Christian de la Huerta: Want Better Relationships? Conscious Love is the Key

Christian de la Huerta, transformational teacher, TEDx speaker, and author, joins Lauren to explore breathwork, love, and conscious relationships.

Learn how to deepen connection, release old patterns, and age with self-acceptance.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How breathwork can rapidly release emotional and psychological trauma
• Why self-awareness is the foundation for growth and healing
• The difference between conscious and unconscious love
• How emotions act as energy, and why they must be expressed, not suppressed
• The role of relationships as mirrors for our personal healing
• Why self-care is essential for caregivers and nurturers
• How to set boundaries that teach others how to treat us
• Insights into power dynamics within relationships
• The keys to aging well: self-acceptance, integrity, and emotional freedom
• How to work with insecurities by understanding triggers and healing them

https://soulfulpower.com/

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#ConsciousLove, #BreathworkHealing, #SpiritualAwakening, #SelfAwarenessJourney, #ReclaimYourPower, #EmotionalHealing, #AuthenticRelationships, #AgingWithGrace, #AgeLikeABadassMother, #ChristianDeLaHuerta, #GenX, #Podcast,

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

Hi, friend. Before we dive in, don't forget to hit subscribe to the podcast and my YouTube channel so you never miss an episode! By now you know that I reversed my heart disease and lost 20 pounds by eating a whole food plant based diet. Head over to well, elephant.com after the show to grab my free plant based cookbook as my gift to you. And if you're really ready to take control of your health and reverse disease like I did. Check out my online class A's plant based eating well. You're in for a treat today. My guest, Christian De La Huerta, knows what makes good relationships great. His advice about paying attention to what bothers you about your partner is, honestly, some of the best relationship advice I've heard in a long time. You don't want to miss it. So let's just jump on in. Hi friend, I'm Lauren Bernick and I'm flipping the script about growing older. From rebels and rule breakers to wellness warriors and wise women. My guests have been influencers since before that was even a thing, and we're not even close to finished. Welcome to age like a badass mother. Christian de La Huerta is a spiritual teacher, personal transformation coach, and award winning author with over 30 years of experience. He has spoken at TEDx and led transformational retreats around the world. His books include Coming Out Spiritually and Awakening the Soul of Power, praised by Gloria Estefan as a balm for the soul and winner of multiple book awards. His latest book, Conscious Love Transforming Our Relationship to Relationships, offers practical tools for healing and deeper connection. Please welcome Christian de la world. What? Did I say that right there? You did? I said it could. Be here with you. Thanks for having me. Oh, thanks for being here. I'm very excited to talk to you. So, just give us a little background. I know you grew up in. In Cuba. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, I was born in Cuba. Lived there for the first ten years of my life. So, you know, when it I, I start, I don't know, too many people there who can say they lived in a communist regime, but but yeah. Which kind of shaped me in some important ways. Such as. Well, I mean, the big the big ways, of course, of freedom, the freedom of choice that we take for granted here. Yeah. And also the appreciating the little things like, for example, you know, what's chewing gum to us here in the US is nothing. We stick a, you know, piece of gum in your mouth and just spit it out. Don't even think about it. We had a better than most because my parents have friends who works for foreign embassy. So a couple times a year we used to get packets, booklets and divided between all of my siblings and we chew it all day. And then at the other day get a glass of water, you know, a little bit of water, put toothpaste in it, stick our gum in it so it'd be minty the next day, and then hide it so my mom wouldn't find it. And, Oh wow. I mean, no, that's crazy. That is, What? And but your dad was, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist. Right. Dear psychiatrist. And you were on your way to being a psychiatrist, is that right? I was getting a I wasn't on track to get a PhD in psychology. So. Okay. Well, I think I skipped ahead, so you clearly moved to the States when you were ten. Where did you move? We lived in Georgia, Milledgeville, Georgia for the first three years, and then down in Miami. We did high school in Miami. That must have been a culture shock. Yeah, I was a crazy homemaker. You know, I gotta tell you, I swore when we left that I would never set foot in that town again. In Milledgeville. In Milledgeville? Yeah, it's. I mean, it's a charming little town, but, I didn't speak a word of English. They didn't take kindly to foreigners. And it was, you know, kind of racist at that. And so I don't have really great memories of it. I swore that they'd have to pay me for me to go back. And they did, like I was paid by the to the years later to, to go back. So I did. All right. Good for you. I mean, yeah, it's I can't imagine, like moving here and not speaking English because I also I lived in New York until I was ten and then moved to Houston, Texas. And I had, you know, a mildly similar experience, I would imagine. I just remember I had like a really thick New York accent, much thicker than I even have now. And, you know, Jewish and people didn't even know what Jews were in, you know, Houston, I mean, obviously there were Jews there, but for the most part, it felt like that. And I felt really like a fish out of water. And I feel like in a way, I'm sure it formed me and gave me a lot of really good qualities. Like what? What qualities do you think that that gave you to kind of be that fish out of water? Well, I think in a roundabout way, it forces one to like to, to get to a deeper level of self acceptance. Like for me, like I think part of it was I learned to speak, speak English quickly, like a lot of my, you know, people kind of my age who stayed in Miami have a thicker accent. When they speak English. So I guess I'm grateful for that. And, you know, I think it just it just forces you, that forces you within, like to get to a deeper level of of self-acceptance. Because if, you know, if you don't get to depend on any kind of external validation, it's a good thing. So to me, I got a little bit of a head start in that area. I think many of us get to that point and have to face ourselves. But for me, I had to do that at an early age. Yeah. That's good. I mean, clearly it worked out for you. So you were on your way to a PhD, and then what happened? What made you switch? I had an experience with breathwork. And, you know, breathwork is a big umbrella term. There's a lot of different things that people think of. Like anybody who's ever taken a yoga classes, has done breathwork, is taking breathing techniques. This is a longer process. You breathe in a certain way for about an hour