningful, which gives you a feeling that you're describing as aliveness, which is a, a wonderful thing.

Rebecca:

I love it. Uh, I love what Matt said and what you said, James, and, and I'm thinking also of grieving comes to my mind as well, because sometimes, uh, what's alive in in us is not very, it's, it's, it can feel inconvenient. Like, I can think of, uh, uh, some ladies, uh, that it could be men as well. Definitely. Like I'm, I can think of some people who actually have evolved and grown separate ways, uh, with the pa from the partners. They have different values now. They are not the same best people that they were when they met and when they married. When we married, we, we are aligned in our values, but a few years down the line, maybe we've grown apart and maybe we change as individuals. And maybe what's alive in me now is that I wanna travel the world or I want to go to India and, and become a krisna monk. But actually. I want to go into denial mode. Now, I don't want to give a a place to what's alive in me because it's not gonna be pretty for my children, for my partner, for the lifestyle that we have for the family. Does that make sense? Yeah. So sometimes we make ourselves, our ourselves wrong. We make our what's alive in us and wrong. As again, Jimmy's crying, Jimmy little Jimmy's crying because we, we don't honor our feelings, our needs because it is, it is not gonna look pretty. It can be scary. But when we'll take that leap of faith and we honest with our feelings and needs and we honor them, that is the best gift that we can give to everybody. Because even though in the short term, other people may not like it in the long term, um, we are giving, gifting them the gift of our honesty. So otherwise, uh, we would stay with, um, we, the way we are. We are not genuine, we're not authentic. We are wearing a mask. We are not the person that we have become. We are still wearing the old mask of our old self. And that's not honesty and that's not a nice gift to give to anybody. Whereas sometimes we, if we show up, uh, or authentically, even if it doesn't look good in the short term, um, we can from us because we are not the same people that they chose in the past. If that makes sense.

James:

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are your values at the moment?

Rebecca:

My values at the moment is always, always, always top number one priority. Look after little, uh, Jimmy always becoming my, my remain.

Matt:

Would you call your Jimmy as well? Well, little Jimmy's,

Rebecca:

little whatever

Matt:

your crew.

Rebecca:

Yes. That'd

Matt:

be quite, you have the same in each other. Maybe they know each other, maybe probably.

Rebecca:

Just honoring my needs, my feelings, because being my first, my favorite person, uh, loyal to myself, I like that. And being honest and authentic with everybody that I come across in particularly my match, my favorite, second favorite person after he tell Jimmy. That's my highest values at the moment, really. And helping people, uh, to give back everything I've been given from so many lovely people that help me, and that's my highest values. How about you, Matt?

Matt:

Yeah, mine is to, is to, is to share really what I've been given. I just feel I've been given so many incredible gifts, you know, by my mentors and teachers and people that have helped me to this point in so many different ways. And, uh, I just feel I. It would be a bit weird now if I didn't want to somehow put that back or share it forward to people in need. So that's, I guess, one of my number ones at the moment. Finding ways to connect with people that, that are looking for that.

James:

Yeah. My, my, I mean, I'm an Aquarius, so my main value is freedom to miss, freedom, love, playfulness, growth and wisdom.

Oh, wow. Love it. Fantastic. Mm-hmm. That sounds, don't

Rebecca:

forget playfulness. Well done.

James:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I find for, for myself, I almost feel you're okay for time, aren't you? Just to double check. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, from my own perspective and the way I, I gr have grown up, I feel as though I've probably almost engaged my own inner child. And so there was a, a lack of, especially over probably the last. Probably 20, 30 years, a lack of playfulness. And so that obviously impacted because I think playfulness has always been a core value. It's almost imprisoned myself. Mm. Yeah. I see.

Rebecca:

I, I love, I love it James, but in playfulness, so, so important. We can be, get so serious about the things that we do and how we go about it, but if you forget playfulness, it's not fun. No. We don't have the juice of life. We can still be productive and efficient, but with love, with fun, with playfulness because uh, it's not just what we do, but it's also how we do it. It's not only what we give to people, but it's how people feel with us when we give them whatever we have to give them. Yeah. I love it.

