A

We're not designed for the complexities of breakups. We like to think that the most intense pain you can possibly go through is the death of a loved one, and it's actually not. We pair bond. In a world where we're so separated, a person becomes your literal everything. When there is a death, there is actual closure. When somebody is technically living and you know that they exist and they're walking around the world and yet they're gone, it throws the brain into cognitive dissonance. Literally creates an existential crisis for a person. It's like this layer of, am I somebody who is lovable? This layer of, did I do all of these things wrong? And that is the most difficult thing to unpack.

B

The pain of heart heartbreak, to me, has been the most challenging one. You kind of play this game of love. What do you feel is even worth really breaking up over?

A

Honestly?

B

And before we get started with this episode, I saw that over 50% of you guys are not yet subscribed to the podcast, which, don't worry about it. I'm not offended, but I'd love to keep hanging out. I'm having a good time with you, so just subscribe to it wherever you're listening to this on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. It helps me reach more people, reach you with our upcoming episodes, and get this message out into the world. So be sure to hit subscribe. And now let's get into the episode. Welcome back, Teal, on the Highest Self podcast. It's so good to have you here again.

A

Me too. I'm very happy to see you again.

B

I was thinking, the first time I interviewed you, you came to my little apartment in Santa Monica, and that was 2018, so that was like eight years ago.

A

No way.

B

Yeah. That's when we first met. That's crazy. It's been a decade. Not aging us, we still look great.

A

Is that how I feel looking in

B

the mirror every day?

A

But okay,

B

so I feel the reason why we continue to glow up is because we address our pain and we don't let it sit with us. And you have been really deep diving into this concept of actually feeling into your pain. So I'm curious why right now, why is this needed for humanity?

A

Because people are just hurting in general. I mean, it doesn't matter where I go in the world right now. It just seems like everybody's not doing okay. On top of that, there's this expectation. I feel like, that people are doing okay. I feel like pain in today's world is kind of treated like a Personal failure. And that becomes even more true when you get into the self help, personal development, spirituality circles. It's like pain. If you're feeling pain, you've personally failed somehow or are doing something wrong. And I really dislike that because this attitude that we have towards ourselves being in pain is resistant in nature. And so it in fact makes the whole pain dynamic worse. You pair that with the fact that we don't really do a very good job of responding well to pain in childhood. So it's not like most people who are in their adult selves know how to respond to their own pain. Because we learn that type of stuff by the way that our pain was responded to before. And very few parents actually know when a child is exhibiting. I'm in pain in some way, exactly what to do about it, especially when it's emotionally, you know, happening. We may understand how to put a band aid on somebody who's fallen down and got a boo boo on their, on their knee. But what about when a child is feeling disappointed? Most people are not actually responding to that type of pain well. And so we don't know how to respond to our pain. On top of that, we've got the fact that environmentally, not just environmentally, it's like within society, whatever. This is a world that is not set up, quite frankly, for the well being of people. So you're seeing pain increase on all of these levels. It's not conducive to emotional health, it's not conducive to physical health. That's why we've got so much chronic pain going on nowadays. And so obviously anytime that the environment itself is not conducive to the being that's living within that environment, you see pain levels go up. And then I also am like, when I'm looking around at the world, it's become very obvious to me that a lot of people have been doing really badly since COVID It's kind of like Covid hit and life never got good again. You know, it's just like the crisis continued and there's this relationship to the future which was just dashed. And it's not like it's come back again because we've gone from one crisis to the next crisis to the next crisis. And what prolonged crisis does is it kind of takes that light in the future and goes for people. So when you combine all of this together, it's just a recipe for just the building and building and building and building of pain.

B

So I'm curious your perspective. I feel like there's sort of Two schools of thought in spirituality. There's the thought of, go into the pain, feel the pain, feel it to the bottom of the barrel, move it through your body. And then there's a school of thought of, don't identify with negative thoughts and focus on what's positive. And the brain is. Is actually shifting whether something is considered a trauma or not. So if you don't see it as a trauma, then the brain won't register it as that. These are such different ways to approach pain. So what is your perspective?

A

I don't really understand how they have to be mutually exclusive. Disidentification is one thing that can happen on the steps through pain. It's like this element of identification with pain and the meaning that we add to pain is just one layer about pain. So what my personal opinion is, the people who are trying to be like, it doesn't matter. It can't be registered as a trauma unless your brain decides that it's a trauma. I feel like they're just taking the pendulum and swinging it all the way over to this extreme also, like, if you get all the way over to this other extreme where you don't understand that potentially the perception that you hold is why you're in so much pain, and potentially the perception itself is what needs to be shifted, Then you're just stuck in pain and not really actually addressing one layer of what's going into the pain. So I see these philosophies as something which can have quite a beautiful union provided that we're not in complete and total resistance to pain. But, like, I. You're gonna see me give a lot of pushback towards these attitudes of, like, well, it's only trauma if you decide that it's a trauma. Like, when people say that, I kind of just want to, like, kidnap them at nighttime and, like, put them in a fucking situation where they're, like, really, I mean, properly trapped and be like, it's only a trauma if you think it is. So I have very little tolerance for that crap. You know, I spend my time dealing with people who have dealt with serious pain, Serious, serious pain. And I'm not in the mood for those philosophies. I'm not.

