Gold diggers, jingle bells, and why your amygdala might hate romance

Love isn't enough. 

In this episode of UNTAMED WORSHIP, we pull back the curtain on modern love myths and the deeper skills that actually make a relationship last.

How do you know if someone's "The One?" 

I get asked this all the time. 

You'll learn:

• Why early heartbreak may have wired your body to feel safer with distance than closeness
• How to tell the difference between nervous system chaos and true chemistry
• The three-part cycle every relationship lives inside (harmony → disharmony → repair)
• Why love isn't enough, and what to actually look for when choosing your person

We explore partnership through a spiritual and archetypal lens. The feminine naturally turns life into ceremony; the right partner for her protects what’s sacred, and waters it. The masculine asks: Does she magnify beauty, meaning, and the legacy I’m building? The woman you choose is a prophecy of your future. 

If you’re wondering whether the person you love is “the one,” or if you’re ready to stop chasing roller coasters and build a partnership where art, creation, intimacy, love, and purpose can all grow—this episode gives you the map.

Listen, share, and tell me: what does “the one” mean to you?

UNTAMED WORSHIP —a podcast for the wild, the free, and the faithful. Join me on Fridays as we explore spirituality, culture, relationship, and the mystical to invite more beauty, peace, and awe into your daily life.

Subscribe to the UNTAMED WORSHIP publication to go deeper with subscriber-only posts, secret podcast episodes, and live community offerings.

