Love is a classroom dating, falling in love, making love, fighting forgiving, building a life together. These are some of the most powerful teachers on the planet, offering us lessons about trust, vulnerability, and empathy. Loving and being loved holds the power to grow us and heal us, making us into kinder and wiser versions of ourselves. But not until and unless we commit to practicing self awareness so we understand who we've been, who we are, and who we want to be. For decades, I lived with a kind of split inside of me. I am nerdy like homework is literally a joy nerdy. I'm also somebody who's fascinated by love and sex and pleasure and an eighties girl, which means that on Sunday nights, I would sneak off into my room with my Walkman and hide under my covers so I could listen to Piana Nearing sex educator doctor Ruth Westheimer. And all of my pleasure reading as I was growing up was quite literally pleasure reading, because I opted for romance novels and I read those steamy sex scenes again and again, captivated by the physical and emotional intensity of. All of it. But I felt clear these parts of me needed to stay separate, the good girl, the bad girl, the proud girl, the shameful girl. Perhaps in an unconscious effort to mend this split, I grew up to become a psychologist who specializes in love, sex, and marriage. But clinical training in human sexuality from my own field went like this, Once you get the couple to argue less and communicate more effectively, the sex will follow. End of training. Not kidding, this message reinforced in me the idea that conversations about love or overhear, and conversations about the erotic or over here respect unmentionable. I can stand before you, as a clinician, a professor, a wife, mother, friend, sharing this vulnerable truth because here's what I've come to realize. I'm far from alone in my journey to integrate my erotic self with the rest of me. I teach a popular undergraduate course at Northwestern University called Building Loving and Lasting Relationships Marriage one on one, and some of my students are well on their way to cultivating sexual and relational self awareness, and their journeys teach inspire and embolden me. But for every revolutionary I have, I have so many students who are some of the smartest people on the planet, but whose erotic knowledge lags far behind. Male students who tell me the vast majority of their sex education was provided to them by porn hub because they were ashamed of their questions and afraid that admitting not knowing would mean they were somehow not man enough. And female students who tell me the idea that sex ought to feel good for them is a novel concept. Andy, please, my brother, enlighten me. Who's that Alexandria Solomon. Alexandra Solomon, she was cooking. I love the way she sounds. But let's go into this topic tonight. You already know what it is. The voice of reason has returned to the scene of the conversation, and so have you. I'm committed to my dying day to continue to push the conversations forward, the ideas forward. We tend to think that an idea, a concept, a theory, a belief is etched in divine or universal stone, and it's not. All of these ideas are transient, and it's our job to question them, to challenge them, to break them down, to rebuild stronger ideas, more sound, more nuanced, right ideas about love about interface right when I say interface, I mean intimate interface, us coming together intimately understanding our purpose here. And this is why The Voice of Reason is the type of show it is. Tonight's topic is one of those topics. I have no mooring for your wounds to latch onto a more right, a loop, a latch right something ships use to more down, batten down the hatches. I'm not here to batten down your intimate hatches, so to speak, for lack of a better word, right. What happens when one person's unresolved wounds encounters another person who no longer supplies the complimentary fear insecurity, guilt, rescuing, defensiveness, abandonment, anxiety, control, or self erasure necessary to turn that wound into a two person relational pattern Again, Sometimes people are labeling my perfect mate as someone who will hold their wound down, not hold them up, and inspire them to want to become psychologically free, psychologically nude, vulnerable, open their truest high itself without the residue of the past. Many people want their wound held down. I have no mooring for your wounds to latch onto. If you're coming to me because you believe me to be a wound grocery store where you could come in and buy all the products your wound needs to stay fresh, to stay fly, to stay fed. I'm not the person. I've seen the comments online. Don't listen to Zoe Williams's Voice of Reason show unless you're ready to confront yourself. Yeah, this is these are comments out there. Is Zoe Williams show is uncomfortable? Oh, I've heard the comments about some of the books I've written. If you're not serious about looking at yourself, is it's an uncomfortable read? Yes it is. You're delusional if you think you get to punch your ticket right into self actualization, individuation, right, self realization without a little pain, it's unrealistic. Let me say it again. What happens when one person's unresolved wounds encounters another person who no longer supplies. The complementary fear insecurity? You know you date people that are insecure because it makes you feel secure. Don't Can we have the real conversation? They supply insecurity because you feel stronger around them. Right, They bring some guilt, they bring some rescuing defensiveness of randoment, anxiety, control or self erasure necessary to turn that wound into a two person relational pattern. I have no mooring for your wounds to latch onto. You don't get to I'm not here to hold the wound down. You don't get to latch on to me because I appear to be a pillar of strength. Oh my godness, I just need somebody to stand with me. Yes, that's because you never learned and never told that you can stand for yourself. It doesn't mean it's a bad thing to have somebody to lean on. It does not mean that. But you're leaning on your partner for rest. But you're not supposed to stay in a state of rest or. I ain't gonna have my peace disturbed. Come on. Perhaps one of love's greatest tests arrives when your pain reaches for me and