James:

So with yourselves working with couples. How would you, what are the causes of people talking at each other rather than with each other?

Matt:

That's a great question. Yeah. It's, it's so, so many people struggle, don't they, with these conversations and just get in a mess and maybe just give up after a while. It's, it's a great, great question. The challenge is, you know, this stuff that we cover and the stuff we're talking about today, it's not really on the curriculum at school as far as I'm aware. There might, might be a little bit of it, but there's not, there's not much. So what you find is that people learn a lot of stuff, you know, but they don't really learn how to relate and communicate and, you know Yeah. To make their relationships work. So, uh, yeah. So when you think about it like that, it's not that surprising that so many people struggle to communicate, and particularly because most often are. Parents are having their own challenges of some kind. You know, maybe our parents are like model perfect, uh, a model perfect relationship, but sometimes they're not. Right? Uh, so yeah, I think quite often we just don't learn the stuff that we need and then if we don't then make an intentional effort to learn that stuff, we just keep struggling. So this is where people quite often end up reaching out for support,

Rebecca:

communication. Yeah. And some people James, get defensive. You know, they, they, it's very difficult to have a conversation with a person that gets defensive because everything feels like an attack, like an accusation. And so they not open to have a conversation. And some people can get the, the dismissive. Uh, so that for therefore our feelings, our needs don't count. That's an implicit message of, I don't care about you, I don't care, whatever. I just don't care. So, so then why are we here together? What's the point? People start thinking, but what's the point then? And the communication just doesn't happen, and there's no way of talking with each other. Uh, if one of them just doesn't wanna have a conversation, it's just not possible. We, we've recently created a, a, a guide on manipulative communication, and, and then people are loving it. And it's all basically about that. It takes you to tango. You can, you need to, two people need to be willing to have a conversation. If one of them doesn't want to have the conversation, this, there's no conversation. And that's when people start shouting at each other because, uh, you're forcing things that are not flowing because the other one just doesn't want to have the conversation. Maybe the other one is physically present but not embodied, and the mind is somewhere else. They're frozen, disconnected, uh, or simply physically walk away. They just don't want to have the conversation. They say, okay, we'll talk about it later, but later it's never, and so at the end a row, we explode. You don't want to talk about this? Never. We are talking now. It is happening now and then, boom, social services, police involved, all these things happen every day and. Sometimes we just don't want to see that it, there's not gonna be any conversation because he or she just doesn't want it, and we don't want to see that. So we force it and then we end up arguing, exploding, or just give up and we keep the show running. But actually it's not an intimate relationship anymore. It's the business of the children or it's the business of the mortgage, uh, or it's the business of the financial arrangement. It's easier that way, but we're dead inside and people are surviving. They're not thriving anymore, and that's sad.

James:

So for the people who are perhaps, who've listened to this episode, if they know they're in that place, what can they do about it or what, what, how could they approach this from a different angle? That's probably a better question.

Matt:

Should I comment? Yeah. So a really key like distinction is like what kind of a solution are you looking for really? You know, it's like you, so there's different ways of solving a problem, aren't there? And a lot of the time what we tend to go to is some form of quick fix, like in a relationship sense. What that might look like is let's go on a date night or let's go on holiday,

Rebecca:

let's have another baby,

Matt:

let's have a baby, let's get married.'cause you know, we're gonna stop arguing then.'cause we've got the marriage certificate and it's like, well maybe or maybe not. And so really the key question for people is like, are we looking for a kind of quick fix here where it just kind of does the job for a little while, but probably we just go around in circles Or do we want a proper resolution? You know, which normally requires getting some help and digging a bit deeper. You know, and it, it's a bit like with a building analogy. And if you have got a problem in your building, then most people are not gonna try and fix it on their own. I mean, you could do, but you may just make a mess of it. So that's just, I would just encourage anyone that really wants to, like, to properly solve a problem, it probably requires someone from the outside helping you to navigate it, whoever that may be. How about you?

