Relationships Beyond Blaming, Gaming and Shaming
This episode is a call to arms for a new type of relationship.
Relationships for many people have been frustrating, confusing and often disappointing.
This is because relationships are typically built on a bedrock of blaming, gaming and shaming.
The result is unsatisfying relationships that do not meet the emotional needs of the modern world.
There is a better way. Modern relationships have to go beyond the knee-jerk reaction to blame, game and shame. We have to build relationships of support and not relationships of control or transactio
Transcript
Welcome to honest talk about heartbreak, dating and relationships, relationships, the podcast helping you navigate your past to happy ever after with your host Rob McPhillips.
[:Tonight, we're talking about relationships beyond blaming gaming and shaming. So first of all, I'm really interested in your discussions and your experiences of blaming gaming, shaming in your relationships and really curious to to hear what you would see is the opposite and what would be a relationship beyond those right now. Iraq is now an excuse not to do this, too. I don't know what to say. No. OK. We were looking at it from like a a society sort of thing and how it's just become really easy to to be vulnerable and insecure in whatever it is and then start off with, you know, whereby the blaming and shaming happens.
[:You know, it could be a cultural thing, could be a site thing. It could be just with the current situation at the minute where people have been really affected, it affected mentally. So we start. You know, I think it's a lot of anxiety going on in the world. And I just think depending on what the the thing is, issue the the sort of in whatever context it's in, I think blaming and shaming. I think it's more about the person who's blaming and shaming, whether you're, you know, it's it's to do with maybe the past, you know, traumas, maybe with a lot of healing needs to be done.
[:So then we we forget that we don't look at ourselves or individuals, don't look at themselves and look at others to blame rather looking within something like that. So we just we would just kind of develop, you know, we were talking about ideas of that. Yeah. Oh, I want to say that like sometimes I think people get into relationships or the other person to make them happy and the wages and go right, you then they start blaming the person for like, why do people gain relationship?
[:Just why? Why? I always thought that people gained a relationship because they went to make both people happy, each other happy. So it confuses me why people are even in relationships, sometimes when they come and do that. But you always have to adjust and compromise because you're you're trying to make each other happy. So I don't know why people like that that needs needs to make them happy. And I think that's what blame starts, really, in my opinion.
[:Interesting. Sublime starts with the belief. The other makes fulfills us, yeah, a societal lens, OK?
[:And our group, we spoke about how it's very similar to what the ladies have said already, sort of in regards to unrealistic expectations on the other person and expects that person to, yeah, sort of be able to fulfill your ways that you can't sort of fulfill yourself. And we also spoke about getting to a place where, I mean, we said that the relationship without all that would be bliss peaceful you relationship really should be. However, it requires some front end work because obviously you're not naturally going to meet someone.
[:And it's a big industry off. You guys really don't vibe on the same page 100 percent. So it probably requires maybe some work and then go around to that. It'd probably be easier looking for the long term because obviously you've had those crucial conversations and you, you know, you kind of have it more of a deeper understanding. And we just say, from my own perspective, I'll say from mine, you know, I have that. I'm in the situation at the moment where, you know, it's so easy for me to, like, run away to blame the other person.
[:But deep down, I don't actually want to do that. So we were just talking about like love responsibility we each have in our connections and what it's more about how we feel about ourselves that would enable the relationship to be better successful because sometimes we what we spoke about was that there are a lot of insecurities that can come out, depending if you know, I mean, it's just relationships like humans, right? So you can have the insecurities that exacerbates in certain situations that ultimately is your responsibility to sort of manage those yourself and not expect somebody else to know how to do that necessarily.
[:Yeah, I'd like to add something in our group. We were talking mainly about some personal experiences, but I think from my own experiences, it just reminds me of a I don't actually know Brené Brown. It just reminds me of a quote where she says that blame is just a discharge of pain onto another person. So rather than not taking responsibility for saying how we really feel, we put it on like what people have said have put it onto the other person to make them take take it because it's too is too much to take on and own that pain.
[:And instead, we point the finger to the other person and say, and it usually comes out because I think one of the trigger points to me is when somebody points fingers, says you always. You never. And you know, that's when. That's when I start questioning, you know where this is really coming from. Also spoken in the group about how these things tend to repeat themselves because, you know, they'll bring their baggage to relationship after relationship if they can't really stop and look at themselves.
[:And that's why the pattern keeps repeating as well.
[:I don't go Robert and then Sandra.
[:Oh, okay. So we were kind of talking a little bit. A couple of words came up for us all on accountability was a word that came up. And I think it made time with what was just said. And sometimes, yeah, there is a projection going on, but sometimes there are times when somebody else is other negative, their actions of other negative consequence on your life. And there's not a lot you could have done about it, and it's more on them than you.
[:But then again, if they're being accountable you, you don't really need to blame them because they're being accountable for the fact that what they've done, that kind of ties in with the shaming as well. In a way, with the game, it was an interesting one. I come up with monkey brunching, but there you go, monkey branch. And you know, I heard of that. Mm hmm. All right. Okay, so. All right.
[:Okay, so. Obviously, I'm a man. I mean, you know, a straight man, so women, a monkey branched on me. And this is where they've lined up the other dude before they've gone out the door. The monkeys, the woman and the branches of the man, so not letting go of that one before grabbing out of that one. OK. OK. That's not to say that men don't do it. The guy, you know, they're all men that it's not exclusive to women.
[:I've got to say that, you know, there are men that may do it as well. So when I'm thinking gaming, that's what I came up with.
[:Yeah, yeah, I definitely think that's part of it.
[:I think the the shaming you get move back to the being in this more my thoughts, maybe in the groups, but I think the again shouldn't really need to shame if someone's done something. By then, you shouldn't you need to shame especially going on to the other aspects, what would be like without these? What if people are more accountable and more honest in the law that these three things wouldn't really be around?
[:That's an interesting point was made in the group in that our socialization, our experiences from growing up, can influence a lot of our behavior, especially if unresolved, you know, the. The child that survives by saying it wasn't me, it was me. It's not one, it's you or it's your fault, it's everybody else's fault. But, you know, deflection and that becomes a pattern that transfers itself into a relationship, and they never take or accept ownership of any of the things that might be.
[:Making their relationship complicated or tense are issues that need to be discussed, and I think that that is actually an important issue that many times we as adults tend to forget until we get into a stressful situation and maybe it's pointed out to us. The other thing the game in bit again interested in in that which one comes first, does trust go out the door first and gaming? Or is it that the game in that is done reduces the trust, you know, impacts the level of trust?
[:So it's a chicken and egg situation sometimes and depends on the form that it takes because sometimes it can be out of spite to punish somebody. It can be to see what they can get away with. To get a rise out of you, especially if you are on reactive partner. Sometimes people go to extremes to get some kind of response from you, which is not necessarily a safe thing to do. But it still triggers that kind of behavior with respect to the opposite type of reaction of relationships, rather a high level of responsibility, high level of trust, openness, the ability to take ownership for shortcomings.
[:And it is not clean sailing. It requires a lot of negotiation, but a lot of respect is is part and parcel of not being able to maintain that openness.
[:Yeah, hi. Thanks. Let me take this down. I think we almost saying the same sort of thing from what I see seen, certainly my group as well. We discussed certain things, and I think it comes back to character developmental issues. The person who is potentially projecting this gaming blaming shaming, call it what you will be, is in. I mean, first of all, they may be trying to control their environment because they're not able to take responsibility for themselves, for their own actions.
[:So it's easier to try and control things around you or to blame other things. You know, I did this because it's your fault. It's not my fault that I did it. You made me do it or I need you to do this. You won't do it willingly. So instead, I will manipulate people around you, which is the gaming, or I will shame you into doing it or other things like that. So it all comes back to lack of character, I suppose in some pressure, and you can't really take the responsibility on self.
[:So instead you try and projected onto the other person. I think one thing also to recognize is that and I think Sandra was intimating to the senator is that this may be subconscious. Not everybody is fully aware of what they're doing. In some cases, they are fully aware they are doing it purposefully because maybe they need to exert control in some fashion, divide and rule them, you know, manipulate everybody to do what they want. But in some cases, that may be fairly subconscious in that they're just they have to have this kind of environment and they don't know how to do it other than using all forms of manipulative techniques.
[:And we can sit back and look at it from as an outsider into a relationship and say, Well, that's clearly wrong. But when you're in it, you're doing it yourself. Sometimes you may not even be aware that that's what you're doing. Not saying that they got wonderful thoughts, but they may very well be a broken person, if you like. In terms of kind of you just asked the question, what is the opposite? Well, I think all of these things creates the, I suppose, the notion of the other person walking on eggshells.
