What If Your Greatest Teacher Is The Lover Who Breaks You

What happens when the person you crave is also the person who unravels you? We sit down with spiritual counselor and author Stephen Paul Edwards for a riveting, no-fluff conversation about a relationship so intoxicating it threatened his sanity—and how he found the courage to step out, rebuild, and write the truth.

Stephen takes us from his days speaking on Tony Robbins’ circuit to a whirlwind romance with a brilliant, volatile partner he calls the “Venus flytrap.” He lays bare the early seduction, the status-fueled fantasy, and the hairpin turns—police at the door, weaponized accusations, and a constant battle of wills. Beneath the dramatic beats, we map the deeper terrain: codependency, trauma bonding, and the hidden payoffs that keep smart people stuck. We dig into borderline personality patterns, fear of abandonment, and entitlement born from early spoiling, while debating a big question: can every wound be healed, or are some patterns only manageable if both parties choose the work?

The heart of our talk is self-honesty. Stephen describes recognizing himself as much as his partner in the chaos—his thrill-seeking, his stories about being unlovable, and the way success had become sophisticated avoidance. We challenge listeners to audit their own narratives: test beliefs against evidence, separate facts from fears, and choose whether to keep or close the loop. When a partner refuses help, love without boundaries becomes self-erasure; leaving may be the most compassionate act for both.

There’s hope here, not just heat. Stephen’s path forward—total no-contact, deliberate solitude, reading old journals, and crafting his memoir—shows how reflection turns pain into pattern recognition and then into peace. If you’re navigating a high-voltage relationship, this conversation offers a field guide: protect your safety, build a support net, question your story, and reclaim the quiet where a new identity can take root.

If this episode moves you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more candid conversations, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your insights matter—what pattern did you spot in your own story?

 how to leave a toxic relationship 

 rebuilding identity after a breakup 

redefining intimacy

lasting spiritual change

spiritual growth podcast

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Transcript

Live Video And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the spiritual grind.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Good morning.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

We are live in studio today.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

We are live.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

We're gonna we're going to be Yeah, we are live, aren't we? We're on this side of the dirt.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, we are. On this side of the dirt.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

At least on this dimension.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

We're doing something new today.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

We are. We are doing something new today.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

We got that camera in our face, mate.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

It's going live on YouTube today. For the first time ever on video, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Well, I guess the second time that I've just never published it before, but now we're gonna go ahead and go live on the video.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

I'm trying to ignore the the camera.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Why are you trying to look pretty?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Uh no, I'm just trying to ignore to the it it it's kinda freaking me out a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

It is. Oh my god, is it working?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Right. It feels feels like somebody's watching me.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

You feel like you're being watched.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah, what's that song? Somebody's watching watching me. Somebody's watching.

Meet Stephen Paul Edwards

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Yeah, I remember that movie. Or that song, sorry. That was in a movie. It was in a movie too, but that was on screen at one point or another. But anyway, hey, we have a have a uh special appearance today.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

We do too.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

We have Stephen Paul Edwards. Do you know who he is?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

I do not. I mean I do now.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

He is a spiritual counselor. He's got a PhD in spiritual counseling, and he has written many books. And uh he's uh I guess his most uh notable book series, I guess, is the the Venus flytrap series. I actually remember reading some of this book when uh on uh threads. Remember reading it was like a little highlight clip. But anyway, so we're going to be bringing him in. I think it'll be a great way to continue our series on sex.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

All right, let's continue having sex talk.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

All right, we'll bring him in now. If everybody will give a round of applause to Mr. Stephen Paul Edwards.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

All right, well, hello guys. Thank you for having me on. I'm looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Sorry, that's the that's the studio audience, Stephen. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

That's a lot of brood there, right? It must be at a Super Bowl party.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Getting ready to I guess that is today, isn't it? It is, yeah. Wow, I forgot. I don't even watch football anymore. I was a football. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 3:25

I mean, I mean I'm an English guy telling you guys when your Super Bowl is what's up with that.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Well, I I was a football official for 19 years for college. Really? Oh wow. I didn't see that.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

You're the you're the you're the Renaissance man, man. I just every time I listen to you and I've listened to a few of your podcasts, there's something new that comes up about you that's like, oh wow, he does that too.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Oh yeah, we it's well, if you ever look at our website, you'll see that uh we do we have our hands in a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah. Steven that's a good that's a good way to start a sex tour, right? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Do you prefer to be referenced as Dr. Edwards, Dr. Steven, or just Steven?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Just Steven's fine. Uh you like Dr. Jenny, right? Uh but I just go by Stephen, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Uh yeah, I mean that's just kind of what stuck. So somebody along the way started calling me Dr. Jenny, and it just kind of stuck, so here we are.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So it's kind of a combination of two, which is good.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

For sure. I like it. You know, it it kind of it just it rings out of the tongue for me because you know, for years I had to she had to, you know, go buy my name first. As you know, she was Mrs. James Emery. But now she has the doctorate, it's doctor and mister. Uh-huh. On the formal on the formal introduction.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Oh yeah. She flipped the table on you, man.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

She did. She did. I'm actually working on mine as I haven't finished it yet. But not everybody can can finish a doctorate and like she did.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Okay. No, no. You know, here's here's the thing. I've never really the reason I got the doctorate was not for any reason in terms of, you know, for publicity or to put it on a book or anything like that. I I really got it, guys, because I worked for um I worked with Tony Robbins for a long time.

unknown 5:18

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

And then I started doing my own mind, body, spirit events. And at the end of the events, people would come up to me and ask me, well, could you, you know, counsel for me? Could you be my coach? Could you and of course you really to do that, you gotta be careful, you've got to have licensure. And I wasn't gonna spend seven years learning how to be a psychologist, right? This is not on the table.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Right.

From Tony Robbins To Spiritual Counseling

SPEAKER_01 5:36

So I found out that you could actually have the ability, the legal right to counsel people through having a uh a PhD in spiritual counseling. So that's what I did. It was a lot shorter time and gave me the ability to do it. So I the the the only reason it started to come up now is because I'm promoting this book and um someone said, Why did you put that on there? So I did. So um anyway, uh, thank you for asking, Dr. Jenny. Uh and I've thought about it since actually. Should I use it? But I haven't as yet. And probably now that I've started marking this, I probably won't.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

So now you do something out there that I have to ask you. What did you do for Tony Robbins?