Rebecca:

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree with that. I would say just reach out, reach out for professional help. And what comes to my mind as well, James, is what not to do. Don't ask for advice to your friends because your friends are gonna tell you to f off your partner. They're gonna tell, they're gonna tell you exactly what you want to hear, uh, but it's not exactly what you need to hear. So reach out for help. So a professional, uh, good enough person, hopefully, luckily, uh, challenges. What, uh, people are doing that is actually causing the problem or contributing to keep that problem happening. And we need to be challenged because we, we just, uh, trying everything and it's not working. And so we need to do something different. But our friends are not gonna tell us. Our partners are not gonna tell us, uh, a professional, uh, help will tell us, uh, like us or like someone else.

Matt:

I was just gonna say, yeah, our, our partner might try and tell us, but that tends to not, not work so well. You know, when I'm a partner. Yeah. When I'm trying to diagnose what, what she needs to do in order for this thing to work, that's a bit more sensitive, isn't it? And saying the other way around. That's true. So I would discourage that sort of conversation. It just tends to go around in circles. Uh, yeah. I agree with what Rebecca said. Often, you know what you need to look at if you are gonna ask a friend or family, just look at them and say, well, is this person an embodiment of the kind of relationship that I want? And if the answer is no, then the question's gotta be, well, why am I listening to them? Then why am I, why am I expecting them to help me to get something that they can't even get themselves? So beyond that, yeah, people just need to reach out and get support. It's like anything, if your car breaks down, what do you do?

That's right.

Matt:

I mean, you could just sit there and hope it starts getting going on its own. Yeah. Or you could call someone and get some help. Here's the choice. Yeah. You know, it's a, normally after you've been sitting by the road for a while in the heat and getting nowhere, normally the penny drops and think, actually, if we're gonna get moving here, we're gonna need some help. So yeah, you need to think is your relationship as important? Your car, I suppose.

Rebecca:

And, and I, I, I would actually focus on one single thing and needs to, to, to just be very honest, uh, with your partner and say, Hey, would you like to work on our issues together? Are you open to the possibility that they could be something that you could change to improve this? Because that is said, definitely for sure. A lot of things that I could, cha I could, uh, do to change from my side and I want to do this, are you on board with me or not? That to me tells me a lot. Um, but then on the other hand, if, if our partner doesn't want to do anything, like work together on that relationship, I would still go myself. Why? Because we see this a lot. Uh, because if I work on myself to deactivate the triggers that when my partner does certain things, get, um, what do you call it, fight off. So when, when my partner does something, I get triggered by what my partner does. But, but the way I feel, the reason why I feel the way I feel angry, disappointment or whatever it is, is not because of my partner. What my partner is doing is because there is a wound, the child that needs to be seen, heal, held, and needs to be healed. And I haven't done that. Like you were saying, James, my inner work and that, uh, bond child is gonna keep being trigger getting triggered the whole time until I change that. And also until I, I change the way I show up to protect that inner child. And when I change that. My partner starts feeling differently about me because I literally change and my, Hmm, Rebecca point to my next best version of myself. And that is a different person than the person that my partner was seeing before. And now he start changing as well because I'm different. And if he doesn't, he doesn't, then that's the truth right there on the table. Take it or leave it. Denial or move on. Because, because, uh, sometimes some people are in hell suffering and they have made a decision they're not going to change. They are comfortable in the hell. So that's okay. We embrace it. At that point we say, I, I see you and I love you, and I am not choosing you anymore. We need to do our inner work. We need to do our work because it's never about our partners. It's about how we relate to our partners, with what our partners bring us. But that doesn't mean that we condone certain behaviors. That doesn't mean that, it doesn't mean that we don't blame our partners. We owning our shit, I call it own shit.