[:And that automatically means your cortisol. And the more you go dissolve, the less connection you have within the relationship. So I suppose the opposite is that you have a stronger relationship because you're connected or you have more chance to connect to each other if you can be vulnerable with each other. But if you are using these tactics to try and control your environment, then you're going to put the other person on the record. I'm not going to open up that stone to bring, you know, how you're doing this to manipulate me or whatever.
[:It makes me feel bad when you do this. And so this I'm just going to be eroding the relationship because you can't connect. You just got this concept with some great sharing that anyone else.
[:I want to say something again. It's OK, I don't say that. We talked about narcissistic narcissism in our group, and I'm just wondering because narcissistic narcissism is a mental disorder. But then so many people use that word when they were describing their relationship with a partner. So I'm like thinking that if they were mad like all or is just become like, fashionable, I don't know, like social media might have a bit. Yes. Yes, it's weird.
[:Yeah, it's it's very difficult because there is such a thing and narcissistic personality disorder, someone who's damaged from childhood. But it becomes easy to blame someone else by attributing them to having that. So narcissists will say that the other person is narcissistic. Yeah, it's supposed to be about four percent or six percent of the population and very strong in men. Sorry is actually like I was Dr. Ramie on YouTube. And she said that like, 80 percent shows up on men and at 20 percent in woman.
[:You know, a woman can be narcissistic as well is just, Oh sorry, guys, I'm sorry you building this thing, you know, just this is Dr. Rami. Some you just said, okay, just to check the source is Dr. Rami, a female or male?
[:He's a male. No, she's she's a she's a great American doctor. She's great. It looks like, especially from listening to all the reports that in her relationship, you're either. Well, unless you quite balanced. And it's the opposite of blaming, shaming and gaming. When this comes into play, you're either an oppressor or a victim. It looks like that, and it very much seems to attract such situations from what you've experienced as children. Like I was also mentioning earlier, when you have such a relationship, it's completely detrimental to the children and to how they grew up, and they themselves have that relationship in later life because I only had such a relationship once I had my own children, which was as a result of what I experienced as a child.
[:Violence control, you know, all kind of abuse. And actually, I'm happy to be speaking about this because we need to let it out. And what I've noticed is when we do get stronger, it's very, very important to stop the cycle. But we need to know that there's a cycle in the first place because most of the time is unconscious. We don't know. We just acting out the subconscious and the subconscious is trying to save us.
[:But in doing so, it brings on certain patterns that are not very beneficial when you're not in that state anymore. So it's a really difficult topic. So they're moving topic. That's it. I think he was just going to and there like people who play games a lot in relationships and comes from insecurities and fans things within them to make them play games on a field. But when things go wrong in a relationship and I don't feel shaming is necessarily a particularly good approach because I feel like if you approach problems with compassion and open up an understanding that will then allow the other person to be more vulnerable and be more open and honest with you and themselves, when I think about like, why did I start this group and this group called honest, honest talk on dating, heartbreak and relationships?
[:And that was built around the idea that, like running said that we don't normally talk about a lot of these things. And there is a place to discuss, discuss stuff that you wouldn't normally in everyday life to really like, build a community. You need to have an idea that people ever that polarizes people as in they ever agree to it, or they disagree because a community is built around a commitment to an idea. For me, I think and I've been searching for what the idea is, and I think it's relationships beyond.
[:Blaming gaming shaming if we stop. I think the best place to start is by looking at what is what our relationships typically. I said, basically, if you're looking at a typical marital curve, how it starts out is it starts are quite high and then it just gradually goes down over time when a relationship really works. It is like happiness. It just flows and you don't need to think about it. You just do it and it feels good.
[:Where is the relationship? It doesn't work. It causes anguish and anxiety. We think about it a lot. There is flow and friction. Relationships are really a vehicle for connection. And it's way for us to enhance our life through connection with others. So everything that we want in life comes from connection, whether it's career, whether it's personal, all the things that we want like success, meaning all of that comes through relationships. There's nothing that we can.
[:We can't all of that stuff we can't get without interacting with all the people. Now. So relationships exist on a scale, which is flow, which is great friction, which is bad, what happens in that curve is that is a breaking point and that breaking point is where the friction. Is makes the relationship more hassle than the benefit of his life. And so what actually happens is that's the point in relationships broken John Gottman talks about on average, it takes six years from a couple deciding that the relationship's over to actually divorcing.
[:And that time is. And I think a comment that he, he mentioned is maybe before when it goes under. So it's about that. A lot of the behaviors in relationships are when it's already you've already kind of switched off. There's already so much resentment, hostility that you're you still in the relationship, but it's just bad and it's just more hassle than and people are actually on give up at the point where it feels like they're just dragging dragging this relationship.
[:And it's like all the fun and the joy of being sucked out of the relationship. And so this is really how a couple can go from being so in love to not being able to talk to each other. What we really want is to not it's the curve, not to date. And what makes the curve there is friction. So friction is all the things that make some relationship hotter. We are like, there's friendships that you can have and you might have like you might work in the same place for, say, 20 years and you might have a friend that you just see now and then.
[:And the relationship never changes. And it doesn't change because it doesn't have any more challenge that. But. So for example, when a relationship based dating, which is fun and there's no responsibility to it to be in a domestic relationship where someone's clutter affects you, where someone where they spend their money affects you, where their parenting choices directly impact you. Then suddenly, the relationship like this. The relationship becomes much more challenged, and that's where you stay.
[:The differences between people. The connection is. You'll like me. We are the same. And so like the deepest connection. So, Mike, is there a part of me and it's like the identity is that we're with this person? War is they're not like us. So if you look at prejudice, racism, homophobia and all of these different things, that's about they're not like me. And so disconnection is where we see people who are different and we have this tribalistic reaction that if someone different, it feels threatening.
[:And this is why conflict is. So the closer a relationship is, the more someone else's actions impact your well-being. The more challenge the relationship is, the more challenging it is, the more your differences are going to reveal themselves. The difference is this tribal. We like people like us because it makes us feel safe. People who aren't like us. We scared off because it's like they're a different tribe. Are they friendly or not? And so we feel threatened.
[:And so when we feel threatened, it brings stress. And so we react in a way or like in, you know, frame of of stress. We feel on the frac. And so we react as a way as if we're under threat when this happens enough and if we can't reconcile that difference and that conflict. Then what happens is they do become the enemy. And so then it becomes it becomes confrontational. And that's really when the friction of that happens, and that's really how relationships break.
[:One of the things I do a lot of trouble in trying to work out in trying to block. And how I was thinking and sharing with people about relationships is if you look at that graph where it's kind of like that marriage with satisfaction, how do people judge relationships, but they judging by how they feel? And so when you're looking at something like a skill, like if you're going to drive a car or you're going to play golf the first time you do it, like I can remember, I was a 15 year old boy caddying and I used to carry bags for these golfers one day.
[:One of them said, You know, would you like two and a half ago? And I watch them and they'd all gone. What are you going 200 yards down and hit after hit? So I I said, Yeah, and I try to not do that. And there is I think it's going to go on to jobs. And I swung it and it was still on the tee and then I said, I won't have another go. And then I swung and went to it.
[:And when I did hear it just dribbled like 10 yards. Probably everyone. When you when you first drive the car, you're, you know, like like my daughter in L.A., you drive in a moment and it's so difficult to change the gears and without like not looking down to because that takes muscle memory. So like a skill, then it's like golf learned to drive a car, any of those things. We start off rubbish and we get better the more that we do it.
[:But relationships are something we've always done. We've grown up in relationship. We've always interacted with people. So we think we've mastered that skill. So the relationship is it doesn't seem a reflection of our skill. It doesn't seem a reflection of how we react, how we interact. It seems like something that's happening to us. It seems like it's. Well, it would be fine if it wasn't if it wasn't for that shit. If my asked if my ex was in and also my relationship would have been fine.
[:We don't correlate what happens in the relationship with our actions. But it seems like what it's done to us. And so for a lot of people, we look at dating and it's things like, Well, I'm okay, but look at everyone else out there. How are you going to have a relationship one night? It doesn't feel like it's a skill. It feels like it's luck. And which is something which is inbuilt in like if you just find the one, everything will magically work out.
[:So but one of the things the way I realized to explain this was. And Wilbur talks about there have been distinctions between states and structures of consciousness. So Campbell has the he has a quadrant where he says you have to wake up, grow up, clean up and show up. And so he distinguishes between states of consciousness and structures of consciousness. So lots of spiritual gurus are like they talk about being enlightened and they'll talk about any states of enlightenment.