B

Yeah. I feel like it's maybe our way of trying to make it okay, because feeling into the pain just feels never ending. I remember after my divorce, the heartbreak, pain. You think it goes away, and then it's another wave, and it gets actually deeper over time. And I thought, you know, six months, I'll be over. I would say it Took two full years genuinely to be through the waves of the pain. And I look back and I'm like, didn't need to hurt for that long. But if you are feeling that pain and it's like different layers, right? Like, you might see a picture of you, or someone says something, and it's like these different things that have. You've never dressed before, right? That come to the surface. So would you say that you need to just feel the pain for as long as it's there, or give yourself a deadline of like, okay, we're done processing this.

A

Move on. Never give yourself a deadline for pain. It's all about how you're meeting those layers when they come up. And it's a lot easier said than done. You know that yourself. It's a lot easier said than done, because sometimes those waves that come up, it's like, oh, okay, I'm gonna surf this. Oh, look. By virtue of diving into this, I found out something else about myself, and now I know what I'm. Different choice to make in my life. And because I made that different choice, it heals. And then the next one comes and it's a tsunami, and you're like, I don't know if I want to live through this one, you know? So, I mean, it's kind of an art form. How to meet your pain is an art form, and also what to do with those elements where you're particularly stuck. What I notice is that most people, especially when they're dealing with grief processes, there will be something that you get stuck on, something that you can't accept for some reason. And it's like, you stay there for a long time because you're not looking directly at the stuckness. Why am I stuck? What are the components of this stuckness? What is it that I'm needing? What would be the danger in accepting this? It's, you know, a lot of the details as to why it takes somebody a long, long time to get through something is in those details.

B

And I think it's also in thinking that you should be over it and then feeling grief around the fact that you're not, which prolongs it.

A

Absolutely. And this is kind of what I was talking about. We've got this hustle culture. It's very weird, to be honest. And it's a very Western world thing, because if you go visit other cultures, and especially around their attitudes around grief, it's very different in different cultures. Like, even. It was very different in the past for even our culture in the Western world, most of Us who came from. From those types of more European cultures, there was a whole thing around grief. There was ways that you dressed. And for a significant period of time, all of those practices have also just gone. So now we've got this happy, happy, happy, everyone is happy, everyone's successful, everyone's going forward type of mentality. And so that's exactly what you're describing, is exactly what happens. We just get locked into this cycle where, oh, no, I can't be feeling this. I know you don't want to be feeling this, but it makes perfect sense why you would be feeling this way. But not if you're surrounded by a society that's like, you should be over it by now. Like, I'm over it. Why are you not over it? You know, that type of attitude will keep pain stuck beyond measure. We understand this on a physical level. It's not like when you walk into somebody in the hospital and you're like, why can't we just get up already? We understand that that's not useful, but we do this to ourselves on an emotional level.

B

Yeah. Back in. In Middle Eastern culture, they had something called a tsar ceremony. So when someone died or there was a big grief, the woman would come and scream and cry together. And it was like a necessary part of the grief journey still in funerals today. And it's giving them all a space to be able to completely emote. So there is this, like, collective recognition. Whereas now it's like even a funeral, it's like you have to quietly cry. And then everyone. No one's talking, everyone's on their own. Rather than like, wow, we all loved this person. We're all feeling this thing.

A

Yeah, totally. Oh, man.

B

So I feel like the pain of heartbreak is, to me, has been the most challenging one because I feel like when it's like a family member, like a death in a family member, you almost like in the back of your mind, new, like, eventually that day would come. It still deeply hurts, but it's a knowing. But someone that you thought you were convinced was going to be in your life forever. And all of the healing work it takes to even trust and open your heart to get there. And then especially when there's a big rupture, like a betrayal, something that the rug was pulled from under your feet, the heart. I don't. I don't know if we were designed for this, right? If we were designed to have all of these.

A

We weren't. We were not. Now, this is something that people need to swallow because we've got Everything backwards. We like to think that, like, the most intense pain you can possibly go through is the death of a loved one. And it's actually not. We're not designed for the complexities of breakups. It is very. So there's many things people need to understand about this. The first thing that you need to understand about this is that when there is a death, there is actual closure. When somebody is technically living and you know that they exist and they're walking around the world and yet they're gone, it throws the brain into cognitive dissonance. So it's very difficult for the brain to understand that it is a loss. They're registering that it's a loss, but it doesn't go together. That's layer number one. Layer number two is that when somebody who dies is a loved one. Of course, there's complexities with relationships with loved ones, but if you lose somebody that you love, usually they didn't take your entire self esteem down with you. Now, in a breakup, that's very rare. Usually when that relationship ends, it comes with 8,000 layers worth of meaning. All the things you're telling yourself about yourself, all the things they said about you, all the meaning that you're, you know, walking into the experience with, and you get to live with that. So it's not just, oh, I lost somebody, it's, I lost somebody, and they're still living. Oh, and now I don't know how to exist within the world and how to stay out of trouble again. And it literally creates an existential crisis for a person. And it's. That is the most difficult thing to unpack is those intense layers of. You're calling it rupture, but it's like these. It's death by a thousand cuts. That's why it's like, oh, I've got this layer of. I've got. Am I somebody who is lovable? I've got this layer of, did I do all of these things wrong? I've got this layer of, how is it possible that I'm a match to somebody like this? And how do I not be a match to them again? Which gets even 10 times worse. If it's like a pattern that you notice where you do all this healing work and yet you're a match to the same type of experience again with a person, and then you're like, all right, well, then obviously nothing I have done or am doing is going to work. And so there's no reasonable way that I can avoid this thing, which almost killed me. So what you're saying basically about having such a difficult time getting through heartbreak is I really wish that people within society understood the gravity of breakups and did not minimize or trivialize them because they are serious, they can ruin lives. They are. Yeah.

