consider yourself blessed
the art of communication & connection
What if the very thing that brings you joy and connection also becomes an addictive force in your life? This episode's journey begins with a deeply personal exploration of love and addiction, examining the profound impact of missing someone and how the thin line between love and dependency can shape our relationships. Through the lens of passionate lesbian relationships, we dissect the addictive nature of love, distinguishing between fleeting pleasures and lasting, meaningful connections. The key takeaway? Setting clear intentions and seeking long-term joy is crucial to avoid the pitfalls of temporary gratification.
Ever felt unseen or misunderstood despite being in a relationship? I open up about a past relationship where my ex-girlfriend loved an idealized version of me, which led to a significant disconnect because of my internal negative self-perception. We also discuss my unique communication style and the importance of grounding oneself when interacting with someone who is mentally scattered. We shed light on the subtleties of texting and the necessity for stability and connection in our interactions, emphasizing the need for genuine self-alignment and clear communication.
Finally, we dive into the themes of personal growth, inner desires, and the importance of valuing ourselves and others. The concept of the "terror barrier" is discussed as a metaphor for personal growth, emphasizing the balance of experiencing pain to appreciate pleasure. We highlight the joy of discovering each other's unique perspectives and the importance of meaningful, grounded communication. Wrapping up, I share my passion for creative expression, encouraging everyone to find a creative outlet that fuels their joy and aligns with their true selves. This episode is a heartfelt call to action: embrace your creativity, see the value in yourself and others, and pursue long-term joy and fulfillment.
What if the very thing that brings you joy and connection also becomes an addictive force in your life? This episode's journey begins with a deeply personal exploration of love and addiction, examining the profound impact of missing someone and how the thin line between love and dependency can shape our relationships. Through the lens of passionate lesbian relationships, we dissect the addictive nature of love, distinguishing between fleeting pleasures and lasting, meaningful connections. The key takeaway? Setting clear intentions and seeking long-term joy is crucial to avoid the pitfalls of temporary gratification.
Ever felt unseen or misunderstood despite being in a relationship? I open up about a past relationship where my ex-girlfriend loved an idealized version of me, which led to a significant disconnect because of my internal negative self-perception. We also discuss my unique communication style and the importance of grounding oneself when interacting with someone who is mentally scattered. We shed light on the subtleties of texting and the necessity for stability and connection in our interactions, emphasizing the need for genuine self-alignment and clear communication.
Finally, we dive into the themes of personal growth, inner desires, and the importance of valuing ourselves and others. The concept of the "terror barrier" is discussed as a metaphor for personal growth, emphasizing the balance of experiencing pain to appreciate pleasure. We highlight the joy of discovering each other's unique perspectives and the importance of meaningful, grounded communication. Wrapping up, I share my passion for creative expression, encouraging everyone to find a creative outlet that fuels their joy and aligns with their true selves. This episode is a heartfelt call to action: embrace your creativity, see the value in yourself and others, and pursue long-term joy and fulfillment.
Hello and welcome to Lana's Nighttime Bedtime Podcast. Hi, so I realized that this has no context and I literally didn't know how to transition. I recorded this podcast before bed one night, when I was coping with the idea of what it feels like when you miss someone. So that's the perspective from which this starts, and then it just takes off from there. So I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2:When you spend so much time with a person and you talk every single day, it doesn't matter really how you made them feel or how they made you feel. It matters that you were together or talking every single day. It matters how they made you feel, of course, but it's like there is an element to your being that is not there anymore. You will feel a gaping hole. Now, what makes it an unhealthy addiction is if you keep reaching for the thing that is making you feel bad in the long run, right. So if you reach for a drug that makes you feel really, really good in the moment and then you experience long-term suffering because of it in your body and your mind, that's not going to be good for you. So sometimes things that feel good in the moment aren't always good for us long term. So when you start acting in a way where you ask yourself this feels like an addiction, even if it's not to a drug, it could be anything. It could be a person, place or thing, something in your life that you have a relationship with, money, food, a human being, brushing your teeth, showering your dog, your parents, anything, your house, even Construction projects. Who knows If you are constantly thinking about that thing if you are wanting to get a fix right like when you're not with it. You want to get a fix now. What's the difference between addiction and being in a state of love or being in love right like? You know, they say in the early stages of love. You know especially lesbians. They don't want to rip apart, they want to spend every waking moment with each other. The dopamine, the oxytocin, the adrenaline, the joy, the love, the sex that lesbians experience and I'm just speaking from experience. I don't know about all the lesbians in the world, but my lesbian experience has been very addicting Women and lust and passion. Oh my gosh, is it so beautiful? It's so creative. It's like creating a beautiful work of art with a human being. It's so amazing. But it's also got that addictive quality to it. But I guess the question I'm asking is what's the difference between being addicted and being in love? And I suppose what I would answer right now is being addicted to something or someone means again that it is not going to be good for you in the long term. I don't know what the genuine definition of addicted is, or addiction and like what the actual definition is, but I'm telling you that in my brain. The word addiction is bad. Being addicted or being an addict is bad. It's bad for you, it's bad for the world.
