Hannah Lord - Why We Live in the Most Difficult Time in History to Be Single

31:07It's like an excess of medicine then becomes poison. It's the same concept. So, you know, we cut, like you said, like we have to have both and they need to be relatively balanced in order for us to function. Otherwise everything goes haywire. And that's kind of where we are at the moment. But then how does the polarity play out then? I mean, it is not a secret that I would not be able to be with a woman who is not in her feminine, right? So I love that state of being that I crave to be complementing my state of constant doing, if you want, to bring me down to calm, to playfulness, to, you know, to a little bit of flow and so on.

31:47But at the same time, you know, I get upset eventually if there is no doing at all. Right. So where does that polarity play out? How do we get to know ourselves from inside in light of that polarity? Well, can I maybe talk about the process of that kind of alchemy of relationships that I mentioned earlier? Because it might shed some light on your question. Sure. So when we're looking for love, when we originally meet someone and we fall in love, it's actually all about us. It's all about the ego. And we think it's all about the other person. We feel consumed by the idea of this other person that we're interested in.

32:29But actually, it's just us. And we are looking because we're seeking. And it makes sense with what you just said. We seek out the qualities that they hold that actually are within us, and they're the qualities we need to actualize to become fully whole. So we're chasing that, and we see it on that person. We see it mirrored, and we kind of fall in love with that version of ourselves. I know that sounds a bit wild. Yes. And so they hold those qualities for us, and that's what we're drawn to. Now, this is if people are reasonably healthy, I've got to say. layer on top of that projections from childhood attachment theory all of these things they get they take precedent they'll they'll go first and foremost but if you've worked through that stuff you're looking for the qualities of your inner so for me i would be looking for uh my inner masculine so the type of man that i go for is actually my masculine side realized in a man but then wow Wow.

33:28That is a very eye-opening statement for me. The minute you said this, I could easily see this within myself. Because should I say this publicly on a podcast in front of tens of thousands of people, I'm a kid. Like literally, if you let me, without all of the responsibilities of life, I'll be silly like they come and just play all the time. And I do play quite a bit for what I've achieved in life. So I crave that part of me because I'm not living it, if you know what I mean. Yes. Is that what you said? We're looking for... Yeah, absolutely. So is that, do you tend to go for people who are playful and fun?

34:08I crave a woman that is playful and fun, for sure. Do I tend to go for them? I have a selection bias to going for those who drain me. But did I say that? I love you all, everyone that came into my life yeah well that that draining that might actually be other stuff that might be like i said the what will what will kick in first is more recent stuff from childhood so it might be your attachment style for example or any kind of codependency perhaps that that might be at play uh you know we don't have time to get into your whole history so just you know in general that's the kind of stuff

34:51but yeah there are lots of things that can get laid on top of that but when we when we fall in love really really fall in love it's usually that part of ourself now however what is really what is really fall in love let me see i'm someone who loves quite easily i think i i really because i i've always i've always loved people i have a fascination in people. It's why I've ended up in this profession for sure. But to really fall in love, to really feel like something different, special is really happening, I think has happened once in my life, maybe. For most of us, that's the case, isn't it? Yeah, I think so.

35:30So what is fall in love? I worked on that chapter, that definition within one chapter for a very long time. So what's the definition? What is to fall in love? I don't know if it's the right vocabulary, but that's what we say, isn't it? We say fall in love because I think there's a surrendering almost to it. There's a way that we just, we give in to a vulnerability of completely just being open to this other person. That's such a beautiful feminine way of saying it. You know how the masculine says it? So my definition of this, it's so interesting. The feminine definition is almost the same exact meaning, but my masculine definition is to fall in love is to reach a level of irrationality.

