[00:00:01] Luke: So great to see you again, man.

[00:00:04] Stefanos: You too, bro.

[00:00:05] Luke: We miss you in Texas.

[00:00:07] Stefanos: And I miss you and I miss Texas.

[00:00:08] Luke: It's funny, at the time we all converged here, a lot of us from California in different places. People will hear your obvious Californian accent in a moment. But do you remember because it was-- well, we moved here in the beginning of '21 and Texas was like a safe haven and the world was very unstable.

[00:00:29] So this sense of community here was almost overwhelming. There's like everyone into wellness and consciousness, personal development, all the things. There were so many house parties and gatherings, and it was just like everyone I knew lived here.

[00:00:47] Then when things calmed down naturally, the dust settled, some people like you left. And I'm like, "No, everyone needs to stay as long as we stay." But you went back to California, which I was thinking for the past couple of years, it's like going back behind enemy lines, because when I left I was so done.

[00:01:06] Stefanos: Someone's going to do [Inaudible].

[00:01:07] Luke: I was so done. But we went back as I was telling you this summer, and I was like, "Oh yeah, California. It has so many great things about it." Provided you don't live in LA or San Francisco. God bless those that do. So what's the adjustment been like going back? Is it like the California you remember, or are there still a lot of artifacts, culturally, politically that are challenging to deal with?

[00:01:32] Stefanos: Yeah, we came to Texas in very early 2020, literally days before COVID. I should really say end of 2019 actually. So before any of that, uncertainty really unraveled in the US and the world. And then we left, and we're still back and forth. We spend a lot of time in Texas, obviously.

[00:01:51] Like I said this to you earlier, Texas has my heart, but my body and soul is in the ocean, on the ocean. To answer your question, I stay in my bubble, meaning that-- and when I sense the world around me in California, where we are, it's actually really beautiful man.

[00:02:14] People are in their joy. People are living their lives. I feel and sense happiness around me. I have my little girl, and so I'm spending time with other adult parents that-- obviously adult parents-- have little children. And sure, we have our challenges as parents and we have our challenges as a family and as people moving through the world.

[00:02:36] But man, the weather. I read a study that people that live by the ocean are significantly happier than people that don't. And I totally get why. I grew up on the ocean. And the impetus for moving back or spending more time there, I should say, was to be closer to the ocean.

[00:02:56] And that just generally makes my heart happy. Every day, if I can, I take my little girl, she loves it. I just see people playing, in play. And so from that perspective, it just feels really good in my body being there. I feel a sense of relief and spaciousness. We were talking about this earlier.

[00:03:16] I'm able to just sit in my backyard and see the ocean and see the expanse. And it's very healing for me, man. It feels very heart-opening.

[00:03:27] Luke: Yeah. It's like that saying, wherever you go, there you are. Which I remind myself of a lot when I'm somewhere and I feel stagnant or I have some kind of blocks. I'll just remind myself, however you feel here is however you're going to feel anywhere. Right?

[00:03:47] Stefanos: Yeah. I totally agree and it's both right, because look, just because I'm in what I feel to be a more expansive place, it doesn't mean that I don't have internal issues or challenges or pain points that I deal with. I absolutely still do.

[00:04:00] And in fact, may I even say sometimes more so the last year or so, because it-- even that level of release by being in that expansion, being so close to the ocean allows me to probably face and deal with some of the stuff that I've been avoiding within my own self.

[00:04:20] And also just the pressure of not having extensive family support systems there, which makes life a little harder as well. I have such good friends here where we are, yourself included, and that's hard. And it just feels really amazing.

[00:04:38] Luke: Well, you're in a good spot too as far as California goes. I think when I left, I just thought of all of California as Los Angeles, where I spent 32 years. And I've been back a couple times and I'm just like, "I can't get out of there fast enough."

[00:04:52] Stefanos: My guess is as well though, man, you have a lot of strong associations with LA where you move through some pretty intense experiences in your life. When I go back home to Western Australia to Fremantle, I love it and I'm like, "Ugh." I have this push-pull relationship with it because so much of who I was back then and the environment reminds me of that person, and I'm not that person anymore.

[00:05:22] It's not like I hate that version of me. It's a little challenging to reconcile, and the clarity that it gives me is like, this is just not my place anymore. I don't think I could really, I don't want to say ever live here, but definitely not now in my life. It's just not where I want to be. Maybe you're getting a little bit of that.

[00:05:35] Luke: Yeah. I think some of that, yeah. It's funny, in the darkest years in Hollywood, in my 20s, where I was really embroiled in addiction and whatnot, there are certain locations there, corners, gas stations, alleys, there's no way I could ever forget what happened there. You know what I mean?

[00:05:58] Stefanos: Yeah.

[00:05:59] Luke: There's one corner, the corner of Highland and Franklin, for anyone that knows LA. That area was very crack and gang infested in the early '90s. And there was so many dark-- talk about the walk of shame, just trips back and forth down Franklin going to Highland.

[00:06:17] I can like picture it all and just so many scary and dangerous situations and just so much depravity and shame and darkness. It's like, I don't think I could ever drive down Highland and not be like, "There's the Chevron that I used to sit behind with my homeless cronies and scraping crack pipes."

[00:06:34] There's memories like that that it's not like it-- I don't know. It doesn't feel bad necessarily, but it's impossible to disassociate those memories because they're such strong imprints. Where sometimes places where I had positive experiences are more easily forgotten because there wasn't the same degree of intensity to those memories, right?

[00:06:57] Stefanos: And the same degree of survivability associated with the intensity. And so your response is get on high alert because there's a part of you that doesn't want to go back to that. And obviously, logically you won't, or rationally you won't. However, your nervous system is still in higher alert. It's just like, "Oh, that resembles that. Let's not go back to that."

[00:07:19] Luke: One cool thing is, and then I want to move on to you, over the years, after I got sober, quite a few of the places that held those kind of memories were demolished and rebuilt. Like a really creepy apartment I lived in during the worst period was leveled and turned into a parking lot right behind the Chinese theater. And I always liked that, just abandoned buildings where I used to spend time doing sorted things.

[00:07:45] I would get turned into a mall or something. So a lot of the memories kind of got erased by just infrastructure over the years, which always felt really good. But anyway, so I was so excited to hear from you. Dude, I had no idea you were even writing a book basically during the same time I was. You just did it a lot faster.

[00:08:07] Stefanos: Maybe, maybe not. I started a few years ago, in probably 2021, but then I paused because--

[00:08:13] Luke: Me too.

[00:08:14] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We basically did start at the same time.

[00:08:16] Luke: Yeah. That's funny. That's funny. Yeah. I think some people ask like, "How long did it take you to write the book?" I'm like, "From the first inception of the idea, that was back when Alyson was still working on her book." I was like, yeah, I'm going to write a book. So normally we have a copy of it, but I only got the advanced copy.

[00:08:31] Stefanos: I didn't even have a copy. A hard copy still, I still don't have one. It's coming.

[00:08:34] Luke: I sped read it on the PDF version. It's called Tuned In and Turned On: A Path to True Connection, Deep Healing, and Lasting Love. And as I was going through the book, it occurred to me that two chapters in my book are about relationships, on the dysfunctional side and just sexual deviancy and all this stuff. And then one's more positive. And I was like, "Oh, this is epic stuff."

[00:09:03] Stef wrote a book about the two-- he expanded on the two things that are so crucial to what I'm diving into with human connection and obviously relationships and romantic relationships being a portal into connection, but also a means by which we are pushed further into separation if we haven't dealt with the underlying issues and so on. So I was like, "Oh, this is cool." So I can't wait to read the whole thing. First thing though, tell me about the coffee mug moment, the real rock bottom.

[00:09:35] Stefanos: So that was a little over 10 years ago, and that was really the moment that changed-- I think there's been a series of moments in my life that have compounded over the years from an early age. But that was a moment that-- not so much that moment specifically, but a few moments before that.

[00:09:59] I actually don't share this story in the book, so I'll actually share this story that preluded that. And so my partner and I at the time were driving. It was a rainy day. We were having guests over that night. We were living at my grandparents' house together at that stage.

[00:10:15] Both my grandparents had moved into a home because they needed full-time care. I was their carer for many years before that, and it just was becoming untenable for me to do it. They needed medical care. So my partner and I were living in my grandparents' house.

[00:10:29] It was like a early Sunday afternoon. We were having people over that night, and we were driving past my old high school. This is actually interesting. I just made a connection, and I'll share it in a second. Driving past my old high school on the way to the organic grocery store, and at my old high school, they would have the markets there, organic markets, but they were closed.

[00:10:51] And I saw the markets that we would go to, this older couple that were in their 70s, and it was a really windy, rainy day. And Perth gets really windy. And they were basically struggling to get their tents down. They were one of the only people left. I told my partner at the time, I said, "Pull over. You go to the store. Let me help them. And just come back and get me."

[00:11:12] We had been a little rocky in our relationship. There was tension there. I was distant. I was in my trauma. She was in hers and I was in mine. But I left my bag in the car, and my bag had my phone in it. And for whatever reason, her intuition said, "I'm going to look through Stef's phone."

[00:11:34] So she looked through my phone and found some old emails, some old emails of me interacting with other women. And there I was thinking on being a hero helping these older people. Come back and she's like, "Who the fuck is Lucy?" Whatever the name was.

[00:11:55] And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And she's got my phone in her hand and my throat went into my stomach. My heart went into my balls. I didn't know where I was. And I thought, "Oh, this is it." This is it. And she's driving. She's angry, man.

[00:12:14] And so we get back home and she's got the phone, and I'm wrestling with her to get the phone back because I didn't want any part of it. I didn't want to take ownership of it at all. And we fought, screaming at each other at the front of the house. I'm trying to calm her down. I'm in full panic mode internally, trying to be cool, like, "I don't know what you're talking about. It's nothing."