Speaker 2:It's been programmed into us that if you have an addiction, that you're suffering from something else and you're coping with it, with an addiction. There are so many like tropes and perspectives wrapped up in the word addiction. So when you're feeling these feelings of pleasure and the rush and the dopamine and the joy and all these things, how do you differentiate between being in love and being addicted? And what I'm going to say is is there a different quality in the moment? Is there a different quality in the moment? Is there a different quality in the moment?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go ahead and conjecture at this current moment. Yes, I think the way I'm feeling about it now is addiction feels more surface level, right? Let's use the classic example If somebody is using drugs to feel better because they're experiencing pain in other areas of their life, right? There's so many examples in the media of people who use drugs to cope and it's honestly like it's a trope. It really is a trope, but it's a trope because it's representative of many people in the world.
Speaker 2:We have so much suffering in this world that it makes sense that we turn to things that bring us temporary pleasure, because we believe that long-term suffering is the only thing that is going to happen for us. We are always going to be suffering long-term. That's just how it's going to be, but that's not necessarily the case. But if you don't know that there can be joy through the terror barrier, as I call it, if you don't know that there's going to be joy, then how could you possibly, how could you possibly motivate yourself, challenge yourself to overcome the pain and the sorrow and the heartbreak and the terror, if you don't think you're going to be better off on the other side? Absolutely you would opt for I would. I don't know about you, but I would opt for the temporary pleasure. In fact I did for many years.
Speaker 2:Just different varying substances, different varying people, different varying situations that I put myself in. Because I said in the back of my mind, in my subconscious, I said I'm going to be suffering forever. So how can I feel good now If I'm going to be suffering forever? How can I feel good now? And we've talked about the fact that suffering is just pain that is prolonged by choice and I don't mean conscious choice, sometimes it is unconscious.
Speaker 2:Now, some could say that that means that you're like living a more passive life. Right, you're living a more passive life. That way, if you're just letting things come to you, you're not taking control, you're not getting what you want. Well, you know what the universe knows. What I want I put in my order and you know, I learned the hard way that you have to ask explicitly for what you want. It doesn't mean you have to go out and immediately grab it and get it and put it in your shopping cart and purchase it right away. It means take a deep breath, set the intention what do you want? Ask yourself, do a meditation on it.
Speaker 2:You know, however you get into your feeling space, however you feel most aligned. For me, it's looking in the mirror, making a video or talking explicitly to myself, to yourself, writing to yourself. You're not writing to anybody else. Other people can be a medium, a channel for your energy. It's good to look in the mirror and talk to somebody else about something, but ultimately, in order for you to know how you feel about something, you must be alone. It is your trajectory that you're fucking with If you want to put somebody else in your field and you're going to consistently look in that mirror. You better goddamn hope that that person wants what's best for you and is so in touch with your feelings, when you are not, that they can steer you back to yourself.
Speaker 2:You want to be around people who are going to steer you back to yourself? You don't want to be around people Well, I can't speak for you. I don't want to be around people who are going to have conversations with me and take me into them, unless going into them is a pleasurable experience, right when you're with a loved one, when you're with somebody you're close with and they are telling you a story about something that brings them pain and heartbreak and sorrow. Eventually you're going to say, wow, this person takes me places that feel unsafe. I may feel sad when I'm with them, and you may start associating those feelings with that person. You may start saying, oh my God, this person makes me sad and you might not understand why. Because you so effortlessly flow with them, because you care about them, you want to hear what they're saying.
