A Guide to Unconditional Love, Boundaries and Relationships with Guest Christy Holt

I think this is the perfect time , though , for whatever reason , I had to cancel with you once and then you had a conflict , and it's all good . We're here now . I am just glad to have you on the show . I'm going to start with the first question , because this happiness , hussy , thingamajiggy had me floored when your people reached out to me .

So I want to know where that comes from , because it's hilarious and cool and memorable , and I want to know how you got into this about someone who didn't really see me as all that positive .

And I was like , oh my gosh , I'm yeah , I'm stealing that because , yeah , what better to represent the mission that I'm on to spread happiness throughout the world and to do that with just a little side of sass ?

And so , just like everybody else , I've been through some shit over the years and you know I've been married and divorced twice . I finally figured out the relationship thing , which is a big piece of it . You know I have struggled with anxiety and overthinking and overwhelm and perfectionism and people pleasing , just like everybody else , right .

You know , men on the flip side have to be , you know , a good boy , but that looks different .

That is more like being successful and winning at all costs , right , and being tough and strong , whereas women are almost conditioned to be the martyr in a lot of situations , right , we're kind of told that we should be nurturing and giving even if we don't have much left to give , and so that conditioning underlies a lot of the challenges that we often have as

adults . And so I was dealing with a lot of that , and especially in my second marriage , I learned so much . First of all , that's where I became a parent , which I'll tell you what I don't know . If any of y'all have kids I'm sure some listeners out there do , I don't they are both the greatest challenge and the greatest gift , because we learn so much .

I don't think that I have learned as much from anything else as I have from parenting , because it's a mirror reflection of yourself which is that a good thing ?

But back to really , you know , the question of what you were asking in the first place is I kind of came to this like holy shit moment where I had this realization I'm the common denominator in all of these problems , right , and all the , all the things that I was perceiving my relationship with my kids , with my you know , everything that was going on around

me . Basically , I realized , oh my gosh , it's me , and that was for a moment a little bit like , you know , kneecapping me . Oh my God , it's me .

I was pointing fingers at my partner and wishing he was gonna change and hoping he was gonna change , and complaining to my friends that he wasn't doing what I thought he should be doing . But who was looking at me ? Well , probably he was , but we were both .

And so when I realized , like holy shit , like I'm actually the one who is in , you know , in all of these things , I mean , first of all , I recognize that this could go a couple of different ways . Number one you could go in the guilt and shame spiral on that one , and thankfully I didn't , because that's not helpful or productive .

Instead , I took that sort of epiphany like come to Jesus , holy shit moment , if you will , and I thought I'm the one who can change this . Right . And that's where everything really started to shift was when I started taking what I now refer to as radical responsibility for how I was showing up , for how I was responding , for

how I was creating the experiences that I was having , because everything goes through our own filter , our own perception . And if we start to recognize that , well , then we start taking back our power . And it never gave your power away . You can't . But you start to recognize .

Well , hold on a minute , I'm actually , this is me , I'm creating this and I can shift it , which is much better than being stuck in that like blame situation , is that where you made a decision to deal with , or to the whole self-love thing .

Both you have to take accountability and responsibility for your behaviors , past and present , but also it empowers you to move forward in a way that you can choose right and really step into the life that you want .

Instead of sort of living in this like autopilot , reactionary living based on your past experiences and memories , you can start to be in the present moment and choose a different path forward .

How do you keep from spiraling and getting depressed and thinking , oh my God , it's my fault , and going down that bad rabbit hole rather than actually turning it around and making it a positive thing ?

And in my personal story I had a few moments and I'll share one of them they share actually quite often which is I'm going to use a metaphor you know , when you're driving home , you're driving in the car , but you're like off in dreamland . You're thinking about I don't know what you're driving in the car , but you're like off in dreamland .

You're thinking about I don't know what you're making for dinner and the show you're gonna watch later . Whatever you're driving , you get home you don't remember stopping at a single light . How the hell did I get here ?

I don't remember driving really right , you were on me all the time , right and so that I had sort of a moment like that in my life where something happened in my relationship like holy , holy shit , like how did I get here ? Like what have I missed ?

What have I tolerated , what have I put up with , what have I contributed to to get to this place where it was almost unrecognizable ? And so all that to say it's not about blaming yourself , because I could blame myself for tolerating things or putting up with stuff or contributing , but that wouldn't be helpful , right .