Transcript

Framing The Big Love Questions

SPEAKER_00 0:09

You are listening to Untamed Worship, a podcast for the wild, the free, and the faithful. Let's talk about relationship, which is my favorite topic of all. So obviously, there's so many questions that come up for us when we think about love and relationship and partnership and connection and the one and true love's kiss and happily ever after and all of this, right? And this is a big topic. And we obviously are not going to be able to cover all of it in one episode. So if y'all have questions or something specific you'd like me to go into, feel free to reach out and let me know. I would actually love that because I'm a generator. It's very helpful for me to have things to respond to. So I can uh focus the direction of where we're going rather than like truly without the thing to respond to. It's like it's a it's so much information that wants to come through at one time, and it's like harder to be clear. So please, if you have questions, ask me questions. I would love that. However, let's look at relationship. And two of the most common questions that I get consistently about relationship in no particular order are Are there any good men or women out there? And how do I know if this person is the one? So, first question: Are there any good men or women out there? Yes, absolutely. There are so many good men and women out there, and there is no scarcity of amazing people in the world. The reality is that if you're seeing a consistent pattern in your relationships that you don't like or want, there's something within you that you can work with and you can navigate and you can choose to shift or grow or evolve beyond if that's your truth. It has very little to do with the other person. And I know that's really frustrating to hear. For example, if you are, this happens to men and women, but I'm a woman. So I'll speak from the female perspective here, which is like if if you're a woman and you're saying, Oh, where are all the conscious men? Where are all the good men? Every man that I am with is, you know, super noncommittal or cheats or just doesn't know what he wants and is essentially emotionally unavailable, right? So it's like he'll seem good in the beginning, but then he's very emotionally unavailable. They're all the same, they're all like this. No, they're not actually a man or the sweetest. Yeah, there's a lot of things that we could double-click on. I mean, in reality, it's like shit goes down for us when we're witnessing what's happening with our parents or primary caregivers' relationships. And really in those first primary relationships where we learn that it's not worth it to take a risk. You know, we go all in because our prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet when we're young. When most people fall in love for the first time, you know, you're like a preteen or a teenager, and your prefrontal cortex isn't fully formed, and like your neurotransmitters are still going online. And so you're getting so much heightened feedback, encouraging you to go all in and really believe in the dream. And that's why you're like, we're gonna be together forever, right? It's like so big and beautiful and potent. And then when it likely, inevitably, it doesn't work out, fucking crushes you. And the thing is that it actually does like this has been studied. Teenagers who get their heart broken experience it like losing a limb. Like they experience it literally like a form of death because how their brain chemistry works. And this is why you can look back on your first love and you can still like smell the smells and hear the sounds and feel the feelings and like remember what it felt like when their name popped up on your screen from the text message, like all of that. That's a fucking beautiful, heightened, magical experience that we all go through in their or in our early formative experiences of love, right? And so when that inevitably doesn't work out, then we start building up armor around our sweet little tender sensitive heart so that that doesn't happen again. And the masculine and feminine tends to respond to this a little bit differently. And we have masculine and feminine energetics within us, both genders, right? Or all genders, like however you relate to your gender expression. There's gonna be the masculine drive and the feminine drive. You could call it yin and yang, whatever resonates with you. I'm gonna use masculine and feminine. We all have this within us. And so the feminine and the masculine tend to respond a little bit differently to those, those early heartbreak moments. And, you know, essentially, from what I have seen, boys, the masculine part and boys carrying the masculine part, that they're so sweet and they're so sensitive, and they get their heartbroken that first time or those first couple times, and they're just like, never again. And then all the boys shame each other on the playground about being in love, you know, and they're like, You like a girl or you like whoever. And so there's a lot of teasing that's happening around these tender parts of ourselves. And women, girls, we don't do that to each other as much, right? Like if a girl has a crush on whoever on the playground, we're not like, ha ha ha, you like a boy. We're actually like, fuck yeah, tell me more. I want to know everything and we want to gush together. And this is like how we socially form these formative relationships that are formative relationships to relationship and love and identity, and like how we dance with it, right? So girls growing up are likely to have sleepovers with each other and like want to talk about who they have crushes on, and we want to like gas each other up. We want to hear the stories and what he he did what? He held your hand. Oh my God. You know, like we want to do that with each other. And boys, though I'm convinced, talk to each other more about love and relationship than they will admit to the feminine. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. But I did have a little brother, so I witnessed boys at that age, and they certainly did talk about girls. I have much wisdom about this. Y'all can ask me about that too if you want. I learned a lot about men from watching my younger brother, who's just a grade below me, hanging out with all of the all of the guys. And for whatever reason, my home was the one that everybody would hang out at after school and on the weekends. And all the boys were like always at my house. And so the the girls in my world who would inevitably have a crush or like date these boys that were at my house, they're always like asking me for intel, or like, you know, anyway. So I spent a lot of time in um in in uh witnessing boys becoming men and some of the things that drive them and how they responded to heartbreak. And they would confide in me, because I was like, to some of them, I was their older sister, and to others of them, I was like their wise oracle, and to others of them, I was, you know, I would date some of them or whatever. And so really, I spent years of my life at in my home life spending so much time with boys simply because of my little brother always being surrounded by, you know, the boys on the soccer team and the football team or whatever. They just happened to hang out at my house. And so, anyway, this taught me a lot about what drives men and the tenderness of what they're like when they're boys and the ways that heartbreak has them orient, like how they orient around heartbreak and how they navigate it with each other. And so, yeah, they fucking tease each other a lot about their tender, vulnerable parts. And anyway, men are so sweet and they're so tender and they're so sensitive, and their emotional world is just as rich and complex as ours. It's just that they tend to have a brick wall around it. And so if you're a woman and you're listening to this and you're just like, oh, there's no good men, it's not true. There are so many good men. And if you are finding that you're constantly attracting emotionally unavailable men, the tough pill to swallow is that you yourself are probably emotionally unavailable and you're just much more covert about it, and you're outsourcing emotional unavailability out to someone by choosing someone that doesn't like is never gonna actually show up in a way that requires you to take a real risk and then gives you access to the feelings of the highs and lows that your nervous system is addicted to around, you know, being desired and being rejected and the whole chase, right? Like it's it's a piece of it and it's worth it to unpack. And that's a great conversation to have another time. But just to very briefly dip our toes into the answer of the are there any conscious men or women in the world? Fuck yeah, there are. Absolutely. Like if you, like you're going to, from a counterpart standpoint, like you're gonna attract where you are. Now, you might attract where you are in the sense of this is the lesson that I need to learn, and who is gonna be a match to come in and teach me this lesson, that often happens. Or if you're like out of the primary lesson moment of your relationship, I'm laughing because it doesn't really happen, but like if it's less about needing to integrate one of these obvious lessons that you have, you know, within you that everyone else can see about you probably, but you can't quite put your finger on. If you're past that moment, then like you're probably gonna attract the person who's a counterpart for you outside of just integrating a lesson and you might actually fucking do some life together. I don't know, just maybe. So if you're in that place, just know that there's nothing that you can really do to outsource emotional unavailability to somewhere else. Like if someone is emotionally unavailable, don't