discovers that I will not become who your wound and your pain remembers, I'm not gonna become now. Your wound is not gonna cast me in that. Human wounds rarely remain private. They enter relationships carrying expectations shaped by earlier experience. Abandonment may anticipate pursuit. Distrust may provoke. Incessant, endless interrogation. Fear may seek control somebody who is internally fearful. All you gotta do is look at them control freaks. They are scared to death. They're afraid. That's why they seek to control. Fear may seek to control every single outcome. Shame may invite rescue. Listen to that shame may invite rescue. None of this means every wounded person behaves identically, nor that another person causes is the wound. The deeper question concerns what happens between two people when an old expectation reaches upwards and finds no cooperating response. You want to break up, All you gotta do is grow up. You want to get rid of somebody you tired of them. All you gotta do is grow up, show up for yourself, know up for yourself. In other words, learn yourself, understand who you are, where the triggers come from. DC. It's the easiest breakup in the world. They'll realize what I was with them for is no longer here one nine, twenty fifteen eighty. Get to your phone lines, get ready, get ready to get ready to get ready. The deeper question concerns what happens between two people when an old expectation reaches outward and finds no cooperating response. Can you be honest with yourself and ask how many times have you cooperated with their wounds demands? You were the mooring for the wound. You didn't hold them down, You held the wound down. Sheees, Here lies the possibility of a different intimacy. I can care about your fear without obeying it. I can hear your accusation without manufacturing a defense merely because you expected one. Your distance can hurt without forcing me to run up after you. Your anger can register in my body without becoming the author of my behavior. You made me do it. How many times you should see what you made me do? How many times have you heard it? Your distance can hurt without forcing me to chase you. I'm not gonna run up after you. I told a girl who told me she was an avoidant. I said, I want you to know this from the front door of this interaction. I will never chase you. It hit her in such a way because she said to herself, why would you say that? Because the way she's designed for relationships, it's I get meaning from being chased. Well, then this relationship will be meaningless for you because I will never chase you. I need you to understand that, not ever will I chase you. Not ever will I perform, prove, or manufacture interest because you're bored. Never ever will I ever be called to the floor for a lack of presence. But you will never get a performance under nine twenty fifteen eighty. Get to your phone line. Get to your phone line. I need to talk to y'all tonight. Your anger can register in my body without becoming the author of my behavior. Compassion does not require psychological conscription. This matters because relationships form systems, patterns. Repeated responses can reinforce repeated executions until two histories begin operating as though they were one present reality. I'm not gonna date your history. I'm not gonna moore. I'm not gonna be the mooring that holds your history down. Damn your history. If you bring your history in here for me to reenact some role that broke you five years ago, ten years ago, all the way back to childhood, We're not having a relationship. We're having an intimate play. This is theater. I'm not here to be an actor a thesbian in your internal soap opera. I'm not signing up for this, do you see? But more importantly, I'm not gonna blame you because I'm here. I'm here because I'm unresolved internally. Oops, boot and nobody see you love it when I'm saying it to them, But when you say it back to yourself, well damn, how did you get on stage? How did you get the script? And how did you remember the lines? And boy don't you deliver them? Ooohhh? Do you understand tonight's topic. I refuse to hold your wound down. I refuse to be the mooring that your wound needs to stabilize itself. I'm not your wound's anchor. If you're coming into the relationship with that expectation, get gone, get gone immediately. Yeah, get gone is the official way of saying. Get up, body, get gone. Do you see? The voice of reason is on one tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to join the discussion, all you got to do is call me one eight hundred and nine twenty fifteen eighty. Let's get it. Let's talk about superpowers. And when we talk about superpowers, more often than not, we're talking about super strength or invisibility. Or super speed, or even crazy insect bites. But there's another superpower that a number of superheroes and super villains have that get zero credit, and that's this ability to sense or feel what others are feeling and or thinking. And that's an amazing. Superpower if you think about it right. Imagine you're walking down the street and you can feel what others are feeling, or even you can see someone across the street in feel that I'd be amazing. What would you do with that superpower? And I asked that because research suggests that you do have that superpower. When I was a kid, when I was really. Little, I had this heightened sense, almost over heightened sense, almost over sensitive sense of others negative emotional states. I would become overwhelmed by them so much so that I would lose myself in others negative emotional states, like their sadness or their anger or their fear, and I would do anything to try to move that person into a more positive emotional state. And over time that became so burdensome that I would start to remove myself from those situations in which I would feel those negative states from others, discontinue friendships, distance, myself from interpersonal interaction. Hear the story he's laying out, Andy, who is that? Michael le Barrett, Michael Leek Right, you hear the story, You've heard it. It's all too familiar. I swear God has put me on this something to change the way we see relationships. I'm studying, I'm researching. I'm going deeper and deeper and deeper, and I'm seeing clearer and clearer and clearer. Need is the real sin? It