Mark Groves' Comeback Story Pt.2

00:00:10 Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody. We're here for another episode of Comeback Stories, and we are back for round two with Mark Rows, human connection specialist and the founder of Create the Love. Thanks for coming back. I mean hopefully it's like a second time coming back, Like Jordan was pretty good the second time. So I hope, I hope. I can you know, get better at well it is the name of our podcasts. Yeah, I'm coming back again. I got a haircut since the last time, so you know, I'm feeling fresh. I'm ready. I love it. Man. We're diving in. We're going right in. So I'm really curious on what is your definition of self love today? Yeah? That might who knows. Um. I think that self love is a collection of rituals and habits. Yeah. I think it's the intention of how you go through your day. You know. Self love is something that you know, I think we often think as a destination like oh I finally got there. I love myself, and certainly we can maybe be reflective or mindful of a moment and be like, oh, yeah, I've really feel a sense of admiration for myself. In the book When Things Fall Apart, the author Pema Children talks about this principle of my tree, and it's this idea of and you're familiar, is like becoming best friends with yourself and so not just like a sense of admiration or like bubble baths and chocolate and all the things that we might think of as self love. It's about actually developing a sense of reverence for yourself, like becoming your own best friend. And I think that goes beyond the you know, exercise practices, meditation, these these tools that we use to access self reflection and recognizing our patterns and the choices. But I do really believe also that if your choices are aligned with your values, then you will love yourself. If you don't love your choices, you won't love yourself. You know. I think that's kind of like a full stop. And that's why even if you make a choice that's out of integrity, you discover what your integrity is, you discover what your values are. And we can get caught in the shame cycle of making poor choices. And I know we're all familiar with the shame cycle that you make a choice and then it sort of doubles down if you don't have the tools to rescue yourself like community like meditation, commitments, you know, stuff like that. So, yeah, the tools to rescue yourself, but we know we I've come to understand that we must participate in our own rescue. And I think a lot of I was, and a lot of people were waiting for somebody else to rescue us or blaming. And I really feel like my life and even in sobriety and post sobriety, like really changed when I took ownership of my life. It really was that was the one that participated it. Where I came and rescued myself. Well, yeah, like who's going to come save us? You know, that's the I think that's the child desire, right, It can come from a good place. It's not to like shame that, but it's still a longing that is adolescent or sort of like an infant. And if we didn't get that as kids, of course we're going to long for it if we want to feel like we're enough that someone will finally recognize our pain or love us enough or choose us or stay for us or whatever it is. As soon as you place any of those needs in someone else, they can't just love you. And that's I mean that's such a That's what most relationships are like, caught in this wounding pattern where you don't just get to be together because you're participating in the cycles of wounding each other, you know. And so yeah, I think that that recognition of entering into sobriety, you know. I think interventions are powerful, obviously because they work most of the time or off. Maybe not most of the time, but in their reflection of saying, I love you so much that I just can't participate in the way you're continuing to be. I will no longer enable you. And so what's ultimately happening there saying I trust that this pain will get you to a place where you will save yourself. This maybe me cutting you off, maybe whatever. I remember Russell Brand saying in his work on recovery that when you save people from the bottom, you scrape along it right, like you prevent them from bottoming out. I've my mom comes to mind when you say that my mom, God bless her. She just came to San Diego yesterday. I picked her up. But she's so blinded and love. She loves so hard that she oftentimes made my bottom so much deeper because she would come rescue me and blinded by love, and there's probably some codependency and just really a lack of tools and a lack of boundaries, which, now that I'm saying that out loud, is maybe its own lack of self love, because as you're explaining the intervention process, I'm like, that's actually boundaries for the people participating in the intervention, which still is rooted in their own self love, like saying, yeah, I've never connected that until you explained it. But it's like, wow, there's so much there that's all comes back to self love in so many ways. We'll think about when someone in an intervention says, I'll no longer participate in this. You're right, they're healing codependent patterns of enabling, which is often masked as I love so much, I love all out. Most of the codependent side of self abandonment and trying to rescue people, it keeps one person stuck in No, I'm never enough for someone to just step up or stand up or choose me, and the other person who's maybe the addict or whatever they're you know, suffering with, they have the belief or we have the belief that we're broken. So in order to maintain the relational structure the way it is, whether it's romantic parent, kid, brother, sister, whatever it is, friends, it requires that one person still believes they're broken and the other one still believes that they need to fix them. And so they're usually patterns from childhood, right, identities that we have, and so we source our worth or value or significance or maintain safety and connection. So that's why it's not to be villainized. But they're not healthy ways of relating. And so when someone gets sober, you often see the people who were trying to get them sober all the time with nothing to do anymore. Right, they don't have a job, and then their addiction is trying to save and it's like, imagine if they put all that energy into themselves. Well, I think often it's a way of distracting so they don't have to orient towards themselves. I mean, I feel like there's so many times I've showed up in relationships, even though I've always manipulative or you know, really for my own agenda, I came in as the broken one, like masquerading behind the manipulation, and you know, it's really and it makes sense why you say self love is rituals and habits, because my natural inclination is not to love myself because I have a very long like I always think of spongeb I don't know if a lot of people watch SpongeBob, but there's one where he has a scroll and it run the paper runs along the ground, and it's like, that's the list of things where my choices didn't align with the best version of myself. Like, you don't like your choices, you're not gonna love yourself. So I have so much experience in not liking my choices that I need repetition, in practice and habits to be in place for me to not operate at a deficit there to even be started on this path of self love. So it's like I hear that in circling back to the definition that you had in the beginning, Like it makes so much sense just for my story alone. Yeah, me too. You know this identification. You know, I remember my friends saying that beliefs are just thoughts that you think over and