When the Mind Becomes the Trap

 This week on Mental Health Bytes, hosts Rahul K. Maharaj (Mr. Trauma Talks) and Dr. Tash Reddy sit down with Dr. Stephen Paul Edwards, an international speaker, author, and spiritual counselor whose work bridges emotional healing, spiritual alignment, and personal transformation.

Originally from Blackpool, UK and now based in Florida, Dr. Edwards brings decades of business experience, deep spiritual insight, and lived emotional truth. His memoir, The Venus Fly Trap, explores the raw realities of power, obsession, heartbreak, identity collapse, and the painful but necessary journey back to authenticity.

In this episode, Dr. Edwards opens up about the patterns that trap us, the wounds that shape us, and the courage it takes to confront the parts of ourselves we avoid. Together, Rahul, Dr. Tash, and Dr. Edwards dive into self‑awareness, emotional responsibility, spiritual grounding, and the process of rebuilding self‑worth after life breaks you open.

This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt stuck, lost, or disconnected from who they truly are — and is ready to reclaim their mind, body, and spirit.

SPEAKER LINEUP
• Rahul K. Maharaj – Mr. Trauma Talks (Host)
• Dr. Tash Reddy (Co‑Host, Medical Doctor, Mental Health Advocate)
• Dr. Stephen Paul Edwards (International Speaker, Author of The Venus Fly Trap, Spiritual Counselor)

Dr Stephen Paul Edwards Venus Fly Trap interview spiritual counseling emotional healing trauma recovery identity collapse personal transformation Rahul K Maharaj Mr Trauma Talks Dr Tash Reddy Mental Health Bytes podcast self worth rebuilding patterns emotional growth spiritual alignment UK speaker Florida author memoir healing journey mental health conversation

#MentalHealthBytes #MrTraumaTalks #DrTashReddy #DrStephenPaulEdwards #TheVenusFlyTrap #EmotionalHealing #SpiritualCounseling #TraumaRecovery #SelfWorth #BreakThePattern #HealingJourney #MentalHealthAwareness #AuthenticSelf #MindBodySpirit #TransformationTalk

 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Good evening, everyone from South Africa. This is Dr. Tash Reddy, and I'm so excited to be here with you today. We have such an amazing guest, and we're talking about the mind and how we're going to work with it. We have a guest from London who's now moved to Florida in the United States, and he's just been doing amazing work, amazing work with emotions and spiritual counseling. He's got a PhD in spiritual counseling. And at first I wondered what it was. But Dr. Stephen Paul Edwards is not here to teach us or to preach to us. He's here to show us what spiritual counseling is. And I'm so excited to hear about it. So we're joining you on your trauma talks. This is mental health bites on Tuesday evening. But Dr. Edwards, it's obviously morning for him, and we're so grateful that he could join us today. And he's going to be talking to us about his book, The Venus Fly Project, a book that is actually such an amazing book to read. There's so many lessons in there that can teach you about life and how to handle life. And one of the most amazing things about Dr. Stephen is that he's not actually talking about anyone else. He's revisiting himself, his own personal experiences, and he's sharing that with us. So I'm so excited about having him on the show and chatting to him. And as we go through the next hour, remember you can catch us live on YouTube or on Facebook, and we on all platforms, streaming platforms. So you can always catch the show whenever you need to. And let's welcome our esteemed, amazing guest, Dr. Stephen Paul Edward. Dr. Stephen, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Wow, that was quite mental health. That was quite an introduction, Dr. Tasha. Halfway through, I'm going, wow, I want to meet this guy. He sounds amazing. So uh thank you for that. It's very kind of you. And we're already having fun, right? We've got all kinds of technical issues, stuff going on. It's been hilarious, but we're having fun with it. I live in South Africa. I know, right? I know you're in South Africa. I'm from England. I live in Florida. I mean, how confusing can it get, right? I mean, we've got everything going on here, right? But it's all good, it's all exciting, and I know everybody's gonna have a great time, even though we got we kind of got thrown into the deep end a little bit, right? Because we didn't actually know that you and I were gonna be making the show, right? So it's perfect. So so, ladies and gentlemen, this is not planned, this is all spontaneous, and I think it's gonna be great. So I'm excited. So, what would you like to ask me first? You want me to just tell a little bit about myself? What do you want to what do you?

SPEAKER_03 2:54

I mean, I know you just follow on about me, but I would love to know everything about you, Dr. Stephen, but one of the things that really I'm sorry, I have a curious mind. One of the things I'm really so curious about is spiritual counseling, right? And um, and I hope during the hour you and I can both share our experiences with each other and maybe bounce off each other, um, you know, what the what it meant in terms of spirituality, uh heartbreak, um, you know, mental trauma, whatever trauma we faced, if we could bounce off each other and share those experiences with each other. But obviously, you are the highlight of the show, and you're going to be the center of everything. So, yes, please tell us a little bit more about yourself. How did you how did you go from Blackpool, right? In the UK, to Florida. It's one of my favorite places in the world. If I could, if I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Florida. I've been there a few times. So, how did you end up in Florida?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Hmm, man, that's that's another that's uh about six podcasts there, right? So minimum, right? So I grew up in as you said, right? Um and uh I had a I had a very traumatic childhood, and then people go, yeah, me too. I mean, we all did, right? At some level, right? We all experience trauma as part of the human condition, right? It's what actually uh is very important because it helps make you who you are, right? Uh what you do with that trauma. Anyway, uh, so I went through some traumatic experiences, which do play into the story of the book, obviously, because these patterns are created when we're very young. In fact, there is a famous pastor that once said, Give me your give me your boy until he's seven years old and I will show you the men. It's all created there, all the patterns, beliefs, everything were formed there. Um, but we don't recognize it, right? We don't realize that it's all patterns, right? Now you can change patterns, but who knows that? Very few people. I didn't know that as a kid, right? I thought I was the only one going through trauma, right? It's not like we all get together at school and say, Hey, are you going through trauma? Meet we just don't talk about it, right? Because we're ashamed of it, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Let's be honest, right? We're ashamed of it. So all this going on, you know, in my house, I felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time. It was very stressful. To the point where when I went to bed, I had to bang my head on the pillow until I fell asleep. Because I was so frustrated. There was so much rage and anger inside me because it was so suppressed. To the point where when I was 16 years of age, uh I had a uh what was what was described as a manic episode of mania, right? Uh, and so I was diagnosed as being a manic depressive, which we would know that here today as being bipolar. So I was super high, right? I loved everybody, right? Uh, but they put me in asylum because loving everybody is not is weird, right? So it's not normal. So they put me in an asylum and they uh, you know, they put the straps on me and everything. I'm thinking, I'm not gonna hurt anybody, I'm gonna love everybody, right? But anyway, so finally they said, okay, well, we got to get him out of this this terrible state. They put me in electro-convulsive therapy, putting thousands of volts through your brain to help you forget, right? I mean, holy shit, yeah, it didn't make me forget, but it also me made me forget who I am, right? So, to the point where I believe that it is it true.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