Speaker 2:It's hard when you have friends who are super insecure and you want to hear what they're saying. This is it's hard when you have friends who are super insecure and you want to love them and tell them how beautiful they are, but they reject you. They reject you by saying, oh my gosh, stop, no, I don't. How many times have we heard that as women? Oh my gosh, stop, no, I don't. Oh my gosh, no, this whole thing, oh my gosh, right, even in movies and stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start telling people, if they are mean to themselves, that they are invalidating me, because some people are people pleasers, some people are empaths, some people project and ultimately, they want other people to feel good because they want to be treated that way, right? So what they're going to do is they're going to make you feel good, but they're going to feel shitty about themselves. How is that helpful to anyone? Being around somebody who feels shitty about themselves is not helpful to anybody. But you can't leave. Well, I can't. I can't speak for you. I don't like to. I can, but I don't like to leave people who are in isolation by themselves, because people who are spiraling within themselves, people who are spiraling in their own pain and their own suffering and their own negativity and their own like cognitive degradation of themselves, right.
Speaker 2:When you are in that space, it is the worst thing ever to imagine being alone. And in fact, by not having people around you, you are reinforcing this idea that you will be alone forever, that you are unlovable, that nobody likes you and in fact, you're the worst. So I knowing this. Let's imagine, come with me. Imagine you're feeling the worst you've ever felt. Imagine you're feeling insecure. You're feeling heartbroken, you're feeling scared. You're feeling like you're not enough. You're feeling like you'll never achieve the thing you want to achieve. You'll never get what you want to get. When you go reach for it, it just appears further away. You're in that state of mind and now somebody you love comes up to you and tries to show you affection, tries to tell you you are enough, tries to tell you you can do it, tries to tell you you are beautiful.
Speaker 2:How do you feel in that moment? How do you feel when you are in this state of disarray and dysfunction and dysregulation? How does it feel when somebody you love comes up to you and says something positive about you? Are you going to accept that as true or are you going to reject it?
Speaker 2:Ultimately, what I picture is like myself holding a shield right, because I am terrified at this point. If you are feeling negative and down on yourself. I am terrified to interact with the world. Not only am I like sad that I can't bring the room up, I am somebody who loves to lift up a room. I don't want to go out in public if I'm not going to lift up a room. So I tend to spend time in isolation when I'm not doing well, and that's how it indicates to my friends that maybe I'll need some support. But ultimately, when they reach out, I'm not really fully open. I'm protecting myself. I have a shield up because I feel vulnerable and I feel insecure and I am sensitive in this moment. I am sensitive, I am soft, I am malleable. So it's important in those moments that you only allow sentiment in. That isn't necessarily positive, but it's true.
Speaker 2:And then we get to the point about truth. So you're in that scenario, right, you're down in the dumps. Your friend comes over. They're trying to make you feel better because they know you're down in the dumps. There's a difference between trying to make you feel better and telling the truth. We all know this. We are all familiar with this. You know what it feels like when somebody tells you the truth. It's such an uncomfortable situation when somebody is being negative about themselves and you love them and you want to support them, but you don't want to offend them even more than they already feel. What do you say? And the answer to that is the truth. You tell the truth, but you don't tell the truth about them. You tell the truth about you. Stop focusing on telling the truth about other people. You don't know anything about the other person. You project onto that person.
Speaker 2:There's something called an overlay that Teal Swan talks about, which is this idea that you are projecting the version Okay, well, for me it's the highest and best version of somebody onto themselves. Right, and people call this idealization or what have you. But when you build a whole entire relationship, or you build a whole entire relationship, or you build a whole entire friendship or a whole entire life around an overlay, you eventually will fall through and feel pain. That's just how it works. So what happens is, as soon as you recognize that you are perceiving an overlay and you're not really seeing what's there, you need to take action to start aligning the perspectives. So if your friend is down in the dumps and they feel some type of way, that's negative and you project onto them an overlay of them being their highest and best. There's going to be a felt dissonance between that friend and you because they don't feel that way at all. In fact, they might feel invalidated, that you don't see them for who they really are.
