Episode Transcript
<p><!--block-->Alara Sage:<br>Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode, the Ecstatic Woman podcast. This is where we inspire and activate women in their radiance, in their power, in their magnetism, and in their unique genius. I'm your host, Alara Sage, the Ecstatic Life mentor. I help leaders, visionaries, creative geniuses to really deepen, recognize their power, increase their power in magnetism. and really blossom through their gifts. I have a superpower of seeing people, I have a superpower of unlocking people more into their truth and their unique genius. It's what lights me up. So my clients experience a real availability of their creative life force energy and the consciousness, the conscious awareness of how to very powerfully create their reality, aligned, ecstatic. So this is a solo episode where I always like these because I feel like you and I get to be in just a more intimate space together. And through these solo episodes, I share my stories. I share my experience with you in hopes that it will bring you wisdom, bring you insight, and perhaps just a feeling of being seen. through my own story. Today I wanted to talk about my relationship with my partner, Danny. And perhaps on a more vague note, on a more obtuse note, conversation of love. Love is one of those things that humans all seek. We seek to feel love. We seek to express love. We seek to receive love. In my perspective, it's one of the most beautiful things about being human. But holy moly, is it not difficult? Is it not challenging? Like I don't think there's anybody on the street ever that you could ask. It would be like, oh love, that's a piece of cake, right? Most of the time people will say, oh yes, love relationship in the context of intimate relationship is difficult, is complex, it's challenging. Sometimes it's even confusing and it can very much be painful. Why is this, right? Why is love all of these things? Let's dive into some story and see if through the story we can perhaps connect to some of these answers. I've always felt that I'm a romantic. To me, love was just such a beautiful idea. Even when I was a little girl, it's such an imagery that I would hold in my head about meeting this man that I just felt really loved by and fell deeply in love with. My first serious relationship was with a man who was older than me. I was a freshman in high school. And he was a senior, you know, the typical hookup, right? And, um... After about two years, I left him. And then my next relationship was a little bit shorter, I think. But a couple of relationships in, of the longer term relationships, I started to notice this pattern where at about two years, I would want out. And I think it was at the third time that this happened. that I noticed the pattern. And I thought, well, that's right. Intriguing, isn't it? If I look back on any of the relationships that lasted more than a couple of months, they would all hit the two year mark, and I was out. It was always my choice. I was always the one that would leave. through that awareness of that pattern, I was able to move through it and stay with that individual for longer. But in the end, I still failed. I think for a long time, you know, I kind of wore this egoic badge of honor that I was the one that always left relationships. I mean, if that doesn't scream trauma, I don't know what does. But it took me, let's get real, like the majority of my life to be able to really look back and honestly from an open heart understand why I was the one that left. and even see the pattern of the two years being in alignment with the same traumatic response. And that traumatic response was all about rejection. It's actually in my gene keys, the fear of rejection. And so what I found as I became aware of this very deep wound within myself, was that the two-year mark, for some reason, that's kind of where the relationship kind of comes out of that honeymoon phase, as we call it, gets a little bit more lukewarm. And the excitement kind of relaxes. Well, I was immediately triggered very subconsciously. And I always like to point that out, because sometimes I think when we listen to other people's stories, we. think that it's obvious from an outside perspective. But when we're in it, we don't see it. We don't see these things. So I wasn't aware that at two years, that's what was happening. Even when I noticed the pattern in like the third relationship, I wasn't aware that I was rejecting the relationship at two years because of my own fear of rejection. I just saw the pattern and moved myself through it. But many years later. As I was really looking at this, wow, what a beautiful realization of self. That I was so scared to be rejected, that I would be the first one to reject if I got out of the relationship first. If I was the one to say, you know what, I'm done, I'm out, goodbye. I felt in control. I felt in my power. Can you relate to this perhaps? Now, I say this with absolute love and compassion for myself, because the truth was is I had experienced a lot of rejection from very close people in my life. And I can really see how I held that. And it was very, very painful. So absolutely, I'm not judging that version of me for jumping out