I mean, I've never had it, right? But uh, with a lot of the people you should try it, try it, you should try it, Dr.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Tan.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

No, no, I am terrified. Um, you should be, you should be a lot of them tell me that you lose some of your memory. Yes, you do. Do you actually lose some of your memory?

SPEAKER_00 6:53

For the rest of your life, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

If I can't remember your name at the end, you'll understand. I'm just kidding. I will remember your name. But you do, you do lose part of your memory. Yeah, exactly. And it's written on the screen. I don't think I should have a problem. But on a serious note, yes, you do. You lose part of your memory, right? It's a really bad thing. But anyway, I had this. But uh what my point is about that is that all my life I've been ashamed of that because everything told me I should be ashamed of it. You know, if I went for a job, it would say on the application, have you ever had any mental illness? Well, what am I gonna say? Yes, I'm not gonna get the job, right? So you're almost put in a position where you've got to keep it in and lie about it and hold it back because it's shameful. And back then, when I was a kid, it was, you know, having a mental illness was not considered to be something that could be healed, it was not something that was considered normal, you know. And I talk about, we all live on a spectrum of insanity, but we'll talk about that either later or another time. My point about all this was that I was having experiences that I felt ashamed of, right? And there are lots of others that I talk about in the book. I spill the beans, right? I mean, I spill the tea, right? Um, and there's a number of reasons I do that. First of all, because it explains how these patterns in my life began, right, when I was young. And to also say to people, look, we all have what they call skeletons in the closet, right? That were made, or we think were made, or we think we should be ashamed of. And that isn't true, right? There's nothing to be ashamed of. But the problem is if we think there is, we'll always be afraid that people will find out about it. And then if they find out about it, they may judge us, or they might not love us anymore, or they may not want to be friends with us anymore, or they may not want to be our parents anymore, whatever it might be, right? And so there's that unconscious fear that this these things that have happened in our lives are things that we should be ashamed of and not talk about. The problem is when we do that, we put ourselves in a prison, right? That we're so afraid people will find out about it, we keep it down. So we're only living a fraction of our potential, right? We don't realize that, we think it's the right thing to do, but now we've got these walls around us that actually isolate us and make us feel alone because there's part of you saying, Yeah, you say you love me, but you really don't know who I am. That if you find that out about me, maybe you won't love me anymore, right? And so at some point, and and this is why, you know, this this relationship that I'm in the book isn't an it's an insane relationship, right? I mean, really insane. Um, and it was very toxic, but it helped me understand later that it, you know, people think, well, why you know, why does this toxic relationship? How am I doing that? What is wrong with me, right? Now that's a bad question to ask, right? There's nothing wrong with you. Nothing. You've pulled that person into your life, not for them to do something to you, they're doing something for you. That's a huge shift in consciousness, right? Because we tend to be victims, right? Oh, he did this to me, she did that to me, life did this to me, God did this to me. No, they did it for you. Now, easy to say, different to live, right? It's easy to say when everything's going great. Yeah, this is happening for me, easy to see, right? But when the most traumatic, different, difficult experiences are in your life, it's difficult to see that it's actually happening for you. Because people will say, Listen, no, they did it to me. I've got the receipts, I can show you, I got the videotape. This is what they did. Well, it's not saying they didn't do anything, it's not saying that you have to accept that that's okay, but they didn't do it to you, they did it for you. So you will see something about yourself that they are a mirror of you, they're mirroring back parts of you that you've given away during the course of your life. And so they are getting you to see you, your qualities that you're not living fully. Like one of the things I admired about her and drew me to her, besides her external beauty, was the fact that she was so authentic. She didn't care what people thought. I'm gonna be me. And you know, I would complain about her being me, right? I would say, Look, you gotta stop doing this, this, and this, and this. It's crazy. And she would say, Listen, you knew what you were getting when you met me. Stephen, I will never be, I will never be normal. But you love that about me, you know, you love the fact that I'm not gonna be normal. You're not normal either, right? So you gotta take both sides. And I went, you can't argue with it, right? She's right, yeah. And so I admired that about her. Why was she showing me that? Because I wasn't being my authentic self, I was compromising myself to be accepted and liked, to have this persona that I could put onto the world, accepted, right? But it wasn't me, it was a persona, it was a an identity that wasn't real, right? And so she was teaching.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

