SPEAKER_00 0:14

And it's a pathfinder and a cycle control. The anal created the essential scroll model. A model to develop the therapist code and the monthly episode of models featured the community and the personal analysis and professional content. Thank you for tuning in for the kind of triple features and the other.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

And your hosts are Cedric Speyer and myself, Deanna Nagel. And we meet once a month. And we talk about Soul Portals. We talk about psychospiritual dynamics with our guests. And so today it's an honor of Valentine's Day coming up. And just want to give you some housekeeping issues. If you've got any uh tech issues, Wesley is here from online events to help us out with that. So just put something in the chat to him. Also, um, if you have questions for um the speaker, please just put that in the in the chat and we'll get to that as as we go along. Um, and I think that's that's the opening introduction to what we do here.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yep, welcome again. And we have an opening invocation which goes like this may the spirit flow freely through our conversation and this gathering, allowing it to be both energizing and edifying. So much so Malcolm is our is our portal for the theme, relationships as a spiritual path, and he wrote the book on the subject a while ago. Falling in love, staying in love, and all the dynamics of that. So there's uh for our theme today, which is the next level of partnership in in uh the evolutionary way. Here's a like a good nutshell little paragraph about it from his book. Um here it goes. As you move through your relationships, and particularly if you explore intimacy with several partners along the way, you won't be able to help noticing that patterns emerge, the same issues come up time and time again, even when the new beloved seems to at first be completely different from the one before. This is because the work of relationships is soul work, and until you take up the challenge of self-transformation, it will continue to present itself to you however hard you try to find an easier path. So that so the key phrase there is soul work. Um I write that. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah, I've always had a phrase for it, which is the difference, you know, the difference between the you know the ego dynamic and the soul work is when you're doing the soul work, you work on yourself, work on oneself in the presence of the other. So that that whole trying to work on the other to make it more comfortable is no longer as relevant as you're doing your own soul work in the presence of the other who will invoke it and pre-provoke it in many ways. Okay. Um now this I'll do a just a big picture overview of the theme. Um just the evolution of partnerships and relationships in general. In general, the four phases of that. Um starting with, I mean, this is a very broad brush, but uh extend in the beginning, you know, it was an extension of property and part of a religious covenant and an arrangement that made you know sense in terms of the just the social contracts and the you know political ones, and the unfortunately the woman was usually viewed as an as part of the man's property, in addition to the property and all the advantages of that. Then phase two would be more of a role-playing, you know, gender role transaction embedded in the social norms, so more becoming more recognizable as the marriage, you know, we know. And thirdly, uh a need meeting fulfillment transaction, you know, the your missing half, and coming into union with somebody who completes you, including you know, you the the the needs, you know, being prominent and you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, and that's the harmony harmony of it all. And then fourthly, which is what we're talking about today, it becomes a vehicle for personal growth and evolution. Which that's a real shift in the way you relate to your the beloved. When you're there together, you know, in all the other ways, practical ways, but the priority is the soul work, the soul growth that's gonna come up. So now over to our portal for all this today. So maybe you can do a little overview, Malcolm, on on your work with you know with couples, with the relationship dynamics.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Yeah, so um when I when I first started studying psychotherapy, um I wondered what I was gonna specialize in. And I thought what was most interesting to specialize in would be couples. So I did a lot of couples work and then I did a lot of couples group work. Um plus I took part in uh when I was married, we were part of a uh couples group where we would share what was going on in our relationships, and it was pretty unusual to do that in those in those days. Um and uh I I realized that there's a there's a great line that's uh that that's that's in my book actually, that it's not my line is someone else's, it says, it doesn't so much matter who you marry because you'll be sure to wake up with someone else the next morning, which is not another person, it's that person is much different from what we'd projected onto them. So we initially, I think we go into relationships with it with a very sort of it's almost like if any other activity failed as often as relationships, we give it up as a bad job. But we keep going into each relationship. I've got friends who go, oh yeah, I think I've met the person this time. And and in fact, it's just the same patterns come out again. So there's an exploration in relationships of of how we hold our own center and how we're developed and and moulded by being in relationship with another. And that's a very powerful place to to inhabit because we can't just make the other person wrong. I know when I first went into therapy, um I kept having bad relationships that broke down, and and uh and I realized that the common factor in these was actually me, and that uh it wasn't that I kept meeting the wrong people, but something about me was creating an environment that was not very healthy, and and I did quite a lot of individual work and then group work before I sort of started to recognize the part I played in all of this. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Yeah, um and yeah, was there a turning point when your vision of it all shifted?

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Um I don't think there was one individual turning point. I think it was a sort of like it's it's almost like climbing a really tough mountain and you just keep getting sort of like pushing yourself forward and and finding um um the next sort of exploration that's possible. And and I think that I hadn't recognized what was essential within relationships, and it and it started to make a difference. And I think one of the things I learned is that every relationship will teach us something. So we think we can go into relationships and we're looking for the perfect person, but actually each relationship will affect a different aspect of ourselves, and very often we end up as they're saying goes with the same lady in a different dress. Um, but we found something in that other, and I think I I started to recognize that um this idealized woman that I was seeking in my life didn't exist any more than I was the idealized man, although at times I was, and although at times she was, but we couldn't inhabit those spaces all the time, and then what to do when things go skewed became the work. That's that's what I started to get to. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

So can you can you talk a little bit about I know you explained how couples work became your work, your passion. Can you talk a little bit about this the soul piece of that, the spirit behind the work?

