Kindness: The Foundation Of All Relationships

So today's talk is all about kindness and it came out of a request from the community to talk about kindness specifically in relationships.

So why do we want to talk about this?

Why is this really important?

One of the number one things we seek in life is connection with other people.

It eludes us.

Maybe we're lonely and we want a relationship with someone.

We want a romantic relationship.

Maybe we just want someone as a companion.

Maybe we just want friends.

Or maybe we want to have a connection with our family and our parents and our children and our siblings.

Or maybe we just want to feel like we're part of the community.

You know they say that human beings are social creatures and this doesn't mean that we have to have a million friends and go out every night and all this kind of thing right?

We're not teenagers trying to be cool or something.

But just to have human connection is really important.

Sometimes life is so hard that we end up completely walling ourselves off from all connection.

All people.

We've been hurt.

We've been treated unkindly.

We've been treated mean.

Just so many things have happened it's like you know what it's not even worth it because I don't want to feel pain anymore.

I don't want to feel sad.

And one of the challenges that we're going to talk a lot about is that being unkind is so normalized.

We almost mock people who are kind.

We mock people who aren't sarcastic and they can't quip quickly and kind of put the dig in and be cool and be aloof.

Like this has been actually presented almost as confidence and all this other stuff and yet someone's actually just genuinely kind and it's like oh well they're very naive.

They've obviously lived a very sheltered life.

They were worldly like me.

Then you know they wouldn't be so silly and they wouldn't have such ridiculous expectations of relationships.

I mean relationships are hard.

People annoy you and we almost get off on the fact that I stand my ground and I don't let anybody get away with anything and I just rip them a new whatever.

We almost feel like this is a source of strength that we were unkind.

So then all of a sudden we find ourselves very alone.

We don't even have good friends or confidants.

We maybe even if we are in a relationship even a long-term committed theoretically romantic relationship we end up more distant with that person than we are with anyone else.

And we're all kind of just walking around going why?

How did I end up here?

How did I end up?

I mean we were really in love or this person and I we really have a lot in common or how come my family's so messed up and how come I want to love my family?

Aren't I supposed to love my family?

Why is there so much disconnection?

And we're literally lost.

And the concept of kindness because it's been mocked.

It's like you almost always know especially in today's day if you want to find a solution for something in life look at what's being mocked.

Because what I'm finding what I believe is that the solutions to everything we desire in life are hiding in plain sight.

They are right here and if the powers that be have made them stupid you can guarantee that that's the path to happiness.

Expressing emotions.

Oh that just makes you weak and you're ridiculous and you're just a child and you're so effeminate and you're like blah blah.

If it is mocked like that you can almost guarantee it's a portal to our true happiness,

Our true expansion.

If you like to spend time alone,

If you like to read,

If you like to be within,

If you like to do all these kind of things.

Oh well you're very anti-social and there's something wrong with you.

Isn't that interesting?

Silence,

Introversion,

Expressing our emotions,

Being sensitive.

We even have a diagnosis that someone is a highly sensitive person.

Like it's odd.

Oh you're so sensitive.

Oh you're so sensitive.

It's like no.

Sensitive means I can actually feel the world around me.

I actually feel the energy of people.

I actually feel what's real in the world.

Someone,

A wine connoisseur,

Has an extremely sensitive palate and it's a good thing.

A psychic is extremely sensitive to the ethers and other dimensions and it's a good thing.

It's the same thing with being sensitive in the world.

It's a good thing unless the world is filled with unkindness.

So this is very very important.

It's not just in relationships,

It's also inside.

So there's three big topics I want to talk about today.

The first one is the Hollywood story that we've been told.

So when I was young,

I remember watching kids shows.

I remember watching Snow White or Cinderella or all the princess stories.

You watch the princess story and I'm talking about as a child.

I'm not even talking about,

I haven't even got to grown-up Hollywood stuff.

I just mean like Walt Disney,

Whatever.

You watch the story of the heroine and eventually the hero comes in,

They find each other,

They fall in love and they ride away on horseback and they lived happily ever after.

And even as a child,

I remember thinking,

But then what?

What happened when they got home?

Were they nice to each other?