to avoid that pain. And to me, when we have these moments of awareness, they're so powerful, so powerful to really and truly see ourselves. When we are willing to see ourselves, we are able to bring the wisdom of the experience, the wisdom of the lesson. integrate that energy literally into our being. And that's how we transcend ourself. Cause that's the only thing we're here to do is transcend ourself. So that was one of the first things that I really learned about myself with regards to relationships. Wow, here I was so many years, you know, with this egoic badge of like, I've left every boyfriend that I've ever been with. Had a lot of relationships. I've even had a marriage. And most of these relationships were, I want to be really clear, broken up in good ways. Like stayed in contact with many of my ex-boyfriends. They weren't, I wasn't a jerk about it. But I'm not going to deny that there's not ego and pride associated with, hey, I was the first. I always left them. That's just the truth of it. I wasn't a jerk about it. But there was. protection there. And that's really what pride is. And most ego and egoic behavior is really rooted in protection. Did you know that? Did you know that that's protection? It keeps us safe. We think so anyways. The truth is, it doesn't keep us safe. It keeps us small. So just that awareness of learning, wow, that I was so scared of being rejected that I would reject others. It actually came to me through the Gene Keys, which I absolutely adore the Gene Keys. And when I read it and I really saw the entirety of how that had shown up in my life, what it did for me was it asked me to be all in and asked me to be more devotional to my relationships. particularly in those moments when I wanted to run the other way. Now, I'm not saying that everybody should do that. Sometimes it's very, very good to leave. Sometimes it's very, very good to stay. And that decision is up to you. If you're ever in any form of toxic relationship or abuse, absolutely there is no reason ever to stay in that. But if you're going through a period of challenge of difficulty, one of the most powerful lessons I've learned about relationships intimate romantic relationships is that they are powerful mirror of our most deep-seated wounds of self. So what do I mean by that? I mean that in our intimate romantic relationships, we project our wounding onto that other person. This is why we call it complex, difficulty, challenging, even painful. So most often, when we are fed up, when we want out, And it's not toxic. It's not abusive. Most of the time, really what's being offered is a really powerful transformation. But if we can't see the potential of that transformation, we tend to blame it on the other person or the situation. We just want out. And again, if there is ever a time that you just want out, then do yourself the justice of getting out. But every single relationship offers us so much reflection and self-awareness, particularly those intimate, romantic relationships. And let me bring you one that has been a whopper for me. So that was all just foreplay for this conversation. I hope you're warmed up. I hope you're really ready to hear about this doozy. Do I believe in loves of life? You know, do I believe in soul mates and twin flames and all these labels? I believe in all of it. I believe that we can have multiple soul mates. And I believe that twin flame is an expression of reuniting with self. And therefore it can be experienced in multiple different. ways, one of those being intimate relationships. But do we have one twin flame? Do we have one soulmate? I don't think I necessarily fully believe in that. I believe that through our transformation of our life, there are many opportunities available to us. And that's not for everybody. Some people might fall in love with that one person and stay with them forever. And if that is relevant for them, that's all that matters. We change a lot throughout our life, a lot. And if that person and those two people can change and grow and evolve together, that is so beautiful. And if they can't, that's OK, too. So I say that because, you know, as humans, we are romantics at heart. And we do think of this, like, there's this one person, this one person. And while I don't necessarily completely believe that I have, and am with the love of my life, it's the best way for me to put it. However, if I would have met this man earlier in my life, I'm not so sure we would have made it. We are magnetic. We are so. polarized together That we both needed to go what we went through with previous relationships We had so much learning to do before we met each other Now, of course, I don't know what would have really happened if we would have met in our 20s, but that's my presumption So is he the love of my life because of the timing? He's absolutely a soul that I have been with on so many different realities and experiences. Okay, so let's get down into it, right? I'm just beating around the bush. I say all of that because I often refer to him as the love of my life. And I just want to be really clear that there's so much and all of these labels. So much more powerful to be curious than it is to be inflexible and defined. Right. The love of my life. I