SPEAKER_01 6:11

I was a speaker.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

No, you're a speaker for him. Oh, in it. You were were you in his uh speaker group that went around and did all the speaking live events? Oh, okay. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah. Yeah, it was an extraordinary experience. And then he introduced me. Now we're going back away, right? So this is uh, you know, I I started working with Tony back in 1994. So that's a while ago, right? So back then, and he started to introduce me to more spiritual teachers, right? So not that Tony is a spiritual, but you know, like people like uh some of your audience may not remember these guys, uh, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, James Redfield, Neil Donner Walsh, and all you know, all those people were all big then.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

I still follow Deepak program.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, he's yeah, he's still relevant. Of course, Wayne Dyer passed away, but yeah, um, he's still very relevant. What an amazing hum human being. Yeah, I think spiritual being in a human in a human body, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

I think even in this day and age, uh, you know, they still are very uh uh useful information, and I feel like a lot of people still check out their stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely for sure. But of course, you know what happens is with all these people, they uh the the younger people want people that are in their generation, so other people have kind of stepped up to the plate, but Deepak is still Deepak, right? People used to call me Deepak Edwards, uh because I love this stuff, you know. Um yeah, so he's absolutely, I mean, the work is amazing and it will always stand the test of time because it's timeless.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Very good. It really is. Tell us a little bit about your book, man.

The Toxic Romance Begins

SPEAKER_01 7:46

All right, dude. Um my book. Uh uh I you know, I pick up on American words even to this day, you know, because I'm from England or anything. We we don't say uh those things over there, so just rings. Anyway, uh my book, yes, it's a memoir, it's a uh uh it's a revealing, almost like a confession. Uh, you know, as we've just been talking about, I have a background in spirituality, personal development, health, wellness, all that stuff. And so this happened for me um about seven, eight years ago. And it was a uh a time that I forgot everything I knew and went into a very toxic relationship, which was perfect, don't get me wrong, but it was toxic. It was toxic for me because I lost myself. And I had to come to the realization, you know, I had to come to the realization that we all have a light and a dark side to our nature. Absolutely, and until until we can own both of them, we're never free. And the freedom comes from accepting both sides of ourselves, right? So um she was a a master teacher from a soul level, and she came into my life to help me, to teach me. Um, and I came into her life the same. We were mirrors of each other. So anyway, so that's a little bit of background. And the story is just amazing in terms of it, it was incredibly crazy. Yeah uh the things that happened between us. We uh uh both very competitive, both wanted to win, and so we had this uh battle going on all the time. She was a um a former international supermodel, her father is a billionaire, right? So she grew up in very uh um, you know, she's a sport brat. But anyway, she grew up in these circumstances, she went to finishing school, you know, and she would say, Oh, yeah, I am she wouldn't even argue with that, right? So uh she expected to uh win everything, to get everything. Um, but she was also smart enough, intelligent enough, and powerful enough to be able to do it without anybody giving it to her, if that makes any sense. Yeah. Um absolutely so I come along as yeah, I come along as this English mongrel, right? Um to a you know, a lower, a lower middle class home. And so she just completely bedazzled me, right? She became my obsession, right? Beautiful, smart, powerful. Um so the the the the name of the book is The Venus Fly Chop Sex, Lies and Repercussions. And if I may, just tell you a little bit about why it's called that, right? So when we met, we met online, yeah, no kidding, right? We met online, and I was just completely enthralled with her, you know, with her page in this on this website. She's an equestrian show jumper. She's lived in Brazil and Miami and Paris, been on the front cover of Vogues, two Vogues, right? Um, so I'm like, oh my God, you know, I've met my perfect match, right? Here I met my soulmate here, right? So I started to try and get her interested in having a date, right? Right. I'm hopeless at, right? I'm hopeless. And I'm I'm I I you know every day in my life, you've been in sales, uh, right, James. You know what that's like, right? Oh yeah. Yeah, I remember yeah, yeah, me too. So we don't but we become really good at it because we get to know who people are. And I remember listening to you talking about no script is going to get to that, right? It's really your nature, it's your your connection with people and your love to meet people, yeah. Um that makes you successful. So I I'm I was I'm good at influencing, but in terms of women, um, although I've been married four times, so it kind of sounds like a contradiction, I'm just not good, right? I practice yellow, right? So I'm and of course I'm so totally intimidated by her, right? Right. So I'm coming up with these terrible freaking lines and terrible uh ideas for us to get together. And she's just kicking my ass, right? She's listening. I'm not interested in this guy, he's a loser, right? So anyway, something happened in one of her pictures. She's in a museum, and she's standing, and then she's five foot eleven on a bare feet, and she's never in a bare feet. She wears six-inch heels most of the time. So she towers over me, right? Anyway, she's standing in front of this wall of vintage computers. Yeah. I'm sorry, vintage typewriters. Vintage computers, vintage typewriters, and she's reaching up to type on to the typewriters above her head to give you, you know, to show you how high it is, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

So finally, after she she'd made it, uh, she's agreed to have a date with me for coffee, right? And then she canceled the next day, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Something like I gotta tie, I gotta tie her down somehow, right? So I I made a joke. I said, Hey, listen, I'm looking for an assistant. Oh I need a high hand, I need a high-handed typist. You know anybody? Right? High-handed typist, right? Yeah, I get it. Yeah. So she laughed at that. Yeah, right. So she came back and she goes, me, me, me.

unknown 12:19

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

And I said, hmm, a little eager, aren't we?