Speaker 2:I have felt this so many times when people try to make me feel better, and I had an ex-girlfriend once who I absolutely adored, but I didn't feel like I deserved to be treated well. So when she treated me a certain way, I was like she's not seeing me. She's not seeing this negative person that I am. She's seeing this version of me that doesn't exist. She is in love with an overlay. She is in love with my highest and best that I haven't even stepped into yet. How dare she? She doesn't see me, she doesn't get me. She doesn't get me. She doesn't understand me. Right, and this is what I mentioned before. It's like I want to be so badly understood and seen and heard and all those great things, but in the past I haven't allowed myself to be really seen.
Speaker 2:Imagine somebody cowered behind a shield. How are they going to be seen? What's going to be seen? Their shield? Now, if I am carrying a shield, you damn well know it's going to be decked out and decorated and pretty, and it's going to be like oh my God, look at my shield. It's so great, oh my God, and you know what it's going to have dings in it from the time people shot arrows at it. And you know, some people have good intentions, some people have great intentions. I would consider myself one of those people. I go up to somebody who is holding a shield and I am going to try to figure out how to either get them to gracefully put it down, give me a hug, or in the past I have tried to forcefully remove a shield. But I think my idea of force is very different than other people's idea of force. My idea of force is like uncomfortable questioning, and I was just thinking about this today.
Speaker 2:I feel like I have a very interesting style of communication. I give people a lot of attention. I give people a lot of attention that they're usually uncomfortable with, because we're all living our own lives, right, we're all living our own lives and we all have our own feelings. We all have our own thoughts. I am giving every single drop of my attention. Now, this, for me, is an activity. Could I do this in every conversation? Gosh, no, but do I love linguistics and words and meaning so much and I so desperately want to understand people, and so when I see a disconnect, it's like putting together a beautiful puzzle. And you know what I do love puzzles. But should I be doing this many puzzles, is the question. Could I be spending myself, spending my time doing other activities that aren't puzzles, that aren't going to hurt my back and my neck as much when I'm leaning over and trying to put puzzle pieces together? Oh my gosh, it's such a beautiful metaphor to imagine If you are having a conversation with somebody who has a lot of dimensionality, meaning they're not entirely present in the now.
Speaker 2:All the time they're bouncing in and out of it, because you know, some people call this ADHD, but I'm going to describe it how I want to describe it to assist in my understanding of communication. When you are having a conversation with somebody who's bouncing in and out of the current dimension, it is of the utmost importance for you to stay grounded so that way you can center yourself as they are bouncing around you like a kid in a bouncy house. This is a pleasurable experience for both parties. If it's a pleasurable experience for the person who is grounded to feel like an anchor and to feel the joy and the pleasure of being able to anchor somebody in the now right. If they get pleasure from that, oh my gosh, how lucky are they. And it's pleasurable for the person who gets to bounce around in the bouncy house because they feel safe and grounded and able to explore different parts of themselves that they didn't know existed in a connected way.
Speaker 2:When I'm conversing with people, I am trying to connect right. Of course, when you converse with people, you're trying to connect, but I'm not just trying to connect with this person, I am trying to connect the dots. Okay, if one person says a phrase and then the next sentence. So I'm talking specifically about texting in this moment, because texting is a whole layer of communication that I feel like gets overlooked. You kind of understand everybody has their own little text language. You know the friend that is going to say KK and the friend that is going to say okay and the friend that it's going to say BRB and the friends that are going to say TTYL, you, maybe those are outdated. You know phrases, but you understand the friendship language. Every person has their own language and, as friends and as people who get close, you begin to learn the language.
Speaker 2:That's why, at first, when you're getting to know somebody, it's a little bit unclear about how they're going to what they're talking about. If you're used to a friend always being like super bubbly and having a lot of extra letters and a lot of emojis and just being super open, and then you're texting somebody else and they're just like very straight up and very grammatically correct, you might think they're mad at you, but they're not. They're just being expressive in the way they know how. In this dimension of 2D text messaging right, so there's a lot of translation that can be lost. So, knowing this, I have spent so many hours sitting and exploring language via text. But when you are conversing with somebody who has raging, raging complex dimensionality, in the sense that they can be in a billion places at once, it's not that they're not present, they're just present in many different places. Okay, what's fun for me in that scenario is providing the fun little moment where I can be like hey, you said this and then you said this. Do you see how those connect? And the person being like whoa, oh, my God, I didn't realize that that's so cool.