[:But it later turns out that they've abused and abused their followers, and they didn't live up to their ideals and. There's an incongruous truth with what they preach and what they do. And so Kim will explain that as in what's happened is they've woken up in a sense of have been aware of, say, meditation of state of what's possible of what is out there. But what they haven't done is they haven't grown up as in. They haven't changed the structures of their thinking so that their structure of thinking supports the act, like living up to that awareness.
[:So there's awareness and then there's the operating of actually doing it. So it's about relationships. So in the same way that a satisfaction relationship is about an emotional state, but underpinning that emotional state structure of thinking how we think about relationships. And so what it seems like to people is that the relationship is fine. And then. The person reveals themselves or the person couldn't live up to it or we grew apart or any of these things. But what's really happened is that as the relationship got challenged, more.
[:Because it became more intimate because because as you grow connection, the more they talk, the more that you grow connection, the more connection that you grow, the deeper the the awareness of the other and the more apparent differences. So the more that you connect, the more that you understand the other person, the more you can see the difference. And so that's where it's all structures of thinking that aren't built to support that emotional state. And so that's where the friction comes in until.
[:It becomes hostility. So really, blaming gaming and shaming are different ways of thinking about relationships. So what I want to show with this is how the rest of our relationships. Is already in the way that we think about relationships when we get into them. And even before we get into the relationship. So I was looking at lots of different models and the thing with all models is all models are only true to a level. So they are just generalized ways of thinking about things.
[:But the lens that I felt was best for this was spiral dynamics. So spiral dynamics is it was originally work done by Claire Graves, who was a contemporary of Abraham Mosley. And he was, I think he was looking to prove the ideas of Maslow, and he developed the upon structures of thinking. And it was basically he was working in a similar way of Maslow, but he came to a different conclusion. And so basically this evolutionary paradigm for thinking and this is that we go for it more and.
[:So we stop at a level wherever we are is to level, but there's an important idea also from Ken Wilber, who was also involved with this later of the idea of trying to send an encrypted store that while we outgrow certain levels, we still have those layers of thinking, you know? So at any level we can, we can operate at a lower level as well. So and and I believe that most people are operating a much lower level of.
[:Thinking in sensitive relationships, as they do in their careers or in like I think people can think, very evolved about science. But when you look at how they think about relationships, you know the idea of the perfect prince and had been one out and it's complete. If you look at us really like magical level of thinking, so so you start with really basic like survival, survival level of thinking then is like a magical level of thinking, which is what I would say.
[:A lot of people are in terms of relationships. It's very tribal. It is thinking that you're appeasing lots and you can say in medicine about 300 years ago, is this the idea we were going to ever going to remember the clergy to pray for indulgences to to cure sickness or a witch passing spell or some potion? So then there's like an impulsive and egocentric level who wants power and glory? And I'm thinking like Trump, but where we're really interested in the next three levels.
[:So when you look at blowing the stage of blue is very conservative. It's it's it's a kind of religious type thinking it's the world is starkly divided into good and bad st. And sinner is the belief that people have to be controlled to be to be good. So it's all about order. Can you see from that level that shame is a natural consequence of feeling that, you know, bad or failing that other people are bad and need to be controlled.
[:So if you think like, I don't know, 50s and before, there was very much society where a lot on shaming, you know, like good used to be a thing when a housewife had had to clean their doorstep every week or or they were about like a bad wife. Okay, so, so blue is kind of a level of shame. The next stage is orange and orange is really you could sum it up as the American dream. It's someone who posed themself up by the bootstraps and by strength of their personal ability or by learning how to play the game.
[:They rise to the top of the power and win at life. It's very individualistic, and it's and it's kind of materialistic. But it's really based in understanding how the games played. So you can see that gaming. So it's it's saying and doing the right things. The next stage is green and green is the stage of it was brought in by kind of the hippie movement. And it's about it's kind of a rejection of the individualistic, materialistic for community.
[:It's it's really comes for with the kind of woke generation. It's very much about finding peace and harmony. It's saying that all rights are valid and all are equal. So it's really an attempt to make everyone feel included and belonging. So it's it which creates kind of the cancel cancel culture where opinions can't be shared if it offends someone. And so this is really the blaming them to look, I want to put it across different, different ways of explaining, so if you look at Howard Markman talks about couples argue about free things, they argue for power and control.
[:Care and concern and respect and recognition. The level of blue is really about maintaining power and control free shipping. So power and control is really a discussion in the political level orange oranges about. Not feeling cared care or concern because gaming leads to transactional behavior. I'm doing this to get this. And it doesn't feel like the you of a person cares about you, and green is about demanding respect and recognition. And the blaming comes when when that when you don't feel respected and recognized, another way of looking at it is Sue Johnson does a lot work based on attachment.
[:And she says that couples are constantly questioning and looking for. To know that they're safe where they have a partner and they're asking, Can I trust you? Can I rely on you and cannot reach you? So trust relates to not being shamed, like, can I tell you this and trust that you're not going to use it against me? Relying on some means, I just say that to me. Or, you know, or you been real.
[:And can I reach you means? Can I really connect with you without you blindingly? Well, I can't really be honest, blaming is really about showing contempt and criticism gaming. Creates a lack of integrity. And shaming creates an inability to be vulnerable. So I'm going to share some of you have seen this before. So this is we we talked about this before where we talked about. If you show up, got it, if you tell lies and cheat, if you're contemptuous and criticize, it creates a downward spiral of so of shame, of doubt, of stonewalling, which ends up with disconnection, anxiety and hostility.
[:Whereas if you show up with vulnerability, integrity, presence and kindness, you create an environment like the response and other person is out of empathy, trust, appreciation, loyalty, which then leads to a climate of connection, freedom, respect and loyalty. And so really? These. Are really about. Do we blame? Or do we forgive? Do we game or do we generally genuinely care? Or do we steam or do we accept someone as they are?
[:If we are to develop relationships beyond the blame in gaming and shaming, then it's really about changing those structures of thinking. It's changing the paradigms that we operate within because the emotional state that we have in the relationship. Is based on the interactions that we have, if the interactions are more genuine, if the interactions are more supportive. Basically, we as we said before, if we feel seen safe, secure, supported and satisfied. Then. We bring out the best in the other person, and that creates the climate where we have relationships that are.
[:Of that more supportive and the relationships that we are really wanting to build. Okay, so any. Thoughts, questions, insights will mean all new. New words.
[:Yes, I mean, this is these are very good platforms, but it's really up to the individual to see how they feel in themselves. You can't force yourself to be this or that. If you haven't worked on yourself and be like that because you're basically having a relationship is is a is a very good way of teaching about you because if you react to the other person, that means there's an issue there. The other question is actually knowing so many things to you to to to hopefully together you work to become higher and then you can apply those those lovely, you know what's on the chart?
[:But the other person may not be like this. And so you even if you apply these things, you can do it. And I was an idiot, really, because because I didn't strengthen my own self. So one of them can do these lovely things. But the other person, if you're not well inside yourself and you're just doing this in order to have a good relationship is detrimental and you can only do certain things when you have the feeling for this as well.
[:You have to have those feelings, so the individual has to come to that feeling. So I mean, maybe you suggest how to get to that feeling or how the person can really change in order to have such a relationship. I mean, it also seems also the way that at certain points, you will attract what you need to learn about yourself. It's only about ourselves. We only learned from the other to be ourselves. So really, I'm really interested to know how I get to myself because the other person, we just present themselves as good as what you feel.
[:Yeah. And yeah, I think. I think you're right. I think they the control. So what's above the line is really relationship to freedom. What's below line is relationships to control and there is. We can't control the other person, so if we do, we end up with those kind of behaviors, which ends up in a bad, bad relationship. So that's where it feels like he's out of our control. So we can't control the other person, but we can control where we give our attention and how we interact with so.
[:The relationship that you have is going to be a reflection of the structures are thinking of you and your partner. So Einstein said that every problem. The solution to every problem has to happen has to be a high level of thinking. So when we have a problem, it is the real problem, isn't the other person, but it's the level of thinking. So a problem is. A sign that we need to break off. So. So I spoke earlier and I said the about so relationships really work in spirals.
[:So the more that we talk, so it starts with conversation, everybody's relationship starts with a conversation. And when we talk to people, we reveal. Ourselves, and we learn about them, if, if, if what if someone is closed off and doesn't let us learn about them, it creates a disconnect. So. So as we learn about some, it develops the connection and the connection is this person's like me. And sooner or later, there's going to be a disconnect.