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

So this is where the banter all started, right? Anyway. So the next day, I'm I'm thinking, I gotta tie this date down, right? I can't have her um, you know, cancel on me again. Guys, I went to an extreme I've never gone before for this date. I'm thinking, she's I'm gonna impress her. And I mean, you know, she's from wealth. I've got to figure out how we're gonna impress this shit, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Yeah, billionaire family.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, right. You know, what are we gonna do? So at one point, I'm thinking, I'm gonna tell her, not directly, but I'm gonna let her know I'm buying her flowers, right? I mean, you can't cancel with a guy who's gonna buy your flowers, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

So I'm I'm texting her, we're texting backwards and forwards, and I said in the text, what's your favorite flower? She texted back, bird of paradise. Oh. So, as you can already tell, I like to joke around, right? So I I I texted her back. I went, nah, mine too. And then I go, and then I go, it's a bit expensive though, so what's your second favorite?

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Yeah, from the billionaire family. That's probably not a good idea. Right, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

She texted back, I kid you not, guys, instantly, Venus fly truck.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Oh, yeah. So the second most expensive flower in the world.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

So here you go, look. So here you go. So on the one hand, what she's doing is telling me who she was. On the one hand, she's this beautiful flower.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

On the other side, there's the Venus fly truck. You know, and I know you guys know this, and I knew it too, because I had that, you know, the feeling that intuition came up. Whoa, you know, be careful here, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Pump the brakes here, pump the brakes.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

I'm gonna eat you for lunch. Exactly right, and have fun doing it.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Exactly. That's exactly right. Don't you see it? You hit it in the nail on the head, right? So she is the Venus flytrap, and I was the fly.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

And she was constantly trying to devour me, and I was constantly trying to not let her devour me.

The Venus Flytrap Metaphor

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Right. You were just holding the holding the flower petals open.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Okay, now we're getting into it. So anyway, so that was the story, man. And it's like, and and so she began by trying to devour me, trying to actually get everything I owned, right? No, and she she had been very wealthy, but uh from a wealthy family, but from the time she was 16, she ran away from home and she'd been taking care of herself. So while and she had a modeling career, but she blew it because of drugs. She got addicted to drugs, and so the job started to dry up, and then she had to learn how to live the streets, right? Oh, yes. And she was very street smart, right? And she had to learn the law and how to manipulate the law. Right. So through there's a lot of stories to this, but at one point, I'm in a situation where I find out she's an alcoholic, right? Oh, and I'd been married to an alcoholic before, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Those are no fans.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

And so what I should have done, what I should have done when I found out, is as my friend said, listen, have a good time with her this weekend, take her home on Sunday, and then you're done. But that is not what I wanted to hear, right? What I wanted to hear was we gotta fix this and we're gonna be together, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

So I uh did a stupid thing. I can I confronted her about it. You know, did you did you know there was a bottle of Captain Morgan's rum in the cabinet under the guest sink? Do you know anything about it? And what is she gonna say? No. Why are you asking me? You know what I mean? That whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Are you accusing me of drinking?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Well, I just I just brought it up, right? Obviously, she knew where I was going with it, and she wanted to shut it down right away. Anyway, long story longer, she goes she goes into a fit, right? And you know, she's calling a mom and all this kind of acting out. And I knew that she could well want to draw me into getting physical so she could call the police and have me arrested. Yeah. That's as far as I got with it, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

So there was no way I was gonna be drawn into an argument, right? And all kinds of funny things happen. But she's going crazy. I I make myself some breakfast, that ends up in my lap, because she just takes the plates and throw it into my lap, right? She would she would do anything, right? Right. So I'm with my friend, and so we go out and work out to let her calm down. Hopefully, that was the idea. Well, we come back and we can't find her.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

So then, so then she'd given me a father's phone number. I'd never met him, right? We've only been dating like a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

But I decided to call her father. So I call him and I say, You don't know me, I don't know who I am, right? I'm dating your daughter. And he's like, Okay, so what? So anyway, so then I said, He's heard this call before, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

He says, What do you want me to do about it? Oh, yeah, you're right. That's right, James. This is not the first time, right? You're right.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

And you want me to do what so you're the you're the you're the shoe of the week.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

You want me to do what about it? She's your problem now.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Exactly, right? You guys could have written the book. Anyway, so he goes, I go, did you know that she's an alcoholic? And then it's just silence. And he goes, Oh, yeah, I know.

unknown 17:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Right?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Has been for years.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Like you said, right? It's kind of uh you know, duh.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

I bailed her out of you know, 11 countries, and you know, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

So I've spent hundreds of thousands, yeah. I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on rehabs for her. She just checks it and then she just walks out three days later, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So I go, Did he at that point hand you a diaper bag and say, It's your turn, brother?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

But here's the thing, you guys have no idea where this goes, right? So let's know. Then he goes, he goes, uh, okay, so uh then he goes, Is she in your house? Oh I didn't say well I can't find her, but I just said yeah. He said, get her out and don't ever let her back in again.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Yeah, don't let her back out.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

He said, If you if you let her back in your house, you're a fool. And then to the father, I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

I love how you said I didn't tell him that she's lost in my house like some pet lizard. Well, yeah, my pet is gotten out of her cage and she's loose in the house somewhere, but we won't go there.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

So then what happens is he says to me, Um, and this is you know, later on down the road, he tells me, uh, and she actually told me too, she put he put her in an asylum when she was 16.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

So he's a genius, but is emotionally completely void of emotion, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

So it's all very practical. She's acting crazy, put her in an asylum.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Which obviously traumatized her. And so she, you know, she didn't really hate her father, but she said she did, but really she loved it, but she didn't know how to get him to love her the way she wanted to be loved. And she thought the only way her father was gonna love her, because he'd made so much money, is that she was financially successful. Right. So she made sure that she didn't rely on him for money and wanted to prove to him she could take care of herself. And he got a lot of background. So anyway, at this point, at this point, though, I decide when he says this to me, he goes, get her out of the house, right? He said, uh, he said, by the way, just like you guys said, this isn't the first time this has happened, and he's sending me, listen, she's had guys like lose everything, and you know, this is what this is what she does, right? So I'm like, holy crap. Now then you would think I would just be like, that's it, right? So I call her, I call her, and she picks up the phone. I had no idea where she is at this point, right? And I say, Listen, almost like the game's up, right? I know what's going on. I tell her, I just spoke with you. Right, right. So I just spoke, I just said, I just spoke to your father. Oh my god, it went up 2,000 degrees, right? She completely lost it, right? What gives you the fucking right to call my father, right? He's a liar, he's done this and he's done that, and she starts to throw doubt into the story. Oh anyway, a little bit just a little bit more to go. And I'm gonna I'm just you know giving you the reader's digest for it here. Uh, the next thing, I'm thinking, my god, what's gonna happen here, right? So, and I said to my friend, maybe I should call the police. I call the police, you know what they said? They know her. Oh, yeah, oh yeah. She goes, he goes, Oh yeah, we're we're on the way. She'd already called some.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

They say the same thing the father says, She's your problem now.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Yeah, yeah.