I'd love to get your feedback on this. I mean, I'm listening to you and it's on I've also I I was also in a mental institution when I were young, um, very, very young. And I to this day I'm still called a a mental case and psycho and you know, all of those things. So it's it's not a it's not something you can ever run away from. It's something people treat you like for the rest of your life. And I think it gets thrown back in your face all the time, even when you can achieve, you know, the heavens, it it's still thrown back in your face that you that you have a mental problem. But for me, it it's always about it's not what um, you know, it's not about your shortcomings, but what but how you overcome them. But then when you talk about relationships, right? And I I I I did the same thing, and I I saw in in when I was reading up on the Venus um fly trap project, I saw that you speak a lot about guilt. And one of the things that I did was make myself guilty. Like, what did I do wrong? How you know, I did this, I did that, I did that. But what happens in a case where, like in your case, the authentic, she showed you her authentic self. What happens in a case when people uh that come into your life come with different personas that change with each person that they yeah, and that's gonna happen. You know, like you like they put on a mask or uh to uh that yeah, you're cutting out a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_03 14:18

All right, so what happens when you you meet someone and invite someone into your life who's not authentic, but but actually has puts on a mask or persona that changes, but it they do it in in that um they do it so that it benefits them the most. How do you handle that?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

All right, well, um, I'm not saying that everybody comes into your life is gonna be authentic, I'm just saying that's what she was showing me for me, not for everybody, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

So each person is each person that you pull into your life is gonna show you different aspects of yourself, right? And if that person is constantly changing the masks and uh becoming a chameleon, that's what she did as well, right? She did that, she could be anything anybody wanted because she has a mental disease called borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder means they don't have an identity, so they're constantly changing it to fit the person that they're with at the time. So, you know, what you do in that situation is kind of a different thing than talking about what you're seeing in them that's a reflection of you. Um, but if if you recognize that a person is doing that, then you got to get out of the relationship, right? Because uh how is it gonna get better, right? So we stay in so people say, well, you know, it's not that easy to get out of a toxic relationship. You're right, it isn't, right? And then that's what that's how you compromise who you are to be with them, and slowly you give pieces of yourself away until you don't, right? Until you're no longer getting enough out of that toxic relationship to make it worthwhile giving pieces of yourself away. That can take a long time, right? So, in a toxic relationship, now not every relationship is toxic, as you well know, but if in a toxic relationship there's always a giver and a receiver, right? So no matter how much the giver gives, it's never gonna be enough. No matter how much the receiver gets, it will never ever be enough. So you just completely pull all the energy out of both of you, right? Until you're completely depleted, you no longer know who you are, and at that point, you got to make a decision at that point. The decision is either I stay in this and I literally go insane, or I have to get out of it, I have to let that other person go, right? Not on judgment, just on the fact for uh self-preservation, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Preservation, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Not because you don't love that person, you can still love that person, even though they're destroying you because they're probably not doing it consciously, right? They're still inside a beautiful soul, a beautiful spirit, yeah, so many beautiful memories with them. It's not like it's all trauma, right? I mean, you have built a relationship, and you know, for usually the giver falls in love and the receiver doesn't, but it doesn't, it doesn't really matter, right? The point is that no matter what, at the end, it's difficult for both of you because the receiver is going to feel like they're being abandoned. Usually that's a deep wound for them, particularly with borderline personality disorder. People don't understand with that disease that every nobody wants to be abandoned, right? It's painful for everybody, but it's magnified by a hundred for someone with borderline. They're terrified of being abandoned, right? So if you break up with them, it's devastating to a degree that most people can't understand. But pain is part of growth, right? You know, you want to build a muscle in the gym, you're not gonna go in there, you know, put music on and just start hanging out and get fit, right? You got to actually do the work, and it's gonna be resistance. And it's not, you know, sometimes you walk out of the gym and you think, holy shit, I just got my ass kicked, right? I feel like I'm aching, I'm hurting, whatever. And so life is the same thing. Pain is a necessary ingredient in growth. If we didn't have pain, we wouldn't do anything, right? We wouldn't move, we'd be just like, yeah, nothing's gonna happen to me, everything's fine. But pain causes us to move, it causes us to look at things in ways we wouldn't if there wasn't pain. So we have to walk through the fire. And you know, in this case, this relationship for me was what is called in you know spiritual circles the dark night of the soul. This was my dark night of the soul, where I had to let who I was then die. They no longer exist. That person is not here on earth anymore, and then embrace this new identity that's going to become you as a result of the lessons you've learned, that where you've taken back the pieces of yourself, done what is necessary, being vulnerable, being honest with yourself, looking at those mirrors, being authentic, being well, I think you said that already, being vulnerable, being prepared to face the truth. No, no uh trying to defend it. Just let it be. Because who you are is enough, is more than enough, right? And all those things that you know I felt I needed to be ashamed of, that I was carrying guilt for, once I let him out, it wasn't what everybody else thinks. You're right. People will still laugh at me, you know, when they read the book about having mental illness and all those kind of things. It will come up wherever I go, it comes up in interviews and all that kind of thing. It's fine though. What's important is how you feel about it now. That you have now the freedom to know that nobody can hurt you with that anymore. Nobody can say, well, you're a little crazy. I go, listen, you've no idea. I'm even crazier than you know, right? You're okay with it. It's like if somebody called you, you know, if someone, you know, someone called you a green, hairy back monster, right? You're just gonna go, well, you know it isn't true. Who cares? Right? Only by someone calling you something that you feel might be true can it trigger you, right? Only by that. So if you if you own it and you go, Yeah, I was I was meant, I was mentally ill. I probably still have mental illness, right? I still do crazy things, but I love that about myself, right? I love being adventurous, I love taking risks, it makes me feel alive, right? So you look for the positive things that you have gained from having that experience, and there are plenty, right? And I say in the book, listen, we're all on the spectrum of insanity. Everybody, you know, people say, Well, I want to be normal. Well, show me a normal person and we'll see if we can match you up. There's no such thing, right? We live in a world that's insane. Look at what we do. What other animal on earth, and we're a mammal, right? What other mammal on earth makes weapons to destroy each other? What other animal would live on a planet where there wasn't enough for everybody? They just take what they need, and then there's plenty for everybody, right? What other what other mammal on earth would get together and say, how can we screw everybody else over and keep everything for ourselves? It doesn't happen, right? So we live in the same world. How many other, how many imagine aliens coming to Earth and go, so um, what is this thing, this car thing? What is this about? Well, what happens is, yeah, you need car to get around. Because you can't walk anywhere. Why can't you walk anywhere? Never mind about that. But you buy this car, right? And when you go to buy this car, you buy it, but you don't have the money to buy it. So what you do, you borrow the money to buy the car. And then when you drive the car off the lot, it's worth 30% less than what you paid for it. And you borrowed the money and you're going to pay interest on that. And the aliens are going to go, that doesn't make any sense. What? That's insane. And people go, yeah, I know, but everybody does it. So 90% of what we do as human beings is insane. So own it and just say, yeah, we're living in the same world. I'm not normal because we don't even know what normal is. I'm somewhere on that spectrum of insanity, right? Fine. Okay, we'll live with it, right? It's okay. But then don't judge other people from where they are on that spectrum, right? Because you don't know what's going on for them. You don't know that it's happening for them. You think it's happening to them. But there are all kinds of silver linings there. Okay, you sounded like you wanted to ask me a question. Do you want to ask me a question?