[00:12:37] That was the beginning. We obviously canceled the dinner party that night, but that was the beginning of the unraveling. A couple of months later is that incident of the coffee mug. And so what happened there is we decided to continue to try and make this work. So I went all in. Let me actually continue. That whole day and night was spent in tension.

[00:13:00] I managed to somehow get my phone back and convince her that it was nothing big. And then I remember I started going through deleting whatever I could delete, because at that stage, man, I was very, for lack of a better term, very unfaithful in that relationship, in most of my relationships. Prostitution, one-night stands, whatever.

[00:13:22] And there was a part of me that wanted to be caught. I didn't want to keep playing that game. I didn't want to keep doing that. It was interesting. A few weeks before that moment, my friend was saying to me, "Hey, man. Why are you doing this? This is not good for you. Just break up with her if this is what you want."

[00:13:39] And I said to him, "Man, I really want to stop this, and I will. I think I will." And I made a decision, but it was half in, half out. It was very passive, man. So that was a real rock-bottom moment. We made a decision to try and work through that.

[00:13:52] So we got a therapist. We worked with coaches. I shut down everything I was doing and I went all in on my personal growth. And really uncovering this because a lot of shame came to the surface. A lot of my unprocessed childhood trauma came to the surface. That night I went and stayed with my parents.

[00:14:07] I stayed with them for a few days. I was like, "Oh, what am I doing back at my parents' house? This is so fucking dysfunctional." Just watching them. And then I was already in a bad place. I'm like, "Oh, fucking get me out of this." And I was just in full victim mode. And so that incident with the coffee mug was one of those moments of many over a seven, eight-month period where we were on a rollercoaster.

[00:14:27] She was genuinely trying to really reconcile the things that I did and my behavior and my actions and who I was. But it was really difficult for her to do so, and rightly so. I get it right. That was one of the moments where I came in through the house and she just threw something at me and it just missed me.

[00:14:48] And then she physically attacked me. I had to restrain her. I left. That was a wintery day. It was raining. I went into the ocean. I was just so depressed, man. Because at the same time I was unearthing so much pain, so much trauma, so much shame, and attempting to make this relationship "work" and function, but also feeling so much hopelessness and helplessness and despair.

[00:15:16] And I went to the ocean and I took my clothes off. I had a pair of shorts on. I just went into the ocean and I just thought maybe I'll just swim and fucking let the water take me because this is just-- I wanted to give up. I was just done. I was very intense.

[00:15:31] And like yourself, you can have a quite intense personality, all in or not. I have a pretty extreme personality. So I also went all in into my healing. Trauma that occurs too much too soon, too fast, often shouldn't be healed or made whole too soon, too much, too fast either. But that was not my experience back then.

[00:15:52] And I just started crying, man. I was just crying and crying and crying and just sobbing in the ocean, was cold as fuck as well as gray. And I said to God, "Give me a sign. I don't know where to go with what I've got. I just don't know where to go I don't know if I can keep doing this." And mind you, I'd only been in this depth for a few months, but it just felt like an eternity of unearthing all this shit that I'd been running from, which most of us do.

[00:16:20] Which is why most of us don't look at our stuff, because it's too much. We can go into that later. And then I'm waiting, crying, nothing. And I thought, maybe I need to be a little more specific, like, give me a sign. Show me dolphins. Now granted, dolphins are commonly seen here, but show me dolphins right now if I'm not meant to give up.

[00:16:42] And I had my eyes closed, open my eyes, and within 2, 3, 4 seconds, there's a small pod of dolphins, what appeared to be a mama or a papa and two little ones, I don't know, 30 feet away from me. And I just started crying more. And I thought, okay, I asked for it. It came. I can't give up. So that moment that you just described, that I'm just giving you more context to that moment, is that's it.

[00:17:10] Luke: That's amazing.

[00:17:12] Stefanos: Yeah.

[00:17:13] Luke: Think about how many times so many of us have probably uttered that prayer for a sign and the sign doesn't come. Or we can't see it because we're so hypnotized by whatever shit we're going through.

[00:17:28] I'm curious. I love exploring relational patterns, especially in romantic dynamics and seeing how the avoidant love addict-- where the locks fit the keys. Did that woman you were in the relationship with have a history of being with unfaithful men? Or did she have an unfaithful father?

[00:17:52] Stefanos: Yes and yes. So her father got married four times and was unfaithful in each one of those relationships. That was her experience with her father. And yes, she had strong experiences with unfaithful men. So that was her complimentary wounding, if you--

[00:18:08] Luke: Yeah.

[00:18:08] Stefanos: Our trauma bond.

[00:18:10] Luke: Yeah.

[00:18:10] Stefanos: And look man, for whatever this is worth, I cared for her. I loved her. I still do. She, of course, didn't deserve that. She really did her best to change. And it was just the intensity of my actions and our dynamic was just a little too much for her. Well, a lot too much for her.

[00:18:33] It was a lot too much for me as well. I think we both had tremendous relief when we decided to call it quits after seven or eight months of trying, after being together for three, three and a half years or something. And it's not my place to fix her or be responsible for her path or her healing or anything like that, but we really attempted to reconcile in deeper ways.

[00:18:57] It was tough. We got to a place where she said, I need to know everything. What did you do? I need to know everything. And it took me-- I wasn't courageous. I didn't own it immediately, but it took me a few weeks. I probably went into too much detail. When I say detail, I'm not talking about the acts themselves, but too much detail. But I wanted to commit to truth.

[00:19:21] And not so much not be ashamed of the truth, but be free from the burden of hiding. Because she didn't deserve that, and I didn't want to be that for myself. And that was the first time in my life that I had been completely truthful, to the nth degree.

[00:19:36] Luke: Wow.

[00:19:37] Stefanos: And I really think that there was-- that happened early on. That happened in the first month of us attempting to reconcile. I think that was very difficult for her to live with. And it was very difficult for me to live with, to really own that and look at that on paper and go, "Oh shit, what am I doing? Who am I being? This isn't me." But it is me.

[00:19:59] Luke: Yeah.

[00:20:00] Stefanos: My personality's so strong right now.

[00:20:03] Luke: Let's talk about how we have so much in common in so many ways, in our past and just how we roll now and the things that we find useful. Yeah, we have a lot in common. Just knowing you for a few years now. And also, Stef's been on the show before you guys, number 332. We'll link to that in today's notes, lukestorey.com/relationship.

[00:20:31] But something I know you're really into that's been so useful to me is how our childhood wounds really dictate the roles we take on in relationships as adults. And this is thankfully something that there's more public awareness about.

[00:20:47] But I had these programs running me for decades, and I had no idea. I went to therapy when I was a teenager and talked about stuff and thought, "Well, I'm good now." It's like, dude.

[00:20:58] Stefanos: The illusion of awareness.

[00:20:59] Luke: Yeah, these unconscious drivers that I'm so thankful to have finally evolved out of. I don't have any of those dynamics in my relationship with Alyson, or at least not any that are problematic.

[00:21:13] You have your blueprint of who you are and your character and personality, but it's the first romantic relationship I've ever had that's not motivated or driven or created by that type of magnetism. It's wholly supportive to both parties all the time. It only helps. It never hurts.

[00:21:37] Stefanos: It's really powerful, man, and very rare.

[00:21:39] Luke: Yeah, which is why I'm just-- you could ask her every day. I'm just like, "Oh my God, I'm the luckiest guy in the world that I got my shit together enough to be on your level." You know what I mean? It's such a blessing and a demonstration and a humble congratulations to myself of like, "Man, you earned this shit."

[00:22:00] Stefanos: You have to.

[00:22:00] Luke: Not to call her or our relationship this shit, but you earned this type of love that is truly unconditional and reciprocal in so many ways. But what's your take on that? Because I know this is something you cover a lot in the book, and to think how much suffering could be saved if more of us were aware of how these things play out.

[00:22:22] Stefanos: Yeah, aware and then also able to be witnessed in the pain that we've been holding onto unknowingly for so long. And I will say something else. In one of the group threads that we're in, you mentioned something, and then as one of your comments you mentioned, "But the chances of Alyson and I separating are 0.000000001%."

[00:22:44] I'm going to tell you, man, when I read that, I fucking got warm here, genuinely, just on that. I really got warm in my heart. I said, "Yeah, that actually probably really feels very true for them." Just knowing you guys in the way the ways in which I know you. But that's a testament to how you've transcended and Alyson as well, obviously.

[00:23:05] How you both have transcended the conditioning and the exposure and the intensity that you've experienced growing up. I think it's useful to define trauma and to define childhood adverse conditions. They're intense experiences that are registered somatically in the body, in the nervous system, in the mind as something that's "not good" or dangerous or unsafe.

[00:23:32] And we then become protective and we move into a survival mode just to ensure that doesn't happen again or it doesn't increase in intensity. We mentioned this earlier, too much, too soon, too fast. The experience comes, it shocks us, and it stays with us.

[00:23:46] And what I think, to your original question, what so many of us don't realize as adults because we're on this unconscious train is that those adverse experiences, those intense experiences, those unprocessed, unresolved trauma loops, physiological, psychological, relational, emotional, that set about the patterns and the habits and the personality part of self that then gets taken into adulthood, so many of us don't realize how much situations imprint upon us and shape who we are, shape how we give and receive love, how we repel and attract goodness in our lives, and how we keep ourselves extra safe in unnecessary way, guarded, closed off to love.

[00:24:28] It can show up in fear of commitment. You mentioned avoidant attachment styles like avoidant, love addiction. It shows up in not trusting other humans, not being vulnerable and open, being hyper selfish, being aggressive to make sure that we don't get hurt, all these ways.

[00:24:44] And if we only knew how much those experiences shape who we are as adults and simply in a neutral, objective way, accepted that, and then begin-- we begin to meet those parts with compassion and love and some discipline in terms of the action we have to take to-- because I would imagine the life you've lived. It wasn't necessarily easy and instantaneous to turn that life around.

