Why Toxic Relationships Feel Addictive | Love, Lust, & Dopamine with C.R. Herro

This episode is brought to you by... tacos & tequila. 🤪

After a couple of anejos, addiction therapist C.R. Herro joins me for a candid conversation about dopamine, addiction, fantasy, and why we so often find ourselves chasing the very things that keep us stuck.

We explore:
• What addiction really is (and why it's more common than you think)
• The difference between guilt and shame... and why it matters
• Why we stay in relationships that hurt us
• The hidden addiction to productivity, achievement, and external validation
• Fantasy vs. authentic intimacy
• Dating in the age of AI
• What it actually means to live authentically

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:18 The Real Definition of Addiction
07:42 Dopamine, Survival, & Your Brain
14:35 Why We Repeat Self-Destructive Behaviors
21:58 Accountability vs. Excuses
29:41 Addiction to Success & Validation
37:56 Guilt & Shame Explained
45:10 Why Toxic Relationships Feel Addictive
52:44 Fantasy vs. Authentic Love 

Transcript

Copy

CR Herro 0:00

We weren't designed to run into honey on a roller coaster while having a blowjob. It just isn't the way our brain was designed. And so we do that to ourselves, and we're surprised our brain has really severe responses to try to re-regulate and downregulate and make ourselves okay again. And so adrenaline junkies, sex addicts, cocaine addicts, they all have the same thing. They're downregulating because they're overstimulating their brain. And then when they're not chasing the dragon, they don't feel right because their brain is pulled back from it.

Kristin 0:36

There's a part of me though that's okay, where does balance come into play? Because if I came here to experience life and I want to experience a wide variety of experience in this human vessel meat soup thing, why wouldn't I want to have that experience of ecstasy on the beach in Ibiza? And then also have the one in the hammock hanging out and enjoying a peaceful sunset. Hello, Darlins. Welcome back. It is Friday night, and your audience is gonna have to catch as catch fucking can on this one. Buckle up buttercups.

CR Herro 1:15

Buckle up buttercup. We going. It is really nice to see you. It is really nice to talk with you. We had some texts earlier in the week that you sent me that pissed me off and made me be mean to my patients, which sponsored this conversation.

Kristin 1:30

I do like r uffling feathers. That was not my intention.

CR Herro 1:35

You got all the juices flowing, girl. Y

Kristin 1:54 CR Herro 1:55 Kristin 1:57 CR Herro 2:04

Let's go.

Kristin 2:05

We're going.

CR Herro 2:07

What would you like to talk about before I jump into all my stuff? Because we've been talking for a long time about helping people intentionally choose healthy relationships. And you know that's what I do for a living. I'm always down to talk about it.

Kristin 2:22

Yeah, can I have you send this to that person that you used AI to send me a break up message again? Even though we anyway, yeah. How about we start with uh your definition of addiction?

CR Herro 2:36

My definition of what?

Kristin 2:37

Addiction.

CR Herro 2:39

My quick one as an addiction therapist is anytime you do something that hurts you and you continue to do it, right? And Dr. Kevin McCauley, who's a senior member of the Meadows, is an MD, and he did um a medical comparison of these concepts of addiction and medical diseases, and try to really challenge whether or not you could consider addiction a medical disease. And he, if you go out and you search him and go to his website, there's this really thoughtful video of him carefully dissecting this addiction model as a disease model. And at the end of it, I think he's very successful in be convincing that when you have a biological system like your brain that confuses survival messages. So we call that salience and cognitive issues. That salience, these things are about your ability to survive and they're very important. And your brain correlates that with these huge dopamine hits that drugs and sex and torrent and gambling and driving 90 with one ball tire, all these things flood your brain with all of these salience hormones, these endogenous dopamine. And your brain mistakes that as a survival signal, and it's and all it can do is lay that down in your brain is this is really important. I have to pay attention to this. My life depends on this. And if you find people that are addicted to sex, drugs, or rock and roll, there is that irrational urge to pursue these dopamine hits. And because we've our capacities have evolved faster than our brains, we can do things like shoot heroin and look at intense porn and drive with a bad tire on an expensive sports car.

Kristin 4:43

It wasn't a bad tire, they put the wrong fucking tire on there. And some of this just sounds like a good time.

CR Herro 4:51

It feels like a good time. The challenge is are you attuned to the long-term consequences? Because when you're in fight, flight-freeze, when you're in your limbic system and your brain thinks in immediate terms, I need this discomfort solve now. I need this solution now, I need this fix now. And that part of your brain is evolved to survive till five minutes from now. And it doesn't consider long-term revocations, it doesn't need to make it five minutes. And until that system is allowed to calm down and your prefrontal cortex can kick in, which is the system of your brain that says, here's my five choices. I can play this tape out to the end. Here's the one that matches my best life and my best version of me. I'm going to choose this. So you can do that. You can make some very short-term, very harmful decisions. And we've both seen that in relationships where people stay in abusive relationships, people stay in super manipulative relationships that they know intellectually will not result in the fantasies they're putting on that relationship, but continue because of this hijacking of your brain by your dopamine system. So I do think the addictive model is an appropriate model to think about repetitive behaviors that harm you that you continue to do. And in relationship, unhealthy relationships mimic something very similar to heroin addiction and very similar to gambling addiction. It's not a rational process, it's your brain connecting environmental signals with survival needs.

Kristin 6:29

And at what point, though, does personal responsibility come into and ownership and choice? Because I thought choice always, right? Always just clouded to not see the pathway ahead, or I know that are you, I know you feel safer in the chaos. I've heard that and I've talked about that on the podcast before. An upper limiting, right? Like expanding our capacity to feel alive. Right. You know what I mean?

CR Herro 6:56

I do, but the reality is your brain has a set point, right? Which is a hedonic middle tone. Your hedonic tone is hey, this is where your brain is designed to function normally. And look, I found a bee's nest, and I've had honey, it gives you this salient signal of this is really important. You don't see sugar like this in the environment. And look, that stick was actually a snake. Let's pay attention, let's tune in, and let's identify those rewards, those risks in the environment. The problem is we our brains aren't evolved for ecstasy on the beach at Biza with six other naked people. It's just not. And so while that is incredibly stimulating, your brain can get so overwhelmed by that it tries to retreat. And so it can do things like down-regulate your set point because you're so over-stimulating yourself with that, that now when you're not overstimulating yourself, you actually feel depressed because your brain's taking that midpoint and dropping it because you keep exceeding its capacity and flooding your dopamine receptors and overwhelming your survival instincts. And so your brain compensates by pulling back. And it's that thing that starts up in the cycle. So now instead of having this ecstasy, having this euphoria, you're chasing feeling normal because your brain keeps down regulating because you're overstimulating it. And we're just not designed for it. Like we weren't designed to run into honey on a roller coaster while having a blowjob. It just isn't the way our brain was designed. And so we do that to ourselves, and we're surprised our brain has really severe responses to try to re-regulate and downregulate and make ourselves okay again. And so adrenaline junkies, sex addicts, cocaine addicts, they all have the same thing. They're downregulating because they're overstimulating their brain. And then when they're not chasing the dragon, they don't feel right because their brain is pulled back from it.