B

And people are expected to just like go back to work like nothing happens. As if, you know, your entire direction for your life has shifted and there's so much uncertainty and there takes a long time to figure out what's next. Plus, you know, the dating relational epidemic, which you share tons about on YouTube. It's not like you go straight into another relationship, you know, most of the time, especially for women after a big breakup. Now you're navigating being single in this day and age, which you know is it's whole other traumatic experience. And so I also feel like back in the day we didn't have multiple like loves of our lives because we didn't live as long. So there was kind of like one person. And I don't feel attachment. Like human attachment was meant to attach to someone and then detach. But at the same time, what's the alternative? Right? Just stick, stay together no matter what so you don't deal with the heartbreak. So what would you say for someone who's maybe afraid of going through heartbreak and so they're staying in a relationship?

A

You're talking to somebody who feels like the entire structure for society is actually wrong. And part of why we're dealing with what we're dealing with is because of that. Like we used to be living tribally within societies and so there was a lot more resources for us if you want. My two cents about why this is getting so severe nowadays is because when we find a partner and we pair bond in a world where we're so separated, that person becomes your literal everything. So that's the only person you're really getting strong reflection from. It's the only person you're really getting, you know, a high degree of support from. And so when you remove that person or when that person feeds you with a contradictory message to your self esteem or something like that, you have nothing else to bolster you. I feel like it's an unsustainable situation for couples in general. It's an unsustainable thing for individuals. So unless we go back in the direction, like I don't want to force people into like intentional community if they don't feel like they want that. But we need to start to become way, way more embedded into a system of individuals in order to be in a healthy state and what you'll notice for people who are in those systems, these types of, we call them like a shift. It doesn't feel like a full blown separation, it feels like a shift where a person's changing roles, they don't lose as much, the stakes are not as high and so the experience is registered differently and the outcome will be different. Like each person has a safety net. So, I mean, I am having to give advice for people who are in this modern world and in this dynamic, but I feel like if human beings don't really understand why things are getting so bad because they don't really understand that they're living in a structure that's not actually one that they're meant for, then we're kind of shooting in the dark in terms of what the real problem is.

B

Do you see yourself one day writing books, giving talks, hosting a podcast, having courses, but the moment a camera gets in front of you and it's time for you to speak, you feel like, oh my God, I have no idea what I'm doing. Even though you enter flow state when you're in a conversation with your friend, well, if this is you, you have wisdom in your heart to share, but it's just feeling like you're still a little bit of an awkward speaker. Girl, I got you. I've created my method, Speak with Soul that now 3,000 people have gone through into creating social media brands, book deals, speaking on stages, taking their wisdom out into the world in a big way. So this is my step by step 21 day guided program with everything I know to become an incredible empowered and inspired speaker. Because an inspirational speaker is very different than a motivational speaker. This is not about giving a TED talk that you're going to memorize and rehearse on stage, but rather about connecting to your channel, your voice within, and delivering it in a way that comes in a state of flow.

A

Flow.

B

Because we all know what it's like to listen to someone who's reading off a teleprompter with all the AI bullshit in the world. We don't need more of that. We need your heart, we need your soul. And so let me help you speak with Soul. So this 21 day course is now available for 50 off. You can find that link in the show notes and I'm so excited to support you in getting your voice brand message out into the world so it can help inspire others. You can find that link in the show notes and let's start speaking with soul. Absolutely. Because yeah, you're losing that person that you share your dreams with and what you ate. And I feel like love is just this desire to be witnessed through life. And it's so beautiful to have someone to share things with. You know, I've traveled so many places around the world and there is, when you're by yourself, this still grief with you of like you're in this beautiful sunset and you're alone experiencing it. And like beauty wants a companion. And so then when you find someone, it's like how much are you in love with this person versus in love with the feeling, you know? And I think so many of us just want that feeling of connection. And then so you kind of play this game of love even maybe with them just to detour on here for a second. What do you feel is even worth really breaking up over?

A

Honestly, anything. Well, okay, this is going to get complicated because we are very one dimensional in today's world, right? There's very few people who are wanting to transition their relationship so they can still keep what is working and they can outsource to somebody who is able to meet things that the one person can't meet. If you want my honest truth, this is where humanity is heading. Regardless of whether or not many people today can see it. We're headed towards essentially meeting certain needs that we can meet and having other people meet certain needs that we can't meet for other people. Whether people want to graduate that full blown to polyamorous dynamics sexually or not, that's on them. Because sexuality may be one thing they just want to keep for one person and the rest is outsourced. But when you start to get creative like that, breaking up is not something you will see very much because it will be rare that there is not some place for a person in your life. So within that.

B

That's so true. It's like friends.

A

Yeah, but like even we can get more creative than just friends. Like in those types of dynamics, you're

B

not breaking up with your friend because one doesn't like to travel to the same places. And you and one doesn't this you're like, okay, this is my friend I do this with. This is my friend I do that with. But where it gets more complicated in

A

relationship is sexuality, is sexuality. So. So this is where I think where people are going to go, quite frankly in the future is towards polyamory. Do I think that humanity is ready for it right now? No, actually I don't. Most people that I talk to are not able to separate the meaning from sexuality. Sexuality is something that is very complex. For us as human beings, and I mean very complex, we have like upwards of a hundred plus different uses for sex. On top of that, when you've got thousands and thousands of years worth of religions trying to control human sexuality, meaning and sexuality are so embedded now that it's like it doesn't really matter how progressive you are, you're going to deal with jealousies. It doesn't matter how progressive you are in that direction, you're going to be facing the fear of loss and things like that. So there's a lot of complexities to what I'm about to say, but let me over jump that whole entire process in the future. I really don't see humanity being monogamous. I see us going back towards group living and back towards honestly like this mentality around human resources, which is like there's always enough to go around. And so a lot of this panic is going to come down. So like, if I was, if I was to start to stretch people's mentality around this to try to jump them into what I'm seeing in the future for humanity, you would start to see that. If you really start to break down your panic about maybe individual, your panic about maybe a partner of yours just being able to be free sexually with like say seven other women that all of you live together, all these women and men live together and sex is free. Play the game. When you start to panic about that and you really look at what it's about, it's the meaning that's been associated with sexuality. Well, if he wants to do that with another woman, then what does it mean about my value? It's stuff like this and about 18 different layers of it. So it's like I can't really step you into the future like that without removing all of that meaning.

