00:00:24
Welcome. Welcome to is your way, in your way podcast. And I'm your host, Cassandra Crawley Mayo. And for those new listeners that are not familiar with what this podcast is about, it's actually about. It's for individuals who are being challenged in overcoming obstacles, have those limiting beliefs or those what I call negative self talk, all of that stuff that's preventing you from living your life on your terms.
00:00:55
And we talk about topics such as business development, personal improvement, and self reflection. And boy, do we have a topic today. I love this topic because it's titled Women and Relationships. Now, many of you know this podcast and what I do and the book I wrote is your way, in your way is a book for women. However, I've had men to read it and men have listened to this podcast and doesn't see anything wrong with looking at it, and I agree with them.
00:01:28
So no better than to bring to the stage is Melanie Trupp. Okay. And Melanie is our special guest who is an expert on relationships with women. Okay. And before we get started, I just want to welcome Melanie to the is your way, in your way podcast.
00:01:52
Welcome, Melanie. Well, thank you. And I'm really pleased to be here. So I got lots to share. Well, good.
00:01:59
Can't wait. Can't wait. Now, one of the things I'm going to do for my listeners is I'm going to read Melanie's bio just so you can get to know her a little bit before we take a deep dive into the conversation. Melanie is a seasoned counselor and relationship expert with 25 years of transformative experience. She's dedicated to empowering women on their journey to authenticity and thriving relationships.
00:02:28
She holds certifications as a certified hypnotist, master hypnotist, and a hypnotherapist with 40 years of yoga dedication. She's also a 500 hours certified yoga instructor. Melanie is passionate about sharing insights on personal development, relationships, well being, and as a hypnotist, she unravels deep seated beliefs, impacting behavior and decisions, and offer holistic, tangible tools for empowerment and transformation. Her expertise promises brief, insightful conversations filled with actionable insights to enhance the intricacies of relationships. Wow.
00:03:14
For those who are seeing me, you see that I have sun in my face. And as you know me, many of you, I'm very authentic and candid and I'm just going to tell you how it is. And I'm sitting in a place where the sun just rose and it's been cloudy all day. So just call me sunshine today, my listeners. So, Melanie, I have a question for you.
00:03:41
I have plenty of them. But before you became this expert, tell us about your backstory. Before you became a counselor, relationship expert, tell us about who you were back then. Okay, my backstory. Just a kid growing up in a rural area.
00:04:00
Parents, loving parents in a relationship, four kids, parents didn't drink. We were sort of like, I don't know if a lot of you, I'm dating myself. The Walton's family, where we were very naive and very secluded away from, we didn't have a big city. We sort of lived on the top of a hill and just played outside in the yard and did things like that. Naive.
00:04:25
I mean, the world was just our little playground and brother and sister and playing and stuff like that. And then the age of 14, I went out to work. At the age of 15, I got married, believe it or not. And I think that's without any awareness of who I was choosing or anything about that. It just threw me into trauma and turmoil and everything else.
00:04:50
And I think that's sometimes where almost every counselor has some backstory of something that they've had to learn and to grow through to understand what they're able to teach. Yeah, well, something tells me, because my next question was, what qualifies you to be an expert on relationships? Well, besides all my training, my expert is one of the things that not to any, the audience to take any offense, is that I've always been told not to be a preacher on a pulpit. In other words, I had to what I knew what I was doing and walk my own talk. So I'm coming out of a textbook.
00:05:30
Even though I have all the skills and all the trainings behind me, I also have life experience and practical skills, which I have walked the journey. And that really, I think, allows me to connect with the people that I'm working with, the women I'm working with. I've been there. I've been a single parent, okay? I've gone through divorce, I've gone through traumatic experiences, and I've made my way out.
00:05:57
I've walked the journey. I have walked the journey, sometimes the hard way. That's just the way that I have learned. And maybe that makes me, and I feel no regrets because it's made me understand it to a much deeper level. Okay.
00:06:13
Is there a particular age group that you work with in doing this work? I think most of the time it's around women who are anywhere from 30 to going on. As long as they want to keep moving along when they want to. Relationships, I certainly have no problem. I've worked with teenagers I've done talks in schools and everything else like that.