Kristin 9:08

There's a part of me though that's okay, where does balance come into play? Because if I came here to experience life and I want to experience a wide variety of experience in this human vessel meat soup thing, like why wouldn't I want to have that experience of ecstasy on the beach in a visa and then also have the one in the ham hanging out and enjoying a peaceful sunset? But it's like what so I don't like to label that as wrong or bad per se.

CR Herro 9:38

I don't think anybody's saying wrong or bad. I'm saying consequences that overstimulating your brain causes a reaction. There's no, like Dr. Drew Pinsky would always talk about there's no free lunch in nature. And it's a smart metaphor that, hey, you can do that in a biza, but you can be so over overstimulated that you're a little depressed for a couple weeks afterwards. And so your brain heals and re-regulates. You can have a crazy endorphin-filled life, but your brain can be so over-consumed that you lose the nuance to appreciate a pretty sunset, uh buttered piece of toast. And so there's a consequence to those extremes, which is your brain will try to regulate in the way it knows how, which is if you're constantly overexcited, it will downregulate you. If you're constantly xanaxed, it will upregulate you. It will try to come back to its set point. And you have to recognize that your choices and behaviors have consequences. And then you can either pay the consequences or you can play the victim and then keep repeating this thing's denying consequences, and then you start having problems, right? You start having these real-world consequences that if you don't take responsibility for, you're not in control of your own life anymore. Do what you damn please.

Kristin 11:05

But with the neurochemicals and pathways and addiction, at some point, like you have to make a fucking decision.

CR Herro 11:14

You do, but you have to recognize you're impaired. That that some of its genetic predisposition for being risk adverse, some of it is a sensitivity to those dopamine peaks. It doesn't mean that you're unable to make the decision. It doesn't mean you're impaired. And it does mean that once you have overstimulated your brain, your response is no longer in with that natural parameters, and you either have to pull back and abstain and let it heal and come back in line, which it does relatively quickly, or get support, right? The whole 12-step program is about hey, when I am impaired because I've I've screwed with this natural dopamine system in my brain, I won't make a good long-term choice. I'm gonna make really short-term choices, and I need like support to make healthier choices. And I love to open it because we get to talk about some really weird shit. The funny thing I hear people talk about is like post-nut clarity, right?

Kristin 12:16

Like I just came up at the mother's tip on Wednesday when I went.

CR Herro 12:22

Nice, but what was that saying that that when you are fully overwhelmed through testosterone or estrogen or endorphins or a line of coke, and you're chasing and through that fantasy, your brain's already responding to the stimulation. People that do that do heroin, like they're high putting their rig together, right? That the the what I didn't hear you, they're high putting their rig together, right? That like the anticipation of the high, their brain's already dropping all those opiates. And so same thing happens in the pursuit of sexual interaction. And so it's only after you've you've done that peak released, come back to some sort of normal, that you are less impaired. And whether that's tequila or conquesting or driving to the bank to take out money for sex worker, right? All those things impair your ability from being really rational and strategic to being very immediate, getting in that limbic system that's super reactionary.

Kristin 13:31

And I'm not trying to absolve limiting things a lot though.

CR Herro 13:36

What do you mean?

Kristin 13:37

In a way, like in the context of what are they getting, say the sex worker for example.

CR Herro 13:46

Okay.

Kristin 13:46

Maybe they're getting and receiving something way deeper than just the sexual interaction. Maybe they're in that within that hour, and whether it's transexual or not, they're being seen and met in a way that they're not otherwise.

CR Herro 14:03

I think that's most people's intention. So let's talk about that because this is what I do every day. Is the challenge is the incongruency between the fantasy and reality.

Kristin 14:15

If they're congruent, like Madonna Whore comes in a way.

CR Herro 14:19

No, like I've meet men and women who believe sex is love, and it's a distortion. Sex is an expression, depending on what your sexual preference is, it's some sort of genital being stimulated. Okay, that's not love. And so if you're at the ATM and interacting with the sex worker or your wife or your husband or whatever, if you have a fantasy about what you're trying to accomplish, like this is validating, this is affirming, this is my opportunity to be loved, this will wound out the voice in my head that says I'm not worthy of love. Your experience is not going to do that for you. You're incongruent with reality. And so it there's a lot, I would say, being a therapist that works with compulsive sexual disorders, there's a lot of people that don't pursue sex in healthy ways and get very unhealthy results. I'm a huge fan.

Kristin 15:26

There's a big part of me that's okay, I don't like to yuck anyone's yum, and I don't, and I like to encourage a pleasure-filled and based lifestyle.

CR Herro 15:34

I do too.

Kristin 15:36

And so there's I just don't want to it some of the conversation feels like very confining, or like that uh there could possibly be like, oh, what if I do hire a sex worker? Is there shame wrapped up in that?

CR Herro 15:51

Like, or yeah, and you you and I know each other long enough to know that's not my belief system. But let's clarify it clinically. An orgasm is just an orgasm, masturbation is just masturbation. What you do with your genitals is just a thing. All the rest of it is intentions and alignment and reciprocity, and where we get screwed up is in those areas. Most people that struggle with compulsive sexual disorders, most people that struggle with not being aligned with their partner's intent, it's because there's a failure in being grounded in reality and having commonality with that other person or those seven other people, whatever you're doing. And so I'm advocating for being truth, be responsible for your own safety, and have healthy boundaries so that other people don't take their unhealthy beliefs and behaviors and victimize you. So none of this is intended to yuck your yum. I'm a big supporter of two people, three people, 17 people doing whatever makes them happy. I just want them to be grounded in reality and authentic and honest.

Kristin 17:12

And if you can do those three things, so what's the distinction then between the person that likes novelty and 17 people or five people or whatever it is? Like with that that line of what one labels as addiction or not? Is that something that one's self-defined or the definition of is it harming my lifestyle or harming me or not?