or an hour and a half and amazing stuff happens. And, you know, I've been doing it now all over the world for over 30 years, and I've yet to come across anything that heals past trauma, emotional, psychological trauma as quickly as it does. And and on top of that, I mean, it heals up multiple levels, including physically. And I know that's hard to believe. I still have a hard time believing that when when I hear those words come out of my mouth, but I can't argue with the result. It works. And I mean, I've seen it happen so many times. And on top of that, you can access some states, like really high expanded states of being like, I can't tell you how often I've heard people say, you know, after they do a session with me, you know, I got to the same place I did and, plant medicine, whether it's ayahuasca or mushrooms, like, you can access those expanded state of beings just by using your breath. And so some really ecstatic states of being. And it kind of shifts the way that you see yourself and you see your relationship to, to life kind of shifts when, when that happens. What what is it that switches in your body when that happens? I mean, I, I have heard this from other people. I've done breathwork, but not for like an hour, hour and a half. That seems, you know, so I don't think I've reached that state. Well, I know I haven't, but, so what is it that shifts or loosens up or. Let's go. What happens? You know, they haven't studied what's happening in the body. Like like scientifically. They're starting to do some of that research now. One of the theories about how it works is that when we breathe in that in that circular, connected way, you're triggering the release of DMT, which is, you know, the active ingredient in plant medicines like ayahuasca, which is actually, which is actually produced by the body endogenously by the pineal gland. So that's one of the theories as to why people have visions and, memories and, just like really profound healings happen. I think my take on that is that you might which would kind of we have to talk a little bit about the ego mind, you know, what to, in order to get the visual that I'm seeing is like, we don't have time. Really have time to get into that because it's a big conversation. But ego basically means I it's the word in Latin means I. So the ego is that sense of separate personality of individual, separate self. Like this is question. That's Lauren. Both a really helpful illusion and, and also the source of all our suffering. And so I think that what happens when it's like, here's a great visual. If you put a baseball in the center of the state of a stadium, that's the ego. Who we are is actually the stadium. And we've allowed this tiny, tiny part of who we are to think that it is all who we are and to make some really important, consequential choices from a very small, limited and always fear based perspective. So that's kind of the problem with with having an ego. It's it's also a huge leap in evolution. As far as we know. We're the only species that has a sense of self. There's some theories about the higher primates the elephants, the dolphins and the whales having a sense of who they are. But we don't really know, what's going on inside of their minds. And so I think what happens in breathwork is that we pop out of that baseball and we have a glimpse of ourselves as interconnected with, with everything. A lot of people see themselves as, you know, like experience themselves floating around in the cosmos, feeling at one with at all. And so I think that's what's happening, I think for those for the, for that period of time, we pop out of the little baseball with the limited sense of self, and we have a memory, an awareness of our interconnectedness to everything. That's, oh, man, I've had a brief experience, like the very first time I've been practicing yoga for almost 30 years and a little breathwork, but definitely nothing that deep. But honestly, one of the first times I've talked about this before, one of the first times I ever, did Shavasana, anybody who does yoga knows what that is. Corpse pose. You just relax and do breathing and let go and absorb your practice at the end. And, I was just lying there breathing, and I felt myself float out of my body, and it kind of shook me and scared me because I had, you know, never I didn't know what was happening. And I, like, awakened myself. And, I've never been able to get back to that. And that's been like the goal. And that was one of the first times I did, you know, like, beginner's luck kind of thing. What what are some of the breathwork practices that just like a, you know, regular old person can do to just try to. Like, kind of and it just use the breath. Right. So, so remember to use the breath. It's really funny slash tragic that we take our breath for granted. That we don't have to remember to breathe is probably a good thing because. And then we would forget many of us forget but it's like if we think of the breath or it's, it's our most loyal, most faithful companion on this journey of embodiment, of being alive. So if we would only take the time to acknowledge it, to connect with the breath, even for a couple of minutes a day, to just notice it and, and so any practice that's going to help us deepen that connection with the breath, just do it. And it's it could be as simple as you're you're sitting in traffic like pay attention to your breath and don't you know like notice your inhale. Notice your exhale. Begin to notice the subtle differences between them. There's many, many different breathing practices, as you know. But a really simple is like box breathing. You know, you inhale for count of for kind of ten, whatever, whatever works for you hold then exhale for that same count. Hold and then do it again. And again, there's so many practices, but they're all geared towards deepening our awareness of the breath so that we're breathing with choice, with intention. And good to remember too. That and in most spiritual traditions in the world and even some secular languages, the same word coming breath or spirit. So think of pneuma, you know, from which we get pneumonia, which in ancient Greek it meant both lung and soul, from the Latin spit out. From that root we get respiration and inspiration or expiration. So that breath spirit connection is it's all over the world and it's makes sense, right? It is. It is. Breath is life. It's what keeps us alive. It's what animates us. So. Yeah. So, so anything that's going to deepen our relationship to the breath, it's only good can come out of that. I guess your emotions get stuck in you and maybe the breath work lets it out because like, when a child has a tantrum, they're letting it all out. I guess that's a form of breathwork. And then they feel better a few minutes later is that. They're like, playing. Like, if nothing happened, we we get into trouble with the emotions because we stuff them, we swallow them. We don't give ourselves permission to feel like and much less communicate those feelings. And I know this from personal experience. And, you know, even from watching my, my father, the psychiatrist age, I know he was a great psychiatrist. I've heard that feedback from people who used to see him professionally with his own