James:

Hmm. That, that's powerful because to, to actually own our own stuff. And quite often, I, I feel quite often people, if I'm getting annoyed by somebody, it's probably my own shit that I need to deal with first before anything. And then it's kind of the idea that, to be able to say that if you aren't changing, I'm going to leave you. And being able to speak authentically like that. It is powerful. But I do find that we have our own rejection and abandonment traumas, which will quite often stop us from having the courage to do something like that. Because what happens? Oh no, tomorrow this person might go, and then suddenly I'm, I'm gonna be by myself and I'll probably, I probably won't find anybody else to love me. And it just, I, it, I feel, again, it's comes this pattern of continual, uh, repeating patterns. And so yeah, it's being able to become aware of the rejection, to become aware of abandonment and, and betrayal as well, actually betrayals probably as well. So how, how could somebody listening become aware of these patterns?

Rebecca:

Well, our la can I say our life is telling us the whole time we don't need to have a partner to see this part that we have this wound, this, uh, wound children, you know, betrayal, the wound of rejection, the wound of abandonment. Uh, our life is already speaking to us. Everything that is not working well in our life is a message, it's a gift. It's a me year. So, for example, when I was in London, when I came to this, uh, country, to the uk and uh, the first job I got was, uh, as a barista in Starbucks. And, and I had, uh, bosses and colleagues, very abusive, very um, um, abusive really. And it wasn't the first time. I had had as well. Uh, the same thing in other jobs that I had in Spain and in my own family and with other ex-partners and friends and school friends. So is this the first time, is this about having a partner that No is, is at work, my life is speaking to me. What do I do with that? Do I just move on and find another job? That's what I used to do as with my ex-partners. Leave my, leave him, find another one, leave this job, get another job. It's not about the job, it's not about the partner. It's about what I am projecting into my life and my life is giving it to me back. So what do I do with that? At that point, I decided to, to do my inner work. And with hypnotherapy, uh, I became more assertive and more loyal to myself and I would speak up, uh, even though it felt quite scary at the time, honestly. And. I had nothing to lose because I have leverage. I had enough pain in my life to, to just go in and do what I need to do. And so I decided to confront my, uh, colleagues, my bosses, and, and everything changed. Everything changed. I said to myself, this time, I'm not leaving this job. If I, when I leave this job, I will work for myself. I will be a hypnotherapist, self-employed. And actually, I left because I actually met Matt and we created Align With Love, but the same thing, I didn't run away, which is what I used to do. Your life. That's a lie. The, your life is talking to you, but are you listening or not?

James:

Mm-hmm. Yourself, Matthew?

Matt:

Yeah. So what's the question again? Remind me.

James:

Uh, we're talking about. Actually, I've forgotten. Eh,

Rebecca:

we, we don't, we not only get triggered by our partners, so what happens when we don't have a partner? How can we become aware of our children, our goons, the betrayal wound that we are carrying within ourselves and we haven't healed yet? The rejection, the abandonment, even physical health. James can be another one. IC medicine is a very good example, the emotional causes. So some people have, um, um, let's, let's say cervical cancer. That's a, a, a, a pro a health issue. Um, and some people, well, I'm thinking now of some clients that I had years ago, um, abortions. So where is the sal cancer in your body, if you think about, is in that area, right? Yeah. So where, where in the body the abortion happens, it's in that area, right? So that was connected to that, uh, problem that a client brought to me when I was a chemotherapist. So if you think of the medicine, I'm not an expert in, in this area, by the way, but I know that medicine, German medicine, uh, beliefs that the physical illness has an emotional cause. So that's another example of what you're saying. If we have a physical ill problem, a health problem, and what's the emotion? We can trace it, we can track it, and we can see through this emotion that we have in our lives. So our life is telling to, uh, telling us something. What does this mean? What do I need to learn from this? Mm.

What do I

Rebecca:

need to change? What do I need to allow, embrace, make, make peace with what's the message? And, and, and that is healing. I, I, again, I don't want to talk much about the physical area because I'm not an expert in that, but, um, it's another example. Our life is talking to us through any, any kind of illness, whether it's a physical illness, whether it's, I can't find a job, whether it is my colleagues that are abusing me, whether it is my partner doesn't listen, doesn't get it. It doesn't matter what is wrong, going not well in your life. That's the message. You don't need to have a partner.