CR Herro 17:37

Yeah, healthy sex is definitely defined between the people in our interacting with it. Unhealthy sex is getting results different than your intentions, being in fantasy and getting results that make you sad mad, having traumas that you're trying to solve through other people. So it's it's all of the times that people hurt themselves because they don't have the skills or the awareness not to that I spend my time with, right?

Kristin 18:16

I think Boomjo is coming in the house.

CR Herro 18:23

So Boom Joe is a good example of healthy, right? He's got clear expectations, you can choose to participate or not, right? All good, all healthy.

Kristin 18:44

He's so fucked. Ah, bootro.

CR Herro 18:54

One of your best decisions is on your lap right now.

Kristin 18:57

I know the amount of love that has opened up my heart in so many ways. And maybe increased my patience a little bit.

CR Herro 19:13

I don't think you have a choice.

Kristin 19:15

And sense of responsibility. And he's a good example of some unconditional love with boundaries because he bit the fuck out of me not too long ago.

CR Herro 19:26

I don't know what those are that feels like crossed boundaries, right?

Kristin 19:29

He had some there in his mouth and he didn't want it out of his mouth.

CR Herro 19:33

So was trying to bait him, and I guess I set the bait a little close to my you can bite yourself all you want to, but when you're biting somebody else, you're crossing some boundaries.

Kristin 19:45

Yeah. Well, not always.

CR Herro 19:48

Unless it's mutual in the Greek two.

Kristin 19:52

So, how does one go through this self-inquiry process? Self-inquiry of Is it so do you find that a lot of people show up at your clinic because they want to be there, or is it their wives or girlfriends or husbands, or like you've got to go do this XYZ if you want to maintain this job relationship? You know what I mean?

CR Herro 20:12

Yeah, both. Some people suffer enough that they seek out a solution. Some people betray their partners and their betractors, create a boundary that says, you need to work on this, or I'm separating from you. Some people in addiction or are not attentive to other parts of their life like their jobs, and get sent because they're failing at a career they have all the skills for, but they're too distracted and too obsessed with other things to do their job. So all the above.

Kristin 20:43

Yeah. Yeah. It's like I I have compassion and empathy, and at the same time, there's a big part of me that put your fucking big girl panties on in a way too. You know what I mean?

CR Herro 20:55

Like I do, I do. So this this is gonna be very fancy or hero therapist of me, but like when we're little, we get core messages about are we worthy? Are we safe? Are other people safe? And a lot of us got shit core messages that we're not worthy, people aren't safe, we're not safe, we're not worthy of love. And then they act those harms out as they become adults. And so, yeah, be accountable, be brave, be authentic, but so many people have such a distorted understanding of themselves and other people, they don't have the tools. It's here's a crescent wrench and a flat screwdriver, go fix that big block engine. They don't got the tools to do it, and so I just have a ton of empathy that it's really hard to be human, people are really complex, and our society sets us up to fail. And until it hurts enough to stop and ask hard questions. Which you've done your whole life, I've done my whole life. You're really fucking messing. It's really hard to navigate our weird ass society that we find ourselves in today. And so I just have a lot of empathy for people that are suffering due to traumas, due to trying to conform to social messages. I'm sorry, Disney fucks us all up. Disney presents this story of you won't be okay until someone else makes you okay and rescues you. Fuck that. That's all codependence, right? And yeah, like you and I both agree accord. Sex is beautiful. Let me grab you real quick. Talk to you.

Kristin 22:43

Talking.

CR Herro 22:45

I'm not gonna keep talking. We're just gonna you should have sponsors by now. We should just flip to commercial. No, air air Japan's uh uh time of day flights to York and and the wonderful meals en route.

Kristin 23:04

I'm going to Spain in a couple weeks. What about the hidden addiction um performance like uh work and and accomplishments and stuff like that?

CR Herro 23:20

Yeah, so what do you do? Well it's so so many other problems. It's validation seeking.

Kristin 23:28

The knife must be a single dad, my own.

CR Herro 23:31

Welcome, welcome to it. It's amazing Bubba's not storing at my feet right now, and we're not contending with all that noise.

Kristin 23:43

Baby, come here. Let me give you your iPad. We know see he must be heartwolf because he's feeling it, I'm feeling it.

CR Herro 24:05

That's tequila.

Kristin 24:07

No, it's also uh tequila less than 20 hours of sleep week, probably.

CR Herro 24:13

And you got a busy weekend, go.

Kristin 24:15

Yeah, I'm about to buy a new mattress, new little cord cutting thing.

CR Herro 24:20

How's your self-care going?

Kristin 24:22

Um, I want more sleep. That's what I want. And there's a lot of amazing opportunities and connections and all these beautiful things that are coming in. And have you read gay? I think it's gay Hendrix, the upper limit or the big leap where he talks about upper limiting. It's like we our nervous systems are used to like a certain set point of joy and love and abundance and all that, and so now it's like mind is expanding, and it also even like the good can be like that rattle, right? So it really just like eight hours of sleep.

CR Herro 25:03

Find some balance, girl.

Kristin 25:05

Uh yeah, yeah.

CR Herro 25:07

Well, you the things I know you got going on are amazing, so I'm happy for you.

Kristin 25:11

Yeah, you haven't even heard of it. How wild. No, all good stuff. Yeah, it's all good stuff.

CR Herro 25:22

We talked a little about the addiction model, and I do think that it's appropriate to really explore when we harm ourselves through our own behaviors and understand what causes it, just so we have choices. Whether or not you think of addiction as a medical model, it's certainly apparent that people are the leading source of their own pain. And I've got a ton of heart for that, right? I used to be that. Like, I I certainly was the source of like my shitty early 20s, and I get that. And so, like my approach to mental health is I don't care what you do, do it intentionally, and do it with the tools to make good choices.

Kristin 26:05

And I think it's in this mode, and yeah, I guess there is like a grace also within the learning by living and like being kind to her younger 20 self that made those choices, or we're harder on ourselves, or wanting different things, and we wanted in that moment. Yeah.

CR Herro 26:27

So, yeah, uh, times of grace. We are the three things that I think are consistent with being human are we're imperfect, and we have to accept that. I hate it, but we have to accept it. We're weird, right? Because nobody's like down the middle, normal on all the parameters. And those things, because society says you have to be normal, employ the game to be safe, we're scared, and I think that's the human condition.

Kristin 26:50

Done.

CR Herro 26:51

And the only way I learned that is to make mistakes, and so I've got a lot of grace for making mistakes. I fuck up all the time.

Kristin 26:59

I'm done not being weird.