emotions. I think he was clueless. And and so watching him as he started getting older and life is that some of those emotions that he had spent a lifetime suppressing because he, you know, he was from that generation, that mind was supreme and logic reins, and the emotions were weakness, which is, you know, a whole other conversation we can have about that because it's such faulty reasoning and that conditioning begins at an early age, particularly for guys, you know, a little boys don't cry. And wait a minute, what is up with that? Like, why is it only okay for little girls to cry? And what does it mean? Right. Because it means the the implicit message is that the emotions are weakness and that the feminine is weak. It's like, wait a minute. Like so many faulty assumptions about that. The emotions are in strength. They're not weakness, they're not good, they're not bad. They're just energy. Like everything else in creation energies that course through our bodies and we get into trouble because when we stuff them, they get stuck in the body. And then what happens with that? It's like anger when we stuff, it turns into rage, and then we walk around like volcanic eruptions just waiting to to happen. And sadness turns into depression. It congeals into depression, and then we have to medicate that stuff. Whereas if we use the breath, right, like in the moment, you're stuck in traffic and you start getting upset, you're worried about you start getting anxious about being late for a meeting. Use your breath. Right? Rather than what happens immediately. Like we start breathing and we start stop, start taking shallow breaths. And that's what anchors those emotional energies in the body. They get stuck in the body. And if we don't express them, let them move, get them back out. They turn into disease, right? Heart attacks, ulcers, all that kind of stuff. And so of course, we don't want to walk around like, like two year olds having temper tantrums. Like we take responsibility for, our emotions and our role in those. And we learn how to communicate those emotions responsibly. But really important that we do that. Yeah. Did did your dad, was so. Yeah, I kind of get the sense that maybe he wasn't a good communicator with you. Or was he. Did you feel like you could talk to him? I felt like I could talk to him, but he was very introverted. So he was, you know, he was more like. My mother was much more affectionate and effusive. And, my father was like, you know, just all rational, and, and that's when I started to see as, as he started aging, he was starting to have emotions come up over which, you know, some some were which he was not the controlling. And like after a lifetime of trying to control the emotions, he would start having like a little reactive thing with my mom, like an adolescent type thing. And so interesting, you know, interesting to me. He's like, and that's one of the main messages that I learned from that is like, if you would have asked me 30 years ago, what was I feeling? I had no idea. I couldn't tell you. So I actually did some practice, a story that I had a grid of emotions and they had a timer. This is before iPhones had a timer and set up for the hour, and I had a list of emotions. And so the timer would go off and I would say, am I feeling that. Am I feeling that. No. Am I feeling that maybe. And that's how I started increasing and improving my, my EQ. I think that's so smart. I mean I feel like everybody should do that. What am I feeling. I mean I can yeah I think that's really good. It's really smart to be in touch with your emotions and to really, you know, I feel like, one of the things that I've and I've said this also before that my mom was very she was chaotic, but one of the things that she was really good at was telling me, you're entitled to feel how you feel. And I think that was huge. It was huge for me to feel entitled to my emotions and, you know, to grieve when I was sad or to whatever to feel. And I still practice that to today. Like when I feel something, I feel it and I sit with it and I let myself feel it until I don't feel that way anymore, and then it's gone. It's like the little temper tantrum that we just talked about. It is it's the next emotion. Don't go behind to the next thing you know. So you kind of came to prominence with your first book coming out spiritually. So can you talk about that just like briefly a little bit. Sure. Yeah. That the book is, it's basically saying that it's many, that it's really tragic that many people in the LGBTQ community struggle with spirituality. Like, I know I went through a phase of, and understandably, right. We confuse it with religion, and the dogmatic approach to spirituality. And I wonder, like, given the treatment that many of us have received at the hands of, of religion, and so but what is sad about that, what is tragic is that before the patriarchal times and cultures and religious back when the sacred feminine was honored and when women were in their power, and valued, people that we today call LGBTQ were not only spiritually inclined, but were actually honored and revered for the roles of spiritual service that we played all over the world. And so that book, what I did in that book is organize those roles that we played, name them, you know, created some archetypes around that. And the message of the book is to help us reclaim our spiritual nature and find ways of expressing it that are appropriate, that are a match. And I love that. What? How old were you when you came out? You young. You were. That's good. I knew at a young age. And you were public with your parents about it, or. I didn't tell my siblings. No, through my teens. I didn't tell my parents until my 20s. Okay, yeah. And they were accepting right away. Or they were accepting me. My dad was great. He put in. He and I actually later, I think it came out officially, when I turned 30, and it was a type of thing that I didn't feel the, the pressure to know. I was like, I had my partners were always welcome. There was, you know, I almost didn't feel the need to say. But then I realized that I was using that as an excuse not, not to come out to them. And so I did, and I got a letter back from my dad. I was living in, in an ashram at the time. And how I and my dad was great. He said, you know, this is always this will always be your home. You know, you're always more than welcome here. You're always be our son. And then he put on a shrink hat and he said, however, okay, did you choose interesting choice of words. Another lifestyle, because it's. Oh, yeah, he said, it's I've worked with many homosexuals and I've cured many, many sexual. Oh, yeah. He's that little. Does he know that at least two of those that that he cured and quotes I slept with posed. Yeah. Because after we did our thing he he goes, oh, are you related this one. So I said, yeah that's my dad says, oh, I used to go to God. Oh God, that's getting a little twist in the knife in your dad a little. That's great. I mean, you kind of. Okay, so I mean, one of the reasons I, asked you that was. Well, how old are you, can I ask? I 65, 66 years. Oh, my God, you look. Oh, look at you meow. You look great. I know people never meet people. Nobody ever goes, is it. Oh, yeah. To two things. One