over again that become your own. Like there someone else says something to you about you, or you have an experience where it's not explicitly said but let's say your mom leaves or your dad leaves, I'm not worthy of someone staying for So the thought that you think over and over again becomes a belief you hold about yourself. And it's intentional important work to be able to shift beliefs. I mean, at the core of everything is changing what you believe about yourself. And the fastest way to change a belief is to just do its opposite, you know, but to do it in one moment. Like you know, last time we spoke, I talked about laying a boundary. How a boundary creates self worth and it requires self worth, And the same thing is true when you're changing a belief. You might believe that you're not worthy of being loved. But for the first time you stop pursuing someone who's unavailable, you're like, oh my god, I never thought I could do this, And it's kind of an addictive process that you have to break. Like if you're someone who lives in the world of booty calls and all of a sudden you just stop making booty calls. It's like there's a drug that in an arousal that you're used to using as a way of regulating that you stop pursuing, and so you're in this moment where you're like, I've never had to sit with this, but you start to cultivate a different belief. I'm worthy of being shown up because I'm showing up, you know. And it's it's always sourced from self, you know. As much as it's like we wish someone would save us, it's it's always us. Even relationship stuff, like people come to me about breakups, it's usually what people find my work through or struggles in relationship. One hundred percent of the time, it always comes back to them. They come to try to get someone back or heal from something. But what And as you guys both know, you ultimately always end up meeting yourself or deepening your relationship with yourself. Your definition with self love being habits and rituals. I think so much of self love that doesn't get talked about enough is accountability. But it's really staying accountable to those habits, a rituals and keeping the promises you make to yourself when you say you're going to do something in the morning, that you follow through on it, because when you don't, you're not going to feel great about yourself. And when you're not feeling great about yourself. We tend to either project it out word stay small. But it is that belief system that I think all of our belief systems at some point need to be uprooted because they're broken and they're they're rooted in our conditioning from our younger years, which comes back to just the power of awareness. But I think that's why I love you so much and some of our belief system I believe. Brad Lee was sitting in here and he said, what's what do you guys think can change a belief system? And he said new information. So when you get new information, and really it's the way that you articulate things specifically. And it's not just me. I have a like a big circle of friends that are like you're also your number one fans and will often talk about it a lot. But it's just the way that you're able to provide information. I know it's helped me so much in the relationship I have with myself, but also just in relationship in general. Yeah, first off, thank you so much for having a fan club around. That's that feels good. Yeah, to now just that words can impact I think one of the things that often here is just like when you when someone can put into words something that you are emoting or you're feeling, but you've just never been able to organize in a way. And that's usually what I do is just listen to other people or learn things through myself and then sort of write amount or think them out kind of out loud, often in my solo episodes. The thing that you said that I really love well new information. I think of that quote from Tony Robbins that we change for two reasons. While we learn so much we have to, or it hurts so much we have to. And I think knowledge knowledge that we learned so much we have to actually creates pain because we now know something that we're not integrating yet. And I think the other part which you said is that like that humility, that like space of being willing because so much if I was receiving feedback when I was younger from a partner and she said like, hey, you're not showing up or I feel like you take me for granted, I would have gotten defensive about that. I would have been so like, I'm not enough, Like it's just more evidence that she's giving to the thing that I'm trying to hide anyways, like the like stoicism and the chivalry and the humor and the smiling, like all this protective mechanism, and when I would be hit with something that was real, that was true, I couldn't hold it. And I think what happens when we start to build self love and self worth is that receiving feedback isn't something we're afraid of holding anymore, because hearing I'm not showing up, it doesn't mean that I'm not a good person. It just means that there's active information that's saying how I could be a better person or a better partner. Oh my god, it took me so long to actually see a partner's feedback as a evolution or an opportunity for growth. I mean, I apologize to all my girlfriends when I was in my teens and twenties because I certainly did not have capacity, not open to receiving it. And I believe that if a partner or anybody in relationship is feeling a certain way, right, yeah, and so it's us, it's and so it's on us to listen, to be able to listen, and for a man me personally to humble myself. Initially when I get feedback, that first couple of seconds it's like, ooh, any kind of feedback? Yeah, I mean too. It doesn't feel good for a couple of seconds, and then it's just like open back up and receiving it. Because ultimately, especially if it's in any type of relationship, that if they consciously know how to express whatever isn't being met, whatever need isn't being met, there's so much growth there, so much And you know, I never used to see my partner or feedback from Like my mom gave me feedback recently that I was really grateful for, and I never used to see feedback as that. Like you know that saying you can't see the forest when you're in the trees, that's so true relationally, Like you don't know where your limitations are. You don't even when you're in it. You don't know that you're hitting early. You often think it's their limitation, not your own, you know, which is again the brilliance of the way that we see things so that we don't have to have our own self worth impacted. But when you can actually hold what I believe is healthy shame, which is the recognition that you can be better, then you let it. You know, Francis Weller, who I love as a teacher, he would say, you let it cook you. And I think about that a lot of like you sit in the actual pain of it, and you let it cook you so that you can ripen, you can become better, you can grow, you can change, and if you do that, you're gonna love yourself so beautiful. That's where I feel like we talk about meditation so much. I feel like it shows up in that way now for me as I'm trying to grow as far as in an emotional intelligence space where it's meditation creating that space, because when that feedback is presented to itself, the very first inclination of something that is trying me or like you know, it's calling something out in me, Like I have to be present in that moment to be able to make the choice to not pounce on it like a wolf. What I'm saying just the first because like if somebody puts a compliment out there, like like you're you're