CR Herro 27:04

Oh, you shook off that yoke a long time ago, girl. You've been weird as long as I met you.

Kristin 27:11

Okay with it now, though. That's the difference.

CR Herro 27:15

Yeah. It's important. Which is my back to my argument. Know thyself, tell yourself the truth, be authentic with yourself, have the tools to make good choices, get the right results.

Kristin 27:28

So um what all are the tools? But I you know what I've been carrying in my wallet lately is this sticker is patched, really. It was gifted to me at an airport because I thought it was cool. I'm true. Is that bad decisions make good stories?

CR Herro 27:46

They do. Try to make them one stone. It's the 50th time that you make a bad decision. That all right, let's look for tools.

Kristin 27:54

But that's what gets you season two and season three.

CR Herro 28:00

And you know, I hate watching movies where people make a mistake but then double down on it, and the world gets weird and awkward. And then double down on that, it gets weird. I hate that. My anxiety just comes up that just fucking tell the truth, deal with the consequences, get back to everything being okay. I hate that part.

Kristin 28:18

I'll tell you, the other day whenever I was doing the podcast, like just the relief that it felt like I don't have to be anything other than what I am right now. To make a different choice, to be worthy of love, to start a new whatever, like to there's anything really, I think it applies to so much in life is to be where my boots are and be okay with me where those boots are.

CR Herro 28:46

Yeah. And more than okay to like what we talked the last time we talked about the masks and the cost of the masks of not being authentic. And I do think once you can understand that in your authenticity of the 8 billion people, maybe you're only good for 400,000, which is a small percentage of the population. But I can't be friends with more than about six people. So if there's 400,000 people that appreciate my weirdness, can tolerate my authenticity and would share their weirdness with me, cool. That's a full happy life.

Kristin 29:22

Kind of acts as a spaghetti trainer or strainer in a way, right? Discerning who's gonna stay around. That's what it feels like recently for me.

CR Herro 29:34

Yeah, I don't know why that's a spaghetti strainer, but destroying is really important, right?

Kristin 29:38

But I just kind of it's like cleansing the thing. What needs to stay is staying, or what you want to stay is staying, and then even though it might feel good in the water, like that, yeah. And then eventually you have this beautiful pasta that you're gonna consume and eat. Although maybe whenever it feels like the water is leaving, you're losing something, but really you got this really delicious carbon. And that's what I mean.

CR Herro 30:08

I'm gonna follow this damn analogy of yours. Okay, and that's that's the gift you give yourself by being authentic is allowing the mask and seeking validation from people that aren't good fits. Or does it matter that people who don't share your perspectives and don't know you very well have an opinion of you?

Kristin 30:35

Like, yeah, I've been having fun with that lately. Imagine you guys read Extension Existential Kink, but I was like, okay, if there's what part of me likes this? I'm asking myself, okay, if I bear part of the judgment, what part of me likes it? And then I'm like, how can I get turned on by haters, or how can I get turned on by this idea and flip it and switch it and be like, oh, engagement? Ooh, like resonance, or ooh, maybe they're going to be ruffled or initiated in a way where they're eventually gonna make the question or self-inquiry, examination, microscope thing, magnifying glass on their life. And it took me to do that in some capacity.

CR Herro 31:31

You're very well aware of the fact that the opposite of love isn't hate. I think I said you're very well aware of the fact the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. I didn't know if I had those words put to it, but so all that engagement is interesting and it is energy and it is people thinking. And if they really just didn't care, they just stopped watching. So if they care enough to type you something out, it's smooth on my end. How's your internet connection?

Kristin 32:05

Good, I know it'll be good, and in the editor at the end, it's just like I'm I it's like I'm in a play with myself in a way, or God, or a conversation that I can't see or interact with. But somehow I'm getting feedback. You know what I mean?

CR Herro 32:28

You can just turn you can just turn your monitor off and just we can just talk and you can listen. This can be an odd one.

Kristin 32:33

I'm listening, I'm listening, it's cool, but I also like to ping pong off of your reactions and just it just feels more engaging in that way.

CR Herro 32:45

Um the good news is I I see you perfectly well. So, what's been going in your world with I know you had a bit of heartbreak, and I know that once again other people weren't able to show up authentically and safely, and that sucks.

Kristin 33:03

Yeah, I would say it illuminated a certain level of amount of possibility and uh clarity on a lot of different things that I like do want in life and don't want in life. And the first carpet ripping out from underneath me moment definitely shattered me for a bit. But then the walls went up. And I was like, okay, I can do this like no label thing. And then I think it was that energetic shift in me that he felt that spurred something to generate an AI text message that was way colder, and then like I don't get it. How you can have a relationship with someone and confide in them and talk about your kids and your relationships with past lovers, wipes, all this stuff, what's going on at work, and then you don't have the courage to have a phone call or a voice memo or meet up with someone when you say that they've accelerated your healing process that pissed me the fuck off. Then and I know that underneath that anger, it was like, I don't feel valued, I don't feel respected. And so I was with a friend of mine whenever I used to get to sex, he's like nonviolent communication. I'm like, what the fuck is that? And I know what it is. He's like, name your observation. I'm like, I'm observing that you're having this whole entire conversation in your head, and I am feeling disrespected and hurt, and I am requesting a clarifying conversation at a time that is convenient for both of us. And they agree, but then when it got to that day, I was like, I don't have the energetic capacity, and he said, Neither did I, and then goes to the next day. And I'm like, you know what? By that time I'd sat with it, I was like, I don't know if I need any other clarification because I feel like I've been shown how I'm valued through your actions because whether it was AI generated or not, you still chose to send the message, and then at the same time, it's just holding what what this beautiful three-month, four-month glimpse was, and then also okay, definitely don't want that, and I get clarity on the mutual respect and communication. Recently, more have even opened up to oh my god, I think I want a child that eventually I will do psychedelics with when they're of age, because I think I had an image of what motherhood had to look like, and and it doesn't have to look like that because I had this really beautiful connective conversation yesterday with someone she's telling me about her relationship with her daughter, and this has shifted a lot of things, so there's been a lot of paradigm shifts, there's been also a lot of cool creative things in the works, and that and I also know that my tendency too is okay, if my heart is hurting, I'm gonna pour into my creative works and that, but then also I feel like it's a big alchemical process. I'm gonna cuddle up on Boudreau, and there's a bit of me that also bleeds in the nonlinear time. This version of me already exists in the world that has the show and the relationship, and I can feel that in my nervous system and body now, and then she's pinging me or I'm recalibrating in a way. Does that make sense?