put that on them. Just be like, where am I myself also emotionally unavailable? And why am I in a dance with that? Like, what do I need to learn about that? And when you do that, then you're gonna start attracting people that are not emotionally unavailable. And actually, I'll give you one more clue about that from the feminine point of view, because you might be like, no, I'm definitely not emotionally unavailable. I do the work, I've been to therapy, I have a morning practice, I meditate, I do yoga, I dance, whatever, right? Like you're thinking, I'm sure that I'm not emotionally unavailable. Maybe you're right. But here's one of the little sneaky ways that you might be. What happens for you in your body, in your mind, and your story and your identity when the man, if you're into men, and let's let's be hetero for the purpose of landing the point, but like if you're not, then the masculine and feminine dynamics are still at play within the relationship, regardless of what your genitals are doing. Okay. So if you are with this man and he's having an emotion, what are you doing? How are you experiencing that? Is there space for him to have his emotional experience? Or are you thinking some variation of the story of men don't cry, men should be strong, you're supposed to hold space for me. Like if you go there with frequency when your masculine partner needs a moment to feel, you're emotionally unavailable. You're being shallow. Now that doesn't mean that it's always his turn to speak or his turn to feel, and oftentimes men tend to bring their emotions through in inappropriate moments, either just because they feel really safe and then they like collapse into wanting to be mothered by the feminine, or they're getting really defensive and they're having a bubbling up of shame. And so then they're like, oh, now's the best time, right? Like, oh, the woman that I love shared with me, doesn't matter how she said it, let's say she said it perfectly. The woman I love shared with me that she, you know, has a need, or something came up that felt like an ouch for her, or whatever. And she was like, Hey, can you can you hear my emotion for a second? And then you, as the man, felt a bunch of shame, and you're like, now's the time for me to express my emotion in response. And then you essentially steal the mic and you suck all the air out of the room and you take up a lot of space. That's not the fucking moment for you to have your emotion, just like you wouldn't like it if she did that to you. And so this is not me saying that it's not valuable for both men and women to be emotionally attuned to the moment and respectful of each other as we express our emotions. I'm just saying that if your man, as a woman, if he comes to you in the right way, and you guys can talk about that and figure that out, right? Like, hey, this is how I can receive you, or let's negotiate when you go into a feminine space and I'm holding space for you, or whatever, right? Like, if you guys do all that, actually really ask yourself to what degree can you handle him having an emotional process? How consistently is he allowed to do that? That's a clue for you around possibility that you have some emotional unavailability going on within you, and you can get curious about that if you want to. In my experience, men are highly emotional, and they usually just guard themselves from that until they feel safe with you, and then sometimes it's like a tidal wave that comes out because they're like, whoa, I'm safe here. And then there's a little bit of negotiation that has to happen between both of you to be able to make sure that there's reciprocity in the space holding and in the emotional expression. And that's fine, and it's beautiful. Okay, so from the feminine saying, where are all the conscious good men? They're all emotionally unavailable. That's your practice, is actually look within and ask yourself if you are emotionally unavailable. And if you're not sure, ask yourself how you feel about men being emotional, actually. And if you're a man saying the same thing, which is there's no conscious women out there, right? Like women only want one thing. They want me for my status or my money or they're shallow, or the whole gold digger concept is really funny to me, actually. Cause like, do you know who doesn't care about gold diggers? People who could afford gold diggers. Like a man with a lot of status and a lot of money does not give a shit about a woman liking his status and his money. He wants to be liked for his status and his money. He doesn't only want to be liked for his status and his money. But if he's got, if he has depth of personality, then that's the part of him that doesn't want to be liked for just his status and his money. And then he will be liked for the tender, sweet pieces of him that he's revealing to the woman who he's with in intimacy. So, like, the only people who don't care about gold diggers are people who can actually afford gold diggers. The people who do care about gold diggers are people that like a gold digger wouldn't even want anyway. I think that is amusing. The other piece of this that comes up for the masculine side is the masculine is usually saying, Well, what do I get out of this experience if I'm, you know, if I marry this woman or if I date this woman? You know, because for her, she gets in this, let's say, in this like money status example, you know, she doesn't have to think about money. She doesn't have to stress out about where food is coming from. Like she gets really pampered because she's well taken care of by me. We go on all these nice trips, we have this nice house, blah, blah, blah, whatever, right? So, what do I get out of it? Like, if she's not working, if she's not financially contributing, if she's not having these like particular responsibilities, then what do I get out of it? And the answer is what you get out of it is you get access to energy. Like you want life force energy. You want to be surrounded by beauty. And ideally, that beauty that you get to be surrounded by is like high quality, warm, present, loving, devotional, like peaceful energy that comes in and makes your life more beautiful. It makes your life feel more special and more ceremonial and more sacred. And so what you're doing mechanically is you're investing in high quality energy that's coming in and making your life feel more sacred and beautiful. And in exchange for that, you're taking care of that energy, you're protecting that energy. And so you're like, I don't want this energy to be burdened by stress of the outside world. I want this energy as much as I have control over to be fucking relaxed and grounded and held and safe so that it can just come into this world and make as much like beauty is magnified, right? Like a woman's touch is gonna take what you bring and like a hundred X it, right? And so the masculine version of the there's no good women in the world, right? They only want me for my money or my status, they're so shallow, that's your version of being emotionally unavailable. Like that's that's one of the origins of it when you're like, what do I get out of it? Like what you get out of it is beauty in your life being magnified, and you get the opportunity to protect something really sacred, which it enhances your purpose in the world. Because if you can protect the sacredness of this sweet, tender, you know, sassy, I'm a brat. So I have a real sass, feisty texture to me. I'm not saying I'm all rainbows and sunshine all the time, although I think as a brat, that's fucking delightful. But I'm saying that if you can't protect something sacred and be like, this is mine, and I really want to nourish it and care for it. And in return, the the woman looks at you and is like, I feel safe and I trust you, and I want to magnify your dreams with you, and just like fucking pixie dust beauty all over the place here in this world. Because it's like what I have the ability to do is grow. Like, if you bring me devotion, then I can 10x your garden, you know, like you plant one seed, you get it. Okay. And so from that place, essentially, as the woman in your life, I'm helping calibrate you to the rest of the world because I trust you and I believe in you, and I'm like your biggest fucking fan. So if you bring something to me and it doesn't land, or I stop feeling safe with you, or I stop trusting you, or like I it it's uh it's a calibrator, it's like a microcosm to the macrocosm of your purpose, right? And like that's a sacred alchemy there, and so like a beautiful but confronting uh thing, if you're a man listening to this to be with is the woman you choose to be your partner is a reflection of who you're willing to become in the world. So if you're choosing a woman or women, like if you're choosing partners who allow you to stay exactly where you are, enable you, do not challenge you to grow. And it's not even from a place of like confrontation, but from a place of so instead of saying challenge you to grow, and that will happen sometimes, but I mean it more like inspire you to grow. Like if you're not with a woman who you look at and you're like, I don't want to lose you, I'm afraid of losing you, I can't lose you, I'm gonna do what it takes not to. And I want to have a beautiful life together, even though that scares the shit out of me. Like, if you're not choosing a woman that's inspiring that in you, that says a lot about who you are and who you want to become. And so when I meet men who have really big dreams and goals, you know, they always want to say it. Like men are always like, oh, here's what I made in the world, or here's what I'm trying to make in the world. They always want to be like praised and validated for being masters of the universe in their, you know, their big picture vision. When I look at who they