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Episode 12: Heartbreak Isn’t the Opposite of Love
8 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of Don’t Trip on Your Cape, Alex Embry and Leslie Arboleda open a heart-forward conversation about heartbreak, love, boundaries, and the choices that shape who we become. Kicking off a new monthly theme centered on heartbreak and heart forward living, they explore why heartbreak is not a failure of love, but proof that love mattered.
Through personal stories, lived experience, and deep reflection, this episode unpacks how heartbreak often reveals where we lost ourselves, how fear and love shape our decisions, and why healing is an intentional process rather than a single moment. Alex and Leslie discuss discernment versus tolerance, boundaries versus people-pleasing, and how responsibility differs from blame in relationships.
This conversation is an invitation to reframe pain as feedback, to examine the ingredients we use to build our lives, and to choose love as a conscious practice. A powerful reminder that strength, healing, and alignment are built not in isolation, but through honest reflection, courageous choice, and connection.
Links
Don’t Trip on Your Cape
https://www.donttriponyourcape.com
Can We Grok?
https://www.donttriponyourcape.com/can-we-grok
Aligned Living & Leadership (Leslie Arboleda)
https://alignedlivingandleadership.com
Mush Love
https://mushlovellc.com
A Human Being With Love – Alex Embry
https://ahumanbeingwithlove.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Don't Trip On Your Cape, the podcast where Leslie, the founder Align Living and Leadership, and her amazing co-host Alex from Much Love, dive into the very things that weigh us down, only to reveal those burdens are actually our greatest strengths.
00:00:12
Speaker
Together, they help listeners recognize that what feels heavy is often just your own unique superpower in disguise. So grab your cape, and let's explore how to wear without stumbling.
Theme of Heart Forwardness
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this episode of Don't Trip on Your Cape. It is February and we have a new theme for the month. This month we're going to be talking about heart forward and heartbreak and we're really excited. So I'm Alex.
00:00:34
Speaker
And I'm Leslie. Let's get going. So a lot of times when people think about heartbreak, they forget that that's that's just a different frequency of heart forward. So part of what I'm really excited about to talk about this month is how do we shift when we trip on that heartbreak?
00:00:55
Speaker
And how do we strap on our capes and really remember how to be heart forward in the way that we're living? What came up for you when we were talking about this topic for the month?
Vulnerability in Love
00:01:07
Speaker
i I love that you said that exactly.
00:01:10
Speaker
what I think, what is what i was thinking about is because it is two sides of the same coin. You can't have heartbreak without love first. You can't have you know the vulnerability of opening yourself up opens you up to all of it. And so the thing I talk think about most with my own heartbreaks is times in the past where I've lost something or whatever that made me have a hard feeling, but what it always goes back to for me personally is losing parts of myself.
00:01:37
Speaker
It's losing, depending on the situation, whatever it was, is always me in that situation. There's a part of myself that I liked in them. There's part of myself I saw or a part of myself I gave away or whatever.
00:01:50
Speaker
And it always ends up coming back around one way or the other, but it's definitely two sides of the same coin. I think something that came up for me too is that we always begin with that open heart,
Hope and Emotional Safety
00:02:03
Speaker
right? We are born from that energy of love. We are conceived from that energy of love. We are We are sourced from that energy of love even before that.
00:02:14
Speaker
And then the nature of this human condition is that we begin to put guards up. And I know for me, you know a lot of times heartbreak is related to to romance and those that dynamic of relationship. But there's so many aspects of being human that can invite us in into the heartbreak and also guide us to living heart forward, right? it Love starts as hope.
00:02:41
Speaker
And a lot of times, especially in those relationships, I know for me in in my younger relationships and experiences of heartbreak, it was born from hope. And i think that hope is really tethered to our personal sense of safety.
00:02:59
Speaker
If we're not feeling emotionally safe, we bar ourselves off from being hopeful. And that's such a powerful source of our power, our inner power and our dynamic and relationship, you know, relationship with ourselves, relationship with others, relationship to the circumstances.
Connection and Community
00:03:22
Speaker
And so much of our formative years are where those attachment styles come from. And, you know, lots of, there's lots of information about different kinds of attachment styles, but they're born from our, from our family of origin and the culture that we're born into. And those very early relationships, what's your experience with, with some of that part of it?
00:03:47
Speaker
It's an interesting dynamic ah when you think about trust and safety within, you know, the hope of love and being able to it It makes me think a lot of a lot of the community, you know, because the reason this conversation is so important to both of us is connection is one of the most important things on our planet.
00:04:05
Speaker
And we're so... devoid of that in so many ways right now. It's not just you know our culture and the way that things are, but just our society in general, we
Personal Growth from Heartbreak
00:04:15
Speaker
move so fast. And I feel like so many people are longing for that connection, for that hope, for that really the safety and the trust that relationships and being in your heart give to you. And so when I think about my younger years, trying to find that safety and that trust, I didn't have it. I didn't have it at all. And it took me a long time
00:04:38
Speaker
to even know that I didn't have it and to look for it. And the first time I'm trying to think my biggest heartbreak was not a romantic one. And it wasn't even part of my family. It was actually after I had gotten out of the cult.
00:04:53
Speaker
And I started finally connecting to the universe, to the bigger messages, the things that, you know, are so important to me now, but my original connection to them was through other people, to through two specific people. And in that relationship, it's it's a very long story, but at the end of it, it was ah it was a short, intense relationship with these people. they They had kind of reflected to me so much about myself and the universe and things that I told them were secrets I didn't really even, had never told anybody before.
00:05:23
Speaker
And it was so affirming and loving and kind, but my mistake that I made was I attributed the love and the connection and all these universal truths that I was seeing reflected in me in them with them.
00:05:38
Speaker
And so my first trust and thing that I had to learn when I left lost those people was it was really giving me back to myself. And that's a kind of a long story to to tell us, but I really feel like that is the heartbreak that we're all fighting against, is losing that sense of ourselves, losing that trust in ourselves, losing that connection with the universe. And the love that you have inside is really what you're looking for, because there's a saying that's like,
00:06:03
Speaker
the bird does not put his face in the branch that he's sitting on. It's in his wings because if the branch breaks, he's just going to fly. And that is kind of the same thing that I think about in that situation with me with my biggest heartbreak. I lost the two people that I thought were my connection to the universe. And that was always inside of me. And I needed to know that I had the wings and it was tripping on my cape and the branch broke. And I was like, fuck. But now I understand what I was really looking for was the safety within myself and the universe that they gave to me. And that is the thing I think we're all looking for that then gives us connection to other people because you have to be yourself first.
Pain as Feedback for Growth
00:06:40
Speaker
Something you said really struck a chord with me in that idea of there's this unspoken promise when we love that the object of our affection is going to stay. Mm-hmm.