had gone through divorce in 2017. And after some time, I had a couple of boyfriends that didn't work out, very short term. And I was at this point where I was just like, I don't even want any of this. I'm focusing on my business. And of course, that's when they say it happens, right? Well, I had an astrologer friend, and he said to me, you're going to meet him. He's coming into your space, you know, according to your chart. And I was like, no, no. That's not what I'm asking you about. I'm asking you about my business. I'm asking you about all of that. He's well, I just have to tell this to you because it's right here on your chart. Long story short, it absolutely happened. And it happened in some funny ways. I got on online dating, never thought I would do that. My higher self told me to do it. Get on online dating. Whatever, all right. And I wasn't really finding anything there. I was just about done with it. I was just about done with the whole thing. This had only been over a couple of months. I was like, this is just, I don't even know why I'm doing this, right? My higher self said one more time, just get on there one more time. Well, I was already very much on my spiritual journey at this point. I had a business, the business that I have now. I was living and breathing spirituality. And I'd had several people say to me, oh, you're so conscious. You're going to need a very conscious man. So I had it in my head that I needed a very conscious man to partake in this thing called life together. And right at that point where I was almost done with it, I had a very dear friend to say to me, Maybe you don't need a conscious man. And I thought, hmm, that's an interesting concept, isn't it? And I got back on one more time, like my higher self asked me to, and I saw this man that I had seen before. But he wasn't conscious, meaning he wasn't spiritual. He didn't meditate. He didn't do any of that. But there was something about him. Can you see where this is going? I reached out and we connected and we connected and we connected. And right before I met him, I had my friend, the astrologer, read our charts. And boy, was it just literally cloud nine. You guys have Jack of Hearts. You have the Lover's Card. Your charts are so aligned. Wow, wow, I never see this. I was thrilled. And when I met this man, there was just instant magnetism. And I just knew I met him. I knew I had met. I knew I had met the man. My friend said it was coming into my space. And I knew that I met the man that I'd been honestly seeking for my whole life. Even though that sounds so like fantasy and like all these, you know, there's that one person again, I don't believe that I cherish every single relationship that I've ever had and they were all so much a part of who I am. And yet I can't deny the feeling I had the minute I saw his face in person. He has this smile that lights up the room and we sat down together and I could barely talk because of what I was feeling in my body. You can't make that up. But it was not and has not been rainbows and butterflies. In fact, it has been the hardest relationship I have ever experienced. And that's why I bring it here for you today, because it has taught me so much. He has taught me so much about who I am. Right now my eyes water with pure gratitude and joy for him. So we started dating at the very beginning of 2020. And within a very short time, COVID hit and locked down and all of this happened. Before I knew it, he was moving in with me after about five months of being together, which is not abnormal for me. I've done that many, many times. That's actually quite normal for me. And we started to really have some really serious issues together. That magnetism that I speak to was really just pulling us together and at the same time emphasizing all of our own unique wounding. Now again, I'm going to call myself out through this entire process and hopes that my experience brings you some insight and wisdom. You know, at this time in my life, I had been meditating a lot. I was very connected to my ecstatic, blissful self. I felt very knowing of who I was, but we don't know what we don't know. We don't know what we don't know. And we started to have these issues and these arguments. And my first reaction was just to point at him. It has to be him, right? I'm the one that meditates. I'm the one that's done all the work. It's not just about meditation. I have done a lot of self-reflection, a lot of healing, a lot of work on myself. And he hadn't done any in this context. I'm not saying he hasn't done any. I'm not dismissing his process. Maybe my ego was. And I remember several times we would have these arguments. I would just be like, oh, this guy. And my higher self would come in and energetically slap me and be like, you get back there right now and you apologize. And I was like, oh, me? My higher self was like, yeah. You need to drop your ego and show up open. Oh. Okay. Well, if that won't make you humble, so I would go back and apologize. And we would start it again. And this happened again and again and again. What I started to learn from this process is like, hey, there's two of us, it takes two to tango. It takes two to tango. Maybe I was a part of this process. Maybe