SPEAKER_03 10:35

Yes. Um I think at the end of the day, what we're what what I was seeking and what I think we are seeking as as though as those of us who are exploring the evolutionary phase of our humanity, um, we're seeking to become awake. And and for me, the awakening that comes with another is where the magic lies. The places where we are um either fumbling along and going nowhere, or or we are um uh looking for a sort of you know passionate drama. And I think for me, the the the the soul work begins when the drama transforms into something else, because the drama is very, very much where a lot of people and including me have lived a lot of their relationship life, is in the sort of like the the agony and the ecstasy, and and when we get past that, then we come to the place where we are actually supporting each other to become whole, and I think that's where relationships become interesting, but often they don't get to that place because um the dramas can blow up relationships or we can get bored within relationships and not actually look for the next phase in. So that for me, that's where the soul, the soul retrieval work comes. Um, that we retrieve our souls when we actually are willing to um dive deeply into um what's going on between us and another and what's our part in it. If we're constantly projecting it onto the other, the other's wrong, the other's not good enough, the other's too good for us, or whatever it is we're projecting, we're never going to get to the place where we're we're we're moving through something. But I think when we get to the place where we realize we're in partnership um on a spiritual quest together, and that is the main purpose of relationships, then it starts to become a whole different ball game.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah, and it makes a great catalyst. Like the other becomes a catalyst for your soul growth. Yes. When you talk about the idealization, that that reminds me of the three phases that you cover. You know, the first phase being the most romantic one where you see the best in the other, the falling in love phase. So could you briefly cover though what those three phases are? Yeah. And by the way, Wesley, I think the group needs to be in the background for the recording because I'm seeing everyone. Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

So um the the first phase of relationships, often falling in love, which I call the temporary lifting of critical faculties. So when we fall in love, we see another and they become idealized, and we think we've found a magical being, and we think we found, in my case, a prince, our princess or our prince, and uh we override the obvious signs that are there that what we are seeing is not total. And so that falling in love phase will often last anything from weeks to maybe six months, or if you're living in different continents, perhaps it could last a couple of. I know someone who was in love for for three years in that sort of phase, um, where they could only see the beauty in the other. We are at some point inevitably going to have to drop into the place of building relations, a bit like the norming, storming, forming, transforming um model. We we come to the place where um we actually have to drop into the relationship and recognize the places where we are at odds with ourselves, where we're at odds with another, um, and to decide whether we do the work. And I remember a friend of mine saying that in that phase, you keep coming to hurdles and you have to decide whether you're going to jump the hurdle together or not. Um, and that hurdle will often take us into a different phase of being. And then ultimately, what the relationship can become is a place of transformation, um, which is a place where we are no longer looking for the other to bring us what it is we need, but they are our companions, our soul companions, and they can walk by our side and they can reflect for us, and they become places where we we don't get away with our different sort of camouflages that we wear within relationships, and and learning to lovingly challenge is one of the things that happens. So, my latest book is called Um Slay Your Dragons with Compassion. Um, got you. Oh, that's very good. We'll have a photo of that. Um, and and that that was very much um about the recognition um that we have to become a lot more skilled in order to have healthy relationships. We have to learn to say our truth, but to say it compassionately rather than to knock the other one. So what I often see in relationships are are people sort of like undermining their partner as a way of making themselves feel better, as a way of of sort of justifying the way that they're treating their partner. And I think there's a really big skill that comes in that third phase of relationship, in the transformational phase, where we're willing to take each other on in a way that stays loving rather than becomes combative. Yeah, that that's all that's very well said, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

So does this happen? Can can couples get to that third phase without having the conscious awareness of it in the beginning of the relationship? Like I know that a big movement right now is to be to be conscious with your spiritual union.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

But if they don't have that consciousness in the beginning, can they still achieve that?

SPEAKER_03 16:23

I think if if they're fortunate, then the consciousness will actually uh embed itself in them. It will it will be born in them. And so we we find that the consciousness comes to us because we are embarking on that journey. It's almost like we get given gifts along the way in that journey. And so um I think we don't have to be in some ways, we're probably better off that way rather than feeling like I know for myself that I have in my 30s I wore white and and I sort of like spoke in a very soft voice, and I thought I was one step away from enlightenment, and and and in that phase, um, I was hopeless in relationships because I was out of touch with myself. I was embodying what I thought was the spiritual part of myself, but it wasn't the whole part of myself. And I think there's something about wholeness that comes into this, and and that we may stumble across or we may forge our way together in relationships to find the container that fits us, where we actually find a rhythm that means we stay alive.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Yeah, and it's important that in the three phases that they don't the uh the the previous one is not negated, it's very it's very valuable. So when people quote unquote fall out of love, it doesn't mean that the in-love was all an illusion and you know to be to be you know disregarded because it wasn't real, it's very real in a different way.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Exactly. The recognition needs to be that the falling in love phase is is a phase, it has value, and actually, if you're in that for quite a while, you get to really feel the essence of the other because you are actually sort of like your your defenses are down, your your heart's open. Um, but then when that phase moves on, and it will inevitably move on once in a while. I know I've I did um a radio show once um on Radio 5, and there was um uh a couple who've been together 30 years that have never had anything but being in love with each other, and they'd seen that as utterly normal. But for me, that's so strange, not not strange, weird, but strange, unlikely. Um, the reality is that often we reach a certain pinnacle, and then we get the opportunity to start doing the work. But in some ways, the work is doing us in the falling in love phase. There's a real value in that falling in love stage that the work starts to do us, the work starts to allow us to see the beauty in another human being. Because how would we otherwise get together with another bunch of neuroses like ourselves and try and forge a way together that that actually has real meaning and depth? Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