is peace of mind. Self-love, self-acceptance. Being able to look at yourself in the mirror. That to me is a game changer. And then the breath. The breath and then and those spiritual practices really help. Honestly, I would have thought you were like, at least ten years younger and, than you are at least maybe, you know, like 50, 55. And I was asking. Six, I think I turned 65, I. Don't even know. Well, I was asking because, you know, just trying to get like a gauge of how things were when you were growing up. And, because my, my child came out to me, they go by they them, they were 15 when they came out. And I was just so happy that they came out so young, that they knew who they were and that they were getting love and acceptance from their family. And that just made me so happy. And also, you know, I got to, you know, to poopoo your dad or anything because it was a different time. And that's great that he accepted you. It's terrible what he said at the end. But, you know, I'm sure he was doing the best he could. But also for me as a parent, like it just was so much easier for me. Like I didn't have to explain everything to everybody. I was just like our kids gay or as my kid likes to be called, queer kids, queer that, you know, everybody's like, cool, fine. You know, I mean, it was it's just a different time. And it was a different time. I my dad was Catholic. I mean, he grew up. Yes. Believing that that was a mortal sin. Right. So I, I, you know, I honor him for for being as loving and accepting as he was. Yeah. Of course he didn't have the language. Of course he did. Yeah, exactly. Well, let's move on to your latest book, Conscious Love. So can you tell us what's the difference between unconscious and conscious love? I think. Or it might not asking the. Question because I work with so many people who people who are highly professional, people who've been therapy, who who've done spiritual work. And by far the majority of us get stuck. Where we get triggered when we get stuck is in those romantic, intimate relationships. Which makes sense, because it's where we make ourselves most vulnerable and we open ourselves like, in the deepest ways, even physiologically. And so, of course, that makes sense. And so what I did in the book is come up with ten of those areas, ten of those challenges, and provided some ways of navigating those. And so one of them, the first one is like how to approach relationships consciously. And to me, what that means is that if we're approaching the relationship, hoping that it's going to give us a sense of purpose that is going to validate this, that it's going to make us happy, forget it. Hang it up. Not, there isn't anybody out there who's going to make us happy. And it's not their job to like how unfair to put that responsibility on someone else. You are going to make me happy. Yikes. And so to approach the relationship that way is like they're doomed to fail. Unfortunately. And so then if you're going to approach them consciously, what does that mean? Right. So that that means that we know that only we are responsible for making ourselves happiness happy and that no one else can do that. And so there's different levels of doing that. And this is paraphrasing, Ram us, the spiritual teacher who talks about, you know, the first level. There's three levels of conscious relationships. First level, the other party doesn't want to play right. That the but but enough of it works like you have your share good intimacy. Maybe you're co-parent well together. You travel well together. You live well together. There's enough of it. Maybe sex is great. Enough of it works that we say, okay, well, that I want to play at the same level in terms of what I want to do in terms of my spiritual growth and development. But but I'm happy here. It works. So then we can reclaim all the time, all the effort, other resources that would we would otherwise be spending looking for the one, in quotes. And we can focus that on our own personal growth and development will skip number two come back to that level three both beings are fully realized, fully aware of our stadium nature, of our, you know, God essence, if you want to use that word, is that word works for you, then the relationships becomes a like a sacred dance where you mirror that for each other. I don't think most of us are aware any of us need to worry about that one yet. So let's focus on number two. That's the one. That's relationship as yoga and as you know, yoga meaning union. So where we use the the container of the relationship, the ups and the downs, the push and pulls of a relationship, to speed up our own process of healing. And in this level, both partners are using that container for that purpose. So rather than pointing the finger when something happens, when conflict arises, like you do this, you do that, you never do this. You never do that. It's like feeling that out. It's like of of whatever they did or said and like taking a pause, using the breath so that those emotions don't, don't get the best of us. It's like, all right, how do I do that? How? Because because guaranteed. If whatever they do is getting us, we're doing that in some ways as well. And the more that whatever they do gets us, gets our good and triggers us the clear, the sign that we're doing that in some way, too. And they could be completely different. The details could be completely different. It could be in the way that we treat ourselves, rather than the way that we treating others. But but it's a safe bet. And so that's what it means to use a relationship consciously. So, so we're using using it as a way to shine a light on the areas in us that are in need of healing, like, what are our blind spots that we're not ever going to be able to see? Right? That's what a blind spot it is. But boy, can I see it over there or my partner. Okay, so you're saying like if your your partner does something that repeatedly annoys you, triggers you, whatever, then that's what you need. Healing in yourself. Yeah. So and really you can only control what you're doing. You can't control what they're doing. So okay so here's an example of that. Some years ago I was dating somebody. And you know, I knew it was in relationship material just in terms of self-awareness and how much work. There was a gap in that area, how much work we had done on ourselves. But but it worked for what it was. Neither wanted more than what it was, which basically was great sex. Right? But suddenly disappeared. Like you didn't know. No messages, no tags, no emails, no phone call, nothing. Called call them at work and wasn't working there. So now I'm thinking, well, what's going on? Is it drugs or alcohol? What's going on? But I wasn't focused on here, so I was focused over there, so I didn't get it. So subconsciously, of course, we don't set out to do this. You know, when we get up in the morning, consciously. So subconsciously, I created another situation. I was flying to New York to meet, a literary agent that I was working with at the time. And she was great about communication. She get back to me within a day at most two if it was a weekend, a week goes by and I hadn't heard from her that that got my attention right. Two people from different walks of life kind of ghosting me. So