00:06:35
But when it comes to relationships, I think I would love to actually have it in schools that we understand the dynamics of relationships. That would be amazing that two things that should be brought into the school that we're not taught, we're just sort of taking what our parents have taught us or what we have seen outside and mimicking or trying to find our own way. We don't necessarily understand the dynamics that are taking place. We don't know about triggers, we don't know about unconscious belief systems. We just kind of muddle our way in.
00:07:08
Hence the statistics are. I think it's like over 60% of first marriages end in divorce. Wow. I think that's really telling us like, we need to be educated on this. We need to know.
00:07:20
So I shouldn't say 30 on, but generally that's what's happened. After a woman has gone through a traumatic relationship or a breakup or she's not able to find a partner or she's going through hard times, that's generally when they will reach out for help is around that age. Okay. And also, I think just now women are marrying much later in years or getting into those more committed relationships much later. Okay.
00:07:49
I think that's a trend now. Yeah. So that being the trend, what are your thoughts about that trend? Do you think that the divorce rate will drop as a result of it or have you experienced any clients? I wish it would.
00:08:08
I don't think it has made much difference. I really don't. I think women instead may be prolonging that relationship because they're building their career. I think the only thing that I think that is making a difference, and I kind of liken it to when we're already full, we're not so hungry at the smorgasbord. We can be picky and we can be choosy when we don't have some form of financial stability or some kind of.
00:08:35
And that generally comes from a career or position in life and we don't have that going. We can look to a partner that is not necessarily favorable for us, but it's because it's a partner because we are more needy for that. Right. So all of that, as far as choosing someone, I think does reflect on that. When we can stand on our own 2ft, we have to watch what is my motivation for this relationship?
00:09:01
What am I looking for? So if we are not financially stable, we may look to a relationship to help financially. If we are not feeling secure within ourselves or depending on the type of career that we have. Maybe we look to a relationship for something else. I think that's where all this.
00:09:21
I would love to have this as a curriculum that we have to take right. To know ourselves and hence your show. We're in our own way when we don't do that work and we get real clarity where we are and what we want, what we need, and what kind of position are we in to choose a partner and for what purpose? Right. Well, let's pretend.
00:09:45
I used to like to play pretend when I was younger. Let's pretend that we are in the classroom and this is a curriculum. Okay. What would be the title of the session? And what would be the end in mind for it?
00:10:04
Well, I suppose you'd first tell me how old are the children? Or how old are they? Okay, let's say they're from 25 to. These are people in grad school and all. Let's say they're from 25 to maybe 45.
00:10:20
God, I'd like to get them a lot earlier. Okay. Yeah. I look at it this way, and this is, as a certified hypnotist and hypnotherapist and our belief senses and our consciousness is when we are growing up, I think as small children, we look to our parents. This is not blaming parents because I'm a parent and I'm a grandmother, okay?
00:10:44
But we look to them. They are our survival. They're going to put food on our table. We need them to survive. And so we're always looking for some form of approval or security out of that, that they love us.
00:10:57
I get the roof over my head. I can feel good about who I am. If a parent hasn't done their own work or say, or they don't quite understand how this all works, to the child, they can be disapproving of something, okay. To the child, they can say, this is not okay. I don't like this, or whatever the case may be.
00:11:17
The child will take it internally, and in that, the child will become something, hopefully that their parent. They've got two ways to go rebel from it completely, where they fight for their own sense of self, or they will accommodate and become what their parent wants, and they'll begin to change who they are. They will also take that belief system that was imposed on them, like, even to the fact, like, oh, you did really good. You're really a good girl, or something like that. Then the child believes, I'm only good when I do this.
00:11:51
If I don't do this, I am bad. So what happens? This whole concept of who we are is beginning to be developed by a child's perspective of what a parent means. So when we get into that and we start to grow up, we can put pressures on ourselves. I'm no value unless I'm successful.
00:12:15
I'm no good unless I'm constantly polite and agreeable. And we lose our boundaries in our relationship, all that starts to play out, and that's when it starts playing havoc as we get into relationships. So at that age, I would like to say, if I had 20, I'd like to get them earlier. If I would say 20, I said, let's just wipe the slate clean. Right.
00:12:38
Okay. And I say that because my listeners aren't.
00:12:44
They're all young at heart, but yet my listeners are the ones that's kind of been out there. What I would say in the marketplace, what tools do you have for those that have passed childhood and now they're in adulthood and they're having relationships and they're not successful? Now, you talk to people and you train people, and I definitely want to hear about the hypnosis. I always wanted to hear about that. I also wanted to be involved in that as well.