[:And it's going to be a conflict with this person is not like me. And what you what that conflict really is, it's a problem. Of your models, it's not a problem of the two people. It's it's the clash of the models that people have, like models from childhood and all these things that people have sent the. Solution, so a lot of people think that the solution is to sacrifice, and I feel like, OK, if I if I sacrifice, the person will be happy and then they'll now.
[:Like down the line, they'll sacrifice other people compromised, which is that no one gets what they want. And eventually that ends. But the real solution is that you have to break the model as in. You have to look at what are the constraints of your Model S that's keeping there. And so the solution is to transcend the levels of thinking that have created the problem. So. All of us have a relationship model. And when we have a conflict, it means that our relationship models have clashed.
[:They've reached the limit that they can with this challenge. And so it's really about. Talking and talking with respect, talking with curiosity, talking with acceptance of understanding and if a person. Understanding yourself and that what you talk about that people have done, that's the work you do in the conversation. So of course, it depends on someone being willing to do that. But some people will have different levels at which they, you know, like it's maybe this level, maybe this level, maybe this level.
[:But it's really reaching the level of that thinking and breaking both models and rebuilding. Does that make sense or is that too abstract?
[:So what will the new model look like, or is that something unique to the two people?
[:I'm. So the problem is caused by someone structure thinking that makes them think so like. If there's a set, there's a conflict about. Parenting. And someone wants to. Some of those put their child in private school. Some of those that went public school and they're at loggerheads. So it's really about it's not really about school, it's about what does that symbolize? Because every problem. Is really. All the things that we think we want. Right, so the things that we really like this is my goal.
[:This is what I really want is a symbol for something that we want. OK, so we look at. Materialistic things. So material, concrete things as being the thing that we want, but what we really want is an emotional feeling. So it's really about what does that mean to you? Because the things out there, we see that are okay. So let's say like someone really wants a Mercedes. And I kind of want this beside this.
[:What do they really want? It's really like states, this is really like I want to show I've made it, I want it to feel luxury, I want to feel rich, I want to feel successful, I want to feel that kind of thing. So people are fighting about a style that they want like that that the two different things like public school and private school are making different things. So like I said, money people are fighting about money, but money can be security to one person, freedom or fund to another.
[:So it's really understanding that. And I saw itching, and I think she may have something to clarify.
[:You said something about what what you want, what do you really want? And I think that it's more nuanced than that in the sense that some people build up expectations based on the influences that have been put on them through their lives from from their born, your family, their community in which you live. We take that these are the things that we really want, but these things have been foisted on us throughout our own lives. We are. These are the things that a responsible citizen, a responsible parent should aspire to having, especially if in your relationship you're going to have children and to maintain your position in society, you need to have X and Y.
[:And so you are aspiring to things not that you really want, but to meet other people's expectations. And I think a lot of the tension that sometimes arises in people comes as a result of that. One partner may not be that. Concerned. About meeting the aspirations of going to these various, you know, things about school, et cetera. And the other one is because their self-esteem is predicated on the approval of others. And I think we need to in a relationship, we have to unpick what our true desires are, who we really are and understand that to be really meaningful.
[:Otherwise we are not paying the relationship the the due attention that it deserves. Rather, we are putting our energies in trying to please the external onlookers, so to speak.
[:Yeah. Thank you for. Thank you for clarifying that. So, so really, we navigate in life and I think in your 20s, it's really hard to really know what you. I think in your 40s and 50s is really hard to know. But what you and what programmed so there is. So all of us. So I often think that a way of explaining people. So people typically say, Well, look, people have been bad or.
[:You know, like people divide people into groups, and I look at people as being like a phone is that you have the right hardware of refinement. It's like the genetics of a person. And so your temperament, whether you're outgoing or whether you're cheerful or tall or how you look is going to come mostly from your genetics. And that's quite the hardware refine and then the way that you operate, it's going to mostly come from your operating system. And then on a phone, you have apps and the human equivalent of that skills.
[:So. I look at how people. OK. So I think that. Given like if I had your same experiences, your same cultural upbringing, your same parents, you're changing. I would see the world exactly as you see it. And I think there's this is this kind of. Light blue, red, blue, orange in green kind of thinking that people are some people are better, some people, some people are better than others and. It's really we are the product of our genes, our experiences, our programming and everything that's happened to us.
[:So when you're looking at what something means to someone, it comes from, how they can program from each your children, their genetic temperament. It comes from the white, the identity that they see themselves. It comes from their experiences and what they meant to them. It comes from the all the messages that they've had from parents in media culture, the religious upbringing that they've had, the the roles that they've had and the way that they see that that impacts their identity.
[:So. What so, so like when when a couple first gets together with Taylor, like early twenties is often the first time I know for me, you go on someone else's household like in a more intimate way and you see the way that their household runs and you suddenly realize for the first time that the way your family did everything was just your family culture. It was different because when we grow up within. Within a system. It is hard to see that anything else can be different.
[:I think it is David Foster Wallace to give a commencement speech on this is water. And it's basically around, you know, a couple of fish. Young fish swimming along in an older fish swimming by and he says, Hi boys. How's the water? I got what water? And if you were a fish that is always been in, it would be like us walking past someone and saying, You know what? How's the air? Yeah, whatever.
[:Because we don't think that we're surrounded by air. So. The conflicts that we have. With people with ideas on how we know ourselves. And conflict. Where we've mostly been threatened by conflict, conflict is really. The way that we can refine what is us? And what was put there by someone else? Because. The so when you look at most relationships, don't work, 55 percent of marriages end in divorce. If you count all relationships, then it's even higher.
[:And so there's clearly something system systemic, that's the problem rather than individuals. And so. The. And so that has to be. Something in in the way that we think. But the way. So I look at friction and conflict as being like the way a sculpture is made. And I really liked Michelangelo's Way of when he was said like, how did you create that beauty? Been great. I just took away what was meant, and I feel like friction and conflict is like the sculptor's chisel of taking away the surplus to reveal the beautiful statue underneath.
[:So I don't know if that made it any more concrete. Or Robert.
[:From now on, you have to know if I I listen to everything is really interesting. I think sometimes we try and logic everything as well through thought process and analysis. And I don't know whether or not. We can all process all logic love. I think that's for me personally, that's the beauty of the eye, I understand we can look at conflict. But if you love somebody, I think you can move away from conflict because the love is greater than any conflict.
[:And I've never really met anybody who I truly understand 100 percent. And then as soon as I do understand it, 100 percent, there's no room for development. So whether or not you know, you're in a state of growth, it's nice to have those mysteries in those different states and. Yeah, but but certainly going back to the initial things when you were saying about shaming and name again and and things like that, yeah, they are all negative traits and they're negative traits of things.
[:We've probably conditions learned. And so I think somebody said, how do you get away from that? So for me, I tend to think I'm going to use the word immigrant in its in its widest context. I think maybe you were alluded to this about the fish, and in some ways it's nice. It's good for us all to be an immigrant in life at some points. Many say immigrants who don't go to another country would be in a position whereby read totally abandoned and totally lost and get totally out of back then to give that vulnerability so that we understand actually the control concept in all of our thought processes.
[:They're not going to help us in this situation, and it's OK to be in a situation where we're completely lost because in lost is the way you know, to drift is, is to help the perfect path. Because if you tune in to your own, your own feeling, which you mentioned, the heart resonance which is arguably different to your logical, your thought process, this is that this is what a lot of people debate over. But if you go back to our true heart resonance and we go by what feels right, then that should take us on the right journey.
[:And in principle, we should meet the right people because. To have the same philosophy and the same outlook on whether the child should go to private school or a public school is a logical question. It might solve the problem, but it doesn't prove love. It just proves that there maybe once again conditioning to be together to reach a platform that one feels is success. So to no one's success where you do, you obviously have an immigrant of some description of being a place where you know nothing and your wants to.
[:No one and nobody looks up to you. And then to start from that platform and to accept yourself that we're all we're all in that position at some point.
[:I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. I love what you brought up about. I think people dislike confusion because it feels uncomfortable. But confusion is the state when you've broken a model and you haven't rebuilt it yet. I also like, um, like what you said about. Yeah, we we have different. But for me, conflict is a call for connection. Conflict is a way of saying we have this difference, but how do we? So if you look at really prejudice and if you look at we've come out of societies have been very tribal and we were fighting for fighting for resources.