36:23You reach a level of being so into a person that you don't mind being irrational about them. Right? So you sort of tell yourself, yeah, she annoys me, but I'm so crazy about her. Right? And I think that level of irrationality, again, of course, the masculine is thinking about rationality. You in the feminine is thinking about surrender and a state of being where I don't have to, you know, it's such a beautiful complementary view of it. But in love, which I have to admit is the best feeling ever, because it's so liberating that you, even if you think about it from my masculine point of view, to be liberated from rationality and to say, it doesn't matter.

37:13This is so beautiful as it is. I want it as it is. And like you said in the feminine, I'm going to surrender to some of the things that don't work. And I asked hundreds of people, okay? And most people will say it only happened once. And I think that's because of fear. that because yeah because somehow if I if it happened and I was so irrational about it I was so in surrender and it didn't work out then I don't want to be in that pain again I think is that do you think that's true I think that's I think that's really true and even though for me it was fear that I I sabotaged it I so when I was in love I would I was in my early 20s and I had been raised in a very masculine environment.

38:02I've got four brothers. I was the only girl. My mom died as well when I was in my early 20s also. And I wasn't raised to value the feminine. I've worked through all of this now, I'm very happy to say, but I had a lot of internalized misogyny, I think, that I didn't value my own feminine. And so I thought in a very masculine way, I operated in a very masculine way. And I was terrified of that surrender. When I fell in love, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. It was terrifying. And I just did not know how to deal with it. I didn't know enough about myself. I didn't know enough about life and how to communicate.

38:48And yeah, it was all just threatening to me and so it yeah it did not it did not go well do we need in love we need love we need love for sure we need love for sure i think you can get to in love i think falling in love and being in love are almost two different things i think because i think when you fall in love that's like it's this rush this tumble of all of these new experiences all of these new feelings and that that surrender if you like all that fall into i can't remember how you put it now but it sounded quite depressing um it sounded just masculine that's the only difference just it's it came from the opposite side of your point of view but it wasn't depressing no irrationality that's it falling into irrationality.

39:48How can men expect rationality? Like what's wrong with you people, right? Because that's the only way we see life. You know, it's quite interesting. Yeah. But if you go back to the model that I was framing earlier, where we seek those other parts, if then we can be in relationship with those parts, literally, we're in relationship with those parts of ourselves, we start to integrate them. And what's beautiful is when a couple are really in a good, healthy relationship, they, because I believe you learn something from every single relationship you ever have, but you start to almost, it's not that you change each other, that's very different, but you organically start to, so if I'm with an extroverted person, I will start to become a little bit more extroverted and they will start to become a little bit more introverted.

40:41And there's this balance that's happening because you're actually integrating those parts of self and becoming more aligned. And once that's happened, that's why it's called alchemy, you know, this chemical process. Once that's happened, then you're free to really love the other person without projecting self onto them. You're fully able to see them for who they really are and love them. And then I think you can be in love with that person because when you fall in love, you're usually falling in love with yourself. Does that make sense? That's a lot I've just thrown at you. Wow. That is so eye-opening, so wise, so interesting.

41:20I mean, let me repeat this if I got it correctly. So I'll just first say you commented on the phase of falling in love. And believe it or not, for me, in my definition, this is nothing more but romance and passion, right? And romance and passion are just a chemical cocktail that is irresistible. Romance is that whole excitement and unknowing, but optimism at the same time, all incredibly interesting emotions with, of course, what you get when you're with someone for the first time, you're undressing them for the first time. And there is so much into this, that this cocktail is just, it's basically a drug, right?

42:03Now, none of that really is actually falling in love. In my writing, I call it falling in love, lust or falling in romance, right? The way you defined it is so much like my happiness equation, where you basically end up in a place where you're with someone who's never perfect. Nobody is ever perfect. And then you suddenly go, but I love them exactly as they are. I don't love my projection on them, right? I don't love how they see me or how I see myself in them. I just love that person as they are. And that's to be in love. That's so different than the act of rush that we call falling in love. It's the being in love that matters that is so beautiful hannah yeah i think but i think a lot of us find it difficult to get to that stage why because because we don't fully understand ourselves and what we're actually looking for and what we actually need and that's the key part that's missing that's the key bit that we need to do at the start i think and i i fully believe that But a lot of people don't know what it's like to feel, this is a bit of a negative statement, but to feel psychologically healthy because they haven't in their adult lives.