00:13:22
But what would you tell that group that's had the experience, that's had challenges within their relationships? And I know you're going to say inner work, and I like to know inner work, which is important. What type of inner work would they need to come out on the other end and start attracting what I would call healthy relationships? Yeah, I think it's kind of very complex. And you just take the one issue you start.
00:13:53
It's like the needle in the haystack, and you got to sort of take the one issue, for example. Right now I'm working on a whole program about triggers, where we get triggered. And I'm sure if your audience understands that. It's sort of like when someone does something or says something and a volcano erupts and all of a sudden you find yourself, whether consciously or unconsciously, just spewing out and blaming that person because they pushed a button inside of you. So if we took that one concept, that one issue, it might be overplaying in a relationship or whatever, where it constantly ends up being in a fight and you're trying to control the other person.
00:14:28
Don't do that because it brings this stuff up. Me and you are doing that to me, is that we have to go to the source of that. And when we go inwards and we direct, first we have to identify the trigger. Then we have to say what does it resemble, what does it feel like? Have I had these feelings before?
00:14:46
And where does that come from? As we get down to the root? And that can come all the way back from childhood on a simple thing is someone said something and children are amazing. They take something, they make a statement out of it. I'm unworthy or I'm not good enough.
00:15:03
And it gets buried inside and they hold that now after a while they grow up and all the layers of life get put on top. But that's like a little seed in there that is never left, it is always there. And that trigger pops that up and all of a sudden we're defending our worth or we're angry that they attacked our worth or our value or whatever. The reason that we attack it is because underneath, whether we're aware of it or not, we believe that we're not. Otherwise we wouldn't have to defend it, right?
00:15:38
It's kind of complex, it's not a general thing, but it is about the key is taking the one thing that you're having a problem with. I always sort of believe the universe is saying, here, here's a door, go in this door and you'll be able to root out what is there and you may or may not find other things. And I also liken it to if we're a computer, we had somebody else put our software in and when we press the keyboard, this stuff pops out. But we just might not be helping. And that's when we're in our own way, because we just got the wrong software in.
00:16:16
And you can't forget or underestimate that. Outside our parents, aunts, uncles, family, society is constantly trying to put different software in, right? And we take it and then we wonder why our life is not authentic. We have the right. And if that goes back to the 20 year olds, I would just say, let's look at all the software in there.
00:16:43
Is it working or is it not working? Is it giving you the results that you want? Now, what triggers come up? And I don't know whether you've been engaged in this or you've heard about this, but why are so many women, I shouldn't say so many, but many women are attracted to the bad boys.
00:17:10
What's the reason behind that? From your perspective and your experience? I think it comes down to worth and I think it comes down to value somewhere in there. And. Or I'll give you an example, one of the things that I found for myself, because as I said, it's not a simple answer.
00:17:27
Yeah, one of the things that I found is my father, as much as he was the best that he could be, was basically not available. Okay? I would say that he wasn't present. His body was there, but he was kind of like not there. And as a child, without me knowing at the time, I think I was always thinking this was my fault.
00:17:52
And if I could make him become more present, then I am worthy of the love. It was something because children take the blame on always. Right? So if my father could become present, then I was good enough. I won.
00:18:05
Okay. So in my relationship journey, I ended up seeking out, for example, a partner who was an alcoholic. And he was so involved in his alcohol, he wasn't available for me. Okay. I was playing out my childhood thing is that if I could make him available for me, if I could pull him away from the alcohol and I did what I was supposed to do, then it would prove to me that I was lovable.
00:18:39
So someone on the outside would say, why is she choosing someone like that? Exactly. But for me, it was something that I had to work out. My child felt that was the only way that I could get that. So if I got him on my side, if I got him to be present with me, I was the winner.
00:19:00
Okay? Finally I got it. And that took a very long time for me to kind of heal those wounds. And I think the most hardest part was literally accepting the fact. Okay.
00:19:13
And there was a lot of grief to accept the fact that my father just simply wasn't and let go of the blame. But mostly was it just simply. It was his choice. Exactly. And it had nothing to do with me.