CR Herro 36:50

Hopefully, I did a really cool there's this thing called gestalt therapy, which is you probably heard of empty chair work, right? Where you can connect to different times and be present to that experience. And I did that with some childhood trauma, and I was able to reach back and tell that child to muscle through and be okay. And honestly, I think I had that experience. I think I had the experience through my childhood of it really sucking, but having a voice in my head to just pull this plow and you'll get through it. And I think that voice is mine. So yeah, I think you can reach back and support your former self.

Kristin 37:27

Well, I love an expanded definition on that. Yeah, there's been moments where this company app reached out to me called Moon Gate, I cannot fucking pronounce these beats. Bay enroll, buy in roll, whatever knows. Until sometimes I just lay in bed. If I get if my mind was like and or I'm just excited about what's coming, and I'm just having these frequency waves, and it's like data, and it feels so good, and I'm just laying there and just breathing for a bit and putting myself like I could turn it on. I'm like, it's over here. Absorbing it. But I was I want to know more about this theory.

CR Herro 38:15

Yeah, there's so much that we're growing to understand neural feedback, right? So that we know that your brain kind of can sit in these different waves of fight, flight, and freeze, rest and digest. It's that there's all these wave characterizations, and so you can look at your brain waves, and what you want to do is alpha waves is that rest and digest. And alpha waves is where you sit in your prefrontal cortex and make good informed decisions. Alpha is alpha is, yeah.

Kristin 38:48

I thought, okay, so beta is like the the active yeah, beta beta though, is what the ones like kind of right before you go to sleep to Delta?

CR Herro 38:59

Yeah, those are sleep cycles. So alpha alpha is really what you want to train your brain to do to stop being reactionary. So if you've got like impulsivity and control issues, it's because you're in that you're in that limbic part of your brain. And so the good news is there's all like your bone oral stimulation and some feedback loops and meditation, all kind of help your brain find these safe, healthy settings to make healthy choices and to set intentions. And so all these tools, and they've been around 3,000 years, welcome to yoga, help you get out of these reactionary, temporary not to throw a hard word at it, but like irresponsible brainwaves, like the that flight, flight or freeze, you're just not thinking through consequences, and so you having that anxiety of all these time limits and all these demands on your time, and not being able to do everything you want to do will put you into those anxious fight or flights. And we've lost Krista.

Kristin 40:14

No, because I'm being lovingly called now.

CR Herro 40:20

Always I see you. I said I always see you.

Kristin 40:50

Yeah, learning to release the pressure to respond at a certain time. And yeah, the time constraint, because like I'm like, okay, ah fuck, like even that yesterday or the day before it's like, okay, I need to do these auditions today. I need to do them today because tomorrow, da-da-da-da. And then I did one yesterday, and uh it's like I don't have that capacity. The other one, I just don't have it in me. I really want to bring my game to that other one. And so even though I'm like, that was a win, even though I didn't sleep as much, I went to bed. And I was like, I still have time within before the deadline, even though it's on that day, to all have the time and space to record it. Yeah, and really leaning into okay, where I'm at is where I need to be at. So because I'm here, it's like the consequence in a way, because I'm here, I'm not at the 11 o'clock ATX TV things workshop thing that I wanted to be at. Here and do this. So I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna play with it, and then I'm gonna get there when I'm supposed to be there. Is that so? I'm just like teaching myself some of this in the moment and trying it on and experimenting with it.

CR Herro 42:25

You got 20 balls in the air and you can catch 16, choose-wise. It's true, right? So be clear what your priorities are, catch the 16 you can, and understand the four that are gonna hit the ground are gonna fucking hit the ground and let it go.

Kristin 42:38

Yeah, and I reasoned with myself too, because like the first I really wanted to catch this, like pitch the the final 10. I they were gonna do a live pitch of the the 10 who made it to live in front of the beats. One of them was with like one of the people, I guess, their what is it called when you're like MNC, what you're moderating, moderating. And one of them was like with YMH, which is Tom Segura and Christina P's thing. I was like, and I also just signed up to go to Spain in a couple weeks to like own hone my pitch and leave and get the practice. I had a group of eight women and my lady that I love, Dawn, she's great to straight and has so much experience. We're gonna have cooking classes, but one-on-one consults, and I'll leave with the pitch. I was like, it might be good for me to not see that so that I don't compare myself to that and think that I have to be that rather than let me go get me figured out over here. And so it's just like a reframe that I'm doing at the same time.

CR Herro 43:50

What the thing I know you're pitching is you will need to be authentic for people to see how credible you can bring a story to the table that other people People couldn't tell. And a really fun story. So I'm super excited for you.

Kristin 44:03

Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. We're gonna let them go out. We're gonna walk, or this is gonna be interrupted by a really cool experience with MoonGate app.

CR Herro 44:20

Here at MoonGate, we believe in promoting mental health and using cutting edge science for neuroplasticity and relaxation.

Kristin 44:33

It really does feel amazing.

CR Herro 44:38

Bineural stimulation is good stuff.

Kristin 44:40

Bineural, there we go. Bonural stimulation.

CR Herro 44:51

Available now.

Kristin 44:54

In your outdoor. Come on, baby. Come on. The reason why I knew I had to let him out is because I could smell his fart from the fucking door.

CR Herro 45:16

That is the warning sign. First comes there, then it comes out to get yourself ready.

Kristin 45:27

Come here, baby. Come on. I know, let's go. Let's go to your cave for a second. I have a question. Shoot. Um so back to addiction. Because there was a time in my life where I thought that I would never be able to say no to cocaine. If I was like, oh, if I see it, not gonna be able to say no to it. And since then I've proven to myself that I can. And my friend did make the distinction the other day because she does have someone in her family that is has been to recab several times and had a harder life impacting more. Can you come to a point of regulation or calibration to where you're like, maybe it's not cocaine, but tequila or we can say cocaine because cocaine is just a thing.

CR Herro 46:24

Like it's not a good thing, but yeah, or it's okay.

Kristin 46:28

A sex addict for a vegan. Are they gonna never have sex again? Or do they what how do they equip themselves?

CR Herro 46:34

Very little about being a sex addict about sex, very little about being a coke addict about coke, very little about being a heroin addict about heroin. It's the why underneath the what that's important, and so the first stage of sobriety is white knuckling it, right? I will use my willpower to not do what I want to do. But after that, you get to understand that you're making a choice for the better. It loses power, whether it's booze or it compulsive behaviors or coke. Like it's just at first you've hurt your brain with it, and your brain is has over salience, right? It thinks it's survival, and so that you just have to use willpower and support through through. I'm a big fan of 12 stuff. Eventually, most addicts can come to the point and go, ooh, like I'm not being nice to myself, I want to be nicer to myself and just choose different. But you got to get those tools and that awareness, and you'll let your brain heal.

