Healing Your Relationships With Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

Welcome everyone.

Today is a very special day,

Very special episode of healing our relationships.

Not only did we just pass over a thousand listens this week,

Thanks to all of you,

But I have a very special guest and our first guest joining me on the podcast.

So this really feels like a celebration of this community and all this healing work we're doing together.

So I couldn't think of a more meaningful guest,

Honestly,

To mark this milestone than Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

His work has just deeply influenced my own healing journey.

And so much of his and his family's medicine is woven into this podcast.

Miguel is a Toltec master,

Teacher,

Author,

Father,

Husband,

Who carries forward the wisdom of his family's lineage,

His books,

The Mastery of Self,

The Five Levels of Attachment,

The Seven Secrets to Healthy,

Happy Relationships,

Which he co-wrote with Heather Ashamara and his newest book that we're really excited to talk about,

Poison Arrow,

The Toltec Guide to Overcoming Fear.

All of your work invites us to look closely at fears,

Beliefs,

Agreements,

And stories we carry that shape our lives and relationships and help us to reclaim freedom,

To live with awareness,

Authenticity,

And love.

So welcome,

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

I am so grateful to have you here today.

Hi,

Marisa.

Good morning.

How are you?

How's everything?

Things are good.

Yeah.

This is,

Like I said,

Such a treat.

We talk so much about your books and we're about 10 episodes in and your family's medicine's probably been woven in some way or another since it's such a big part of my journey.

So this really feels special.

So I really appreciate you taking the time.

It's an honor to be in your show and a podcast.

So thank you so much for the opportunity.

Yeah.

I want to start with really talking about and kind of giving our listeners a initiation into the Toltec path before we dive in.

So much of,

As I've shared with my listeners and basically anyone who's ever met me,

I always talk about the four agreements was my initiation into the Toltec path.

And from there,

I discovered your books and your brother Don Jose's books.

And it was such a profound catalyst for me inside of my addiction recovery after being sober for a while and still suffering from the voices in my head.

And the four agreements really not only gave me permission to question those voices,

But it really helped me understand how those powerful narratives were created through the concept of domestication and making agreements with other people.

And in codependency recovery,

Which is healing from people-pleasing,

Shapeshifting,

And essentially living from trauma responses,

A lot of what you talk about in your new book,

Actually,

You know,

These things used to protect us for a while,

But now they don't.

And in the Toltec path,

You always speak to,

There's nothing to learn,

But only to unlearn.

And so I would love if you could give the listeners an initiation into the Toltec path and these concepts that have really shifted the perception of millions of people throughout the world in terms of their fear and the voices in their head.

Well,

The initiation,

We can say that the,

Let's start by the name Toltec.

The word Toltec is the Nahuatl word name that in English means artist.

If I translate the phrase the Toltec art of transformation into 100% English,

It means the artist's path of transformation.

I'm an artist.

And the canvas for my work of art is my life.

And the instruments I'm going to use to create that work of art is going to be my mind,

My body,

My will,

My yes,

My no,

My imagination,

My,

My love,

My every single emotion,

My,

My jealousy,

My hate,

My anger,

My sadness,

My joy,

My ecstasy,

My all these emotions,

Everything I'm going to be creating this beautiful master with every choice I make.

I can either make the most perfect nightmare or I make the most interesting dream or heaven.

And every choice I make makes this work of art malleable.

It changes,

It shapeshifts continuously.

The Toltec tradition in this form is being aware the temptation to believe any projection that's onto me.

Like that's why we're talking about the shapeshifting to appease others is to let someone else's opinion domesticate us or condition us or internalize or indoctrinate to someone else's point of view.

And we're supposed to live up to that.

And that's just domestication.

That's conditional love.

And that will always be the temptation because the thing about domestication is that it takes over the yes and no,

It takes over not just the instruments by which I create the work of art,

But the artist itself.

That's the thing about domestication or conditioning or indoctrination.

But as an individual,

I'm the one making the choices and I use knowledge as an instrument that informs my choice.

I would say that was the difference.

I am the artist.