James:

It's a human. I think it's a, a, a human, uh, condition that quite often or probably, I reckon probably 95 to maybe 99% of the time we are probably unconscious. Perfect example in that moment. I completely forgot whilst I was talking about, uh, and it's an idea, but so how can we become, how can we allow ourselves to get into our body and become more conscious of what's going on around us so that we can be conscious in our relationships? That's a great question.

Rebecca:

Meditation is amazing. Matt said, uh, before meditation is amazing. So we can be more in tuned with our inner world and also our outer world, our feelings, our emotions, our physical sensations. Meditation is amazing. Breath work as well. Um, even cold showers are amazing because you can be more ready, more, uh, woken up. Uh, I would say that definitely therapy, always, uh, dropping layers of pain and, and coaching, dropping beliefs that not serving us.

Matt:

It, it's also, uh, like getting educated so we've got a proper understanding. Uh, James, like I used the car example. I was obviously joking a bit, but there is a serious point there because if I've got a problem called my car doesn't work, I mean, I could get in touch with my, my inner child and maybe that would help. But it wouldn't necessarily get in my car working again.

Mm.'cause

Matt:

there's a bit of missing understanding called being a mechanic, which in that case, for all the inner work in the world, it doesn't get your car running. What you've gotta, you've gotta have that correct understanding. So I think that's like sometimes neglected. It's all like a really obvious point. But, um, but yeah, sometimes if we just don't know what to do, like what the real cause is, we just end up going round, round in circles.

Rebecca:

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Meditation can be amazing to regulate your nervous system and to be more in tune with yourself, like you said, your internal world and, but also, uh, an amazing diagnosis. Diagnostic can save you money, years of pain and time, and so you can actually hit the nail with the right treatment, whether it's a family conation session, hypnotherapy session, or even, I dunno, whatever it is. Um, but you go

Matt:

straight

Rebecca:

to the point,

Matt:

or maybe it's a mechanic with a spanner to solve your problem, but whatever it is, you get to the actual problem rather than go around in circles.

Rebecca:

Yeah. And for that education is, is key as well. Exactly.

James:

Yeah. I think there's almost, there's a sense of masculine and feminine there. Both yourselves. So those, the, the, the feminine side is quite, um, the spiritual, the kind of, um, the side, which is all to do with relaxation, to do with emotions and feeling and embodiment. And then there's the masculine side, which is the, the doing, the action, the finding, going and finding the right person for the job. And so I think there's a, a nice mix of having both the masculine and feminine on a a with a solution or an orientated, um, idea.

Rebecca:

Exactly. James, you, you hit the nail because, and, and that's where, where we come because with such a great team, uh, we do coaching and we also do therapy. And exactly as you said, the coaching is the education around, around how we showing up and how we could show up. To get the results that we want. And, and like you said, around the feminine and the masculine, the misconceptions misbeliefs, uh, what we've learned in society, what we've been taught by our parents, caregivers, and blah, blah, blah. This, this educational side, which is absolutely critical because we can keep doing therapy and healing, uh, and dropping layers of pains, uh, of generations. But if we are not educated around what works and what doesn't work and what happens when I show up this way and what ha could happen if I showed in a different way, if we are not, uh, educated around that, we are gonna need a lifetime premium of therapy. Really. But then if we do the educational part of it, but we don't do the therapy part of it, many people can find it hard to implement the strategies and the tools because actually they are still having breaks, internal breaks, holding them back from change because maybe there is an unconscious loyalty with my father because he was cheating. So I'm cheating and every time that I cheat, I am connected to, I feel connected to my father at a very deep level, which I am not aware of, but my body does remember. Mm-hmm. And then now I've been, I've been taught that actually if I cheat, this is what's gonna happen. So I'd rather not cheat, but then I make myself feel very ashamed when I actually, I'm cheating again. Why are we doing this? And it's because I need both the education and the therapy. And that's the combination and the perfect cocktail for change.