serve, like if this is a heterosexual man, I'm gonna look at who he surrounds himself with. And I, and it's not about the woman being right or wrong or good or bad, or like, this is not a judgment of the woman. This is a judgment of the type of relationship that he's choosing and how it's activating him. And so if he's choosing people that he's willing to lose, that he doesn't show up to to the best of his capacity, that he isn't giving himself to fully. And he, you know, he's like behaving in a fragmented way where he's not waking up in the morning being like, wow, I'm deeply inspired by the partner that I've chosen. The person or people I share my bed with, like, there's a fucking reason, right? Like this energy is making me better. If that's not happening, I don't fucking believe that he wants what he says he wants in the world. I think he wants to be validated for it, but I don't think he actually wants it. And I know that he won't achieve it. And it's not because a man needs a woman to achieve his dreams, it's because the woman that he chooses is a reflection of who he wants to become. She is going to inspire him to become the thing. She's gonna see the parts that still need support and integration to actually like bring the dream fully online. She's gonna love the shit out of him, reflect his blind spots to him, and like activate something in him that he's not willing to lose. And until he allows himself to feel that fear that would otherwise paralyze him to carry on, and instead takes the risk and then allows himself to feel the fucked up feeling of, oh shit, right? Like, not this again. I could be hurt, I could be left, I could be abandoned, I could lose this person, someone else could take them from me, they might not be satisfied, I might not, I might not be enough worthiness, etc. Like all that stuff. If he's not willing to feel that, that same stuff shows up in his purpose. And the purpose is his core mission, right? Like he's not here simply to be a husband or to be a partner, he's here to bring about his mission on the planet, like that's what the masculine does. So the counterpart he chooses is either helping him with that mission or is distracting him from that mission. And that says a lot about him. And so if he is saying, Where are all the good women? Or, you know, I find good women, but there's always some thing, like these good women need something from me, and I don't want to be needed or controlled or whatever. Like, again, this is a deeper conversation that we could do many episodes about, but like whatever version of that's showing up for him, this is something to look at, which again is who are you willing to become to make all your dreams come true? And if you want to be believed, like you have to know that who you surround yourself with is a reflection, not just of who you are, but of who you want to become. And this is the thing for you as a masculine being that everybody sees, but nobody tells you. It's like that's the thing, you know, that you're like something's off, but I can't put my finger on it. Like, that's the thing for you. Okay, so we all both sides have our versions of this, and this is just one example. There's many more examples that we could go into, but that's answer one. So, where are all the conscious men and women on the other side of you navigating where you are emotionally unavailable? You're emotionally unavailable because you're scared. What are you scared of? That's up to you to find, but probably abandonment because that's a really deep fear. And there's two forms of abandonment. Like, well, abandonment is loss, right? So the abandonment side is being left, and the other side of loss is, and I've said this in previous episodes, like they're gonna die. It's unavoidable. And so we build up emotional unavailability because we don't want to feel that. That fucking sucks. And it happens on both sides, okay? And so where are all the conscious men and women? They're everywhere, they're just a reflection of where you are and yourself. And the only thing that you can really do to shift that is to shift it within you. And okay, here we are. One more thing. If you're with a person who's emotionally unavailable, like you're dating or you're married, or you're like talking stage, or wherever you are at in your romantic exploration together, this is easy to shift. It's not like a kiss of death situation. Like you can't ask them to change, you can't do anything about them, but you can within yourself, you know? And so the first step would be where am I emotionally unavailable? How does that show up? What can I do about it? And why am I finding emotional unavailability to be attractive or exciting? Like, what am I getting out of it? And when you figure that out, a lot of times it fixes the relationship with that person because you're either gonna discover, like, oh, they're actually not hot to me at all now that I've navigated the emotional unavailability thing, or you shifting that thing within you is gonna give them, especially if it's a woman, right? Like if it's a woman having this experience, you're gonna give him permission to navigate that in himself. Because it's possible that he just maybe feels a little unworthy or he feels a little intimidated, or he he like needs to access some more bravery to re engage with the tender part of him because that's where romance lives, you know. So when a masculine being learns that romance isn't safe, or romance. Romance leads to chaos, then what's happening is like he links romance into a relationship with his amygdala in his brain, which regulates fear. And so romance is connected to the fear center of the brain. And so then if too much romance comes in and like knocks on his door, like, hi, hi, even if it's fucking delightful, even if it's what he wants and it's like the best thing in the moments where it's great, because it's connected to his amygdala, like he's getting threat, threat, danger, bad, make it stop. Because and it's like flooding with cortisol, like there's a whole neurotransmitter cocktail going on in the brain. And so then what happens for him or for you, if you're a feminine being and you do this too, is what happens is when that is connected to your amygdala and you're getting all of the like scary or more intense neurotransmitters being like threat, danger, stress, you feel like a tiger's chasing you, even though you're not at all being chased by a tiger, you're gonna take the path of least resistance to relieve that pressure and try to like give your brain a break because those neurotransmitters are they're intense. And so when you do that, what's gonna happen is your amygdala is gonna give you feedback and be like, okay, that was the right choice. That was really good. Because now, you know, I'm feeling less stressed, I'm feeling less anxious. The tiger isn't chasing me anymore. That romance was a tiger. Romance for sure was a tiger. Ah, danger, danger, right? And so then basically, if you have this mechanism in your emotional avoidance or emotional unavailability, that's probably what's going on. Is actually there's a heightened sense of activation of your amygdala around the vulnerability, sensitive, sweet, tender part of you that romance activates because it's a fifth house, which is the house of romance and love and the inner child and the feeling of falling in love, but it's also the house that rules, and I've talked about this before, but like creativity and your creative drive and impulse and the sweetest, most tender parts of you. So if you are not having good sex or you're not making good art, there's something going on with your fifth house and the way that you relate to vulnerability and romance, because the fifth house is about romance. And romance is not big grand gestures, fucking skydiving, blimps. What is that? The thing, hot air balance, that's what I'm thinking of. It's not that, it could be, but romance is in watching things grow, actually. Romance is in the slow pace, like the tree that you planted 10 years ago, and the fruit that you take off of it, and you eat it just a little bit more intentionally because you fucking planted it and you know what went into that, and you like have developed a sweet, reverent, present relationship with that tree in a way that when you eat that mango, it's more special to you than the mango that you buy at the grocery store. Even if you love mangoes, that is romance. Romance is watching things grow, tending to things as they grow, watering the seeds that we planted. That's it. It's really not so scary, it's beautiful and it's okay, and it's terrifying to our amygdala because it feels one like going into the most tender place of ourselves where we believed in magic and we believed in Santa Claus and we believed Santa is totally real. If you're listening with your children, Santa is real. We believed in magic and we believed in fairies and we believed in love, and all of these things, children, are completely true. I would never say otherwise, right? Like when we are feeling resistance to romance or feeling resistance to our tenderness, or we're like scared, usually it's coming from our fifth house. And because I'm a fifth house teacher for two reasons. One, three reasons. One, because I fuck with it. I like, I like the fifth house. I like love and I like romance and I like beauty and I like art and I like intimacy and I love relationship and I like the feeling of fucking falling in love in the summertime and rolling down the hill. I'm thinking of those scene in Pocahontas, like colors of the wind. I fuck with that. I like that, and I want more of that for everyone that wants it. Number two, I have a fifth house moon. That's where my whole emotional body lives. So I am here for the fifth house. Number three, I'm a Leo rising, and Leo is the ruler of the fifth