So with that being said,

The main function,

The main purpose of the four agreements,

As well as every single one of our books in different ways is to unlearn our domestication,

Unlearn our conditional love,

Unlearn our indoctrinations in life of what we're supposed to be.

For example,

In my family,

At one point we engaged the shamanic traditions and we shed that because it no longer serves us.

And we let go of the shamanic tradition because it's no longer serving us.

Kind of like the parenting stage I'm in right now,

The parenting that I used before no longer serves.

If I try to be the parent to my daughter,

To my son,

The way I did when they were in their elementary school and they're both 20 and almost 18 years old age,

It's not going to work.

In fact,

There's going to be a rebellion because that's not who they are anymore.

So that parenting style has to be shed.

You have to let it go like a serpent lets go of its skin,

Like Jose likes to use.

You've got to detach from that skin that you've shed.

Sometimes shamanism is the same way.

Sometimes the tradition is the same way.

You let go,

Yet you're still part of that.

You're still part of that tradition.

You're still engaged in the total tradition,

But it has changed.

It has shifted.

So life is constantly doing that for us,

The willingness to let go.

The Four Agreements,

Once again,

Is about letting go of conditional love.

And we create a work of art that is our life,

How we want to live it,

How do we want to engage it.

And the beautiful thing about that is that I get to do it.

And in a relationship,

My wife and I are co-creators of the relationship of us,

But I do not control her life.

I don't control her perception.

She is a unique individual as she is.

And she is to respect her is to respect her perception and her will,

Just as she respects mine.

And that's co-creative from that point of view.

Well,

That was beautiful.

And there are so many good pieces in there.

I think overall,

What's really powerful is,

Like you said,

Letting go and being in surrender and knowing that our path here in this life is a spiral and it's not linear.

And because we are the dream of the planet,

As you all share and call it,

Is that we become very attached to a linear life.

I think just the level at which we want to control so much so we don't feel and experience fear is really woven into so much,

Especially our relationships.

And it can be scary when things change.

It can be scary when suddenly we've been used to a certain way of being,

Living,

Or life.

And the more surrendered we become,

As you're sharing,

And the more open we become to the change,

Then the easier it is for us.

And the agency that you speak of and teach of,

Where I felt like I had permission,

Was that I can be the artist of my own life.

And that's just such a powerful piece that,

As you're sharing now at almost 50 and at this new stage,

There's going to be so many initiations of awareness,

Basically.

It's like,

Oh,

Is this a space where now I need to check in and be like,

It's time to pick up a new paintbrush.

It's time to put this one down.

It's just a more expansive way of thinking,

Which I think allows people to feel a little more hopeful and relaxed and less tight.

I have to have it all figured out.

Well,

That's the thing.

We do that because it gives us the illusion of control.

But the irony is that you get control when you surrender.

Because when you try to control life and force it to fit this image,

Life is constantly changing.

So you're holding on to things that sometimes are no longer true.

For example,

It's true that at one point,

Life is linear.

And it's also true that at one point,

Life begins to happen and becomes a spiral.

Then it's also true that when something sometimes happens,

A shift happens,

And also it's not spiral.

It's dramatic.

It drops.

It goes high.

It's not circular in any way,

Shape,

Or form because it's dramatic.

An example would be,

I was just finishing this,

Describing the class we're going to be doing in Portland.

And I made a note that the last time we were at New Renaissance Bookstore in Portland,

It happened to be our very last presentation before everything shut down because of 2020 and everything that happened.

And that day,

Life shifted.

It was not a spiral.

It was not linear.

It was a scratch on the record,

That sound as it goes in a totally different direction.

There's no rhyme or reason to anything.

And as time progressed,

We just keep moving the story forward.

That's the thing.

To become a master of something,

In our case,

The mastery of Toltec and the mastery of transformation,

Mastery of self,

Mastery of life,

It's about practice.

When life is tough,

We apply everything we've learned to move the story forward.

When life is good,

We use everything we've learned to enjoy that moment.

And that's the thing about life.

It'll have its highs,

It'll have its lows.

I guess that's the spiral one talks about.

And we adapt.

We are the constant in every moment of our life.