And so it's ultimately just about ownership and say , yeah , these are the patterns , and now that I'm aware of them , that actually puts me in this incredible position to move forward and choose differently . So it's not about fault or blame or guilt or shame or any of that .

That will actually just keep you stuck in that , in that spiral , in that negative , in those repeating patterns . And is that what you help people do figure out their patterns ? I mean , absolutely it's part of the work , and I'll say that the catalyst to shift from that blame and guilt and shame game is self-compassion .

It's being able to give yourself grace , to say you know what I made a mistake , I'm only human . I didn't know then what I know right now , right , which is , which is where we get the guilt and shame from . We think we always should have known better , like oh , because I think I disagree .

I have another question , but I almost don't want to stop you , but I did so . When you're helping people , is it only specifically for couples that you work with or do you work with individuals ? What is the like prime persons that you want to work with on a ?

What you do have is an identity problem and most of our external problems , the things that we perceive as being an issue with something outside of ourselves , it all comes back to that filter , that perception , that reaction .

Most of this work is almost on the individual level , at least , that is the foundation and building a relationship that is one of self-love and self-acceptance and self-compassion , because , after all we are , you know , we're just all humans doing this thing and living one step at a time .

Like I said before , you know , I think we're always doing the very best that we can with the resources and understanding that we have at the time .

And while it's easy to beat yourself up and , cynthia , to just kind of really , you know , drive home the point about the guilt and shame Awareness is a beautiful thing it's not there to remind you that you're a fuck up and that you did things wrong and that you should have , should have , could have , would have , whatever .

It's there to illuminate a path forward . So , instead of saying I could have , would have , should have done this differently , it's an opportunity for you to recognize that you now have a new perspective .

Now you see things differently , and that is really empowering , so that you can move forward with the new information , with the new perspective and do something different right , instead of staying stuck in those repeating patterns . And I will .

This does mean unlearning conditioning . That's not helping you . It means unlearning all of the all of the things that other people told you that you could , should , would be that you didn't want to be you know . It means looking at those beliefs that you're carrying from wherever you might have picked them up . It means processing through unprocessed trauma .

It means learning

to hold space for your emotions so that they don't get trapped in your physical body . It means learning different skills and resourcing yourself so that you can respond right , so you can regulate your nervous system and respond versus reacting right , and this puts you in a really powerful position to deal with any kind of problems .

And I do focus on relationships , but that's not to say that these , these tools are not going to help you in absolutely every potential relationship you have , including , for example , the relationship you have with your body or the relationship you have with money . Right , everything is relationship , and I wanted to also just touch on .

you mentioned the create method , so I just wanted to kind of give like just like touch on that , because that is my signature system and it's not a linear system . It's not like step one , step two , step three it's an acronym , but all the pieces flow together because life is not linear .

And so this is doing things like looking at your limiting beliefs right , it is looking at the way that you set your day up and you know , creating a routine for success . It means looking at how you're fueling your body , how you're hydrating , how you're moving your body to stay in shape and physically feel good . It is about thinking and dreaming bigger .

It's about tapping into the authentic you and really creating a vision for the life that you want .

And then it's taking all of that and bringing it from the knowledge state where , like , you know stuff and you're like that's cool and I know what I should be doing and actually embodying those pieces , so that you are having the lived experience that has aligned with that version of yourself that you really want to be .

And I just want to say one last piece on this no , go right ahead , you don't have to become someone else . You're already that . You right here , right now . So sometimes we forget , we forget how powerful we are , we forget that we're whole . We we get duped into thinking that we're broken or something missing that needs fixing and healing .

But truly what we need is to come home to ourselves and remember that we are whole .

It's so hard , because when you don't know people like you know I'm lucky , because sometimes we have guests on that I do know , but so far the three people we've had on that I don't know I'm like , oh my God , this is the best . It's true though . This is so good . I hope you're enjoying yourself too .

At the moment I have more questions , but I don't want to step on . Rick or Cindy , go ahead , okay , go ahead , okay , go ahead .

And I want to just go back for one second , carmen , because I am nobody's guru and I love that .