Addiction, Alcohol, And Escalation

SPEAKER_01 20:22

So then she comes, so then when the police arrive, she runs out, she's in the garage in the back of one of my cars, right? Yeah. So she runs out of the garage and she wants to take control of the narrative, right? So by the time the I'm just sitting inside the house with my friend until I know that I know they're gonna come, right? So when they come to the house, they're already lit up, right? Because she's been yarn spilling yarns and telling lies and stories and of course, and you know, on the book cover, it tells you that I'm living in a mansion at this point, right? And I got a I got a sex room that's bigger than a house, right? And so she's telling them that me and my friend, Jerry, this is a big part of the book, tried to rape her in the sex room.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yep. Yep. And then she's and then but then this is what it's funny. Then she tells them that we're gay.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Oh, but they but you do rape.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

How does that add up, right? How does that add up?

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

So they come in the house and they tell me all this. I said, okay, well, first of all, none of that's true. Second of all, explain this to me. We're gay and we try to rape her. How's that work? And then one of them goes, one of them goes, Well, yeah, I thought that was strange too. Oh, okay. Don't have two rocky science this year, right? So anyway, long story longer, and I didn't know this. My friend Jerry had recorded her when she was having these crazy uh you know, go mad.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

I didn't know. And he so he said to the he said to the sheriffs, look, you know, um, I've got a I I recorded her. Can I play? And and what then one of them goes, Well, did you ask permission? He goes, No. So he goes, Well, it's not admissible then.

unknown 21:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

And then so the Jerry goes, Well, it might not be admissible in court, but would you at least listen to it? Because if you listen to it, you know, right now, we're in danger of going to jail, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

There's a lot on the line here. So if you listen to it, I think you're gonna realize what she's telling you isn't true.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Oh, yeah, well, it's character testimony for sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

So they listen to it and they go, they go, holy shit, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Um And so so then they decide they're not gonna arrest me. But what they tell me then is now now listen, I don't know if you know this or not, but if we had arrested you and we'd taken you away. She could have got a restraining order and she's a guest in your house. You can't get her out. You'd have had to evict her, right? Right. And that would probably take that would take about six months, right? Meanwhile, she's got everything. You can't come anywhere near this house, and she's got everything.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Yep. That would have been bad.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

It would have been really bad.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

So she had me. I was in the jaw.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Absolutely. She's licking her fingers like she just ate a bucket of chicken. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

And I can't, guys, I can't tell you how many times that happened. Oh, yeah, I can imagine it went on. You're a slow learner. Well, not really. I quickly learned how to take care, I quickly learned how to make sure I didn't get eaten because 99.99% of guys got eaten.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

But I was smart enough to get out of. So anyway, but here's the bundle line. We were both very smart. I'm smart, right? She's smart. So it was a battle. It was a constant battle of wills. In the end, she wanted to marry me.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Now for for a long time, for a long time, she believed she believed she was unlovable, you see. That was where it was all coming from. Yeah. Because her father, if your father doesn't love you, he's gonna love you, right? Right. No, yeah, then because she because she's so beautiful, men are around her like flies, right? Yep. But she didn't realize, as you know, we have these patterns, she didn't realize she was pushing them away. And so she was fulfilling her belief that no one loved her and they only wanted her for sex.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Yeah, that's where I was about to do it.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

So all she wanted to do was destroy men, right? That was what I meant.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

And so that's what I was in the end. That's what I was about to say. Did you did you teach her? Did you teach her this and she learned? Or did you No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

I didn't really teach it, I just loved her.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

And in the end, she's going, This guy's not going away.

unknown 24:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

I think eventually I think what happened is covertly you were teaching her, and I don't know that you even realized that you were. Did you certainly doesn't know? Just by your behavior.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

To be honest, I knew a lot of stuff, and I was trying to help her. Right. But we were actually in inadvertently, and you're right, uh, Dr. Jenny, we were unconsciously teaching each other.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

There's a lot of things that I had to reflect back on later to get the lesson, right? Uh, as I was going through with it, it wasn't quite so easy to look at it that way. But anyway, so I managed to escape there, and a number of times to escape. But in the end, she she realized he does love me.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Right.

unknown 24:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

And then she went from trying to trying to take me down to wanting to marry me, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

And then, but I knew I but I knew, and you can relate to this, James, I couldn't marry her. There was no way. Because if I'd have married her, game over.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Oh, yeah. You would yeah, it would have been a good one.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Now she has the fly. Now she'd be like, well, that's one dad. I got him. I'm gonna go to another one, right? That that's just her the way her psychology is.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Totally. You know, we have uh so the question is go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

You know, through throughout the years we've worked with many uh couples, marriage counselors, and you'd be surprised. This scenario at different levels happens a lot, which would be a that's a great thing for your for your book, because uh everybody out there goes through this at some level.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yeah, and uh, you know, I've done that, I've done the same thing in counseling that I've done, right? But you guys know that's true. Uh this is also true. You can't counsel yourself, right? Yeah, uh we all need to have someone that can look at our eyes for us because we can't see ourselves. And in that situation, I was addicted to her. Yep, she was heroine to me.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

So I am gonna agree to disagree as you hear our podcast. You know I do that often. Because we can actually counsel ourselves. It's just a skill that we have to hone in on.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Well, you know, I you know, I'll agree to disagree on that one. We'll agree to disagree. But here's the thing, here's what I'll agree with you on that to an extent. Yeah, you can you can see yourself to some extent and you can work on those things and realize them just as you can recognize a pattern, which I did at the end of this whole thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Right.