In a Toltec tradition,

There's nothing to learn but to unlearn.

What should I unlearn at that moment?

Anything that stops me from giving myself permission to heal.

Sometimes it's even the name Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

If I use Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

As an instrument of my domestication,

Then that image,

That model of my conditioning will stop me from seeking the help I need.

The willingness to restart is the willingness to let go of what should have been because I'm this image.

And I let go of it because it's time to restart because I found I was going in the wrong direction.

And I'm going to correct my course.

So from that point of view,

That trajectory that we hold on to,

Be it straight line,

Be it a spiral,

Is realizing that life will take you in different directions.

But the funny thing about surrendering is that it gives you control of yourself.

You can't control the environment around me.

See,

The problem with domestication is that it makes us not trust ourselves to make choices.

If you want personal freedom,

Like Uncle Ben or Aunt May told Peter Parker,

With great power comes great responsibility.

If you want your personal freedom,

It starts with assuming responsibility for your own personal will,

Your own personal freedom.

It's not about being a certain specific way.

It's truly about this concept of returning home to yourself.

And like you've spoke about in many different ways and what you've shared,

Coming to a place of self-trust,

Which I think in codependency and part of,

I believe,

In your new book about fear is that fear is at the root of so much of our lack of self-trust.

It's at the root of so many of our choices.

And I actually really love your non-spiral,

Non-linear because when I think spiral,

I think of a macro,

Like the bigger life-death-life cycles.

And it's so important also to inside of that,

Yeah,

The ups and the downs and the things that happen out of our control.

And I know for a lot of our listeners,

Especially inside of romantic relationships or relationships with parents or the ones that feel really challenging,

There's always this sense that they want to avoid ups and downs.

Can everything just be as smooth and copacetic as possible?

Because the unknown brings fear and with fear brings this instability.

And so I would love for you to share a little bit on the context of fear inside of romantic relationships.

Because you also did write this beautiful book with Heather Ash on relationships.

And you always speak about your relationship with your wife as being very co-creative and curious.

Was there a time in your life where relationships didn't feel that co-creative or like,

Yeah.

And to people who are really struggling with allowing their partner to unfold or allowing for the safety of the unknown or we get to know each other's shadows.

It's like honeymoon phase,

Everybody's excited,

Best foot forward.

And then all of a sudden we get comfortable and then the trueness of who we are comes out or we're trying to hide it.

And then we can like bump up against each other.

So I would just love to hear what you think about any of those pieces.

Once again,

It's like,

I can go like the fingers like that's in different directions.

Sure.

Well,

It's easier to understand fear as a function rather than a concept.

The function of fear is to keep us safe.

Yes,

That's it.

That's the function of fear to protect us.

And it's real.

Yes,

It exists in the mind,

But there's real fear and irrational fear.

Irrational fear exists in the mind.

That's what a lot of people associate with and they give it the name fear,

Which is true,

But it's different from real.

Real fear is you are in actual danger.

If you have a rattlesnake in front of that,

Your body is physically threatened.

You will respond with fight,

Flee,

Or freeze.

And of course,

There's fun.

Of course,

The fight response is we're going to secrete a hormone that allows us to not feel pain in a confrontation.

Like someone go punches and it won't hurt.

It's that surge.

That's a real response.

Anger is just fear in fight response.

That's what anger is.

It's just fear.

I think I'm threatened.

Freeze.

Especially if you see a snake or someone with a gun,

You go,

Don't move,

Don't move,

Don't move.

Don't make any sudden moves.

The body is just going to cause and petrify.

It's like can't move.

Legs feel like lead.

Your body does as a natural response,

Kind of like a deer in headlights.

It'll freeze because all of a sudden it can't move.

Flee,

You're going to run faster than Wile E.

Coyote,

The Roadrunner,

And Speedy Gonzalez.

Your body is going to secrete a hormone that all of a sudden you realize,

I didn't know I could run that fast because you're not going to think about it.

Your heart rate goes up and the breathing goes up.

Finish,

You're fine.

It's basically you let it happen.

You're like,

Just get it over with.

It's a different form of survival.

It's real.

Body is going to feel it.