Again , this is kind of this idea I'm broken and I need fixing and I need someone else to tell me what to do . No , you don't . You just need someone to recognize you and to love you and accept you in your wholeness and help you find your truths , your answers and your , your , whatever you're meant to do and be in and have within you .

So yeah , I just wanted to touch on that .

I feel helped already . I hear you , but I'm just going to push back just a tiny bit . But okay , I know the horrible word . I meant it more like sarcastically , but yeah , I know I think it's kind of looking . I'm going to be straight up , cause now I feel really comfortable . I hate the word life coach .

I cannot stand people who claim to be life coaches , cause I'm like you need to have had a life before you can call yourself a life coach and people who are actually life coaches are people like you know , um Gandhi , but they would never call themselves . He would never have said that . You know what I mean ?

Oprah would never walk around saying that she's a life coach or right . People have had a life and have done something extraordinary , whatever . So I get annoyed and so I'm always a little bit hesitant . Yeah , but here you are . I don't call myself , I know you don't , but this is what I'm trying to say . The irony of ironies is is you have focused Cause .

I think this is important too , as women . Right , you have focused on something , you've become an expert in something and you have a viable thing , that you're a service that you're providing that we need , especially in this country right now . We really need it , and I think that is important and I won't push it down ,

you know what I mean . Like , I'm just glad to meet you . Um , I haven't shot with you guys too , so yeah , no , let me ask you this question about people pleasing , because some people , when you were younger , when you were younger , when you were younger , you know .

I was always my cousin , by the way people pleasing is something that has always , uh , disturbed me , because I don't know where we learned that from , but can you talk a little bit about that because I know you mentioned that somewhere in my research of you .

So I kind of want to start with a couple of examples , just to make sure we're on the same page of what might look like people pleasing , because I think some people are like I'm not trying to please other people , but , subtly , you're doing stuff because you want them to like you , right ?

You're doing stuff because you want to be validated , you want to feel valued by someone else , you are maybe expecting a certain kind of response from someone , and so , in a subtle way , people pleasing can come off as a bit of a manipulation .

Now , before people freak out because I said this before and people kind of freaked out about it , I don't mean like bad manipulation , like ill willed , necessarily I . I just mean you're behaving in a certain way to create a specified outcome that you'd like to see happen .

Right , that is manipulation , in the same way that me moving this cup over here is manipulation , right , trying to create an outcome . I think , for the most part , a lot of the people tendencies come from childhood trauma .

They come often from a parent child relationship where generally , probably by no fault of the parent on purpose again , no ill intent created this response from the child realizing I need to , you know , behave a certain way in order to get my needs met right , whether that be food or water or emotional needs , whatever that might look like .

And so you know , maybe you were , I don't know , called out for being bad , being too loud , being too needy to whatever else , and you adjust yourself in response to that .

Often this comes from childhood because well , I mean , it could happen later as well but because we don't really have the skills to move through those emotional responses , to process them , and they end up stuck in our bodies , right , like , like I was saying , that gets stuck in your body and you can have all kinds of things from disease to , you know , major

major illness , major chronic pain . You can have a lot of different outcomes and sometimes it manifests smaller , and Gabor Mate has done some research showing some links between people pleasing and cancer . So we'll just you can go look that up .

If you are a people pleaser , you might want to know that repressed anger and people pleasing can be a significant contributor to some of these serious illnesses .

The problem lies when we take it so far that we are sacrificing our own needs in the process and that we are acting in a way that is detrimental to ourselves .

So I like to differentiate being nice quote , quote , unquote nice , which actually means to be pleasing and agreeable , versus being kind , which is sort of stemming from love and can be both kind for others and yourself .

Right , and because of this sort of manipulative energy , it's almost like people pleasing requires us to contort ourselves into something that we're not in order to get that outcome Right .

And when we're contorting ourselves and being someone that we're not , we create a dissonance within ourselves , we're not being authentic to ourselves and we actually create distance from ourselves and the things that we really want by creating this energetic gap Right .

Like , I got to take care of my family and I got to do all this stuff , but they're miserable , right , and this is actually the missing piece to your happiness and it's not finding the next , I don't know handbag or pair of shoes or whatever else you know , to make you happy in the moment .