Police, Allegations, And Close Calls

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Many of those things are so deep down you're not even aware of them anymore. So I think to have someone really get that deep, you can't do that yourself. If you could, you would do it earlier and you wouldn't go through the trauma, right? So, and it's we're meant to go through that trauma because we're meant to use use that trauma in our lives for good, right? Yeah, and to heal it. So it's what we're here for.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

So, what we'll do then is we'll have another podcast. We'll invite you back on, and you and I can talk through that. That would be interesting.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

See how see how see how that works? I just taught myself, I got myself talking to me. Now I've got two podcasts with you guys. I'm talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

I see it differently, Steven. I see it much differently. I believe that's a wonderful things differently. Yeah, yeah, that's how you learn.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

I mean, Jenny and I disagree on things all the time. It's it's uh it that's why our podcast is so everybody likes the, you know, we we got a call this morning, wouldn't know why we didn't post one on Thursday because we were busy. But you know, because uh everybody likes to hear.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

I heard someone's I heard it was someone's birthday. Happy birthday.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

It was, yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah. And holding steady at 29.

unknown 27:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

That's a good way to be. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

Yeah, she's deaf I'm definitely uh uh cradle robin now. Because she's 29 and I'm 53.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, man, but yeah, that isn't that illegal.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Yeah, well, I guess in some states, I guess. And so I I have a I have a big question for you because I was looking at some of this stuff online when I was doing my due diligence prior to interviewing you. And so my question would be to you, what you know, I I seen where you identified in her, you know, what the issues were that you were seeing, you know, the the drinking, the obsessive, beh compulsive behavior, the obviously the narratives that she was uh complaining about and creating within her own world, but what part of that in you did you create?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

All of it. 100%. There's nothing that happens in our lives that we don't create, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:35

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

So, yeah, 100%. So, and I knew I was doing that, but I was so addicted to it, I was like, well, screw it, I'm gonna enjoy it anyway. She's like a yo-yo. Yeah, you know, and so here's the thing I'm I am uh attracted to adventure, to chaos, uh, to excitement. Uh I'm an adrenaline junkie, right? And so I was getting all that along with the craziness, but the craziness also gave me an adrenaline rush because I had to figure out how to get out of it. Yeah, so we were just mirrors of each other. Just like I said, you know, I was in an asylum at 16, so was she. Yeah, we both had almost the same experience, except, you know, she was born into tremendous wealth, uh, those kind of things. But at the core, we'd all been through similar trauma and both had she had daddy issues, I had daddy issues.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

And she wanted you to be followed. She wanted you to be her daddy.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

She wanted me to be her daddy, yeah. As long as she didn't want you to call her daddy, then we're dead.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah, him call her daddy. Whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

I I never asked her. She probably would have said yeah. I don't know. Anyway, um, I never asked her directly. And then the other thing is, and you just bring that up right now, we were both addicted to sex with each other. Well, she was addicted to sex, period, right? But I was addict addicted to having sex with her. We were into the same things. Well, I'll say she was into everything, right? But we also enjoyed the same things. And she she knew that it was there was a sex room in my house before I showed it to her. She knew.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Did you she just knew? So, did you marry her?

SPEAKER_00 30:05

No, no, no, that's what he said. He knew he couldn't.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Because the game would be over.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

The cat mouse, I caught the I caught the catch, and so then there's no motivation.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Yeah, and she would have lost her motivation behind it all.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Yeah. It would have changed.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

So here's what's interesting, right? Here's what's interesting. Because you go, okay, well, you didn't marry her, well, and you're not together, so what happened, right? Right. So I'm just gonna tell anybody that's listening, this is a spoiler alert. So if you don't want to know what happened in the end, don't listen to this. But here's what happened. Uh at Christmas, my uh my friend Jerry, who's in the book all the time, he bought me a gift for Christmas, right? And he bought me a stack of books on psychology, because he knows I love that, right? And then one of the books was called I Hate You, Don't Leave Me. I know that book. And that book is all about borderline personality disorder.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Yep. I know I I've read that book because my my previous wife was like psycho cycling like that. I read that book uh men years ago. Yeah, it's very old.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

It's one of the first books, it was one of the first books written on borderline personality disorder. Yeah, I didn't know. But I read it, and it was her, it was her on the page, guys. They were using um cases, no, not using the name of the real, not the real name of the person, but they were using case studies, and I'm like, that's her. That is her. Not in a negative way. It's like there are as you probably know, there are nine different symptoms of borderline personality disorder. She had them all to an extreme. Over the borderline, too. So right, over the borderline, yeah, that's a good point. I love that. So um now here's the issue, right? So I read in the book that borderline personality is treatable. Okay. That's what I read, but what I said in my mind is it's curable. And it isn't curable. It's not curable. What you can do is if you go to therapy three times a week, you can live with it.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Well, it's manageable. I think it's manageable.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Manageable, yeah. It's manageable, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Yeah, I don't know that there's anything in the in the human world that I believe in the psyche that is uncompletely well, I'd say it I you may not ever cure certain things, but there are things that are very easily managed. And I think that's it.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

But she would never want to manage it. But she would never manage it. Why? Because she was terrified of ever going to a therapist because she was terrified that they might put her back in the asylum, right? Whether that's rational or not, that was her belief. So she would never go to therapy, number one. Number two, all her addictions were a survival mechanism. She would never give them up in a million years. Because they're a way for her to escape reality, which was way too much for her to handle.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