I was creating this. Maybe I do have some wounding. The thing is about being single is you can hide a lot of your wounding when you're single. When you are living with somebody, wow, it's a hard thing to hide. It's a hard thing to hide your wounding when you are living in an intimate, romantic relationship. And that's what was happening. I had been single and I had been kind of... in delusion that I didn't have much more trauma. And here it was being just shoved in my space because we're being pulled together so strongly, so magnetically, and then everything is just getting shoved in our face. So I learned first and foremost that I'm a part of this process and blaming him isn't really gonna cut it anymore. Maybe my higher self let me get away with that when I was younger. But my higher self would not anytime. that we argued and I thought, I tell you, man, this guy, my higher self was right there, smacking me, reminding me, hey, you're a part of this too. Let's look at where you're not showing up. Oh. And this is what I always talk to my clients about. In any relationship, intimate, romantic, or not intimate and romantic, it's so much more powerful to actually ask yourself, how am I showing up in this circumstance, in this argument, in this interaction, than to just put the blame? And this is what I was learning. But that's not all. No, it got so much better than that. Then he started to call me out. Because initially, I was doing a lot of the calling out of both of us. I was calling him out and his triggers. And I was calling myself out in my triggers and in my shadow, because that's what I do. I call myself out. And I call the people who I care about out with compassion and love to the best of my ability. So I was calling both of us out. Well, then he started calling me out. And he started saying, well, you just shut down. You just shut down from me. You're unavailable. And I was like, what are you talking about? That is so not true. I'm right here. And he's like, no, you're not. And I tell you, I don't know how many times it took him of repeating that for me to start listening. You know, I would like to sit here and pretend like, oh, the first time he said it, I heard him and I received it. And that's just not the truth. Sometimes we need more than once. Sometimes we need that repetition to just start kind of being like, wait a second, why does this keep happening? And what he started to show me was something that nobody had ever shown me. And to this day, I thank him constantly because he changed my life. And I was willing to listen at some point I started listening. And what he showed me was that I shut down. That same fear of rejection. would cause me to put up walls and shut down. But I still interacted with him. So from my perspective, I wasn't shutting down. But from his perspective, he could feel it. I was just not engaged energetically. There was a closing off. Now, the truth of it is that I experienced this with my mother. She used to do this a lot. I knew the feeling. It wasn't like I was oblivious to what he was speaking to. That doesn't mean that we can always receive it. That doesn't mean that we're still, like, we're totally aware. I mean, honestly, from my perspective, I wasn't doing it. Again, we don't know. Well, we don't know. That's why intimate relationships are so powerful. Because when we're willing to listen to the other person, there's so much, so much transformation that can happen. And it's not easy, right? It's not easy. It wasn't easy for either one of us. We were both going through so much. We both had kids from other marriages. There was so much to go through. But what we felt in our magnetism, what we felt in the other, what we felt that was potential there was just so strong that neither one of us was willing to give up. And it was like this pressure cooker. So he called me out on being shut down. And it has been one of... course, the most challenging things for me to work through and the most life changing. Sometimes I could receive it and he'd be like, you're shutting down and I'd be like, okay, I feel that, I hear you. And other times when I was really shut down and he would tell it to me, I would just be like, just can't even receive that. I'm not shut down, stop saying that. It was just such a core wound. And I would just do everything to protect it. That even though I knew that I was doing it, it was still like, I'm not doing it. And initially I didn't even know how to hold myself through it. And what I mean by that is I didn't know how to like love and honor myself through it, let alone to kind of help him understand how to honor me through it. Because this was all new stuff to him. He didn't even know how to work through this stuff. So as we were kind of like working through it, I understood more and more that in that moment, what I needed most was just acceptance and love. And so I started expressing to him outside of the trigger, outside of those moments, hey, you know, when I shut down, what I really need from you is just for you to be there. And you can call me out just softly, subtly, but just really be there, not expecting me to like show up. Just be there physically with me. And I'm going to do the same for myself." And it