And the first phase involves archetypes, yeah. The getting in touch with the what what the person represents on an archetypal level, which you brings something to life in you, which is the ecstasy of it all. It's you, you know, the richness of the archetype and the way it resonates as embodied in the other person. And then in phase two, sometimes they'll say, Oh, you don't you don't see the real me, you know. You see this is just an idea of me, you see. A lot of confrontation that can happen.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

I I think psychosis is is valuable in this, in that it talks about us being a tribe, that each one of us is not an individual being who functions in the same way all the time. We pull out different aspects of our being, um, and and we then are there. So, for example, if we're in in a work environment, a business environment, we might may pull out a part that's tough and strong and and able. If we're in a much more vulnerable environment, we may pull out the part that is much more vulnerable and and um much more able to be wounded. And but all of all of this is part of us as the we are not just one being. We are it's almost like we're a multitude within each of us as individuals, and you're gonna meet another person who is a multitude. And sometimes that person is going to seem like they are the wisest person in the world because there's a connection, there's a soul connection that that embodies and allows that wisdom. And sometimes that person, you're gonna go, what the hell? Who am I with here? Um, but this is all part of the the process of learning to um to love the wholeness in ourselves and in each other.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Yeah, what if the other doesn't have this vocabulary that we're using, and you know, as therapists, it's an occupational hazard to psychoeducate our partners, like big mistake, right?

SPEAKER_03 21:06

I think it's yeah, I don't think it's the vocabulary so important. I think what's important is that is that they um um they can inhabit that place within them that can meet us. So Ramdust puts this very well. He said that when you're you're in a relationship and you've become awake, um, and I'm wary of the word of woke and awake these days as well, but but when you become awake and the other isn't, you have two choices. One is that you can leave the relationship, and the other is you can choose to be an environment in which the other can awaken at any time, but you're not forcing them into that place with you. So I think that if you feel like you've you've you've got somewhere, don't become the big player who's going, look, I've got something, and you're an idiot, and you don't have it. It's more that you you stay open to the other being with you. And also So learning to adapt our vocabulary. So if if we're speaking, um you're speaking Cedric E's, and I'm speaking Malcolmese, or Deanna's speaking Deanna Ease, it's like learning to learn each other's languages. Because they are there are, I don't know how many people are on the planet, but there's that many languages as well. And we have to learn each other's languages and to be willing to enter the environment of another on their terms sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

I meant like one of part of what I meant is when it comes to that hurdle of the third phase where you you really have to do your soul work, yes, like like break through breakdown time. Um it it's is it important that both people have a strong vision? Like, because uh if someone hasn't experienced that third phase and doesn't know it is something to go through, they they could just see it as breakdown, they could not know that if you face it, there could be a breakthrough.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

I think that's the practice is to actually sort of like allow the sort of like the degeneration to be part of the relationship because it's going to happen. And whether or not we can stay with it. I think that's the thing, is that's the place where relationships often break down. Yeah, is that it it looks like you're arguing a lot, you're struggling a lot, but actually what you've what's happening is you've come to another hurdle, and it's almost like you have to learn a bunch of new skills. It's almost like a computer game where you go to the next level, and if you learn a bunch of new skills together, then the relationship can go to another level.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

And how on that note that people have the vision? Like, do they need it or can it be unconscious? Uh of course it can be unconscious, yeah. It can. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

On that note, there's a question in the chat. Would the initial red flags be a warning to stay away or a reason to go ahead with the relationship?

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Yeah, good question. That's a very good question, yes. Um I mean, there are some warnings, you know. For example, um, if your partner is violent um and is showing signs of that at an early stage, you may be very wise to steer clear of them. Um or they that you can spot abusive patterns. And I think that that would need to be challenged. Um, but I think you can say there are we have differences and and there are going to be things that are looking like red flags, but they may in fact be not be that. The the I Ching or the I Ching talks about uh the nature of relationships, that the easiest relationship is what is the one where you're most similar to the other. But the most rewarding relationship, the relationship that can really take you to a really deep place, is the relationship where um you're very different and you're having to find a way of navigating those differences with each other.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah. I actually call it a relation canoe instead of a relationship because the canoe is much more you know maneuverable and adaptable, adjustable. It's not a big heavy ship that you know it's it takes a lot to turn it. So relation canoe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

And my my experience is that for those relationships that are likely dysfunctional and going to stay that way, they start out in this period of limerence, which is a little different than what you're describing as the first phase, because there's an almost an obsessive quality. Um, there's an extreme codependence. So sorting out whether it's limerence or that first phase of falling in love can be very important.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Yeah. Someone's asking what it means. What does limerence mean?