So did you do you find that the the anytime you deal being, you know, because you do counseling as well, when you deal with those people with borderline personality disorder, do you find that they've on majority been overly spoiled? Like they've been, you know, like is almost everyone I've ever talked to that I have worked with or I know, they were at one point in their life completely spoiled. They have no idea about the you know, the value of a dollar, the the value of morals, the you know, of ethics. And uh it seemed like it very much is um had every time I can notice I can actually take note of with people I've worked with or know that they have been completely spoiled at one point in their life.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Well, yeah, that's the that it wasn't necessarily coming from wealth, but being spoiled.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Yeah. Yes. You can totally do. That's why you can have it at so many different levels.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yeah, right. So they're totally entitled, they'll just do whatever they want to do and think that that's the right thing to do, just do whatever they want. And of course, they have tremendous fear of abandonment, right? They're terrified of being abandoned. So, I mean, at a level that most people could never imagine. It's like someone sticking a dagger in their heart, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah, I feel like some of it's sprinkled with just that um uh self-confidence of I can't do it myself unless this person a codependency almost.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Total codependency, yeah. And I was codependent too, right? Yeah, I was codependent on her. Of course. So you got two two strong codependent people. It's a recipe for madness, right? Oh, I can imagine. And I actually have a I have a book that I give away that's kind of a little bit of a um a sneak preview of what you're going to expect from the book. And it's called Madness and Mayhem. Because it was, it was madness and mayhem, you know, and and you know this, James. It can go from she could go from loving me at 10 a.m. to hating me at 11 a.m. Right. Or even sooner. The mood swings, you know, and I was I was diagnosed with uh manic depression when I was a kid. Of course, we know that it's bipolar now. Yeah, so I could I could have mood swings too, right? Yeah, to the degree that she could, and the chaos that that created was just unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Oh, yeah, the man the the rapid cycling stuff is insane. I I live through that. So I mean I I'd go from having a five-minute positive conversation to ducking wine glasses and stuff like that. It was insane. It was like, and and then what's crazy is somehow inside you figure out a way to blame yourself to make it feel better, I guess. I don't know. It was a it was a cycle for me that I went through.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I yeah, blame, I think, as well. But I'd also just say, listen, I can walk away from this if I want to. I'm choosing to stay. No one's forcing me. It's on me. And I go, would I do I really want to stand? I go, hell yeah, right. I mean, she was amazing, and we had incredible times. And I was very fortunate back then, you know, I had developed my speaking career with, you know, Tony Robbins, Robbie Kiyosaki, and all these gurus, right? So I was making a million dollars a year, yeah, right? Living in a mansion, I've got a Bentley, I got a Rolls-Royce. Things are going pretty well in my mind. Right. But those things were just ways for me to not have to face who I am, right? Or to face those things, right? Because when you're in that situation, you're not being forced into doing that. And sometimes when you're teaching it, you don't, you know, it's not one thing knowing what to do is to do another thing doing what you know, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

So I had a lot of things around me that were protecting me, but also trapping me.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Yeah, right. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

But but what my the point I wanted to bring up was we were traveling all over the world, right? We were living a fantasy life. Nothing about our life was real, right? We didn't have to do anything, we didn't have any kids, we could go where we wanted to do what we wanted. And we took advantage of that, right? Yeah, so we had one the point I wanted to make was we I also as much of the trauma and the chaos, we also had an amazing time.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

Yeah.

Borderline Personality And “I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me”

SPEAKER_01 36:54

So in the end, guys, it wasn't that I it wasn't that I wanted to break up with her.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

What happened is I had to come to a realization. This is tough. Yeah, and I I was losing my mind. Yeah, I'm not I'm not kidding. I mean, I was literally going insane. Yeah, and I had to come to the realization, as my counselor said to me, Stephen, you gotta realize something. If she is not gonna do the work, you have to let her go. Because you're already losing yourself and you'll be completely lost. There'll be no bringing you back, right? So you've got to make a decision. Is that what is this what you want for the rest of your life? And you're a thinking shit right now. Your business isn't doing well, you know, your health isn't doing well because you neglected all these things to do. You got obsessed. Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? So I knew that if I didn't let I did not want to let her go. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

You know, and since I go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

I was just gonna say, and since then, not only did I have to let her go, I had to make sure I cut any tie with her. Yeah, any conceivable way she could contact me or I could contact her because I knew and still know to this day, if she walked in the room, we're just gonna start all over again.

SPEAKER_02 38:11

Yeah. It's an addiction. It's like putting a crack rod in front of a crackhead.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Yeah, right. And then it's like a hair like a heroin at it, you know? Oh, yeah. They know if they shoot up one more time, we're just gonna go back to where it was.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Yeah, go back. Yeah, it's over. And so, you know, that's why. You know, I think the crazy part about all this that I think that is uh it it kind of melds with some of the podcasts that we have put out recently. And one of those things is identifying within you what causes you to do the things that you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

That's the whole point, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:45

That's right, yeah, totally. And I think in this scenario, she went from not not feeling like she could be loved to being loved for the first time and don't know how to doesn't know how to understand it or how to how to create a feeling within her that is actually receptive.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yeah, and so again, we were mirrors. I didn't think anybody could love me.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

I didn't think anybody could ever love me, right? Based on my childhood relationship with my parents, because I never believed they loved me. Right. I felt I felt just like she did, unlovable, right? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

And so do you find that story I don't think my parents loved me. Do you find that that was a self-created story, or did you have conversation with them on that directly and find validation in that story at all?

SPEAKER_01 39:40

It's just a story, everything is just a story. We tell us tell ourselves the story because later on in life uh I got validation that they did. Yeah, it was obvious, right? And then once that happened, that story was not necessary anymore, and it just evaporated, right? Yeah, that's right. So I never had a relationship with my father at all, right? And now in fact, I just got back, I just got back from hanging out with him. We have a blast together, we have an amazing relationship now. Yeah, right. But I had to let go of all that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:10

All that gook, all those lies, and uh yeah, that's what we have to do with all of the different sections of the life pie, including sex. We create stories and we don't even validate to see if they're true. And nine times out of ten, those stories that we've created are just outright monkey mind lies, but then we completely mold an entire lifestyle around it and based around life and run with and run with it. That to me is the true healing part of getting down to the bottom of self-healing, is being able to become self-aware and identify what those stories are and realize that asking questions, okay, is this a true story or is this a lie? And do whatever you gotta do to validate one of those two answers. And so what will happen then is when you go and you validate, okay, you know what? This one's true. I've got actual evidence, I've talked to the person, the person says, Yeah, you're hideous. I don't like you, I don't love you. Then you can say, okay, in this column, this statement, this person does not love me. That's a true statement. Now I can decide from there, do I go into self-loathing because one person hates me or does not love me? Or do I come out of that educated and and how do I want to mold my identity based on that? Then when you go and you do more scientific analysation of the statistical data, say that five times backwards, and you find out that it is a lie, then you get to make the decision, okay, this is an outright lie. I'm gonna file 13 it, or I am gonna continue to play with this because it's such fun to just live in the chaos. You get to make a decision, and that's the that's the control part of it. And if you decide, okay, I don't want the chaos anymore, I'm gonna dissolve this and I'm gonna create a new uh story that is true. My father does love me, and from there I'm gonna create a brand new relationship. That's what the actual self-healing is, uh, and and getting to the bottom of how our mind blueprint is actually constructed and how to do the work around it.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Yeah, I see. I think that's a really, really good feedback there, actually. Because the identify you we never we we never fix anything that we don't self-identify.

unknown 43:03

Yeah.