really easy to see it over there, right? Like, what are they doing? They're not showing up. They're not doing what they said they would. They were going to do. They're not keeping their word. They're not keeping their agreements easy to see. They're like like shove that mirror in their face. This is hard, right? Turning that mirror around, how do I do that? So I started that practice like right. It took me a few days because I was focused on relationships. Am I showing up in that relationship? Yeah. Am I doing what I said I would do? Yes. Am I keeping my my word of my agreements? Yes. And then it hit me in relationship to my writing. Like how many times had I said to myself, this is just me and me. Nobody else knew about this. Like, I'm going to finish that chapter by such and such a date. I didn't do it, you know, I was doing other stuff. I didn't renegotiate the deadline with myself. I just kept doing other stuff and ignoring it. And I was doing the same thing. I wasn't showing up for my writing. I wasn't showing up for myself in that particular area and was, oh, was it? Oh my God, once I had that realization within the hour, Lord, I'm not exaggerating. Within the hour they both called. So no longer that I need to create an external drama like we do in our lives. So that I would get the message. Right. Dude, make a choice. Right? There's no law that says you have to finish the book or finish the chapter, but just bring consciousness to it, right? Either renegotiate, renegotiate the deadline, extend the deadline with yourself, but choose not to write the chapter I. There's many choices I have, but just bring it to consciousness. Yeah, self-awareness is really, It's a hard, but it's really not hard. I mean, you know, it's it's a practice. It's like everything else, you know, once you get in the habit of it, and I. I like that you figure that out. And it's so true. Like, the way the universe works, it's crazy how it always, you know, once you once you get it figured out, it makes life a lot easier. Yeah. It's hard to. Fake like it's hard. It's not easy to look at ourselves and ask the hard questions, you know? Yeah. Why, why why do I get triggered by that behavior? Right. You know why. Why do I get in these repeated patterns of relationship that sometimes feel like it's the same boring movie, only with a different co-lead, a different actor with the same kind of crap coming up, the same arguments, the same patterns, the same triggers. It's like at some point we got to get honest and say, wait a minute. There's one common denominator in every one of those arguments and every one of those relationships, and it's right here. Yeah, why do I do that? Why do I keep attracting them? Yeah. Without judging, without making ourselves wrong, but just in the sense of what you're saying, becoming self-aware so that we can do the stuff at choice, not subconsciously. Is is it enough just to accept or to be aware, or is there, do you have to go further than that just to to identify the problem and to accept it and then to try to work on it? Or I mean, is or there are other steps to that. I mean, depending on the issue of course, but but yeah, self-awareness is the first step. And I think it's half the battle. And then no, I think, I think in some areas some healing work is needed for sure. I see it all the time, come up in breathwork. I see it come up on my retreats, in my coaching. That one thing is understanding it. But sometimes I think that's why sometimes the talk therapy, the cognitive therapy falls short, with all due respect. Right? And knowing something, what we do something and understanding the patterns definitely beats not knowing and just doing things unconsciously. But sometimes a little step is further. And that's where the breathwork comes in, that the breathwork bypasses the mind and it goes to the source of, of where that trauma lives in the body, and it clears it. And that's why I jump tracks. And what, because it works so fast and heals so profoundly in so many levels. Yeah, it's really nice to see results rather than just I mean, yeah. You know, again, not to to shit on therapy because it certainly has its place. But, I mean, I have also seen family members be in therapy for 20 years, and I feel like, have they made any progress? I can't see it, you know. So, but, but then again, you know, my daughter's a therapist, and she, she works actually with, the LGB, TCU community, and she work with kids really like. And that's really nice. And I feel like, you know, so I know, I know for sure that she helps people and and like I said, I know it has its space. Which without a doubt. Yeah, but, I'm. Grateful that your daughter is helping kids in that area. I didn't have any support in that area when I was when I know, Is it like I said, that's why I wanted to know how old you are. Because, like, the world is just so different. It's just such a different world. And I love it. So what are the foundations that the most successful relationships have, or what are the elements, things in common? That's a great question. Communication for thought, for sure. Self-awareness. Right? We otherwise we just stop and understanding some basic principles, like what the ego is. Because what happens otherwise is we just project all that stuff on each other, and we blame each other, and we get caught in power struggles. And you did this, you know, you did that. And we get defensive, and we attack each other. And that's not to say that, of course, there's conflict in every relationship, but it's part of what it's about. And part of what happens when over two human beings get that close in that intimate, but if we as long as we're pointing the finger and blaming the other, it's like there's no way that we can grow. There is. It's a trap. And it doesn't excuse their behavior. Right. It's not about exonerating or writing off what they do. If it's something that they're doing repetitively. So it's not walking away from those difficult conversations at all, but it's it's owning that we have a role in that. Right? Like even even if, if we just put up with a certain behavior over and over again, there's like that at some point we're complicit in that. Yeah, yeah. We can. We got to stop pointing the finger because we're putting up with it. And and if we're allowing anyone to disrespect to dishonor us, then at some point after the second, maybe the third time it happens at some point now we're now we're responsible. Right. And what what else do you think? Do you think? I mean, growth, trying to grow together or wanting the best for each other or what are some other. The other for. Sure. I think that's important. Respect. You know, that basic basic respect, allowing room for imperfection. Yeah. And, you know, just understanding that we're all human, that we're all on this journey. I think for me, it's got to be a level two, right, that they've got to be willing to do the work that a relationship requires a level one. It's like I understand it, but it wouldn't be enough for me personally. I want somebody who is willing to do the work and who's going to who's willing to use the that container, the ups and the downs, the triggers, the arguments, rather than getting caught up in a power struggle to do the work so that