house. The rising sign is the north star that guides us in this lifetime. The most important piece of our chart. If we get lost in the forest, don't know where to go, look up at your rising sign. That's your north star, that's where you go. Leo is here to be a protector of love. That's it. So I'm here to be a fifth house teacher. Okay. So that's that's what's going on. That's what you're feeling. That's what you're hearing as I talk about this. And I could talk about it for a long time. So if you say to me, My relationships aren't going as deep as I want, I just can't feel it, you know. I I can't access that sensation that I used to access. My sex isn't as good as I want it to be. Like, what's going on? My art, like, I feel like when if you're a writer, you know, like I feel like I'm writing and I feel like it's coming across, but it's not activating people. Like people can't feel it. It's all fifth house stuff. And I'm gonna say, well, this is what Ernest Hemingway said. And I I really resonate with this as an example of a fifth house teaching. He said, write hard and clear about what hurts. So in order to do that, you gotta go to your fifth house and you gotta look at that space and be like, wow, what did I want to be when I grew up? Like, what did I what did I love when I was little and why? And what used to excite me? And what did I used to dream of? And when I thought about love, like what did I imagine it was gonna be? When I was little and I thought about my future family or how my life was gonna look around the Thanksgiving dinner table or whatever holiday you celebrate, like what did I see? And what is the difference between you now in this moment and that version of you? And it's okay if you've changed your mind. But did you change your mind because you wanted to, or because life forced you to because of what all you've been through? And that's what I mean about fifth housework. And so the degree to which your art is going to be felt in the world is the degree to which you're willing to go down deeply into the most tender, faithful, sweet believes and love parts of yourself and really water the seeds of romance. And the thing is that the fifth house is in an inverse relationship, it's in a polarity relationship with the 11th house, which is impact. It's our the scale of the impact in the world. And so this is what I mean: like the the depth to which you can allow yourself essentially to plant and water the seeds of romance and what that means in your life, like romanticizing your life, making your life beautiful, allowing yourself to believe in love, and what that means for you and your art that you create in the world is the depth to which your impact is going to be felt. People can tell when you're full of shit. It's just what it is. And the biggest impact that we can have is gonna be around those deepest emotions of the things that we all experience, right? Like the universal drives, which is to be loved and to love and to have mattered and to be remembered, right? Like these are the things. And so if we have a purpose that's linked to any of these things, uh like we gotta, you're being initiated in the fifth house. That's what's going on. And the fifth house initiation might seem sweet, it is very intense. It is very intense to go to these places of ourselves. So, with that, now I'm gonna answer the second question that I get because it it segues really nicely into it. And the second question is how do I know that this person is the one for me? How do I make that choice? And this is a really profound question. I'll share my truth from my life experience. Not too long ago, I would have answered that question like this. I would have said, Love, love is the answer. Specifically, I would have said, are both of you as devoted to love as the other? Like you as a being, are you devoted to love as a spiritual practice? Great. Is the person that you are choosing to be your person equally as devoted to love as a spiritual practice as you? And if that's the case, that's what you need, and everything else you can get through. Because that is the core foundation, and I don't believe that anymore. And I'm it's it feels it feels vulnerable vulnerable isn't the right word. It feels tender, it feels tender to say that out loud. It's like something I haven't wanted to say out loud. And I've really, really sat with it for a long time because of my fifth house moon, so I really want to make sure that I'm not adopting a philosophy that's protective, but is actually like integrated and true. And so I've really sat with this for years, and it's still there's like a piece of little me that hears that and like cries. Like I feel like crying now because it would be so much easier if love was enough. Right? Like when we're little, we're like, oh, we're we're gonna we're gonna find our person and we're gonna love each other and it's just gonna work forever and ever. Amen. Happily ever after, and it's not that's not enough. And so I do think this is a piece of the equation. Absolutely. You should not let's let's just use the term marriage just to be simple, but marriage or like you know, long-term committed partnership without the intention to not be together at any point, right? Like this is I'm not speaking about a casual relationship, I'm talking about like how do you know they're the one? However, you define your relationship structure as of the one, like you be with that. I'll just say marriage for you know, not needing to like caveat every single thing. So, of course, if you're gonna marry someone, you want to both be devoted to love as a practice. Definitely, it's just not enough. It's not enough of a reason to marry someone, and it's not gonna sustain your relationship. And in the place of this, I've spent a lot of time, spent years thinking about then, like, and as y'all know, I don't know if I've shared this in in the podcast or not, but if you've worked with me before, you read you know, some of my work, I am very interested in objective systems. Subjective systems are great. I've definitely sort of talked about this before, but like subjective, right, applying to you is great. And if you're a teacher teaching of subjective system, then you need to understand that your system will subjectively work for people who are similar to you, but it won't objectively work for everyone, right? So if you're teaching something that's subjective, then it will, regardless of their walk of life or where they are, et cetera. Like the system will work. And I have spent in this three-year hiatus I took from mostly a three-year hiatus of mostly not working with people and just like being really present with my life. And the four-year hiatus from the podcast, that was a lot of what I was doing in my personal practices, is like becoming really curious about subjective versus objective teachings and systems. And like really kind of landing on objective answers. I know this is ironic because I try to stray away from certainty, but you know, somewhat objective answers to that question, because that question is it's such a big question for everyone. So anyway, I've spent years asking myself, okay, well, if I now don't believe that love is enough to know that someone is the one, you know, again, I would have said if you're both as devoted to love as the other, green light. And if you're both choosing it, green light. You can navigate everything else, right? Like if that's not my belief anymore, then what is like what are the signs to look for as you're making this important decision? And it's it's like the most important decision you're ever gonna make because the person that you choose to be your uh partner, like the person you marry, or I can't like it doesn't even have to be marry. I can't stop caveating, like whoever is your forever person, that is the most important decision that you're gonna make because it's like that's who you're gonna wake up next to or nearby most of the time. That's who you're gonna resolve conflict with, that's who you're gonna spend special moments and mundane moments with, like that's the nervous system that you're gonna be co-regulating with. That's the person who's gonna be celebrating you on your birthday and wrapping presents for you on Christmas. And if you choose to have children, like helping you make your kids' birthday special, and like that's the person that's gonna be beside you when your parents die, or whatever hard thing happens in your life, that's what you're choosing. So, no, being devoted to love is not enough of a reason to choose a person to be your person. So here's what I think is yes, it's are we both devoted to love? Yes, it's do we mostly want the same things out of life? Do we want to go in the same directions? Yes. Do we come from a similar background or some kind of compatible background in some way? Yes, do we see the world similarly? Do we have similar values and beliefs and goals? Yes, this all matters, but it is not enough. Like those compatibility metrics, not enough. Yes, an additional one. Are we sexually compatible? Like, do we want each other? That's nice, but that ultimately is a practice that you will continue to feed over time. It's not that the honeymoon phase goes away, it's that like when you get outside of the novelty piece, then there's a practice of cultivating the relationship that you two will hold to the erotic. Like it's not something that happens on its own. If you have all these other pieces that I'm describing, it happens much more easily, though. Okay. And so here's the other piece. So everything I just said is important, but what is most important in determining whether or not you're going to have a successful relationship with someone is this. So, and this is a Harvard study that was done. You can look it up. I'll find it and I'll tag it in the show