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Limerence is is often described as that first six months to two years where the two of you are completely glommed onto each other. And but limerence has a bit of a shadow side. It's it's more um, again, more of the obsessive thoughts, the stalking, if you will. Um, just not not healthy. I'll I'll put the proper spelling in chat if anybody wants to.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

What we do is we often lose ourselves if you're in that state of imperance. So you lose yourself because you're so hungry for the relationship to work that you give yourself away. And uh Robert Johnson, who wrote the He, She, We, and uh the Psychology of Romantic love books, yeah, talks about giving away our gold. And I think often we do that. And someone's written, I think women are conditioned to stay, as any has said, I think women are conditioned to stay and work on the relationship. But unfortunately, often it doesn't lead to the spiritual growth. Well, I think that that actually sometimes women can bring that gift of holding the space where they're not giving up. But if they're just doing all the work and and there's no shift in the relationship, yes, you're right, then it's then it's difficult.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Some someone recently told me that a red flag, like not on the abusive abusive level, would be if you asked someone about their previous partnership, what is you know, what did you learn from it, and they all they can talk about is the faults of their ex. Yes. That that in itself is a red flag?

SPEAKER_03 27:12

It is. So one of the things I would say to you is if you if you start a new relationship and you talk about your old one obsessively, you're not giving the relationship the best chance to have a good start because you're still stuck, you're still caught in that codependence with the other, and you're not really ready for a relationship. That's where you are. So that's one of the things I would say. That's one of the red flags that's there in in uh, you know, not at the abusive level, but the level where is that person really available for a relationship?

SPEAKER_02 27:41

But then somebody could grow out of it if the if the grace of the new one starts to take over.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

Uh yes, but I I think that there's a danger in one person, often the woman, but I don't want to characterize as the woman or the man or whatever else, um, is is really in and is sort of working on it, and the other is just coasting along with them as well. So I think if you uh don't take responsibility for your own actions, then then that's a hard different ball game as well.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Yeah, and it's also I think you know the negative and the negative side of of the falling in love phase is you know, all the things we're reading these days about gaslighting and um love bombing, and you know, if that's continually going on, then of course that's a red flag.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

Yeah, yeah. I mean I think when when it's like when your neurotic behavior takes over within the relationship and you're not taking responsibility for who you are, then you you're expecting an awful lot from the relationship, which it may not be able to deliver. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Yeah, that the old the old problem of expecting redemption from one person, which goes against what you were saying about the tribe and the multi-identities. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

We have a comment that says, I think women are conditioned to stay and work on the relationship, but unfortunately often it does not lead to the spiritual growth.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Well, there's a difference in in working on the relationship and sticking in their come hello high water. Working on the relationship won't just mean working on yourself, it'll be working on you and the other. And can the other join you in that as well? So if if that you're doing all the work, you're probably not in the most useful relationship for you. Whereas I think that what we're looking at these days is are we both capable of picking up the baton? Are we both capable of and do we want to allow ourselves to be transformed, moulded within the relationship as well?

SPEAKER_02 29:55

And that that it's is asking a lot too of people's evolutionary courage.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

Yes, right, yeah, because actually we're having to forge new pathways, and and it's it's hard. Yeah, and there are times when we're gonna be, you know, not sideways. This time I but I think if we look at that, there are some skills that are really essential within relationship. One is authenticity, and and and actually, if we can't trust, if we can't speak our truth, um, if we're shading things. Uh, my mum used to talk about white lies, and she used to talk about them as something that was really good. You tell white lies so someone wasn't hurt. But I think we have to learn to tell truth within relationship, where we are showing up with our full presence, and we're willing to actually sort of say what's true for us in a way that doesn't diminish the other, but at the same time holds onto the place where we we have wisdom and we're allowing it to manifest. And there's another comment here which is can you please say a little bit about the role of sex in the relationship as a possible vehicle of spiritual growth? Well, I think that we're looking at a really big, big subject here, but let's let's let's take a look at it as well. So I think um uh Doris Lessing, who some of you will have heard of, who who wrote a lot of a lot of wonderful books, um, also wrote a science fiction series called the Shikasta series. And in that series, there were this much more evolved race that that came to Earth and and worked with without the humans knowing it, worked with the humans to help them develop themselves. And one of the things they they they said at you know when they came to sort of a conference to confer about how they were, was that in fact maybe they'd got the the sexual part wrong because it was too strong. Now, there's something about sexuality within a relationship that can completely overpower us. We can be with someone who's totally wrong for us because we are lit up within the sexuality of it. And there is sex can be well, I think sex runs the spectrum from being rapist and and foul abuser sexually to merging with another and actually finding a way to to uh to merge with the divine when you're you're you're in in a sexual relationship. And it goes the whole um if if a sex becomes um sidelined, if it becomes the major event and the other stuff isn't working, but you keep getting hooked on sexuality, that's a place where the relationship will often take a very difficult turn as well. So I think sex becomes something that is is is a possibility of love. Uh, I know for a long time as a man, and you know, the the the the generation I grew up in, um, sex was my main aim. It was like, you know, the the idea was to actually have sex with as many women as possible. Um and I'm not proud of that now. I'm just saying that this is this is what I grew up grew up through. And actually it was um it was almost like um conquests. And I think there's something around sexuality that is really about surrender. And and again, women often know more about that than men, but there's something about the place of surrendering to another that actually you surrender to the experience where you join with another. And again, this is a wonderful practice within relationships, and this whole practice of tantra that's been part of our our modern sort of um psychological movement as well, is also in the frame.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Yeah, and then you get into the area of the body doesn't lie, and there's nothing like sex to bring out the angels and the demons.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Yeah. But can we stay conscious within sexuality as well? And can we make it not a quest for orgasm? Uh there's nothing wrong with orgasm. Um uh, but but I think if we can make it a quest to truly merge with another, to truly surrender with another, and to allow the place that you inhabit between you in sexuality, you're finding something beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