B

You don't feel like an attachment is formed though, biochemically, like through the oxytocin created.

A

It is, it is. But what would be wrong with doing that with eight different people if they weren't going to leave you?

B

I've never had that experience. I don't know. If you feel similarly attached to all, you can tell us. No.

A

Well, that's the thing, I guess. Can you be attached to multiple people in a family? So that would be a good question to ask you because we're able to live with, okay, let's say you're born into a family of six. Like you can feel attached to one sister and the other sister and the other brother and like, same with friends. It's not like if you've got six of your friends over. You're like, you may have one that really is a ride or die in terms of trust, for example. But like it doesn't feel like there's a competitive element going on. It's interesting that this conversation took this direction today.

B

We always go into this direction.

A

Even when I'm having this conversation, I like to stretch people in this direction. But it's like this is still not a reality for where most people are. So where most people are today, they would like to have a monogamous dynamic. They're in a severely under resourced society. They are not living tribally, they do not have enough resources. Losing that person is losing so much. It's not normal to lose that much. When you lose one, the sort of closeness or whatever with one single individual, breaking up with that person therefore would be, I mean you, if you can only be with one person at a time, then you're essentially trapped yourself. You see, you're gonna either have to, when things get dicey and there is genuine incompatibilities, you're either gonna trap yourself with that person, have to create some kind of accommodation yourself or they accommodate, which means we're taking pain for each other. Or this is what I would say, you're going to have to end up breaking up anytime your well being. Either person's well being is prevented by satisfying the other person's well being. And there can be no win win scenario found. The best case scenario is both people who are in this type of a scenario, they find a win win. Okay, well this is my truth. This is your truth. I care about your well being. I take your well being as a part of my well being and so I can't be okay with in pain. So given that fact, if two people are doing that at the same time, they find the third option which works for them both best. And if that can't happen, then what's going to happen there is that one of you or both of you are going to be out of alignment with your own well being within that relationship and it's not going to be able to continue. Another element I would say for a breakup is if you don't want the same future, personal progression is not something that's going to stop for anybody. So if you're really wanting something and it's what you're aiming at and your partner wants a totally different thing, it's not going to work to stay with that person because all of your energy and effort, even on a subconscious level is going to be going left and they're going to be going right. So those types of situations you see just. I mean, the universe will separate you even if you don't decide to do it.

B

And that's what's hard about this day and age. We're given so much choice. And so back in the day, you know, my grandparents are like, there's one decision move from Iran to America. They both decided that and they did it. But now I could live in any country and so could this other person. And so I feel like we have become so individually oriented that it's hard to. Because I don't think you're ever going to find someone that wants the exact same future that you do at all times.

A

You know, what's the real problem is that. Where was I going with this? I feel like the real problem in today's world, quite frankly, is that we're not meeting each other's needs anymore. A lot of what kept especially male female couples together in the past was that each had a very specific role that was very much needed. And because each provided that, it was like a built in system of value. If somebody's here providing all these things for me and that's my way to get these things and I value that person and vice versa. Like what we've done is we've removed the entire energy exchange between men and women and we're expecting it to go wonderful. And so what you're watching it happen is that people are trying to kind of flounder, figuring out what their energy exchange is. I think this is a far bigger issue in today's world, quite frankly, than us learning how to love. We have become profoundly individualistic, like to a gross degree. But the practice of love is not really the biggest problem today. The biggest problem is that the energy exchange within relationships is just, it's not inherently there. And so we have to work to make it be there. And that's proving very difficult.

B

I saw this reel and it was saying how for the first time in history, women no longer have to be with men for money, safety, finances. They're simply choosing men based on their personalities and this is why they're fundamentally failing.

A

I would love to say I don't resonate, but yeah, I've seen, yeah, a lot of that when I've been working with couples, especially lately. It's, there is a major frustration there because it's like now suddenly what women are wanting from men is something that men have never been taught to do, nor are they valued for it. Yet these transitions are Horrible times, by the way, within humanity. And that's exactly what this is and has been since the 1960s. This is a huge transition. And a transition sucks because we're not fully in the new. All of the old still applies, and yet it also doesn't apply. So you're in the land of mixed messages. You can probably feel that as a woman where it's like, are you expected to be what a woman's always expected to be? The answer is yes, kind of. Are you held to those standards? Yes, you are. Because we still live in a world where it's like, if you're an assertive female, you're a bitch still. Okay. But yet at the same time, you're being fed with all this. Well, you need to be a go getter, you need to be assertive, you need to do all these things. You can do things yourself. You kind of just feel like there is no way to do this correctly. That's what happens during these transitions.

B

Do you feel there is a war on masculinity?