43:25And so they just assume that this is a normal state of being, to be at unease with themselves. If we think of it this way, does that not mean, I mean, the way I teach happiness is that happiness is to love what you have, not to want what you don't. Right? You can't precondition happiness on when I get this, I'll be happy. Okay? Happiness truly is, oh, my God, look at this amazing hour where I'm spending in a wonderful conversation with a wise, insightful person. Whatever is happening in the rest of the world, I should just love this hour. If you apply that to love and romance, does that mean that this ridiculous search for the one is not needed?

44:12That interestingly, if you're with someone who hopefully is not a creep and is not really abusing you and so on, to just love them as they are, to stay, is that maybe a shorter path to finding love? yes but I think as we have all experienced it's not as random as tag you're it that you know there's there's got to be that initial chemistry and I don't mean that by a certain set of you know how they look or whatever there has to be that almost soul matching if you like like I said they've got to model the qualities that you are that you have inside you yourself but haven't come out soul matching is not qualities you have inside you so soul matching is a very different level and it depends on how we define souls yeah it does it depends on the definition of soul but if you're looking at the the self and so like i said you know i'm i'm drawn to people who embody my inner masculine if you like and you might be drawn to people who embody your inner feminine so there's got to be that because another man because I'm attracted to men that another man would not do that for me so I'm not it's not like I could just have a fulfilling relationship with him because that process isn't going to happen yeah I mean it's it's quite interesting when you said soul matching again one of my deep deep thoughts and I decided to never publish that is is an attempt to define what love itself is, right?

45:49So you could think of envy as, you know, I want what they have. It's an explicable. You can explain what envy is. You can say that hate is, you know, there is a major mismatch in our value set, right? You can explain that. But I actually have found that it's quite difficult to explain consciousness and love, right? And if I'm looking for like the type of physics definitions that we, you know, mathematicians and physicists would do, there isn't really any. And when you really go deeper, that might be because love doesn't fall under the scientific method. It's not something that's experienced in this world, if you know what I mean.

46:34It might be something that's experienced between the souls, not between the bodies, not between the physical forms if you want and when you said soul matching my definition of love was a sense of longing that stems from belonging so you long to be with with another soul because you're already with that other soul in the soul paradigm in a very interesting way you already met it's just that you're trying to get your physical forms to meet which right so soulmates that's so not necessarily a singular soulmate if you assume that the soul world the world of us in a spirit form not necessarily is just two okay but it could definitely be and I don't think of that as science at all but in in my attempt to explain to myself why is it that you see someone for the first time and you already love them you see a puppy and you love it.

47:29You see whatever. And the fabric of love itself is not just romantic love. It's all kinds of love, perhaps because you already know them, because you already belong with them somehow. And sometimes that manifests in the nurturing of a mother to her child, but sometimes it may manifest in the passion for a woman for her man, right? And the fabric of love itself is the same. And then you add to it a little bit of romance, a little bit of partnership, a little bit of companionship and then you build a different relationship every time yeah soul matching comment I really love what you just said because it is expanding on that because I can see that needing you to always have the logical definitions of things and the answers that's why I fail at the topic of defining you know that book has taken me so long to write because I'm trying to write it in a language that's not the language of love yeah but but it's beautiful that you're even attempting to write it because again and what you're doing so um fantastically is that you are holding those two parts and you're being open to think finding definitions and try and getting that tangential information whilst also being open to maybe we can't have all the answers maybe we don't we can't see what's in in front of us and so i think that's i think that's interesting and i think that's what because again a lot of my work I love to think of things in a very logical formatted way whilst also knowing that sometimes you have to like chuck that book out and that lots of things you know there are those dualities two things can be true at the same time yeah so let's talk about your work finally okay I'm very interested first to start from the weight lift idea because it is a very interesting definition of the stubbornness of the masculine.