we're both growing, we're both healing. And I think that's important. A relationship, it's the fastest way to grow like a like a conscious relationship because of the blind spot. You know, which I'm which we're never going to see. I'm looking in this mirror in front of me. The blind spot is behind me. If I turn to the left and look at that mirror to my left. Now it goes the other way. But boy, can I see it in the other. And that's why it's a great practice. I mean, just take it as a practice. Just be willing to ask the question. You don't have to buy into it, into whatever the result is, but just be willing to ask the question, how do I how do I do that? How am I doing that? That's, that's good. What you talk a lot about, giving giving your power away. How do you even define power? What is it? How do we stop ourselves from giving it away? Yeah, that's a great question, because I think we also have a very ambivalent relationship with power. Part of us wants it and part of us is afraid of it. And no wonder you know how many, how many abuses of power have each of us witness, both in our personal lives and in the world, with our political leaders, and corporate leaders and religious leaders, etc.? So and then we've also been corrupt. We've been conditioned to believe that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And what good person wants to be corrupted? But what they forgot to tell us or didn't tell us about that quote is that Lord Acton was speaking specifically about political power. That's the one that he, you know, was talking about corrupting, having a corrupting influence, not the personal power that you and I are talking about. So, you know, power could be just a sense of agency. And how many times have each of us said yes when inside? It's really not okay with us? It's like inside, we really don't want that. But in order to maintain a semblance of peace, or we settle for crumbs of pseudo love in our relationships, we don't want to rock the boat too much. So then we override our true feelings, our desires, our dreams. And that's giving away our power. That's one of the ways in which we give away our power. And we settle. We settle for less. Yeah. And and so think of, you know, so I talk about worldly power or the way that the world relates to power or ego power, you know, which is hierarchical. It requires that I push somebody down, step on them, put my need to their neck in order for me to prop myself up and feel powerful. It's power that depends on externals. And so that's the we kind of how we get confused with where think about what I call spiritual power or soulful power. It comes from within and nobody can give it to us. Nobody can take it away. We are the only ones who give it away. And and the sad part, again, is the reasons for which we give it away. For those like, we settle for those crumbs of pseudo love or acceptance, a semblance of acceptance or or semblance of peace in the home. And that's to say that, you know, relationships require compromise and negotiation. Of course. Of course they do. You know, but that's one things set up, you know, compromising about what we're going to have for dinner tonight. We have dinner tomorrow. We have sushi. Right? What we're talking about is compromising about our deepest self and and our goals and our dreams. And what's okay with those are values. And that's the kind of stuff that's not good to compromise about, because it'll bite us at the bottom. I, I like that you're saying our power is or our agency because that it gets confusing. Like, what do you mean by power in a relationship? Because you kind of don't want to feel like you're trying to overpower somebody or get your way all the time? That's not what you mean. I don't think. I think you just mean your agency. Like you said, when you are agreeing to things that you don't really want because you're afraid, you know of the consequence, like they'll walk away or whatever. But, I mean, I feel like, we do treat we do teach people how to treat us, and, they treat us only the way that we will accept or allow and, I think that a lot of people do settle. I think you're absolutely right. And. That's where we become complicit. Right. Putting up with it. And you know, that's that's the hardest thing I think, in watching myself and other humans grow and evolve and heal and transform, I think that giving up that victim, poor me, was me blaming. If only mom had done this or daddy had done that, or if only the system was set up differently. And not to say that the system is set up fairly, it's not. And not to deny that there's things like racism and misogyny and that that do have an impact, not to deny any of that, but as long as we're holding on right to or blaming what they did or didn't do, or the system or something outside of us, and holding that responsible for our state of being, we just gave our power away again. And and so the the simple way to get out of that. And that's simple or maybe simple, but not easy. It's like no matter what happened in the past, and I'm really sorry about the crap that happened, because humans unfortunately do bad things to each other, and because of the way the system set up. But as long as we're holding onto what happened, we again, we give our power away. So the way around that is like, no matter what happened, no matter what happens going forward, we get to show up. We get to choose how we show up in response. And that alone, that choice, that reframing pops us out of that helpless victim consciousness. Yeah. And I mean, I get that. And to to reiterate or to take it a step further, I, I think that we again, are showing people how to treat us. So what you're saying is we get to decide how we show up. So that could mean what, like you don't get to treat me that way. I, you know, here's my boundary. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. And like, I mean, that's I mean, we're getting into really fine tuning communications here. But every time we say you don't get to treat me that way using that word, you. Right. That little mind that that that little ego mind that is gets stuck in power struggle is going to say, oh yeah, you're going to tell me what to do. Right? So using Ice statements. Yes. Saying things like, for example, I don't want to be treated this way. Correct. Or whenever you do this I feel right. Right. And and that takes work. Yes, yes. A lot easier to splatter somebody against the wall and said, you, you so-and-so and you. But. Right. Anybody can do that. Absolutely. That is for sure that I that to to frame it that way. Like when you do that it makes me feel this way or fight and and so forth. Responsibility. Yes. For our emotions taking responsibility for everything. And again, that's not to excuse the behavior. It doesn't. Right. If we've had this conversation calmly, you're not pointing the finger, not blaming, not getting stuck in power struggles, explaining how we feel when they do that and their behavior is not changing, then maybe we have some choices to make. You know, I I think that it's really interesting. I think sometimes we really know ourselves when we're really young and as we get older we maybe tend to not listen to ourselves as much. And so I had my husband on the other day, we just celebrated