It's about really bringing you back to a state of inner happiness which is truly your foundational beingness , is your true nature , is to be happy and maybe , if happy doesn't resonate for you I often use happy , but maybe it's peace you know , maybe it's joy maybe it's I don't know whatever other word really resonates with you , but like this , the state of feeling

good , like you call it what you like , but this inner feeling of just I'm going to be okay , you know , I feel that bring you to authenticity . Yeah , and chaos can be all around , right , but you can still feel that brings me to authenticity .

Yeah , and chaos can be all around , right , but you can still feel that solid wholeness , that peace , that love , that joy within yourself and operate from that perspective .

And that requires you to be in touch with you , to know who you are , to know what that feels like , right in that , that true you , that true nature of yourself that gives you the ability to understand where you end and where other people begin . Right , like that part too , and that's what I'm going to ask , yeah .

Because it's like , if you're always on guard and everything like you can't relax , you can't be you , because you're always making sure they're okay . It's like what about you , though ? What about me ?

I don't know who I am outside of all of these performative things that I'm doing to create this experience , which I don't even like , I don't even enjoy it . It's just feel like I have to .

I say it straight up because if not , we'll just end up fighting with this man right One of my clients . Whatever God , I hope he never listens to this , but I mean . It mean also that part of it too . Like you , I mean everything you said . There's so much layers there , but it's all true ?

Like you can hope and wish and dream for all damn day long , the only person that you can change is yourself , and so this is probably very annoyingly and underlying theme of my work is that you can't change anyone else , so I will talk to you about those . You know circumstances that you may be experiencing conflict with your partner or feeling a .

You know circumstances that you may be experiencing conflict with your partner or feeling a . You know a certain feeling towards your partner and I'm just like it's you . It's you at the , at the heart of it , it's you and so that's so annoying to hear and like , oh my gosh , like my partner is narcissistic and it's so toxic .

No , listen , that may be , but we're going to talk about you right now , because talking about them is not going to change your circumstance . And trust me , girl , I know from firsthand experience . I did this for years . I can't wait . I got the T-shirt . So , yeah , I tell you that I want you to see something different in your outcome .

It's going to be you who's going to have to decide to do something different .

Like we have people that we work with that are just they've been there for 30 years , they're idiots , you know what I mean .

Like they're gonna we there's nothing I can do to change them and I'm like we need in their ways well , but I'm not going to fix somebody who is like in their 60s , like , and it's not my job you can't yeah without their permission , you know energy , because I'm like how can I fix , how can we do what we need to do over here so that we can get it done

and move it through , because all we can do is change the way we do things . Yeah , that's a really powerful thing , yeah .

You can obviously check out the episode about conflict for my conflict resolution yeah yeah , um , it's called advanced techniques for conflict resolution , I believe , or something like that .

end that connection , yeah , maybe that's the right response . But if it's your partner and you don't really want to spend money to get a divorce , maybe that's not the best solution , right ? In that case , a divorce , maybe that's not the best solution , right ?

So maybe in that case , you're going to , you know , go into the conversation and address it from the lens of love and compassion , from the perspective of an intention of maintaining connection above all else , right , remembering in those situations that you're on the same team , right , that you're not fighting against each other .

You're problem solving together as a unit so that you can move together stronger . So , yeah , intention really matters and keeping that in mind is really important so that you can move through those difficult conflicts and get the outcomes that you ultimately do desire .

Because I have had circumstances recently where I think back like , ooh , like five , eight , 10 years ago , me would not have handled that well , right , I would have been devastated , I would have been an anxious mess , I would have been overwhelmed and right in a spiral , which is actually what my first book was about .

It's about stopping the spiral so that you can respond rather than just react . And now I can sit there and be like , okay , like that's really interesting . Other people's emotional defensive outbursts or upset or challenge it , like I know where I end and I know where they begin . So I don't take their stuff on .

I can hold space for them right , I can validate their experience . I don't have to , I don't have to fix it . That's not my job . My job if I'm going to have a job at all here would be to listen right , to hold space for them , to create an opportunity for them to problem solve their own problems with some support , maybe with some questions , right ?

And then I ? My website is coach Christy Holt , but I really see myself more as a mentor and I call myself a happiness and love guide , cause coach feels like telling people what to do and that's really not how I roll . I don't like . I'm a firm believer of try this on right , try on this idea . Does it fit ? Does it ? How does it ?