is John fourteen twelve. Verily, whenever Christ stepped in a room, normally he would say verily. Verily comes from you know, Greek and Latin vatter toass means true, so it needs verily, Verily, I say unto you. He's saying, truth is truth el huck el huck in Hebrew, truth is truth, verily, verily, verily. When I say unto you, he says, verily, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. Let me stop it again, John fourteen twelve. Verily, truly, verily, verily, I tell you, whoever believes in me, listen, stop right now. What he's saying is not just believe in the sense of the word believe from Middle English belologgio or be lie to give the lie away as a gift b e l i e v e. Belie is the root word of believe. It means to give the lie away. No, what he's saying is belief in the sense of emby me, what I do, the work I do, You go on and do even greater things than I. Jesus didn't have a need. Why do you? You're clinging your needs, your mooring to somebody. You're anchoring to somebody is rooted for a person, for a purpose. It is not there for a long time. It is not there for we're gonna be together forever. It's there so you can stay rooted to the purpose of understanding yourself and undoing the work. The curriculum that shows up in the relationship, the mirror of relationship is showing you. The trigger is showing you where to start the work on you. I cannot be the mooring that holds your wound down. When we come forward, I'm gonna keep cooking. Everyone is in the middle of a life story, and your story is being shaped by what you were saying yes too, and what you were saying no to your yeses and nos, or what boundaries are made of? So what are boundaries, how do we build them? How do we heal when our boundaries are violated? And how do we push through boundaries? These questions have been the center of my life and my work. When I was a little kid and my world was just my family, I was pretty sure we were the only one struggling with those questions. And then I grew up and I became a family therapist, and I saw lots of people struggling with these questions. And when I took a detour and ran nonprofits, I saw communities and leaders struggling with these questions. So now I teach workshops and wrote a book to help people people answer these questions. And as people answer these questions and learn more about their boundaries, I've watched hundreds of people make the journey for. I love it. I love it. I love the boundary talk. Who is that Andy Serry Gilman? Love it? Love it, love it. I love the boundary talk. It's cute. Oh it's cute. But I'm here to tell you your job is to fight the pattern. Listen to what I'm about to say to you. Because I have no mooring for your wounds to latch on to. You, don't get to latch on. I am not the anchor for your room. Listen. She said something very powerful there about how life is shaped from our yeses and nos. I'm about to give you a spiritual chief code. Don't accept the pattern that comes with the choice. Wait a minute, old, wait, wait what Yeah. Sometimes when you choose and you lose and it hurts, you internalize, and now you've accepted the pattern of the loss. Sometimes when you win, your head get too big again. The spiritualists would tell you, don't get too high, don't get too low. When things are going well, don't lose sight of it. Don't get all I'm better than you. I'm just do you see what I'm saying. When things are going bad, don't worry about it. These things change, This too shall pass DC. Don't accept the pattern that comes with the choice. The Kabbalian teachers stay in the middle. The Master is not moved by the swing of the pendulum to the left and the right. The pendulum is a metaphor, a metaphor for what life. Life has perturbations, left and right, up and down, back and forth. Don't be moved. Don't accept the pattern of what the choice comes with, whether it's a good choice or a bad choice. So many times I chose the wrong person or you chose the right person for right now, for this level of development that you're currently living in. Every person you've ever dated is really a self audit. It's a chance to do a self audit. That's what relationship is about. I have no mooring for your wounds to latch onto. Somebody said, what's the spelling of mooring and what does mooring mean? Mooring moo r, I n G. Mooring refers to the equipment such as ropes, chains and anchors, or the designated place such as a bowie appear or a dock used to secure a boat or a ship in a fixed position. See many of you want your partner to secure your wound in a fixed position, right, You want them to be the dock that the wound can dock in. Oh, I feel safe. Listen, you feel safe because you're docked. But do you know how to feel safe when you're not docked? Oh? You didn't put up? You done built a codependent relationship with the dock. You never were taught that you can be the dock for your own wound. Oh. I know you don't want to hear it put that way tonight, but I'm gonna do it, and I'm not gonna stop. Tonight's topic is one of those topics. We've got to call her on the line, calling only from New York. You already know who it is, one of our new legends into the voice of reason, Wiggy Jamaica Queen's what are your thoughts on tonight's topic? Oh, thank you so much, Joe Williams and family. This is hell of This is heck of a conversation. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna plead guilty to the moring. I think I actually uh had done that myself. I had, you know, asked that someone be you know, take up moring on my behalf. So this is I don't know where, I don't know, but this had been heavy on my mind. But my concern Okay, now I know at some point, and I know I'm not the only one. There's plenty of them, and I know they're not going to expose themselves, but y'all are out there, and you know you're guilty too. But what I'm saying is I admit to not having the skills at this particular moment. And I know that I'll get the skills, you know, as I learn and I adapt. But I think what I'm feeling this is how only me speaking. Don't accept it, don't you know, Like that's the biggest takeaway that I'm receiving. Don't accept it. Don't put yourself in a position to accept the mooring and then say, well, I'll just deal with it. No, make a decision, I mean, don't go back on that. You're not going to accept the morning and