Speaker 2:The unfortunate part that comes with it, though, is that sometimes the connections are painful. Sometimes the connections are painful Because why do we disconnect from ourselves or the parts of ourselves? We create little fragments of ourselves. We create different dimensions. When we're in pain, right, we are trying to cope with our pain. Circling back to the addiction point when you are feeling pain and suffering, you create a whole world for yourself in drug dreamland, so you don't have to feel the pain of your reality, whatever reality is. That's a philosophical argument for another time. So, in the same way, people create parts of themselves to cope with the pain they experience in their daily lives, and one of the things I continuously try to do and talk about and share is aligning with myself, meaning when I have a discrepancy within myself. So part of me feels one way and the other part of me feels the other, also known as being conflicted.
Speaker 2:If I, it typically comes out when I have to make a choice or I'm triggered, right, part of me gets triggered and I'm like oh my goodness, lana, oh my goodness, you're triggered right now. But who's talking to myself? It's me. It's me talking to me, some people. That's why, when I was younger, I always used to talk to myself, and now I talk to myself out loud. When I can't talk to myself out loud, I try to do it in my head, but it's just much easier to do it out loud.
Speaker 2:So that's what like my version of self-soothing, right, if I get triggered and I notice it, I'll take a deep breath because my heart rate and I'll imagine, like the part of me that's triggered is definitely feeling my heart rate right. And then the part of me that's aware of being triggered because part of me is just triggered, part of me is just mad, part of me is just sad that part of me knows nothing else other than that they are steeped in that of me knows nothing else other than that they are steeped in that. And then the other part of me is aware of that feeling and everything else. So it is up to me and that part of me who is aware of everything else to provide wisdom, encouragement, love and gentle coaxing to this person who is within me that is triggered or sad or what have you, and this gentle parenting of ourselves, as they call it, this parts therapy has allowed me to try to align as much as possible so that way I can get into alignment faster. And when you're in alignment for most of the time, you're going to attract the things that you really really want and saying, like you know, I trust that the universe, the things that you really really want, and saying, like you know, I trust that the universe is going to give me what I want. The reason why I feel, you know, okay saying that not necessarily confident saying that, but okay saying that is because I'm seeking alignment, I'm seeking alignment. So if I'm always seeking alignment and I truly am seeking, actively seeking alignment within myself, I trust that what I want will come to me because I'm in alignment.
Speaker 2:Hello, and typically, when we get things we don't want or we do things we don't want, it's because part of us wants it and the other part doesn't. You wouldn't do things that you don't want at all. You would never do things that you never want. Okay, how do I explain this? If part of you wants something, you will get it, even if not all of you wants it.
Speaker 2:So if you find yourself this is kind of the point about like being blessed, right, if you find yourself in a tough situation or an unpleasurable situation, ask yourself why did I want to be here? And not necessarily, why did I want to be here, but, most importantly, asking yourself why, can bring you down a rabbit hole? Which is why I'm revising the question to who was I when I wanted to be here? What part of me wants to be here right now? What part of me is experiencing pleasure? Because you know, the other parts of myself are not experiencing pleasure.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're triggered in a moment, if you're sad about something, if you're mad about something, if you're not experiencing pleasure and not that you can experience pleasure all the time, because we are multifaceted beings. We're always changing, always evolving, always growing. So what brought you pleasure yesterday is not going to bring you pleasure today. Ideally, you always want to be changing, so there's always going to be contrast. We can't live an entirely state of pleasure, because then you would never be able to experience pleasure, it would just be your daily life. You have to experience pain to experience pleasure. It's the yin and the yang.
Speaker 2:Okay, people, this is what I say. You have to go through the terror barrier to grow. They always say what you resist persists. But if you lean into the resistance and you say I'm resisting this and you name it, you call it resistance. It changes it, it evolves it. Once you name something, it turns it into something else. We all know this. It's how words came out. It's how words work.