00:19:28
Right. And that's a hard pill to swallow. Yeah, but you indicated he did the best he could with what he. Of course he did. And that's why I'm such an advocate of doing this work and working with women, because we are the parents of children, and what we don't heal gets passed on to our children.
00:19:49
So for whatever reason my father had, obviously he didn't do his work, shall we say, or whatever, to become present. Not putting blame, but it just simply is. And that's why I think when I see this, it's so important. Because we have children. Yes.
00:20:07
And we have grandchildren, and when we do our work, we're not getting them to have to heal what we didn't heal. Right. So let me ask you, the hypnotist. Yes. Why was that important for you to become?
00:20:26
It wasn't important for me to become a hypnotist. It was more the fact of that okay, de hypnosis. I'm going to give you a really good example to everyone. Let's just say little Johnny's growing up and he goes to grab something off the coffee table. He's just a toddler.
00:20:46
It's going to be dangerous. And mom and dad say, no, don't touch it. And that no can become with a little smack, right? Only because the parents are nervous or whatever. Johnny does something else and the parents go, no, you can't do that.
00:21:02
So that no always comes with a smack or a sense of disapproval or frustration or anger. Especially when little Johnny gets a little bit bigger, five years old and curses back and refuses to do his work or pick up his toys. And mummy will say, don't you say no to me. Okay. So what happens is, as we grow up, all, what is the word that we associate the word no with some form of pain, whether it be pain with disapproval or pain from a physical smack, or just an emotional smack.
00:21:40
As we get older and someone turns around and says, hey, do you want to do this? Guess what? We won't say the word no. We will say, I can't. I'll let you know.
00:21:52
I'm not sure why. Because when we actually just say the word no, we feel this anxiety that comes in our bodies, whether we're aware of it or not. There's an element of anxiety, or the other thing is we'll say the word no, but we disassociate real quick. Okay. Or we will make an excuse and apologize for saying no.
00:22:16
That is a form of hypnosis. So what I teach my clients and I can give it out to the whole practical skill for everybody is to learn to say the word no. It's like taking the bark away from a dog. You cannot defend yourself or have boundaries if you cannot stay in your body and firmly say a no without feeling bad about it, guilty about it, justifying it, apologizing for it, you can't do it because there will always be someone will they say, that's weak. That's when your no doesn't quite mean no.
00:22:53
And we have got to dehypnotize ourselves from that association. So right now, as if someone say, hey, do you want to go out for dinner? I would advise you just to say, and you didn't want to do it, right, say no. Nothing else attached to it. Do not say no, I'm sorry.
00:23:11
Know this, no, I can't. Because when we say no, I can't. We're kind of blaming. It's not my fault. It's something else that got in the way.
00:23:19
So we need to just say the word no. We need to feel those feelings that rise up where we feel not very comfortable and good until those feelings are gone. Then you can add the societal politeness on it. Wow, that's tough. Because we always want to have a reason why we say no.
00:23:38
Exactly. It's so true. Because it's just saying it's not my fault. Don't hit me. Right.
00:23:44
You call that dehypnotized? That is where we dehypnotize. We break ourselves free of the trances that we're in. Okay. The same goes for when we can't say the word no.
00:23:58
We can't hear the word no. And intuitively, what will happen? Go and ask so and so. They won't say no. Right.
00:24:08
And if someone says no to us, we'll say, well, aren't they rude? Wow, that's kind of like when you're a child and your mother wants to say no, but she can't, so she'll say, go ask your dad. Exactly. He doesn't have a problem saying no. So we got to learn how to say that, and we've got to learn to be okay to say it.
00:24:28
And it's our birthright. And it doesn't mean because we always associate, because we've been taught, for a lot of us, that saying no is rude. Saying no is not nice. Saying no is arrogant. All those things that may come in because that was the form of disapproval.
00:24:47
As a child growing up, when our parents said, go wash the dishes and we said no. Right, exactly. We gotten heck for that. That's right. I realized because I'm a grandmother and I have had kids, is when I taught my kids, is that you're allowed to say no, but not here.
00:25:11
You're still going to do it. You can say no. I'm not getting angry at them for saying no. And then I would also tell them later on, by the way, it's a way of that parents manipulate their children to get them to do what they want to do. But if you let them know afterwards, you're taking that software out and say, now it's on your own.
00:25:33
Right. Tell my listeners about your signature program. Oh, I've got a huge one. I've got many small ones, too. Okay.