worthy of of love, Like you're gonna be a great husband, You're gonna be a great father, Like the first inclination of that, I'm not pouncing on that I'm pouncing on like the negative right, the person's perceived as critical. So I feel like, you know, we had to develop that habit, that ritual that honestly like that reflex, like that subconscious reaction to where it's like when it's coming at me, it's not trying me, but I have to make that choice in the moment and realize that it's my choice to make. And I have power in that because a lot of times before I didn't realize I had the power. I was just kind of at the mercy of whoever was giving feedback. Yeah, that reactivity, you know, I think responsibility, the ability to respond right that space that you're talking about. Meditation was so powerful and continues to be powerful for me as a tool because what I've felt it's done is turned that like millisecond or one second, it feels like three seconds. It feels like there's actually a choice. Before and it was like I was like, you, you know, pounce on that thing, you know, make sure I don't have to deal with that or feel that, or negate their feelings, gaslight them, you know, whatever I need to do to preserve my very delicate feeling of self worth. I'm curious to what has broadened your guys' ability to do that? For me? Cold plunging, you know, I have a cold plunge in that that has completely That's just broaden it even more because I can sit in the cold or cold shower and be like, my body's saying you're gonna die, and I can consciously explore and say I'm not. I'm safe. And so it allows me to feel my body's desire to run or react, but actually stay present to the body and not let it run me out of the experience. That's actually expanding me. I did a really powerful intentional listening exercise with my coach a few years back, and it's the same exercise I now pass along to my coaching clients. But what gets in the way of intentional listening. The three main components are typically judgment, distractions, and defenses. So when you hear that pouncing like, that's what I want to do initially is defend. But the moment that I'm defending, I can't hear, I can't actually listen to what they're saying. Yeah, So to be able to drop the defenses, it's been a practice, It'll always be a practice. But I think, yeah, meditation, cold, plunging, these things that kind of yoga. So in yoga always talk about in the practice and postures to be able to meet our edge and soften to get to the edge. In yoga, you do not push past your edge. We do that plenty of other times in our practice in our daily life. But yoga is about find your edge and soften to be able to get to your edge and find peace there. It's a practice, that's that's what yoga offers us, this valuable tool that we can take off of our mats, so that when we get pushed to our edge, we've been in the practice, we know we've been there, we know how to handle it. We don't have to manage it with our mind. We can just work through it with our breath, because our breath can get us through anything. But I think the yoga and those poses to explore our edge and not go ego and push past or not grip and grasp and hold on, cling on when we're at our ragement, just to be able to Yeah, in yoga, just to be able to see well, It's like I always give the analogy of grippy toes. So when your toes are clinging into the mat. That is an illusion of control. It's our perception of control, so we're gripping grasping it. But it's probably because our back leg is like not doing something right. But yoga, really, I think is the most valuable thing that's allowed me to find my edge and softened so that I don't take it out on anybody else, that I can respond versus react. Yeah, I feel that with yoga. Yeah. I feel like anytime you put yourself your body in an uncomfortable position, I feel like you can just work. Like working out like a lot of people have their like a lot of people want to be swoll and like jacked and like look a certain way and be perceived a certain way. But for me, I feel like a perspective on working out to where it's like you get pushed to that edge and you have a choice to make whether it's to go with a comfortable choice of like you know, maybe easing off of it, or you know, not going past that line that that place comfort and going beyond that. I feel like that is a way in the practice if I'm present to that and realizing that in the moment, it's like I continuously put myself in this difficult position to gain the repetition in choosing the choice that I want to choose, because in this moment of discomfort, it's very easy for me to choose the comfortable reaction, the comfortable feeling. And I feel like that can translate and transcend just that physical workout environment into my emotions into the way that I think because I'm taking that experience with me wherever I go, and if I have repetition and experience, like you said in self love, like that choice I made in that arena. You know, how you do something is how you do everything essentially, So I feel like with the right perspective, working out can train you for that. Yeah, I think the when we try to change beliefs, I think the shifting of beliefs relationally actually takes longer. What I mean by that is from the first reflection of a pattern or something that you need to implement relationally, it takes a lot of courage and a lot of You also have to have the moment available right and so even to lay a boundary, you have to have the opportunity to lay one, and with exercise and food because so many of our dysfunctional patterns exist in our food. And that's both because food is not necessarily it's so processed, there's so many things to it. But what I mean is that if I start to choose food differently, more intentionally, quit sugar, quick, caffee, whatever it is that I'm choosing, I immediately will feel better. If I start exercising, I'll immediately feel better. So I think any psychological shift, like any desire to shift something relationally, actually pays to also start meditation, exercise, and just eat differently. And you might not want to do everything all at once. I know some people are like the all or nothing. What happens is is you immediately get a shift from exercising and going to the edge exercise wise. I think one of the most powerful things about hiking, for example, or doing a hard kettle bell exercise is that when you complete a trail hiking, you're one of point zero zero zero one percent of the population that has ever done that hike, you know, And that's something to be proud of. And I think that just those little shifts are so monumental. And I think you just get direct feedback, so beliefs change much quicker. I love this conversation. I was thinking about, let's listening to one of your podcasts a few weeks ago, and you were talking about betrayal, and I started to like, wonder why people betray themselves? If I think about in my last relationship why I did. And I'm understanding a little bit of that, but I think, is there some common themes on why people betray themselves or abandon the authentic version of themselves when it comes to relationship romantic relationships. Well, you know, I think the last episode we talked about the value that we place in relationship right and being in a relationship, and that's part of it. But also you know, when people self betray or self abandon or don't prioritize themselves in order to maintain connections. So it's a security based thing. It's a safety based thing. It's just it's not functional, you know, it's not actually contributing to a healthy relationship, because ultimately, what you're doing