I'm going to hang up and listen. Okay, but guess what you just did though? Oh I bought you make a queen into the so Williams. That's changed this foolishnis the conversation. Okay, we love it, we love it, we love it. That was Wiggy Hill Wilson from New York, Jamaica. Queens, I'm back on it, though I can't let John fourteen twelve get away verily. Truly. I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will go do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. Listen. Christ was talking about embodiment of his work to be able to do it. He he gave Peter an opportunity. Peter could he practiced walking on water. Peter got all, he got a few steps in, didn't he and then started to doubt. Yeah. Christ was like no, no, as soon as he put him back an o ye of little faith. Do you understand how you want to be with Christ and have Christ's powers yet still have need an intimate relationship? Need is the ultimate sin. Christ is saying, you got to embody these things. What is Zoe Williams telling you to do? You got to embody self love, self acceptance, self approval, self acknowledgment, happiness, self esteem, self worth, self validation. You've got to embody self love, self empathy, self sympathy, not from a narcissistic perspective, because if you don't, all of that becomes an expectation for your mirror, and your mirror is only coming into your life to show you what the curriculum is dacy. Zoe is telling you tonight, I have no mooring. Your wounds can't dock here. That's what I'm here to tell you it is unfair to think that your partner is supposed to be the doc that your wound gets to tie itself to. He said, Oh, that's a great partner because they let me dock my wounds at their peer. No, you're not gonna do that to me. I'm not responsible for your individuation. I'm not responsible for your internal elevation. I am only responsible for the mirror reflection of it. You take the reflection and last, my brother Tony says, then you go right to the correction. But it's self correction. Nah, you'd rather leave yourself broken and then manage your partner and try to control them and try to critique their spiritual Listen when we come forward, voice of reason, Woo, I'm on one tonight. Let's get it. Who are you? What do you want? Do you have the capacity to do that? These are questions my mother was never asked. These are questions she could have asked herself, Who am I? What do I want? Do I have the capacity to do that? My mother died at the age of thirty six from an HIV and AIDS related illness. She had four kids. I her eldest and only daughter, three boys, and a husband. Her husband, my stepfather, did not love her, could not love her, and would not love her. My mother endured years in a marriage where she had to negotiate for love and bargain for our safety. Prior to her untimely death, my mother spent most of her weekends chasing down women who were rumored to be her husband's mistresses. When she wasn't chasing these women, she was the one running from being physically assaulted by him. When the weight of the emotional, mental, physical abuse, as well as the infidelity became too heavy to bear, she would reach out to both sides of the family for help. She was constantly told to persevere. That would remind her of her role as a mother and wife, which included doing everything she could, including sacrificing herself, her health, her well being, her safety, her dreams, her self worth, her life in order to keep her family intact. That would also remind her of what. Andy who was that Kanyisa minneca on complete fire. By the way, this is you don't get to dock in my spirit. I know you want to be saved. I know you want to be sheltered. You deserve to be saved, but only you can save yourself. Do you understand? Listen, so many people. Live in the house of relationship, but their wounds are still houseless. They have wound houseless relationships. The wounds are unhoused. Your wound keeps bringing furniture, right, but I'm not giving it an address. You see, your wound keeps showing up like hey, and make a space for me. No, your wound can't live here. Do you understand? This captures what happens when an old relational pattern cannot establish residents in side the present relationship. To many of us allow our partner's room, our partner's wounds room and board well, because we together, they get to stay. No, those wounds are like an unwanted in law. I'm sorry fifteen eighty to get to your phone line. The person remains welcome, right, Their humanity remains welcomed, Their pain remains worthy of care. Right. The dysfunctional arrangement does not automatically receive tendency. You don't get to dock your wounds here. Zoe is trying to push a new narrative. Need is the original sin. God is needless. Christ was needless. Well, he had moments of need. When he said, my god, my God, why have thou forsaken me? Lemma? He said eli lemma subecthne, my god, my God, why have thou forsaken media? And even David said it as well. He felt forsaken. He had a moment of it, but he transcended that moment, and then he told us for those who believe, I tell you the truth. If you believe like me, and you embody what I know, you can escape psychological need. I don't believe the psychologist when they say we're gonna need each other all day. Yes, we can have bonds, but those bonds don't have to become prisons. They can be conscious bonds. I'm here because I want to be in a companionate and intimate and sexual and loving and happy relationship with you. I'm here because I wanna be. I'm not here because my wounds compel me to be. There's something about you that felt magical. No, that was your wound, saying his wound is compatible with our unhealed woud let's get together. Do you understand compassion can provide shelter to a person without providing permanent housing to their dysfunction. Do you understand, many people in intimate relationships today right now, got a piece a peace allergy. If chaos raised you, peace might break you out into psychological hives for peace allergy. If chaos raised you. Peace might break you out in psychological hives. Do you understand? This is why I'm doing this show. I'm saying the need was created by something oh early upbringing, something fractured. You that made you think you need something. He say, Oh, that's human biology, that's developmental