Did they fall into the gender roles and did she have to just cook for him while he went off and then she had to wash his.

.

.

What?

Like what happened?

What does happily ever after mean?

Why does the story end at the conquest of the relationship?

And I feel like this is hard on our psyche because what happens is everything is sort of focused on the chase of this other person.

As long as we don't have the other person in our life,

We must find them.

We must go on the dating apps,

We must go out,

We must find them because it's almost like this is what has been modeled for us in the movies,

In TV,

In stories,

In storybooks.

Everything is about that almost the hero's journey,

But then the hero's journey ends when you find the partner.

But then what?

And it's almost like the storyteller just stopped.

So we find the love of our life and we go home and we don't have any more story.

So what do we do?

We just repeat our parents' story.

Maybe we try,

Maybe we go,

No,

You know what?

I'm not going to be my parents.

I'm not going to be whatever I see in the movies.

I'm not going to do that.

So I'm going to try something different.

But then what happens on a bad day?

What happens when we're tired?

What happens when the babies are teething?

What happens when we lose the job?

What happens when someone dies?

We have no idea what to do.

And the crazy thing is,

Even the stories that we watch in movies,

If we get,

You know,

We grew up now and now we're watching grown-up shows and grown-up TV.

What are we watching there?

Pure dysfunction.

Soap operas.

I was raised on soap operas.

Hollywood stories.

Do we ever watch stories of functional families?

Of happy families?

Half the time,

It's a story about the most dysfunctional family you can ever imagine.

And then inevitably,

You know,

The happy couple comes over.

But half the storyline is eventually finding out that even the happy couple,

They're also unhappy,

You know.

They actually hate each other.

And one's having an affair on the other.

Like we literally never get to see the other.

And one's having an affair on the other.

Like we literally never get to see what's possible when two people are actually kind to each other.

This is a really,

Really important thing.

Because we need a new story.

We need to imagine what's possible when there's kindness.

Imagining that kindness is actually being mature.

It's actually being grown up.

It's actually being in a fully actualized adult human being.

But not in a,

Oh,

Aren't you so grown up?

But in a,

I am a divine incarnation of the cosmic galaxy.

I hold all the wisdom of the universe here within my being that I have access to at any time.

That kind of grown up.

What does that person do in a relationship?

Are they going around getting angry because they broke something or they came home late or this doesn't,

They don't make enough money or their parents a jerk or like,

Is that what we do as truly self-actualized humans?

Would we ever be unkind to someone?

So it's really important to really think about the stories that we have in our head because unconsciously we will manifest those stories because we kind of don't know that anything else exists.

So then we have to ask ourselves,

If I'm in a relationship,

And again,

This could be romantic,

This could be a friendship,

This could be siblings,

This could be parents,

Family,

What is the story I have in my head as what's normal?

Really?

Because the problem is,

If we just say,

Well I just want everyone to be happy.

Okay,

You want everyone to be happy.

So what happens when your partner does something that's upsetting to you?

How does that story play out in your mind?

What does that look like?

And it's an important question.

Like even if you were to sit down and actually visualize it,

What does it sound like?

Maybe you sit down in your story and you say,

So I'm really upset that,

You know,

When you said that I was feeling really attacked.

And in your story,

What do you see?

Do you see the other person going,

Oh yeah,

Because you're all,

Like what's the story we see in our mind playing out?

Because this is very important.

Because the stories we have in our head,

Even if they're not happening,

Even if the person in front of us is saying,

Really,

That's really upsetting.

If the story in our head is something else,

We're going to actually twist what's happening on the earth until it is what we see in our head.

Like we're going to push and push and push until we find conflict,

If that's what we're accustomed to,

If that's all we've ever seen.

It's because then we really have to ask ourselves,

What visuals do I have about kindness and relationships?

Because if we only look to TV,

Hollywood,

And potentially our family,

We're in big trouble.

Because there's not a lot of kindness there.

Every so often,

There's one,

Maybe one person in an entire movie who's actually genuinely kind.

But even then,

They're just sort of,

They're not a powerful player.

Kindness is so powerful in relationships.

It literally is a portal to an entirely different kind of experience.

And it's a massive strength.

It takes incredible strength to be kind when other people aren't being.