SPEAKER_03 23:03

One thing I'm so intrigued by, Dr. Dr. Edwards, is what you spoke. What I'm so intrigued by is what you were talking about when it came to abandonment. And you I've experienced that, and you were talking about the pain that comes with it, right? And I don't think that a lot of people understand how debilitating that pain is. Not just emotional, but physical. And um, you know, it it takes you a while, and then and and abandonment is absolutely a time where you then start to question your self-worth, you start to question if you're even deserving of uh being worthy in any way, if you um um you know, if you you deserve to be human. So it takes you on a journey of actually trying to find the work inside you, and in in each of the cycles that you go through after that, um from pain, and um and you find, and you know, I just want to say to our viewers, I've experienced it, Dr. Edward has experienced it, and we can tell you when you go through that kind of pain, um, the growth that comes with it will astound you, um, it'll recreate a version of you you didn't even realize existed. So, have you had that same experience uh after abandonment?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yeah, so um something to understand about abandonment, right? So there is a group of people that lived thousands of years ago, they were called the Essenes, right? And uh it's ported to believe that Jesus was an Essene, right? None of that makes it, it doesn't matter, but the point is they wrote many, many books, some of which were found in the Nagamadi Library, which was a series of books, thousands of pages of books that were lost for centuries. But in there, it explains what they call the three universal fears. That there are three fears that are actually contained in the human consciousness, that every single person that is born into humanity experiences at various levels, that it's their challenge or opportunity to overcome in their lifetime. Number one is abandonment, number two is self-worth, and number three is being able to trust, right? So, as they explained in their writings, that at some part of our soul, at some part of our spirit, we believe that God put us down here and then abandoned us and left us here. The second self-worth is that somehow, some way we can never measure up to what our Creator expects from us self-worth. Three, that if God left us here and abandoned us, how the hell can we trust God? And so that affects every relationship. It's very difficult to trust. So we have to reframe those beliefs, right? We have to change those patterns of belief and install new patterns of belief that you're never abandoned because your creator is with you every second, every hour, every day, every month, and every year of your life. It's impossible for him, her, whatever you want to call it, right, to not be with you. So you are never alone and therefore you're never abandoned, right? You will see reflected on in the external world that people will abandon you, right? But they're reflecting back at you that fear for you to overcome, right? And once you do that, you'll never feel abandoned again. Self-worth. We're constantly being told that we're not worthy, you know, we don't look like this picture of a woman or this picture of a guy. You don't have an eight-pack, you don't have this image that you're told is how you're supposed to be in the world. I'm just giving you one example, right? I'm not intelligent, you know, you're not smart, you didn't go to college, you know, you have um the wrong color skin, you're from the wrong ethnicity, all these different things which are bullshit, right? They have no uh relation to reality. Reality is, you know, your creator doesn't make garbage, right? Your creator only creates people, things, and objects that are perfect. So you are perfect. You go, well, well, I don't have this and I don't, but that's perfect. Well, there's no such thing as perfect. Yes, there is, right? In your essence, you are perfect. There's nothing wrong with you, nothing needs fixing. We just gotta change some of the things you believe, right? That you've been taught to believe, and that's okay too. It's not being, well, you know, now I gotta hate my parents or my caretakers. No, they told you those things to give you challenges in your life for you to overcome. Otherwise, what the hell's the point of you being here, right? In our spiritual essence, we are all fully enlightened beings, there's nothing to learn, right? So if we come into this earthly experience, we gotta forget all that. Otherwise, how could you have an experience? And so each one of us is at a different level of remembering, remembering who we are, and that's the journey. But we have to have challenges put in front of us to get to that point, otherwise, what's the point? And if we didn't have challenges, we wouldn't do anything, we just sit around, and that'd be boring, right? We wouldn't create a purpose for our life, and people say, Well, I don't have purpose. Well, decide. Well, I've been asking God and he hasn't been answering me. Yeah, because God's not gonna tell you what your purpose is, period. Never ever. You are going to decide your purpose based on your experiences and what you feel passionate about. That's simple. But if you wait around for God to tell you, you're gonna wait forever, right? God wants whatever you want. That's why God gave us free will, right? Dr.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Edwards, if we can, uh uh, if you can just explain, because we're talking about um we're talking about spirituality now, and one of the things I actually was very curious about when I read your biography was um that you have a PhD in spiritual counseling. Now, if you can tell us a little bit more about that, is that as you know, is that uh specific to a certain religion or how when you say spiritual counseling, um what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Okay, great question. All right, so first of all, people get confused with spirituality and religion, right? And they are two completely different things, right? So uh one way, one way you could define it, and this is kind of a fun, right? So I heard what somebody say, Well, here's the difference religion is for people who don't want to go to hell, spirituality is for people that have already been there, right? So funny, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:49