49:22Okay. And I say that with love and respect. I mean, I have to admit in my mind, it's actually easier to understand why men suck so much than it is to understand why women suck so much. Because, you know, I understand what it's like to suck like a man. So, you know, you know how it is. And a big part Part of it is that idea of the weight lift, right? The idea of, especially alpha men, we will not accept help. We will not even believe that we need help to start. So tell me a bit about that. Why did you choose this? What do you tell them? Okay, so I developed the weight lift. And the name is a little tongue-in-cheek because I have this perpetual frustration that we, not just men, as a collective, we are very proactive when it comes to looking after our physical health.

50:14And that was not always the case. It wasn't that long ago that we knew very little about nutrition. You know, we didn't fully understand exercise. And now we're so proud to tell people that we're going to the gym and men, especially, you know, they want to tell you what they've benched that morning and they're, you know, they're very competitive about it. They're there with their protein shake next to them and wearing it like a badge of honor. It's bizarre that we then have such an alien relationship with our psychological health and how we think about the mind. And that I find really frustrating because it's exactly the same.

50:50And I think, again, ego comes into play because we seem to think that the mind is us. We seem to think that that's who we are, that's our personality rather than something that needs to be worked with and trained and developed. And it's almost like the mind has mastery over the body. Like it's the boss and you shouldn't have to tell the boss what to do. The boss knows everything. Don't ever challenge it, you know? And then, so we're only reactive when it comes to our mental state and we wait for things to go wrong. And we don't even have the same attitudes towards, so say your physical body, if you break your arm, you know, it's a classic example people use, you'll get a cast put on it everyone's like oh you know never mind I'll sign your cast we'll wait for you there's an understanding that they will heal and get better yeah it's not a big deal sometimes things happen but when it comes to the mind there's a bit of an othering of oh something went wrong there's a fear around it of and it's definitive like it defines you somehow in a way of you're you're weaker you're not able to cope with life and that's almost like you are somebody who is not able to mentally cope rather than you're going through something and you'll get better like you would a broken arm and further to that we're not educating people to begin with so you know with an arm we're also told not to run around and smash it into things but we're not we're not given that not given that help with the mind at all we're not taught hit your head against anything you want if it's your mind that's fine yeah but but exactly we're not taught how to be in relationship we're not taught how to be parents.

52:24We're not taught how to grieve. We're not given any of these tools. And then when things go wrong, it's like, oh, stay away from them. They clearly can't cope. You know, I find it crazy. The mind needs to be exercised. It needs to be nourished. It needs to be supported, just like the body. It's exactly the same. So I am on a mission. If it kills me, I am on a mission. My life's work is going to be trying to get a reframe around how we see exercising the mind, just as for prevention, rather than because something's gone wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Just for health. Again, it's a very interesting overlap because Unstressable, my next book with Alice is finally in its print-ready version.

53:10So it's coming out in spring. And, you know, we have something in it that we call the Mind Gym, G-Y-M-M-M-M-M-M, so six Ms. And the whole idea is that, you know, Muscle atrophy will allow you to grow your muscles by going to the gym repeatedly. And then if you use HIIT exercises or whatever, you're going to increase your stamina and so on. It's very well understood now, not because it was when I was a teenager, but because we put our minds to understanding it. And I think in reality, there are exercises, there are practices that you can take proactively so that your mind doesn't get you to hit the walls all the time.

53:50and, you know, keep you up at night and make you suffer, basically. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I, so the course that I developed, the online program, is all around those basic foundation blocks. It's like the education piece that I think is missing from schools. So it will just tell you, and this kind of goes back to your earlier question, it'll teach you how you might be in relationships, what might come into play. It gets you to look at your childhood through an objective lens. And this is not, again, it's trying to break through all these preconceived ideas we have around psychology. I get such wild responses from people like, well, it's, you know, I don't want to blame my parents.