And I don't mean being a doormat.

I mean truly seeing the other person,

Understanding where they're coming from,

And then still choosing kindness,

Because that's who I am.

That changes the trajectory of entire arguments and family dynamics.

The second thing I want to talk about is the magic that we believe is possible in relationships,

Even if we've never seen it.

And the importance of believing in that.

I remember when I was young,

I didn't have sex until I was like 20 or something.

And I was so young,

I was so young,

I was so young,

I was so young until I was like 20 or 21.

Because I just had this,

I had this vision of what it would be,

Right?

I had this whole,

I'm going to wait till marriage,

And it's going to be so romantic,

And it's just going to be fireworks and bunny rabbits or something.

It was just going to be this whole incredible,

Cosmic,

Ethereal experience.

And I believed that love was like that too.

That love,

When you found this special person,

You would just feel complete,

And you would feel happy,

And you would feel forever safe and seen.

And I just had this magical vision of what was possible.

And then I ended up having sex with my boyfriend in university.

And it was one of the most disappointing,

And it sounds like a joke,

Like a stand-up,

Like it was probably the most disappointing seven minutes of my life.

He was a good guy or whatever.

But I remember afterwards thinking,

What was that?

What just happened?

I don't understand.

Where's the fireworks?

Where's,

Shouldn't I be a changed person?

I just shifted my status from virgin to non-virgin,

Like something,

This must be incredible.

And it was nothing.

So then later I fell in love,

And I got married.

My ex-husband,

He's a great guy,

And I was so in love with him.

Just psychotic.

If you were my friend at that time,

You'd be like,

Katrina,

I know,

You love him,

I get him,

He's great,

He's hot,

I got it.

Like I was,

I was merciless with telling everybody how amazing he was.

And then we got married,

And something happened.

We fell into the patterns of our parents.

I became my mother,

He became his father,

And something weird happened.

We weren't overtly unkind to each other,

Neither of us kind of had that in us.

But we had expectations,

And we had difficult conversations that didn't go anywhere,

We didn't fix anything.

And I just was like,

What's going on here?

Where's the magical intimacy?

Where's that intimacy that's supposed to fulfill me for life?

Where is that?

I found the perfect guy.

Why am I not over the moon?

What's going on?

And he's a great guy.

If you had met us,

We were just Wayne and Kat,

We were just this epic couple or whatever.

But inside,

I was like,

But there's supposed to be magic.

Where's the magic?

Where's that thing that my soul knows is possible?

And that went on until I discovered Tantra.

And I literally,

I mean,

Lots of you guys have heard me talk about this or read my book,

Tantric Intimacy,

But I was literally lying beside him,

It was,

I don't know,

Maybe year 10 of our marriage.

And I was lying with him in bed.

And all of a sudden,

You know,

I think we just had sex or something.

And I was just like,

Asking God,

Asking the universe,

Like,

What am I missing?

This is the perfect scenario.

Why am I not feeling this magical intimacy that I know is possible?

And the word Tantra rose in my consciousness,

I'd never even heard this word before.

And this was kind of pre-internet as internet is now.

And so I had to go to the library and look it up and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And I discovered the Tantra that I was seeking.

And it was all about opening your heart.

It was about understanding that we are spiritual beings.

Spiritual beings.

That we are actually meant to connect with each other in a galactic,

Infinite,

Spiritual way.

We're not just meant to bang against each other.

Which of course then started to ask me to redefine why I'm even in a relationship.

What is the purpose of relationships if we actually consider ourselves to be these open-hearted,

Loving beings?

If I'm in a relationship,

Is the relationship just to kind of work out our edges?

Is it just someone to share bills with?

Is it just someone to have sex with on a regular basis?

To raise a family,

Create an economic unit in society?

And the study of Tantra started to make me think,

No.

Like if we are actually fully divine,

Fully physical beings and we're in relationship and we connect through the heart,

What's really possible here?

And so this started changing my life because it started raising the bar above the stories I'd always seen in life.

Those stories of the whole,

They lived happily ever after.

We don't know what they did,

But they lived happily ever after.

Or all the stories of the dysfunction in the soap operas,

In the Hollywood movies and everything.

It raised the bar and said,

No,

No,

No.