And that's that's also where for for many people with that level of union, that is where the sexual healing can can start for people who have been victimized.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Uh question, does the desire diminish with age?

SPEAKER_03 34:20

Um interesting. I was out for a for a walk with a friend of mine yesterday, and he's in his 60s, and um he said, I'm I'm so upset that as I've got older, I no longer have the same sexual drive that I had when I was younger. It's like when I was younger, it was like it was everything. It was like the desire was was extraordinary, and it's like you know, there were always adventures to be had with it with that desire, whether it be with one other or whether it be the exploration of ourselves as well. I think it changes with age. And I think age offers us a possibility of meeting in a different place. Now, I I had a therapist when I was younger, when I was in my twenties, called Harvey Carmen, who was quite a well-known therapist at the time. And he used to show um pornographic films to his clients, you know, they'd come in couples and they'd he'd show sort of all not so much pornographic, but sexual, sexual films. But one of the things he showed was was um people who were elderly having sex. And it was very different from the young sort of like you know, sort of thrusting that goes on. And it took me a while to recognize that there was something very beautiful there as well. And if we can find the place where we're not looking for the sort of like the sexual kick, I think there's something very different about our sexuality as we become older. Like I, for example, I'm no longer driven um by the need for orgasm, um, which is uh I miss it. I mean, you know, it comes sometimes, but it's like it's not the same as as that sort of hunger that's around it. But there can also be a gentleness and a tenderness around it that can be a very different ball game as well.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Yeah, someone said that as men age, they become more like women, that with more of a broad spectrum of sensuality and and touch of all kinds, and as you say, not as driven.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

I like that actually, because I think that there is something about, you know, I think when I was young, it was just like it was it was all focused on orgasm conquest, you know, and it's like that's not you know, yeah, but that has some compassion for my younger self, but it but I think there is something about the broader spectrum that you just mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

And somebody says um there seems to be a common problem in couples where in long-term relationships the sex tends to diminish.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

I think there's an invitation at that stage to find a different way of sex because when you are driven by sort of it's it's it's almost like you're driven by the feeling that you is overwhelming and sort of, you know, and passionate and you know, all-consuming and dramatic and melodramatic. Um, I think that we have to find something else. And it's finding, for me, it's about finding that tenderness where we can hold another for a long period of time, where you can caress for a long period of time, um, where it's not any longer about achieving something, but it's about being together in a sensual, sexual space. And it's not as exciting, but it can be a lot deeper as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

And I think that that touches on uh the next question, which is does the desire lessen with one partner when together for a long time, the intimacy?

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Inevitably, it will. Inevitably, I think that that you know, it's like when something becomes known, it it becomes less uh of a sort of like a passionate desire that's around for you. But I but I think we the the invitation is to transform it at that stage. So it's not just about the desire, it's about the practice of love. It's about the practice of deeply connecting with another human being. And love isn't something I was working with a client recently, and he said something about um, you know, for a while when he was he'd broken up with his wife, when he got back with his wife, that's for a while it was really passionate again, and it was like, oh wow, this is so amazing. And then it tailed off. And he's longing for that wild desire to be back. But that's not the answer. The answer is actually to sort of find the place where um you can meet in authenticity and you can meet with lovingness, and you can meet with um, you can slow it all. I love Leonard Cohen's song, Slow. I've always liked it slow, I never liked it fast. It's not because I'm old, it's not what dying does. I've always liked it slow, slow is in my blood. And I think there's something about slowing it all down that actually you can truly meet another in a way that perhaps you've never done before and is nowhere near as exciting, but can be much deeper and much more of an emotional connection.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

He also said in another song that uh you want to change the way we make love, I want it to stay the same. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

You want to change the way I make love. He's he was so I mean he was wild, wild, wild as a lover as well. Um, but he was so wise in in what he wrote. Because I think there's something about what I've got from him was the slowing down, the actually the sort of like that that that making love is not about the ultimate orgasm or the ultimate sort of high. It's about the ultimate surrender as we as we age as well. That's the possibility.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

So and it also takes both part partners, maybe not at the same time, but at some point both partners have to recognize and reckon with the changes that that are going to happen as we age.