psychology. These are the ericson and PSHA, and that's all of those guys. No, no science without spirituality is only one legged in its understanding. Do you understand I'm telling you you're not supposed to tie your partner's wound down to your dock. You're not supposed to anchor your partner's wounds at your dock. They come seeking a safe haven in you when you got work to do. I have no mooring for your wounds to latch onto. That's the topic tonight. I have no moorings for your wounds to latch onto. Your humanity is welcome, but your dysfunction is not. We don't even have the discernment necessary because all somebody got to do is fit what we own? What I'm looking for a fit. I'm looking Oh this feels right. Just because it feels right, don't mean it is right. Listen, when I come forward, I'm going back to the phone lines. We got some things to talk about. Imagine a little boy, the second of five children in a middle class family. His name is Billy. Now. Billy was a smart, sensitive, and funny guy who loved to play tricks on his siblings, and he was very close to his dad. As a matter of fact, Billy's dad was his rock. When Billy was a freshman in college, his dad died suddenly and unexpectedly of a massive heart attack, and Billy took it hard. Eventually, he started experimenting with drugs and quickly found his drug of choice, heroin. Unfortunately, Billy's addiction continued until he almost died of kidney failure. But over the course of the next decade, he was able to reunite with his family, and even though he had not been very present when his own kids were growing up, he was a favorite of his grandkids, who all called him Paupay. Billy died two years ago, but I learned a lot from him. I learned how trauma and loss can derail a person, robbing them of their life's potential. And I was puzzled, how could someone from such a good family end up with a heroine addiction? And I know many families in America are grappling with the same question now during the opiate epidemic. But the reason this bothered me and kept me looking is that what you don't know is Billy was my brother. I am a physician who specializes in treating eating disorders and addictions, but what I really do is work with survivors of trauma, because the vast majority of my patients with eating disorders and addictions have experienced abuse and neglect, witness violence, and suffered numerous losses, most before the age of eighteen, and that can be devastating. For example, adolescens with the history of abuse and neglect are three times more likely to have a drug and alcohol problem than those without. People going through things Andy, who is that speaking, Yes, Carolyn kocher Raw. I love it. She was cooking, and not everybody has that issue. But what I'm saying is we all have some fractures, we all have some breaks, and what I'm telling you to do is not to run to the relationship for comfort alone. I'm not saying relationships are not supposed to provide comfort. That's not what I'm saying. Sure, but the comfort must come from within so you can sustain comfort in any storm. D you see. Let me give you, guys an example before I go to my caller. I want you guys to understand. I think the minister can say it better than I can say it. This is how this show should make you feel when you tune in to the voice of reason. This is what is supposed to feel. Like my sentiment, I'm sorry, your time has come, has come, has come. No, God is present today. They need to be afraid. You need to be afraid today. Because the God of justice is present. Now, That's why he said vengeance is mind. The battle is not yours. The battle is the lord's. And God has come. The battle is on and the plagues are coming down. And no, I'm not. Afraid, but you need to be, and especially when you see what's coming up. Because as a man soweth the same, shall he also reap. And when you have done the evil that you've done to us and done it to others, did you never think that they would come when you would have to pay for all. That crap that you have done. Thomas Jefferson said it right, brother, he said, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever. Well, his justice has awakened, and all over the world the. Nations are turning right before our eyes. And that's why Trump is saying, we gotta. Make America great. I win again, because she's not great today. People are not afraid. The world has taken enough of America's evil. So death is Sweden for the sun been continuing to live under white supremacy and under tyranny. So no, I don't care. Nothing about them investigating me or rather even. Hey, listen, this is the spirit of the voice of reason right now, do you understand? This is how you should be talking to your wounds instead of trying to more those wounds to some person, to somebody else's external doc. You should be looking at your wounds with love, with kindness. But you should also be saying, you don't get to stay here. The person comes into your life shows it to you, what are you supposed to do? You accept it? Oh? That is me. I got that from when I was a child, I still held on to that. Oh my goodness, that is me. Let me grab that wound and love on it. When the minister is speaking, he's speaking to his people in love. It sounds fiery, right, it sounds passionate, it sounds angry right. But he's speaking to his people in love. Right. I'm saying you have to have a fearlessness to look at your own wounds and stop bending the need to every one of their one of its dictates. Real love lives outside of the pattern that raised you. Real love lives outside of the survival pattern you created in order to have some semblance of peace around your original home environment. It's nobody's responsibility to make you feel more comfortable than you did with the first people that loved you. I don't know who that hit. I'm not throwing it at you, per se. I don't know who that last line hit. We got somebody on the lines. Let's get him in here. Valerie from Los Angeles. We went from New York to LA in just a short time. Valerie, what are your thoughts on tonight's. Topic story time? Yes? Yes, yeah, I'm tripping tonight. I'm sorry. Oh no, story. Okay, let me get out your way. Yeah, no, you ain't ripting. You hearing me in the guest, No, you hear me in the throat. I had to decide which story was the most appropriate. That's how much