00:25:43
The big one is attract your soulmate and level up to a high quality love. And that is a three month long program. And we dive into so much stuff and we go through, there's no stops. Plus, it's one on ones. Plus it's group and it's a huge three month long program.
00:26:03
That's all I can say. It is an amazing one. I also have little short one. They're not one week, but little seven, lesson five lesson in that. Little modules that go in there and they're shorter, small ones on specific things like I've got one is finding your voice in relationship.
00:26:20
And that can tie into the ability of saying no. Then there's another one overcoming challenges. There is another one. Your heart, opening your heart and finding hope in a reigniting hope for a relationship. And then I've also got another one I'm working on now.
00:26:37
It's just like, I just love it. And it's all about triggers. And it's a deep dive into triggers because there is literally the big volcano triggers that we might be aware of, but there's so many subtler triggers. One would be the media where we see women dressed certain ways and their bodies this way, and what happens, we see this and it's so subtle. And so what it bring up can feelings of not good enough, inadequacy, body shame.
00:27:10
All of that triggers are all around us. If we can start understanding it and being mindful of what's happening to us, this is where we are constantly, without knowing it, reacting to something outside of ourselves. Right. And that's the difference between your response. Responsibility is your ability to respond.
00:27:36
And that goes into your show title in your own way. It's our ability to respond. If you just think about it, we can react this way or we can respond that way or respond this way. Mathematics. Every action gets a reaction.
00:27:54
So if we respond this way, what kind of reaction or response will we get back? If we respond that way or react that way, what will most likely come back? We're creating our reality continually by how we choose to respond. And we can become creative with it, how we choose to respond, and it will change the dynamic in a relationship. So you must have a very robust clientele because stats show that they're more women than men, right?
00:28:33
And a lot of them, my clients, they'd like to be in a relationship. Some of them are and some of them are not. And so I say that because of your courses that you have, you even have a free relationship quiz that I'd like to hear about that you call the epic transition. Because I say that because I remember back, I'm not going to date myself, but I've only been married for eight years. I haven't been married very long, but I've always wanted someone special or someone in my life that we complement each other, so to speak.
00:29:16
And when you have enough relationships that aren't good, you kind of know when you have a good one.
00:29:27
Help my listeners understand your quiz. What is the purpose of that quiz? Empowering personal improvement and change. Purpose of the quiz is kind of like I'm guiding you to go inwards with specific questions, and it really is up to you to answer them. Absolutely.
00:29:48
Honesty. With absolute honesty. Okay. And out of that, we really do know the answers. We might not know exactly.
00:29:59
We might be a little bit of confusion, but we have to sort of move that by a deeper question. A deeper question. And I think that's what the quiz is about. And then at the end, it sort of give you whether you can improve it, but I think you'll kind of see it where your weaknesses are or what you could improve on. And I love what you said.
00:30:15
I must have a robust amount of clientele. I wish I did. I really wish I did. I wish I had every single woman on this planet, because they deserve to have nothing but the best. But I think what happens is, I think a lot of women just.
00:30:34
They don't look at this necessarily as a very important part of creating the life that they want. Right. And I think personal develop and self growth is sometimes viewed as being selfish or there's something wrong with me and I don't need to, or whatever reason it is, it's not necessarily for many, highly valued. And it's so insane. And I do say that because I just look at the price of my courses for the week long.
00:31:07
It's like going to Starbucks four times in a. I mean, I've made it as economical, and that's why I went to the online format before it was a private practice. Yeah. So that allows me to do an online format, but honestly, for the price of four coffees in your week, and it can totally change your life. Wow.
00:31:31
That's amazing. But what's amazing is it's not as big as what I would love to do, and I'd love to make it mandatory in all the schools if I had my way. Yeah, that should be something maybe you should look into. Yeah. I'll tell my secretary to book me some more time.
00:31:54
Exactly. It may be good to even universities, colleges. Yeah. There's so much there to help. Yeah.
00:32:06
I mean, all I can do is what I do. It's not as robust as I would like it to be, I guess, because this has been my whole lifelong passion. Yeah. And it has been. I spent ten years in India and I studied self inquiry, meditation.