SPEAKER_04 39:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

And I see a lot of resistance to that with both women and men.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Yes. I think that's true. Um and actually in surrendering to that, then we can still be, we can still feel very alive and very empowered within our sexuality and within our relationship skills. But if you're you're yearning to go back to what was, where it was it was without a great deal of thought, but it was all about passion and drive, that's not the way that we're gonna go as we get older.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Right. You know, try as we may.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Yes, because another another way of describing the three phases is the basic dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Yes, the synthesis is the real joining, yeah. You know, and then also Blake, you know, Blake going from innocence experience back to innocence on a higher level.

SPEAKER_03 40:51

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think it's true. Um, so Selena said, I wonder if it's something you said for growing the desire for sex rather than starting off with it. I don't think we can choose. I think sometimes a relationship is is established because it it's like it's almost like there's a hot flame between you, and and there's nothing you can do to resist that. But I think there's something about growing the friendship that I often advise people to do is to actually grow the companionship. And I remember when I was an estate agent in my in my twenties, and um my secretary was in her 50s, and she said, you know, the deepest thing we've got that my husband and I have in relationship is this deep companionship. And I thought, you boring old farts. But as I as I grew older, I recognized that that companionship is actually a very important part of relationship, but actually it's that that companionability, the ability to be together with each other and feel like it's comfortable and it's warm.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Because that's what you're left with in the end. If you go the distance, that's what you're left with. Yes, yeah. So again, the evolutionary history of all this. So back in the day, Middle Ages, let's say, when you know, when the religious paradigm was shared, the becoming a monk or a nun and being married, they're both seen as vocations, right? And the vocation involved you know, the subduing the ego, surrendering to God, and they were different paths. So there's a big challenge in the third phase of the like a real like surrender of the ego, um you know, which is actually rare and not easy and um very, very challenging, which is why a lot of relationships don't make it to that third phase.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

A lot of relationships don't make it.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

So Nina's asked an interesting question in her um triptych of a question she's asked here. The third part of this is do you think that initial companionship can grow into more? Or without the initial hotness, it's really just wishful thinking. I think actually, if we can form our relationships from a place of of closeness and connection, yes, it might grow into more. Each relationship has different strengths and weaknesses. So some relationships will just be that you just want to shag each other senseless. That's one way of having a relationship, and maybe that's fun for a while. Um, it also becomes a bit samey after a while, you're not going to sustain it forever. But there is something about when you truly get to melt with another on other levels, then I think the sexuality can enter in because it becomes the tenderness rather than the hotness that she's describing there. And I could just like to, if I can, at this phase, just say the um the what I what I thought was the the main thrust of falling in love, staying in love with the four pillars of relationship, the places where we have to connect if we're going to form a long term relationship. So it's one thing to say that um there's a great line in an Arthur Leon love song that says, uh, yeah, I heard a funny thing, somebody said to me. You know, that I could be in love with almost everyone. And I think at one level that may be true, that there is this sort of like this capacity to see, to see the beauty in each being. I've just finished a book by Matt Haig called The Life Impossible, where this woman becomes awakened through something in the sea that's sort of like that brings her a sort of like that she's attuned to everything after a while. And then she sees that everybody is love. But we're not necessarily there where we are. And I think that we need to have to recognize that there are different ways of operating. So the first level, the first of the pillars that I look at is the pillar of um the physicality. Now, the physicality isn't just sex, the physicality is also being able to be with another out in public or to hang out together, um, to be able to be with each other physically. If that's not there at all, then the relationship doesn't have a lot of chances in the long term. Then the next level from that is the the level of of um the um emotional level, where if we're going to be in a relationship that's truly going to allow us to unravel and become who we are, we're gonna have to find a way of being um where where we are allowing each other's and our own anger, our sadness, our happiness, um all the different aspects of emotion. And can our partner contain that without squashing it, without making it wrong? So for a time, you know, it's it's very powerful sometimes if you can be with your partner who's angry, and believe me, everybody gets angry sometimes. Um if you can be with your partner who's angry and not feel like you've got to push them away. So I know in my my shining white phase in my 30s, um, I was with someone and um she became really angry a lot of the time. And that was a real affront to my my shining white sort of self who was going, oh, this is please don't do that. This, you know, this is this is horrible, this is wrecking the vibes of the relationship. That's really immature. I can look back on it now and recognize the immaturity of it, but there's something about being able to be with each other and being able to encompass sadness with each other. So sometimes we can we can allow the place of grief to be with us without having to hide it away, without having to be all right. So our partner becomes someone with whom we can practice that. At an intellectual level, you're gonna want to be able to talk about the world, you're gonna want to be able to talk about what inspires you, perhaps the books that have inspired you, the music that inspires you. You're gonna want to be able to connect with your partner to share inspiration and to share common thinking and to help shape our thinking. And the final level is the spiritual level, which doesn't mean we have to have exactly the same practices, but there's something about within the spirituality of recognizing that we are more than this uh this lump of flesh and skin and bones that inevitably is a temporal being, but there's also recognizing the eternal nature and the the exquisiteness and the divinity of the person you're with. And I think when you get to that level, you start to get to the level where actually you um you have the capacity to go way beyond what we had originally learned in relationships.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

That's awesome. Yeah, and and there's a a big question, Malcolm. Where do you think love comes from?