you're hit me in the throat. Okay, let's hear it. I grew up in a household where if there were crumbs anywhere in the kitchen in the middle of the night, my mother would wake us loudly for half blank clean in her house and make us redo it. Sometimes all the dishes would come out of the tabnet. So to say that, I'm saying that because I developed OCD. Working in my library helped me channel that. So it's not compulsive. It's there, but it's not compulsive. So fast forward. I had it Donan over for dinner, and I'm making shrimp spring rolls and all the fixings, and so it's messy, topping, mixing stuff everywhere, no worries. And he grew up in a household where his mother did everything. So after dinner, I said down because I'm making them to order, rolling as we go, and I sit down. And light us. Lift and he goes into the kitchen and said, I don't know to. I guess to the dishes because half the time I cut and clean while I'm going. But when I'm doing something creative, it's gonna look like I did something creative. And I heard him from my kitchen. It's not a mansion, there's no east wing. He says, let me wash these dishes. So I didn't. I don't know who he's talking. He's in the kitchen, so about him saying anything. He came back into my front room and he said, well, yeah, let me wash those dishes for you. And I looked at him. He old me would have hopped up to perform my wound, but this me took a drag, looked at him and said, don't wash my dishes. They won't be here when he's done. But it's it's triggering you. You can go on and watch him and work through it, right, And that led to us some good conversation, and you know, I have my meditation and cleaned up after he left. But I say that because you know, the one thing that Satan and God can agree on is that we all fall short. Yes, right, But the arrogance of standing in the diagnosis like it's the destination. MM hmm. It's like stagging the water for me. I can't do it. Mm hmm. If you're if you're working, I don't care where you are in your journey, work right, but don't expect me to work around you. I got my sister fry, you got yours. Jesus ain't gonna ask you about me when you get the habb it. So you just you hit me, You hit a nerve because you know that's like it kind of a recent won't Oh, But it's just like no, like if if we're doing this, we're doing this. Acceptance is acceptance. If I can't accept it in me, then maybe you can. And if you can't, then maybe you should try the door. M hm. Because I'm not bending no more. Nobody waking me up in the middle of the night. You're looking for crumbs with somebody else. Least that monster is gone, you know. And those are those familiar spirits that answer it's not that people are possessed. I don't feel like, but I feel like people's wounds are cracked for patterns. M go ahead, I'm there. And those of those familiar spirits that trigger us and we go right back into the loop, right and that's the goal to take us off our square. So you know, you can give a person you know and doing your work and they're triggering you. It's not their job to not trigger you. It's your job to figure out why you're being triggered and go back to trace and heal, at and adapt. It's not a mechanism of manipulation. And after arrogance is the destination. Wow, even a person with cancer is fighting. Come on, like, don't you want to live? I'm okay, I'm sorry. I actually had a split tonight, so I'm gonna let y'all go. It's okay. Hey, listen, Valerie, guess what it is that you just did? Bro Oh my goodness from La Come on, she brought Los Angeles in the building. We appreciate Valerie so much, so much, love so much, so much, so much. You already know you can call any time. We love you. We love you. And if you want to bring your city in the building, you gotta. It was called us at one eight hundred nine twenty fifteen eighty. I have no mooring for your wounds. They don't get the doc here. Sometimes what gets called no chemistry deserves investigation, right it is nothing happening or has nothing familiar gone wrong yet? Right? I know people don't want to hear me talk like this. Partnership permits shared regulation without transferring permanent ownership of one's internal state. I'm not responsible for how you heal. I'm not responsible for your insights. I don't believe that you know your choices shape your reality. When I say I don't believe it, I'm not saying it isn't true. What I'm saying is it doesn't have to be true. Resist the pattern that your choices present. Right, we can have a love that is moorningless, that doesn't have an anchor to it. Right. It does not mean emotional detachment, superiority, perfect healing, or immunity from pain. It describes connection with differentiation. Your history can enter our relationship without automatically receiving authority to assign my role inside of it. Listen when we come forward the voice of reason. I'm not gonna stop cooking what I've been cooking up all night. Let's get it. In the mid nineties, the CDC and Kaiser Permanente discovered an exposure that dramatically increased the risk for seven out of ten of the leading causes of death in the United States. In high doses, it affects brain development, the immune system, hormonal systems, and even the way our DNA is read and transcribed. Folks who are exposed in very high doses have triple the lifetime risk of heart disease and lung cancer and a twenty year difference in life expectancy. And yet doctors today are not trained in routine screening or treatment. Now, the exposure I'm talking about is not a pesticide or packaging chemical. It's childhood Traumaw Okay, what kind of trauma am I talking about here? I'm not talking about failing a test or losing a basketball game. I am talking about threats that are so severe or pervasive that they literally get under our skin and change our physiology. Things like abuse or neglect, or growing up with a parent who struggles with mental illness or substance dependence. Now, for a long time, I viewed these things in the way I was trained to view them, either as a social problem refer to social services, or as a mental health problem refer to mental health services. And then something happened to make me rethink my entire approach. When I finished my residency, I wanted to go someplace where I felt really needed, someplace where I could make a difference. So