our 35th anniversary and I wanted to interview him. Congrats. Okay. Yeah. It was it's a good one and we're still really happy. And I don't say things like you. Well, I do, I say you need to stop wiping your face on the dish towel. That's like our biggest argument. I mean, that's our biggest ongoing argument. So as I was thinking, I was like, do I wipe my face on the dish towel? No. When I'm trying to reflect it back to me, like his most annoying thing, luckily he doesn't have any, like, huge annoying things to me. But, when we were young, he was really a terrible boyfriend. He would say if he were sitting here, he would say, I wasn't your boyfriend. Like, in my mind, he was my boyfriend. And, and so clearly he was not showing up the way I wanted him to. And, I was younger, you know, five years younger. And it made a difference at that point. And, finally, I just was like, you know what? I've had it with you. You just need to leave me alone and let me be and let me get over you. You're not good for me. And, like, I'm moving on. And honestly, I went on with my life. I was heartbroken, absolutely heartbroken. And, months went by and, you know, he kept calling, and I just hang up on him, and I be like, just leave me alone. Just let me move on. And finally, one day, I answered the phone. This maybe like nine months later and he's like, don't hang up. I want to talk to you. I want to come over. And I let him come over. And I kind of had heard something in his voice and he said, I didn't realize, like, you thought I was your boyfriend. And you know, I was embarrassed because you're younger and, like, I was five years younger. I think I was like 17 and he was 23 at that point or 18, you know, so forth. And he said, look, I, I've really missed you. And I didn't realize how much I would miss you. And I want to show up now and be the person you know, that you expect me to be. If you give me one more chance, I'll never let you down. And I did. And like I always say, he's still on his first chance. So, I mean, I, I mean, I really do think that we do, you know, I, we do give our power away in that way. We do teach people how to treat us. And for me, that was like, you know, I want to I want to be your first thought, not your last thought. I want you to put me first. And I guess if I had been older, I would have been able to communicate that better without just throwing him, you know, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. Right. But, you know, I think that because I was young and I didn't have all the language that I have now, I just I just knew to take care of myself. And that's why I think sometimes we, you know, have to, like, listen to our younger selves, like the, the wild free one. Who knew? You know, before all the conditioning and all the thoughts. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Back to the to the washcloth for a moment. Well, what about trying how you feel? I've done it all. You've tried it, I. Yes, like when you wipe your mouth on the clean dish towels. It makes me feel like you're not listening to me. Like you don't care. You don't respect them. And and they'll try for, like, a day or two, and then, I don't know, I don't think they mean anything by they just like, pick it up, wipe their mouth. And I'm like, oh my God, I think I've just had it. So, you know, I've really I mean, I talk about it all the time because it does drive me just batshit crazy. But also I've just bought 100 dish towels and I just wash them, like, constantly. I'm like, all right, this is this is we're just going to have this conflict in our life. Yeah. I mean, in the overall scheme of things, it's pretty minor. It's not bad, right? So making, making a sharp turn now, like you've talked a lot about also insecurity. How do we how do we get a handle on that conquer insecurity. Yeah. And it goes back to that same word, self-awareness. It's got to start there. So understanding what makes us do the things we do. And so looking at patterns, what situations trigger that sense of not feeling, good about ourselves. And by the way, I know self doubt intimately. My entire adolescence was one long depression, with suicidal fantasies. And flash forward to today like, no matter what happens in my life, the circumstances, whether a relationship works out or it doesn't, whether a project succeeds or it fails and quotes never, ever, ever do I feel insecure. Never, ever, ever do I feel that that sense of self-doubt come up again so I know it can be healed. And I think it's a combination of both understanding what triggers it and what that lack of self acceptance is really going on. Because that's what what's at the core of that, of of self-doubt and then doing whatever we got to do to heal that, whether it's therapy or coaching or breathwork, is the one that did it for me. Breathwork is the one that healed. Even the stuff that I knew, like I knew cognitively. Like there was no reason for me to question myself or like I understood the source of my self-hatred, you know, through my teen years that had to do with religion and being gay and all that kind of stuff. But understanding it wasn't enough, it fell short, and it was breathwork that just heal that permanently. And at the core. I still find that crazy. I jump track. So that's why, you know, I went for the Ph.D. because it works so fast. That's just every time you come back to that, it's just seems like it's so like you say, it's so simple, but maybe not easy. I don't know, I mean, or maybe it is easy. I guess it. Is. You know, it's simple. It's just breathing. It's just breathing. But there's a lot more going on in there, right? Right. It's it's that willingness to face ourselves and to ask the hard questions of why we do what we do and why we get stuck in these patterns and why we get triggered by certain things. And again, not rationalizing anybody's behavior. But let's let's take an arbitrary example. Being late. You know, maybe you and I have a friend called Mary, and she's always late. And there I am on my lunch with her on Monday. Like, Mary is so selfish and she's so self-centered, and she only values herself. And we get all worked up about that. And then Mary, Mary gets there and we put on a fake smile because we hate confrontation and having difficult conversations, and then we just. You know, try to then the sarcasm or the barbed comments start starts dripping out of our mouth. Whereas you having lunch with Mary on on Tuesday is like, wow, great. 