54:30My parents were brilliant. Yeah, okay. No one's coming after your parents. It's not about that. It's just about understanding, oh, this is the data I received as a child. So these were the messages that was mapped onto that code. You can tell I'm not a coder, so I'm just going to get the metaphor all over the place. But that information is then forming how we see ourselves and how we see the world. It's not about blaming anyone that gave us that information. It's just about understanding it because then we've got the power. We've got the data in front of us so that we can work with it. That's all it is.

55:05And doing that with then, you know, that maps onto friendships, that maps onto, you know, the workplace, everything we do in life and looking for love. all of this stuff. We have information, key information about ourself that we can then apply to all these different experiences to understand that, oh, that's why I'm really irrationally annoyed right now, but I know exactly why, because it was because of that thing. So then it's like calming down. So here's another physical example. You know, when you're on the treadmill at the gym and your heart rate, your heart's racing, you're short of breath, you know, there's all of these physical responses in the body, but you're not freaking out because you know what it means.

55:48You know that you're on a treadmill. It's the same. We get so out of sync with ourselves that we have these reactions, responses, and even to a heightened extent when people have panic attacks, it's because they don't understand what's happening. They don't have a context to put it into like we would at the gym to go, oh, I'm just... Because imagine if that heart race and everything, which is a panic attack happened in the middle of the street and you didn't have the context to say I'm on a treadmill it's very very life-threatening yeah so again it's just having the framework to know oh this is because of this it's a calming but why is that only for alpha men I mean that I think it's not just for alpha men yeah for everyone right yeah the weight lift is not just for alpha men that's just a section that I particularly enjoy working with yeah if you take that idea of I need to go back to understand my conditioning, to understand what is it that I'm attracting and get to know myself.

56:51Correct? Yeah. What are my needs? What are my needs are, is that what we're looking for? What are my needs? I mean, if you ask me, I need everything. Why not? No, it's interestingly, I mean, what are your unconscious needs? A big, a big challenge with dating apps and social media, and in my case, being a little successful, is you get everything. So you start to tell yourself, oh, why not? I want someone who's gorgeous and funny and cute, and at the same time, super sexy, but very shy and whatever. I can ask for anything that I want, even if it doesn't make sense. It's not what I need. Is that what matters?

57:34Or is it more what would make me happy are they are those things that you just described are they actually what you need or are they what you want in the present are we back to what do you actually need is a different thing sit down you know for that real sit down tell me about your day what was actually what do you really need for that connection for that person that you're looking for because it seems like you can go after all these things, but it's not getting you what you need. It's getting you what you want, which doesn't last because then you want something else. No, I mean, in reality, my needs are listed very differently, right?

58:17But even when I think about it now in my therapy session, my needs are not listed as needs, right? So I, for example, want a woman who is spiritual, who believes in something more than our physical form, who is, you know, intelligent. To know what you need is go deeper than that. Why? Why? Why do you need someone who's spiritual? Why? It's always follow the why right down until you get to that core answer of, ah, okay, that's what I'm really looking for. That's what I need. Why do I need someone who's spiritual? And my typical answer would be because I wasn't comfortable with someone who wasn't.

58:53Why? Because there is a mismatch in values. And that's important because? Because values matter and last longer than anything else. Don't they? I don't know. Man, this is a real therapy session in front of tens of thousands. I'm open for it. I think this is actually one of the things I'm telling people is that it really is important for you to consult with another to see what's hidden, what's not so clear within you. So why? Why do I want a spiritual person? I don't know the answer to that, to be honest. other than it feels right to be with a spiritual person, no? Well, what's your relationship with spirituality?

59:36Oh, serious. It's the core of my life. It really is. I mean, most people think of me as a physicist or mathematician, but at a very young age, I did the mathematics of the divine, as I call it, which was Chapter 14 in Soul for Happy, and I basically recognized that relationships go two ways. one is in the physical world and one is in the spiritual world and that the relationships in the spiritual world matter more. So to me, despite my approach to everything that I write, which is so logical and so engineered and so mathematical and facts-based, my entire life is dedicated to explore that other side.