I came to work for California Pacific Medical Center, one of the best private hospitals in northern California, and together we opened a clinic in Bayview Hunter's Point, one of the poorest, most underserved neighborhoods in San Francisco. Now, prior to that point, there had been only one pediatrician in all of Bayview to serve more than ten thousand children. So we hung a shingle and we were able to provide top quality care regardless. Of ability to pay. It was so cool. We targeted the typical health disparities, access to care, immunization rates, asthma, hospitalization rates, and we hit all of our numbers. We felt very proud of ourselves. But then I started noticing a disturbing trend. A lot of kids were being referred to me for ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But when I. Actually did a thorough history and physical what I found was that for most of my patients, I couldn't make a diagnosis of ADHD. Most of the kids I was seeing had experienced such severe trauma that it felt like something else was going on. Somehow I was missing something important. Now. Before I did my residency, I did a master's degree in public health. And one of the things that they teach you in public health school is that if you're a doctor and you see one hundred kids that all drink from the same well and ninety eight of them develop diarrhea, you can go ahead and write that prescription for dose after dose after dose of antibiotics, or you can walk over and say, what the hell is in this well? So I began reading everything. That I could get my hands on about how exposure to adversity affects the developing brains and bodies of children. And then one day my colleague. Walked into my office and he said, doctor Burke, have you seen this? In his hand was a copy of a research study called the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. That day change my clinical practice and ultimately my The Adverse Childhood Experience to Study is something that everybody needs to know about. It was done by doctor Vince Felidi at Kaiser and doctor Bob Anda at the CDC, and together they asked seventeen and a half thousand adults about their history of exposure to what they called adverse childhood experiences or aces. Those include physical, emotional or sexual abuse, physical or emotional neglect, parental mental illness, substance dependence, incarceration, parental separation or divorce, or domestic violence. For every yes, you would get a point on your ACE score, And then what they did was they correlated these ACE scores against health outcomes. Understand that the experience of love is the experience of the absence of separation. Yes, of course, I know you do. If love is the absence of separation, that is the absence of self or other How could a separate self either love or be lovable? M h. You are absolutely right that, whether or not our personal story, we have a personal story that accompanies and reinforces the belief I am unlovable. Some of us do have such a story, others don't. But for all, apparently, separate selves or the feeling of being unlovable and unable to love, accompanies the separate self because the existence of the separate self is the denial or refusal of love. So you're right. All separate selves, whether they have an accompanying, reinforcing story or not, are incapable of love, incapable either of giving love or of receiving love. And that is why so many people feel I am unlovable. Gosh, andy, who's that Rupert Spira was on fire? Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to the voice of reason. You've returned to the scene of the conversation. Man, this is a real This is a real one right now tonight. And it's powerful what he's say separation, Where there's separation, there's no love right And what hit me as I'm listening to him. It's like our stories are mating, our stories are marrying, Our stories have compatibility. We got to have compatible stories. The wounds gotta have somewhat of this similar narrative. It's pattern matching all the way through. And what Rupert just explained about love, every time we're dealing with love, what are we dealing with a higher level of unconditionality. Every time we're dealing with wounds, we're dealing with a higher degree an intensification of conditions. And these conditions are contextualized as boundaries. As protective love is unconditionally free. I need you to understand more tonight's topic. I can't be the mooring for your wounds. Right, So, mooringless love does not mean emotional detachment. It does not mean superiority, and it also doesn't mean perfect healing. There's no such thing as perfect healing. Right, Nobody is healed more right than the next person. Right. You can say, oh, I'm more healed than my partner. It's impossible because you're not responsible for your partner's healing journey. You can be a witness of it, you can be a companion of it, but you can't say the level of my healing is higher than yours, because it's two different paths. Do you see? So, mooringless love, like I said, does not mean emotional detachment. That's not my problem. You deal with it. It does not mean superiority. I've healed more, I'm better. Thus I can teach you. Thus I can show you. It's not perfect healing. I've completed all twelve steps of internal healing. It's not that. Nor is it immunity from pain. See, we think when we heal, we're in heaven. No, you're in hell right now, called earth. This is all a test ground. So the lessons will keep coming, and your spirit will begin to evolve once you take on the challenge of conquering yourself. Instead of trying to have your wounds moored to your partner's peer and their wounds moored to yours, we need more ingless love. Right, your history can enter our relationship, that's okay, but it cannot be assigned authority to assign me a role inside that history. No. The metaphysical implication here becomes particularly interesting. If human beings repeatedly meet the present through the present, through inherited meanings, memories, expectations, and cultural scripts, love may occasionally provide something radically different, another consciousness that refuses to impersonate yesterday. I don't want to be the answer to what happened to yesterday. So many people's relationship is built on this premise. The external person is the source