A

Absolutely. Yeah, I do. I do think there's a war on masculinity, but there would be. I mean, I don't think we really understand how long ago the 1960s was. Like, that was the major shift that we're seeing happen right now, right within society where we're moving really drastically away from patriarchy. We're not there by any means. But I'm sorry, 1960, that's not even, that's not even a blink. Not even hundreds of years in terms of history is not even a blink. This happened so recently, it is not even funny. So let's look back at history. We gotta look back at history. We've got thousands of years worth of abuse happening on behalf of men towards women. You cannot argue with this. Like, I'm not even interested in entertaining any more of these attempts to argue with this. This is worldwide. Men have taken power and have done the worst with it. Not every man, but a lot of men and societies in general enabled it. Okay, so what happens, you've got this, this group of oppressed individuals, those being an entire gender in this case, who have grown up under that tyranny. Of course there's a rising up. So when you really watch what was happening in the 1960s, so much of it was fueled by so much hatred and so much hurt that it's not possible for there to not be undertones of anti masculinity in what has happened. And so we sought to basically strip power away from those who held power. Now the problem is when you try to strip power away from a man, basically you are moving him out of his masculinity. We're not doing a very good job of moving men towards in alignment masculinity because to do that you have to, they got to keep their power. You got to teach them how to wield a sword, not take the sword away, if you want an analogy. And you also got to change society. You have to change society in a way where men understand how to caretake themselves emotionally, right? And this is something that most people don't understand is that this relationship that men had to emotions, it only got corrupted quite recently. In fact, the relationship between men and emotions only was corrupted in the, in the industrial revolution. Men got to have their emotions before that point. That transition really happened around that time period when the home was separated from work. Most people don't know that because we've got this vision of men of antiquity, you know, the Roman soldiers being all stoic, but it actually isn't the case. You know, men really had so much stripped away from them even through that time period. And now with their power, they're like lost. I mean, they're really lost in the ocean. And I also feel like of course there's multiple layers, right? So one of these layers that's happening is that your single biggest threat to government control, quite frankly, is men, not women. So what's the best way if you want to take complete control of a society in today's world when you don't need control? Through creating soldiers, right? If I need men to fight for me and that's how I'm going to maintain my control, then yeah, I've got to basically create empowered men. But if I found a way to control all of society and I've got weapons now which aren't completely dependent on men, and I have better ways of taking over, then my number one best plan for being able to do that is to get rid of men. So all of this is happening at the same time. And yes, there is war on masculinity and men are just literally in the ocean drowning right now.

B

Exactly what I felt of this war is not a woman versus male war. I feel like it is a government versus male war and it's in our food system, it's in the hormones, it's in the porn, it's in all of these things to confuse men, demasculate men. I've had so many women's breakups be around men questioning their sexualities that I don't think are actually gay. They're confused from what they've been shown because the porn is taking people towards especially transsexual stuff. And then the men are confused because it looks like a woman but it has a penis. Right. And so now am I gay, am I straight? And then the Christian conditioning of I'm shameful, I'm wrong, I'm dirty, I'm disgusting. I have heard this situation. If you go on TikTok, it is a huge unspoken epidemic happening right now and the, the men are self isolating because of it. And then the women are grieving this. I thought I found my person finally and now I really can't trust men.

A

No.

B

And so it's. The pain is deepening. So have you noticed this?

A

Absolutely, yes.

B

I don't want to use the word trend.

A

Yes, I've noticed it. Yep. But I mean this is the problem in today's world. How are we supposed to isolate out of the millions of factors that can be co to compared contributing to this, what exactly is the problem? The answer is it's all of it. I mean that's like one layer. Look at the other layer of how many women nowadays are put on birth control and are peeing into the water systems that the men are now drinking. So if you look at testosterone levels today versus before, it's absolutely. I mean, you want to talk about an epidemic, it is a huge problem what is happening with men and hormones around the contraceptive hormones that are inside of their drinking water

B

and that's even in bottled water.

A

Yeah, it's real bad. But that's the thing. There are so many of these things that are happening simultaneously. Yeah. Quite frankly, I mean, hence why pain, like it just feels like it doesn't matter whether you're a male or female, it feels like all the odds are stacked against you right now.

B

It's interesting because in Brazil the food system is so different. And I'm like, oh, this is what men are like. They approach, they're confident, they're fit, they're like all, all the streets of Brazil have like gyms, like free gyms. So they're like doing pull ups and things like everywhere. I'm like, this is amazing. Like I love seeing healthy masculinity. Like as a woman it gives me so much peace and I feel like so much of the feminine pain is because we don't, we're never held, you know. And so the feminine needs a container, a place to release. And so for the pain that a lot of women are experiencing right now, if I have to hold everything together. And I wish there was a man who was more power and strong than me, but I can't find it. How do we cope with that pain?

A

Don't stop looking. I would really say that, like, don't stop looking. It's not a thing. It's not going to be a thing to cope with it for women. That's what I want women to get. Like, this is. If we want to be proactive about it, then it's about really helping men step into masculinity. It's about not giving up on the vision that we can hold strongly for men. Because men need advocates for their masculinity and we can absolutely be that. And there's no other answer. Because for us to just be like, you know what? I'm going to go against my own nature as a female who definitely thrives within masculine container. I'm just going to go against it and try to become okay without a thing that I need. It's bizarre. And you can feel that there's like something very backwards about that, that there's supposed to be a kind of a calling into the empowerment from both masculine and feminine kind of towards each other, like in a figure 8 pattern. And if we don't really step into that, then we're voting for a future that we don't even want to step into. To be honest, I know that when we're in pain, we're like, give me a button. Somebody give me a button that I can push where I don't need this, like, nor do I want it, and I'm fine with my cat. But I think at some level we all know that this is not in alignment. So we're being asked as women to really hold something within our beings that doesn't perfectly exist in the world as it is today. That being said, having traveled the world, there are definitely, like I said, like, you've figured out yourself, there are places where there are more or less degrees of alignment. You know, it's great if we can all get on an airplane. Not all of us can. It's great if we could all get on an airplane and go to these places and send men to these places. I also feel like as we're on here talking to you woman to woman, hi, guys. There have got to be men that step in to this position of calling men into power. The brotherhood today needs to be something that is happening. So I honestly feel like it's men's groups that are going to be doing the biggest work on the world right now. In terms of pulling men back into masculinity. Like, we can hold what we're holding in our vision for them and really encourage them to be stepping into their empowered masculine. But at the end of the day, the people who hold the container for the masculine is other men. Same with the ones that will be holding them accountable, which is critical, and teaching them those lessons about, this is what we do in this scenario. This is how we show up, this is how you rise up to pressure. That's men. So this is my call out to men who are wanting to help other men do this.