The body is going to express that fear.

All right.

It's not in the book,

But I always like using it,

So I'm going to keep using it even though it didn't make the final cut.

It's the thing that in books you have to use the concepts that work.

Talk about this.

Lucky for us,

We get it in your teaching moments.

By the way,

The book comes out in tomorrow.

Oh,

Exciting,

Tomorrow.

Yeah,

Thanks.

Imagine going to a movie theater.

In the movie theater,

You're going to go see a horror movie,

A horror movie that will bring a lot of fear into your body.

It's just a movie theater with light being projected onto the screen,

But once you get engaged and engrossed in the movie,

You forget that it's light.

You forget that it's a good sound system.

You forget even how the movie is being made.

You're totally engaged in the movie and you will respond with fight,

Flee,

Freeze,

And even spawn.

When people scream in a movie theater,

That's the fight response.

It's a self-defense mechanism.

Yeah.

Protective in a way.

Yeah.

When you think actually about arguing in relationships and how that voice gets raised.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And freeze,

You were saying.

Perfect.

No,

No,

No.

That's actually a great analogy.

Thank you.

That's exactly it in relationships.

It would be the fight.

The freeze is,

Once again,

You can't move.

You're in the movie theater and you can't move.

The flight response is when you put your fingers in your ears,

You close your eyes and you start humming to drown out any sound.

You basically try to escape because you can't go to the left,

You can't go to the right.

There's people.

So you go inwards and just try to drown out the sound.

That's flee.

The finish is just like you're numb to it.

The body does not know it's not in danger,

But the body engages and it thinks it is.

It's just light and a great sound system.

Irrational fear is this.

The mind is more powerful than any movie projector.

My wife,

Susan,

I'm not sure if this is her code or where she got it from,

But I love it.

So I'm going to use it.

Anxiety is answering all the what ifs with the worst case scenario.

I love that.

Which means just like in the movie theater,

The mind has the capacity to imagine all these things and it tends to answer it with anxiety,

The worst case scenarios,

Which means we're responding with fear to what ifs.

That's irrational fear.

That's when people say fear is in the mind.

Yes,

Irrational fear is in the mind because the mind is telling you a story of fear.

You're not in clear and present danger,

But what if I was?

And we become addicted.

We become addicted to it and abuse it the way we abuse alcohol and drugs.

So to go beyond fear is to respect fear once again,

To no longer abuse it the way we abuse it of alcohol or drugs.

It's realizing that I am abusing fear by answering all the what ifs with the worst case scenario,

Thus administering that dose of poison to myself from the what ifs of anxiety that we project.

There is not that wound,

But we believe it and we can even traumatize ourselves with that.

All right.

The majority of the fights couples have is who is going to domesticate who,

Because whoever controls the yes or no of our relationship controls the relationship.

So it's who is going to domesticate who,

Who is going to make the other person fit the image of what love is supposed to be.

Kind of like we were talking about earlier,

We're talking about things being a straight line or things being spiral.

And then I decided like,

Oh,

It could be chaotic.

It could be this ups and downs,

All that kind of things.

Imagine that you're attached,

That love is supposed to be a spiral,

Or that love is supposed to be a straight line,

Or love is supposed to go in these levels of stages that I've read somewhere.

And if it doesn't reach those levels,

Then how can I call it love?

If it doesn't look spiral,

Then how can I call it love?

If it's not a straight line,

How can I call it love?

So you're trying to force your beloved to fit that image that is supposed to be a straight line,

Supposed to be a spiral.

When that happens,

You're trying to force something onto a relationship that has nothing to do with that relationship.

It's like wanting to dance.

You go to dance with your beloved.

You started dancing to a slow song,

And all of a sudden they shift the tempo,

And you want your beloved to do something that's romantic.

Let's dance as if it was slow dance,

Even when the music's tempo has gone up,

Like they do in that one movie.

I don't know when I saw it,

But it's right there.

Let's do it.

And if my beloved knows me,

He,

She,

Will,

They,

They will adopt,

And they'll know because they know me,

And they'll still dance slow.

But what does my partner do?

They start to skank.