[:And so there is this ingrained sense of someone who's different is scary. And so it's like the 20th century has really been the idea. Of different cultures, mixing and realizing that for all the apparent differences. We're still more in we still have more in common in humanity than in the fact of. Different cultural ways. And there's something in. The is next to each other. Tend to be more. It tends to be more conflict, more difference will rivalry, more hatred amongst the countries that are next to each other because they're more threatened because they have historically they share borders.
[:So there's tools that threat of invasion. And if you look at even in football teams, the biggest match, the biggest hostility is between a derby game Liverpool, Everton, Man City or Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham. It's teams that are close together, which mirrors like England, Scotland, France, England, France, Germany. Which which mirrors that, yeah, and it's. Yeah, it's really that idea of being immigrant of. Because what conflict really is about, if you to take it to the steepest levels is I want to be right.
[:Because me being right means I'm God is kind of ultimately what underpins it, whereas so I look at basically this freeway's free attitude. There is. The power seeker who wants to be right, you know, like you could be right where you can be happy and they want to be right, there is the peace seeker who will compromise to be liked. And then is the truth seeker who wants to get it right? So. The person, the truth seekers who wants to get it right is the immigrant.
[:They don't want to want a guy. Okay, what then? What am I missing? What they don't know? What do I know? That isn't right? What I know? I know. What am I reacting to? And how do I grow from this conflict? Where is the power seeker is, I think, just like this? And so the tools of the power seeker are shame because it shuts people up gaming because it means they get their way or blaming in frustration as part of.
[:Please forgive my tones. I was going to put forward this notion that I haven't thought it through properly, but we are starting from the viewpoint of a relationship when we get into it that it's the one that's going to last forever. So our efforts are geared towards getting this relationship. And then on the assumption that it and not just from ourselves, but from society, that it's, you know, according to whatever vows you take, et cetera, et cetera.
[:The relationship is till death, do us part or something like that? But I want to look at it from the other viewpoint. A relationship can be fulfilling, it can give you a lot. It can add to your growth. It can give you emotional contentment, but it has a lifespan. It may not last forever and it may not necessarily end in acrimony, but it, after all. Let's face it, we are living long Gurr and so till death do us part in.
[:When was it the 15th century? 16tH century, even in the eighteen hundreds was, what, 40 years? Thirty years, 20 years? Probably a marriage would would last. Now people are in relationships and having marriages last in 60 70 years. Why do we think that when we do enter into a relationship, that that must be the end point? And if we don't make it that far, we have failed. Because I think that some relationships give a lot, but they have a lifespan, and that depends on the growth trajectories of the partners, the levels of fulfillment that each is derived from the relationship, et cetera.
[:And they could have a mutual parting of the ways, and they had a fulfilling relationship.
[:I love that. And it's the nuance that. You see, for me, relationships have really been about how you navigate. How do you navigate relationships is really how you navigate life because. If people really want to talk about relationships between missing and it's okay, you know, it's like people have dating advice, relationship advice and it's it's about what is that relationship, but. The basic building blocks of a relationship are individuals. And so if you don't if you work on the level of the relationships you've already made assumptions that which which you've talked about.
[:A good relationship is the same as happiness, it's flow, and when it happens, you don't need to talk about it. You don't need to fuss, I think over when it doesn't happen because there's something blocking, there's some problem and the problem is the level of thinking. And so what I really love about what you said is that. The idea was the one which makes me realize that when people are going into that idea of the one. What they're really going in with is if you think about it is.
[:I want to be right. I have this idea of the one I want to fill and make it right. And so there comes that's where the level of control comes and all those games blame shame come because I have this picture that I have to match you to. So my idea of a relationship is it goes to the level. It goes to the level that can. But he shouldn't be. The level of pain that people feel after breakup. That is more about trying to fit a picture.
[:You know, like China, it's like trying to fit the Mirror into a picture. Do you know, like when you look in the mirror, it reacts to you? But what people are doing is like, No, no, no, stay there, stay there. And it's like they just to change the mirror instead of trying to change themselves. Relationships won't always work out. But what the whole thing of of the relationships is. You find a level of connection with each person connect and you find the level to.
[:And it may or may not be. For life, and I think if people are committed and they have the right attitude, they can. But not all relationships well and. There may be, you know, like some of the points. People aren't willing to go beyond that, like everyone's got different levels of openness to truth. Everyone's got a level. They're willing to go to how vulnerable they're going to be. All of those things that's going to determine.
[:The level of how far into the conflict that they have and also so the other dimension of that is how challenging. Like if you were lucky, I wouldn't have children now. So that's less challenging. Whereas in your 30s, when you've got the children, you know, all of those like two careers, all of that stress, that's much more challenging relationship than a relationship. When you're a little bit older and you know yourself, get more and have you don't have the stress of children.
[:And so. Yes, relationships won't always work out, but there's no need for there to be hostility about it because it's just okay, this is what we've come to. But the hostility is a reaction to the societal sense of shame, to a like legalistic sense that there has to be blame and the feeling of being gained as being lied and cheetah. And so if you take away the lying and cheating, if you take away the shame and you take away the sense of blame and it's just, you know, other people will do what they do, I will navigate according to, you know, my life, my life this this is where I'm going to set my boundaries.
[:And the key is where you put your attention. The people are putting their attention on trying to force people into what they're not, which leads to control, which leads to all of these things, which is what the hostility is about. Because connection is nothing more natural than connection. We don't need to learn dating techniques. We don't need to learn relationship techniques. We've it's natural to connect the bit that's artificial. So it's biologically inbuilt in us that we all need to connect the bit where all the tension, stress and all everything else comes in is the fact that we are a biological being that's having to operate in an artificial social construct.
[:So it's the artificiality of our environment. If you look at mental health, it's not. People are mentally ill. It's that people are being made to operate in an environment that makes them mentally ill. So aplomb is not set because it's in the wrong environment. Plant is just lacking water climate or some in the same way someone who's mentally ill is just lacking something that they're not getting from their environment. And so conflict. Is an opportunity to recognized.
[:What am I not getting that I need? What do I think I need that I don't need? And what am I doing just on autopilot, because everyone's told me now I should. And so the bigger the bigger go isn't the relationship, the bigger ego is knowing what you need and who you are. But you're never going to get that if you're not in relationships. Because a lot, Robert said, when we get stuck in our own fault, we can't.
[:That's where we get stuck because where we believe the full. And we blame like if we like, if everything in my head and I believe everything in my head is gospel and I really believe that I know everything and there's nothing more for me to know and nothing that I've picked on. That's wrong. Then I'm going to be late. I'm going to blame everyone else around me. I'm going to blame the environment, the economy, the politics, all of that stuff because the Fool is there.
[:But we can't change that. You could spend all your life to change any one of them, and you probably wouldn't. But the thing that we can change is those cells. Because the problem isn't us. The problem is the environment we're operating in. And so the only way that we can navigate through that is by changing the stuff that we believe we can't change the way we feel like we can't change our home and we can't change our genetics, we can't change any of that, but we can change what we believe and what we operate on.
[:Can I just ask you a question, Rob? And when you were saying that it's not necessarily like the connection because it's a connection was like natural, but it's like the artificial environment that like a relationship goes into. Can you just explain a bit more what you mean by the artificial environments, please?
[:Okay. I'm. All right. So. If you look at the history of humanity where we came from, we were cavemen and somewhere we got together and tribes we got together and tribes and then we developed civilization, we developed civilization and we developed a rule of government. So we developed someone decided that they only control and they set out. So if you look at the history of humanity, it's been about control. It's been about religious ideas that you should be this that are enforced.
[:And it's been about governmental. Rules, and it's been about cultural like peer pressure. You should do this. Yes. So. Yes. So like we move from nomadic to agricultural oasis 10000 years ago, we we moved from. You look at tribes and they had they had like a mythology. Joseph Campbell talks a lot about the mythology that more like American Indians and all kinds of tribes had and and the mythology was a way of coming to terms with.
[:Like, killing animals like to just kill an animal is like the argument of a lot of vegans vegetarians is that if you want killing, then we should meat it. And the like the American Indians had a mythology about they had a contract with the animal, so that was the sacredness in the way that they killed them. There was a belief that it was part of the circle of life. So. The mythology that we operate from, and I'm trying to think so.
[:Sort of relevant example. Yes, I mean, what Sandra Sandra talked about the till death, do you part right coming in the church was never involved in weddings. Right, the church. The church didn't develop weddings, people. Develop weddings, I think there was a social tournament. I think it was a social contract like validate weddings because it's a way of controlling them, and the church got involved because people will get married and it was out of their control.