B

And I feel it's shifting even what we consider masculine as women. So I remember when I first became single, we were messaging, no, no, I'm dating. And in my mind, like, woman. I'm like, I need a man who is the alpha man. I need a man who makes more money than me. Hypergamy, right?

A

That's all.

B

Women are kind of conditioned to want someone better than them at all of the things. And I would meet men maybe who made more money than me or more whatever, but the emotional connection there was, wasn't there and it wasn't helping me become more of who I want to be. And I feel like with AI, there's a huge shift of what genuine masculinity is. Are the men who can work with their bodies like, let's bring back the farmers, let's bring back the people who can build things. Like, and maybe those aren't the people who are making the most money in society. But I'm seeing so many of my friends feel so much more met by a man who can be like, I can like make the baby crib and grow our food and things like that that are like the actual genuine masculine qualities that we are craving. But our society has made us think, oh, him acquiring money to get those things. But it's like, it's so not sexy that a guy can't do anything and just wants to pay someone to do it. We in our hearts desire that like servitude of his hand made even I feel like cooking is a quite masculine thing. Like to take these ingredients and make it like, I love a man who cooks, so I'm a fan now bring back farmers.

A

One of the things you're recognizing is that there are so many expressions of masculinity. The tragedy in today's world is that we've reduced everything to provider, financial providership, which is really just about the world wanting to plug people into the system so that they can feed into the system. So, yeah, usually when women let go of the idea that it only works in this one capacity, and they really sit down and are like, okay, well, what really is it that I'm wanting a man to be doing? And what is it that I'm willing to maybe do a work around on as long as I have those things? The more creative we can get at that, the easier it is for us to find a person who's genuinely right for us. And that's so much more the case too, with women who are successful man. That should be its own little episode of ours, by the way, because I, I wish that somebody had warned me before I got successful about what it would do to my love life. Let me tell you what.

B

So what's your theory now on. On the best. Because you were saying power couples don't

A

exist, they don't work.

B

You still agree with that? And so do you feel the dynamic is powerful woman with a more not sub man, but, like, how would you describe it?

A

The way that I would describe it is there's many ways that a man can contain a female.

B

Right?

A

You've got, you've described that physical containment, right? The I've got you in life in a physical level is something that men can offer. That experience of containment with sexual dynamics, you can play with containment things, things like that. It's about. This whole thing works when a guy shifts his mentality away from servitude to caretaking. That's the dynamic that I watch working with successful women. Like, if it, like, let's pretend I'm the guy, right? I meet you, you're a successful woman, maybe ten times more so than I'm going to be. And I know that if I put my nose to the grindstone and I do a whole bunch of stuff, like the likelihood of me making more money than you or getting more reach than you is probably zero. Or if it is a lot, it's going to take me years, no matter what. What I'm looking at as a man with you is this situation where, like, there's going to be a gap. So my thought as a man coming into this relationship is, okay, well, what is it that this woman needs? Because if I kind of level up like that and I go, I may not be able to do that the best that I can do, but what I can do is pull all this other pressure off of her. And when they rise up like that, they don't feel like they're minions anymore. It doesn't feel like they're subs anymore. It feels like, hey, babe, I made you this. Why? It's not like, let's use a pet analogy, because it actually works quite well. If I get a dog and I'm feeding the dog, I don't feel like I'm in service to the dog like a little minion, do I? No, I feel like I am taking ownership of the dog. It's a weird mentality thing that tends to happen with men when they come into relationships with more successful women where they're all of a sudden underneath. It doesn't actually have to be that way. The minute that they shift that mindset to I'm in charge of the well being of this creature that is in front of me, this unique woman who's in front of me, I am in charge of her well being and they're out ahead of her. This dynamic flips like this. It doesn't matter how much money that they are or not making. And a lot of women, when they really, they do the math, they're like, okay, yes, I'm in reality. Do I want this guy to go focus on making as much money as he possibly can? If it means he's pulling his, he's dividing his attention away from me? No, probably. Okay, so a lot of women would be like, you know what? I'm willing to keep doing this. What's making it hard is I feel like I'm just so un cared for. It's like, I have to go film this thing. But then like afterwards there's nobody to catch me and be like, hey, babe, here's this, let's go do that. You know, there's nobody to really pull me into the joy of life or anything like that. But that's how to flip the dynamic around for most successful women is to get a guy, get a guy that's basically either in that mentality or help a guy to be in that mentality. I spend so much of my life doing this now, helping men to be in that mentality around women. And it's difficult because they've got so much programming against it. Just, just so much. They're getting it from all sides, you know,