00:06:52
Speaker
And then to your point, sometimes the branch breaks. Sometimes they don't stay. you know Sometimes loss occurs through death, maybe you know the the dissolution of a relationship.
00:07:06
Speaker
But what stays is always us. And when we tether that sense of safety to something external to us, is when we experience the heartbreak.
00:07:18
Speaker
It's when we, it feels like we've become untethered. Nick said something really powerful in his interview episode about how when his brother died, he felt like a part of him had died with him because his identity was so tightly defined by that relationship. And that has really stayed with me.
00:07:42
Speaker
Because that happens so often in so many different ways for so many of us, if not all of us. And being able to remember what has stayed, whether it's the memories and the experiences or whether it's you know your own source of power.
00:07:58
Speaker
source of power has been a game changer for me. I am, you know, i do a lot of coaching with relationships and the thing that's always with you in every relationship you have, whether it's a functional one or a dysfunctional one, it's you.
00:08:14
Speaker
And so how do you realign, reorient with that constant when all of the rest of the things in our lives are variables is is very empowering.
00:08:28
Speaker
And especially in the moment, you know, like with Nick when he lost his brother and, you know, the experience I just talked about, it feels like your world is ending. It really does. Like for me, that was the...
00:08:40
Speaker
catalyst that pushed me into becoming a shut-in and a lot of the hardest times in my life because I did give up. And I think that's what a lot of us feel like is you lost a part of yourself. you Like you said, he he felt like a part of himself was lost. But when you go back to eventually, you know the you don't lose the parts of them that they you experienced with them, you get to keep them. And like in my case, one of the most affirming things that this person had told me was, and this is a bit of a long story, but it'll illustrate it well, was
Lessons from Pain
00:09:12
Speaker
she told me to look up my name in the dictionary, not Alex, but originally she said, look up Tiffany, because that was my my first name. Then she had known that, but she had known I was now Alex. And she said, I want you to look it up. I'm being bugged by the universe to look it up. So I looked it up.
00:09:25
Speaker
And i was I was not happy because it said, Tiffany, a manifestation of God. And she knew my feelings because I had escaped the cult recently. She actually was from the same cult, so she knew. And she was like, I know that doesn't make you feel better, but look up your your Alex. And so I did. And I looked that up and it said, defending men.
00:09:43
Speaker
i was just like, okay. And she said, put them together. And it said it was a manifestation of God defending men. And I was like, holy fuck, like the two things together, defending men with Alex and a manifestation God with Tiffany, that is actually who I am. I'm a manifestation of the universe here to defend you to yourself. And you know that was still in the dictionary after our relationship was gone, but I got to keep the lessons and the reflection that the universe was actually giving me through her. and A lot of times, even with Nick and you know others, what we really miss is who we were in those moments and those relationships. And so you can extract that from it still and take that forward with you, even when you feel like you know some of these things are the end of the world. They really are meant, I have learned, to give you back to yourself.
00:10:31
Speaker
Absolutely. and And so often people look at heartbreak or a... relationship ending as a failure. And you certainly know failure is one of my favorite efforts because it's it's it is where that learning happens.
00:10:46
Speaker
And I think especially when we're thinking about heartbreak, the way that we navigate that experience becomes evidence of our capacity to navigate difficult things. And and people look at pain as punishment.
00:11:02
Speaker
And certainly when you're experiencing heartbreak, there is a lot of pain that goes with it. But pain is a teacher. And you know i've I've shared in past episodes, part of what we we talk about in in human design or the way that I was taught and teach it is pain is our feedback for choice points.
00:11:22
Speaker
And when we can use that experience of the pain as feedback to realign to our true selves, to our purpose, to our power, it becomes a portal.
00:11:35
Speaker
It becomes ah an access point to the expanded versions of who we're gonna be. And we can take all of those learnings and lessons from those painful experiences and become even more aligned and better versions of ourselves if we choose to.
00:11:53
Speaker
you know and a lot of times we choose to resist those painful experiences. Oh, this was, this heartbreak was terrible. I'm just never going to date again. Or, you know, those kinds of avoidance techniques.
00:12:09
Speaker
And I think we accidentally cheat ourselves when we make those choices, instead of being with the pain, sit in that liminal experience, the you know the messy middle, and really consciously choose how are we gonna navigate moving forward to move into the expansion?
00:12:32
Speaker
i think there's there's certainly something to be said for if you've loved deeply, you've probably hurt deeply, but learning how to navigate that terrain is such a gift of this human experience.
00:12:45
Speaker
And it's not one that non-physical beings get to navigate, get to learn from, you know? contrast. It's part of our experience here. And, you know, you've heard me say before, it's all skinned knees, but our soul wants the lessons deep as they can be. doesn ah It's going to learn from that depth. It's going to learn from that pain. And it's not going to forget in the in the depths of your soul. That's how you kind of, you know, have those memories, so to speak, is because your soul knows so much. And like, you know, especially like you said,
00:13:20
Speaker
that pain really is giving you the feedback. In my case, you know I made the wrong decision, so to speak. And I was like, I'm hiding from the world. But what it really was giving me the opportunity to see was how much of my life was unaligned. And it took me a while to you know come back out of that and figure it all out.
00:13:38
Speaker
But that's what it was trying to show me. And that pain was really a gift. And now when I look back, you know I would make completely different decisions because I have the perspective, but now I also see how much of a gift all that time was and that pain was, because it really did give me back to myself and the path that I was supposed to be on eventually.
00:13:59
Speaker
Well, I'm thinking about kind of the the surface level opposition of being a shut-in versus being out in the world.
Trust and Relationship Disruptions
00:14:09
Speaker
Even if you're not actually shut in and refusing to leave your space, so many people that are out in the world are still shut in to themselves.
00:14:21
Speaker
Because we think about heartbreak as the opposite of love rather than looking at it as the proof that love matters. Yeah. And like I said in the beginning, so many people right now are so lonely and in so much pain.
00:14:40
Speaker
And I really feel like that is a lack of connection. And it's not um just to the outside world, it's to the outside world as themselves. And so, so much of this is having the bravery and the courage like we talked about in last month to go through those lessons and find yourself and be who you are because that is when the loneliness and the heart forwardness really starts to, you know, the loneliness goes away and the heart forwardness starts to really come into your life because the reasons those relationships for me really, you know, left my life was because they weren't aligned.
00:15:14
Speaker
I wasn't the person I was supposed to be. They were supposed to be there for a while, teach me the things and move on. But now that I am aligned, those relationships and people are different and they stay and it's how it was meant to be. But first I had to show up, had to be myself and I was not in those relationships. That's the other thing about it. It was teaching me all the ways that I wasn't there.