notes. Basically, this study found that humans are in uh in a constant process between three activities all the time in their relationship with each other, which is harmony, disharmony, and repair. And at any given moment with the people that we're in relationship with, we are in one of those: harmony, disharmony, and repair. Trust is built in your relationships between the moments of disharmony and repair. Meaning the way that the two of you navigate together the experiences of disharmony that will inevitably come up and move it into repair is what develops trust between you and what makes your relationship resilient. So repair is the most important metric of the success of your relationship. Do we trust each other? And so when you're in a relationship that either spiritually bypasses and only tries to stay in a state of harmony all the time, which isn't possible, but it's like a manufactured harmony, there's no trust there because you don't get to see how that other person navigates repair. Or if you're in a relationship where there's a lot of disharmony or any amount of disharmony without repair, like real repair, not I'm sorry, not empty promises, not agreements that they later say that they didn't mean, or you forced them, like whatever is happening in the space between disharmony and repair, like if you're in a relationship where there's disharmony and there isn't repair, there's no trust. And this can seem really frustrating, especially to the masculine. I think the masculine can get more easily frustrated about this. Because the masculine will be like, well, what about all the other things I do for you, right? Like I show up and I call when I say I'm gonna call and I'm mostly on time. And here's this track record, right? That I have. That's just you don't have unconditional access to a relationship with them if they aren't getting their needs met too, because relationships are reciprocal, right? Like it's a relationship. And so that's just a little side note caveat there for anyone who needs to hear it. So back to my point, if there is an experience of disharmony that comes up in your relationship, which there will be, and it is not repaired sufficiently for both people based on what their needs are, then there's a trust rupture. And when you have a lot of connection built up, a lot of longevity or time invested into the relationship, then you likely do have a lot of those resonance creators of, like, oh, well, they usually call when they say they're gonna call, or, you know, they've been there for me in these moments or whatever. And so then that paired with your capacity for unconditional love for them, which actually comes naturally to pretty much everyone, because it's a fundamental human thing, we're at lovers, that's gonna actually create an experience within the person who needs repair and isn't getting it. That's gonna like actually cause them to spiritually bypass and they're gonna like gaslight themselves, you know, and they're gonna be like, oh, well, you know, they're good most of the time, they're having a bad day or whatever. And then what's gonna happen is if too many of those moments happen, it basically creates a like an emotional credit, like a debt situation, where then there won't be enough resonance points built up for like that person to give us the benefit of the doubt, right? So making it personal to me, right? Like if I'm with a man and he is creating a lot of disharmony, which could look like breaking agreements. And agreements means decisions that the two of you have made together for how you're gonna orient around topics, right? Like those are agreements. Commitments and agreements are decisions together. Boundaries are for you. You're saying, hey, this is what I am available for. For example, like if you're, let's say you're in a polyamorous scenario, this is not a, you know, an example for everyone, but let's say that you are and you're like, hey, I support your freedom, but I don't want to watch you have that freedom. So if you are choosing to, let's say, just kiss someone else, I'm trying to make it more PG, but like whatever, right? Like if you're choosing to have sexual energy exchange with another person who isn't me, and that's like really your truth, I'm simply gonna remove myself from the equation. If you are unconditional love obsessed, like you're probably gonna be like, oh, that's an ultimatum, that's a punishment. But it's actually just a very natural boundary of like, hey, I love the shit out of you, I will love you forever. And there are certain things that I'm not gonna expose myself to, but it's not at all about me controlling you. It's simply just what I'm down to experience, right? And so boundaries are for you, which is I'm available for blank, has nothing to do with someone else. People will always cross your boundaries sometimes because it's not for them, it's for you. If it rains, I'm gonna carry an umbrella because I don't want to get my clothes wet. That's a boundary. That's a relationship that you have with your life, right? Um, agreements and commitments are in my relationship with this person. We've made decisions together. Okay. So in this example, if I'm with a man and he breaks an agreement that creates disharmony in our relationship. And I say, look, hey, I don't, I know you're not a bad person. Like basically, like I resource myself. I feel what I need to feel. I'm really clear about it. It's not like an emotional processing factory thing that I'm bringing to him. I'm actually just like very sure, right? Like I sat with it, I integrated it a little bit. Now I know what I want to say and share it. And I'm like as peaceful as fucking possible to this person, being like, hey, I don't think you're a bad person. My desire is for you to not feel shame. And here's this thing that happened. You broke this agreement, created an impact. There's an ouch, right? Like this hurt. And can you please fix it? Can you please like what I'm actually saying is I want to be able to trust you. I want to be able to believe in you. I want to be able to fucking endorse you in the world when people look at me and they're like, hey, your partner is a reflection of your consciousness in some ways, right? Like how happy is she? All that stuff is happening, right? And if he doesn't create the repair, he doesn't fix the disharmony, then I'm going to, you know, I'm gonna zoom out and I'm gonna be like, okay, well, what about all these resonance points? Like what degree of consistency has he had, has he had over time? Okay, you know, I can let him off the hook here. And it's fine, right? Like I can be really peaceful about that. And I'm so good at giving people the benefit of the doubt. But you get to a certain point, and this is the point I'm trying to make. You get to a certain point where that credit runs out and there's no more like resonance points. Brene Brown calls these uh marbles. She's like, all these little resonance moments are marbles that we put in a jar, and that's like you wanna choose to confide in the people or like deepen in your relationship with the people who have a full marble jar. Like that's how you know, right? And so every time there's disharmony that leads to rupture, that we need to create repair around. If the repair doesn't happen, we're basically like exchanging those marbles in the place of the repair. Eventually, those are gonna run out. And eventually those aren't gonna be available to fill the jar anymore. And so it's gonna create a real fucking problem in your relationship and it's actually gonna end your relationship because the most important metric for a success of relationship is simply how do we show up to disharmony? And this is really beautiful because it means that disharmony isn't bad. There's nothing wrong with disharmony, and in some ways, you kind of want it naturally, you don't want to manufacture it, but like when it comes up, you can celebrate it and you can be like, wow, we're on the same team, and now we get to have the opportunity to form trust bonds together. And that's really fucking cool, and I'm really grateful and I want to show up to this well because I fucking love you and I want you to feel safe with me and I want you to trust me, and I actually that really means a lot to me. So that's one half of my answer to the how do you know if they're the one? Really pay attention to this. I'm not saying micromanage it or hyperfixate, I'm saying just like in your life, feel that. Like, does this person, one, create more harmony or more disharmony in your life? Obviously, there's self-work to do around that. Like, it's a dynamic generally. So I'm not saying totally outsource it to them, but like really be very sober and look at it. Most of the time, does this person create harmony or disharmony in my life? If there's more disharmony, then that could be an opportunity to create a lot of trust. You know, maybe they're going through a tricky season in their life. So then you can ask yourself, this person is are they aware of the degree of disharmony ripples that they're creating in our in our little sweet relationship bubble? And if the answer is yes, then the follow up question is are they taking accountability for that? And are they doing something about it? Are they getting support with it? Are they like, look, babe, I know I keep creating this particular kind of disharmony. Like, this isn't a you thing. I'm doing my best, and here's my action. Plan to fix this as quickly as possible because I want to create the repair because I I love you. I don't want to lose you and I value this relationship like trust means the world to me, right? So it's do they create more harmony or disharmony? If they're creating more disharmony in your life, are they taking accountability for it? And do they have a real clear action plan that