[:So the two fisted power, all of that wedding march was constructed in about a thousand, maybe. And it's constructed to take something that was happening. Into a religious context so that they had control over it. And obviously, this is like there are people that will say, OK, it's in the Bible, and I'm like, Well, I don't believe in the Bible. I don't believe the Bible is divine. I believe that the Bible is written by people and other people believe it's divine.
[:So the basis? For religious right is if you believe that the Bible is what say, Christians believe it is or what? Islamic society for Hindu or whatever, whatever they believe in late, like you believe being a believer means that you agree. To the divinity of. I think it was they were books made by people because I look at religion, I look at Buddha and I look at Jesus, and both pretty much explicitly said neither of them formed a religion.
[:And they both pretty much explicitly said, don't their religion. If you read Jesus's sermon on the Mount, it was everything that Christianity is. Everything he said was not to do. Is it exactly what Christianity did? So if you look at the Christian holidays, they. To put in there on pagan like the pagan holidays, and so it's just a way of. This is the way I see the world, because these are the pagan like pagan holidays, the pagan perspective, and I'm just going to take Christianity and put it into that.
[:And so what I'm saying is if our ancestors emit different decisions, if different people want different wars, the world would be completely different. So the very much like the Orange Mean is very much self-made man. And when you have people like George Bush, who was a son of a President, Donald Trump, who was given all this money to say that they were self-made men. No one's the self-made man. There's the reason what Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, all of them, all of them come from the western world.
[:The reason they're not coming from Africa or they're not coming from Vietnam because they they are part, they're made by the systems, the infrastructure that's already there, that gives them the opportunity to be what they are. So that's really what I'm talking about. Does that make sense?
[:So I can understand what you mean, definitely by obviously the fact that so basically, this is what I got from what you've said that the world has developed in a certain way and therefore that has conditioned the way that we see relationships. But actually, that's not what relationships are truly about, that they're just about connecting with other people. And all of the things, you know, like, that's just the traditional form of marriage and all the duties that we feel like we need to perform in relationships in this modern time actually isn't the true nature of relationships, and that we should understand that when we're trying to navigate in her own relationships.
[:Is that right?
[:Yeah. Yes. So patriarchy happened as a consequence of past choices. That. The fact that you can be a feminist and you can say I reject patriarchy, but it's built in in every structure because it's conscious and unconscious, by the way, that language, you know, has it in it. Certain meanings like we don't think about the words that we use. But if you look up the etymology of words, you can see that they were constructed within a certain beliefs that a certain religious belief, cultural framing and all of that whether we agree with it or not.
[:Subconsciously, our thinking has been led in that direction because we can't stop. You can't come out. So I'm kind of like The Matrix, the film The Matrix, and you know, your boom within The Matrix, and we can't we can't start with nothing because otherwise no one would ever do anything. So we have to operate within. Some cultural framework otherwise, like we would always just be cavemen, Bob. What I'm trying to say is every problem that we have.
[:Relationships are not, but every problem that we have comes from that framework. And it's stuff that, you know, like everyone thought the world was square of was flat and then we found it was round. Everyone thought that the the Earth was the center of the universe, and then we found that we rotated around the Sun. Many of the assumptions we are operating on. Our ancestors are going to laugh as much that how how stupid we were before believing them, but.
[:We we can't see what we have no frame of reference for. And so we have to. We have to have the conflict to know what might not be true because. So the someone who wants to be right doesn't want to anything to contradict because what they're doing is they're trying to they have this idea that they want to be like all of us want to be the best. All of us want to be special. All of us want to be in this amazing thing.
[:And part of growing up and maturity is coming to terms with the disappointment of not being all those things that we thought we would be. So. It's. This conflict is that thing of of letting go of being that perfect thing. Yes, so it's it's complicated to the opportunity to find what we what we don't know what we thought we knew but was wrong. Well, and just all of our biases. You know, there's I think I've got a book here, it's select 51 different biases, emotional biases, but there's so many ways that we don't realize.
[:In every interaction. And we don't realize how much our thinking has come from someone else because we're all trying to be that self-made man who's amazing. But we are just products of our environment and our experience.
[:I think that's so true. And I think as well, because when you think about if you put, I mean, I'm not a religious person, but I have like a religious background type of thing, and sometimes it is hard to remove what you think that I really should be in this day and age. It's like genuine away from like, you know, religious what's the word tendencies? Because you're right. Like, where do all those things come from?
[:And are they even the right thing to believe? You know, to me.
[:Yeah, definitely. Because logically so logically, you can understand. But the amount of. So you bring this bill from how many neural connections there are and how often those neural connections neural pathways are triggered. So it's like walking through a field if you're the only person to walk through a field and it doesn't make much of a dent. The bit that everyone walks through, there's this like deep rock. And it's the same with thinking. And if everything in your culture, everything in your experience has led you to.
[:To view relationships, marriage, all of those things in a certain way, the fact that you've suddenly thought about one day or you've read a book about it or something is not enough is not enough for it to really thinking and change your neurology because what we're talking about in terms of operating is what's what's the? So when you stressed, when you're tired, when you're busy, you're not really going to consciously think about everything you're going to do, what the most common.
[:Four pathways. And so that's going to be the one that's been trying to you until you've overridden it enough time. So, so it's so this is more of a way of navigating past, so it's recognizing when things happen and being able to step, step away and say, Okay, I see. Like, OK, right, there's a problem. It probably means this, so sending in the mall, I I'm thinking, so I need to look dispassionately.
[:This is why, if you can, if you can get into a relationship where you are really able to open up and really talk because you have a lot of trust and all that safety stuff and you can just this is what I'm thinking. This is what I'm thinking. If it's out of your head, you can see it. So in a sense, a lot of what you have to do is objectify yourself. Because. We this is like in spiritual things people will say, who is the thinker of the fall?
[:And what it's trying to do is recognize that because you have a thought doesn't mean you are. There has to be an observer observer thinking before. So if you're to objectify yourself, you have to take it out of your out of your head. So it's not identify you identify with it, but you can see it and examine it. And if you are able to have. An open and honest conversation with someone there. That's really what you were able to do.
[:It's kind of, you know, like in Harry Potter, if you've seen that Dumbledore takes out his memories and that's really the ability to take that out and see it. So you're not identifying with being in it and being it, but you can see it. And that's what a really open and honest approach to conflict is. So if you have that kind of relationship, we have trust and you have acceptance and respect. You can objectify your thinking and that's how you can see.
[:What isn't you? And because it's really about. When it's all in our head, we identify with the full. If that makes sense.
[:Yeah, that is true, that is because, yeah, that makes sense because of see, I believe that religion is different in spirituality. So I said my my background is religious, but I'm more spiritual now. But I do feel like in my romantic relationships, I can get sometimes trapped in that very traditional way of thinking like, you know, man versus woman type of thing. And I just had a moment, and I think that's where some a conflict is coming from, because it's not really serving me to have that attitude because I feel like I'm always put in because he's not like that at all.
[:Like, you know, but I am, but I'm just that this is actually my problem, I think. But the traditional ways I've been thinking, which isn't my original thought, I'm not really who I want to be, is impacting my relationship now. Yeah.
[:There's something that you said is my problem and. Something in that is the idea that this is the idea that there is some blame in having a problem. A problem is is so if you have a problem in the car is because the wiring isn't right or something isn't quite working. But it's not. They shouldn't, should that. I don't think there's really poor judgment. It's like I get the message I would really want to get across is if we can accept each other and ourselves without judgment.
[:But just say this is how we are, then that's how we have great relationships, if we can just take judgment out if we can take out a certain goal. And judgment of how we all. That's back to the natural state. And so every problem is, is evil because we're attached to an outcome or is because we're judging ourselves. Oh, blimey. Ourselves or others. And Sandra's Gold Goldwyn spoke, I went to a religious school, and of course, you know, Jamaica has a reputation for having so many churches per square mile, which is true.
[:We're just just just on that point. So did I and my parents were Irish and we went to my dad's village, which is he told us he walked barefoot miles to school. He lived here. His they lived by the field. Next to that was the church and school. It had two pubs, one post office, which doubles as a shop. And that was it. Two pubs and the church for this tiny little place. But it's so island similar.
[:Yeah, so it's. But of course we we had to be different. We have the Rombauer next door to the church many times, but nonetheless, right? So it's it's this thing where wherever you're from, there's a church that's nearby and you're associated with are several churches in one village where my mother's family is from. They they come from Methodists, from here via Canada to Jamaica. And so yes, the church in my village has our name on it, if you know what I mean.