Speaker 2:So when you lean into resistance, you know I'm resisting this because I know something drastically different is going to be on the other side and that is terrifying and scary. And I have to go through the terror barrier and I don't know if I can do it, and I'm scared. And now you're insecure, now you're behind your shield and now you're walking around the world with a shield and you're not allowing people to see who you really are and celebrate you for your gifts and your talents and your brilliance and your amazingness. And, however, are you going to be validated and loved and seen if you're not showing people who you really are? Slay so in conversations with friends and family and people and communication with the general public, it is so important for me and this is just a personal thing to remain grounded. Ideally, there is a yin and yang. I don't want to call it ping pong, because I feel like ping pong has a negative connotation to it. A back and forth is different than an emergent dynamic. A back and forth doesn't imply that you're on the same team. When you play ping pong, you're opponents. So ideally, you want an emergent dynamic such that when one person in the case that one person is feeling really grounded, the other person can bounce around like they are playing pinball.
Speaker 2:I loved playing pinball as a kid, right on the computer. Obviously I didn't have a pinball machine and I never went to an arcade because I was born in 1997. Okay so, whatever what computer game was it, I don't know? The space bar, like hit the space bar and it would hit the ball back up. I love pinball. Point is I love pinball and I love people who make me feel like I'm playing pinball. So that's fun for me, right? It's fun when you have the opportunity to be a grounding source for somebody who's playing pinball, like, oh my gosh, what a joy, what a fun, exciting moment. How much fun is it to learn the fun, exciting parts of the other person's brain? If you're using words to communicate with me, I'm going to ask you what you mean.
Speaker 2:Some people feel antagonized by this. Sometimes people feel like they're being interviewed, but the truth is I'm just interested and people are not used to having people be interested in them For some reason. I'm not going to go into the details of that reason now, because I simply don't have the time. I guess what I want to say is people feel like they have to have a value for somebody else to be interested in them. Right, that makes sense. Like you have to feel a value for somebody to show interest.
Speaker 2:If somebody shows interest in you and you don't feel like you have any value, you're going to think they're lying. You're going to think this is kind of the point I said where I had an ex girlfriend that saw the best in me and I was like girl, you don't really see me, because if you did, you would think I'm a loser, or you think I'm a bad person, or you think I'm a bitch. I'm not this nice person. You think I am right. So at the time I didn't feel like I had the value that she was investing in me. She was investing in me as if I were worth a billion dollars, but I felt like I was worth a penny. So eventually you're going to think that person's a little bit bonkers, a little bit delusional, a little bit crazy. You're going to be like well, clearly you're not seeing me or you're not seeing what I'm seeing, and people can be uncomfortable with and have resistance to somebody showing interest in them when they don't really have the value in themselves. That's really tough when you see value in somebody and they don't see value in themselves. There has to be a lot of clear communication and, quite frankly, uncomfortable and really sticky communication.
Speaker 2:I ask people questions because I'm interested to know the answer. I'm not just going to fuck around and find out just because I'm just not going to do that. I believe truly that every single human being has such a unique perspective because of their experiences. So I'm going to ask questions of human beings to get that unique perspective because it's just one more beautiful way of looking at the world and that is how I find entertainment and joy and it's just such a fun thing for me to do. If that person denies me the alternative perspective and belittles themselves, it's not going to be fun for me, right? Like if I ask a question, they're like well, it doesn't really matter. So that denies me the fun, exciting pinball experience that I was hoping for and what happens is the other person loses out on the opportunity to see their value, because ultimately, I see value in every single human being. So if I see value in you and I'm asking you questions and you don't see value in responding or sharing, because you don't believe in yourself, all the plethora of reasons you feel insecure, you feel bad, whatever, when you're hiding behind your shield.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately for the people that I'm conversing with, they are now closing themselves off to seeing what I see in them. And I'm not saying that I see the best, like well, you know, that's not true. I do see the best in everyone, or I try to at least. I'm not going to say I know you. I'm not going to say I know who you are. What I'm going to say is I see this value in you. Do you want to see that value too? Is that something you are interested in? Some people will say no. Some people will say yes. I want to surround myself with people who are going to say yes, I want to see the value in myself that you see in me, and I want them to understand that this is a fun activity for me. This is not a full-time job, right? The people in my life I converse with, I show them their value in the way that I see it, and ideally vice versa.