00:15:39
Speaker
That brings up a really good point of how the disruption, how the heartbreak becomes a disruption. Right. We we think about a lot of times when we're experiencing heartbreak and we give our power away to the person who, quote, broke our heart rather than really looking at what breaks when you experience heartbreak, because that is your trust.
00:16:02
Speaker
That is your safety. Sometimes it's your identity, right? It's it's the the future we imagined for ourselves in that relationship, you know, in our lifetimes. I was i was just visiting with some friends and we were celebrating the birthday of ah a very close friend who died a few years ago. And part of what came up for us while we were visiting with each other is how sad we were in grieving the loss of the future we thought we were gonna get to have as you know the crazy 80 year old ladies together. And I think there's some real power in that. Obviously there was some tears, there was some hurt, but also though that was an invitation to revisit what is the future we're gonna create for ourselves?
00:16:51
Speaker
And how are we gonna leverage this very painful heartbreak of loss through death, right? That is undeniable, that isn't reparable and figure out how to discern between the pain and not avoid it in order to get honest with how can we use this? How can we step into our power with this pain instead of resisting any invitations from the you know grander collective
00:17:25
Speaker
to really grow and be who we're here to be. Obviously, you know, I i say a lot, it's all I trust in the divine timing of things and even the bullshit must be divine, right? Like, because it happened.
00:17:38
Speaker
And how do we really still protect our hearts, but from a place of openness?
Healing and Self-Discovery
00:17:46
Speaker
It's I can't stop thinking about this a lot lately in general because of all the people that come to us, you know we go to shows, we do a lot of this stuff with Mushlev and other our other companies.
00:17:57
Speaker
And most of the time when people come to us, they are in this disruption phase of heartbreak. Honestly, it's the number one word word that would describe where people are, their own hearts are broken.
00:18:08
Speaker
And it's so hard to make the decision to heal. And it is a decision because you're going to have to take steps and it's not an overnight decision. It's not like a click, I'm healed. But you have to make the decision to orient and align to the things that you're gonna move forward with. And you know we talk about this all the time too, is sometimes it's gonna mean removing things, it's gonna mean adding things, it's gonna mean all of that. But the number one thing that it it always includes is you. And so you have to figure out yourself and who you wanna be in the situations and give yourself the permission to love and break and love and break over and over again, because you're the one that is gonna get the lessons and the love.
00:18:51
Speaker
And even if it ends up with a break, you know that you're powerful enough and strong enough to realign afterwards. And I know that that's hard. Like I tell so many people, i i talked to a friend of mine this week and she's going through a lot, like a whole lot with her life. And she said, I just believe the universe is against me. Like, I think I have bad luck.
00:19:11
Speaker
and And I said to her, your powerful being and your words are a spell, my love. Like what you are saying right now is ah but is an inner belief that the universe is going to reflect back at you. So how can I get you to know that you are worthy and loved and already deserving of all of the things that you know and want and all of these things? and And she was just like, I don't know how to believe that I deserve them.
00:19:36
Speaker
And so we just talked about, well, why wouldn't you? Why don't you? And that is really the and inquiry we have to get into is When we have these pains and the the heartbreak in our lives, we don't want to go back into the world. We need to heal and look at it and see what it's giving us. Because in her case, she is worthy and beautiful and people love her so much. And she just has to believe it to step into all of the things that are meant for her. But what she's afraid of is getting rid of her near enemies that aren't.
00:20:05
Speaker
And I know that that's hard, but it's why we're talking about it because it is a choice to try and believe it in the inside and then make the decisions and the steps that will take you there. But it is not easy.
00:20:19
Speaker
And those fractures are real. Right. but You know, literally, we we think about the crack through the little pretty little, you know, cartoon heart. Those fractures are real and they do.
00:20:31
Speaker
make us feel like we are many different pieces sometimes. But they're also, you know as as the poets say, the cracks are where the light shines through. And if we harden it into that self-sufficiency or we harden into that isolation, we also don't create the space for the light to shine.
00:20:52
Speaker
and I think there's just something really spectacular about redefining what the fractures can mean instead of getting stuck in the labels of what we make them mean in the moments when we're in the depths of our despair.
00:21:13
Speaker
You know, when we're feeling the grief, when we're feeling the loss and we're focusing so pointedly on those painful experiences that we forget that that's also where the source of the light can shine, not just to us, but through us.
Gratitude for Lessons
00:21:34
Speaker
And being open about these kinds of experiences with other people and sharing them you know with vulnerable vulnerable honesty about this this did suck, this did hurt, this was disappointing. you know This is life changing in a transformative way that I would not have consciously invited into my realm.
00:21:55
Speaker
and I still get to be blessed to wake up a day older and reorient to the lessons and the learnings that have come from all of this not so desirable, you know, experiences and learn how to really desire it, right? Not not seek it out and create it necessarily, but to be okay with it and figure out how to be a better version of ourselves with it.
00:22:26
Speaker
Because it's never going to not happen. like it's It's always going to be a part of our experience. But it's part of what it makes me think about is I look back at every single hard experience I've had, especially the heartbreaks.
00:22:41
Speaker
And I'm so fucking grateful for them. Once you've healed, it all makes sense. Like you said, I might not have consciously called those things into my life when I had all those heartbreaks, but my soul probably did. My soul probably set myself up exactly in those positions for the next next best part of the thing that I needed to learn, the next version of my soul that was going to come out of it.
00:23:03
Speaker
And so it might not be conscious on our ego side, but our souls are what we're here for anyway. And it is... not easy to always orient to what can I learn from this what is the lesson here what what is the gift what all the things but if you can make that your practice you're gonna get there anyway I know that sounds a little bit especially like now if you had told me this probably you know a good 10 years ago i didn't believe it either like I I remember saying to an ex of mine because she she had a pretty privileged life and it was very contrast to what I did in like have insurance or anything. I was super sick. And she was like, well, you should just go to the doctor. And I was like, so the privilege in your life and mine are very different. And I just thought, well, I'm never going to be healthy. I'm never going to be well. and never going to be happy. It doesn't really matter. That's not a privilege open to me. And thinking that now, like I know I i needed to learn that. I needed to have those beliefs and all of that so that I could unlearn that know that it's not true. But first I had to accept it and go through it
00:24:02
Speaker
and then choose differently because it really did become a choice for me to say, well, they can have it, I can. If the universe conspires with everybody else, why not me? why I do like me, I do like these things. And then it starts to switch, but in the middle of it, it's so hard to see that perspective of, you will be grateful for this eventually. So trying, if you can get it now, that's my practice now, when I'm in the moment, what am
Community and Support
00:24:25
Speaker
I gonna be grateful for? What is this trying to teach me? Because I will be grateful eventually, so why not now?