Kristin 47:37

Isn't there a uh part of the 12-step process though? Giving it something bigger than yourself, like I think part of like AA or the 12-step program is giving it to God or something bigger than self and or whatever you're choosing, source God consciousness.

CR Herro 47:53

Yeah, some people do it that way. It's not the way I do it. I'm a big fan of I have my spirituality that doesn't come into AA or CODA or NA or whatever your flavor of the day is. What you're acknowledging is that you alone don't have the tools and resources to stay sober. And when I go into a 12-step room, the people to the left and the people to the right have the tools when I'm down to get me through. And when I'm up, I have the tools to help them get through. And so my higher power in 12-step is the people in the room.

Kristin 48:31

And that the courage to ask for support.

CR Herro 48:35

You don't have to ask, you just go and sit. It's 12-step. Hi, my name is I'm struggling. Cool, so are we? Have a seat, grab some coffee, eat a donut. Let's talk about this bullshit because like we're all tired of hard hurting ourselves, and we don't have to. I'm a massive fan of 12-step, but it's the community that I'm a massive fan of. It's the shared understanding it's really hard to be human, and we if we're not intentional, can accidentally hurt ourselves and others. Let's stop fucking doing that.

Kristin 49:09

So then it's listening to your inner cry asking for help.

CR Herro 49:16

It's recognizing you can't do it alone, but in community you can.

Kristin 49:21

I mean by the inner cry, if it's okay if you're acting out in a way that you don't want to act, right? What? I'm curious.

CR Herro 49:30

I don't know if it's okay. It might be true, but I think confronting your cognitive distortions, I think confronting the consequences that you're you're minimizing, all that can help you make a better choice. Right? There's nothing wrong with coke, but if you're fucking up your life, stop doing coke. There's nothing wrong with any of it. But if you're fucking up your life, get it under control. Tell yourself the truth, make good choices.

Kristin 50:04

Yeah. I'm guessing like at that point because I there's a level that I would assume would be or that I am familiar with having grown up and playing on the playground while a lot of parents are at AA or in Al-Anon, that it's like a full teacher kind of situation. So is there like alcohol? So never drinking again.

CR Herro 50:31

Absence.

Kristin 50:32

Yeah.

CR Herro 50:32

So there is a recognition when you're white knuckling it, that one is good, 20 is better. Like in your addiction, like that that your ability, especially once you're in your addiction, that you keep losing the ability to make good choices and you're paired, whatever the chemical is. So there's a sobriety piece in the beginning, which is hey, I'm not able to healthily interact with this chemical, I guess.

Kristin 51:13

Okay, I was curious about that. That's what I was getting at.

CR Herro 51:16

Like people struggle with unhealthy sexual compulsives that go back to healthy sex lives.

Kristin 51:22

Yeah.

CR Herro 51:22

And so the challenge is do you have the tools and resources? Have you understood your why that's underneath your what? And have you healed yourself? Most addictions are maladaptive. It just means that it's you're trying to soothe, distract, chase, escape. And if you're nice to yourself and you're healthy, you don't need to do those things. And then it's just recreation. And all right, if you want to go, if that's your version of recreation, go nuts. If it's associated with a bunch of pain, maybe it'll never feel good to you again.

Kristin 51:55

Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of things. I'm not bent about it either way. Yeah. There, I was just looking for this quote by this philosopher that I love or I love when my friend said it the other day. He said, I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. Bertrand Russell.

CR Herro 52:14

I love it. Because most of your beliefs are guesses, right? So or was the Ben Affleck movie Dogma, right? The whole theory of the that movie Dogma, that comedy, was just have ideas. This is my theological idea. This is my idea about politics. This is my idea about drugs. This is my idea about relationships. Ideas can get challenged and you can grow and learn from the experience. Beliefs.

Kristin 52:44

Yeah.

CR Herro 52:44

Stop challenging those. Now you're fucked. Now you're in a box and you don't have choices.

Kristin 52:49

I think there's a lot to be said for giving ourselves permission to evolve to with those beliefs and not fixating an attachment. Oh, I have to constantly have this belief in a world that is ever changing, and the only thing that is constant is change. So is it even possible to cling? And maybe there's so much strife in the attempt to cling.

CR Herro 53:17

Yeah, you had mentioned the beginning, hey, don't want to yuck somebody's yum, and shame isn't healthy, and I'm a big fan of that. So I think a guilt and shame is very different things. So guilt is I stole something.

Kristin 53:30

Or like I know that I'm not acting in accordance with my truth in a way.

CR Herro 53:34

Yeah, but the guilt's just the behavior. It's not you, it's a behavior. You can learn and grow and change and do it again or not do it again, depending on do you like the outcome? Shame is I'm a thief. That's a label. That means that tomorrow I don't have a choice. I'm this. And so I've not had a lot of tolerance for shame because shame doesn't allow you to grow and learn, but guilt does. Negative results, make a mistake, does. I'm a big fan of being wrong. I'm gonna learn labels. I've that I've yet to find a benefit of a label. So then why is there a label why or uh with the label of addict to recognize that you're impaired in making a good choice and to do the work to heal that impaired so you can make good choices, yeah.

Kristin 54:27

And then you can release that attachment to that label of addict.

CR Herro 54:34

Maybe I don't have shame around that that label that struggle with making those stew, or or in certain cultures and certain families, being homosexual isn't acceptable, it is bad. And you can have a label of being gay, and there can be shame about that, and it can do you harm, and in doing that, there could be harm to other people, but it's a construct, it's not what you do with your generals and who you uh spend your time with, it's a construct, and so these people that may have these this shame or this social construct around is it okay to put my vagina there and my penis there? It's just a construct. Now, I do think there's some moral imperatives, like these golden rule things, but they're around boundaries. You don't have a right to take from others, you don't have to force others, you don't have the you begin at your toes and end at your fingers, stay the fuck in your lane. I'm uh like my ethics sit there really hard.

Kristin 55:48

Yeah, for sure. My ethics sit there really hard with brains that have not been fully developed, children, that sort of thing.

CR Herro 55:56

Yeah, and so if you're doing something that's incongruent with what you believe is your highest self, great, learn and grow. If others are, it's not your fucking business. You can model a behavior that that you hope people are attracted to and want to pursue. All right, go model being what you think is healthy, but stay on your side of the street, mow your own damn lawn.