1:00:16Yeah. And I love that because you are almost like a human bridge to that other side because uh the way that you write in soul for happy is so it's so easy to understand it's so uh clear and uh well laid out but it is very it is very spiritual it is very enlightened it has to be anything that's not spiritual is not complete i mean that's a that's a not a correct statement my view of the world is that anything that's not spiritual is only addressing half of the universe. In all honesty, addressing the half that doesn't matter as much. But let's go back to our listeners. You and I can... We've gone off into another realm.

1:00:59Yeah, but how does someone... I gave an example here of I need someone in my life who's spiritual, but that's not the need. That's the description of who would fulfill that need, right? Yes, exactly. So how does one get to the need? The why, why, why? Give me an example on your side. What is a need? Oh, great question. What is a need on my side? I need to be seen for my true self without judgment and limitation, if you like. Wow. That's what I need. Let's go back upwards. For that, you need someone who's non-judgmental, who's inquisitive, who can connect deeply to you. You clever thing, you. That's a very interesting way of looking at it.

1:01:55I mean, I always go back to the idea that a woman has three needs to be seen safe, and if she's sexually active to be had. And, you know, a man has three needs to be free, seen, and if sexually active to be given, right? Or to take in an interesting way. So you take that seen bit and you say seen means those certain qualities in a man. Yes. So just to layer on top of that, before I understood myself better, interestingly so one of my core needs is to be seen I would only be in relationships with men who were emotionally unavailable and could not see me and that was because of my childhood stuff where I had an emotionally unavailable dad and again it's not about blaming the parents at all but it's because we will seek constantly seek to repair something because then it almost heals it we think that's gonna that's gonna heal it but we don't we don't have that well it's it's the it feeds into attachment styles and transactional analysis and these different why don't we attract what we need why do we attract because we don't know we need it because we haven't connected with ourselves fully yet and that's why it's important to understand that's why i'm saying we have to understand what our needs actually are otherwise we're unconsciously just chasing after things that we think we need.

1:03:27We're trying to repair holes that were formed in another time in early childhood. Are you willing to play this game? You just contributed one, I contribute one, then you contribute one. Okay, sure. So when you say it this way, I think my biggest need is to be free. Interesting. Okay. For many reasons, you know, throughout my entire life, I've accumulated lots and lots and lots of obligations, people that count on me in many ways, right? Including, for example, people who will expect a podcast once a week, right? And in my upbringing, which is hyper-responsible, if I make a promise, I will fulfill, right?

1:04:09And so when it comes to my relationships, I want not only do I not want someone who is going to add to my restrictions and obligations, I crave someone who is going to enable more of my freedom. Like he will understand that if I have a talk for 12 ,000 people in an hour's time and, you know, she may not be feeling perfectly, you know, happy at the moment, she will give me the hour of freedom so that I do my talk properly. And then we can talk later, if you know what I mean, right? So that idea of, if I look at the list of nine qualities I'm looking for in a woman, you would see that many of them would go back to free, right?

1:04:58Not free to roam around and do whatever I want, but free to feel a lightness in the relationship that the relationship is not a jail, if you think about it. Yeah. But do you think that we share a lot of these things? Because I'm thinking surely part of the human condition is a need to be free. Correct. Also, a need to be seen. And a need to be seen. And a need to be loved. Because I was thinking loved and in some way special as well, I think. That's part of the scene. But I think everyone... That's part of the scene. Yes. Okay. So the biggest part of scene, which I have to say I never really fail at, is I think every human is beautiful.