[:So we are an I. Yes. And my father is from another church, an institution which has never been to church in my entire life. He did not go to church. It's the Moravians from the Czech Republic. Believe it or not. And I went to an Anglican school, so you won't think that I would be very religious. I should be a good girl. I shouldn't say I should be really good with all of this great and.
[:Some years, I've always questioned these these stories about this question, the Bible. You know, I read the back, you know, when you are small, you read the Bible from cover to cover, and it sounds so political, all the rest of it. But there comes a point when you start to really question it. And I questioned and I questioned and I said, No, there are certain things that don't work with me and I can't understand.
[:And as a student of science, some of the things you know, like the miracles and some of the other things, just the plagues and whatever, I could find a scientific explanation for it. So yeah. But the point I'm making is that I got to the point where in my head, I said to myself, No. I will not have a conflict any further. I'm not going to be if in unboxing and apologizing to people and pretending and acting as though I'm going along with it just to be part of the crowd.
[:So when my goes association gets together and stuff and the heathen in the bunch, you understand and like one of my very close friends, we actually work together and she says, Betty, I know you don't believe, but. And is this kind of thing? Where are this guilt tripping that you have to be? Really, you know, I know you don't believe, but. And then one of my klook, one of my close friends, she's said she's now reverend, whatever it is in the Anglican Church up here.
[:And clearly, we are. I am the heathen school. And really by God, you know, just it's like, I've never heard of God in her eyes. But the point is, I hold firm to my beliefs. I see no need to justify to them. I respect their beliefs and they can make all kinds of snide remarks. It's like water off my back because I. And as a matter of fact, I have released my husband, who's still my husband from having not be able to see.
[:I believe in God. So he's believing in God all over the place on Facebook and wherever I am released him to express himself. The bottom line is. In releasing him, he has released me to continue to be who I am.
[:Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that is that like forgiveness is, so I grew up Catholic had to go to church all of these things, and it was just like, this is my sense and. I I grew up thinking, you know, like it seems like Jesus, is this completely wimp, really? He's like, You know, you must, you know, someone slaps you on television. And so I didn't understand.
[:Really like Jesus, until I saw the passion, the passion of the Christ and I saw, like in the brutality, there was beauty and brutality, and it was there was strength in. Yeah, I saw the strength in the. Remember where I was going to start off with that point, but. Yeah, but the one person who probably could make me convince me to be a Catholic again is far from Richard Rule. He makes perfect sense of because like growing up there was this assumption and I remember, you know, I would argue my my mom and my sister and about religion, and I said, Well, you need religion.
[:Well, why do you need it? Because otherwise people would be right to them religion. Okay. Well, that's not what stops them. Yeah, and just growing up within a religion, you saw so much hypocrisy that minute, what how can that make any sense anyway? Bernie?
[:Well, yeah. And yeah, I don't know if I can ever accept another person for who they are. You know, I've always thought, I'm pretty open minded, actually, if I want a relationship is going to be one of mutual, you know, self kind of thing. We let the other one be who they are and I do the same. And, you know, and pretty much the base of a beautiful relationship where you know you, you accept people for who they are generally.
[:And then I had this experience, I think it was two or three weeks ago, I was going to meet someone actually, because I was in such a good environment, I think, is the time that I want to meet someone. And with being just as I finished my career, that was on the street. This guy just started talking to me and we started talking. And then, so let's go for coffee. So we went for coffee.
[:Oh my God, I thought I fall in love. And I can really fall in love with you. You had all the beautiful characteristics that, you know, enchanting and then you were singing about life and Laura. And you know, some really good point. I really heart things, which is very important for me more than the mind the heart is. And then the following day we met up again, and then he did something. I've been off.
[:No, no, no. I thought he's been lying, you know, from the is that what you did is a lie? I don't believe anything anymore. And yes, I didn't even want to approach him because I would be so embarrassed to even tell him what I'm thinking, actually. But it is something like, no, I don't feel like putting up with this kind of thing. So what am I? You know, I mean, it's like, I I don't want to accept somebody for who they really are.
[:It's a human trait. It's it's being human. We are like that. I don't I don't think we can fight it because I thought I was pretty open minded. I it was like a minuscule little thing and he's just blown up and it's actually made me anyway with, thank God, I went over it and you know, you see my student texting and being very nice, and maybe at some point I could say to him, Blah blah blah.
[:You know, I thought this and that, and then we probably have a good friendship and maybe going to something else. But no. From that little thing. So is there any hope?
[:I'm OK. The question which comes to my mind is when you say that, that makes you shut down why?
[:Because I'm not prepared, first of all, to live off lines, not prepared. You know, people tell lies, including myself, I've lived, I life when so yeah, and I hate when to save somebody or to save myself to somebody else. And and also when the other person is not going to be comprehensive on what you're trying to communicate is like a deadlock. So you said the situation is not the bad light is just a normal sweet life, basically.
[:So it's not bad, but majorly. And I like the truth. I like the truth. I don't care if it's a lie for me. The truth is good. Everything is good. As soon as somebody is trying to show me another face, I can take it. It's like, OK, I. So my challenge is, but why didn't you tell him what you were thinking and feeling of yourself?
[:Because I was quite embarrassed by what I thought. I was very embarrassed. I can't say it was shown me that he was really, really weak and said very weak. And he had vision, vision and you had so many businesses. And then the following day we went for a coffee and we actually expected me to pay for my mom. Oh yeah. To to pay for my cup of coffee. Because when you tried to kiss me on the lips when we were partying the night before, I went like that.
[:So I showed him. I was just afraid because obviously I'm not going to just go with England, no matter how, you know, I thought it was a nice relationship. So that little thing like just really put me off him. I think he's really poor and you could afford to buy me coffee or he was just lying about where he's really, really was. And oh, he was so selfish. And I thought, Oh, said selfish.
[:I'm not having that in my life. I'm always giving and I expect somebody to give. Now I am tired of just giving and the other one being selfish. Full stop. So every client does not boast a very rich man, will not boast a very rich person, does not have the needed boost. As a matter of fact, they will keep it hidden away from people to ensure that you like them for who they are and not for what they have.
[:So he was playing you. I think you are right in what you did. The only thing is I think you should have called him out, but then that's me. I would have called him out.
[:I would be controlling the fact I didn't buy you a coffee because you wouldn't do what he wanted you to do. So he's kind of punishing you in a way because he wants to be in control. And I didn't like that. I really didn't like that to that, and I didn't want to. I didn't have to make a note of that because really, it's it. That's it. And actually, I spoke to my daughter about it and she said exactly what some guy said.
[:No, you touched everybody, but not less. And I like I don't trust, you know, it's not very nice to live a life where you can't trust anyone. He to see things I just say about you. Sorry. That's according to Go ahead. So I've been friends with. We just saw his talking exactly the way I was going to say, You're very brave, Veronica, for sharing that with us. That's really that's very admirable of you.
[:I just wanted to say that because. Yeah, not many people just share their story like that. And I think it helps all of us, really? Yeah, thank you. Thanks a lot. Yeah, interesting.
[:Last been said about religion and marriage. I'm not a particularly religious person. But I mean, I'm divorced. I'm sure there's other people on the to are, and I'll never get married again. All right, that's usually the men that propose usually the way it works. That will not happen with me. And the reason why I don't want the government in my marriage and my relationship with the government when it comes to divorce. You're talking solicitors and law firms and you're talking about blaming and shaming, but anybody who's gone through a divorce.
[:You know, there's there's there's never. The solicitors, there's a writer and you may have heard of him, Guy called Charles Dickens and he said the only business is solicitors. It's my business to solicitors. And that was in Victorian times. So we're hearing what people say about religion in that. But for me, I mean, I'm a libertarian anyway, you know, for small government and I do not want the government or anyone involved in my relationships.
[:And it's interesting now that the divorce rates are so low now because the marriage rates are so low. So obviously, I'm not the only man thinking this. Putting that one out there.
[:Yeah, I think anything. I think there's two main sources of control, which is organized control, which is religion and government and. Both of them. Got involved and my marriage. Under their control.
[:But I think seeing that we have confirmed to the so-called norms of society the expectations, you know, the patterns that we follow, the traditions, school and, you know, the perfect marriage and the children and the mortgage, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The focused. At that point is on the notion of the marriage, the institution and doing all the things that go along with what that perfect union is supposed to look like. You know, the children and blah blah blah and you go to the right church and all of those things and what you do know.
[:Robert, I haven't actually done the divorce yet, but I'm on the other side. I'm on the other side. Don't worry. So I now think that the focus should be is well, in my case, the focus is going to be on the quality of the relationship. Marriage is no longer in any part to a variable in any equation of mine.