You know how does it feel ? What ? What ? You know what's different in your life if you were to try this on and wear it around for a little bit and if it doesn't fit , if it feels bad , you take it off and try something else on right .

So I'm a firm believer of that approach and really just being there for people and allowing them the space to feel what they're going to feel , to express what they're going to express , express and holding my own boundaries for me , right , I'm not about to tolerate mistreatment either . This is also very closely linked to the people .

Pleasing is boundary setting , because people pleasers generally don't have no boundaries , right they're like oh , do whatever you like , I don't know how to deal with you . Or if they do have boundaries , they have a lot of instances , maybe , of people just trampling all over them and they're not sure how to enforce them .

They're not sure how to stand up for themselves . Yeah , I mean , boundaries are really this important , pivotal piece that interlock with the people pleasing , because often people who are people pleasing do not have a strong understanding of what their boundaries are . They do not know where they end and where other people begin .

They can end up taking on emotions and problems of other people's like it's their own , carrying this heavy weight and instead , if they can learn to set healthy boundaries , it is actually a beautiful gift , not just for other people . It's not just about eliminating the problems and walling people out and protecting yourself . Boundaries are an invitation inward .

They are a guidebook for those around you to show you , to show them , to give them directions on how you will most feel loved , respected and honored , and those who really truly want to be in a deep relationship with you are going to truly value knowing what it is that really feels good for you and what doesn't , so that they can act accordingly .

But I know for a fact people that I gave boundaries to and said I will not tolerate this are mad and angry and move away , and I'm like . To me that's a blessing . It's a blessing .

But the thing is , most of the time those are the very people we really need the freaking boundaries for right , because they're the ones that trample all over our boundaries and mistreat us and we then we feel helpless to respond to that .

The truth is , if we just set clear boundaries and I also just for anybody listening that's like not totally clear on what a boundary is and isn't . I want to give an example Okay , you can't do , that is not a boundary , that is a preference and that is a request . Maybe , at best , probably not going to go over very well , because actually you can't do .

That really brings up like this counter will in people . They're like I'm not , so then they like even more , want to do it , so you can't do that or anything like that is not a boundary . Now another an example of a boundary would be if you raise your voice when we're having a conversation , I will remove myself until we can speak calmly .

This is about you and your response . So I think a lot of people are like ah , I said boundaries and people just don't listen . Are you setting a true boundary or are you just telling people your preferences and then getting mad because they don't see the preferences the same , because you're not going to control that person ?

You can let them know your preference , and that's fine too , but you have an expectation that everybody else is going to be like oh I see things exactly the same and I'm going to do exactly what you want . That would be crazy , because we wouldn't want to be in that flip side where someone tells us how to behave all the time .

I think that's a powerful thing , cause I remember having a conversation Rick , you and I had a conversation about this kind of same thing with individuals in our lives that we needed to cut out , and it was a hard conversation , but I think a lot of that is .

But if I don't keep them , then I'm losing friends , I'm losing people in my life to interact with .

I don't want to tick them off , but you talked about Thanksgiving as an example .

But I think that means we're coming at boundaries from a warped sense , because boundaries aren't meant to be . You can't do this to me and you're going to ruin our relationship by doing this . It's simply saying , if you do this thing , I'm going to respond in this way , just so that I can honor my needs . It doesn't make you an asshole .

I mean , sometimes I guess maybe it doesn't . But some people are going to be how they're going to be and instead of getting upset that they're not being how we want them to be , we just manage our response to it right .

We decide this is the action that I'm going to take and so for Thanksgiving , we don't want to maybe spend all day doing something with family . We want to limit it to a couple of hours . We don't say I can't believe you're having dinner and I'm can't , you can't have that and you can't tell me what to do and I'm not going to do that .

You just say you know what I ? I would be happy to come for two hours , after which I need to go home and have a nap because we have another commitment in the evening , and that's just what I need for me .

And it's really hard for people to come up with a lot of counter will when we frame it that way , right , it's easy when we're like , well , you can't , you know you've got to do this and I can't stand it when you do that and these are my preferences , Of course they're going to come back .

You would do the same , right , If someone started to tell you you can't do something you kind of want to , just kind of want to do it .

And , yeah , we can lose track of our identity and we can lose track of what's really good for us , because trauma , when trauma is less about the severity of the trauma itself , it's more in the processing and how we moved through it afterwards and the completing the cycle of trauma , so that we can move forward and not carry that trauma into .