is saying I don't trust you whoever you're in a relationship with, that you can actually hold all of me, that you can actually honor my needs, and then the relationship becomes a place that doesn't honor your needs. And often will be the victim of that. Well there was no space for me, And that can be true, right, So I'm not minimizing when maybe you have a manipulative person on the other side of that. But every relationship that we're in, we are agreeing to be in. And that's not negating the experience of victimization, but to say, what are we going to do with the information we get? So I might be I want to be really cognizant of where am I self abandoning, Where do I collapse or put other people's needs ahead of mine? You know, when I talk to people about where they self abandoned or whatever it might be in relationship, you just ask them, like, how old do you feel in that moment? And often it's really young, you know. Like I definitely self abandoned a lot in relationship, and it was because I didn't want to appear needy. I didn't want to appear like a controlling guy because I grew up in the nineties, you know, and a lot of the and this is true of today. The conversation about men is, you know, men are bad, men are rapist, toxic masculinity, and so I didn't want to identify with any I didn't want anything to do with that, and so I often had this sort of righteous energy of like, I'll be nicer than your ex boyfriend or nicer than your current boyfriend, you know, and thinking that there was really value in that, but there wasn't. The women, at the end of the day wouldn't respect me because unconsciously and sometimes consciously, they're like, will you forego your own integrity for me? Will you fold your purpose for me? Will you do something that's not in alignment with your values? Will you put up with something? And this could be in any relationship, but will you put up with something that's not kind to you for me? And when we're in people pleasing or enabling or accommodating and self abandoning, we often will. There's this line in Robert Glover's book No More Mister Nice Guy where he says, if you don't stand up to her, she won't believe you'll stand up for her. And that to me, I remember when I read it, I was like, oh shit, like I've definitely I can see that I wouldn't be respected because when push comes to shove, I couldn't be trusted because ultimately the you know, the saying in that book is nice guys or anything but nice, because ultimately the kindness is contrived. It's trying to manipulate or me to need and wanting to be appear to appear as good. But if you want to be real in relationship, you can't be concerned about appearing as good. Sure you should be generous, kind, respectful, all those things, absolutely, but you're not. If you want to be real in relationship and have real, authentic connections, you can't try to protect people from the feelings of being upset with you or hurt. You know, you want to obviously not go out intentionally to hurt people, but you want to tell the truth. And grown up adult relationships are not about getting along all the time. That's bullshit, No one does. They're about repairing. They're about meeting each other's needs, but also not collapsing. No one wants that, you know, I think we ultimately think we do, or think someone does, but it never needs anywhere good. I hope that makes sense. No, it definitely does. And it's like I see so many, so much like examples of emotional balance in that UM. I heard this pastor I listened to say one time he said, like, we as people, we have legitimate needs that we respond to with illegitimate responses, and like the need to feel secured or to feel loved is a legitimate need, Like it's something that we all desire, but the ways that we go about doing that is there balance in that? And by betraying ourselves abandoning ourselves All times that I've done that, it's like, yeah, I want that need, I want to feel it, but it's like where am I going to have that need fulfilled? And if I'm going outside of me, that's a problem, that's not that's not the response that's going to get me the result I want. The intention is there, but the actions don't necessarily match well. And then the relationships are designed around pretending, you know, and then like we don't even get to be in authentic connections that's our bird. And then we're like no one ever sees me, you know, Like people don't see they don't hear me, and it's like, well, you're not being you, you know. And I remember when I recognize that of like, wow, how can you ever feel fully loved if you're not fully present in the relationship. You're too busy image managing, which doesn't work. That was my abandonment. I mean, that was it right there? What do you think I'm guessing most people reach out to you when they're in some pain based on the relationship. What do you think the purpose of pain is? And I want you to talk about There's something I've always asked myself that I've heard from you. It's like, what is this pain asking of me? Well, I think pain can serve us, right, you know, it's information. I think, like all emotions, it's information. It's telling us. You know when you think about emotional pain. The challenge is that society, i'd say, farming industry, like all these things in places have said that if you're depressed, if you're sad, if you're grieving, there's something wrong with you, Like there's a problem and you need a pill to fix that. And I'm not saying that that's not appropriate sometimes, but what it's done is because it's not explained, is that it made us believe that feelings are either bad or good. And if I'm experiencing what we code as bad feelings, then there's something wrong with me and I need to fix what's wrong with me. But imagine if much like we were talking about before. Imagine if we started to orient around the thought I'm feeling these things instead of what's wrong with me, which then feeds the narrative I'm not enough is what's right with me? Like, what's wise about me that I feel these things? Because imagine if and usually that comes from our feelings being negated or not being safe to express or process feelings as kids, and so we automatically believe there's especially if our family, let's say, didn't have space for anger, or didn't have space for grief, or didn't have space for anything but happiness or positive thoughts, then we're going to not have access to any of these feelings. They're present, but we're not safe to express them because if we express them, we might not you know, we might get scorned, we might get bullied in school. There could be so many things. But the pain emotionally, when I think about physically, like if you touch the stove, you burn your hand, You're not going to do that again. You know, if you were to hurt your hand, you would stop doing the thing. But if your heart's hurting and you think there's something wrong with me that I'm hurting, and maybe you're in a relationship dynamic that you're participating in, and maybe it's your own behaviors, could be addictions, right that you know is informing you that it doesn't feel good. But if there's an inherent belief something's wrong with you and that's why you feel that way, as opposed to that information is actually trying to get you to do something differently, like if you're depressed or anxious in a relationship, that's not a sign there's something wrong with you. That's a sign that there's just something not being expressed, something not being listened to. Because if we were to then use it as information that our environment needs to shift or our choices need to shift or both, then we'd actually