[:And unfortunately for yourself, single again, you know, I think a lot of people probably wouldn't get married again. I think that's the feeling I get. Yeah, I do. I live. Yeah, I live. I live with nature, my husband's clock to sit in the moment and there is one two little guys five of us or four of us will be married or divorced, one guy twice. None of us will get married again. Rural guys in our 40s.
[:50S.
[:Would you like to use their relationship? Are you averse to having a good relationship with them?
[:Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, um, you know, you said about more. I don't have any children, but I'm sure there's plenty of people on the planet. Didn't even get married or have, you know, fathers and mothers and didn't get married. And I've got a mortgage. So, yeah, I'm not averse to funding myself in a good relationship. But I do not. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not even sure if I live with someone.
[:That's a little bit debatable, but that one's the jury's out on that, but certainly not marriage. Not unless she's really, really rich.
[:So I think that's the thing is about rather than having an idea of what a relationship should be. It's about navigating through relationships and recognizing you can have relationships the way you want. Not necessarily with a specific person, but you can have the relationship you want. If we let go of, it's got to be this person because my hormones are saying is got to be this one and it's got to be this because my programming tells me it needs to be this.
[:And it may be that you, you know, like you can live separate houses and things like that. That might be right, but it may also be. Sometimes it's a reaction to the stress and the pain and of a past relationship, which. When he you can change your minds, but it's about you can have some life to be in a long time. Well, I wasn't recent my divorce. It was a long time ago.
[:Hmm. Yeah, well, I think. But I think what's really clear is not being not doing what you do because of dogma, not doing what you do because of ignorance and not doing what you do because of emotion on either side of that. And if you can make decisions clear of that, it's more about who you really are and not in reaction to something else, whichever way. But you can have, but relationships are really about finding the form of relationship that's right for you.
[:The. Yeah, it is been so much that it's the person it's right for you. He's the person, but more than that, it's about the form of relationship. There's so many single people, there's so many people of all kinds of we really want to be in a relationship, really don't want to be in a relationship that you can work out what you want. But it's just being clear of the dog manage drama and the not knowing what you don't know.
[:Chi chi chi chi chi chi, Robert, and I feel the same, too. I had been online for a very long time and I and I'm actually dating a guy. And he felt he hadn't been with anyone for a long time, either been divorced a long while, he has, but. I'm his first after a very, very long time. And everything changed for him. I mean, when the intimacy comes in, when you meet the right person, the intimacy comes in.
[:Things are flowing and you know, it kind of changed your mind. You don't have to kind of live with each other and move in with each other that quickly. I mean, we've known each other seven eight months. We still live in our province and we just kind of, you know, meet up and whatever. You know, it just doesn't even matter how many years. But once we quick, you forget what it's like to be with the opposite sex.
[:You get so used to doing things for yourself in in your own sort of group generally because hung around with the guys like you did. And I hung around with the girls like I did. And then we kind of forget what it's like to be with the opposite sex. But you know, it is nice. It is nice to have somebody nice company. Really sorry, you might have forgotten the feeling.
[:Yeah. It's really doing the thing. It's a bit like people say it is free of us in the marriage, and that's what it is this and it's not even that it's really huge then. And it is all the other things on cultural family, all of these reactions to past relationships. All of these things that are stopping us from connecting. And if we can just let go of all of that, it's yeah, that that's that's what we want.
[:And that's the relationship that's right for us. Verdict, is that your hand still from before or did you have to just put it back up just now? I mean, look what I would say, I mean, it's is to to really find out what it is that you learn from that marriage. You know, that like if you one teaches us something that we attract them to to show something about what we need to learn or what's not working about us or whatever, and to really look at that because from that, you, you won't have the same ideas and you don't want to be stuck in this feeling of, I don't want these that don't want that this hurts me because then you you continue to be the same victim that you were when when you divorced, you know, and and even with my ex, now that we're still having challenges and it does take a lot of strength and I keep praying for guidance and also for courage because I don't have it.
[:But when I really face him with the monsters that he is, I ask, You know, what am I learning from this? And then as soon as I get it, it is. So it really does dissolve. And then you can move on from that emotion of, you know, that would be that would be what I would share with with anyone that's going through pain because I've been through a lot of pain and it's taken me a long time to see this and I can see I can share that the miracle that comes from just really looking at the pain, usually looking at your emotions and actually welcoming the Enlightenment from it, because that is the next step will come.
[:You will have the new wave of your new state and the attraction that you will get. You might get the most wonderful woman after that, and it doesn't have to come through a partnership with it, and it can just be through friends. You start off with friends, you can start off with children, even, you know, things that really resonate or businesspeople and, you know, things like that. So stick in it like this because I think it's really, really sad human beings not being able to connect.
[:That's what your workshops are about. It's about connection. We can only fulfill ourselves to give connections and not to have those who have been so hurt by those. We are so limiting our life on this planet. You may as well not leave. I mean, I don't want to be one when I'm not feeling like I'm not like everybody else. But majorly the human heart is about that. That's it.
[:And that's something we've said is that. Pain, anxiety, any emotion is created, there's something that's holding it in place. There's a structure to a motion. And so it's not something that happens to us. But it's something that we create from our thinking. And it's just when you have that awareness and you can pull it apart and you can let go. You you're not controlled by anything.
[:Yeah, I would agree with that. Robin O'Sullivan, apart from that as well about like, you know, it is sad to go through life and feel like you can't connect because I definitely had the issue in my life and probably what's coming up now, more for me is that, you know, it is latched on to what everyone said with having the expectations of what you think a relationship should look like. So what you feel like you have isn't enough and then creating the emotions from your own mind because it is a constructive thinking because that's what I found, you know, I was like, Oh yeah, this guy's great.
[:But he's not this, that that and that even though he's like, lovely. But then that was also me holding on to expectations of who I felt I needed based on what I've seen or, you know, structures I thought was true. And actually just causing a lot more pain like a lot, a lot more pain than just accepting things as they are. Mm-Hmm.
[:Yeah. Yeah, definitely is. And yet there's so much pain and there's just certain that I think I believe all notion is it's about the degree of fear and just understanding what you're afraid of, because what's going to happen is that your brain, unless you, you think about it or you objectify or any of those things will even a disease, you can catastrophize everything. So when relationships go wrong immediately, people think, OK, no one's ever going to love me.
[:I'm going to end up homeless alone and I'll die. Crazy Cat, Lady and no one will ever see. When it's like when there's a fear of your career, it's going to be, I'm going to be bankrupt and destitute and and that so. If fear will magnify everything. Yes. So the best thing that you can really do is. Look at what is the fear in every emotion? Like, what's the fear underneath that? And when you take that out, you can take out some of the sting of the of the emotion.
[:OK, well, thank you, everyone, for such open, honest and interesting discussion. So we have next week is connection is a conversation in connection, which we had last week. Not last week, last month. So, yeah, that's that's next Monday at Seven O'Clock, which is a really deep one-to-one conversation with someone just a chance to connect with someone that you wouldn't normally. Gets the kids to talk to you and just get to see a glimpse of how they see the world.
[:Have a good week, everyone. And. See, hopefully next week. Nouri, is your hand up where you just responded at times to everyone? It was my first meeting and very, very insightful. Really glad. Thank you so much. Each and every one of you and really find this was very honest and sincere conversation. And you all are here because we all are seeking that quality relationships, right? Otherwise, we will not spend so much of my meal.
[:And I think this is a great way to like, learn from each other and really reflect. Then you talked about operating system via operating from right deep down the I mean, I'm not sure about others that even I have been divorced. And so this is a battle between me, like inside me. But I want a real relationship. Not this, this fear, this insecurity. But yes, the other truth is we are developing relationships that I don't want says to have any relationship with adults, right?
[:It's a it's the way we reach us in life and to our own potential in a way, you know, and if we are failing to see that or failing to tap our own potential because we are too afraid, global realities, our own realities, you know, yeah, it's on and and also on that point, what we do to others, we do 10 times worse to ourselves, to which we blame game and shame others. We do it worse to ourselves.
[:Yeah, because then we are in the battle, right? We're beating those patterns and keep failing relationships and not learning anything else. So thank you so much. I think that's been great. I think we ought to reflect after this session. So thank you so much.
[:Well, thanks for being here. It's nice to meet you. Thank you, everyone else, and thank you, everyone who some first time. And been here before. Have a great week.
[:Thank you. Bye, everybody. Night night I.