00:32:28
I really wanted to go deeper in, beyond the mind, beyond who I am, my yoga, 500 hours yoga teaching. And I've been doing it for over 40 years. But to get that was more about what it's like and how it plays into our role of listening to our body, being present, and how we can really be accountable for not getting in our way to be listening to ourselves. The hypnosis was more about what trances are we under. How can I break free from this automatic reaction that I keep doing?
00:32:59
Or why am I choosing what software is inside of me? I've always been curious and I've always been wanting to know the truth. And I've always believed that all of this kaka, if it was just removed, what a different world that we would have. And it's not personally selfish. It's about either we are part of the solution or we are part of the problem.
00:33:31
Why do you think this women in relationships are so important? And you probably biased because this is what you do, but you have a passion for it. You saw a need for what? Why is this so relevant for today, you think? For me, period?
00:33:58
Yeah. I've worked with lots of men. I have no problem working with men in my private practice. And even I used to take groups for spiritual retreats to India and had lots of men and stuff like that. The reason, I think, is because I turned into a know.
00:34:12
And I think it's mostly the fact that women are having children, men too. But let's just say women are the caregivers. They're having children. And so when we don't do our healing work, it goes to the next generation, okay? And the next generation has to heal what we were not healing.
00:34:29
And having had kids of my own and seeing where they are as parents, I know for my kids, when I would come home from these workshops and stuff like that, now they're in their 40s, late 40s, right? But I would come home from workshops and they go, who is mum now? And it was such a magical thing because it was like how much I had changed, they had changed. It was almost like I could feel something being lifted off of them and to see their brilliance and where they are as parents, it's sort of like we have that connection, we have that ability to communicate, we have that openness. And I'm the first person to say, hey, I made a mistake.
00:35:12
I want to take that program out of you. And the healing that took place with my kids and this, it's proof okay. And so why women? Because we are the bears of the children. And I think that women can be of great service to their partners.
00:35:33
I think that we can step into some type of leadership, not arrogance, but I also believe that we're a little bit more. I don't want to be prejudiced. Please, men don't hate me for this, but I think women have that little bit more availability to be more conscious and more aware. We were brought up that way when babies cried. We had that sense, that nurture.
00:35:59
Exactly. And I think that has allowed us to evolve and using those forms of awareness and intuitiveness and inner sensibility in a sense where men have primarily, and I don't mean that I'm more head spaced. In a sense, we are more in our bodies because we had to care for our kids. And I just think it makes my work a little bit more easier. Okay.
00:36:26
Did you say you have more men that are open? I would say, yeah. I would say over the years that I have doing it, there has been more. Not as many as I'd like to see. I think the ratio is one to ten.
00:36:39
Well, why do you think the men. I don't think I understood. Why are they more open? No, less open. Okay.
00:36:48
Yeah. Ratio, one to ten. For every man that I would have in my workshop, there would be ten women. Okay. They had more women swarming over them, because as far as women concerned, this was a real man who was in his feelings and in his emotion, and they had the connection and stuff like that.
00:37:07
Okay, that makes sense. Wow. What's the difference between ego and self? The ego is the perceived idea of who I am. The ego is made up of things.
00:37:27
An example would be of some kind of outwardly identification. I am this, I am that. I am this. And that can hold great value, I think. You remember when the stock market closed, how many suicides that were taking place because of I am rich or I am this or I am that and that identification.
00:37:52
So we are not. That is all ego. Okay? That is some kind of. Outwardly, even, I am a mother, okay?
00:38:00
That's ego. The ego of the mother can be hurt. The ego of. And that's where we feel defensive. You're not a good mother.
00:38:09
But that is an identification that I have. Okay, so I am I. The identification is the ego. Okay.
00:38:26
In reference to what I would call dependency, codependency and interdependency. Right. There's a difference in each one of those. Someone could be codependent, dependent, interdependent. So explain that.
00:38:45
Well, dependent is I am entirely dependent on you for my sense of who I am, my sense of value, for my sense of worth. Okay, codependency. I look at it as sort of like this is where some somewhat manipulation will become, depending how you feel is how I get to feel. Depending how you do is how I get to do. So I am kind of like I've got some sense of I'm fighting for my sense of self through this, depending on how you do, how I get to do dependency, I don't even fight for myself.
00:39:22
I just give you full control. Who am I? I'm totally dependent on you. Oh, wow. Yeah.