[00:25:10] It took time, practice, diligence, resilience, patience, self-love, rollercoaster, being able to weather that. If we only knew how much those situations imprinted upon us and we made the decision, the discerning decision to begin to pay some attention to that. Our lives can change dramatically.

[00:25:35] We needn't live in those unhealthy, just tiring patterns and habits, those relational patterns and habits on a day-to-day basis and keep attracting the same relationship just with a different person or different haircut.

[00:25:49] Luke: I'm very familiar with that, and I'm sure I've been that person for many partners too. Thing that I trip on is, let see if I can articulate this is, in my journey in relationship, it seems that that type of magnetism, that type of trauma bonding repeated itself over and over again. Just a couple of archetypal patterns.

[00:26:20] That those unhealed parts of myself compelled me to get into relationships that made it impossible for me to ignore the inner wounding. So I would either have to face it or I'd have to leave. And so there's decades of relationships that caused both parties so much pain, and each one was like an invitation into a deeper level of my healing.

[00:26:52] Stefanos: Which we often don't take.

[00:26:53] Luke: And so now, being on the other side of that, as I said in the first relationship where the learning is more of a-- it's almost like we're actually, rather than digging into the wounds-- because we all still have them. It's not like, oh, I'm healed 100%. But it's like the challenges I think we face are more like encouraging the other to up level.

[00:27:19] It's not triggering old wounds. It's saying like, "I know who you are without those wounds. Let's bring that to the table." The thing that is trippy to me is I don't know that I could have bypassed all of those karmic or teaching relationships that were necessary for me to be in enough pain to finally face myself and to just go deeper and deeper into the healing. If I would've met her--

[00:27:46] Stefanos: 20 years ago.

[00:27:47] Luke: Yeah. We probably would've been playing out the same patterns. So I think what I'm getting at is it doesn't seem it's about meeting the right person where, oh, now you just have a magically healthy and mutually supportive relationship that evolves into both people becoming better versions of themselves.

[00:28:06] It seems like those of us that have that childhood wounding need those cycles of relationships in order to bring the things up. I don't know, it seems to be the way the universe and the human experience is ordered-- is looking at Alyson's journey, all of her patterns from childhood came up in one primary relationship that lasted 15 years that was abusive and dysfunctional, and that was her awakening.

[00:28:36] So it's been interesting for me to compare notes on our past. It's like she had the same experience just with one person that I did with God knows how many. But I don't think we could have arrived where we are had we not been initiated by those relationships. So I guess the question is this-- it seems like you have one option.

[00:28:58] You either just don't engage in relationships and figure your own shit out until you're healthy enough to align with someone where there's coherence and you're both at a certain level of maturity, development, healing, etc. Or you have to just like go through the ringer with person after person or one person for a long time to get to that stuff.

[00:29:16] Do you think there's a place where someone can become aware of these things within themselves and just not choose to have relationships be their teachers and work on themselves until they feel really ready to align to a healthy relationship?

[00:29:30] Stefanos: Yes. No, you only get so far. Every person's the right person, meeting you, where you are and what you're open to, and what you have capacity to be open to in those moments that are dictated by forces that are beyond us, but also our own willingness to want to change and want to move beyond the pain that we're stuck in.

[00:29:48] And the pain of change needs to be less than the pain of remaining in the same space. And sometimes we may need 20 years of that. Maybe sometimes we won't accomplish that or experience that in this lifetime. Who knows? There are external forces that that none of us can control, nor should we control that impact that.

[00:30:12] I think the most important takeaway with that is every moment in relationship is a moment for progression, for growth, for opportunity, for invitation into deeper parts of yourself. Most wounds occur in a relational context. Most trauma, most intensity is experienced in a relational context.

[00:30:33] Your father abused you. Your mother abandoned you. You have experiences with drugs and other addictions in relationship to substances, in relationship to other people that are in your peer group at that time that. That contributes to the dysfunction that you're experiencing. Whatever the thing may be. If they occur in a relational context, they often need to be healed in a relational context.

[00:31:00] Luke: Ah, right.

[00:31:01] Stefanos: Yeah. Now, that's not to say though that you cannot and you should not go on a healing journey "on your own". I'm a big advocate for being single. I'm a big advocate for being in relationship. You need both throughout your life. I'm talking about the course of your life, of being in your own space, being in solitude, working through stuff "on your own."

[00:31:22] We are in relationship to everything. You're sitting on a chair right now. You have a relationship with the chair. You're breathing. You're breathing oxygen. You have a relationship with that substance. The question of whether we're in relationship with something is not the question. The question is what's the quality of the relationship that we have?

[00:31:41] So that can be determined by a couple of things, not just the goodness we experience or the lack of conflict. It's how evolved are we in relation to that relationship? So for me, it's really important that we allow ourselves to be open to the gifts of that situation, that set of circumstances.

[00:32:01] And if we can go into that feeling curious, experiencing curiosity, we are always going to get something from it. Most people, I think, leave relationship too early instead of staying in it and actually working through the triggers that are coming up or the discomfort that's arising.

[00:32:18] And so therefore every relationship or every person is the right one. But going back to, and this is what the book goes into, there needs to be fundamentally a foundation of inner work you do on your own. Because what that does is it untether you from codependency.

[00:32:35] Codependency perpetuates more wounds, more relational patterns that are unhealthy. So when you bring that level of interdependency into relationship, not only are you magnetizing and attracting a healthier partnership, but you are also attracting the potential for that partnership to evolve greatly, which is what the second half of the book goes into.

[00:32:54] So you get yourself to a really sound place and a regulated, grounded place within yourself. You have tools. You have practices. You know yourself in a really deep way. You've worked through a stack of your staff. That's not to say that stuff won't come up in your relationship, but you're better equipped to not run away.

[00:33:07] You're better equipped to not continue to be reactive. So you're both just being reactive. And you're better equipped to work through the conflict in a more authentic, meaningful, loving way. That's what accelerates growth, and that's what allows the relationship to be a powerful proponent for literally remembering God again, remembering who you are, remembering the divine, allowing that to move through you. And that requires effort, which most people were unwilling to fucking participate in.

[00:33:31] Luke: You're not kidding. Let's get into codependency. This is something that I had-- well, I'm sure still have to some degree. But coming from a life of addiction and then getting sober when I was 26, I always thought codependency was for the people that have an addict in their life and they become addicted to fixing that addict.

[00:34:02] It was very much siloed around addiction. And it was decades before I learned that codependency is its own formula or pattern that doesn't at all necessitate having someone who has a substance abuse issue or something like that. And so I started to run into these walls.

[00:34:27] I'm sober 20 years, and I'm still totally screwed up in relationships. What is happening here? Every other area of my life is on fire doing great. But this one very important piece of life is an absolute train wreck. And so when I started to research a bit and go to codependency meetings and things like that, I started hearing this idea that in relation to drug addiction and alcoholism, that codependency is the mothership.

[00:34:58] Codependency is the underpinning of subsequent addictions. It's like substance abuse addictions are almost a-- or maybe not almost, but in many cases a symptom of the codependency underneath. And so I started to see it as much more of a foundational issue, but don't know that I still have a totally complete understanding of it.

[00:35:19] So I want to get your full take on that, because I know it's something you talk about in the book and that you talk about in your other teaching. For me, it's like in my relationship now, where I would feel that would be, say Alyson is having an experience emotionally or she's challenged by something.

[00:35:40] If I am unable to allow her to have her experience without also being in her experience, that's where I feel I start to drift into codependency. Whereas when I feel like I am not in that pattern, is where I can be fully present, compassionate, empathetic, supportive of whatever it is she's going through without having to join her in the experience where I can still feel okay, even if she doesn't feel okay.

[00:36:05] Where my whole childhood and my whole life, especially in romantic relationships, if my partner was not okay, there was no way I could be okay and just feel comfortable in my own skin until I fixed them or they fixed themselves. Where there's this, like, you're intertwined in a way that there's no more you. There's this merging where you--

[00:36:27] Stefanos: As in enmeshment. You did a enmeshment.

[00:36:28] Luke: Yeah. Where you lose your own identity and your own sovereignty. So now it's like, and this is the first time ever, the way I look at this in my current relationship is we're both very independent.

[00:36:44] Stefanos: Interdependent.

[00:36:45] Luke: Yeah. And have our own space. And it's like, there's me, there's her, and then the relationship is this third entity. It's like its own thing. And I can be in that relationship, but I'm not in her, and she's not in me. Does that make sense?

[00:36:59] Stefanos: Of course, yeah.

[00:37:00] Luke: And that's where I've arrived at it and just how I detect that kind of thing when it starts to enter. Because it's been so destructive in my past of just losing myself in relationships or being a classic avoidant more so, like, the fear of losing myself in a relationship would cause me to avoid and deflect and not want to commit and get married and never be monogamous and all that stuff. So give us your whole take on how codependency plays out, what it looks like, what its counterpart or healthy counterpart is.

[00:37:34] Stefanos: I'll expand on some of what you shared because I think what you shared was very profound, very simple, and very true. You very eloquently described codependency, I think in simple terms. To the addiction piece, if I was just to focus on that for a minute, when we are codependent, we need something outside of us.

[00:37:55] We cannot self-regulate. We are hyper dependent on something outside of us, a substance, an experience, the Packers needing to win for me to feel happy, whatever it may be. My partner to see me for who I am, for us to feel okay, settled, safe, happy, like we're doing something right, of value, of worth, what underpins codependence or this hyper reliance on things outside of us happening in a very particular way, in a rigid way, in a box is low self-worth and low self-esteem.