00:24:31
Speaker
And how do i how do i how do i envision that version of me that is grateful for this in order to step into it? I think that's where the aligned community comes in and having those people, like you said, the the friends that you can talk to and share these funky perspectives of self, right?
00:24:54
Speaker
And have them reflect back to you the expanded experiences of you, so that you can get there with a bit more ease, right? Ease is our birthright as human beings, but it sure doesn't feel easy to be a human being all the time, especially when we're in these experiences of heartbreak. And I think heartbreak expands and and leaks into all aspects of our lives. We talk about it a lot in and relationship, but heartbreak is a part of parenting.
00:25:26
Speaker
Heartbreak is even a part of leadership. You know, I, part of my business is, is business coaching and coaching teams and and entrepreneurs. And there's also heartbreak there. And I think sometimes we are not looking through that lens.
00:25:41
Speaker
So we're not able to access the tools to reorient as easily. and and it really comes back to being truthful. honest with yourself, ah honest about how you're feeling in the experience. you know Even if you're if you're part of a team that isn't operating optimally, that can result in heartbreak. you know I had big goals and we didn't reach those goals and I'm and i'm disappointed and I'm frustrated and I'm sad.
00:26:16
Speaker
It just is such a universal part of our human experience. And sometimes we're not even present to the fact that that is the frequency we're experiencing. That is that is what's going on But being you know honest about what what broke for you might might not even feel broke for them. Right. And a a lot of relationships, it's one person who makes the choice to sever the relationship.
00:26:46
Speaker
And so the person who who is consciously making that choice maybe seems like they're more in control of the experience. But to your point, our soul is ah very informed about what it signed up for. and if you are the person on the receiving end of that dissolution of the relationship, on an energetic level, that's also something that you chose.
00:27:09
Speaker
And so how do you be courageous and and honest and self-reflective to see what part in the breakdown was yours to own?
00:27:23
Speaker
Most of the time, i found when it's a breakdown I need to acknowledge, and this is ah was a really hard lesson for me, it was a lack of discernment on my end, was, you know, I was starving for a lot of my life for connection and proper mirrors. And, you know, we talk about so much community being important. And when you're starving, you kind of settle for whatever's around. I think I told you this saying i i read on Reddit one time and it it was a but was an ask me Reddit. It was like, why do narcissists always pick me? And the top comment was, narcissists are picky. You have to be.
00:28:00
Speaker
And I think that that's a lot of what we don't understand too is that discernment also comes from our worthiness. So a lot of times when I have to acknowledge my part in something, it's what I allowed in my life because I i didn't believe I was worthy of something more or better. And that community is so important.
00:28:19
Speaker
in alignment to have the right mirrors, the right reflections. Because, you know, we've talked about this before. Some people, the wrong people might say you're too much when you're just enough or you're not enough when you're just an enough or whatever it happens to be. The right people are going to feel the resonance exactly how you are. And i think that that is the biggest thing that I had to learn for myself is the discernment of what I deserve.
00:28:42
Speaker
And when I'm going to be taking responsibility in so many things, so much of it is my own discernment. I had a teacher once who said and said, don't be so thirsty, you drink from any cup.
00:28:55
Speaker
And i and i heard the analogy one time of, you know, we talk about our cup is full, our cup is empty. And what she said was, filth give from the saucer, right? if your If your cup is on a saucer, you want your cup to not just be full, but overflowing so that what you have to give, you're giving from the saucer.
00:29:16
Speaker
And that that image just comes to me so often when I'm feeling under-resourced, whether it's in you know my partnership or or parenting or even in my business.
00:29:29
Speaker
we We not only are trying to serve from an empty or under under full cup, but we're not taking responsibility for what would have our cup be overflowing so that what we are...
00:29:43
Speaker
absolutely able to give to others isn't taking from ourselves. And I think that definitely comes into play when it comes to heartbreak is what what part of our experience was under-resourced, which created the space for it to feel like a fracturing.
00:30:07
Speaker
Because I certainly have worked you know with couples that are in unhealthy dynamics, but I've also had had points of reference where people are doing it right.
Conflict Resolution in Relationships
00:30:18
Speaker
People are doing it well. People are are in relationships that are not, you know, without conflict. But they've taken the time to learn how to resolve conflict. They've taken the time to practice the skills so that they can navigate those breakdowns with grace and with compassion, compassion for the other person, compassion for themselves, you know, and a focus on the shared goal of being in relationship. So often, so many relationship breakdowns are because people are in these tacit agreements, these unspoken agreements.
00:31:02
Speaker
And they're not really in agreement with it. Like someone said I needed to be this way. And so I'm trying to show up this way, but it doesn't really work for me. And then I'm, you know, resentful and disappointed and all the things that can come from that.
00:31:14
Speaker
Empty cup. From the cup, right. Because the cup is empty. And because we've, you know, let or or we've come with an empty cup and we've let someone put a teaspoon in it.
00:31:27
Speaker
And then we've drank that teaspoon and then our cup is empty again. And so, you know, there's there's a real learning opportunity to use that discernment, to your point, and be in relationship with people who not only can fill your cup if your cup is empty, but if you've both got cups that are full, right? It's it's not that that fairy tale story that you see in all the rom-coms where like, you complete me. No, you're a complete all by yourself. And it's only when we feel like something external to us
00:32:00
Speaker
can complete us, that we set ourselves up for that experience of heartbreak versus an empowered uncoupling in a relationship.
00:32:11
Speaker
I have plenty of well not plenty i haveve several friends who have uncoupled with grace and compassion because they were both willing to see that that relationship was not serving them both completely.
00:32:29
Speaker
And that's that's like expert level for sure. it doesn't just come naturally for of many of us. But once you know it, you can't not know it.
00:32:40
Speaker
You can choose not to live that way for sure, but you can't claim that you didn't know it was possible. And also, it makes me think too, like all this thinking about our cups and being full and being with another person with a full cup.
Self-Care and Fulfillment
00:32:55
Speaker
I think the first step is, taking permission to fill your cup. I wonder how many people out there don't know what fills their cup up. Don't even have, haven't even given themselves permission to have a half full cup, let alone a full cup with a saucer overflowing. And I think that is a big part of this heart forward thing too, is you get to give to you. and There's a Miley Cyrus song that's like, I can buy my own flowers. i can hold my own hand. Like I love that song because it's true unless you can do it first for yourself,
00:33:23
Speaker
you really can't even know what ah you want from another person and what will fill you up. You have to fill you up first. You have to know what a full cup fucking feels like. And that is step one. And I think it's the permission we don't give ourselves so often because we do think somebody else needs to give me a teaspoon and I need sugar from that person or milk from that person. You can make the whole damn cup yourself. You can get your own sugar, your own milk, the tea you like, and it can be the right temperature and everything just all by yourself.