That's just all weird drama.

That's all based on people being unkind to each other.

And then this person reacts and then this person reacts and this person reacts and you do all this.

And then those people go out and have children and then they do the same thing.

And we just have generations of people reacting to cruelty and unkindness and neglect.

But the study of Tantra said,

No,

There's so much more possible.

And when we actually stopped the expectations and we actually looked at this other person and saw the divine in them,

Saw them as this incredible being,

It sounds so corny,

But you open your heart up and you actually see the other vulnerable soul in front of you.

And that's when something brand new happens.

That's when something incredible is possible.

That's where the magic that I always knew was possible exists.

But we can't get to it as long as there's no kindness.

Because kindness is what opens our heart.

Kindness is what allows us to know that the other person is safe,

So I actually can be open and vulnerable.

So this brings us to the challenge that in our society,

Unkindness is so normalized.

And one of the problems is that we've bastardized the use of the word love.

And we say,

Oh,

I love you.

Even in romance,

Oh my God,

I love you so much.

You,

Oh,

You are everything I've ever been looking for.

Holy mackerel,

I can't believe we found each other.

And what does that equal?

Expectations,

Sarcasm.

I feel so comfortable with you,

It's like I can say anything.

I can just say anything,

Which includes all kinds of nasty things.

And you know what?

I feel so comfortable with you,

I could just dump all my junk all over you too.

Like if I've had a bad day,

It's like I can just,

And you'll just always love me.

I've always been looking for someone who will always be there no matter what I dump all over them.

In families,

Love means punishment,

Mockery,

Neglect,

Sarcasm,

Expectations.

How could you do this?

How could you not go to university?

How could you live your life like this?

What will the parents,

What will the neighbors think?

And we call this love.

Like we think this is love.

We even say to people,

I'm only doing this because I love you.

Well then of course,

Love doesn't mean anything.

The word love means nothing.

And the problem is,

It touches the truth inside of us that says,

No,

I know that love is magic.

I know this,

I don't know why I know this.

But you shouldn't be using love in that way because love is beautiful,

But this isn't love.

So if you ever want to know if something is loving,

If something is kind,

There's a really interesting experiment you can do and you can do it with another person.

You can do it with a partner,

A child,

A parent,

Friend,

Or you can even just sit and imagine it.

So kindness and love,

Love is connection.

That's all it is.

It's how human beings connect.

It's not a small thing,

But it's how human beings connect.

So if we are kind,

The connection will move towards each other.

If we are unkind,

We will become more distant.

So if you imagine standing in front of someone,

Maybe you're upset with someone about something,

And you want to know whether what you're going to say is kind or unkind.

They're standing in front of you and you say this thing,

Will they energetically step away from you or step towards you?

If you say something to your child,

If they move away from you or come towards you,

You can tell whether it's kind or not.

If you say something to your partner,

Do they wall off or do they lean in?

That's how we know because people are,

You know,

Someone says something and you kind of back up a little and they're letting you know,

Okay,

I'm not going to back up a little.

And you're like,

Wow,

That's not really kind.

And they're like,

Oh,

For God's sake,

That's not how I meant it.

You know what I mean.

And it's like,

You can pretend you mean all you want.

All I know is I took two steps back.

That's all I know.

And this is what we have to do because unkindness is so normalized.

We have to start becoming that sensitive.

We have to actually start noticing energetically,

Do I move away or does what this person said make me lean in and want to be closer?

We are the litmus strip.

We are the amoeba,

You know,

That single celled amoeba that it goes towards food.

And if there's danger,

It moves away from food.

We have this within us.

This is our human wiring.

This is how we connect.

And so even within ourselves,

We have to really find our own integrity when it comes to love.

If I say I love you,

Then I have to have the actions that go along with it.

I have to have the intention that goes along with it.

I either love you or I don't.

I'm either acting in a loving way or I'm not.

I don't love you and then slap you emotionally,

Mentally or physically.

I don't love you and then punish you with the silent treatment or withholding or controlling you.

I don't love you and then insult you or tell you what you should be doing with your life.

This isn't love.

And it's really important to no longer use the word love in these situations.

This is not love.

Love is all the things that create human connection.