They're like,

No,

You're not supposed to skank.

You're supposed to do this.

No,

No,

No,

We're still doing forever young.

I want to be,

No,

You're doing madness.

One step beyond.

Like who the DJ is this guy?

But from that point of view,

Imagine that you are now going to punish your beloved for not reading what they're supposed to be reading,

But you never actually ever say it.

You expect them to know,

But you never verbalize that.

You never communicate it because if they love me,

They're supposed to know,

And you punish them for not dancing the way I think they should have danced when the mood shifted so dramatically.

But the beloved was only dancing to what life did.

Imagine doing that in a relationship.

Every relationship in our life exists because we're both saying yes at the same time.

Every relationship.

You see,

Here's the thing.

I only control to the tips of my fingers.

I don't control my wife's will.

I don't control her perception.

She does.

To respect my wife is to respect that she controls to the tips of her own finger.

She controls her will.

She controls her perception.

And she does not control my will.

She doesn't control my perception.

I do.

When we come together,

Kind of like the E.

T.

Phone home,

If you remember that analogy,

We're both saying yes at the same time.

This relationship exists because we're both saying yes at the same time.

And to respect my wife is to respect her no just as much as her yes.

Because your no is just as powerful as your yes.

To respect her is to respect that no.

But I can't give what I do not have.

In order for me to respect her no,

I first learn to respect my no.

My no is just as powerful as my yes.

Like learning to say namaste.

In order for me to say the sun in me honors the sun in you,

I first learn to honor my own sun.

From my experience,

I'm able to give that respect.

And here's the thing.

The expression if you love someone,

Set them free,

It means exactly that.

You don't control their will.

You don't control perception.

They are completely free to say yes and no.

And here's the thing.

They have the complete freedom to change that yes into a no at any given moment.

My wife can change that yes into a no at any given moment,

Especially if I ever do something stupid.

She has every right.

And here's the thing.

She has the right to say that even when I don't do anything stupid,

Sometimes the emotions just change.

Which means every relationship that I'm in at this very moment in time,

From my wife to my daughter to my mom to every person in my life exists because we're both saying yes to each other at the same time.

At any given moment,

They can change that yes to a no through no fault of my own or because of my fault or whatever.

And the only thing that will exist between us are the things we both say yes.

If she says no to something or I say no to something,

It won't be a part of it.

The only thing that will exist between us are the things we both say yes to.

That's what an agreement is,

The action of saying yes.

Whoever's afraid of the no,

Whoever's afraid that yes is going to turn into a no,

That is going to be someone who's going to try to domesticate someone else or subjugate themselves.

People,

Policers,

They're so afraid to lose that they'll subjugate themselves and let someone else control them.

Someone who is afraid to lose someone is going to do the best to change them because if I'm afraid that they can change their yes to a no and I don't want that to happen,

I have to control their yes or no.

And that's the thing about our relationships,

The agreements we make.

Whoever controls the yes or no,

The ability to make agreements in a relationship controls the agreement and that's the fights people have.

Who's going to domesticate who to make the other person fit the image of what love is supposed to be?

From that point of view,

The tyrant always finds its parasite.

Every parasite will find their first perfect host.

But what we normally see out there is this,

Two people trying to lead at the same time.

And that's the fight because I'm not going to let the other person dominate me.

If I've never imposed any boundaries and I let the other person set all the boundaries they want but never give mine because I'm afraid to lose,

Then when I finally set my first boundary,

They might respect it or they might leave.

If you're afraid that they'll leave,

You're never going to give that boundary.

A boundary is not a condition,

Mind you.

A boundary is a line that we create,

An agreement that's meant to protect us.

A condition is,

I love you if you do this.

I love you if you behave this way.

That's the condition of love.

Love can only exist where trust exists.

If my trust is broken,

I'm going to forgive you but I'm going to have to break up with you because I no longer trust you and because I don't trust you,

I'm not going to forsake myself but I forgive you even though we're breaking up.

Most of the time we have,

Especially at our stage in life,

We have a lot of expectations and same time a lot of wounds that we have.

Fear comes in because sometimes we're expecting pain and that's actually one of the reasons why we try to control it.