James:

Before we finish, because I'm obviously, I'm conscious of time. When you mentioned very beginning, the different ways of loving, could you explain them again

Matt:

please? Different ways of loving. Yeah, I said that.

Rebecca:

Yeah. The different ways of loving. That's a very good question. Uh, James, uh, we can be loving, uh, from a, from a consciousness of being aligned with love, which I, we call it love, where we actually, uh, vibrate my family language in compassion, generosity, gratitude, abundance, um, and playfulness. You know, uh, all that. Or we can be aligned with fear. And that's, and from that level of consciousness, we are actually loving how, by trying to change my partner, by making my partner wrong, by being very jealous, by being very insecure and, and controlling my partner. Where are you going? Where are you dressing that? Who are you testing? Where are you all the time stuck in your phone? You don't want to spend time with me? And so we can be aligned with fear or we can be aligned with, uh, with. Fear or with love, different levels of consciousness, different vibrations. Uh, our body language, uh, is different. Our language patterns as well are different. And so some people love by slapping the punish on their face, uh, by calling them names, by cheating. That's, that's the name of love for some people. And for some people, love means I love you and I'm not choosing you anymore, or, I love you and I know that you have an addiction, and I embrace it and I'm gonna be very, very patient because I know that you're doing your best. And for as long as I see you working on that actively and not lying, saying that you're doing it, but you're not doing it for as long as I see you. Proactive, uh, carrying your burdens, uh, with grace and dignity and doing something about it. I love you and I will keep choosing you. And that's a different way of lo uh, of love.

James:

Thank you. Just to finish off, can you explain what you both do and how people can get in contact?

Matt:

Should I see? Yeah, of course. James. Yeah, thank you. Uh, so we work with people wanting to make sense of their relationships. You know, lots of couples approaches'cause we work as a couple, so lots of couples. I like that approach. But we do work with individuals as well. Uh, but really it's any kind of relationship situation, tension, breakdown, conflict. We just help people get to the bottom of it. And we have a six month program. It's uh, it's a certain kind of therapy. We use different therapeutic, uh, uh, modalities you could say, but it's a bit different from some therapy'cause we, well we literally guarantee people get a result or they get the money back. So it's a bit different from some therapy in that respect. But yeah, it's very much helped aim to help people make sense of their relationships.

Rebecca:

And so as we said, James, before we, we, we have created our six month program where we have two phases. First, uh, phase clarity, uh, it happens very quickly so you really get a very clear picture of what is going on and what you could do to it and do, and. To actually use the tools that we give people to put them into practice. But then we have the six month process where actually people start implementing those tools, those strategies that are gonna give them the results that they do want rather than they want the ones that they're getting. And, and in doing, in putting them into practice, they'll make mistakes. They will, uh, new questions will arise, uh, doubts. And so we hold them accountable every week, every single week for six months. And, and in this, uh, six months, they can also have some therapies with us. And we do hypnotherapy, neurolinguistic programming, uh, family constellations coaching, CVD, blah, blah, blah. So we can, uh, help them whichever, uh, they need to actually, uh, in generate change, which we need.

Matt:

Yeah. So I'm just gonna get finish off. Thank you to say, uh, you've got the website aligned with love.net. You can see lots of stuff on there, lots of videos from us, our podcast. You can get a hold of my book. We've got a scorecard where you can put your relationship to the test and get some immediate feedback. So yeah, for anyone interested, check out the website is the first point of call,

Rebecca:

and all this because the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life

James:

nicely. Back to a circle. Thank you very much. You.

Thanks for tuning in to Man a Quest. Find meaning if today's conversation sparked something in you, take a moment to reflect, then take a step. Remember, real growth comes from action, not just insight. If you found value in this episode, share it with a friend. Leave her a review, or reach out and let me know what resonated. Your feedback helps shape the journey we are on together. For more conversations like this, make sure to subscribe and stay connected. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn for updates, tools, and upcoming guests. Remember. It's not about having the answers. It's about daring to look.

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James Ainsworth

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