[00:38:32] We don't believe in ourselves enough to be okay. So we need someone to help us be okay. When we pull that back and we look at-- we go back to what we were talking about a few moments ago at the beginning around our childhood experiences, we are so impressionable at a young age, from the ages of zero to seven, and even onwards.

[00:38:54] We are walking around in a hypnogogic state, meaning we are just-- I know you know this, but just for the audience, if you're not aware of this, we are absorbing everything, everything, consciously, unconsciously. And what we often make it mean during that period is that we're at the center of all that. We're quite self-absorbed.

[00:39:12] And so we're very self-referential, it's called. And so everything that's happening, we are at the center of that. So if dad is yelling at us, it must be our fault. If bad things are happening, must be because of me. Uncomfortable things are happening. It must be because of me.

[00:39:28] If we are moving house or mom and dad are divorcing, that must be me. That shapes who we become. And so now codependency is a hook, or I'm having so much pain experiencing my parents' divorce. What could help me feel better? Greater the pain, the greater the pleasure required to mitigate the pain?

[00:39:49] Luke: That's good. That's a good one. That's a tweetable or an X-ible.

[00:39:53] Stefanos: That's actually in the book too, and I can stand on that.

[00:39:55] Luke: Jarrod got a clip of that. That's a good one. Say that again. That's really good.

[00:39:58] Stefanos: The greater the pain we experience in life, the greater the pleasure required to mitigate that pain, to compensate for it.

[00:40:05] Luke: I never thought about that. That's huge.

[00:40:06] Stefanos: But we do it unconsciously. So I'll give an example for me. My parents didn't divorce. Probably wish they did. But I give the divorce example because it's so common. And I think that my example of my parents not divorcing is actually-- when we look back now and think, "Oh, they probably should have divorced. It would've been better."

[00:40:24] Hindsight, maybe. We don't know that. But there was so much violence and animosity and hatred in their relationship that leaked out onto myself and my brother. And I just wanted to escape that. I'm a kid. I didn't know how to be with that. I wanted to forget about it, suppress and repress it. And I wanted to escape from it.

[00:40:39] What did I do? I'm a few years old. Food, TV. Sex came later. That addiction came later. That compulsion came later. That pleasure center came later. I'm just chasing dopamine. Where can I lose myself? Now, the pattern of that, I still have it today, man.

[00:41:01] After a big day of work or a big day of giving and doing, sometimes all I want to do is just lay on the couch and watch TV. Not mindless TV. I'll watch a documentary or a cool movie, whatever. Maybe it's mindless, whatever. But I just want to forget. Now, I'm not judging myself for that, but I know if I really get honest with myself, there's a part of me that's tethered to that little boy that just wants to feel peace and shut out the whole world.

[00:41:26] That's a pattern from 40 years ago. If we don't take the time to actually look at ourselves and look at the actions and the things that we do in relationship and outside of relationship, we will constantly be codependent with all these things in our lives that we have no idea have hooks in us, energetic, emotional hooks in us.

[00:41:45] And all of a sudden we're not our own person. Because if this thing doesn't happen in that way, I don't feel okay. And when I don't feel okay, I feel restless and unsettled. And now I'm in a survival pattern. Now I'm reactive. Now I'm getting angry. Now I'm shutting down, or now I'm disconnecting from the world.

[00:42:00] Now I'm not focused and I'm making it mean that I'm not good enough and I've done something wrong. So when someone says, "Hey, do you think you could talk to me nicely?" We take that so personally that we bark back. But is that really happening? Does that reaction warrant the actual circumstance? Often no. That's codependency. This is how insidious it is, man.

[00:42:21] Luke: See, I knew you had a lot more to say about it. Thinking about that, this is something I'm always tracking within myself and doing my best to also not shame spiral about it. The perfectionism of like, I've been at this self-work for so long. I should be doing this or shouldn't be doing that. But that's something I track a lot, is how dependent-- and I never thought of it in terms of codependency, but just how dependent on something outside of myself I am.

[00:42:54] Stefanos: And on performance as well. Think about it. And I do the same. Sorry to interrupt you, but that's such a sharp thought though. My value and my utility in the world, or how I perceive myself is predicated on where I think I "should be," judgment.

[00:43:08] Luke: Yeah.

[00:43:09] Stefanos: Tethered to "externalized success." Whatever frame I give that, whatever details I give that, I should have X amount of dollars in the bank. I should have X amount of followers. I should be a New York Times bestseller. I should be more, whatever. That's codependence.

[00:43:24] Whenever there's judgment, there's codependence. That's an interesting combination. And the subtle ways that we judge ourselves and others as a result of that. I don't know about you, but me, I'm pretty hard on myself.

[00:43:35] Luke: Oh yeah, dude.

[00:43:37] Stefanos: And as a result of that, I'm unconsciously hard on others. The expectations I place on them, I place on myself. I place on them. And the thing is they can never meet that. They really don't need to meet that. And I'm setting myself up for disappointment because-- let me go really deep into a pattern now.

[00:43:53] Because my parents disappointed me, both my mother and father in different ways, and so if I can set people up to disappoint me, I have an excuse, convenient excuse to keep them at an emotional and relational distance. Now they can't hurt me because they're further away from me.

[00:44:12] And that serves my wound of not wanting to get hurt again or codependence. So until I start letting people in and opening up and being vulnerable in safe ways and saying, hey, that thing you're doing reminds me of something of my past, and what I want to do right now is get angry at you and create conflict so that you can be upset at me and we can drift and that don't. And then you don't see the tenderness and the hurt that really lives in my heart.

[00:44:40] Luke: That takes a lot of courage.

[00:44:41] Stefanos: Yeah. And I don't always get that "right" even with Christine, and she knows that.

[00:44:47] Luke: That level of vulnerability and transparency for me is also predicated by having the discernment to know who's safe in that realm. Because I've done that in the past and led with the chin, so to speak, and be like, "Ouch, they used it against me." You know what I mean? Which I don't have.

[00:45:11] But you also alluded to something that I think is so important in terms of communication and personal responsibility is, as you described, that arbitrary interaction, when this thing happened, I felt this reaction going on in my nervous system. This is how I want to respond and here's why, naming those patterns.

[00:45:34] I think so many of us, myself included for a long time, I really believe that say in a moment of conflict and I felt something, that you made me feel this way. And people use this phrase. Well, you made me mad. You hurt my feelings. You did this. You did that.

[00:45:53] It's like, there's such a shift between-- and we've worked on this in our communication a lot, is even just the language you use, where it's like, "Hey, can, can we talk about something that's on my mind?" Just random example.

[00:46:08] Yeah, in the car today when that thing happened and you said that thing, it was interesting. I really felt this sensation in my body, and then I started having these thoughts and these feelings. But it allows for objectivity for myself to be the witness of my own experience and take responsibility as the adult in the room.

[00:46:30] Stefanos: In witness of another. She's also witnessing you in that, which is very healing in and of itself.

[00:46:35] Luke: Exactly. And then she or whomever, we're putting both of ourselves in the witness-observer perspective. Oh, interesting. Let's step back from our little drama here. Let's step back as the conscious people that we are, our higher selves, and let's observe this interaction without any hooks in it. It's like you're pulling the triggers out of it because you're just observing a phenomenon taking place in your nervous system, in your body, and--

[00:47:02] Stefanos: Without making it wrong.

[00:47:03] Luke: And then what the mind wants to do about that t get itself to feel safe again. It's such a different way of relating and communicating when you just nullify the victim, perpetrator dynamic out of the entire thing.

[00:47:18] It's like it's no one's fault. No one did anything wrong. Some things were said. Some things happened. I felt this way. You felt that way. It's just like the zero point of conflict resolution and intimacy. But again, I found that is only possible with someone who's able to meet you there.

[00:47:38] Stefanos: Yes.

[00:47:39] Luke: Because when I lack discernment and I was with unsafe people and I was unsafe for them, it's like that was just something I could read about or hear about on a podcast. There's no way I could do that because neither of us were trustworthy and self-aware enough to--

[00:47:53] Stefanos: And possibly willing.

[00:47:54] Luke: Yeah, willing to even do that. Because isn't there a certain reward that we get in being the one who's right and a reward in being the victim.

[00:48:06] Luke: Unpack some of that stuff.

[00:48:07] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah. Or the perpetrator, or the savior. The drama triangle, perpetrator, savior, victim. Of course there's a reward because the mechanisms or tools of the ego or the personality is control and power over. So when you are right and righteous, you are in control.

[00:48:24] You're in control of not being vulnerable, not being open to saying, "Oh yeah, that action that I took hurt you. I'm sorry." You get to be right self-righteous and right and correct, and take a higher ground. That just keeps you in more distance relationally. There's no relational contact in that. There's no personal accountability, personal responsibility, sovereignty.

[00:48:47] Again, I would say there's codependency there, codependency with the personality. See, there's person witness personality. The person is what you said earlier. Let me be the observer. [Inaudible]Let the true self be the observer of what is happening, and not make wrong. It's coming to a situation with a consciousness of no problem.

[00:49:06] Luke: Mm.

[00:49:07] Stefanos: That doesn't mean complacency. That doesn't mean that you are forgetting about what you've done and you're not taking accountability for it. What it means is that you are looking at yourself and the context of the situation with non-judgment.

[00:49:21] Because if you're in judgment, you are more than likely in shame. And if you're in shame, you're in protective spirals and cycles. If you're in protective spirals and cycles, you're in survival mode. Survival mode is reactivity. Reactivity is relational friction. That doesn't bring relational contact together.

[00:49:39] So what are we doing perpetuating old patterns and old wounds, reinforcing physiologically and psychologically and relationally old stuff from the past that actually is just keeping people away? That's not useful, both of us. But you did that for years way more than you do now.

[00:49:57] But you needed to do that to realize, and there's a part of you that had to realize that, say, "Hey." We spoke about this earlier. I think the collective consciousness of humanity needs to experience rock bottom in order to actually change. It's just where we are evolutionarily. It's just a thing.