Speaker 2:When you are feeling insecure and down, it's beautiful to have that emergent dynamic, not ping pong, something where you're on the same team, right, and you're creating a shared space with each other an art project. You're creating a shared art project. Right, you're working on a collaborative piece of art, and this would also be a metaphor for within yourself. If you're working on an elaborate piece of art with somebody else, there has to be clear communication as to the intention of the piece, or it's just fully emergent and you can be happy with the outcome, right? Either you have a vision and you're communicating it to each other so you can execute that vision together, or you're both just going with the flow and trusting that the end outcome is going to be the most beautiful thing you've ever seen because you made it together. Either way, it's whatever level. You want to experience that creative art project at, that emergent creativity, that shared space.
Speaker 2:But ultimately, the prerequisite is that both people come into it and say I have value in this art piece, you have value in this art piece. So let's share our strengths and our weaknesses with each other. Share our strengths and our weaknesses with each other, make a beautiful art piece with your strengths and my strengths, my joys and your joys, and create something beautiful. And where I may not have the skills or the talent or the ability, you, the other human, or within myself, the parts of myself, are going to show me what I can do A, to learn, or B. You're just going to do it right.
Speaker 2:I imagine I'm picturing right now, painting a canvas with another human being. You're painting a canvas with another human being and you're either verbally communicating to each other oh hey, like I'm going to paint over here and this is what I'm painting or you're just going to watch the other person paint and be like, oh, that's so beautiful and amazing, and then do your thing over there and then see how they connect. Honestly, it's just an exciting idea. It's just an exciting idea to create a piece of art with somebody and ultimately, that's what a partnership is. You're creating a piece of art together and that piece of art is the partnership.
Speaker 2:But it has to be a collaboration. It doesn't have to be 50-50. It doesn't have to have, like, a distinct number attached to it. It's an ebb and flow. You're going to give more sometimes, they're going to give more sometimes, but the ultimate thing is that over time, there is always an oscillation of giving and receiving. It's such a beautiful thing. It's like the ocean waves. They always kiss the beach right, but also there's a tide, there's also a moon. There's so many beautiful influences in this world. The sand can always count on the ocean to kiss it goodnight. So if you're in a stressed out mood, you might accidentally snap at the person you love.
Speaker 2:But it's how you come back from that. Are you going to calm into it, relax into it, take a deep breath, do what you need to do to relax onto those shores? You know that's up to you. You have to want that. I had to want that, and it's not easy.
Speaker 2:Again, none of this is easy. I didn't sign up for easy. I didn't come to earth and say you know what, guys, you know what? I'm going to take the easy road. No, no, no, no, no. That is not why I'm here. I'm here to experience life. I'm going to challenge myself in new ways. I'm going to ask the world. I'm going to ask myself what I can do to be better and grow, but not just be better. I don't even know what that means, but like be deeper, be more, be more expansive, not just better. I don't even know what better means. I just want to explore more of myself every single day, and it's such an exciting thing to do Once you feel like, hey, I'm excited to find more, because I know what I have here already is so beautiful.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to see what else is here, because it's all beautiful. Your pain, your suffering, your strategy, your love, your hope, your dreams it's all beautiful. The yin and the yang, pain and love, are just as beautiful because they serve the same purpose growth, expansion, connection, authenticity, being the best person you can be, being the best you. You can be the best, meaning, the most aligned, bringing about the most change, the most joy, whatever you are here to do. And that's why I consider myself blessed. And it's so crazy I get a little bit emotional thinking about it, because I never used to think this way ever.
Speaker 2:I was so sad, I was so miserable. I was tormenting myself every single day, trying to be somebody. I was not trying to conform, trying to please, trying to be better, trying to do better, trying to do more, trying, trying, trying, trying. I was trying so hard to do something that I thought I needed to do, but all this thinking, all this trying it took me away from just being, and once I just started being and I started breathing and I started living, I started aligning and hearing myself and really listening, and that's how I've gotten here today and I'm just so grateful and I can honestly and openly say I am grateful to myself. I am so grateful to the support system that I've had, but it's the support system that I've built, you know, and we should be proud of ourselves for surrounding. We always say like thank you to my parents and thank you to my friends and thank you to my partner for getting me here. Amazing, but you chose those people to be in your life, so trust that.