Can People Change Or Just Cope

SPEAKER_01 43:04

And you know, one of the things that you said, one of the things you said, Dr. Jenny, uh, when you were talking to James, because he was saying, you know, I sometimes when I've had these doing these therapies, I I carry some of the toxicity toxicity with me afterwards. Yeah. And you made a great point when you said, Well, maybe you're taking on too much responsibility. You're not the healer, you're the facilitator. That's right. They're healing themselves, they're healing themselves, right? Yeah. So, but there's they've got to be willing to do that. I wanted to share this quick story with you that uh Tony tells. Yeah. Um two young boys. Two young boys at home with their father sitting in the living room. The father's a drug dealer, right? And he's got a stash and some money under the so under the one of the seats on the sofa. Anyway, the SWAT team come to the house. Oh, they come bursting through the door, he reaches for his gun, and they shoot him dead in front of the two boys.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Wow. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Now here's the thing it's the same event, yeah, right? Truth has nothing to do with it. It's what we believe, and that determines everything. Nothing has any meaning except the meaning we give it. One of the boys decided to make that one of the boys decided to make that mean the police are bad. They're out to kill my father. I'm gonna be a better drug dealer than my father was.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Yeah, the other boy, the other boy said. I will never have anything to do with drugs or law enforcement in my life. Two completely different destinies, right? So the the first brother was in and out of jail all the time. The other brother had a balanced life, kids, great life. So, and it's you know, another example would be, you know, these people who become um what's the word? Um, suicide bombers, right? They believe so wholeheartedly they're gonna go to heaven and be with a a hundred virgins, which to me would be a headache you'd never want to have. But anyway, um, they believe that so hardly that they'll fly a plane into a freaking building. You know what I mean? So it's very, you know, I believe, and I'm gonna I'm really excited about the second podcast, though. You're gonna convince me of this differently. Sometimes there are people that are not meant to be healed. And the reason I'm saying that is because I know she was not meant to be healed, right?

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Yep, this is definitely gonna be a second podcast, I can already tell.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Because I know it was her destiny to do what she was doing. Yeah, it was the right thing for her to do as a soul that come into this life to do that work.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Yeah, yeah, and you're right. I mean, there are some people that have a contractual object obligation to experience a theme, and they will they will experience that theme one way or another, and that is their entire mission, basically, is to have that theme, and they it it won't go away because that's what they wanted to experience, and all facets of holding on to that theme. And so, yeah, there are some people that don't get the cure, they don't get uh, they don't let themselves change and uh morph into a different identity along the way. They maintain that same storyline, that same identity, uh, because they wanted to experience it from all different angles when you look at things from a 360-degree standpoint. Absolutely, that's what they wanted. They uh wanted to be part of the all that is on this theme in the theme park of the world.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Okay, you said that you said that far more beautifully than I did. So thank you for that. I'm gonna listen to that part of the recording and you're gonna write it down and learn it. But um uh the other thing is that I came to the realization of, and they're interested in your thoughts on this too, Dr. Jenny. And of course yours too, uh James, but you she tends to be a little bit more than a lot of things. She's smarter than I am.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

I'm just kidding, it's just because I eat smarties all the time.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Yeah, she eats smarties. So what I realized was uh interesting to hear what you have to say. Sometimes people, including myself, when I'm going through this process, I was meant to go through that. And sometimes we see a friend or a family member going through something, and we know it's maybe bad for them or it's toxic, and we try to stop them. Nothing wrong with that. But sometimes if we do that, we can prevent them going through an experience they need to go through that's actually gonna be for the greater good in the end. And so people were telling me when I was going through this with Tomaz, man, you're gonna let you know, way in the beginning, man, she just almost stole your home. What do you mean you're seeing her again? You know what I mean? So but but I but but there's a beautiful thing that you can't tell somebody well there's just a thing, yeah. So my point was I I needed to go to that experience, yeah. The whole thing from beginning to end. And I mean, I am blessed, I'm blessed that I did, and I'm so grateful to her. I mean, I love her. I love her. I mean, uh if if like I said, if she walked in the room, it'd it'd be all we'd just start all over again. I can't do that anymore than I could you know take heroin again. So, but I'm glad that I went through that experience, guys, because like you said, I had to look at my stuff.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Mirrors, Childhood Wounds, And Stories

SPEAKER_01 48:22

You know what I mean? I had to see who I am. So and I wrote this book. I'd wanted to write it for a while. So this is interesting. We we create a story why we don't do something that in our heart we know we need to do, right? And the story I told myself was because I obviously went into another relationship after that. I'm thinking, how can I write about this sex room, this super international supermodel, the madness that we went through? And this this woman knows about that, she's gonna leave me in a heartbeat, right? And I wouldn't want to put her through that trauma, right? So in the end, I had to decide not to be in a relationship.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

You know, uh that I could so I could do something that I never really done before, and that is really reflect on my life. I you know, when I was a kid, my my home environment was traumatic for me. Yeah, um, and so all I wanted to do was run away. I wanted to run away from home, and I did. And I never stopped running, guys. But what I realized in the end, I am my home. Yeah, I was running away from myself, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Everybody does it at some point or another. Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

I I was even keeping journals, but I never read them. I would do a journal all the time, but I've never read it. What was the point, right? So, anyway, about three years ago, I said, that's it. You know, I've always in a relationship, using on from one to another. And I said, I'm just not gonna be in a relationship. And that is where the healing from now, just to be clear, okay, none of us are fully healed, right? It's a lifelong journey, but I am so much more healed because I took the time to reflect, yeah, go through it from a uh, you know, I'm gonna call it a higher perspective, but uh, you know, reflecting on it from outside the situation. It's been so cathartic. Yeah, and I've recognized patterns that I no longer need because the healing happened inside of me, and all we're doing is creating a mirror of what's inside of us so we can see ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

And I realize those things, so there's no longer any need for them. And I'm so happy to be on my own. I spend a lot of time on my own, and I'm happy to do it. I'm never bored, I'm never lonely, I'm and I'm happy, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

So uh hey, you know, we're gonna be a relationship, and I'm happy about we're getting a little long in the tooth.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

We're gonna have to we're gonna have to like uh tell me where your book's available here, and we'll we'll have you ever heard that have we just got started, guys.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

I know, right? Have you ever heard that uh from where you come from, Steven? We're getting long in the tooth. Have you ever heard that phrase?