So I love that, I absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Usually, and that's usually what happens.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

Um I think I've already been to hell, so that explains there.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

You go, right? So um, yeah, and I, you know, I everybody gets what they need and what they want. Some people still want to have a religion, that's fine, and if it's working for you, great, right? But very often, people who get into spirituality have had a religious upbringing or they've had a religious part of their life, and it just gets to the point where that no longer works for them anymore. They know there's something more, right? And so they get into spirituality. It doesn't mean it's better, it's just different, right? And it's a different part of your life. Just like when you're a kid, you know, there are certain things you have as a child that one day you grow it out of and you just say, I want to go to something else. And that was a bad analogy because that's not saying you grow out of a religion, but I'm just saying what you want and what you're attracted to changes, right? So spirituality is more about understanding our spiritual nature. So we're not humans having a spiritual experience, we are spirits having a human experience, right? Yeah. So we're having this human experience, and one of the things that very often happens for people is they do have a trauma in their life that causes them to look into more spiritual understandings. Not always, but very often, right? They have a spiritual crisis, and then, you know, taking a Tylenol doesn't work anymore, right? Or, you know, taking some of the drugs that traditional medicine might prescribe, they just don't work anymore. And so they look for more organic or more um naturalistic remedies. Now, let me be clear: that is not saying that there aren't some traditional Western medic medicines that can be tremendous help. I'm not saying throw that out. I'm just saying that over time, what we have to realize, or what we do realize, is that these drugs are simply a reflection of the biochemistry of our body. We don't need any drugs. The biochemistry of the human body is more advanced than any pharmaceutical that you can think of. We just haven't learned yet how to tap into it, right? But it's all there. Just like the brain is capable of doing more than any AI or anything else out there, right? Just like the body has so much electric, so much electrical potential. We could light up a city, right? But we're learning little by slow, step by step, how to get to the point where we can tap into that. And we could always we could talk about that another time. But anyway, um, so this is what it means to be more spiritual. It's not dogmatic, right? The religion is usually dogmatic. There are certain things you have to do and say and believe to be part of that religion, otherwise they'll throw you out, right? Or they will frown upon you, you'll be judged by the rest of the congregation, those kind of things. Whereas spirituality just says, look, you got to be who you are. Not follow dogma. You may go completely off the charts, do things in a completely different way, but that's how we find new things in life. That's how we learn more about ourselves and the world we live in, not following a dogma from 2,000 years ago. Because if we were doing that, things would be just like they were 2,000 years ago. Nothing would change, right? So the people who push the boundaries, there's a famous quote by Steve Jobs, and he said, Here's to the crazy ones, here's to the misfits, here's to the people who want to follow their own path because they are the people that will change the world. And they do, right? So don't feel like because you might be different, think about things differently, that there's something wrong with you. Actually, it means there's something right with you, right? So again, it's just putting a different uh spin on what we've been told to believe, what we've been told to judge about ourselves and others, and recognize the biggest thing for me was to recognize that it doesn't happen to me, that it happens for me. That's easy to say, it's a different thing to live, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:58

In my experience, you said that you tend to go into spirituality when you've experienced trauma. Now, I've experienced quite a lot of trauma in my life, and in my experience, what I was taught, my dad was a minister, and you know, I was uh taught to be a certain way, and what happened to me was my experiences, my responses to those experiences. Um, what I was taught to uh in terms of spirituality, it couldn't contain what I had. Yeah, and so I needed an outlet from that containment. I'm not sure if you understand. And sometimes you, you know, you're taught that you be put in a box and you're told that this is how spirituality works. But in my experience, what I was taught couldn't contain what I had learned and what I had experienced. It was far beyond that. And I had to go outside of that containment to find something that could speak to my soul and could speak to me at the level uh or meet me at the level that I needed to be met.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

Right? So that is where my spirituality comes from. I I don't I I I'm not religious, I just believe that it's a a it's your soul connecting, um, you know, on a level that meets you.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Yeah. Okay, well, that's what I just said, right? That religion usually boxes you in, you've got to stay within these confines, and spirituality has no confines, right? It's completely free, right? It doesn't have the dogma that religion does, usually, right? So, um yes, yes, and there was something else you said there that um yeah, so spirituality is not gonna contain you, it recognizes that the human spirit has to be free, right? If it's contained, it will rebel, right? Just like if you're told not to do something, suddenly now you want to do it. You hadn't even thought of it before, but now you want to do it because you're told you can't do it, right? Because that doesn't give you freedom, it boxes you into something, right? Yeah, so absolutely. There was something else you said then that just uh I probably should have written it down about that. But yeah, it's about freedom, you know, and so when we get back to the book, and I was saying that this toxic relationship gave me freedom because it allowed me or taught me to let it all go, you know, let it out because once you have, it has no power over you, even though, as you say, you know, when you let it out that you've had mental illness, people still give you a hard time about it, they maybe laugh at you about it, put you down because of it, but then it won't hurt you, it won't matter to you. And what you will notice, as I'm sure you do, people say it less and less because they can't get to you. You know, people saying that to you are trying to get a rise out of you, they're trying to get a trigger. No nice person is gonna come up and try and humiliate you for being having some mental illness. No nice, kind, loving person is gonna do that, right? And so, you know, you don't have to say anything, you can just walk away, and that's more than enough. And they realize that they can't hook you from it, right? You know, or you could just say, I know, isn't it great? I'm so blessed that I had that mental illness because it helped me see life in a completely different way. For example, now I know that when people say mean things to you, it's because they're not happy. You know what I mean? Now you didn't say anything about them directly, but you basically told them the only reason you said that to me is because you're not happy. You call them out in a nice way.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