isn't bullshit that they're actually doing something about consistently to try to bring it more in the direction of repair and harmony? And if they're not, they're not it. Doesn't fucking matter how hot they are or how much you love them or how long they've been in your life, it doesn't fucking matter because the stakes are way too high. Because if you're living in a dysregulated state most of the time, that is a huge health risk. That's shortening your lifespan, that's fucking up your hormones, and that's impacting your ability to show up and your purpose in the world. And that shit is not worth the risk. So it's so much better to be alone, waiting. And I don't mean waiting, like sitting by the phone. I mean like trusting, being open to life, revealing something to you, kind of waiting, right? Like it's better to wait and not be in that highly dysregulated state most of the time with a person who just simply doesn't create repair and doesn't build the trust resonance with you, regardless of what they say, right? Like literal real effort, then it's it's better to be alone than it is to be in that state because that will that will shorten your lifespan. Like that's and there's all kinds of research on this. Like it can give you heart disease, it can give you cancer, it can give you heart attacks. Like it's it's not good to be in a dysregulated state most of the time. You want to avoid this as much as you can, particularly in your primary relationship, right? Like life dysregulates us sometimes. There's all kinds of things that happen in life that we don't have control over, that our practice is to be resilient to. I'm speaking to our relationship. Like our relationship should not be the tiger chasing us most of the time. The most dangerous person in our life should not be the person that sleeps next to us or nearby to us. And if you're in a constant state of dysregulation, often, they are in fact the most dangerous thing in your life. Think about that. So the trust metric. Can we really trust each other? What does it mean to trust each other actually? The resonance points matter, the rapport we build up over time matters, but it's actually metric based upon our ability to repair disharmony in our constant cycle between harmony, disharmony, and repair. How do we dance with that most of the time? It's not about being perfect, it's just about showing up. And the other part of my answer here is how does this person make you feel? Not how do you feel about them? Like, how do they make you feel? And I don't mean what all do they do for you. That's fine, that's a part of it, but I mean like really, really. Like an example this would be take any any quote on love, or maybe do it like this like just the word love in general. Like maybe take uh the Corinthians one, like love is patient, love is kind. Use that as an example. If you replace the word love with the person you're with, married to, dating, whatever, if you replace the word love with their name, is it true? Blank is patient, blank is kind, blank blank. Like, is that true or not? So that's what I mean when I say how does this person make you feel? Do you feel like you're lying when you talk about this person and how great they are? Do you feel like you have to protect the close people in your life from knowing some of the intimate details of what's going on in your relationship because you'd be like portraying them in a really bad light and this is happening a lot? And I don't mean air all your dirty laundry out. Like all kinds of things in a relationship, when taken out of context, will look horrible. I mean, like in your core most of the time, assessment of this relationship, how does this person make you feel? And are you proud of that? Like that really matters, okay? And so here's how I experience that, and this is this is how I can make it practical for you. So one, it's the replace their name with the word love. Two, the feminine, the feminine in all of us, but let's say women. Women naturally are ceremonialists of life, right? Like we already talked about this. Women naturally make things more beautiful with their energy and like the the woman's touch, right? Like that's the thing. There's this why there's the whole joke about the bachelor pad, and then the woman comes in and she makes the house a home, right? Like there's a warmth that the feminine brings in in our natural gift because women are ceremonialists. We are. We light the candles at the table and we put on the music, you know, and these are all just metaphors. It doesn't have to literally be that. I'm just saying that we, as most women, are the ones that are the glue for their friendships, relationships, close family, extended family to come into moments that would otherwise feel ordinary, you know? So it's like if you're a dude and you're sitting at your kitchen table at night, you're not, you're probably not lighting a candle every night and like setting the table and arranging your food in a particular way. You're simply just eating for fuel, and maybe you're scrolling on your phone or watching something, or maybe you're sitting in silence, but you're not like it's not a ceremony, most likely. You're just eating dinner. If you have a beloved, if you have a woman in your life, like she's gonna make that moment feel just a little bit more special for you, just in her nature. That doesn't mean it's a woman's job is to be in the kitchen. Like you guys might have it catered or whatever. Like, I'm not talking about it being the physical preparation of the meal. I'm talking about the company that you're with. And so women are naturally ceremonialist. We we make life more beautiful, and there's a real practice to that, whether the woman is aware of it or not. And the more mature women get, the more aware of it we are. And some women can get really jaded about it because they don't feel appreciated, and it's like a whole thing, right? Then they get really dense and it can make them age really quickly because they're like super underappreciated and they're overgiving, overgiving, overgiving, getting really depleted, right? And again, that's what I meant earlier with if it's a masculine-feminine relationship, like the masculine pours into the feminine, and the feminine like pours into everyone else. Those are the mechanics of it. And so this is my other answer to the question of how do you know they're the one? Do they pour into you or do they expect you to pour constantly into them? As a feminine being, I'm speaking to, and I think you know, there's reciprocity on both sides. But speaking to masculine and feminine man and woman just for a moment more, like if that man doesn't look at you as a woman and be like, wow, this is a beautiful goddess who I'm really blessed to have in my life, and I want to pour into her, she makes my life more magical naturally. Like it drives her. And I'm so honored to receive that, I'm so grateful to receive that, that I want to make her feel that way too. That's it, right? And there's actions linked to that, which is part of the romantic drive. So the romantic drive doesn't have to be I curated a firework show for you. It's can I do something even little today? It's again, it's watering, right? It's planting the seeds and watching them grow. Can I do something little today to make you feel poured into the way that you pour into me and the way that you pour into all of the people that we love so that I can make you feel appreciated? And so it said really clearly, I believe that there has to be some kind of natural reciprocity of pouring into each other in relationship. When you're thinking, is this person the one? You can actually ask yourself, is this person a ceremonialist for me? Like, what does this person do to make me feel special? And we all have different love languages, you know, it doesn't have to be literal gifts. Think about your love languages, learn those. And I know it's basic, but it fucking works, like it's a real thing. So in accordance with my love languages, is this person curious about my love languages? And do they pour into those with regularity? It doesn't need to be all the time. Like we have other shit going on. We don't need to like a hundred percent of our energy be devoted to our relationship all the time. It's just like in the moments that matter, you know? Like, do they save a seat for you at the table metaphorically? Do they do they light the candles for you sometimes? Or are you only ever lighting the candles for them? Do they make your life feel more special and more sacred to? Or are you just doing it for them? Because if you're just doing it for them and there's no reciprocity, it's mothering. And this is the thing, is like, ah, and this is so, this is like so beautiful and tender. But when I think back on holidays or birthdays or like special moments, you do it too. Like, think back to whenever your connector point is to that. Like there has to have been some kind of magic around a holiday or your birthday or something at some point, even if it never got met or modeled for you. There was like a longing for it to happen, right? Like that's still magic. So, whatever tender part of you like think about nostalgic Christmas from like the 90s, like Christmas in the 80s and 90s in the United States, the colors of the lights and like all the little trinkets and knickknacks everywhere, and like all of it, you know, like the nostalgic relationship to that particular texture of a moment in time. And you might be wondering, why the fuck does my life not feel like that anymore? Right? Like, where did that go? Why doesn't it feel that way anymore? And you could outsource that answer to a lot of examples, you know, like, oh, people are opting for different kinds of Christmas lights that they put on. It's not the like big, cool, hot bulbs that might