When couples come and ask me for advice,

I always ask the same question,

Do you guys want to stay together?

If they both say yes,

The rest is easy and I say it's easy because that mutual yes is the motivator that allows us to get through hurdles.

Going through hurdles is not easy.

Having a motivator that says I want to stay together,

We both want to stay together,

That's the thing that makes a relationship evolve,

To go through those stages that one thinks about,

The stages you were talking about.

When someone's just dating,

Just starting,

The yes is strong but then they reach that first hurdle where that yes,

Mutual yes is not that strong and they will break up.

Sometimes you'll have a relationship that is strong enough to get through certain hurdles but then they'll hit that one deal breaker.

One says yes to kiss,

The other one says no.

Accept the other person's desire not to have kids and instead of getting into a relationship thinking I'm going to change this person's mind down the line and I'm going to get my way because I want this person and I eventually want them to change their mind,

They respected each other and they went different directions.

They weren't going to change each other.

Like my father says in The Mastery of Love,

If you want a cat,

Get a cat.

If you want a dog,

Get a dog.

Don't force a cat to become a dog and don't force a dog to become a cat regardless of how little they are.

But in relationships,

It's that.

It's like if you have the fear of anticipating pain,

Disappointment,

Disillusionment,

Whatever,

Then you're going to forsake your yes.

When you both say no,

That's also easy because you both are telling each other the truth.

It's really hard when one says yes and the other one says no.

At that moment,

You're trying to convince the other person to change and shift.

And all throughout,

The constant is the individual.

The individual has to be honest with him or herself or itself or their self and be able to say,

This is what I want.

But you have to know yourself and let go of a lot of your own domestication.

Kind of like the question before,

How to raise a child without domestication?

Well,

First you have to undomesticate yourself in order to know how to raise a child in a different way.

So in relationships,

It's the same concept.

We're constantly changing.

My wife is not the same person she was.

For example,

We were talking about the interview.

Both of us,

This is our first Monday together.

I cannot expect her to be the same way she was when we were in our 20s.

She's not that same person.

She is going through her own journey.

She is 50 years old and she's going through her journey.

And because of that,

I get to know her for the first time in 21 years.

Who is she?

I can't tell her who she is.

I can't tell her how to act.

That's her own journey.

Just like with my kids,

My wife has to go through this on her own in the sense that that journey of self-discovery is not my responsibility.

It's hers.

But I am here to hold space and to witness and go through my own journey.

Some couples don't survive this stage.

Some couples do.

Some couples don't.

And if you're afraid that it's not going to survive,

Then this is where someone tries to prevent the other person from going into that journey of self-discovery.

Because they see a divorce as a failed relationship.

No,

It was successful.

It was successful because when it was time to say no,

You both acknowledged it.

It's successful.

But what becomes unsuccessful is when you forsake yourself and pretend to be something you're not forsaken from someone else's point of view.

Or you're forcing someone to forsake themselves.

And here's the thing.

You don't know if you're the victim and you don't know if you're the tyrant.

Sometimes we think we're the victim,

But it turns out we are the tyrant.

And sometimes we think we're the tyrant and it turns out we are the victim.

Who has the power?

The alpha or the beta?

And it turns out it's the beta because it makes the alpha do everything.

Without the beta,

Does the alpha exist?

It does not exist.

Eleanor Roosevelt said this,

No one can make me feel inferior without my consent.

I love that quote.

No one can make me feel inferior without my consent.

Let me paraphrase it.

No one can make me feel inferior without my consent.

No one can domesticate me without my consent.

And it reminds me,

My grandmother would say this.

I'll first say it in Spanish so I remind myself I can translate it.

El valiente vive hasta que el cobarde quiera.

It translates directly as the valiant will live until the coward lets.

Paraphrasing it,

The bully will have power until the victim lets.

When does the victim stop letting them?

The moment a revolution happens.

That's what a revolution is.

When the people kick out the tyrants.

When you realize that point of view in a relationship,

You realize that this image of a power struggle,

Because that's all I'm just describing,

The image of who is going to domesticate who.