Kristin 56:22

If you want and get a tan all at the same time. Just be thoughtful of who sees you in the bikini, because why do I have to be thoughtful of who sees me in the bikini if I want to be in the bikini?

CR Herro 56:35

I'm only thinking of kids.

Kristin 56:36

I'm just I wasn't thinking about that then, but also can I model a healthy confidence in that bikini?

CR Herro 56:44

You can be careful with the bikinis. There's lots of healthy confidence, and then there's objectification, right? So not being humanized and being a collection of very pre-parts. Probably don't do that. Be a human.

Kristin 57:00

I'm like, is that my responsibility to think about? I'm not talking about kids right now. I'm talking about to think about someone else's perception of me in my bikini if I want to be in my bikini.

CR Herro 57:14

It's a hundred percent not on your side of the street at all. So period, amen. I do believe that we are interdependent and we should be thoughtful about and intentional about putting ourselves out there that in a way that maximizes your opportunities. Uh so the reality is having a low on the lawn.

Kristin 57:49

We are in the middle of nowhere.

CR Herro 57:54

If like you know, my belief, I think 20% of the world's shit is amazing, and 70%'s just lost in social norms.

Kristin 58:03

70, oh 70% social norms.

CR Herro 58:06

Yeah, 70% of people are open and enlightened and amazing, 20% are kind of eagle fuckers, 70% just kind of lost in society and the weirdness that it is now, and just trying to fit in to be safe. And I I think you you're absolutely right, you can do what you want, but there's consequences because of the interdependent world we live in.

Kristin 58:24

Yeah, I just don't like to think about why do I have to adjust my life because of the 20%. Yeah. Oh, you're probably back, you're out of frozen.

CR Herro 58:37

I'm glad to be back. There's eight big people out there, and there's a lot of ignorance, and there's some evil, and you have to navigate that to keep yourself safe. And your job is to keep yourself safe. Yeah, so do your fucking job, keep yourself safe.

Kristin 58:56

A pistol on my nut stand.

CR Herro 58:58

He's doing loaded, ready to go, and heat it up when necessary.

Kristin 59:04

Oh my god, yeah, let's talk about that for a second. That that won't say any names. I won't do that, but I did experience and it's really, I guess. Maybe explore a little bit of that. There's a parasocial relationship with my books, podcasts. I think this person is this way, I'm reading this book, and then I received a text message that was, oh, I can't wait to do these things with your heart. I was like, Hold up. I was like, that just made me really uncomfortable. And uh, that was not my intention. I was like, the intention is not equal impact. And there was no really to me ownership or taking accountability in that. And yeah, it was really weird. And there was another piece or element, oh yeah, that's like dating in the age of AI also comes up for me because we had met at a BMW event and we're friendly. And he's coming in town from a tech conference, and in my mind, I'm like, we're just friends gone. Oh, sure, you're in town. We're we're gonna go to dinner with you. And then we would have some like witty exchanges, that's like fun. Oh, that that's a funny joke, that's a funny video, whatever. But I get there, and then it's a completely different person in front of me.

CR Herro 1:00:27

And I'm like, And you think they just fed you a stream of bullshit from AI to be telling me?

Kristin 1:00:33

That's like intuitively what I sense, either that or I'm like, or they're really nervous, although I didn't get that impression whenever I was working the event. It was just like really weird, really weird.

CR Herro 1:00:47

This unfortunately comes back around to my thesis about healthy sex is real and is honest and is authentic and is rare for somebody to be there. The fantasy world with porn and with AI and with Disney and with Hollywood and with Judeo-Christian values. I'm sorry, 90% of the people you'll meet are in fantasy, and so for your ability to have healthy, authentic, reciprocal, honest, supportive relationships, like you're already impaired because of the challenges of being human. And what's again, eight billion people sort carefully.

Kristin 1:01:31

Yeah, no, I definitely felt different. I was conflicted a little bit. I'm like, I know I can get up to this table and leave. And there's a part of me that still wants to be kind and felt like he was coming to this conference because he wouldn't have come if I wasn't available for dinner in a way. That's what it also felt like. So I get that was exciting. Yeah, I want to honor my commitment to dinner. Then I'm like, I'll give it fire at the quickest. The waiter can't set the dessert menu down. I slap my credit card on it. I'm like, no, that's not the fucking tab. You want another glass of wine? No, I do not. And I see before because this is one of my favorite restaurants. And I'm like, um, and then a little weird because God, I made stupid buttons decisions sometimes because uh they had asked for my address for my birthday. I was like, oh, he probably just wants to send me flowers or something. And I get this really interesting gag gift. I think it's hilarious. I think it's hilarious, and how it comes about is that there's like a backpack on it and like a little Yoda thing that looks like Goudreau in a way, and a sticker on it, as it says, hustle harder, and like a half-use canister of protein. I think it's funny. But I'm in bed on my birthday, I'm not being out of bed y'all want to get out of bed. But my mom is like, Boudreau is going nuts. I keep barking at this thing that's next to my yard. And there's like a little invention. She's I don't know if the hiker left it or what, but he knows it's not supposed to be there, or it's a smell that's unfamiliar, and he will not stop barking. He's like, Can we bring me a picture of it? I don't want to get out of bed just yet. She brings me a picture of it. I'm like, I have no idea. But I'm like, the only person that I have really given my address to on top of mine was this person at the dinner table. And I'd asked him, he had said something about happy birthday. I'm like, wouldn't happen to be a backpack, would it? And he's like, okay, the real T Mood driver is on the way. And and then some flowers from Amazon came. And I was like, okay, that look, that's funny. And so at the dinner, I asked, so what app or service did you use for that backpack? Because I might want to use it one day for one of my friends to to prank them with something. I might like to use this protein powder, but whatever, it's funny to me, it's funny. And and he was like, I didn't do that. I'm like, what do you mean? Like you we said in our tech stream, like the real team of driver is coming, like that insinuates that there was another driver that you were aware of or delivery or something that was coming in complete denial. Like, would not, and I was like, Is it not you? Are you questioning am I questioning my reality?

CR Herro 1:04:36

That's what gaslighting is, girl.

Kristin 1:04:38

And so now I'm like, huh.

CR Herro 1:04:46

And once again, you have every right to do you without ever questioning it, but you do have to remember you're embedded in an imperfect world.

Kristin 1:04:54

Yeah.

CR Herro 1:04:55

And if you want the best results, you do have to manage around imperfect people.

Kristin 1:04:59

Yeah, so I'm moving.