1:05:34So, you know, in a beautiful way, if you manage to go through the traumas and see the core of your lover. They're amazing, right? And the thing is that, you know, if you genuinely ignore the negativity and trauma and just focus on the positivity and, you know, miracle of every human, you will have seen your lover. And I hosted Alain de Baton here on Slow Mo in season one, And he was talking about that idea that the whole thing about love is to be able to undress, you know, figuratively and physically in front of someone and sort of show all of your taboos and all of the things that you hide from everyone else with one wish where they go and look at you and go like, oh, my God, that's amazing.

1:06:28Right. That moment of being seen for exactly who you are, nothing covering you and still being liked is a very deep desire within all humans. Yeah. And that's real intimacy. And that's where that's where the magic happens. Yeah, I believe that. I believe that this one moment I would tend to believe that this is more true for men than most women believe. It's just not a woman would want to be seen as beautiful, for example, in the eyes of her man. A man would want to be seen manly. And manly is a different one. Manly is, I'm enough. I'm protective. You can rely on me, right? Yeah, men want respect.

1:07:13Yeah, respect. Yeah, yeah. We had Sarah Dawn Moore here on the podcast. And one clip that we put on Instagram from her conversation was about respect, that men want respect. And oh, my God, we had like a million feminists attack her like mad. Oh, my God. I was like, I was like, what's wrong with you people? She's not saying that women don't need respect. She's saying if you want to love someone, give them what they need. And men need respect. It was such an interesting response. I think we all need both. We all need love and respect. But again, some of the conditioning in our environment has meant that it's more important because if men don't get respect, it threatens much more for them than it does for women.

1:08:03And the same with love in the other way. Now, again, I don't want to come under fire here, but I just think that... This is the clip that we will publish on Instagram. but I just, I, I truly believe that a lot of our environment has shaped us because again, if you go back to the data idea, it's, we're learning all the time and we're being taught. So I always, I use the example of think about anger, how we express anger across the genders. Now, my dear old dad has often commented about bloody women. They're always crying. As soon as they get upset they're always and I'm like well it doesn't sound like she was upset it sounded like she was angry but it's not safe or acceptable for a woman to express her anger as readily as it is for it to come out of her eyeballs and to to express herself in that way because if a woman suddenly bangs her fist on the table that's that's really jarring for people I'm not saying that's how it should be I think it's ridiculous but that's just how we're conditioned whereas if a man gets angry and he bangs his fist on the table, it's like, oh, he's such a pistol.

1:09:15But if he started to weep at the table, if he started to crumple, everyone would freak out. Yeah. And it would be, so it's what we learn is safe for us. It's all the same emotions at the end of the day. It's just how we express them. If it is, Hannah, then maybe we can, you know, extend this conversation an hour more and and just write down all of the human needs, and that's it, really. Because sometimes... We'll have solved everything. Exactly, we'll have solved it completely. I mean, in a very interesting way, sometimes when I have such a deeply connected conversation, I think that it's all so easy.

1:09:55It really is. It's just see someone, see them for who they really are, learn that they're not perfect, and so love the wonderful sides of them, accept the sides that are not perfect, we're all not perfect. And then maybe, I don't know, you know, just be able to express your needs when they're not met in a kind and compassionate way and, you know, have passionate sex. And then that's it, basically. Every couple would be happy forever. And, you know, I know it sounds really simple, but doesn't that cover all of the needs that we've just discussed. Yeah, it absolutely does. But again, the first part has to be that you're able to do that within yourself for yourself first, because otherwise you're projecting.

1:10:41Otherwise, you can't have you can't express your needs in a safe and loving way, because it's there's like barbed wire around all of it. And you're being activated by all these different things, because it's there's still a lot of material in your unconscious that has not been realized yet. So healing those, just coming into contact with those. And that's why therapy is so beneficial because it is a way of being seen. It's a way of first, it's like an entry to your first experience of really being seen to be able to see yourself. It's that witness in front of another human being. You know, when you were saying that it takes someone else to be able to sort of hold yourself accountable almost that's not what you said but the to consult honestly yeah to consult to get a different pair of eyes basically because we heal in relationship with one another that's very we're not meant to be individuals alone in this world we are social animals and it's because we do need each other we need that mirroring just like a baby learns but from the mirroring that it gets from its caregiver we understand ourselves if that was the case, wouldn't it mean that, you know, that ultimate dream of one lifetime relationship is not really good for us?