B

it's so true. And even like letting them in on maybe things that we considered feminine that we don't do. For example, I honestly never cook. I don't have time. It's just not worth my opportunity cost, especially as a Capricorn, you know. And so for this person, I. He was like, oh, you have an amazing kitchen. And this. I'm like, yeah. He was like asking me questions where Are your spices? Where are you this? I'm like, honestly, I don't even own any of these things. And that gave him such a sense of like, oh, my God, so I'm gonna make this and this and that and, like. And it turned me on so much. I'm like, I freaking love this, because this actually is a need in my life that makes me feel so cared for. Where even though traditionally it's like, woman cooks, man works. But I'm like, I. I love what I'm doing, and he genuinely loves to cook. And I'm like, this is so hot. I feel there's the pain of maybe not having that perfect person of your list, but then there's the pain of staying alone by yourself forever. And I feel a lot of women have to eventually make that decision of, am I just going to keep waiting? And maybe this person shows up in my life, but it might be another 5, 10, or never years that it happens. And I don't feel humans are fundamentally meant to live alone. Would you say a lot of the pain is just from that?

A

Yeah. No. We're not meant to be. Like, we are right now in these extreme levels of isolation. And when I say live alone, that's the thing. Like, it's about having somebody to live life with you. We may have a whole bunch of friends, but we're not really in life with them. We're not doing life together. And human beings are not meant to be in that position. Absolutely not. We will feel a fundamental sense of ache we'll be carrying, especially in today's world full of so many pressures, that it's a complexity level that one person can't manage it. You just. Yeah, there's. It's. It's bad for our health. Superbly bad for our health. We need to be going in a different direction.

B

So I know you live in community, and we've kind of been speaking about how humans aren't meant to live alone. So something that my best friend and I did. We both went through breakups, similar times, and we decided to just live together and travel together. And it was so nourishing to just have someone who's like a built in. Hey, do you want to grab dinner? Or let's watch this movie and be intentional about your time. Because I noticed when I was by myself, I would just, I don't know, be on my phone or just be sad and waiting for life to start. And just having one other person makes you like, hey, let's do this craft together. And, like, set activities rather than This, I don't know, floundering period. We're always in when we're alone. So would you say that that's a good suggestion for people?

A

Yes, it is. Yeah. I'm actually there are some countries that are starting to implement these communal living situations for this very reason, and I absolutely love them. I think it's the wave of the future. So, yeah, I mean, if you're not. If you don't have a partner, like, why limit yourself to just one type of relationship? There's plenty of people that can live life with you that are not necessarily that single opposite sex or same sex. If you're. If you're into a homosexual relationship, people I think we get very locked in on. My one romantic partner is like the only person that I can live life with. And it's not true. Like, you were basically conditioned in the industrial era to think that way. But that's a. Like I said, that's a blink of the eye in terms of history. For the vast majority of the rest of our existence as a species, we have been group livers.

B

And I feel like the pain just doesn't hit as deeply when there's someone else present. Like, you just don't go into those same portals.

A

Exactly, it doesn't. And also, we can never underestimate the amount of resources that other people bring to us. It's crazy. What I mean by that is it's information resources, it's cool things we would never have tried or tasted. It's other, other people that they know that we don't know yet. It's like the second that you have somebody in your life, just add one more person. It's like their entire network of information and exposure and everything is coming into our space. And so that really does assist us when we're going through struggles because they have the different way of looking at things, the different practice, the different suggestion, the different way of dealing with things. The person they know that we may need at that time. I mean, it's just crazy. The people who I'm watching flounder the most are the ones that are. Are isolated.

B

I saw this post recently and it said how humans were not meant to go days, weeks, months without being touched. How touch is so essential for us.

A

Critical.

B

There were all these comments saying, it's been 15 years since I've gotten a hug.

A

Absolutely not. No, I'm sorry. Like, we're very much monkeys in that way. We are designed to be being touched, like all the time. And I will say something that's interesting because I'm a person who had to be rehabbed relative to touch. I'm one of those people who had, like, such an abusive past that when I first got around people, just the idea of being touched, especially the idea of being touched by a woman was like, I don't want it near me. Like, my whole body would tense up. But what has happened over the years is that the people around me have come from very affectionate cultures. Like you said, the Brazilians, for example, you were around them, and they're very touchy, right? Some of the people who came into my community were very touchy people. And what started to happen is I would just sort of, instead of just jumping away from it, I would let them sort of stroke my arm or, like, do massages. And over time, I have completely rehabilitated. And now my favorite touch that I get actually is not even from a masculine partner. It's from some of the women that are in this community. It's like heaven to feel safe enough with sweatmity that it's like, you know, they come and sit down next to you. Maybe you're like, hanging by the pool, and they come sit next to you, and they're just like, running their fingers through your hair. My whole body now is just like, oh, my God. Now that is actually way more healthy for human beings is to have a lot of touch with a lot of people. And it doesn't have to mean what it means. You know what I mean? Even if you are a kind of person who wants to limit your sexuality to one person, which is fine if that's something that you want to do with somebody, there's so much touch that can be available between people, and it's all so nourishing, and it's all just feeding us so much. And I really do wish that people understood how much they need touch and how much contact, comfort is literally everything for our species.

B

Similarly to you woman touching me. I was raised my mom would say, that's lesbian. If I was too close to a friend, oh, that's lesbian. That says. Because Persians definitely have a homophobic culture. And so anytime a girl would, like, hug me, I would, like, kind of put my arm straight and like, wait for it to be done. And my friends would tell me, they're like, oh, you're so not, not a touchy person. I'm like, I don't know. I just. I just don't like it. But then the only time I would be touched at all is if I was in a relationship. And so if I wasn't in a relationship I was completely touched, deprived. And after my divorce I was, you know, in the celibacy for a long time. Just I was so not ready to bring in more potential heartbreak into my life. But maybe like a year and a half went by that I really wasn't touched.