SPEAKER_01 50:51

Well, I I have, but not necessarily to relate it to a podcast. It is an old saying. They have, Dr. Jenny, you're right. So you obviously have a lot of uh handle on a lot of different cultures, even countries. Has she lived in England?

SPEAKER_02 51:04

No, she hasn't.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

I haven't in this lifetime.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

Go ahead and break it out, you know you're gonna do. But uh I love how you say that.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

Yes, I do uh I do love England, and uh I've obviously been there at some point. There'll be many days where I feel I feel like I need a spot of tea, and yeah, uh I enjoy it immensely when I get to have a spot of tea.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Spot of tea, yeah. It's nice, it's nice, me love. Yeah, very good. Yeah. Listen, get yourself probably apples and pears, get some rest, and I'll talk to you when you wake up, all right? You've lost your mind.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

So where do we find your book at, Steven? Where where is it for sale at?

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Oh yeah, I forgot I wrote a book. Um so the book, uh, I say to people, look, I I don't expect you to go buy my book. But I'd love to get to know you more. And I and I'd love for you to go to my website where there I give away a free book, the one I mentioned earlier, Madison Mayhem, so you can get us a taste of the book and learn a little bit more about the book. Um, and give me your email address and I'll keep in touch with you. Um the address of the website, thank you for asking, by the way, is VFVt23.com. VFT Venusfly Trap.

SPEAKER_02 52:21

23.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

23. Which we've got to talk about the number 23 at some time too.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

Oh, yeah, totally. So what we'll do is after the podcast here, I'll uh we'll I'll reach out and we'll get another schedule so you and Jenny can have your debate.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Beautiful. I love it. Yeah, I can't wait.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

Ginny likes a good debate, I warn you. She's pretty good at it.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Yeah, well, yeah, I'm not bad either, so we'll see. But here's what I know in the end, we're gonna still be very good friends.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Oh, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

We're gonna agree to disagree, whatever it is, right?

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Oh, that's more to love. That's part of the whole life contrast.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Totally. Well, we appreciate it. We appreciate you coming on today and great fun. I appreciate you coming to give me your stories, and we'll uh we'll definitely have to do this again. And uh we'll bring in some we'll we'll we'll bring in some uh uh good topics. That'll that'll just them juicy ones.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

I'm actually gonna start just so you know we can talk about this later, but I'm gonna start my own podcast too, so you guys are definitely gonna have to come out with the audience. Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

Welcome to the Welcome to the team. We've been we just did our 200th episode, actually.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

Oh, congratulations. A lot of things to celebrate this week.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Oh yeah, forty forty-six countries and multiple I mean we have more we have more sites on our website than we do in actually the podcast.

unknown 53:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

We love it.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Didn't you also change yeah, didn't you also change your uh tile for your podcast? Now you've got a different one.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

Yeah, we gave everything a makeover. Fresh new coat of paint.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

You know, we uh uh just recently got interviewed for Brains magazine and and uh uh I had I had a w a uh website guy look at it and he was like, you know, we need to back uh I learned about all the I think I was telling you about it. About you have to backsite them? Were you other other uh Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

You were telling me that yesterday.

SPEAKER_02 54:06

Yes, yes, and so uh so we had to kind of bring it up to date so we could backsite it all. But anyway.

Choosing To Let Go To Save Yourself

SPEAKER_00 54:12

It was time to freshen everything up, anyways. We had been like we're three years into it, so it's nice to just change it up. Yeah, it's kind of like a house.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

It's a really great picture, it's a really great picture, guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, that's uh that is your energy, just emanates.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

Your energy energy emanates from that beautifully.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

That's what everybody says, actually.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

We just like having fun. I'm not I I don't bullshit, I just tell you as to see it.

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Well, Steven, we appreciate you having on being on today with us, and uh I'll definitely reach out and we'll get another schedule. And uh uh oh what's what's that? Hang on. We have the cloud, the the crowd out here is like sitting saying bye, they're waving at you.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Yeah, yeah. Wait bye to Stephen guys. Hey Steven, we appreciate you all and and uh uh we'll we'll catch you on the flip.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

Thank you, Steven.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

All right, bye. Bye-bye. Alrighty then. Well, that was uh definitely a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, he's got some good energy. He's got some great energy.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

He's a character for sure.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

For sure. And uh we'll we'll put all the links to his uh social media and everything on the bottom of the description of this uh on on our uh podcast, and we uh appreciate everybody listening today. And I know it was a little bit of a different style, but hey, it was fun still.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 55:36

Always love having other people on.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

Hey guys, uh uh don't forget to uh like, follow, and share. Check out our website, www.themercenters.org. And uh you can check out the app website at www.lucidiumworld.com.

SPEAKER_00 55:53

Yep, and our guest speakers, Dr. Stephen Edwards. Edwards.

SPEAKER_02 55:59

Dr. Stephen Edwards.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

And the Venus flytrap.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

Yep. Check the book out. Yeah, check him out. It's actually F or VFT23.com.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

Sounds like a book full of Yeah, he's got many, he's he's written many books. Yummy, hot steamy sex and chaos.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

Lies and video technology.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Lots of good yummy stuff to keep you interested.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

All right, guys. Hey, we appreciate you all tuning in and we hope you have an awesome day.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

Love ya.