[00:50:13] Luke: I think we're about to hit it if we haven't already collectively.

[00:50:16] Stefanos: I don't think we have already. I think we're about to hit it collectively. I don't know when and what that looks like, but yes, we can talk about that later.

[00:50:22] Luke: I bet it's 2030.

[00:50:23] Stefanos: Yeah, quite possibly.

[00:50:26] Luke: Maybe soon.

[00:50:29] Stefanos: But you've got to make the choice. And it's not the only way. That's the beautiful thing. The beautiful thing is we can learn through direct experience and indirect experience. We can learn and grow out of patterns that don't serve us in intense ways or non-intense ways.

[00:50:43] We just often opt for intensity. It's the contrast effect. The greater the contrast, often the more richness in learning that occurs until we can outgrow that to some degrees. I'll just pause there.

[00:51:01] Luke: Going back to this, what for me is a pretty high level of communication and mutual accountability and vulnerability and intimacy, I'm just going back to that conflict situation where each person is able to self-regulate enough--

[00:51:19] Stefanos: That's key.

[00:51:20] Luke: To be objective and to be aware of your instincts of deflection and blame and all those things.

[00:51:31] Stefanos: And own it without the shame.

[00:51:33] Luke: Yeah. It seems in my experience that having some degree of agency, if not mastery, over the nervous system of each person is required for that to happen. To not be reactive, one has to be aware of those signals. I got a funny story for you.

[00:51:53] So because I was subject to a lot of verbal abuse and just emotional abuse from my dad when I was a kid, he was just a terrifying character. He was a very wounded, sensitive man who just didn't know how to handle what he was feeling.

[00:52:13] And so I really developed out of the fight, flight or freeze response, full blown freeze disappear, like the Homer Simpson meme where he disappears in the bushes. That's how I respond when shit gets heavy. So because of that, when there is heightened emotions or conflict, I'll start to feel that response happened in my body.

[00:52:41] And so then that's a cue where breathe, dude. Breathe, stay present. You're safe. And then sometimes have to summon the courage that's required to advocate for myself, which is difficult.

[00:52:56] Stefanos: And stay in it.

[00:52:57] Luke: Yeah.

[00:52:57] Stefanos: I imagine you probably attracted a lot of women in your relationships that have experienced abandonment themselves and from the masculine.

[00:53:05] Luke: Yeah, 100%. To a woman. Yes. So a funny thing happened over the summer when we were in Nevada City. Alyson was just having whatever experience she was having and was, from my perception, being a bit nagging and critical, little things that really don't matter and just, eh, just a little bristly for whatever reason.

[00:53:28] And yeah, I don't want drama. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to deal with a heightened emotional state and confront her and be like, "Hey, can we chill with that?" So I just was stuffing this basically. This is some dysfunction. And then it just reached this tipping point. And I went off in a very inappropriate way, just screamed at her and called her a couple of names.

[00:53:59] There's probably five times in my whole life I've ever done that in a relationship. Maybe not even that. That's not how I roll. I'll just bail, historically. I'm just like, "Oh, cool. This is what you're bringing? Bye." Because I didn't have the capacity to handle it. But it was a really beautiful learning moment for me. And thankfully she was understanding and forgiving.

[00:54:23] Of course I was mortified and deeply and sincerely apologetic. It was like a Jerry Springer slammed the car door in the Staples parking lot moment. And I walked around. I was just like, "What was that? Who just did that?" It was just totally out of line.

[00:54:42] Stefanos: Part of you that you've been running from is who did it.

[00:54:44] Luke: Exactly, exactly. And so it was like, oh, wow. It was really educational in the sense that in any of those smaller moments that had built up to that, the responsibility of mine that I needed to own was I was feeling things and thinking things that I was afraid to bring up because I didn't want conflict or drama.

[00:55:08] It would've been so much healthier the first two or three things, just be like, "Hey, hold up there. Can we not do this?" Or, "Let's talk about this. Why are you feeling this way? How can we help you feel better?" So it was deeply humbling because I like to think of myself as such a kind, patient, compassionate guy, and I am.

[00:55:27] But I think the point I'm getting here is, what I saw is there's a shadow side to patience and compassion and being a peacemaker, which I am. I'm able to really diffuse things and be diplomatic, and I can talk through things without being super triggered.

[00:55:44] But when it comes to like a certain edge of emotions, it's very difficult for me to engage. And so I made things much worse by not doing the hard thing incrementally, little by little. It goes to that nervous system pattern. So what it was for me was a huge awakening.

[00:56:04] And that man, you've gotten resilient in the nervous system in being able to stay calm when things get hardcore. But what about the other side of the nervous system, which is like, you need to actually step up and be present and courageous and address something in the moment?

[00:56:21] Stefanos: But even that, where you've been able to stay calm in those moments, potentially that could be a form of freeze as well.

[00:56:27] Luke: Totally, totally. And that's what I realized. I was like, "Shit, I think I'm being like the Buddha." And it's like, no, there's a scared little boy who thought his dad was going to kill him and had to go hide in the closet. It's like that is still at play. Which is really interesting to see and not fun to own when you think you've gotten to a certain point.

[00:56:48] So let's talk about the nervous system response because knowing you as I know you, you're, I would say, and I haven't been in conflict with you personally, but I would think you're like my little brother Cody, who grew up in a very similar environment, he's a fight response. He'll just kick your ass, and that's the end of that conversation.

[00:57:11] Stefanos: I've had my ass kicked a lot, but yes, I'm--

[00:57:13] Luke: But I think you're probably more on the Greek hotheaded. I'm going to racially profile you. But I see you getting big, emotional, and pushing the other way where I'm running in the other direction. But they're essentially just flip side of the same coin.

[00:57:31] Stefanos: Of course, they are.

[00:57:31] Luke: So break down these responses that we develop and how those play out later in life.

[00:57:38] Stefanos: For sure. Thank you for sharing that story as well because it, humanizes you, and you are, I perceive you, quite evolved. You are. I think you are. And what you just shared then to me in my own nervous system makes you even more evolved. Because you're human. We can't demonize our humanness. You just got to own it without the shame because that doesn't perpetuate it.

[00:58:02] Luke: Yeah.

[00:58:04] Stefanos: I'll come back to what you just asked, but I want to touch on something I think would be really useful, is you mentioned any time a previous partner would behave in a particular way, like, catch you, I'm out.

[00:58:16] And previously you asked a question around, well, I had to go through like 15, 20, 30 years of relationships, relationship after relationship, and still not getting it "right." If you sincerely stayed in the relationship long enough, you maybe would've had a flat or the revelation, the insight 30 years ago instead of five or six or seven years ago. And that's the thing we often leave too early in a relationship.

[00:58:45] Luke: Oh yeah.

[00:58:46] Stefanos: So many of us do, especially those that are avoidant. And if we only stayed a little longer, not to endure, because we got to be careful-- we're just not enduring and just suffering and taking it on the chin because that's what we should do.

[00:58:57] But to actually want to grow and learn, you grow and learn. Now the relationship may end, but you leave that relationship actually being different, upleveling yourself expanded. Right. My story and my sense is that, like me, you would have new relationships, but you weren't really growing relationship to relationship.

[00:59:14] It was just the same relationship over and over again. So that sincere attention to actually staying. And now you can do that, but also, man, sometimes it takes years to get to that place. Let's talk about nervous system now. I just thought that was an important distinction as well, and that would be useful for people listening.

[00:59:33] Luke: It's a really valid point because looking back, I had great women in my life that probably could have met me there if I was willing to stay and willing to do the work. They likely would've been too.

[00:59:48] Stefanos: Yes. And you just maybe weren't ready. Sometimes we overthink things as well. And I think, like I said earlier, that there are so many factors that impact our life's path, most that are very unknown to us. And even just having a deeper acceptance of that, I think is very useful and very helpful.

[01:00:09] And then just continuing to be committed to, okay, what does a path of growth look like? Just keep being committed to learning a little bit every day, or growing a little bit every day or getting uncomfortable. Because usually it's in the discomfort. And being with that in a new way, that we actually grow out of patterns that don't serve us.

[01:00:25] So I've had very similar experiences to you, man. Fortunately or unfortunately, my attachment style is quite disorganized, which means essentially I experience anxiousness and I put hooks in, but also experience avoidance and all of that.

[01:00:42] My upbringing was similar. Lots of physical violence, emotional abuse, very scared of my father, peeing the bed until I was probably seven, eight, or nine. I can't remember, peeing myself, hiding under my bed. Just scared, man.

[01:00:55] So I had a lot of freeze response and flight, and my fight response didn't really develop until later on in my teens where I started drinking alcohol a lot just to forget Australian culture as well. Fighting a lot more. And you go out to fight or fuck and drink. That's what you would do. Australian culture's crazy anyway.

[01:01:17] Because I had all this repressed anger at my dad. I didn't know that, but I just was so angry. Zero to a 100, like that. All survival patterns, man, whether you're freezing, whether you're flying, whatever it is, you're getting out of there, disappearing into the bushes, or being hyper aggressive and defensive and all that posturing. All of it is survival.

[01:01:44] And what's happening in those moments is we are regressing and time traveling back to moments in our time span, in our lives where our psychology felt very vulnerable and disempowered. Usually when we were children. Or whenever we just felt very disempowered, we didn't know what to do.

[01:02:03] And as adults, we have this perception that we are empowered now, but we're still playing out the same patterns. So when you and Alyson or myself and Christine are having conflict, what's more than likely happening there is we are not just having conflict.

[01:02:18] When it's immature or when it's triggered or reactive, we're not having conflict from my adult self and her adult self. It's like a 7-year-old boy there and a 5-year-old girl or whatever. But because we are seeing adults, we are thinking you should know better.