You know our future experiences and interactions . But you have to stand up for yourself , because I think that people get really sucked into this idea of like , well , if you know unconditional love , I fully believe unconditional love completely exists . And I have a lot of people that would argue with me that you can't do that because what if people mistreat you ?

Well , I would argue that that is not unconditional love any longer .

Well then I would say you're not unconditionally loving yourself for remaining in that relationship . Yeah Right , this has got to go both ways . We , we both need to set healthy boundaries with one another . We both need to openly communicate those things and we both need to come at it . Yes , with standards , and yeah , we're probably going to have some expectations .

But if we can find someone who we can love and accept as they are as a human being and really approach you know , being together as a partnership where we're learning and we're growing together , and generally approach one another with loving , kindness and minus the assumptions and judgments , and just do life together , we can really do this in a very peaceful way

and we can .

It's not that easy , like even if , because people get into those moments where they they cross those boundaries or they don't accept that person's boundaries , or do you know but that's where you step in and maybe try to help people right , like , where do you step in to help couples or people dealing with their family members or whatever ?

When , when , how do you step into it ? I guess is the question .

But what I have observed from my own experience firsthand is that when you're buried in the in the muck , you are not looking to change .

Right , you were , you were kind of buried in the muck , and so I want someone who's at least reaching out the muck ready to say I'm going to take responsibility for myself , I'm going to do the things that I can to change .

Maybe they've had sort of a bit of a realization that this attempts to change everyone else in the circumstances is is is growing tired , right , it's right , you child , they're kind of fucking over it . And they actually want real change and they're willing to do that . Not that easy part , and I'll say it doesn't have to be that damn hard .

It feels like when you're in the muck . It feels like it's impossible Because you can't see .

You could tell me if I'm wrong . It's because we don't know ourselves well enough and we don't have any boundaries or we don't set those . I mean , tell me what you think , cause that's why , when you said unconditional love , I was like cause people always say that , but it's not true .

It's it's born of every moment of life that they've lived up until now and you will have never any idea of what that all entails .

And so just being able to say , like I really can't know what has led to this person being in this place right here and right now , and just having compassion , like even the wildest people I can still look at and be like Ooh , like what have they been through that ?

drug addict and he had to make the decision for the family to let her go .

And it took every like to let her go because she'd been in rehab , he's helped her so much or whatever , and people were so upset with him , other people in the family were so upset with him and I remember thinking like see , that's unconditional love , because he knows there's nothing else he can do .

He has to let her do what she has to do and just let her know I'm here when you're ready . And it's the weird thing because we think it's the opposite , like he's supposed to be the you know , and and I remember thinking to myself like I don't think I could , I don't even got no children , and I was like in pain watching this happen .

But it was the right thing to do because , oh , thank God , or whatever you believe in universe , she , you know , she's fine , fine , and I think she's 20 years sober you know I should say not sober . I guess sober is for both , but you know what I mean ?

But before I dive into that , I digress , cause I just wanted to also say that unconditional love is not something that you just create for people out there . It starts within , and if you do not feel unconditional love and acceptance for yourself , you're going to have a hard fucking time experiencing it when it comes to other people .

Because everything we think about other people is really a mirror reflection of what's inside of us . Think about other people is really a mirror reflection of what's inside of us . Everything we witness in them is a mirror reflecting it back to us so that we can see and learn about ourselves . And so we'll leave that there .

Unconditional love starts within , so if you can learn to unconditionally love and accept yourself , you will start to see unconditional love and acceptance play out in the world around you . The reality TV . I just find people so fascinating .

I I love watching them just kind of do their thing and I don't actually know why I was going down this road , but where was I going to go with that ?

There were problems in most of those relationships and , of course , there's a problem coming when the people who claim to love you the most don't trust you to know what's right for you . And I get it . It's a crazy scenario to talk about getting married in like six weeks or however whatever .

It's a very interesting scenario , but what really struck me as a parent is that if I was in this situation my kid was on this show show and I was the parent in here the thing that I want them to know the most is that I unconditionally love and accept them and trust them to know what's right for them .