00:33:50
Speaker
And then when you find that other person, And then maybe they introduce you to a different additive or whatever. And, you you know, you change up your tear, so to speak. But full cup first, I think that that is the number one thing about heart forward is you have to give to yourself, be in love with yourself.
00:34:06
Speaker
And then, you know, you're not going to break your own heart the same way afterwards. No. And i and i I think part of also what's coming up is we're not taught that. as little people.
00:34:19
Speaker
we We have, at least at this point in the human journey, so many of us were raised in those foundational stories of it's external to us. And part of what I hope that we get to to transmit in in these conversations and you know with our listeners and with each other is being able to name the cracks without shame.
00:34:46
Speaker
and really being able to create the space for the personal inquiry of what does light me up? What does actually support me in being the best version of myself so that whomever I'm in relationship with not only gets to be in that version of myself, but they get to step into that version of themselves without you know without shame, without criticism, without judgment, which is where a lot of this pain, especially in heartbreak lives, right? We we look at the the failed relationship as a reflection of something we did that was shameful, or we walk around with guilt on, even with the awareness of, ah oh I did the things that led to this breakdown,
00:35:40
Speaker
and we And we look at it through the lens of guilt, right? I am a bad person. I did a bad thing versus I was doing the best I could with what I had in the moment and I still fucked it all up.
00:35:52
Speaker
And i can learn and grow from from that set of choices i made, including choosing to be in relationship with that person. i know...
00:36:05
Speaker
I, you know, I've i've shared that i grew up in what felt like a very supportive household and had a very privileged childhood. And that was so present for me in the forefront of my experience.
00:36:20
Speaker
It took me a long time to really look behind that and see what was the trauma. what were the pain points in those formative years that actually created the lens for my choices, especially in my adolescence? You know, I i kept,
00:36:39
Speaker
in reflection, obviously at almost 50 to look back and be like, oh, that's what that was. Oh, same shit, different day, same shit, different person. But I was looking to heal that abandonment I felt from my dad very, very early on. And I was so very subconsciously putting that on other people. and then choosing partners that really were just reflecting back that inner belief that it was sitting behind the veil.
00:37:10
Speaker
And then I would make it, you I can't believe I'm in the same kind of relationship again and again and again. without looking that A, i'm I'm the consonant in all of that.
Accountability and Growth
00:37:20
Speaker
B, I must still have this same shaped hole in my heart that permits this person to come in and and be the quote choice for me.
00:37:31
Speaker
And so grateful at this point to have that awareness so that I can very powerfully and consciously choose the shape of the space I create in my life right My heart is healed. My heart is whole. But my life has all of these places where people can come in. And when I create the the the shape of the space for them to come in and I do it consciously with awareness, I can take accountability and I can take ownership for my part in that process.
00:38:07
Speaker
And then i I get to take aligned action. You know, when there's those inevitable setbacks, because even the most, you know, divinely aligned relationship is still made of human beings.
00:38:21
Speaker
Yes, exactly. It makes me think of you posted. um I can post this on our show. like a picture of it, but the accountability loop and the victim loop on your Facebook this week. and I've been thinking about that a lot as far as um when you have the choice, you can either take the accountability or be a a victim. And that really does align with this as well, but it made me think like, you know, it shows two loops and one of them spirals up and one of them spirals down. And that's what we don't really think about is our life is often spirals. And what you were talking about right then is you know, learning the same lesson through different people until you got the lesson and finally moved on. And that's kind of how our life goes is, you know, it will keep giving us the same things, but depending on if you go up in vibration or down in vibration is whether you take the accountability or become the victim. in those situations. And that is the same thing with heartbreak and with, you know, being a heart forward is when these things happen to us, if we take the accountability versus the victimhood, we can stop those loops and learn the lesson. And, you know, now you have different relationships and different dynamics and you got to choose a different person. And, you know, for me, my whole dynamic with myself changed through all my heartbreak. That was my biggest lesson was, you know, I didn't know people told me I was unworthy and not good and wicked and all of that. I had to
00:39:41
Speaker
I definitely had mirrors that reaffirmed that for a while until I was like, I'm not playing that victim game anymore. And then that's when it changes. So it's definitely true that you have a choice in each of those heartbreaks.
00:39:55
Speaker
And responsibility not the same as blame. And I think a lot of times those things get tangled up together for folks like, we say we're taking responsibility but what we're actually doing is blaming another or blaming ourselves rather than truly owning the frequency of the expression the dynamic in the moment right i i've said in plenty of past episodes and certainly in plenty of past times in my life no breakdown between any two people is actually any one person's fault
00:40:30
Speaker
And when we give our power away by making it someone one else's fault, we also take away the opportunity for us to take responsibility for that role we played in the breakdown. And that's not to absolve people of being hurtful and spiteful and all the things that can show up in relationships for sure, for sure.
00:40:52
Speaker
But really learning to shift what is wrong with me, what is wrong with them to what did this teach me?
Collaboration in Relationships
00:41:01
Speaker
What can I learn from this to be a better version of myself? Because that's really all that's inside our circle of control is how we show up. and what we choose to learn from the way other people choose to show up that's totally outside our circle of control. Yeah, we can only control ourselves. And and I've said it before, and I'll say it forever. The only reason to do anything is the statement of who the fuck you are. And at the end of the day, when all of these things happen to us, I am not a fucking victim. like I want to take responsibility and
00:41:37
Speaker
you know, in some ways control for my own actions and the vibration that I put brought to them. Because it like you said, a lot of it is unintentional often when like, you know, in some of the breakdowns I think about in the past and relationships and things is often when I had something unaware of where I was contributing to like maybe a neediness or,
00:41:58
Speaker
Or maybe I wasn't honoring my needs because that does often like often happen in relationships where we think we're going to be in a relationship with somebody and now there's compromise. And compromise is a hard thing for a lot of people. And we've been talking about this this week, you and I just personally, like I've been thinking a lot about the idea of tolerance versus acceptance.
00:42:20
Speaker
Because tolerance, when you tolerate something, there's this friction in it. there's ah It's it's a heavy. There's a weightiness to it. But when you accept a true acceptance of something, whatever that happens to be, whether it's your person, yourself, the situation, your feelings, all of that, that's what gives you back to your you know the accountability as well. And I really feel like in our relationships, we need to really figure out if we're tolerating something or accepting it. Because that is the message to ourselves. If I'm tolerating something in a relationship,
00:42:50
Speaker
I know I'm not in alignment. I just know i am not in alignment. That is not aligned for me. So I need to either look why I'm tolerating tolerating it, move it to acceptance if I can, or if I literally, that's just something I just don't want in my life. i'm not going to tolerate it anymore. I'm out. like I really feel like that is one of the major things that the universe has been asking me to look at as far as everything else. If you can't accept it, get get it out. wait It's important.