[01:02:32] We're making assumptions like, why are you being like this? Why can't you hear me and understand me? Because the psyche of that little girl that's being triggered by the actions that are reminding her of shit that happened when she was younger is literally reacting from that place right now.

[01:02:46] So what it serves me to do, and her-- it's not like a me or her thing-- both of us, if we can, is take a breath. Because if we slow the breath down, we slow the mind down. If we slow the mind down, we can slow the nervous system down. So now we can get into a more regulated place. I'll talk about that in a second.

[01:03:01] But I now can maybe see that little girl in her apply compassion to how her experience is playing out. Get curious, get close, hug her, hold her hand. Maybe say something to her like, "Hey, I really hear you. Before we continue, do you want to be hugged, held, or helped?"

[01:03:20] And it's just like a simple little tool you can use. But you said it before. You've got to go back to regulating your own body. So how do we do that in the moment? Well, it's actually not really done in the moment. It's only able to be done in the moment when we have more exposure to it.

[01:03:35] So a simple practice to give you something pragmatic is every day, every hour, every couple of hours, whatever it is, engage in a practice that downregulates your nervous system. Go stand in the sun and let the sun just beam on your face and breathe slow.

[01:03:53] Go for a walk barefoot on the grass, have a bath, pause, sit, close your eyes, and breathe four seconds in, or five seconds in, five seconds out for three minutes. Do that often during the day. Sit and just stare at the wall and just see if you can be grateful for that wall.

[01:04:14] Something really mundane and simple. Something inanimate. And tap into that energy for a moment. Learn to regulate yourself so that in moments of potential dysregulation or conflict that causes dysregulation and then reactivity and time traveling, psychological time traveling, you have a reference point that is more active in your life.

[01:04:36] Oh, I can just anchor into breath, or I can anchor into my feet being into the ground. Or I can anchor into curiosity, or I can anchor into seeing her little girl. Even when you guys are good, I try and-- actually, because of my daughter, man, I'm able to actually see my daughter in Christine a lot. And so I actually proactively see Christine's little girl a lot in her, and it really warms me.

[01:04:59] Now, I've got to get better in the moments where she's dysregulated, where she's upset about something. Not to take it personally, not to be wrapped up in it and be codependent, and keep seeing her little girl. And it's a practice. Just some examples there of the nervous system.

[01:05:14] Luke: Beautiful. Yeah. It's like to wait until you're in a high stakes, highly charged situation to try to learn how to deal with your nervous system. It's tough.

[01:05:27] Stefanos: You're only going to--

[01:05:27] Luke: That's like walking into the gym, trying to bench press 250 pounds out the gate. It's like you got to practice.

[01:05:34] Stefanos: Exposure, yeah. You're only going to perform at your highest level of training.

[01:05:37] Luke: That's what I've found too. One thing that has been really helpful to me is just years of getting in the ice bath every day. In Texas it's like a few times a day usually. And I've talked about this before. Once I got over the machismo ego thing of like how calm I can be so people see how calm I am-- but just when I'm by myself, it's like, how quickly can I just totally relax?

[01:06:03] And now it's pretty much instantaneous after a number of years. But that's one of those pragmatic things that has helped me a lot. If I can get in a situation like that where my nervous system literally thinks we're dying, but my awareness can override that because I know I'm not dying.

[01:06:22] The conscious mind knows I'm literally totally safe right now, regardless of the sensations I'm having in the body. And there's a lot of things I've used like that to just learn how to, in a high stress situation like that, that is also low stakes, because I'm not going to die, it's like building up that resilience.

[01:06:42] You also mentioned something really important for anyone listening who is in a relationship with a female. It can't be overstated the value in listening. That's something I just learn more and more all the time. I think it's in our nature as men to want to fix a problem.

[01:07:04] If you came to me right now and you're like, "Luke, I got this thing going on with my business and this and that." While you're talking, I'm already thinking of 10 things I can tell you to do. That's how I love you. I don't know that, but it's like, oh, I'm going to fix your problem.

[01:07:19] I think between men, we're a little bit more tuned in, like, I would just know when you're receptive to some feedback and you would know that about me. But what I've found in relationship with women that has been so useful is, man, the feedback or making excuses or trying to explain why, just shut up, open my heart, see that little girl, as you said, and just listen with like dumbo size ears.

[01:07:50] Just listen for cues. What is the fear beneath this feeling? What is the hurt beneath this feeling? And just tune into that and be compassionate toward that. And that's been such a massive, supportive tool for me, is just learn how to listen. It's almost like a game now.

[01:08:09] And we both know that's what I'm doing. And then I learned this from John Gray because he's kind of the one that tapped me into that idea, is I'll say, "Is there anything else?" Da da da da da. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not even about me, just life, whatever, something she went through. Okay. And it goes for a little while.

[01:08:27] I'm just listening. Not trying to fix. Just really deeply, deeply listening to really try to understand and feel what she's feeling in a way without taking it on. It might be two or three times of like, "Is there anything else?" "No, that's it. I'm done." Well, da da da. And then it'll start again. It's so predictable in a sense.

[01:08:46] But then when I really feel, and she's communicated that that's all of the energy that needs to get dissipated, then and only then do I say, "Would you like some feedback? How can I help? What do you need right now? Would you like to hear my thoughts on it?" If I don't get that green light, I'm not going to say anything because it's not going to be helpful. So speak to, it doesn't even have to be in like a male female relationship, but just in any relationship, the act of listening and what there is to gain from that.

[01:09:19] Stefanos: Yeah. My teacher says that, I'm paraphrasing, but if all we did was seek to understand our partners in intimacy and relationship, that would be the most important thing we could do, or even should do. That's it. Just seek to understand. That involves active listening. That involves the communication tools, like, is there more? What I'm hearing you say is. Oh, I can imagine, and I feel that would be really difficult for you. I would be angry too. Imago dialogue essentially.

[01:09:54] Luke: Right, right.

[01:09:55] Stefanos: I think elements of what John was teaching you was around a Imago, as an example. Harville Hendrix, for anyone that's in interested. And so seeking to understand the other man is everything-- making it about them and not you. Making it about, oh, what are their needs right now?

[01:10:17] Now imagine that's reciprocal in relationship where your partner holds the same intention. Of course, it doesn't mean you negate your own sense of self or you lose yourself, or you don't have boundaries or you don't speak your needs. Of course, you do.

[01:10:30] But in the moment of difficulty for another, if you can clearly identify that, that person, your friend or your partner, whatever, is under-resourced or less resourced than you emotionally and relationally, then step up. Step into it. Now, I don't always get that right.

[01:10:50] I do my best have that as my North Star. And so similarly to you, in my healthy, mature, available resource self, I invite my partner or people to say more. I'm here for it. If you want to get angry, go for it. If you want to say something that I did wrong and you want to-- go for it.

[01:11:12] Feeling safe for each other, helping people feel safe in our presence, that's where that relational wound is healed as well. Being witnessed in that, that's where a lot of that healing comes into play. We don't need always fixing. Well, sometimes we do. sometimes we need to be helped.

[01:11:27] So that model of hugged, helped, heard. What do you need? And maybe you need all three of them. Cool. What order do you need them in? Oh, I don't want to think about that. Cool. Then I'll just intuitively think about it. For now I'm just going to hear you. because that's pretty safe. Fundamentally, that's what everyone needs at the start, at least to be heard. Because we just want to know that we matter.

[01:11:46] We want to know that we're important, that we're significant enough for you to hear us. And then if it is about you, for example, and you say, oh, I can see how when I said that thing, that caused you or that contributed to you feeling that way or that reminded you of that, and yeah. That thing that I do sometimes is a really old pattern of mine that was forged when I was really young with my mom, and you gave some context that demonstrates sincerity, that demonstrates vulnerability, that demonstrates you care.

[01:12:14] All of that demonstrates that you care enough for that person to matter. That you've given it that level of depth of thought. But what's the foundation of that? Hearing what they're saying, feeling, taking on what they're saying, actively seeking to understand them. That's the power play

[01:12:33] Luke: Easier said than done sometimes.

[01:12:36] Stefanos: Always. Not even sometimes. Most of the time, I should say.

[01:12:38] Luke: It's funny man how I'll notice sometimes, if a thing is about me, it's like I'll observe my mind coming up with rebuttals the whole time of like, "Okay, I'm going to let her talk, but then I'm going to explain why she was wrong or whatever."

[01:12:56] Stefanos: Or why her perception's off and it's informing her feelings. And if she only had a better perception, she wouldn't be feeling this way.

[01:13:02] Luke: Yeah. It's like a great surrender practice to-- basically, the mind is trying to create defenses to use in a few minutes when I get my turn. And it's like, wow, what if I don't need defenses? What if I can actually just surrender all of those thoughts and just allow myself to be the one who's wrong? It's like, wow, that's true liberation. It's like the thing that the defenses are trying to achieve for me are actually achieved more efficiently by me just surrendering my need to be right.

[01:13:37] Stefanos: Yes.

[01:13:37] Luke: And to allow myself to be blamed, even if I'm not completely to blame. But that requires a lot of humility. And it's also really hard to do when you're emotionally charged and the nervous system's activated. Good luck arriving there.

[01:13:55] Stefanos: Yeah. I change transformation, goodness, reconciliation, relational connection, relational contact. It doesn't occur from a dysregulated place. It occurs from a regulated nervous system. Hence why I suggest proactively practicing regulation deliberately during your day, so it becomes an anchor point in your life.

[01:14:16] So you have less propensity going to a dysregulated, reactive state as a default, and a greater increase in staying regulated in conflict or emotional relational tension.

[01:14:34] Luke: What value do you see in taking deliberate periods of celibacy and solitude?

[01:14:41] Stefanos: I see value. I've done a lot of it in my life. Well, a lot. I guess it's a relative term compared to a monk who has been celibate for 50 years. I guess it's not a lot. I've done that often in my life, and the benefit for me and the benefit that I've seen in others-- I'll just speak for myself.