change our state. So pain to me is transformative. I mean, I think truthfully, till we recognize it, we usually change when we have to. You know, it's usually like the rock bottom, you know, and we know rock bottoms from the perspective of like drugs or alcohol, But we can have relational rock bottoms. And I think that can be breakups, that can be divorces, that could be just simply disruptions, you know, it could be conflict that's repeated over and over again. It could be infidelity, it could be lying, it could be for so many different ways. Again, that we have access to discover where we're out of alignment, where our integrity, we're out of integrity, where we need to grow, where we need to change. And yeah, you know, most of us go on the search for personal growth or relational growth or therapy or whatever because of pain. And you know a lot of couples turn towards therapy when it's too late. Yeah, by the time someone says, hey, I'm not feeling connected, or I'd like to go to therapy, or I'd like to read this book. If that's not enacted upon, it's about two years till they leave. And the challenging part And depending on which research you look at, but the research demonstrates that women leave more than men, and women tend to turn towards their romantic partner for support and things like that less than men do. So when a relationship ends, men lose their emotional support system generally, and they're more likely to get into another relationship quickly. I think, you know, for a number of reasons. One, we don't really have men's groups or support groups. We don't tend to talk about emotional things, and you know, it's probably safer to talk with our partner. I feel safer. So yeah, that was a long answer to your question. It's great. I can't remember if we brought this up on the last conversation last week, because I think I blacked out from the depth and and inspiration that was came about last week. But I think there's a relationship to pain. And I was sharing with someone in the story around my knee and all the physical pain and the trauma and the surgeries and how sometimes in class I will grab my knee and kiss it, like give it some love. I wish I could. I don't even know. And my friend was like, instead of like babying it, thank the pain, Like thank the pain. The pain is what the pain is why I'm sitting here right now, the physical pain I had in my knee that had these surgeries that led me to the addiction and all of that. Thank the pain, like change change that around. You can give it some love, but just thank the actual pain because of what it's done for your life. And that's beautiful. Yeah, to change that perspective shift, which I am so grateful for that. But you know, I was bathing and nursing, and I've protected my knee for years, I mean, favoring my right leg, but to really turn that around and go right to the pain and just say thank you, because I do believe that that pain can teach us more than we'll ever learn from anybody else about ourselves so much. There, Yeah, the hard times will always teach you so much, you know. I think of the most transformative moments in my life, we're all the most painful. Yeah, And I think that's available to all of us. You know, it's if we will, if we're willing to turn towards it. It is the path deliberation for everybody involved, you know. And I think it's Glenn and Doyle who says that there's no such thing as one way liberation. Like if if you're free, the other person is, they just might not know it yet. And that's I think important to remember. At a guy I met at a cafe who followed my work and he said something so profound to me. He was he was serving us, and he said to me, you know, I left my relationship and I said to her, or I had the recognition that the relationship wasn't for me. Anymore. And he's, like I said to her, and I'm not sure that she understood yet. It was pretty fresh when he was talking to me. He said, but if it wasn't for me, it wasn't for her. And I thought, isn't that so fascinating? Like one of the qualifiers for us relationally is that if someone doesn't want to be with you, they're not the one. First off, there, I don't believe there's just one, because that again just creates more scarcity and not really as much free choice. But I thought that was so beautiful of like just the recognition like of course, and she might not recognize that yet because she wants it to be with him, but it can't possibly be with him because he doesn't want to be with her. It's so simple. But if someone had said that to me when I was like nineteen and experiencing betrayal, I'd have been like still pining over it. You know, that's the beauty of maybe age you get someone, you know. Yeah, I want to change the topic a little bit. I want to ask you what was the process like of fully embracing the journey to be in the work that you're in now? Because I don't feel like a lot of people would be like, yeah, I'm gonna be on social media and help people with their relationship. While people might be like, how are you going to do that? Like why would you do that? Like they would, I mean just the world we live, and they push you to a more conventional route, something that has proven results, that will get you a salary that I'll get you these things like what were some of maybe some of the obstacles and anxieties that you faced in like fully embracing this work and really chasing after it. Oh man, I'm there were a lot of anxieties, especially because I, you know, I was living the life I had been taught to live. You know, I talked on the last one about my I was twenty seven, got engaged, engagement, and you know, I was right on target. I was checking all the boxes. And I was a rap. I was a pharmaceutical rap. I was making reasonable money, and you know I could be a highly qualified provider. And you know, my friend John Morrow, who's an artist, says, if you want to find what you love, find what breaks your heart. And you know I felt this call. I always loved human behavior. I always loved understanding relationships but it was more from a space of manipulation, you know, how to get someone to buy something, but with when I wanted to dive deep into understanding relationships for myself, which is really what it was born for them from. I wanted to understand why do some relationships and in others not, Why do some people stay together in love and others not, why do we cast so much judgment when relationships end? And in the journey of studying all that, I just felt like I you know, at the time, this would have been fourteen fifteen years ago, I was thinking like I felt like no one was telling the truth about relationships, Like I didn't feel like there was anyone teaching that shared and gave permission for things to end. And you know that sounds so weird to think, but I just wanted someone to say, like, you're still a good person even though you ended a relationship, like you're Actually it was weird to be feeling like I was more connected to myself but feeling more judged and you know, the which I think I mentioned last time. But when I started to write about them, it was really from the place of I want to share what I'm learning about my own stuff. And so it was really taught and still taught from the place of here's what I've learned academically, Here's what I'm learning from conversations, Here's what I'm learning from other teachers. Here how that applies to me. There were a lot of anxiety about leaving certainty and a job and an identity and then leaping into you know, I remember people saying to me, like, just leap and the universal catch you and I was like, you know, like keep smoking weed, buddy, like