SPEAKER_03 47:23

Oh, there's a lovely question. I like that. I've never even thought about that before. So it's a great one. Where ultimately, this is gonna sound terribly new agey, and I'm really not new agey anywhere. I used to be, um, but everything is love. You know, I think that that that actually our essence is love. It's almost like what do we do to push love away or to to protect ourselves from love, even though love is what we're longing for. But if we are able to accept ourselves and the other the way we are, I think that's the place where we nurture and encourage love. Uh ultimately it's all love. But uh I've touched that at times, sometimes on psychedelic stuff and sometimes on in meditation, sometimes even in life. But it's a rarity rather than I live in that place. But when you do ex, when we do experience or when I have experienced um that sense of the awesomeness of love, which isn't the dramatic sort of like, I love you, and you know, sort of like, you know, sort of like, you know, sort of like the clash of thunder and symbols. It's more sort of like the acceptance, the recognition that you're with another, as Sir George Trevelyan puts it, divine droplet of divinity. That we are all divine droplets of divinity. I think that's where love is, but we have to reclaim it. It's almost like we've got a um, it's like um uh Rodan talked about with his sculpture of of finally, you know, he takes this block and forms it into a sculpture. He said the sculpture was always there, it's getting rid of the stuff around it. And I think the love is always there, it's like getting rid of the stuff that that alienates us or pushes us away from love.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

That was very poetic. Yes. What do you think about the or feel about the etheric level that um what we call in the you know etherp non-local presence and yeah the etheric level that doesn't actually depend on the four pillars, which you know are nice to have, but when you when there's actually essence to essence, otherwise known as soulmating, that can happen under any conditions and circumstances.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

I've often heard a s a sort of a a saying that your soulmate can very easily become your soulmate. Um so there is something about you know that actually that there are soulmate connections, and there's no doubt that we in our lifetime we will sometimes stumble across another with whom there is that sense of I've known you forever. And I have a number of people like that in my life. I've known you forever. And I think the essence to essence comes out there as well. But I think we we have to learn to dance with that, um, because it's it's a very it's the word I was gonna use was fragile, but it's not the right word. It's it's a very sensitive ethereal thing that has to be allowed to find its way. Yeah, it's almost like we have to allow life to break.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

That's why they said ethic, like that dimension that you know can be can be said, it's uh the strongest. This is a beautiful book called Love is Stronger Than Death by Cynthia Bergeau. And she was involved with a monk and they had a passionate love affair. After he died, the whole book is about the relationship after he died.

SPEAKER_04 50:50

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 50:51

That's lovely. That's what I mean by not depending on the four you know, pillars of you know, the tangible ones.

SPEAKER_03 50:59

Well, you know, it's this is this is interesting. This is probably gonna sound slightly weird, but it's it is the reality that when I wrote my book Slay Your Dragons with Compassion, I wrote it because um it was written on the back of my daughter's suicide. My daughter Melissa took her own life in 2014, and I started writing the book in 2018, and um it took me seven months to write it, and I wrote it with my friend Ben Crabe, who was a very good architect, helped help create the structure for the book. But what I felt was that my relationship with Melissa while I was writing the book came alive, and I felt like I knew her more in that process of writing the book. It's almost like she sounds so new agey and sort of, but it the reality is I felt like she was with me, and I felt like the book was partly hers. Um, it wasn't all about her, but it was a lot of it was about her and what I'd learned in the process of her dying and how to handle adversity. So I think there is something that's that goes beyond our human comprehension that's there within love, and and that love can be uh very alive even beyond the gates of death.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

So I I I think that's absolutely true, and that's been my experience also my hard partner said in the next life can we live in the same country?

SPEAKER_03 52:33

It's working so well because we've got this distance between us.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

So we're we're running out of time. I'm there's a very profound level. I want to know, like really taking to a deep level. I want to know what you think of this quote, like now that we're on a roll, because it's very startling what Jonathan Bishop says here. So he says love between two persons, if that is possible, has to include a mutual consent to endure the relevant death together and not at each other's expense, and the presence of death is unavoidable as soon as somebodyhood comes up at all. A relation founded on life alone would have to limit itself to the gratifying identifications of the immediate we, but we call these affairs not marriage.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

So what do you make of that? Wow. Um in words of two letters or more. Um I think that's very deep, and and and I do think there is something about um that we are educated by love. So I know when this might sound slightly tangential, but it's not. Um, when I took um ayahuasca, um, which is a plant medicine, um I um and if someone had said this to me beforehand, I would have said, You're an idiot. Um, I was educated by the plant. And I think what we're looking at here is being educated by death and educated by the larger concept of life around us. And there is no question that the plant took me to places that I didn't know how to go on my own. And we have a great deal of possibility of understanding the wholeness of this environment that we're in. We are not the illusion of this separateness that we think of, and therefore, within that will also come this concept of death being part of life. And for me, my relationship with Melissa has deepened after her dying. And if someone had said that to me beforehand, I would have thought, you know, you're a fantasist. But actually, that's not the reality. The reality is that death is a part, it's the shadow part of life. But I I firmly believe um that actually we um we are eternal beings. I mean, and I think if we believe that, then death becomes a part of our our being. And one of the chapters in my in my book, Slay Your Dragons, is is about befriending death. And I ran a death group for about 10 years, and one of the things that happened during that group was that one of the women in the group died during the course of that that that ongoing group, uh, not in the group, but she she was dying. And we as a group shared her dying process with her, which was one of the most profound things we could ever have done. And she was really an educator, she was a Buddhist and she'd done a lot of work on herself. Um, and there was something about her dying process that educated her and the rest of us as well. So I think death is an inevitable part of the question of love and life.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Yeah, you mentioned the shadow, the shadow work, and that could be a whole other hour, just on the just on the dealing with the shadow on both sides.