[01:14:58] The benefit for me has been, it has completely reframed my relationship to the feminine within myself and outside of myself. The internal energetic of how I love myself and compassionate to myself, care and hold myself, and kind to myself, has completely reframed that.

[01:15:18] It's being celibate and having a practice of not engaging in flirtation, not engaging in befriending women for the sake of sex or for an end goal or for some form of intense pleasure, has reshaped the way I interact with them.

[01:15:36] It has helped me harness my own energy. It has helped me be more creative. It has helped me respect and revere more the human condition. It's helped me be more intuitive and access, like, what is this person really feeling right now? I haven't had a motive, not even unconscious to want to fuck them because I was committed to, this is not the path I'm taking right now.

[01:15:57] It's not forever. It's not because it's bad. It's not because sex or pursuit is bad. It's not. It's healthy. It's beautiful. But the come from that was living within me, it wasn't healthy. It was codependency. It was external validation. It was the need for someone else to see me in a particular way so I could feel relief, so I could feel better about myself.

[01:16:16] So when I distance myself from that, just like when an addict distance him or herself from the substance, your eyes open. Your senses expand. Context is applied. I start seeing the world very differently. Now, as a result of that, I would treat people differently. I had healthier boundaries. I spoke my truth more because I wasn't masquerading.

[01:16:38] I wasn't pretending to be someone to get something. I was just being truthful. And then when I started again dating or being in that place, I was way more honest, way faster, upfront. And I'd ask for what I wanted, and I shared what I was available for. And I cared less. Not so much about what they wanted, but I cared what they wanted deeply.

[01:17:00] But I cared less about what they thought about my needs or my desires because I was judging myself less. They're just some of the benefits. And time. Oh my goodness, the time you get back. Because we don't realize how incessant we are in, is that a candidate for sex? Is that a candidate for intimacy?

[01:17:18] Is that a candidate for satisfying my codependent urge to feel good about myself? I became more self-resourced, more empowerment, more self-worth, more self-love, more confidence, more power in, less need to control others. Bro, I can keep going.

[01:17:34] Luke: Yeah. That echoes my experience. One thing I really noticed, I went about 20 months or so.

[01:17:42] Stefanos: Nice.

[01:17:43] Luke: Years ago. I don't know what would've become of me had I not done that. It was one of the smartest things I ever did.

[01:17:49] Stefanos: Profound.

[01:17:50] Luke: But early on, what I noticed was a how deeply uncomfortable I was in my own skin. It was a dark night of the soul, son. It was really difficult. Because no porn, no flirting, no liking a girl's Instagram post just to see if I get anything back, no intrigue, nothing.

[01:18:12] Funny story, Alys and I were friends during that period. We'd met at a few events, and she'd been on my podcast. She would come back and forth from New York to LA, and she texted me when I was in that period just as a friend and was like, "Hey, I'm coming to LA for some work. Would you be open to me crashing at your place?"

[01:18:30] And one of my self-imposed guidelines or boundaries was I don't spend time alone with women. I don't go to coffee. They're definitely not staying at my fucking house, especially a beautiful one. I think she would probably know what I said, but I was like, "Oh yeah, no, not available for that." And she was like, "Damn, dude. It was a little harsh." But that's how committed I was.

[01:18:55] Stefanos: You're all in guy.

[01:18:57] Luke: [Inaudible], she was going to end up being the love of my life. But what I really noticed aside from just the initial shock of just so deeply lonely, and it was interesting the way the universe had set things up for me, right at that same time, all my boys ran off and got married or moved in with their girlfriend. And when that happens, when a guy's newly in love or in a relationship, they're gone. You know what I mean?

[01:19:21] I didn't have the wolf pack, so I was truly alone. But the thing I really noticed was, speaking to how you said you become resourced and you have this energy. It was incredible to see how much time and energy I spent to just validation and getting attention, walking into a coffee shop and seeing a pretty girl and just--

[01:19:44] Stefanos: Yeah. What are you going to do with it?

[01:19:45] Luke: Is she looking at me? Should I see something? Just like, oh my God. Or even driving. You're driving to LA. There's some beautiful women and cars everywhere. I would notice like the impulse to just, every stoplight, see if there's a hot girl next to me. And I started to see like, "Why are you doing that?" So you get a little smile back? You're never going to meet that girl. What are you going to pull over and you guys are going to go on a date.

[01:20:10] Stefanos: That's just fantasy.

[01:20:11] Luke: Yeah. So much time caught in fantasy and intrigue and just like-- it was like there was a withdrawal like it was a drug, not even from the sex part of it, but just from the attention.

[01:20:23] Stefanos: Sexual incontinence.

[01:20:25] Luke: Okay. What's that mean?

[01:20:27] Stefanos: Well, you know what incontinence is.

[01:20:29] Luke: Like when you can't do it?

[01:20:30] Stefanos: No, no, no. When you just pee yourself or you shit yourself. You can't control your body--

[01:20:35] Luke: Got it. Okay. Right. So all of that energy just dissipating with no governor. Okay, got it.

[01:20:41] Stefanos: No govern. No. mastery. It is not even control. It's no mastery. It's no discernment. It's just so unconscious and reactive. It's purely primal. Again, not a bad thing, but we do it all the time. That becomes a hindrance to-- because we're multi-layered beings. We're not just that person that is just primal and sexual.

[01:20:59] Maybe we were a couple of million years ago as hominids roaming the earth, whatever. That was a primary thing we did, but not anymore. Not with the advent of our prefrontal cortex and our consciousness and the way that we communicate, understand life and contemplate God and the cosmos and all of that.

[01:21:14] Making assumptions that we didn't as much back then. We are more than just that now, and it's still an integral part that I believe misfires. It's incontinent.

[01:21:28] Luke: Yeah. That was such a incredible period of learning and understanding. And also first time in my life I ever really created boundaries and made any effort to follow them. Her text would be one of them.

[01:21:41] Stefanos: Yeah. Massive.

[01:21:42] Luke: I didn't even have to think about it. I was just like, "Oh, no. Against the rules." I didn't care what she thought or-- you know what I mean? If she felt rejected or like I wasn't her friend. It's just like self-preservation was required, and that was, yeah, really the first time I started to have any boundaries. And then the clarity of that, the beauty in that was it helped me to see my absolute lack of boundaries my entire life.

[01:22:09] Stefanos: Your shadows.

[01:22:10] Luke: Yeah, yeah. It was just like, oh my God, the behavior of my entire life was so dysfunctional in that way. And then the other piece of that was like, oh, well, how did it end up being that way? If I never had boundaries, why? Then I trace that back to so many ways in which my boundaries were invaded on so many levels when I was a kid.

[01:22:34] It's like, of course, I don't know what boundaries are or how to have them because it was never modeled for me or taught for me. Not that parents in my generation would've even had language for it, but in a healthier family dynamic, boundaries would just be something that you inherit or are taught by the very fact that you're observing them happen in your household.

[01:22:57] So that was a huge one for me. And that one has been a really long learning experience too. Being with Alyson, she's someone of, really incredible integrity and has no problem with boundaries. She's really good at that. So there's been a lot--

[01:23:13] Stefanos: A great fit for you.

[01:23:15] Luke: Been a lot of catching up for me to go, "Oh, that's how you do that? Shit. Okay." It's like she's been a great teacher in that way. So thank you for sharing that on the celibacy piece because I think that's so valuable, especially if someone finds themselves stuck in these patterns and just putting a new face on another partner or love interest and you're like, "Wow, it's the same exact thing with a different person." That's a really good pattern interrupter.

[01:23:41] Stefanos: I think also, what we're doing is we are physiologically having a pattern interrupt as well. Meaning that we are not firing those dopamine centers with this constant pursuit and this constant sense of anticipation. Because you know dopamine's very anticipatory.

[01:24:02] So we're not spiking dopamine so much because we're not looking for those pleasure hits. And so what does that do? That changes our biochemistry as well. It changes the way we think about the world around us. We have a very more expanded view. That's a healthy thing. We're not in internal addiction cycles either. We're not wearing our physiology out.

[01:24:22] Luke: Right, right. Good point. Yeah. And that also helps with the discernment

[01:24:28] Stefanos: Massively. Because we are thinking clearer. Yeah, yeah.

[01:24:32] Luke: Let's talk about boundaries, this being one of my more recent pieces of personal development and education of like, wow, I really need to work on this. What are some of the things that happen throughout our childhood and early life that contribute to having maybe in some cases too rigid of boundaries where no one can get through to us and it blocks intimacy and then putting ourself in unsafe situations because we don't have any at all?

[01:25:00] Stefanos: Yeah. Most people pleasers as adults lack boundaries. It's an obvious statement or observation, but it's good to just bring that to the forefront. And therefore they don't advocate for themselves. And when you don't advocate for yourself, again, I don't want to say everything comes back to low self-worth or low self-esteem, but it is very foundational in the way that we behave in the world.

[01:25:23] So if we have over heightened self-worth or self-esteem, we can display narcissistic tendencies. And if we have very low self-worth and low self-esteem, we become very passive. We lose ourselves in relationship, hyper codependent, to the point where we maximize the needs of others and minimize ourselves. So if we trace that back and we look at, okay, where are we sometimes too rigid in boundaries?

[01:25:47] Well, sometimes when we have been invaded upon is sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, intense, sharp experiences that are registered in the nervous system as such. We may be hyper protective as adults, not let anyone in at all. That can be very challenging because people want to feel close to each other.

[01:26:11] We're relational beings. We want to be seen. We want to be heard. We want to be accepted, appreciated, respected, all those wonderful things. That's fundamental to being human, whether we sort of know it or aware of it or not. And so when we have really rigid boundaries because we're scared we're going to be hurt again or invaded upon, we've given our power away. We've lost our power. It's been taken from us.