1:11:55Because we learn in relationships. I mean, in a very interesting way. Yeah, I had a one woman in my in my first 27 years of my life. And, you know, I've learned so much from her, but I definitely learned more when I had multiple relationships and, you know, pain and breakups and hurt. And, you know, there is something to be learned in each one of those, that harmonious, very long connection, deep and successful, most of the time painful other times doesn't really teach us that much. I agree 100%. And as we know, we didn't used to live as long as we do now. And so it was a shorter term that you'd be in that relationship and that partnership.

1:12:35But we, yeah, we benefit from everything, even friendships, all of these relationships that we have we learn so much and I I don't know what the model is because also we change so if I think of who I was in my early 20s I'm not the same person now so my needs are different as well and how I'm gonna yeah it's so it is also changeable so I don't think there's a one person out there for everyone but how we how our egos deal with the idea of not following that monogamous rom-com idea. I'm not sure. Or, you know, how our hearts deal with a breakup when a breakup is just an invitation really to say, okay, another lesson, another experience.

1:13:20You need it. You've learned from this one. And now it's time for you to explore and move on and get the whole cycle. Yeah. It's like a career change. Yeah. With a little more conditioning around it. Yeah. It's like it's imagine if people told you that when you leave your job and go to another job it would be counted as a total failure right I think that's really exactly exactly yeah well look Hannah first of all oh my god I don't know if I've covered any of your work at all but that was such a lovely conversation that I don't know if I should ever publish because of how much I said about myself.

1:14:04But I really, really, really learned, actually, quite a few things. And it really benefited me. And I hope it benefits others. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Oh, it's been, yeah, it's been a massive privilege. Such a joy. On the other hand, I normally, I feel we could go on for another four and a half hours. But normally, when a podcast is so dense with gold nuggets, I'd ask my listeners to go back and listen to it again instead of spending another hour with us. First, I want to thank you deeply before I summarize what I learned. Really, thank you so much for coming. I'm really happy I followed my gut feeling on someone I met for the first time 10 minutes in, because this truly has been one of my most enjoyable conversations on this podcast ever.

1:14:51So thank you for that. Thank you, Mo. For all of you listening, I really have to say that there is a lot of depth to the concept of loving the side that's within you that you find in someone else, I think that really opened my eyes. The idea that we fall in love with ourselves, with what we need, maybe with the gaps within us, is quite eye-opening when you really think about it. And in a very interesting way, might be the easiest path. If you're open to the idea that love in itself is success, to have fallen in love is wonderful, but that love might be the school that takes you from one level of the game to another so that it really gets you ready for perhaps what could be your ultimate eventual love.

1:15:46Then there is a lot of joy in deeply visiting yourself and understanding where your tendencies are coming from. Because I will say openly, it's been on my mind very strongly in the last couple of weeks that it wasn't the women that came into my life that were not compatible with me. Even though many of them were incredible women, I think they know themselves and many of them gave me so much, but that it was me that needed to change. I think that truly and honestly is a very eye-opening place to be in. It makes me optimistic in an interesting way. Well, whatever it is that you find useful in this conversation, I'd urge you to go back and listen.

1:16:33I think it's been quite a wise conversation for me. I hope it has been for you as well. Don't forget to subscribe if you're on YouTube. Rate the podcast five stars if you haven't already, if you're on a podcast player. And spread it to others if you can, because the more people that will get this message, the more able I am to get more and more of those conversations your way. Either way, I think this requires you to take a little bit of time every week, hopefully to come join us and listen to another interesting concept, but also to just slow down and really reflect on life and who you really are.

1:17:12I love you all for listening, and I will see you next time.