that. That sounds so abstract, But now I realize that there is something too that. You know, there's something to trusting, a purpose that's trying to be born from you, usually through your pain. And I think, you know, there's that saying turn your mess into your message. And I ultimately believe that we become the teachers we needed. And then really our work is about just teaching younger versions of ourselves, you know, And that's really how I've thought about my own. So how did I overcome it? Just by doing it? Like recognize, you know, there's a book called Field if you're into it anyways, and I remember that being sort of like a bible for me for a while of like fears along for the ride, and it's got useful, you know, it's got some purpose. But I was breaking free of paradigms of who I thought I needed to be relationally as a man. You know, all these identities were crumbling and just another one of how you make money? What's a reasonable job? You know, you start to realize that it's all just constructs and you know, often bullshit, like the limitations that were taught, like you can't do this, you can't get this kind I remember being a kid, you know what. I'm not sure if you guys learned this, but a lot of what I learned was like get a job, become a doctor, or an accountant, or I don't know what's another one, an engineer. I was like, man, all of them work so hard and they got to go to school for so long. I don't even like any of those things. But so much status is associated with those jobs, and you know, I think a lot of people still identify like, if you're not one of those things, then you haven't your parents might not be proud of you. I know. Culturally there's different status jobs, you know. So, yeah, it's been a it's been a continuous unfolding. You're writing is so special and one of my favorite episodes is one of your solo episodes. I believe it's let Yourself Be Loved. And in that episode you I'm not sure is that your blog or you're I don't know where you with the context of where you wrote it, but maybe I'll just let you take this piece because I asked you to bring it in and read it. Yeah, actually do that. I'm not going to remember it. Um. It was a post and it was a post about you know, I often just will reflect on having worked with someone or or just a new awareness that I have about myself. You know, so much of the conversation we have about commitment, and we often will say, especially a man, you're just afraid of commitment. And there's something inherent that because I was told that a lot, you're just afraid of commitment, as opposed to like, what was the you know, we were talking about pain, Like what was the wisdom in my anxiety? What was the wisdom in my reluctance? There was so much, but I didn't have a guide or someone to be able to extract that from me or say like, hey, there's brilliance in this let's explore it. And so I had someone tell me that they were told they're afraid of commitment, and I started to really reflect on it, and then this is what I wrote from it. You're not afraid of commitment. You're afraid of being hurt by someone you're committed to. It's not that you don't believe you're worthy of an amazing partner. It's that you don't trust love, and in turn, you don't trust yourself. Or sorry, you don't trust that you'll know how to hold it, that you'll hold on to yourself when you meet it, stand up for yourself to protect it, or walk away when the love is no longer present. The solution to this is that you have to learn how to be committed to yourself and your truth above everything else. You have to learn how to have boundaries around your heart, your desires, your values. You have to become a warrior who has your own back always in all ways. When we know that we won't sell ourselves out in the face of anything, all of a sudden everything becomes possible. You must love yourself unconditionally above all else. To be able to share love with another. Is this trust in yourself that will allow you to trust love, because ultimately, love is who you are, not what you seek. You know, when when I read that, you know, I remember someone saying to me that people don't believe they're unworthy of love, because that was sort of the core belief that I thought everyone like, at the core of all our patterns is really like, I'm not worthy of being understood, protected, safe, love. But I thought, well, at the core of that, it's still a belief that I'm not worthy of being listened to or I'm not worthy. So just I'm not worthy, And I remember this person said to me, No, it's a lack of trust. It's a lack of trust in love. Innately, we all have deeper down a belief that we're worthy, that it's possible that we should be treated with respect, reverence, all that kind of stuff. But it's that we don't trust that when we're in connection we're going to experience that. And that now I remember reading that that it was really about I had this big shift of like, oh, it's not that I believe I'm unworthy, it's that I don't trust love because of my experiences with it. At the root of that is it I don't trust. I don't trust myself. Yeah, like I don't. I don't trust myself. I don't trust that'll stand up to someone who is breaching that trust or betraying me. But yeah, it's really a lack of self trust. Wow, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, yeah, I need a picture of that before you leave this room. I got you, I got you. Can you talk a little bit about just the process of processing grief again, maybe when it comes to relationships. It's just so interesting and I think I maybe shared this on the last podcast, But as I navigated and walked through my transition of ending a cycle and breakup, as I've attracted maybe coaching clients that are similar in a similar situation and stuck, but just how that works as wild but maybe how to how people can be more present and actually slow down through the process of changing grief instead of, like you said earlier, running from and turned towards instead. Yeah, it's crazy how synchronicity brings together someone who's going through what you've just gone through or something similar. You know, I'm sure that you both experienced too in the journey of sobriety. Like it just brings people who are I think it was similar, especially as you bring new awarenesses. Yeah, you know, with grief. When Kylie and I broke up, we had been together around five years I think, and then broke up for almost a year and then go back together. And when we broke up, the relationship was over, like it was done. I was moving on and she was moving on. And that was in September twenty nineteen, and I remember just feeling so much grief, like grief that it was the first time I'd ever been through a breakup sober, which those are different, you know, like I've been protected by you know, the bottom of a pine glass from my guests, finding the bottom that grief that sort of demands you to feel. And I had the recognition in the realization that a lot of grief is old grief, Like I could tell that what I was excavating was not just about her, It was about all the times I hadn't sat with sadness. It brought me back to like seventeen and nineteen when I told the story last time I'm about going out on Halloween and trying to have a one night stand. But I totally bypassed that grief. And you know, I think a lot of the times we try to save people from feelings we don't know the value of, you know, like when someone's going through grief or is experiencing anger or whatever it is, we often try to rescue them from it. But when someone's going through a breakup and grieving, I don't do that at all. I remind them that I'm here, or if they