Someone may feel like they're in the role of punisher,

Then they just are.

They feel like they're in the role of punisher.

They may feel like they are in the role of judge,

Then they are in the role of judge.

None of this is love.

It's just judge.

And it's just very important because then as we weed out all the things that are not love,

We start to discover what is love.

So when I wrote my book Tantric Intimacy,

I'd been teaching Tantra for a while.

Especially a lot of couples,

You know,

Really wanted to explore this.

Unfortunately,

Most couples who came to it,

Came to it as a final resort,

Because they'd already tried all the counseling and a million bad things that happened and it was sort of their last resort and the relationship was actually already over.

But every so often,

People would come who really wanted to deepen the relationship.

But it was really interesting that the connection of Tantra,

Like the magic of Tantra,

Was elusive.

I couldn't figure it out.

And so when I wanted to write my book,

You know,

When you write a book,

You sort of want to begin with something that the next thing builds upon,

The next thing builds upon,

Like you want to have a story arc that people can follow that makes sense,

That's really helpful.

And I realized that I didn't know how to start the book.

I mean,

I had a zillion monstrous amounts of content,

But I didn't know how to start the book.

And it wasn't until I'd had,

You know,

A few really long baths,

That's always my magical place.

And all of a sudden,

It came to me that it was all about love.

And one of the greatest challenges in intimacy was that we desired love,

The magical love,

That we wanted to have.

And the magical love,

Not the love that the world pretends is love and calls love and is cruel and all that.

You know,

It's almost kind of like that wolf in sheep's clothing.

That's what we call love.

It's meanness,

But I say I love you.

It's cruelty,

It's neglect,

But I say I love you.

But it's actually a wolf.

It's not really love.

Imagine if it was love in love's clothing.

I realized that one of the greatest challenges was that we need to redefine love.

And it was Jim,

My teacher,

Who first said that love was connection.

I remember back when I was in university,

I studied a philosophy class all about love.

And they would talk about the ancient Greek words for love,

Agape,

Philia,

Eros,

Things like that.

And they never made any sense to me.

Just the way it was taught,

I was like,

Yeah,

But why are there all these different kinds of love?

And then one day in the bathtub,

I realized that agape is the foundation of all love.

It's the foundation of all connection.

Because it is kindness.

It is respect.

And without kindness and respect,

No other depth of love is possible.

Again,

Because we've mocked it,

Because we've normalized cruelty,

Sarcasm,

Quipping,

This kind of thing,

Because we think that's cool and it makes us intelligent and it makes us safe or something like that,

We don't understand how important it is to love.

And we don't understand how important it is to simply be kind.

And this is not being a doormat.

This is not putting up with bad behavior.

That's not kindness.

That's being a doormat and putting up with bad behavior.

Kindness is,

I'm having a bad day.

I'm struggling.

I'm hurting.

Someone walks into the room,

Child,

Lover,

Parent,

And they say,

Hey,

How's it going?

And I'm like,

Wow,

I'm really having a hard day today.

Not sure what it's all about,

But you know,

I'm working through it.

Unkindness is,

What are you doing in my room?

Oh my God.

You're like,

Oh,

I just get out of here.

Go downstairs.

Same emotion,

Same experience.

But how did you treat the other person?

How did you treat them?

That's kindness or not kindness.

A child drops something and now there's flour all over the floor.

Do you say,

Oh my God,

Now I've got it.

Oh,

Just get out of here and go play with the leg.

Or do you go,

Oops,

You want to grab the broom?

It's not about what happens.

It's not about how we feel.

It's about how we treat the other person.

One way throws them out a way to be distant away from us.

The other,

We come together and we're connected.

It's all about connection.

It's having difficult conversations.

The truth is you're really hurt and you're really upset with your partner.

Unkindness is,

Why do you always do that to me?

Why do you always make me feel like crap?

How come you never even pay attention to me?

Whatever happened to our relationship?

How come?

When the thing is,

You have to understand that our intention is to push them back.

Our intention is to punish them.

Our intention is to hurt them the way we've been hurt.

But if our intention is connection,

If our intention is love,

Then we have to find kindness.

We have to sit there and say,

Can we talk?

I just feel so distant right now.