00:43:15
Speaker
Something you said brought up two things for me. The first is i can remember being very young and having my mother say compromise is the secret to any successful relationship. And because she was a trusted source of information, I thought that was true. and one of the most powerful stories I've rewritten in my own life is that one.
00:43:37
Speaker
it's not about compromise. you know There's this tool in psychology that's got four quadrants. and It's basically, it' is someone winning and someone losing? Is someone losing and someone winning? Are you both winning are you both losing?
00:43:51
Speaker
And for me, compromise is really kind of an expression of you both losing because neither of you is getting what you want. And one of the ways I've rewritten it in my experience is to is to redefine that to collaboration.
00:44:05
Speaker
is really the success of of the relationship. And learning how to be curious, see the other person's perspective in order to understand it. And you don't have to agree with it to understand that, right? I i actually just said that to my 10 year old earlier this week. I was like, you don't have to ah to like it to understand it.
00:44:26
Speaker
And that understanding it doesn't mean you're in agreement with it. But if you don't understand it, you are even less likely to like it and agree with it.
00:44:37
Speaker
and And being able to just you know engage in those conversations with a 10 year old, already I feel like I'm doing my part to shift that understanding
Fearless Relationship Dynamics
00:44:46
Speaker
of the collective. you know raising Raising people in this world today can be an expression of transgenerational transmission of the toxic bullshit that came from generations before us.
00:44:59
Speaker
Or it can be an opportunity to break the cycles and launch you know the next generations into these easier expressions of being a human being.
00:45:13
Speaker
And then i I think, you know, when you were mentioning that victim loop and accountability loop, it reminded me of something Brene Brown was um talking about in her most recent book, Strong Ground. I was in a i was in my first ever book club and ah that was the book we read. And, you know, she she kind of um shares this and it's research from a different person, but she shares it really the idea of when you're above the line, you're looking at all the relationship dynamics as either the coach, the creator or the challenge.
00:45:42
Speaker
When you're below the line, you're either in that victim, villain or hero mentality. And the line is fear. o And it's been really interesting to have this new lens of understanding relationship dynamics because we are afraid when we are feeling like a victim, when we we're feeling like a villain, even when we're feeling like the hero,
00:46:05
Speaker
That's a fear-based expression of relationship dynamic. And I think especially when we think about you know living heart forward, when we can start to look at are we are we in the coaching mode? Are we guiding someone from our lived experience from a place of true understanding? Are we in the creator mode? Are we trailblazing and doing something that's never been done before, like the cycle breakers?
00:46:27
Speaker
Or are we understanding that the challenge really also creates the opportunity for the learning that's when we're fearless in our relationships. And that's where that heart forward expression of who we are can really show up.
00:46:44
Speaker
That's perfect because it's actually what my friend I was telling you about earlier, how we were talking about it. she said she didn't believe she was worthy. One of the questions I asked her and I said, it was like, what's holding you back? And she said, fear, I'm afraid. And that and I told her that fear and love are that, you know, it's just like heartbreak and heart forward. There's two sides of the same coin. And you can I also think of it of wiring yourself for connection or protection.
00:47:10
Speaker
Like all of these two things are the same sides of the coin, you know different sides of the same coin, but you the orientation is completely different. Like you said, the line, that it's completely different words. And that's what I was trying to explain to my friend as well is once you step into love and knowing you love yourself, you're not going to be afraid because the universe is going to give you things based on love. But right now, and I i was trying to explain to her, like if you bake a cake and you use flour, eggs, sugar, what you know, great. But if you substitute sugar for salt, which, you know, salt can be the fear and love can be the sugar in this, and that's not going to be a good cake, but it's going to taste like salt. So if you make your circumstance, you make your cake, your life based on fear, guess what the universe is going to give you? It's going to taste like fear.
00:47:57
Speaker
everything. And so I said, you got to change salt for sugar. In this case, you need to use love as your motivating factor in your life because it is going to change the recipe And the universe can only give you based on what the ingredients you're using. So I told her, if you are using fear as your main ingredient that you are basing your choices off off of, those are fear-based decisions and you are going to get fear-based consequences.
00:48:19
Speaker
And she just looked at me like, fuck. And i was like, I know it sucks, but once you know, you can change it. And that's what i said. I said, so what would love look like in that situation? The same situation you're telling me you're afraid of, what would love look like? And then she we talked about that. And that's when I told her, you're going to have to rewire your brain baking your cake with the universe and different ingredients. But fear cannot be your main ingredient because you will get a fear-based result.
00:48:46
Speaker
And the neurobiology of that too, right? The re the rewiring of your brain, that takes practice. It takes courage. It takes discernment and really starting to look at heart forward doesn't mean loving everybody all the time, regardless of what happens, right?
Presence and Honesty in Growth
00:49:02
Speaker
it's It's not reckless abandon of the love because even that is actually not the love, right? it's That's where so many of the people pleasers come in the world is like, I just, I want them to be happy.
00:49:16
Speaker
i want everyone, you know, i I know so many people pleasers who are like, I just want everyone to be happy. And my, my persistent reflection back is, aren't you part of everyone?
00:49:28
Speaker
Doesn't it, does it make you happy also? And, and if not, what needs to shift and why are you sacrificing your own sense of self in deference to the pleasing of other people? Right. It's, it's, it's,
00:49:46
Speaker
To me, I think about it that kind of the the difference between protection, to your point, and presence. And really being courageous enough to sit and be present with what's not working. Even if it's working for everyone else, but it's not working for me.
00:50:04
Speaker
Or even if it worked in the past, but it doesn't work for this current version of myself. How do I... integrate that feedback, you know, and you and I talk about the integration piece a lot, but that's where if if you haven't had these these heartbreaks and you haven't gone through the rebuild, you don't really have anything to integrate. You don't, you haven't really given yourself the opportunity for the feedback to to be discerning about. Right. It's so true. and And, you know, so many of us that have gotten to the fear part,
00:50:40
Speaker
We've got the feedback, we've got the gift already, and we just need to switch the orientation to that gift. And, you know, when I was talking with my friend as well, like she's such a loving, kind person to your point. She's a people pleaser and she wants everyone to be happy. And that's one of the things that I've i've said to her and we say on this thing all all the time is all true benefit is mutual. So the truth is, if you're not really getting the benefit out of it that you think you're giving, you know they're not actually getting the benefit either. That's the truth of it is it has to be a benefit for you for them to have the true benefit. It doesn't work otherwise. And that's another thing that I always tell myself is,
00:51:19
Speaker
If I'm giving from a place that isn't really what I want to do, it's not real anyway. And so that people pleasing, give to yourself first, and then, you know, you're we're going back to that full cup again.