need someone, how can I help what you need from me? But I know the value of grief. I don't know that there's a more powerful transformative emotion. I think anger shifts us, Like it's one of those that even when a company's grief a lot of the time, But grief is one of those things that demands to be felt. You know, it roots you. It like makes it think about depression often, right, It like makes you a mobile. But the key to moving through it is continuing to ask it questions, continuing to process it. Often with other people, you know, and when someone's going through a break up, often they'll say, like how do I get over my X? Or how do I move forward? And I think sometimes grief, in order to process it isn't about moving forward. It's actually about staying still. And then it's about doing the things that holding on is holding you back from you know, in the context of relationship, like oh, I'm not doing that thing now because they hurt me so much. It's like, oh yeah, you get to blame them and resent them for the fact that you haven't expanded or grown or done something. It's a way that we think we're getting back at them, which meanwhile they're having a peanut latta and on vacation in Camcoon not thinking about it, And here we are thinking that they are or that, or that our pain and suffering will somehow make it back to them. Maybe if we put up a Taylor Swift or a Dell quote, they'll recognize, you know, how much we're suffering. And I say that having done that once. So I put up a Taylor Swift quote when I was going through a breakup years ago, and my friend just texted me and said, delete it. It's too far. We need to talk. It's like, yeah, okay, it's like drinking poison and thinking they're going to die, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, your way, your way with words are just amazing. I feel like, yeah, you articulate things that I have in my heart but can't from a relationship standpoint. Always say and it's always just brings a lot of gratitude to having you sit here the flesh with us today. Break this down. Man, It's an honor to be able to sit with you both and chat with you about, you know, all these things that I don't think we often get to chat about as man. You know, like how many dude circles right now we're talking about grief? Yeah, right, listening to Adele, I'm not many. Yeah, And just you know, I'm thinking I'm seeing the sign of comeback stories flashing behind us, right and I'm like a lot of people think of a comeback story. It's like what people are coming back from? Um? Like where and where am I going from there? But it's like this conversation is reminding me of like this is twofold almost, It's like, what are what do we need to come back to? Like what do that that self? Love, that that honoring ourselves, that integrity within ourselves, respect for ourselves. And it's just like that over that overcomes me now, especially just with you sitting here, like that thought has never overcame me. I was not sitting on that. That's something that came to me just by you being in the room. And saying what you say and sharing the perspectives that you have that it's reminded for me what I need to come back to, because there are times where I'm in those moments and I don't trust that love. You know what I'm saying, So thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's almost like coming back to love. Yeah, create the love. Come back home, come back home to the heart where I think we will run, we'll turn, we'll close. But this is all about finding the practices the information that returns us back to the essence of what we are, which is love. And if we know we are loved, then we know we are loved and lovable. But I think we need I need to be reminded, and it's great to have platforms like this. One topic I want you to touch on before we wrap up is this whole idea of sacredness and making things sacred. I hear it in your stories and closing Sarah premonies that you've done in breakups and closing ceremonies of leaving houses. But just what's the importance of that for you and how have you seen that transform your life? Just from just the intentionality of being sacred in the things that you do. You know, I think I had an aversion towards like God or sacred because I was raised Catholic, and I really felt like in the experience of being raised and going to Catholic school, there seemed to be an actual lack of presence of God and a lack of presence of unconditional love and a lack of presence of sacredness in those circles. So I had a hard time hearing the word God or sacred and it not being associated with like sacrament or alter or religion. But then I realized that by decoupling those things, I was taking the power back, you know. And it was really only through the birth of or through the relationship with highly that you know, she's been the perfect partner to come back home or come back to that. And when we broke up, there was so much love present, like we had done everything to try to make it work, and so really the only we looked at it like we don't We've done the psychotherapy work together, we've done all this stuff, and the only thing that's left is we need to depart. And that was hard to embrace because you're again going against all these stories and thoughts about what it means to stay together. And you know, we both teach relationships, so what does it mean about us that this relationship is not lasting. I got asked that a lot when we broke up, and I said, well, you know, the premise of my work has never been about that. It's always been about the truth and telling the truth at the cost, even of the relationship. And I mean, this is one of the most powerful, potent transformative experiences I've ever had because there was so much love present in that ending that it deepened me and her on such another level, Like it made me realize that if you can do that, then you can love somebody, because when it ends, you're not It's not the love isn't dependent on the staying together. It's dependent on how we work together and who we are together and when the relationship and that I remember saying to her, Hey, you know, what do you think about doing a closing ceremony. She's like, that sounds great because we had just by logistics and timing. The last conversation we had had about completely closing it was via face time and it was just she had gotten off to Europe, and you know, it's just timing and so we hadn't seen each other in person, and we wanted to come together in person to really be on you know, do it with honor and just have a conversation. And she said, yeah, let's it. So I'm like, well, I don't even know what that is. So I google closing ceremony relationship and there's other crazy people who have done this, and so I sent her some ideas of you know, based on what I read, just like put together different versions and thoughts about it. And I remember pulling up to with the house and thinking to myself, like, do I really want to do this? Like I had that feeling of like I'm not really up for this. I like this sounds like hell. And I remember asking myself, do I not want to do it because I just genuinely don't want to do it? Or do I not want to do it because it's going to require more of me than I know exists, Like it's going to expand me, it's going to demand something of me that I don't even know how to access. And the answer was number two. So I was like shit. So I went in the house. We little fire, and we we had a playlist for it of music that was important to us, and you know, all that stuff was so painful, you know, but it's also so important. And then there were three questions that we explored together. The