You know, I love what you said because so often we internalize, um, we internalize what people say about us, right? And we, you know, we feel down about it and think that um being told we are mental or not good enough or whatever is um is something that is our fault. But I love what you said. You said no good person, no kind person, no good kind person would come and do that to you or would come and say that to you. And that for me, that's an eye-opener because why then do I need to tolerate people that do not have elements of love, kindness, and goodness in them? I don't, and I love that. So it gave me a totally new perspective on how to handle those kinds of um attacks. Beautiful, and thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

You're so welcome, you're so welcome. Yeah, and that's that's the great thing about having a lot of.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Now let's go.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Before we run out of time, let's talk about your um uh the Venus Fly Trap Project. I have to tell you that when I saw that name, right? Venus High, uh, Venus Fly Trap Project. The first thing I I thought of was Fly and Trap, and then I was like, hmm, okay, but then that's just how my mind wanders sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

And then I thought of Venus, the planet red. Um so you tell me what what the Venus Fly Trap Project is about.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Okay, well, it's the name of the book, the Venus Fly Trap book, right? Uh and the subtitle is Sex Lies and a Repercussion. So where did so where did that come from, right? We should probably talk about that first, right? How did I come up with a name? I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

So when I met, when I met Chamaz, who is the star of the book, right? Um, we met online and we met through a website, and I'm, you know, trying to get a date with her, right? So I I did get a date, and then she she set a date with me one day, and the next day she cancelled. I'm like, oh my god, right, I gotta get her back, right? So then I said, uh, so then I'm thinking that so I got her to go on another date with me. And then I'm thinking, I gotta tie this down so she can't cancel again. So I make arrangements for this day, and I tell her we're gonna have an amazing time. And then I text her, so what's your favorite flower? And she said, Bird of paradise. So I like to joke around as you see in the book, right? It's the the sarcasm just dripping off the pages. So then I said to her, Okay, mine too. It's a bit expensive though. So, what's your second favorite? Like it was too much money to buy the bird of paradise, right? But instantly, Dr. Tash, she came back with Venus flytrap, she named the book, she described the whole thing, right? So she didn't know that consciously, but here she is, this beautiful bird of paradise, but inside she's the Venus flytrap, and in that instant, I knew my intuition said she's dangerous. Now I could have walked away then, couldn't I? But I didn't. What did I say in my head? I kind of like dangerous, right? Right, but I but I took that and you thought you could tame it. That's right, of course, right? I thought I could save her, right? That I could, I could, I could rescue her, I could save her, and I could fix her, which was impossible and is always impossible. But that's what a lot of men are taught when they're young boys, you know, you gotta find the damsel in distress. That's what all the stories were when we were kids, right? All the stories were about saving Snow White, saving Cinderella. It's all sending those messages into your head, right? The only thing I didn't have was a horse. Anyway, my point is, we're taught these things and they stay with us subconsciously, right? So she very clearly told me that you don't need to save anybody, you don't need to rescue anybody, and you definitely don't need to fix anybody, and she did that very powerfully, right? It became very clear because I had to say to myself, because I'd always believed being in counseling and personal, everybody is fixable, right? Everybody can change, and here's the truth no, they can't. No, they can't, and those people, you have to let them go because they're on their own journey and they're not either ready for it yet or they never will be. And you gotta be okay with that. You can't, as you just said, take it as a challenge. Well, I'm gonna save you whether you want to be saved or not, you know, I'm gonna rescue you whenever and it's like leave me the fuck alone, right? And you're gonna be okay with that, you're gonna. Realize your own limitations, and that you're not here to rescue anybody, you're not here to save anybody, and you're definitely not here to fix anybody. All you can ever do is help people realize who they really are, that they don't need to be fixed, they just need to recognize you know what I think, Dr.

SPEAKER_03 44:20

Edward. Like God gave us free will, um, people have free will. And who are we to to go now and change their free will? Um, we can't. And so when we decide that we want to tame them or take on the challenge of trying to um change them, we're only setting ourselves up for disappointment because they're never going to change, they have free will, and that is what it's always going to be. And the only thing we're only thing we are responsible for is how we respond to life and what we do in life.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

Yeah, I was just thinking, I'm thinking, where were you when I was 16? Tell me that then, right? Yeah. Because I went through my whole life.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Right? Oh my god, and I can't be picking up.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Oh, that's the biggest compliment I could have ever gotten. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Oh, you're so welcome. I went through I've been through four marriages, Dr. Tash, right? So it just shows you how messed up I was. Okay. You know, and people used to say I'm halfway there.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

I'm I'm I'm you're at two.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

I'm I'm past two now, so I'm halfway there.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

I was going for the world record, but I gave up. So here's the point. I had been through all those people say to me, you know, you went through four marriages. Yeah, man, what was wrong with all those women? I say, hold on a second. Four marriages. Throughout those four marriages, there was only one constant, me, right? So it's all me, isn't it? Right? It's only me, right? So uh now people play their own role in a relationship. I know, I get that, but at the end of the day, you can only take responsibility for yourself, and you wouldn't have been through four marriages if you were perfect, would you? You wouldn't have been through four marriages if there wasn't something about you that was creating that, right? You're drawing that into your life and you're doing it over and over again. You know what the definition of insanity is? People say over and over again put a different result. I say, no, that's not the definition of insanity. The definition of insanity is me, is me. If you look in the dictionary, under insanity, there's a picture of me. Well, there should be, right? So I lived in insanity for a long time, right? But finally I turned around and said, Okay, yeah, I gotta take responsibility. So, what is it about me? And I I know what it is, right? I it'll make you laugh if we ever get to talk about it. I'm not gonna get into that right now, but I had deep trauma, I had things about me that were causing me to be, as I say, unmarriageable. I was can I am completely unmarriageable, right? For certain reasons, right? Which is okay, I'm okay with that now. Whereas before I was trying to be again what everybody thought I should be, I should be married, you know, and and it's like it's just not for me. It just isn't. That doesn't make me bad, it just means I'm not, like I said, I'm unmarriageable, right? So accepting yourself for who you are is also important, and being okay with that, you're not gonna fit in necessarily with society's norms, right? Because of my childhood trauma and seeing what my parents went through, they were married for 63 years, but trust me, that was not that was not a good thing, right? How they hadn't killed each other by then is a is a miracle, right? So they weren't happy. Does that make sense? They weren't, it was not happy, so marriage was never in my mind, yes, marriage is not a happy thing, right? Marriage is not a happy thing that it's gonna confine you, you know. And I saw how my parents treated each other, and I was like, I never want to be treated that way, right? So I'm not saying that's true for everybody, it was what I had adapted into my life, and because I believed that they kept reinforcing it, right? So I've been on my own for four years. Well, not like not like I've been in a cave, but I mean I've not dated for four years, right? And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with being on my own.