CR Herro 1:05:03

Free move.

Kristin 1:05:04

Actually, I found this really beautiful house.

CR Herro 1:05:08

Get up in Bees Cave. I love Bees Cave. I love being in the hills.

Kristin 1:05:12

I do love it. It actually is out with that. You're right. I did see one that I really liked. Hey, I'm so proud of myself too. I started investing in stocks and shit. Yeah, just playing. Talk about dopamine now.

CR Herro 1:05:27

If you get any really good investment tips, pass them along because I just put my 4K in Expedia. So I didn't know what to help.

Kristin 1:05:36

I got smoked. I asked.

CR Herro 1:05:39

Please pass it along.

Kristin 1:05:42

We need to do the whole thing.

CR Herro 1:05:43

Okay.

Kristin 1:05:44

I'm like, check, check, check. I need to put my big girl panties on. Like, I got Roth Wow, Ray and shit. A couple of different investment account. And then I was like adding shit up the other day, and I was like, well, if this is considering liquid. Technically, I can sell it real quick, right? My car and then my savings and all this stuff. Yeah, it feels good. It feels really good. Yeah. I don't like a wanna walk on tangent and stuff. I'm just having fun, and it's a I think it's a cool conversation too. When you can talk about deeper concepts and like we even go down different rabbit holes.

CR Herro 1:06:28

I can keep up, girl.

Kristin 1:06:29

And be human. Yeah, people listening can. I believe in you. I love you guys so much. It's really cool. I'll tune in from all over the world. Just like magic. It is. It is. I can't see and touch this wave of internet thing that's connecting me and you right now.

CR Herro 1:06:54

Isn't that crazy?

Kristin 1:06:55

Connecting this little green T microphone to like.

CR Herro 1:06:57

And there's somebody next door walking watching TikToks out of the same waves in the air, and somehow they know yours and mine.

Kristin 1:07:04

And yeah, it's crazy. Oh my god, yeah, I created a new TikTok account. I don't know if I told you that I'm I've been about this. It came along, He'll Billy Healer. And I just get a real kick out of it. And so I was like, I'm gonna see the TikTok handle is available, the Instagram handle is available. No numbers, no dashes, anything like that. That's pretty fucking cool. And all these ideas now, and I'm about to go out to my brother's farm, lasso in, and some people just like to sit in their own fucking manure, they just need to kick that shit to the curve. And so I text Pegan the extra chaps of our rope. But I got some ideas. And so I named the Venmo account for my LLC, Hillbilly Dash Healer. And in case anybody wants to support the podcast until Cingy said bonkers come along, feel free to shoot over anything. It's that account.

CR Herro 1:08:08

I I think like there's not many more important conversations than this silly one, which is what's the truth? What is it, what's the human experience about, and how do we navigate it? And thinking about people and relationships and honesty and authenticity, it's a whole lot more important than who won the game last night.

Kristin 1:08:33

Yeah, we're just trying to figure it out. And I really like figuring it out playfully. That feels a lot better than yeah, judgmentally.

CR Herro 1:08:47

Yeah, that's what I like when you we do this together because I will bring all the science and all the books and all the fry ass charts, and you bring the tequila.

Kristin 1:08:57

Do you want to draw something for me? Yeah, yeah. I uh there's a share button down at the bottom of the screen.

CR Herro 1:09:07

So we are talking about this idea around how different strategies work with relationships. And so I invented this the first chart that peaks early. This is of this is a fantasy chart. So this is it starts out great because it's all fantasy, and it peaks quick because you're both chasing this ideal. The problem is, is like people can't maintain a fantasy and it declines, and then you can just as soon as it starts to curve, you can just add another one and just serial date and serial fantasy, and just link all these together, and over time just try to have as much positive experience as you can. But fantasy isn't sustainable. So the next one starts out lower because it's harder, and it peaks later, but it lasts longer. And this is masks. This is the middle one or the yeah, the middle one, the big wide one. And this is people who pretend to be what their partner wants, and the partner pretends what they want. And this could be a whole marriage. The challenge is somewhere 10 years in, you don't feel seen, you don't feel loved for who you are, you're not your authentic self, you don't feel safe because they love this mask you're wearing instead of you, and resentment kicks in. And that resentment, it can cause a divorce, you could just die this. People's lives of quiet desperation is they they try and they try and and and they ride this wave as long as they can, but it's inauthentic. And the last chart starts out the lowest, and initially it's its joy is less than the other two. This is an authentic relationship. This is doing the hard work of being seen and imperfect, and struggling through the fact that society doesn't support that and Hollywood doesn't support that, and it's hard, but somewhere in the middle of all this, you look at each other and you know that the person who loves you loves you for what you are, and you love the person for what they are, and you would do it all fucking over again, and that's the one that kind of makes it through, and that that authenticity has an ability to just keep going because you're celebrating the weirdness of the other person and their quirks and they're celebrating yours, and you build an interesting life and relationship together. And so when I talk to people about like their cycles of love addiction and love avoidance and their attachment wounds and all these things, like I always think about like how do I convince them to do the really hard work of being social, of being relational, of investing in in authenticity, in reciprocity, and setting down your masks. It's all so fucking scary. And and nobody talks about this last slope because the payoffs at the end, the payoffs had an 80th birthday party of a life well lived with a partner that sees you and knows you and loves you, or partners. I don't be a thrill, be a be a whatever.

Kristin 1:12:40

Your relationship dynamic, there's lots of possibilities within that communicated and everything, right? I love that. And I I love what you know Jane Sexton, that divorce attorney. I'm not sure.

CR Herro 1:12:52

Don't know anything he does.

Kristin 1:12:54

You don't.

CR Herro 1:12:54

I know the name, but that's it.

Kristin 1:12:56

Oh, okay. He's like a new high New York divorce attorney, and like I just love a lot of his relationship concepts and advice, and he's like, it's basically saying, You're my favorite person, and and going through that journey together.

CR Herro 1:13:13

And I I don't know how to get there except authenticity because the fantasy leads to disappointment and the masks lead to resentment. And so the only way to do this is to like show up as your freaky weird self and see who wants to play.

Kristin 1:13:30

Yeah. Amen. That sounded like a good note, and uh it was good to catch up. A really nice Nayho, a really generous CR hero, given gifting his time after a full long day of work. And me skirting in here and blue girl, and thank you for coming on again.

CR Herro 1:14:02

It was lovely to see you and lovely to talk with you. Get yourself some shall I go?

Kristin 1:14:05

I know it's not a find a balance.