And I can't find my way back together.

I can't find the bridge to bring us back.

Something went amuck along the way somewhere.

And now things are weird.

Can we talk about this?

Same situation.

One pushes the other person away.

The other one brings us together.

This is kindness.

So when we look at kindness,

When we look at the stages of love,

Agape,

Kindness is the foundation.

And this is everywhere.

This is with our children.

This is with our parents.

This is with our colleagues.

This is with our employees.

This is with our neighbors.

And kindness looks at each other and says,

Well,

This person has a journey.

They're on a separate path than I am.

I respect their path.

I understand how hard it is on my path.

So why would I do anything to upset their path?

But of course,

This begins with kindness to ourself.

All of it.

It's easy to say,

Oh,

This is how it is with other people.

But it's all about us.

If I drop the bowl of flour and it's all over the floor,

What do I say to me?

Oh,

For God's sake,

Damn it.

Do I say the same thing to me as I would to the child?

If I screw something up,

If I do something,

And do I say,

Damn it,

Katrina,

Oh,

You're always just,

Just,

Just never good enough.

And you're just like,

Is this what I do?

Or do I go,

Wow,

Okay,

Something weird's going on here.

Okay,

Let's look at this.

Let's spend some time.

Let's sort this out.

If I drop the bowl of flour,

Do I just sort of look at it and go,

Oops,

How do I really see it?

Like this is really,

Really important.

Because if we can't be kind with us,

And we can tell,

Like if you're unkind to other people,

You're not kind to you either.

You're treating other people exactly like you're treating yourself.

And if you accept unkindness from other people,

It's only because you're actually unkind yourself to you,

Or else you would never,

Ever allow yourself to be treated this way,

Unless you already treat yourself this way.

So it all comes inside,

It all comes within.

So then the last thing I want to mention is you look at all of this,

Because the whole,

The primary discussion today was about experiencing kindness in relationships and how to do it.

And so the first question we have to ask ourself is,

Why do I want to be in a relationship?

What kind of relationship am I looking for?

Again,

Really being clear about it.

Are you going into a relationship?

Well,

That's just what we do.

You're just supposed to be in a couple,

Right?

I mean,

It's weird to be single.

If you're single,

There must be something wrong with you.

So you just,

You just have to be in a relationship.

Well,

If you're just going to be in a relationship because you're just supposed to be in a relationship,

Guess what else you're doing unconsciously?

How do you act in a relationship?

Well,

The way everyone always acts in relationship.

Like it's a completely unconscious thing.

We're literally just repeating the patterns of the ancestors,

Which is probably going to be unkind and disconnected.

And we're just going to be holding down the fort together and paying bills and maybe having sex once in a while for a while.

And then that'll leave too.

Maybe I want to be in a relationship because I'm horny,

Because we live in a sex soaked world that thinks that without sex,

We're,

I don't know,

Missing out or something like that.

And I just,

I just want to get lucky.

I want to have sex.

I want to feel a naked body beside me.

I want to whatever.

Well,

How much kindness is there going to be inside of that?

And don't get me wrong,

Sex is great.

Lovemaking is great,

Obviously.

But sometimes this is the primary reason we get into a relationship.

Well,

How kind is that?

Like you're basically looking for someone to fulfill your expectations and fulfill your desires.

Like a blow up doll.

Not the person.

You're not seeking the person.

You just want to have someone to have sex with.

Not a lot of kindness is going to come out of that either.

Maybe you're lonely.

And you just want to have a relationship because you don't want to feel alone.

And you want to have someone to crawl into bed with.

And you want to have someone to watch TV with.

And you just kind of bored with life.

And will there be necessarily kindness there?

If all we need is someone beside us,

We just want someone else in the house.

I just don't want to think that I'm alone.

Maybe you might be kind to them.

Or maybe we'll just act like we did,

Like our parents did or what we see in the movies or whatever,

Because our real only intention is just not to be alone.

Or what if you wanted to have someone who was a lover?

You really wanted deep connection.

You really wanted to explore what's possible in love.

This is a very interesting intention.

Because suddenly,

Kindness is a foundation of it.

Because the only thing you want is connection.

I just want to be,

I want to explore what's possible.