00:39:29
Interdependence is not independent. When we are independent, we are unavailable for connection and we are unavailable for that ebb and flow of a really healthy whole relationship. Emotionally unavailable. Well, it can also be unavailable in other ways too. We're just like, we're singular thinking, we're not open for anybody else's thoughts, we're not this.
00:39:56
So if we even take that on the thoughts or we're making a plan, dependency is you just make the plans and you tell me which way we're going and what we're doing. Right. Codependency is I don't like your plans. They're okay, but if I can manipulate to have it, then I'll have it. My plans, okay, interdependence is about, I still have my own mind, but I am open to hearing what your mind says.
00:40:26
And I can move and have this interplay of both, and we can compromise, we can work together as a team. I'm not a rebel, I'm not independent, and I'm not totally dependent. And if I feel something strong about something, I can say it, but we can work together. It's a more mature relationship. Just simply is okay.
00:40:50
Now, as we wrap up, as everyone knows, the name of this podcast is, is your way, in your way. And my mantra is get busy living or get busy dying. And that could be figuratively and some literally. And what I mean by that is individuals. I asked the question and my workshop is called how do you design your best life on your terms?
00:41:17
And I do have some clients that say one of the things that they would like to have is be in a relationship and for that moment in time, that would be part of their best life. And that's something that they want. So for individuals that would like to be in a relationship, and as you indicated, no one's really, you don't have a robust clientele, what would you tell somebody if they wanted to be in one, and that would be an element or component of them living their best life. How would you resolve that for them? I would say, I would be like, oh, I just investigate and let's get on it.
00:41:57
Where are you in your way? Because I really think as much as we can say something, there is some kind of energy, there is something going on that we are deterring that attraction. I really believe and experience and over and over again with myself and with the clients that I work with, that when we are really not in our way, the universe is pretty darn beautiful, and it will bring someone, but if we think we want one, but we have these walls up, we're putting off this different energy. We're not quite 100% available. We have to do our work, and you can have that, and it'll come as a surprise, but not really.
00:42:37
And it's also that need and that want and that also repel, because it's coming from somewhere else and we have to investigate it. But honestly, it's there. It really is. And first and foremost, it's also, I'd focus on the relationship that we have with ourselves. Okay.
00:42:56
When we are full and when we are complete, I always look at my partner as the icing on the cake. Okay. All right. I like that it's not coming from a place of needing and wanting. It's just like, I am so full.
00:43:10
I want to share my life with this person. Wow. It comes from a different place. Wow. Well, how can they get in touch with you?
00:43:22
Because I know I have some listeners that that's a part of them living their best life, to have someone special in their life. How could they get in touch with you? Well, I have my website, and it's epictransitions ca, epic transitions ca. So I'm there, and there's courses on there, and there's the quiz on there. There's a free ebook on there, and, yeah, that's how they get a hold of me.
00:43:49
Or they can just email me at Melanie at epictransitions ca. But all of that's available in my website. Okay, well, I just want to thank you. And I think relationships are very important. And I will say this.
00:44:06
I remember when I was in a good place, I was okay with not having that special someone, and when I was in that place. And of course, I did a lot of inner work, and I can't tell you how long it took for me to do the inner work. I can't put a timetable on it. I have no idea. I've just been doing it, and I still do the inner work.
00:44:29
It's an ongoing. Yeah. But when that happened, it's like the sky opened up. And that's when I connected with my husband as of today, because I was in that good place. So I'm all for you.
00:44:43
I wasn't looking. That's how it works. Totally. And that's so much with the lichen of your show. Is your way in your way.
00:44:52
Yeah. So that's how my listeners. How it happened with me. And I don't even know if I would have said living my best life would have a partner or not because I was just in that place. So I just want to thank you because you letting us know there is hope, there's somebody out there for you, if that's what they want.
00:45:17
They always say it's more women, it's not enough men, because that's what you not true. There's the right person for you, and they're just waiting for you. Exactly. You just got to show up. But not just, oh, I want this.
00:45:32
You really have to show up. That's right. So, Melanie, thank you so much. And my listeners out there, I know that you found this podcast to be of value, and you definitely must share it. I'm on every Wednesday at 01:00 p.m.
00:45:49
Eastern standard time, and this podcast will also be on all podcast platforms. And again, Melanie, thank you. Bye for now. Bye bye. And God bless all my listeners as well.
00:46:06
Thanks again, Melanie, thank you.