SPEAKER_03 48:21

Well, you and I both. You and I both exactly four years. I understand, I understand.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Yeah, right. So I'm not saying I won't date again in the future, but right now I'm happy. I've got so much going on in my life, you know. I've got this book coming out, this one of three books. I'm doing speaking, I'm doing podcasts, right? I'm doing all this stuff, and I love it, right? And my one of my downfalls is when I get in a relationship, that becomes my focus, and I let all the other things go. And I'm determined not to do that again. There you see, right? We've got a lot in common, right? So, um, and then you go so people have said to me, you know, about this relationship, and they go, Well, are you healed now? And I would say, I have no idea, right? They go, What do you mean you got no idea? You've been alone for four years, surely you're done now. I said, You never know unless you're faced with the same situation again, right? Again, and as it turns out, I was, right? And I wasn't even tempted to go back. I just didn't respond. Now it was a part of me, there was a part of me, Dr. Tax, that's going, yeah, but isn't that rude? Isn't that disrespectful? Shouldn't I at least say hello? No, right? Absolutely not, because the moment you give any energy to that, you're done, right? Just it's like every ship you come across is not one you have to take. I'm not getting back on that.

SPEAKER_03 49:58

Is it one is is is it one I well, I haven't had the opportunity, I mean, to to test it, right? Whether I'm healed or not. But uh is it something you recognize immediately?

SPEAKER_00 50:10

Well, no, only only when you're faced with the same situation you were before and you acted in a way and you you did things in a way that caused that to continue, or if you don't feel anything and you're not even tempted to go back in it, then you're not going to, and you're healed, right? Because you don't want it anymore.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

The only reason it happened so when you are presented with it, you recognize it, right?

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Yeah, you just say, you know, it's like it's like if you always loved um, I don't know, strawberry jam, right? And you used to eat it like out of the jar. You loved it so much, and then you don't have it for a while, you realize it's not good for me, and then sometime down the road, someone presents you with a jar of strawberry jam, and you go, Yeah, I'm not even wanting. I'm not even resisting it. I just don't, I don't even want strawberry jam anymore. You're not the same person, so you don't want that anymore, right?

SPEAKER_03 51:14

After four marriages, Dr. Edwards, is there uh and me with two marriages? I know that I there's a certain exhaustion I have in terms of that entire process. Did you ever feel exhausted? Uh like just you know, depletion, complete depletion.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

Absolutely, but that is when you have the greatest learnings because your defenses are weak, right? Your resistance, your walls are going down, and you know, you don't want to fight anymore, right? You just like okay, and then the universe goes, Okay, we can get some work done now, right? We can really work on you now because you're not gonna fight anymore, right? You're just not gonna fight anymore, or not as much, right? So, yeah, just getting to that point in depletion, yeah. And and I've got I've got there a bunch of times, and I did it again four years ago. I went, enough, right? I'm not doing it anymore. I'm really gonna take time for myself to reflect on myself, and that's when I wrote the book. That's when I wrote the book, right? So and like I said, I've been I've been running away my whole life, right? All my life I've been running away. What from myself, right? I've been running away from my past because it was too painful for me to look at, right? And then eventually, eventually I got to the point where I couldn't run anymore, I was exhausted, and so then I had to turn around and face myself, and that's when the real growth happened, right?

SPEAKER_03 52:47

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've achieved more in the past four years than I have in 20 years, and uh, I think, wow, wow, was that all I needed to do?

SPEAKER_02 53:02

You know, let go.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

It was the beginning, right? So you could heal yourself if and when you decide to be in a relationship again, you'll be different, you'll handle it differently. You won't give yourself away, like we talked about, right? You'll continue to do the things that are important to you. Now it doesn't mean I mean, you know, people hear this, they go, Oh, I was so wrong. No, you weren't wrong. There's nothing wrong with you, right? For part of that time, you got a lot out of that. You were giving and loving so much, and that's good. It feels good to give that kind of love and that kind of attention to somebody. All we want to do is just balance that with taking care of yourself too, right? Because the more you give someone and sacrifice yourself, the more than that per the more that person will take from you, and then they'll expect that from you, right?

SPEAKER_03 53:53

And and then we condition them to expect more and more and more, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Exactly, yeah, 100%. And then you're so spent because you've given so much, you got nothing left to give, and then you burn out, right? You just I can't give anymore, I can't do this anymore, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:10

Yeah, and so tell me, when when you talk about uh um you've spoken about your heartbreak, your spiritual awakening. When did you come to that point um of spiritual awakening where you thought, you know what, I need to my soul in this yeah, okay. Well, my spirit needs to be released. I my spirit needs more.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