I want to explore what's possible in intimacy.

I want to explore what's possible in sexuality.

I want to explore what's possible here.

And then all of a sudden,

Everything that's possible in love,

In every choice you make,

Is going to be in kindness.

Because the goal is staying close,

And not in a weird codependent way.

I mean,

In a true,

Two strong humans coming together with open hearts.

And then you get to dance in this very different heart space.

And then you discover all the magic of what's really possible.

When the doors are wide open,

Amazing things are possible.

And we discover things that we haven't seen in movies.

You know,

It's hard to find books that are written about it.

And so it becomes sort of this brand new frontier,

Strangely enough,

In the year 2023,

To be expanding into this heartfelt connection.

Like what would that even look like?

It's like literally a whole new world.

You have any questions?

I'd be happy to answer them.

What is my definition of a lover?

I believe that intimate relationships have different aspects.

Historically,

Because women had no rights,

And we weren't allowed to be independent people,

Men either.

Men were well trained,

They had to follow in the family footsteps.

And you know,

Everybody was kind of hit with the same club,

You know.

But there was no birth control,

People had sex.

And you got pregnant,

You got married,

You live together,

You raise the kids,

And you just and you just kind of suffered along,

Hopefully,

Okay.

There's always unique situations where people really were kind and loving to each other.

But a lot of times they weren't.

And even society,

Religions,

Teach actually,

You know,

Spare the rod,

Spoil the child.

And,

You know,

That the father,

The husband's job was to correct and punish the wife and all these things like this was very common in many,

Many societies.

But today,

I separate these things.

I separate lover,

Parents,

And whether or not you live together.

If you fall in love with someone,

And your goal is to simply explore love with this person,

Explore intimacy,

Then I consider them a lover.

If you choose to have children with another person,

That's a different agreement.

That's an again,

From a mature self-actualized place,

You look at this other person and you say,

Would you like to have children?

Yes.

Can we agree to be kind to each other and the children for the next 20 years,

Regardless of whether we remain lovers or whether we live together?

Can we raise children together as parents?

This is a separate conversation.

There are people who want to be lovers,

But they don't want to be parents.

And if we had honored that in people's roles centuries ago,

A lot of different things would have happened,

But everything was just expected.

And then there's the decision to live together.

Do you want to live under the same roof as this person?

Whether you're lovers or whether you're co-parenting,

Living under the same roof is not required.

You could be lovers and live in different towns or live side by side or across the street from each other or in different countries.

But this person has your heart and you get together and you make love.

This has nothing to do with proximity.

So I separate these things.

Sometimes they all come together and sometimes they don't.

I see the role of a lover as just someone who you just get to open your heart with and explore intimacy and sexual intimacy and all these wonderful things and really see where it takes you.

How do you best retrain yourself from flashing unkindness as a reaction?

So this is where meditation and kindness and meditation and yoga is so important because the reason that we do meditation is to actually separate our mind from the programs and the pain that we've experienced because within us is what they call a witness mind or a neutral mind.

And when we sit in meditation you know how they always say okay you're going to sit there and you're going to breathe and you're going to focus on your breath you're going to focus on your body and as thoughts come in you're going to let them float by.

You're not going to engage with them.

You're going to stay in the center in the breath and very often this is where we say well I can't do that.

I'm bad at that.

I'm not good at meditating.

I'm not good at that.

But this is the muscle that we are building in the same way if you go to the gym and you want to build your bicep you can only do so much at the beginning and eventually it becomes stronger and stronger as the neural pathways are created as the muscle gets stronger.

So when we're meditating the reason we're doing this is we are practicing creating this witness mind and we're strengthening our connection to the witness mind as the witness mind observes the thoughts flowing by and we just practice watching the thoughts going by without grasping them without letting them hook us.

These are all our reactions responses things that have happened in our past.

So we are practicing doing this.

This is I mean in meditation I know it's just become kind of a spiritual woohoo thing but we are actually retraining the mind because as children we're much more primal so we react we react out of fear but now we're adults and we have to learn that we have to that we have so much greater potential so many more abilities.

So as we do that as we practice this witness mind we start walking around our life observing ourselves.