And we think this is normal,

But it's not normal.

Relationship has no tyrant.

Relationship has no victim.

In fact,

Love has no strategy.

I want this person in my life.

And sometimes that means that you're willing to let go of it being a straight line,

Because sometimes that straight line turns into a spiral.

For example,

My most successful relationship,

I would say it's not my wife,

Susan,

But my girlfriend in college,

From freshman year in college,

She and I have been friends for 30 years.

We did the work.

We broke up three times,

But the final one was my dad was giving a class on the mastery of love,

Because that's how we write books.

We give classes.

We went to the class where my father was recording the material for the mastery of love.

It was a relationship workshop.

At the first break,

She turns over to me and says,

Miguel,

We've got to talk.

And I looked at her going,

There's no need to talk.

And we both began to cry and we broke up right then and there.

Sometimes couples break up in couples' relationships because they both realize the truth.

When I said,

If both say no,

That's also easy.

That's what I meant by easy.

Also,

When you both realize,

Oh,

I don't want to be in a romantic relationship with you.

What that allowed me is for her and I to let the relationship evolve.

And we became friends.

And eventually,

Three years after we broke up,

We became roommates.

And she gave me a space to live.

And then she met her husband.

And then she met my wife.

And her husband and I became friends.

And she and my wife became friends.

And our kids played together.

And they went through a divorce.

And I'm still friends with her husband.

And I'm getting to know the second husband.

But she and I are still here.

We have both evolved.

We became different individuals.

We grew.

But the love for one another is still there.

And we just let it evolve.

We didn't force it.

And sometimes that happens.

That's the thing about me and Susan.

That is a relationship where I don't have to pretend to be something I am not.

And that's been nice.

From that point of view,

It's just been an evolution,

Evolution.

You basically are there to witness someone evolve.

And we give each other the space to do it together.

And that also means the letting go that it doesn't have to be romantic the whole time.

Luckily for me and Susan,

For 21 years,

It's been romantic.

But with Sharon,

For 30 years,

We've allowed that evolution to happen.

And that's the beautiful thing about that.

As Susan would say,

It's my first successful relationship.

She says that she owes a lot to her because who I became afterwards was a different thing.

And that's her point of view.

Going back to the whole point,

If you let fear get in the way of that,

Then that would have never have happened.

Right.

Absolutely.

And I think everything you're sharing and why I'm so grateful to have you and what especially the first 10 episodes of this podcast journey for my listeners has all been about coming into a place of awareness and perception shift.

Like you said,

When you can find a partner who's also living in awareness,

Which means they're willing to do the inner work.

My greatest love brought me to the bottom of my codependency because he was a mirror for all of the work that I hadn't healed.

And because we've held each other in that work,

To me,

That makes it a success.

I don't really like the word success,

But it makes it a nourishing relationship where some people are always seeking to find that perfect.

They get me.

Everything is great.

There's no conflict.

Everything you shared today was just such a beautiful way to help people shift their perception around where we can come from our desire and fear and wanting things to look a certain way.

And,

And we shape shift ourselves and we ask other people to change.

And I use shape shift in this context,

In that way of codependency,

Like we want to avoid this.

We want them to act this way.

And I,

And I always share that we're not living in an authentic relationship.

If we're all pretending,

Give your partner an opportunity to see your truth and let your partner hold themselves and show up for your truth.

Because if we're constantly trying to keep them from getting upset or mad or wanting to see us,

It's not genuine interconnectedness that's allowing for that authenticity.

It's pretending.

And because we're hurting,

Because we've been traumatized because that trauma lives in our body and people don't get a text message back and we,

Our body goes in a fight or flight because we're back to fear of abandonment.

We were 16 years old and that first person left us.

And so everything you've shared today is,

Is really also what I love about the Toltec Path and all of your teachings is you're inviting people into a different way to see themselves,

The world and other people.

You're inviting them to be curious.

Don Jose,

Be skeptical and learn to listen.

Like you're inviting all this awareness so that they can make choices from love and self-trust instead of from fear,

I got to have this,

It needs to be this way,

Or I better just sit here and let somebody do whatever they want to do.