Period , not to proclaim that I know because I'm what , because I'm older , I know what's right for them in their heart . That's preposterous . So that's what I wanted to say is really this this trusting people is a big piece of what I do Because , like I said , I don't think that people are broken , that they that they're .

You know there's something wrong with them . I trust them to know they may have just gotten off track and by trusting them to know at the heart of things , we can team , we tag team together and find their way , you are a much better person than I am .

But yeah , I believe in unconditional love I don't know that's unconditional love .

Right , and I think that my argument to people who say that I don't believe in or I haven't felt it or I haven't been in that experience on the receiving end , my invitation is to go deeper into the love that you have with yourself , because the more you can feel within yourself , the more you can recognize and feel and experience this love .

It does , and we understand he had a lot of alcoholism issues . This is all on our podcast . I'm not revealing anything that he hasn't shared , and to me it's like no , that's not unconditional love , that's something else . You know what I mean .

That might be a bond between son and father and some duty or whatever , but if you love someone , you don't hurt them that way , and it's not and I've said this before the physical pain isn't the issue , it was the emotional pain that we are still dealing with on our podcast on a regular basis .

You know what I mean , which I'm fine with , but that's why I know it's so not unconditional love , I'm sorry .

Many people are limited , like I said , by the way that they connect with themselves really prohibits them from creating and giving and treating other people with kindness , even because they're not treating themselves with kindness . Right it's I have so much compassion for , for both parties in situations of abuse , because both people are really struggling and it's not .

I'm not by any means condoning the behavior . I am not . It's not acceptable and nobody deserves to be treated that way . But in order to be the abuser , you have gone through some shit and you haven't healed it , and I have a great deal of ever led to that way .

But in order to be the abuser , you have gone through some shit and you haven't healed it , and I have a great deal of ever led to that moment . And for the person on the receiving end , of course , I have a huge amount of compassion and I wouldn't say like , oh , just blanket , that falls under any sort of like unconditional love .

I think everyone's capable , but not everyone is actually living it and that's that's hard . It's definitely hard to watch in those situations .

But when I hear you look at , I was really angry when you told me this whole story , when you talked about this , cynthia , you were on the show too and we had this whole conversation about this and I was pissed because I didn't know to the extent the abuse you had .

You know little by little or whatever , but I would not be your friend if I didn't tell you the truth and I'm not going to let you give him another pass . I'm not , I'm not Um cause I think I , I think unconditional love . This is where you and I may disagree , and you're the expert on this , you know and you're the person we're interviewing .

I've never been a parent and even when I said it right now I get like tingly , like oh my God , like I can't imagine being able to do that . You know , like I can't imagine being able to do that . You know that to me is rare . It's not as often .

But I do agree with you that if we practice it more , if we recognize it in ourselves , we can probably see it more in other people . That I agree with and I'm going to work on that .

By all of these means we can really just like sit in this state of being , this stillness of being here right now and observing what's going on around the world and not having to react to it , not having to control it . Like that ego is , like that need to kind of control the outcomes .

Right , like this , this father wanting , I'm sure , he having to control it . Like that ego is like that need to kind of control the outcomes . Right , like this , this father wanting , I'm sure , he wanted to control the outcome . He wanted his child to be safe and healthy and strong and all of these things and at peace .

But sometimes we have to let go of control and trust that things are going to work out and that that's like an ego battle . Right , because our ego says , well , we need to be in control so that we can feel safe .

Ultimately it wants to keep us in what is certain and what is familiar , more than it wants us to actually feel good or have positive experiences . So it'll keep us in that safety zone .

We all know , we've all had experiences like this where we will be in a pattern and it's very familiar , it's very certain we know what the outcome is going to be , but we don't want that outcome .

We actually know we want a different outcome , but we have a really hard time breaking that pattern because it's it feels kind of safe in the way that we know what to expect , whereas stepping outside , you know , moving outside our comfort

zone and trying something that has an uncertain outcome feels very scary , which is where a guide and a mentor or a coach or a therapist or someone who's been through some stuff can really just be there , like I like to say I'm I'm like a mentor for like a whole ass human , I'm like the link arms and we'll do this together , because I don't have answers you

do , but I'm here to walk with , with you , to help you go through this journey and uncover those things that you're meant to uncover , and step outside your comfort zone , just like a little bit at a time , baby steps so that now I want to talk a little bit about your book , because we're past the hour mark .