catch your house on fire anymore. It's it's like the sparkly white ones, you know, and like the wrapping paper is different, and we're all more likely to be minimalistic because our parents liked clutter and like these are microcosms of the answer. But like actually, the reason it doesn't feel as magical is because someone was making the magic for you and giving you like a ceremony in your lineage, in your like core, whatever you did to celebrate that holiday, those traditions, that was your family magic. And someone in your family did that for you. Like someone in your family, if there's kids listening right now, like pause it, please, because I care about preserving the magic. Someone in your family stayed up late, wrapped all the presents, and filled the stockings and put the Santa presents out. You know, like my dad, he would wow, I kid you not, the second I said my dad, he texted me. Let me see what he said. Oh, he said, night, night, I love you. My dad texts me, I love you, before bed every night. Okay, so orient accordingly to who you're getting your advice from. But my dad on Christmas Eve, you know, we would have our whole tradition, but this man, he would walk on the roof with fucking like bells in his hand, and he would walk on the roof to try to make it sound like the reindeer were on the roof. Or Santa, probably Santa, but I experienced it as reindeer, and he would do that, and he would carry the little jingle bells around, and I like fucking really believed that Santa was walking on my roof, and that impacted my relationship to life to this day, and now I experience it as like wow, what a beautiful thing to do for your kids. Like just that simple little attention to detail. Like, I could cry, it's so fucking sweet. And you know, that's what it is. Now no one is no one's walking on my rooftop shaking jingle bells to show me Santa is coming, and they shouldn't be doing that. I'm an I'm an adult. And that's the thing, is now it's my role to do that, right? Like this is like initiated into being a lineage carrier, if you will, of the sweetness of that particular holiday. If I were to be around little ones, like my nephews, for example, then then I'm carrying that, you know, and I'm making magic for them, and it's beautiful. But I'm speaking to the part of all of us that gets to this point where we're like, wow, I don't feel the magic anymore, you know? Like it's because your fucking parents did it. Like they did something so cool for you. They made it magical. Like they made the cookies and they left the milk out and they planned the holiday parties and they wrapped the presents and they got you all dressed up for Christmas Eve server, all of that stuff, right? Like we carry lineage. That's the ceremony. Like the rhythms of our traditions, those are ceremonies. And when we're little, if we're lucky, people hold those for us. And if they don't hold those for us, then we long for it somewhere, or we convince ourselves that we don't want it in the first place. So, with that piece, women are natural ceremonialists. We magnify magic and beauty, we light the candles at the table, we make people feel more present and more connected, we add meaning to things that could otherwise feel meaningless. We are a ceremonialist for everyone in our life by the way that we show up and hold lineage and tradition. I believe that a woman should be with a man who is the ceremonialist for her, not little kid go on the rooftop, make her believe in Santa, although that would be so cute if it happened one time. Just as like a cute nod, you know, to be like, I listened. But that's not the kind of ceremony I mean. I mean, like, when you get the opportunities to make her feel special, make her feel special. Show her that you listened, show her that you paid attention. When it's her birthday, like do something to show her that you're happy that she's alive and that you are grateful to get to spend this moment of her existence with her. Like, celebrate her the way she celebrates you all the time, and the way she celebrates everyone in life. Try to make her life even just like even just like 20% as beautiful and magical as she makes your life. Even five percent, even like one percent, just be the ceremonialist for her so that she can be the ceremonialist for everyone else without pouring from an empty cup. And so that's my other answer is how do you know as a woman? How do you know he's the one? Or if you're a woman who's into woman, how do you know that this one's the one? One, can you really trust each other? Do you navigate disharmony and repair well? Two, does this person celebrate you? Does this person pour into you too? Is this person a ceremonialist for you? And don't overthink that. If you're a man listening to that and you're like, oh wow, high stakes, I could never do that, and like your worthiness wound comes up. It's not hard. It's literally like wrapping a present on her birthday and giving her a cupcake and lighting the candle and being like, Everybody, let's be present for one second while she blows out her candle. You know, it's like it's just holding your consciousness on the presence of a moment so that she can receive from the moment without having to make those moments for herself. Because whether you realize it or not, she does that for you all the fucking time. So can you hold space for her to have those moments? That's romance again. It's watering seeds, it's watching things grow, it's your consciousness directed toward something and saying, This is special and this matters, and I'm gonna pour into it. It's not hard to do. And if you're a man listening to this and you're wondering how this shows up, I think I've already answered it. But does she make your life more beautiful? Does she make your life more harmonious? Is she metaphorically lighting the candles? I think another one of those beautiful qualities is like, and maybe ask yourself this: do I want this woman to be the matriarch of my family? If we want to have children, my children will physically come through her. Do I value and cherish the sparkle in her eye, the magic that she believes in, the stories that she's gonna teach our children, or the ways she's gonna touch all the people that we consider family? Yes or no? If it's yes, I want her to be the matriarch of my world. And you have your answer because it's the core philosophy, it's the beliefs, it's the values that are gonna shape the people that the two of you touch, not just in your purpose, not just as the arm candy that you have at the big important business meeting, and people are like, Wow, you're you know, your wife is awesome or your girl is awesome, wow, you're super lucky, but actually, like when you're sitting at that dinner table together, will there be warmth? Like, does she remember the special days in your life? Does she remember the special days in the lives of the people who are special to you? Does she help you hold things as sacred? Does she remember the birthday of your mom or your uncle? Like, is she there with you in the hard moments? Does she make them a little bit more beautiful? That's your answer from the masculine side. And so wrapping this part of the conversation up, which was the initial question of how do you know someone's the one? This is what I believe is the answer. And love is not enough. Love is a prerequisite, love is a non-negotiable, love is the soil that everything else grows out of, love is the foundation upon which you build the house, but it's not enough. You have to be devoted to making each other's lives meaningful. And the way that you do that is gonna look a little different for each relationship, but it's so much easier than you think. So if you really want your relationships to work, get really curious about all of your mechanisms around your resistance to harmony. Like, what are your upper limit problems and and the where do you spiritually bypass and you know what's your attachment style and how do you run away from disharmony? Get really curious about that so that you can feel the trust that you also want to and learn how to make someone's life just a little bit more special, not just paying their bills or liberating them from a job or giving them access to a certain life if you're a masculine being, but like making them feel seen and telling them you mean something to me. And I really want you to feel special. That's how you know someone's the one. This week's episode is sponsored by Untamed Worship, the Substack publication. Here you can go deeper into the themes that we explored in this episode and in other episodes. Inside you'll find articles, personal essays, tips, tools, and practices to support you in your spiritual quest and your relationship to life, love, culture, and the world around you. You'll find a virtual tea temple for those of you who long to connect in with community in an accessible, down-to-earth, grounded way that meets you where you are right now, wherever you are in the world and whatever season of life you're in. You'll also find astrological tips and support and practices to take you deeper into your relationship with the mystical cosmic realm that we exist within, as well as a space for more raw and intimate podcast style conversations that we get to have in that space together, including the opportunity to ask me questions and have your questions answered and your spiritual quest, your metaphysical astrological journey, or your relationships with those who you love. So if you would like to go deeper beyond just the space of the podcast, I invite you to join us at Untamed Worship, the Substack publication, where we expand on all these concepts and connect in and another form of community here in this digital space that we share. You can find this at untamedworship.substack.com. That's untamed worship.substack.com.