A

Right.

B

Except maybe like massage, like a massage therapist. And I realized so much of my pain and my grief was probably like hormonal and biochemical just because my body has gone through a huge withdrawal of touch.

A

Yes, absolutely. That makes my heart beat.

B

And now for our birthdays. For our birthdays, sometimes we will do something that a woman lie. The woman whose birthday it is will lie in the middle and we'll all place our hands on her, put rose petals on her, stroke her hair, touch her arm and say beautiful words to her. Like just things that we see in her. Angel, queen, warrior, ass, goddess. And to just receive that and it's so, it feels like baby angels around you all the time. And it's like we women need that, we need each other. We can give each other this type of like genuine heart centered love that doesn't come with the but you might leave thing. That can often happen in relationship. Relationships.

A

Exactly.

B

So right now you created a pain vault which is a series of meditations based on these really creative ways like working with fire energy of releasing pain. Can you tell us more about this?

A

Yeah. Well, basically this pain vault is two things. First thing is it's a group of 10 guided experiences. You can compare them to guided meditations, but I'm calling them like guided experiences because they're very, very specific experiences with your pain and different, many different ones. And I've designed eight novel ones specifically for the time that we're in right now where people are with their pain. Two of them I have already designed in years past that are all stars that I'm bringing into this vault because they're important ones. So each One of these 10 experiences does different things. So for example, I'll just give you like a quick example. One of them would be an exercise where you're led in the direction of your pain so as to understand the messages that your pain has for you. So you can symbolically transform your pain into something. Now by doing that whole symbolic process, you're understanding exactly what your pain is needing. So then that gives you information about what to do about it out in your day to day life. Another one would be something like a pain purge where I've got you in a very specific position which is not usual for, for Meditations. And in that position, you are literally siphoning all of the pain out of your body and purging it out. Okay, so this is just two examples of ten. So each one of these is basically a different experience to have with your pain. And it's whatever pain you're going through. So it doesn't matter whether it's physical pain, emotional pain, existential pain, mental pain. It basically addresses every type of pain. And on top of that, the second part of this vault is a compilation of information of what I've taught about pain. So what is pain? Why is it here? What do we actually do about it? That type of stuff. So for those of you that are really mental about things and like to have a lot of understanding, it's that. But the reason that I decided to do these experiences is because we're in a time where a lot of people are in a lot of pain, but quite frankly, we're all so burnt out that I'm noticing that people are really lacking the capacity to make these big deal changes. You know, when you're in this level of pain, it's like, oh, and this is all the stuff you need to do to get out of pain. It's like they just. It's not manageable. I'm noticing people's capacity to, like, really put effort into things, just go like this. And so I wanted to create some kind of a way to reach people where they're at with that and to be like, okay, you don't. You could be lying in a high hospital bed. You could be fresh out of a breakup to the point where you don't even know if you can put on pants. Like, all you need to do is just put this on and just follow me through it. That's it. That's why I decided to do it this way versus, like some complicated process or something else that I might be inclined to do normally. Yeah. So I'm hoping.

B

I loved it. I did the fire one last night with my friend. Feeling the fire and letting the. The embers get like, lot the flames get louder and releasing it. And it's just such a beautiful way of using the elements to support us, you know, and visually imagining the fire just burn away this thing. And you said something in it of like, what are you ready to be done with? And I feel it's just this beautiful release of sometimes we can wallow in the pain, like, feel the pain, but also don't get addicted sometimes to that, you know, that scab that we keep. Like, we just want to feel alive. So we just keep going there. Especially when you're, I don't know, maybe like born on an airplane, you're going, I'm gonna go through all of our pictures together, whatever the thing is, and to just be like, okay, I'm gonna feel the pain ceremonially, like sit with it through these meditations. And then I'm gonna really let it, let it heal. Right. And I feel like that's such a beautiful nuance to hold.

A

I'm glad you like that one. That that forest fire meditation is my personal favorite one. I love that. Sometimes when I get into enough pain, I'm like real kamikaze. Like, just give me something that's gonna just go through it. Yeah, I love that one.

B

Exactly. Clearly that's the one I want to do. So people can find the pain vault and all of the information we listed in the show notes. Well, thank you, Teal, so much for being back on. It's always a pleasure. I always love. I'm always asking my personal questions and thank you for, you know, giving so much guidance and both from the collective of what we're all experiencing and these really futuristic solutions that I feel, yes, we can say, okay, do this, do that, But I do feel you're completely correct. Living in community, having these unique types of relationship and along the way, of course we're not going to go straight into that, but I feel a lot. I mean, you're already living this way. A lot of us in this lifetime, we do want to live in this more community oriented way.

A

And.

B

And so, yeah, I look forward to continue to learn from you of how you've been able to create this harmoniously for so long. Because I do feel shifting the way our society is set up is at the root of so much of this pain that we're in.

A

Maybe we should have another show about community living. That would be a fun one, wouldn't it?

B

I think so. Let's do it. And then we'll do our other one about successful women dating.

A

Okay. Okay.

B

But. But the men will all be in the community, so it'll be really easy. Great. Well, thank you again so much for being on. We'll have her. Her vault listed in the show notes. And thank you for tuning in.

A

Thank you. Intuition.

B

Trust your inner wisdom. Trust your inner guidance. So trust your intuition.

A

Trust your inner wisdom.

B

Trust, trust you in the guidance.