Because the second step after awareness is like,

Okay,

Now how do we set boundaries in awareness where we can be co-creative too?

I just have to add one thing.

The most important part in everything you just said is,

And I would add,

Is in order to have that being authentic with your beloved,

You have to be authentic with yourself.

You can't give what you do not have.

It starts with yourself.

The most important relationship where this all matters is the relationship with ourselves.

We're born alone,

We live alone and we'll die alone.

What we mean by that,

What I mean by that is that there's no one else living in this body but me.

Everyone in my life comes and goes.

If you draw a line,

That is your life.

And it's going to be straight just for the purpose of this analogy.

Now draw a parallel line that goes with it.

Your friends in life,

Your mom,

Dad,

Your brothers,

Sisters,

Whatever.

And you see some of them like,

So far my parents,

Their lines are still with me the longest.

And then I have my brothers,

But then you add my friends and sometimes the lines are very short,

Sometimes they're very long,

Sometimes it's dotted,

Sometimes they came in,

They came out,

They came in,

They came out,

And some of the ships you never saw again.

But the one constant is you throughout it.

Everyone comes and goes,

Which means you will lose the fear of saying hello when you lose this fear of saying goodbye.

That's what happens when you become okay.

It's okay if I'm alone.

I'm not unlovable if I'm alone.

When you come to peace with who you are,

That it's actually comfortable,

That all of a sudden being alone doesn't mean solitude.

The reason why we're afraid of it is because we're going to use their no to reinforce whatever insecurity we have about ourselves.

We're going to take it personal.

We're going to use their truth to make ourselves feel inferior and double down.

But here's the thing.

If you've healed that wound,

When someone says no,

All you're going to do is say,

Thank you.

Respect that person's truth.

You're not going to use their truth to reinforce whatever insecurity you have about yourself.

That's when you are healed.

We heal ourselves.

Absolutely.

That's beautiful.

It brings me a little bit to tears just because there's different patterns of codependency and ways people show up.

They're controlled,

Denial,

Insecure.

That insecure style,

It was my style that if somebody didn't like me or receive me,

It would take me to that devastating place in my physical body.

My entire journey of healing our relationships and codependency has been about healing my relationship to self.

It's okay if someone says no to me as a friend,

As a teacher,

As a lover.

It's absolutely okay.

They are allowed to have their perception of me and their truth.

I can hold myself and still believe that I'm a lovable person or that I'm a good person.

I don't have to catastrophize.

For so many of the women that I work with,

Especially the one-on-one,

The seeking the constant affirmation to feel lovable or worthwhile from the outside world is a deterioration of our soul and spirit.

It's giving our power away.

Jacqueline Small says it's human souls.

It's like saying,

Here,

You please tell me if I'm worthy of love.

Sometimes people also reject us because we're a mirror for something.

We represent something,

Remind them of their sister.

The Four Agreements really helped with understanding how everyone has a different pair of glasses or a different book of law and sees the world.

I just really love that you brought that.

It's such a beautiful way to come to a close in that this is truly about,

For all of our listeners,

Your relationship to yourself.

While all these beautiful examples around being in co-creation,

Truly what I think Miguel Ruiz Jr.

Offers is stepping into a place of awareness and compassion and surrender and authenticity.

Please,

If you have a chance,

Read every single one of his books,

But his newest one is coming out August 26th tomorrow.

It should be out by the time you get this.

I'll put a link to the book so you can grab it.

Before we go and I say my thank yous,

I'm wondering,

I know you have some events coming up.

Is there anything else you would like to invite?

I do have a lot of Portland listeners,

So I believe you'll be here in November,

But if there's anything else you want to share with our listeners.

My brother Jose Luis and I will be at the New Renaissance Bookstore on November 1st.

My new book comes out,

Poisoned Arrow.

If you like it,

Leave a good review.

If you don't like it,

Leave a review still.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to share my Spanish tradition with you,

Marisa,

With the audience and our readers.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to share.

For me,

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

Is just a symbol,

An empty symbol whose definition is subject to agreement,

But I give it its meaning.

I am the authentic selfless living being that is me.