first one was what were our favorite memories? What did we I want to remember them all correctly, but what were our favorite memories? I want to say. The second one was like what did we learn or did what do we most appreciate about the other person? Our favorite memories was? That might have been number two, because I remember going to the second one and it fucking destroying me, Like it was that was hard. I was like sobbing the majority of the time. And the third one was what did we hope for the other person? That one was hard to access and we talked about that just like, you know, I know what I helped for you, but it's really hard to access that fully right now because I was in such grief, and you know, in a longer version of our story, there was a metaphor of a burning house, which if anyone wants to learn about that, we have a couple episodes called Letter Burned Part one and two. And so we actually burnt a wooden house that was a tree house or sorry, like a little bird house and that was just really important from a sort of what it symbolized. And I mean I left that the house that day totally different. I had never ended a relationship with such grace and intention. And you know, I remember interviewing this woman on my podcast named Yoda, which is an approposed name for once she shared which she said that she had heard once that you should leave a relationship as you'd leave a house, that you prepare it for the next owner. And I never, like, who thinks that way, Who's like, yeah, I'd love to make you. I'd like to participate in you being a better person for your next partner. Right, that's like everyone's nightmare generally, it's like, oh now they are good now they But to be able to do that intentionally and be like yeah, like I actually I really want love for you. And I think what it also did is just it really closed it with grace. It sanctified that word sacred. There was such a sacred act. It was so I mean I did a lot of the sacraments, none of them felt like that. And you know, a lot of the language I use now about relationship is the restoration of what is sacred for ourselves because imagine, if we treat ourselves it's sacred, then we bring that to the relationship we treat our partner is sacred, then we're to look at our defensiveness and their wounds with more care and concern. And you know, I'll often say, like, can you lay that at the altar of relationship because that's ultimately what we're doing is is laying down or our most vulnerable parts that things were most ashamed of. That's where they get loved is in relationship to other and through self loving restoring. You know what is sacred in our relationship to ourselves? Yeah? Nothing, But you can do a closing ceremony on your own. You know, that was a question I got a lot after because you know, sometimes it's not safe to do a closing ceremony with someone. It's opening up another can of worms, maybe they're toxic. But you can actually just set up two chairs and you can do that act and switch chairs to answer the question for the other person. And it's just as just as powerful the beautiful closure clearing release, because I think that's a lot of times things aren't cleared, things aren't completely closed, and you can't really truly invite anything else in until you've let go. That's the constant release and invite. The one consistent in this world is like, in order to achieve something else or to gain, we have to sacrifice, we have to let go. So such a beautiful practice. I don't know if I have the capacity. I want to hearing that, but like many people are like, wow, I don't know if I could ever do that, But you don't till you do it, like everything right, Yeah, yeah, because it's also not conventional at all, Like no one does that generally, you know, until we start to see the actual value in it. Because what occurred after is there was just such respect for one another. There were still boundaries around communication, and we did have to clear things that we were maybe both angry or resentful about. But it really set this baseline of admiration. But I hear you, you know it's it was very confronting, and the idea of doing it again if I had to, it would not really be optional because of the level of repair, just the level of love that existed in that exchange. But I know lots of people who after I talked about it, did a podcast on it. I put it in my breakup course lots of people ever written me being like we did that or I suggested that and the person said yes, and it was one of the most beautiful experiences. So you know, it is available to people. And as I said, you know, you don't have to do it with them. You can do it by yourself and it's still powerful. Just like this episode, I want to say again, fuck yes Mark Groves, oh man, to get round two with you, to give us the space. I know how busy you are and how much you have on your plate, but to come back for round two and have these conversations this means the world to me. Grateful for your time, Grateful for your friendship and connection and how you've been guiding me in a way for many years now, so much inspiration, pointing out blind spots with just your words on certain things that I thought I knew that I really didn't know when it comes to relationships. So I really appreciate your brother. Thanks for having me back on I mean in a week, I made it back, and you know, to be able to have these conversations means a lot, and I'm grateful to be able to get to know you both personally. Now, Yeah, man, thank you for two weeks of reading my mail relationally, but just making a way that's practical for people to love themselves and have that love translate into wherever they go and whatever relationships they're in. I'm benefiting from it. Everyone that's listening to this is benefiting from it. So thank you for your time, and thanks to both of you for the work you do, and on such large platforms with what is perceivably probably a lot of risk till it's not till it's actually like so inspirational. So I appreciate you both that you stand in this and fight for these words and these conversations. That feels more like freedom these days than anything. Right. Where can in case our listeners didn't hear the first episode, where can everybody track you down and find you? You can find me on Mark Groves dot com, Create the Love on you know, most social channels. I haven't really gotten to tiktokie, but it's hard. I don't know, Yeah, I don't know. I heard there's more dead people on Facebook than alive, so I'm not sure if I'll stay there either, but it's gotten to be a pretty old platform. But yeah, you can find me Create the Love dot com is where all my courses are and yeah, just find me a d M if you need anything. Thank you brother, thanks for having me. What's up? Comeback stories, family, It's Donnie dropping in here. So did you know that Darren and E's relationships started by me being his personal development, mindfulness and mindset coach. I want to let you know about both my one on one coaching program to Shift and my group Mastermind Elevate your Purpose. These coaching programs are specifically designed for people who are ready to take the next step in their purpose and level up their career, personal finances, and have more connected, deep and meaningful relationships. My gift and part of my purpose is to help others take that next step in leveling up their lives so that they can have a greater impact on the lives of others, create success that sustainable yet evolves and grows, and help build a legacy that will outlive your life. If this is calling you, just go to Donnie Starkins dot com and apply for either one of my programs.