Speaker 2:And if you look around and you say I'm not in a good place, try to transcend the question of why did I do this to myself, why did I think this is what was best for me, and instead say what part of myself thinks this is what's best for me and do all of the parts of me think it's best for me? And if not, should we have a roundtable discussion? Parts therapy is so beautiful and it's even more beautiful when you do it with yourself, because it's like only you have access to all the parts of you. Only you are connected to all the parts of you. Only you are connected to all the parts of you. You are going to show different parts of you to different people, based on what you feel safe and comfortable doing.
Speaker 2:My goal is to show all the parts of myself to people, because I just want to be naked and afraid. That's why I'm here. I'm here to be naked and afraid. It's thrilling, sometimes I regret it, sometimes I'm scared of it, but at the end of the day I know I have to be scared and uncomfortable and triggered to grow, and so it's not about avoiding those things, it's about transforming those things. How quickly can I get to the part of myself that is blessed by this situation? If I make a choice that ultimately doesn't seem like it's the right one, how can I transform it such that I am blessed by the situation and then I can consider myself blessed because I did that for myself and I no longer have to be scared of the choices that I make or the decisions that I make, because I trust that I can transform anything that I do into what's best for me, because I'm in touch with myself, I know how I feel about it and I can move forward in a direction that's going to lead me to some place that I want to go, because when you are aligned you will attract things that are going to help you expand and grow in the direction of your dreams. So step one is to align and then everything will come easier. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, I'm just saying it will come easier and you'll get into a rhythm of it If you recognize that you're always going to have to traverse the terror barrier to grow.
Speaker 2:Once the terror barrier shows its face, you're going to be like aha, the terror barrier, all right. It's like when people used to go on that show Wipeout. You know that's exactly what it is. You're signing up to be wiped out, only to know that you're going to do better next time. You're going to try harder. Some people you know they love that. They love the challenge, the adrenaline rush. That's it for me. I'm like all right, we're at the terror barrier again. It's terrifying. There is no doubt that it's terrifying. Part of me is terrified, but the other parts of me know what's waiting on the other side and can almost lift that terrified part of me over the barrier. And that's what helps me, that support within myself that I externalized through the support system I've built in my physical life.
Speaker 2:All right, you guys, I've said a lot of things today. I've said a lot of things today and I really hope that it resonates with you. It resonated with me. I have no idea what I'm saying when I record these podcasts. I just want you to understand. When I record these things, I do not know what I'm saying, I just say it. It's flowing so naturally through me that I'm not conscious of the words that are being said. In fact I don't really hear them at all until I reflect. But I feel them. But ultimately I'm in the flow state.
Speaker 2:I don't know how long this has been. Usually it's a lot longer than I think, and that's how you know you enjoy something and that's awesome. Like I love listening to my podcast back for the first time and editing it and going through, because I have no idea what I just said. So I get to experience it for the first time, just like you, and I think that's so amazing. And I hope that everybody finds something like that for themselves, that everybody finds a creative outlet or an expression that when they watch it back, listen to it back, experience it back, they can experience their joy again for the first time through a different lens and it's just such a joyous experience. I wish it for everybody Truly. It's been like just such a joy creating these podcasts and recording, and just I used to do it in isolation, like I said, but now I just feel so excited to share.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I get in my head because I'm like, oh, is that, is that not good to say, but I don't post that stuff because if it's coming from that space, I don't want to share it. I want to share things that feel honest and real and that's what I'm doing here today. All right, I love you guys. I hope you guys consider yourself blessed and you find an opportunity today to fuel yourself with the joy of expression and love and just being gentle with yourself and listening to yourself and really hearing yourself talk and ask yourself what can I do to consider myself blessed today? What can I do? Take action. Take action towards the direction of your dreams. Action, take action towards the direction of your dreams. Take action towards the direction of your dreams and I promise you, working to be in alignment will never lead you astray. Love you. 52 minutes.