Yeah. Well, interesting question. Uh, and I would say it was a number of things that happened in my life, right? So, you know, I was mentioning earlier about this experience I had when I was 16, when I had what was called a manic episode. Well, it turns out it wasn't. It turns out it was a spiritual awakening, but I didn't learn this until many years later when I went to see a psychotherapist, right? And he explained to me, he said, Well, Stephen, let me tell you something. Usually, when someone has an episode like that, it's not mental illness, it's actually your spirit and your soul wanting to expand. And it's giving you a spiritual experience that will stay with you and it will uh provide you with some tools and experiences that will help you in the future, which it has, right? Because going through that experience, I know there are other dimensions. I know that you can get a higher level of intelligence. I was so far, you know, I was out of my mind. I was out of my mind. I was in my soul and my spirit. And that was the beginning, really, of the awakening. I'd had experiences a little bit before, and um, this this is a little controversial, right? So uh you may or may not agree with this. But I I used to hear voices in my head, but not like you know, you gotta um kill somebody or you gotta create, it would just be things like give me an example, right? What I heard is I'm thinking about religion because I went to a school that was um uh Christian, right? So we read the Bible and all about Jesus, and I'm going, Okay, you know, I just didn't even this is I'm probably about maybe 10 or 11, right? And I'm going, I just can't believe that this guy came to earth and we killed him. Why to save us from sin? Well, how's that working? It's not working, right? So what did he die in vain? What was that about, right? And so I began to question, you know, is this was this really the son of God? Because he didn't treat him very well, did he? So then it came into my mind that the son of God is not a person, it's the sun. The sun is the light and the way, it gives everything life. It's not coming from another human being, and that is what caused me later in my life to study the stars, and the Bible is simply a personification of the story of the stars. So Bethlehem is bread, it means bread, right? It's a sign of Virgo. The sun and the three the three days of um resurrection, that's the story of the stars, where on the 21st of December, the stars go down so low in the cross, there's a cross of the stars, right? The sun goes down so low, it looks like it died. And then three days later, what happens? It comes back up again, it's resurrected. And you can go through every single, every single part of the story, and it's right there. Now, you know, at 10 years of age, I'm not gonna go to school and say, hey, listen, everybody, I figured it out, you all got it wrong. Obviously, right? I'm not gonna say that, and I kept it within myself because I'd be too afraid to talk about that. Even now, it's like, you know, what are people gonna think about that, right? Yes, I was told that that voice in my head, not directly, but you know, by making me think I came to that understanding. So I was excuse me, I was having these spiritual experiences, and I had a number of them in my life that were very powerful. I even wrote a book, I even wrote a book that was channeled, right? This is not something I normally talk about, right? It was God speaking through me. Or, you know, some people say, What's your highest self? Whatever you want to call it, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

Conversations with God, conversations with I met Neil Donald.

SPEAKER_00 58:49

I met Donald Donald Walsh before the wow, I love those books.

SPEAKER_03 58:53

Oh my god, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

Amazing, right? But here was the difference with my book, Dr. Trish. As I'm writing it, I was thinking, oh, this is ridiculous. I'm doing this just because I've heard about Neil Donald Walsh. But every time I wrote, and I when I came to write, I'd be really scared, right? And I had the I would always have the radio in the background. There was a certain channel that played really beautiful music, loving music. And I kid you not, when I was writing, the words from the song on the radio would flow into the words that I was writing.

SPEAKER_03 59:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Unbelievable, right?

SPEAKER_03 59:30

So Dr. Edwards, I have to stop you. We just have 30 seconds left, and I have to tell you, I feel like I found a best friend.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

I mean, you and I that is the greatest compliment you could do.

SPEAKER_03 59:43

I could talk to you. Oh my god, we're going to have to say goodbye for everyone watching mental health but that's the amazing Dr. Stephen, Paul Edwards, and talking to us about spirituality and heartbreak and acceptance. So, um, if you can, uh Dr. Edwards, can you tell us where people can find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Yeah, sure can. That was beautiful, by the way, and one of the nicest things you could ever say to me. So thank you for that. I appreciate it very much. Okay, so I mean uh yeah, and you know what? I thought you know what, at the beginning, when all that was happening at the beginning, I go, This is gonna be amazing. This is all gonna be perfect. You know, we had the challenges, the technical challenges, and trying to get through you, and uh Rahul couldn't be on and all that stuff, right? I knew it was gonna be perfect, and it was amazing. I mean, that was a just a really amazing podcast. Uh, and I hope that everybody listening is gonna get a lot out of it. Anyway, to find me, uh, I actually sent you a couple of links, and you know that, right? So there's a link to get the first three chapters of the book for free, or you can get uh a uh guide on the seven signs that you're in a toxic relationship and all for free. And then the other thing is that if you really want to take this deep and do the deep spiritual, mental, and emotional work, uh, then I'm giving uh your viewers a free or complimentary 30-minute session with me, and then we can chat and see if there's a connection, the vibe together, and if we feel like we can work together, then we can take it from there. And I think also I've sent you the website so you can post that too. And that's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:34

Oh, it was such a pleasure. It was such a pleasure having you. Please stay with us while we say goodbye. Uh, I say goodbye to everyone. Um, thank you so much for being with us in the past hour and watching us. If you if you miss the show, please catch us on uh all our streaming apps, uh all the streaming apps. And um, I was in the deep end today. So I thank you so much for giving me your support and and being with me as I spoke to the incredible Dr. Stephen Paul Edward. Um, it was one of the best podcast casts that I was a part of. See, it's making me tongue tongue. That's uh what you made such a huge impression on me, Dr. Edward. So everyone, please, please uh try to look up Dr. Edward, follow him on Instagram and Facebook, and uh go to his website and check him out. Uh his Venus Fly Trap Project is the name of his book. And uh we'd love to have you support us. And uh yeah, I want to say from South Africa and from Florida and New York, where Ra is. Have an amazing day ahead, an amazing evening ahead, and we're sending you so much love and light. I'm Dr. Tash Ready. You can um follow me on Dr. Tash Ready Official on Facebook, Instagram. I have um numerous books on Amazon and um Barnes and Nobles as well. So I'd love to hear from you, I'd love to be part of you. Goodbye, good night, and God bless.