started to work. Because before, he didn't know how to work with this stuff. And it was really hard for him. to feel me pull away, it triggered him very, very deeply in his wounding, because this is how these kinds of relationships happen. We are set up to trigger each other in the exact wounds. Ha ha. And so when I would pull away, it would trigger some childhood trauma from him and he just wanted to be like, fine, you know, pull away, see if I care, right? So this was hard for both of us. He had to learn how to like, I'm gonna be here for her. And I had to learn how to, I'm safe with him. And what I always tell my clients is it's in the conversations outside of those moments that make it possible for us to work through those moments. Because in those moments, it's really hard for us to communicate, initially especially. It's really hard for us to express. There's so much emotion. We're feeling so much. We're not even aware of everything we're feeling. It's just not a good time to talk until you start to understand. Then you can start to talk more and more and expression becomes easier and easier. And then communication becomes really, really solid. But when you're first connecting to these wounds in each other and you're both triggered, sometimes it's better just to kind of work through it with saying a lot less. And then when you're out of that trigger, talk about it. How did I feel? How did you feel? What was really happening? Oh, okay, now I understand your perspective. Communicate communicate communicate. Okay. What do you need from me in those moments? This is what I need from you in those moments We have to tell each other what we need. I Mean that seems so obvious doesn't it? He had no idea what I needed He had no idea what I needed I didn't even know what I needed And it was through the process of awareness that I started to realize I Need him to be there with me just just sit there with me, hold me, just be there with me. That helps me to feel safe and then I can come out of my shell. And so we did, we started that process and it happened a lot and we got through it. And I don't even know if it happens anymore. I think it happens very rarely. And what we realized through the process is that he does it too, of course. He does it differently than I do. And he really needs the same thing from me. No criticism, just I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I love you. You get to be you. You get to have your emotion. You get to have whatever emotion you're feeling. I'm not going anywhere. Just don't point that emotion at me. I'm not the source of whatever it is. But by all means, express. So now we're both able to lean more in when we feel like leaning out. But I just wanted to share this with you because... The levels of awareness, right? First off, not even knowing that I did it and then being aware of it and just not even knowing how to work with myself through it and then understanding how to work with myself through it and helping him understand what I need and then knowing all of that and still watching myself go through those patterns and then just working our way, you know, probably over a span of two years. of working both of ourselves through the process. And again, the willingness, that's what it takes. It takes the willingness to keep showing up, to keep showing up for ourselves and for the other person, for the relationship. pretty sure this is why I say this. And if I would have met him earlier, I would have been like, I'm out, right? Because I don't want to be rejected, so I'll just reject you first. And just the beauty of the evolution of my own process through the recognition of that in myself and like, hey, I don't want to do that anymore. Like, I don't want to reject people. I can see that wounding in myself through. entire process of deeper into that wound of rejection into, I'm actually safe when I feel that. And I can actually lean into the experience when I feel that rather than pull out and protect and shut down. I just really felt that in my body. I hope you did too. These things can sometimes take years. It can take a whole lifetime. That's the point of our life. It's not about like, okay, get through it, get on, move on, transcend already. It's about the journey. It's about continuously being willing to self-reflect and grow, continue to grow. I can still say that what I don't know, I don't know. I have no doubt that there's things that I'm not privy to in my own being. I'm not going to pretend that I see so clearly that I got it all figured out. Instead, I'm going to stay open-minded and curious. to the ways that I still have opportunity, opportunity for self-development and growth. So I hope my story has, again, perhaps inspired you, perhaps brought you some wisdom, perhaps allowed you to see yourself in some aspect or another through my story. Again, these solo episodes are just you and me. kind of like talking over coffee or tea or cacao. I drink a lot of cacao with maple syrup. Mm, mm, mm. So thank you, my love, for being here with me, for listening, for. her taking. I deeply appreciate you. Until next time, I'm Alara Sage, your host. This is the Ecstatic Woman podcast. Be sure to share to subscribe. I'll see you next time.</p>