00:51:30
Speaker
Please yourself, give to yourself, and then you're going be able but to give to that true benefit, that true mutualness. And that's when the true healing happens too. When the discernment replaces the fear.
00:51:44
Speaker
When the vulnerable courage actually is given the space to be expressed. that's when the fractures begin to heal. That's when it, you know, when the, the, like the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, right? That's, that's where the gold comes from. That's, that's where we get to mend the pieces and do it with open eyes instead of out of habit, right? Those neural pathways that have been firing for decades because someone told us, you know, gave us shitty information when we were three or whatever, right?
Boundaries and Respect
00:52:18
Speaker
Like being able to get,
00:52:21
Speaker
clear that boundaries are, are actually the source of our clarity, right? They're not meant to be walls. I was, I was just having this conversation about the the difference between boundaries and rules in my household, right? I've, I've shared there's six of us were spanned from 10 to 80 in the household. We come from many generations. We come from multiple cultures and especially, you know, with, um,
00:52:48
Speaker
The elder in our household, there's a lot of people pleasing. And as a grandparent, right, there's kind of that story of just give them what they want. Right. And I can remember when I was little, um we would see my grandparents maybe twice a year. We go to Alabama. And I think I've shared I've shared in past episodes. My dad's parents did not have indoor plumbing. So there was like out hott they were kind of like outhouse poor.
00:53:11
Speaker
They had everything they needed, but nothing extra for sure. And when I'd go to granny's house, she would let me do whatever the fuck I wanted. And she had this baby bottle that she had kept from when I was little and she had Coca-Cola and she'd let me drink Coke from this baby bottle. And it used to annoy the shit out of my dad because I was like five, six, seven, eight, like...
00:53:34
Speaker
way past but bottle drinking age in his opinion, but it was a fun thing to do. and she so wanted to let me do whatever it was. And when my mom would take me there, there wasn't even, it wasn't even a breakdown. It wasn't an even an argument.
00:53:50
Speaker
My mother gets to live with her grandchildren. And so i have said on multiple times over the years, When you get to see your grandkids twice a year, you can be as grand as you want. Rules don't even need to apply. When you see your grandparents every day, you have to be more parent than grand.
00:54:09
Speaker
And that that's where the boundaries come in. Boundaries are about what you will do, clearly communicating what you will do when there's a breakdown in a relationship dynamic.
00:54:21
Speaker
Rules are kind of the advertised expectation of what everybody will do. But we can put rules in place and if we don't have any boundaries to support ourselves,
00:54:33
Speaker
we can find us find ourselves in these positions that feel like our cup is empty, like we're under-resourced, like we're being you know taken advantage of. And that's where the resentment grows and resentment festers like an unhealing wound and turns into infection. And that shit will kill you quite literally if you're not careful.
00:54:55
Speaker
So being being clear that part of the integration phase is learning the power of the boundaries and maybe even learning the difference between a red flag and a trigger, right? Because the red flag is on someone else's circle of control.
00:55:14
Speaker
How you're triggered is inside your own. And i know for me, that has been a grand lesson in being a human being and being in relationship and navigating heartbreak and learning to choose living heart forward is I would let a lot of the red flags not be important and they would inevitably trigger my wounded versions of myself. And then I would give my power away and make it their fault that they did the thing.
00:55:46
Speaker
on loop for decades. great But boundaries, I love that we're talking about boundaries too, because so often the reason we don't have strong boundaries is because we were taught they weren't right, or we didn weren' weren't taught boundaries at all. Or when we tried to put up a boundary, somebody was like, hey, you can't do that. I mean, I had a girlfriend once that her parents, if you said please to someone, they had to do whatever it was. There wasn't no boundary. Like, please meant you had you were indebted to them, like obligated. And i was I tried to talk to her mom one time about it. And and her mom was like, that's just how her family is. And then I talked to her grandma. or grant Her grandma was like, I don't like it, but we can't do anything about it. Because they have all they all had this like unspoken rule in their house that if you say please, now you have to do whatever. And so me being in that relationship with them, i was like, I have these things called boundaries and no means no, and they were not okay with it. But that is a dynamic in the real world that a lot of people have to navigate and boundaries are for you, but they're also for them because you get, that is how you teach people to respect you. That's how you really learn. And those are your collaborators, if that's your team and everything. But boundaries are hard to first learn. They're hard to enforce because then sometimes you do feel like you have to be the quote unquote bad guy. But at the end of the day, that's the biggest form of love you can give to yourself and someone else can give to you to respect them.
00:57:07
Speaker
And there's such a great portal for understanding the difference between showing up responsibly and showing up reactively, right? We react when we have sloppy boundaries and they feel like, and it feels like they've been violated versus responding from a place of power and holding our boundaries and not letting it feel personal to anyone really, right? Like you and I talk about a a lot.
00:57:36
Speaker
It's just not personal if it's not aligned. And people take it personally when I can clearly say, no, thank you. But I, as you very well know, I have no problem saying, no, thank you. That's not for me. yeah Good luck with that. It's helpful. It's helpful because if somebody else can hold their boundaries, you can also hold your boundaries as well. Like and and one of the things you taught me earlier is early on in our relationship was just because you can't hit shit doesn't mean you have to, which made me laugh when he said it. But that was a very clear boundary for me as far as like, yeah, I do do that a lot. Like I'm, I'm, ah ah I'm very accommodating at times and we'll take things that other people do. And I'm like, you know, I don't have to do that. It made me laugh because he,
00:58:19
Speaker
I said, I don't even feed my mushrooms poop. like My mushrooms get pure, organic, everything. Why would I feed myself that? and It made me laugh because we can recycle these things and make them better, but we don't even have to. That's what boundaries are for.
00:58:31
Speaker
We can make our whole life up any way we want and it can be beautiful, full of love. We don't have to have in a green or poop. Absolutely.
Feedback and Growth
00:58:41
Speaker
And I think there's something to really powerful about understanding that even when we're healed, we still experience that fear.
00:58:49
Speaker
Right. Even when we've done the work and we've walked into the expanded versions of ourselves, we can still experience those provocations. Right. though I have a teacher who calls them sacred provocations. And as someone who's been accused of and owns her provocativeness now, i i they are sacred. They're divine invitations.
00:59:12
Speaker
to self-reflect when you're feeling provoked, when you're feeling reactive, right? We just had a breakdown in my house last night because the teenager is feeling hormonal and the 10 year old's getting ready to start feeling hormonal and the 15 year olds are feeling exhausted and it intersects it in a And that doesn't, that doesn't mean that we aren't expanded versions of ourselves. It doesn't mean that we haven't healed some of those wounds.
00:59:39
Speaker
It means we're human and that's not, you know, setbacks don't necessarily have to feel like failures when you can reorient to, oh, that's feedback.