of my internal meaning, and if they crumble, everything falls. That's not how it's designed. DC. Maybe one of love's highest forms says, I will meet the person your wound protects. I simply will not become the person your wound requires. I'm not the mourning for it. I can't be what your wound requests. Stop it there. When we come forward, the voice of reason is getting ready to land the plane on this one. This has been exploited by man for thousands of years. They are destroying the forests, They're polluting the rivers, they're polluting the air. They're killing animals for pleasure, for food. This has been going on for millions of years. And Silvan when asks what your relationship it's nature? Is it merely exploitation that you're interested in being cold, getting gold out of the earth, or finding diamonds, or cutting down trees to build houses. Is that all your relationship with nature? If you have no relationship with nature, have you any relationship with your wife, with your husband, with your neighbor, have you any relationship at all? Have you inquired into that? Oh lord, oh lord, in that part of religion to find out what is true relationship? You all look so d do you all asleep? For one? I love it? Call them out, Murty, he said, you all look so dazed? Are you a sleep or what? No? Christiana Murty's he dealt what it do? People were afraid to speak up, afraid to be seen. Right. Tonight's topic was a heavy topic. Before asking whether your wounds can latch on to another person, we have to ask what consciousness participated in bringing us into direct proximity in the first place. How did we come to be in the same place at the same time? Right? Is it a conscious choice or is it an unconscious selection? Right? We use the word choice too casually in intimate relationships. I chose the wrong person. I finally chose the right person. God sent me this person, God sends you every person. This relationship was meant to be. Every relationship was meant to be. Again, those explanations become especially suspicious when they're meaning changes according to the outcome. It was God when it succeeds. So now I'm giving credit to God and divinity when the relationship is good. You know, destiny gets the credit, right, we were meant When it collapses, all the devil is busy. Right. Human judgment gets the blame or satan human judgment? Is I chose wrong? Right? Guilt and shame wrapped into that I didn't deserve better? Right. That creates an extraordinary philosophical loophole. Success becomes divine assignment, while failure becomes personal error. But what if both relationships contain choice? And what if neither choice begins where you think it begins? You can consciously choose a person while remaining largely unconscious of what is inside of you and what inside you finds that person compelling in the first place. Right, That distinction right there is crucial and it could become one of the deepest doors that we enter into this discussion. What inside of you is choosing? Right? Suppose I I told you I chose her, Fine, that's cool. Who is the eye making that statement? Is it me, Zoe the person or is it my wound speaking through me? Because my wound has a taste, has a style, has a vibe that it likes. Right? Is that me? Right? Is the chooser? Aware? Right? Who is the chooser? The aware adult standing in the present is abandonment of being left being right? The fear of abandonment is that choosing is loneliness. Choosing is sexual chemistry. Choosing is cultural conditioning. Choosing is the need for validation. Choosing it's familiarity choosing. See, it's easy to say I chose right, But what if? Again, the question is who is the eye speaking? Is it the identity that has a name, that has parents, or is it the fracture within the identity that has hijacked the identity? Right? Is the desire to rescue somebody. Choosing is the terror of being alone. Choosing is an increasingly integrated consciousness. Choosing right, same human being, very different choosers across the board. I want to know who's choosing? What about co creation, wound speaking, and hijacking? Right? And I got questions. I want to know, y'all. I want to know your thoughts on tonight's topic. I know it was a heavy topic, and I know I went ham and eggs, ham and eggs from the very beginning. I know I was on one, but I think it's important that we understand the real meaning of relationships. Right, What are you anchored to? Right? What are you anchored to? What is your anchor? A boat does not drift because another boat exists nearby. Its movements depend partly upon what holds it, what pulls it, and what it has been fastened to. Human intimacy may contain a similar problem we inner relationships, believing our attachment belongs exclusively to another person while remaining less conscious of the inner conditions through which we attach. Buddhist thought offers a difficult distinction. Here, Love and clinging do not mean the same thing. Clinging attempts to secure permanence from what cannot remain permanently arranged right, The partner must stay, desire must continue, reassurance must derive, identity must remain recognizable. The relationship becomes responsible for protecting an internal world from external change. That's impossible. Now place that insight inside of today's question of relational wounds. Suppose abandonment fear meets someone anchored to the fear of being alone. One wound reaches outward and finds another structure already prepared to hold it right. This person has a compatible wound. That's why I keep trying to tell y'all, there's no mooring for your wounds here, and that makes a person undateable. That makes a person unrelatable. DC tell me I'm wrong. I can be wrong. I'm not against being wrong. I don't think I know everything. As a matter of fact, the more I read, the more I study, the less I learn, or the less I know the more I learn, the less I know is what I'm trying to say. But this is what it's looking like to me. But you already know how we do this. I start the conversations. It's up to you to finish them. I'm out tomorrow. You guys, wish me luck, send your prayers to me. Tomorrow is my brother's birthday. I will not be in tomorrow, but send me some love, send my family some love. We appreciate you tuning in to the voice of reason, and I'll see you guys on Thursday. Deuces,