SPEAKER_03 55:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:50

Um, someone said, uh, why did I feel the need to take that drug? Was it after Melissa's death? And was Melissa always dying? No, Melissa wasn't always dying. Um, she she had um um a by a really serious bipolar episode uh where she got incredibly high for a while and then got incredibly depressed and then took her own life at 33 years old. Um why did I feel the need to take a drug? It's not it's interesting because we we look at it as drug, and and actually we've got this whole concept of drug. If you look back into the the the old tribes and rituals and ceremonies, plant medicine has always been a part of the shaman shamanic journey. I I have I've only taken it once. I took it once, I took it probably 15, 20 years ago in Peru. Um, but it was an experience that actually educated me. And it was like I I want to be educated. I definitely don't want to lose myself in drugs. I'm not interested in getting high, I'm interested in becoming whole, and I'm interested in discovering the the whole of the picture of who I am, of what life is and what we're all about.

SPEAKER_02 57:00

Okay, three minutes to go.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

Did anybody have a final question?

SPEAKER_02 57:09

Yeah, there were lots of great comments in the chat.

SPEAKER_03 57:13

That's great. I'm really touched by the the comments about um um your brother taking his life a 33 tenure and Selena. I respect the decision of anyone who takes their own life. Um yeah. Um you didn't answer why though, in terms of why why did I uh it was it was on offer. We were with shamans and we were sort of exploring and and this arose and I said yes to it because I felt like it was uh an experience. Um and I learned an awful lot on it, but I I don't recommend it for everyone. And I think the people who take it every weekend are are really not honouring. I think the place of ritual is really important. My therapy groups are are much more ritualistic groups um than than they used to be. Um because in the ritual comes a lot of the richness as well. Um and read death, have you heard of Stephen Jenkinson? Yes, I I've I've met Stephen Jenkinson, he's deep and inspiring the grief walker. Absolutely. We had him at Alternatives, which is a series that I used to run in uh at St. James's Piccadilly in London, and Stephen Jenkinson came and did uh an evening with us then on on grief and and on death, which was wonderful. Well, we did, we squeezed a lot into the hour. We did, and it was really lovely dialoguing with you guys as well. So um, and also having the chat chat coming through as well. Um yeah, I I yeah, I I I really want to say just said I've some people gained a similar opening through mind through LSD. It can open the creative and spiritual mind. Yeah, it can we can actually be switched on with that. Um, one of my teachers is Ramdas, who was you know had taken a thousand tabs of acid as a Harvard psychology professor and then became Ramdas. And uh he was he was educated by the drug, and yet at the same time he he gave it to his guru, and the guru then dropped 30 30 tablets, and Ramdas go, oh my god, what's gonna happen? Absolutely nothing, because he was bigger than that state where where the LSD was going to change him. He was already awake and not in need of it. And Santu, we what your teacher was Ramdas. Yeah, I was very lucky that in running alternatives, I I invited Ramdas a number of times to come and speak, and I went on retreat with him a number of times, and I had a close relationship with him. Uh, and a beautiful being, and and it was one of the great um blessings of my life that that man was part of my life for quite a long time. He was a good hugger. I had three hugs with him. Oh, it's beautiful. He was a beautiful man, and and and also he wasn't he wasn't full of his own ego. It's like he was always said, I am I am the servant. Ram Das means servant, um, a servant of God. And he always said, I'm the servant, I'm not the teacher. My guru is the teacher.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

He did a tour that he called Nothing New From Nobody Special. That's great. Yeah, lovely, lovely. Anyway, uh we could easily go on for maybe we'll have to do a part two sometime. That would be great.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:14

Well, really lovely. Thank you for inviting me on this. It's been really enjoyable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:21

Very well spoken. You're very eloquent. Um so the closing blessing on in that big picture, universal love you mentioned. The closing blessing is may unconditional love emanate from our hearts, allowing healing light to permeate our planetary home, encircling the earth out into the cosmos. So that covers everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:49

Whatever we didn't cover is now covered.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

Lots of great compliments in the in the chat, Malcolm.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

Oh, that's lovely.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:11

Thank you. It's been a yeah, you know, it's it's again, it's the result of the relationship. So we actually sort of like we had a little groove together, and and from there comes stuff that I don't even know I'm gonna speak about, but but actually we we engage and then it comes through as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:25

Yeah, when you keep your heart open in the face of relational adversity, you become some you become someone like you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:33

God forbid.