We observe behaviors we observe people we observe other people saying things that would normally trigger us and we watch with this witness mind and the other interesting thing that meditation does for us is you know like the story of Pavlov's dogs and I know everybody knows it but I'll just say it so the dogs would get fed well what Pavlov did is he would ring a bell feed the dog ring a bell feed the dog and what would happen is eventually he'd read the ring the bell and the dogs would start to salivate anticipating the food.

Well what happens in life is somebody says something it's like ringing the bell and we just start to salivate we just start to react just like a Pavlovian dog.

Meditation retrains that bell that as we're meditating and a difficult thought comes in and we breathe deeply our body shifts out of fight or flight we're able to think clearly and we say something different from a neutral space and if we do this regularly if we do it to the point that we actually develop this ability as soon as somebody says something all we have to do is take a deep breath and that becomes the bell that rings that causes our body to shift out of fight or flight and we can respond differently.

So meditation isn't just practicing developing the witness mind we're actually reprogramming our nervous system's response in stress.

How are we kind to a narcissist?

It begins with connection with yourself and your own truth and when a narcissist wants you to live in their world they want you to believe what they believe they want you to believe that you must act against your truth or else you're hurting their feelings and you're harming them.

So this is where you must be connected you must be connected to you and you must honor your truth above all things you must know that your reality is the only reality that matters.

This isn't selfish this is your perception and if they're saying something and they're blaming you for something that's not actually true then you just simply say well that's not true and they may spin backwards and sideways and all that kind of thing and that's okay just like a child.

You know when my children were two years old they didn't get their way that's not fair and they would scream and yell and jump up and down but I was an adult they're just two and in many ways narcissists when they don't get their way they will have a temper tantrum and they'll blame you but they're no different than a two year old and when my children were two and they were freaking out I was still kind to them.

I didn't beat them or make them go to their room or anything I would just sit with them and I remember was sitting on the stairs with both of them at many times while they just were furious that they didn't get their way and I would just sit with them while they screamed and yelled and banged the stairs and banged the walls and did whatever they had to do and eventually they tuckered out and we just go outside or something.

It's important because the problem with the problem with narcissists is we have the only reason we're even entertaining it is because we've also been trained that no one else is allowed to be unhappy no one else is allowed to be uncomfortable and they know that and if they can make you feel like you've made them unhappy or you've made them uncomfortable we'll change our behavior.

Kindness is just being honest to self to others and being free to have the choice to walk away if someone's having a temper tantrum or they're freaking out or they're not getting their way that's okay you let them do it but we have to be okay with their discomfort.

How do you keep your kindness when setting a boundary?

Well a boundary is just yours like it's a personal boundary it's not about other people so I may have a boundary that I would never let someone hit me I would never let someone yell at me and if you hit me I leave.

That's my boundary it has nothing to do with the other person then that's it if you yell at me this conversation's over it's my boundary and if I walk away and they're like what are you walking it's like well I'm not gonna be yelled at.

I don't desire fighting but again we can declare boundaries but we have to act them they have to be real I either allow someone to hit me or I don't and I'm going to use hitting because I know that's really violent but that includes if someone is unkind to you or if someone yells at you or if someone has expectations of you it's either actually a boundary or it's not I can guarantee you if a man ever hit me or yelled at me that would be the end of the relationship.

This is not negotiable because I don't even want to be with someone who would do that like it's not even something I feel like fixing it's like you know what you go work your stuff out with someone else who wants to play with this puzzle piece I'm not that person this is a very clear boundary.

How can one be kind to oneself when being blamed for another's unhappiness but we don't cause other people's unhappiness every single person's happiness is dependent on themselves.

I'm not talking about children I'm talking about adults each one of us chooses to be happy or unhappy our circumstances have nothing to do with it this is the foundational teaching of the world this is the foundational teaching in almost every spiritual practice.

One of my favorite spiritual teachers was the story of Saraha.

Saraha wanted to study tantra and he studied tantra with this master and they went and lived on the cremation grounds in India bodies being burned people wailing and grieving but his journey was to find happiness even there to find ecstasy.

So if someone is blaming you for their unhappiness it isn't true anyway there's no such thing.

So thank you so much for being here I hope you have a wonderful day.