00:59:51
Speaker
Oh, that was a habitual reaction. And I'm going to learn how to respond better the next time it happens because it's likely going to happen, right? I've i've got a bunch of people in my household. we're We're not all going to be in our highest expression of self every moment that we're in relationship with each other.
01:00:10
Speaker
but we can use that healed versions of ourselves and not just fall back into the habit if we choose to. And what a gift, like what a gift to be able to know that all conflict, I mean, all relationship comes with conflict. And so when it comes up, knowing you're equipped and you're going to go into it heart forward, because we've all had the heartbreak and we know, you know, once you are on your healing path and getting more along, you don't also want to hurt anyone else or yourself. So you can, you know, aim for that win-win square, so to speak, that you're talking about earlier, where you can understand each other. And if you are triggered, you know, this is one of the things I appreciate the most about my friendships and my relationships these days is we all know each other so well, that if something were to, if, you know, one of my friends is stepping outside of themselves a little bit,
01:01:00
Speaker
I feel like it's also a gift at that point to be able to reflect back to them and say, what's going on? Like, you know them well enough and the right people for you when you're triggered are going to step in as healers and not going to then exacerbate it either. And that's such a gift to know that when you have the right relationships, even when conflicts come up, at the end of the day, it might be a little bit of a scuffle on the in the you know moment, but you're going to come back out stronger on the other side and That I think is one of the most heart forward things that you can learn about and have for yourself is trust and safety within yourself that at the end of the day, you're going to heal and love and do everything and in your relationships. It's going reflect.
Legacy of Heartbreak
01:01:44
Speaker
And sometimes living heart forward means letting someone pull you forward with their heart.
01:01:50
Speaker
Yeah. Because a guarded heart isn't safer. It's just lonelier. And when we're willing to connect heart to heart, even when we're feeling wounded and under-resourced, if we're in connection and relationship with someone who can pull us forward with their hearts, I think that leads us really really eloquently into kind of the legacy of this this shift of heartbreak and heart forward is how do we choose love again as a conscious act, as a as a response?
01:02:26
Speaker
I go back to for me, every time I've had a real heartbreak, yes, it's partially the person that I'm missing, but it almost always is really the version of myself that I got to be in that relationship.
01:02:41
Speaker
And so being able to hold the legacy for myself of, well, I was that person. I get to take those things forward and I can still be that human and take those into other relationships. And anytime I have heartbreaks these days, it's rare because I less aligned relationships.
01:03:00
Speaker
more aligned choices, less, less aligned choices is what I'm trying to say, but it makes it so that once you do have that trust and that safety, your heart is so open and trusting and everything that comes from it, that's the blessing and the gift. And you cannot get there without the vulnerability of being willing to go into it.
01:03:19
Speaker
And loving after heartbreak isn't a reset, right? It's not a do-over. It's an initiation into the next version of yourself. And You know, obviously, as someone who in my human design, my my son sits in in what traditional design calls the gate of shock, but quantum human design calls it the gate of initiation. And that's one of my most favorite re-languaging of of that energy, because initiation can feel like a shock.
01:03:47
Speaker
went especially when it's not something that we're aware of, right? It feels like a surprise, feels like it came out of left field. But when we're moving through life heart forward, we're open to those new initiations. We're open to these new experiences of self, of of each other. And not about it's not about returning to who you are necessarily as it is about choosing who you're becoming.
01:04:16
Speaker
in every moment. And what this episode, i hope so much that it helps people understand that if you are in those heartbreak moments, they're there to serve you so that you can get back to being heart forward.
01:04:31
Speaker
Because this is really another one of our birthrights, you know, along with ease and abundance and all of those things is love and connection and and community. And you cannot have those things without an open heart, without the vulnerability to show up and be seen, and especially by yourself first, so that you can then show it to others. and that's the thing I think we are all longing for so much in our lives, is that connection back to ourselves, that open heart where we can really show up full of ourselves, full of love, and then be around other people that way too. And this is really one of the things that I'm so grateful for, that I'm finally here. I had heard about it. and I knew it existed. i just didn't know what it felt like. And I will tell you for myself,
01:05:21
Speaker
I'm just so grateful for all of that heartbreak and because heart forward is the way to be. It is just, every day feels different when you have that open heart and when you know that the universe is conspiring on your behalf with love and anything that does come up, it's just gonna make you better.
Living with Courage
01:05:39
Speaker
i think I think for me to, certainly in reflection, but even in the present moment as it's an active presence an act of practice for me, Learning and looking and seeing and receiving how life is different when we love intentionally has been a game changer.
01:05:58
Speaker
it has It has been such firm ground for me to stand on when I come back to loving with intention and having clarity on what that intention really is, not from a place of woundedness, not from a place of hurt, not from a place of pain, not from a place of you know isolation and safety, but truly from that expansive, infinite,
01:06:28
Speaker
space of that's what love is, right? Love is boundaryless. It is infinite. It unending. And when we can start to live like that, it makes all the difference with the relationship with ourselves, with the relationships of the people that we're in relationship with, with our relationship to the circumstances and all of it. It's just, it's so inspiring to know that, you know, there are people who are ready to have this conversation, people who are living intentionally this way. It's gonna change our whole world when we all know that this is our birthright and we get to live this way. And I feel like it's the biggest gap between the world right now is that love and that heart forwardness for yourself. And that's what our community is all about, is getting back into that for everybody. So I'm excited about it.
01:07:24
Speaker
And it takes courage too, right? It takes courage too. live intentionally and and it and it's almost a quiet courage sometimes when we're in a world that's teaching us to armor up.
01:07:38
Speaker
So i I invite everyone who's listening to really take on that challenge presented here at Don't Trip on Your Cape and live with and love with intention and live with that courage.
01:07:51
Speaker
And tell us about some of your stuff too in this month of February. We can't wait to hear about some of your stories and questions and let us talk about and be a
Engagement and Collective Learning
01:08:00
Speaker
part of them. So yeah, thank you for joining us on this episode.
01:08:05
Speaker
We're so grateful for the gift of your time. So thank you for your attention. And like Alex said, we really want to hear from our listeners and we really want to learn from your stories as well. So we look forward to hearing from you. And until next time.
01:08:17
Speaker
Don't trip on your cape. We'll see you then. Bye.
01:08:25
Speaker
Thanks for joining Alex and Leslie on Don't Trip On Your Cake. I really appreciate you being here and walking this path with If today's episode sparks something in you, if it helps you rock something new about yourself or your journey, show your support by subscribing to the channel, liking episode, and leaving a comment to show your thoughts or takeaways.
01:08:40
Speaker
Your voice helps to grow this community of brave, curious humans learning to wither kitchen confidence. Until next time, fly high, stay curious, and Don't Trip On Your Cake. Step into your superpower.