20 minutes. Let me return that phone call and make you let me catch up on my emails. So why why is it that it triggers me, Mary's lateness. And then, you know, when we when we ask those hard questions, it's like, all right, well realize like, oh, it's not when just Mary shows up. Like when anybody shows up late. And if I zoom out even further, like somebody cuts me off in conversation that they cut me off in traffic. It's a very similar feeling. So what are those feelings? What am I really feeling? And, you know, kind of like what you were talking about with the Dishrag. I'm not feeling seen. I'm not feeling hurt. I'm not feeling respected. I'm not feeling honored. Not feeling valued. And those feelings are way older than my lunches with Mary. So. So what's going on there? Right? I mean, if we're willing to do the work and go to the source of that stuff, then we're free. That we're free. Anybody can show up late and we can make the choice, right? Not not with stuff like we say, you know what? It doesn't work for me. So either, you know, we have the conversation about how we feel when they show up late and if they don't, if they don't change their behavior, then we have a choice to make around that. Yeah. That's true. So you don't always. Are you saying you don't always have to have the conversation if you just if it's just fine with you, if you've done your own work or do you always. Yeah, it depends on where you value the relationship. Yeah. Right. Do you do how much do you value that relationship? Is it worth having the conversation? I would say yes. Yeah. Go for it. If it's somebody you having lunch regularly with, they have to mean something to you. So have a conversation. usually ask this question at the end. What's your best piece of advice for aging? Well. And you really need to give it because I'm telling you, you're doing it right. Kirsten. Yeah. You know, I think it's what we started talking about is being able to look in the mirror and sleep well and have peace of mind and being able to, like, look at yourself in the eyes when you look in the mirror. And so, bottom line, self-acceptance, self-love. And as we've been talking about, that's only possible through self-awareness. So being willing to do the work and ask ourselves the hard questions and it yeah, it's work, but it's priceless. That peace of mind is priceless. Do you feel like it sounds like integrity? Also, when you're saying like being able to look at yourself in the eyes, is that also part of it just showing up with integrity, doing the right things? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Is there a best piece of advice that anybody's ever given you? Doesn't have to be age related. I think I forget where I picked this up, but that self-care is not selfish. And, and because we've been so conditioned to take care of ourselves is selfishness. And I think it's the other way around. I think it's mandatory, especially for people like us who are in the caregiving industry to helping others, you know, helping others, which so many of us do in different ways. We're so good at taking care of others. But if we don't take care of ourselves, like the whole thing implodes with, so it's taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of others. And if we give ourselves 10% even of the care that we give others, start there, even 10%. Because otherwise what happens is when we give and we give and we give, that service orientation, you start to turns into servitude and we start feeling trapped and we start getting resentful. Yeah. And so it's not a good it's not a good strategy. What do you do to. By all means, be generous. Give you give of yourself and give to yourself. Like, take care of yourself primarily. And that's the opposite of selfishness. What are some of the things that you do to take care of yourself or show yourself love? Spending time in nature. I love taking baths. I do too. That I when I have a hot tub, but I don't these days. But yeah, submerging the body and water time alone. For me, it's mandatory. Like, that's where I refuel. That's where. So I know I've got to take time alone. And it's when I'm on the road for three weeks when I've been on and just having too many conversations, too many interactions, too many to be doing a retreat after another retreat, that's when I start depleting myself. And and that's when we make ourselves, you know, that's when we open the door to illness, when we open the door to reactivity and just saying or doing something that we're then going to regret. Yeah. Do you have a favorite health or beauty product kind of stuff do you put on that face of yours? You know, I think it's there in my case, like I started young, like using moisturizer I use these days, I think that what do I use? I think it's kill, kill from it. Oh, yeah. But it doesn't matter. I think there's moisturize. Yeah. Moisturize. And take care of yourself inside and out. Yeah, I think that's the real. The real important one is taking care of yourself in the inside. I agree from the inside out. What's what's your favorite concert you've ever been to? Oh, that's a hard one. I just recently saw Coldplay, in Denver, and it was an incredible show. It's a beautiful and heart opening and such positive messages. That one stands out. I. Yeah, he plays the hell out of that piano. I saw him a long time ago. Chris. Mark, where do you see 100%? Yeah. Was that at Red rocks or where was it? Oh, is a stadium. It was what used to be called Mile High. I forget what it. Oh okay. Yeah. Yeah. In Denver. So that's your favorite or is that. You have think that one stands out maybe because it's recent. I went to a Supertramp concert long, long ago when I was in college. That was amazing. Yeah. They're great. Yeah, good. They're one of the first to, like, really use video and, like, huge video screening screens. And, maybe it helped that I was a mind altering substance. Yeah. And not breathwork. But that one really stand for mine, too, is like a. I've never seen them. And you know, I go to a lot of concerts. That's why I always ask this because I love concerts. Yeah. Which is. Which was my favorite. I was just talking about this one. I think my I've seen so many, I've seen like, everybody. But I was just I said this one last week when I talked to my husband, we, I think, it was a long time ago, in the early 90s, and we saw, Jane's Addiction but flee from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was playing with them and we we were, like, over the stage, like it was in this weird little. It was in a very small space. And so we were over the stage and looking down on them, and it was so great. But I've seen just a million, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just a million I could name. I mean, we saw Paul McCartney not too long ago. He was phenomenal. So I mean, Springsteen I've not you know, I've noticed I have never seen Springsteen. Yeah. So you've seen him. A long time. Yeah. That was great. Yeah. Yeah it was great. Great. So too. Well so Madonna when she first started. Oh yeah she was, she put on a great show. Which you saw it like a long time ago. Like in the 80s. 90s holiday was when. Holiday. Oh that was in the 80s. Oh yeah. I had that whole outfit, the hair bow and the rubber bracelets and the miniskirt. Right. She put on a great show. Yeah, we saw her probably ten years ago. And it was. She was still putting on a great show. Yeah, she's a good one. Well, Christian, thank you so much for for sharing. It's been so nice talking to you. You're a lovely human inside and out. You know, for everybody else, go, go try some breathwork and and, I'll put all your information in the show notes about your books, you retreats and so forth. All right. You're saying that about a lovely human. It takes one to know one. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for for those words and for having me on the show. It's a beautiful conversation. I appreciate it. Thank you. Take care, take care. Bye bye. Thanks for listening, friend. From my heart to yours. Be well. Until we meet again.