[01:26:34] Being bullied, being lost in a sea of siblings, that can be really hard because you're not noticed and you're not seen. That can cause us adults to have no boundaries. Because now it's like, well, I want to be seen. I just want to be seen and heard. Well, let me just put myself out there. Let me be hypersexual, as an example.

[01:26:57] Let me be hyper flirtatious. Let me be promiscuous. That can be for women and men. Because you don't have boundaries because you really wanted attention and you want it to be seen and you want it to matter. And so you didn't. And the way that you know how to is by making everybody else happy, or just giving your power away, giving yourself away so you can lack boundaries. There are a couple of examples of where those boundaries as adults play out. I'll pause there. I can see [Inaudible].

[01:27:26] Luke: No, no, it's great. I think that this type of information is so valuable and so helpful. The people pleasing would definitely be my predominant archetype, of just wanting to make peace at all costs, even at my own detriment. I think that's really important.

[01:27:52] You alluded to a couple times, which I think is so core to everything we're talking about, and that is issues around self-worth and self-esteem and self-love, and the antithesis of that being shame.

[01:28:09] Stefanos: Self-hate, self-loathing, shame.

[01:28:10] Luke: Yeah. I've recently been looking at that. Had an experience a couple of weeks ago where I really took a look at that, and it also has to do with boundaries. But what I was seeing was there were experiences in my childhood where other people's shit was put into me, other people's shame, loneliness, disconnection, etc.

[01:28:36] And because I was too young, as you said, between one and seven, essentially too young to know it wasn't mine, it just got like imprinted in me. And it's so deeply subconscious, so hidden that I think a lot of the issues I've had in life have been really rooted in that.

[01:28:54] So I was looking at that recently and was shocked that even at this point in my life that sometimes my standards for myself and for people with whom I interact in business, personal, etc., my standards are so low. I was seeing situations just where I've allowed someone to be in my life that was just not up to par in terms of their integrity and things like that.

[01:29:19] And I was tracing this all back to just way deeply hidden pockets of shame that aren't even accessible to the conscious mind, but just that there's something that I'm so flawed and undeserving of higher standards.

[01:29:36] So it's been a really interesting journey to go back in there and start to really learn how to appreciate and love myself on a deeper level and to surrender any of those shame artifacts. And what I found even just in a couple weeks of just focusing on this, is seeing how low my standards have been in some cases instantaneously raises my standards.

[01:30:03] It's like I've fired a couple of people already. I'm just like, "What? What are we doing here?" No. How was I ever putting up with this level of just incompetence or lack of integrity? It's like shocking to me at this point. And then there's the shame part that comes in is like, dude--

[01:30:19] Stefanos: Feeling shame for--

[01:30:20] Luke: Yeah. It's like, you loser. You should know better than this or you should be more involved than this. And it's like, okay, thank you for sharing. I'm just going to go back to improving and working on myself. But I see this as just self-love, as something that is so fundamental that almost so many of the things we've talked about or so many of the things we work with and different kinds of modalities and psychedelics and like-- there's so many ways you can improve yourself in your life and your spiritual growth.

[01:30:47] But without that core anchor of self-love, I feel a lot of it is futile. I don't think you can get that far without really looking at that piece. So what's been your experience of self-love and some tools you've used to help yourself access that?

[01:31:06] Because that's going to reflect in all the boundaries and every decision we make is going to be based on what we think we're worthy of. And if we, even on a deep subconscious level, don't feel we're worthy, we'll settle for bullshit. That's been my experience.

[01:31:21] Stefanos: Yeah. No matter how much someone tells us we are enough, we won't believe it until we're ready to. And I apologize in advance if that sounds redundant. And the paradox is that we simultaneously need others, and I really mean that word need. I don't mean in a codependent way though, but from a perspective of nature, we're relational beings.

[01:31:44] We need others to reflect it back to us our greatness and our goodness. Let me share a story with you around self-worth, self-love, self-loathing, self-hate. Very recently, last week, my daughter was having a bit of an experience with her mama, and she wanted like eight or nine knots in her hair for something.

[01:32:03] And mum's like, "Okay, I can't get any more knots in. So many that you have in." And she just lost her mind. She was crying, and I heard her crying. She went into the corner of the toilet and she just was standing there crying.

[01:32:15] I said, "Baby, what's wrong?" We were having a pretty hard morning that morning, and just behaviorally, she was being just tough. She was intense. I said, "What's wrong, Bubble?" And she was telling me, but she was being really defiant and resilient and resistant, I should say.

[01:32:32] It was tough. She hadn't slept that night, so a little sleep deprived. And in my mind in that moment, I felt like shaking her, physically shaking her and just saying, "Stop." And screaming at her.

[01:32:45] I had that thought for a split second. I didn't do that. I stayed calm. I was very regulated. And after about, not even 60 seconds, she put her arms out and I picked her up and I calmed her down. I brought her to mama and we did it, and she calmed.

[01:33:04] For hours after, do you know what my thought was? What a piece of shit I am that I had that thought that I wanted to physically shake her? My dad did that to me and worse. He'd hit me. He'd smashed my face in whatever, in the wall, if I was crying or upset.

[01:33:22] And I berated myself. This was at eight o'clock in the morning. That morning at 10:30, 11 o'clock, I was speaking with my teacher, my coach. I shared with him that story and he said, "Stef, is it an interesting that what you chose to focus on was that when you in that moment broke a generational pattern--" And I said, "Yeah, man. Me hating myself, runs really deep. The self-loathing runs really deep."

[01:33:55] And he helped me in a relational way access some self-love. And I was like, oh, "I'm really proud of myself actually. I stayed really calm." And yeah, I had that thought and I didn't act on it and I didn't let it control me. And I would never want to hurt my daughter in that way, especially how I was hurt.

[01:34:14] And I actually took a very different action, but I didn't focus on that. That's how deep this shit runs, man. So we need people in our lives to help us with our shame, to help us contextualize it, to be witnessed in it and not judged or made wrong for it, because that helps shift the shame, because shame loves to hide.

[01:34:33] So if I didn't share that story with him, I wouldn't have that reflection back. I shared it with Christine as well, and she reflected back to me real kindness. But even if they didn't, even if they said, "You know what? You're a piece of shit, Stef. You shouldn't have done that". Whatever.

[01:34:43] Maybe I'm choosing the wrong people to share with, but even then it's an opportunity to say, "You know what? Actually, I'm not a piece of shit because I didn't--" There's always an opportunity. There's always an invitation.

[01:34:52] But my bigger point is that sharing our shame with the things that we believe we're ashamed of in a relational context with people that can meet us is what helps us diffuse the shame and minimizes the shame spiraling, which lends itself to more reactivity and more patterns that we don't want to play out in our adult lives. And then all of a sudden we wake up and we're 75 years old, 95 years old, and we're still doing the same shit.

[01:35:16] Luke: Huge. So I know you really love your wife, Christine, as many people do. Probably not as much as you do. I want to know if you share this experience. It's like a tool that I've been using to this end around self-love.

[01:35:33] And when you look at her, your daughter, I can imagine to the same degree, in all of her imperfections and humanness, I'm assuming you just see her as absolutely perfect and completely lovable and that there's nothing she could do. That would make her less deserving of that love. Is that fair to say?

[01:35:56] Stefanos: Most of the time. Not all of the time.

[01:35:57] Luke: Okay. But I mean at a higher level.

[01:36:00] Stefanos: Oh, 100%, at a high level. When I'm in my heart, man, 100%. It's about me getting in my heart more, me getting to self-love more. That's my shtick, crux, whatever. That's one of my pain points. But when I do, yes, yes.

[01:36:16] Luke: So what I'm getting at here, because that's how I see Alyson, yeah, I'm sure in day-to-day times, that's more or less. But on a high level, on a meta level, it's like there's literally nothing she could do that isn't perfect. It's truly unconditional love.

[01:36:33] There's no rules. It's just full blast love. And I've looked at this, trying to just unpack this self-love thing and just get a bit of a practice around it or a grip on it. I trust and know that she views me the same way.

[01:36:51] Stefanos: You ever asked her?

[01:36:53] Luke: Yeah, I have. Yeah. It's shocking to me that it's so exceedingly difficult for me to see myself with that same level of love.

[01:37:04] Stefanos: Because you've been living with yourself for a long time.

[01:37:06] Luke: It's crazy.

[01:37:07] Stefanos: You've been leaving with the imprints that others placed upon you. One of our, I think our pathways, if you like, is to discern whose voice is that that's telling me I'm a piece of shit? or whose voice is that is telling me that I'm not enough? Is it really my voice or is that my dad?

[01:37:25] And maybe it is my voice, but is it an old interpretation that didn't know better that made it mean that. But that's not what really was happening for him. But I made that assumption. That's the self-work. That's the self-examination, self-exploration. I can't remember the philosopher's name. It's a Greek philosopher. I can't remember his name.

[01:37:43] One of the things he said 2000-something years ago was, spend a few minutes at the end of every day reflecting on your day. How'd you show up? What did you do? How did you behave? What did you think? Were you happy with the way you lived your life? Was it in accordance with your highest values?

[01:38:01] Just give some reflection to who you are and what you do. And the more we do that, the more we're in that practice, the more we start to discern. Because we start going down rabbit holes, not necessarily "bad" ones or ones that just get us lost, but aspects of our own psyche that we just wouldn't touch if we don't contemplate. We don't have a practice of just observing self.

[01:38:21] And I think that that's very meaningful. And then we can say, "That voice isn't mine." I'll share with you just briefly, a client of mine, we were in a process three days ago? Four days ago. And she came to this place where like-- oh, the words pathetic. I feel pathetic. I'm pathetic.

[01:38:41] And of course, l reflected back to her, "My dear, you are not pathetic. And this is interesting. Let's explore where this is coming up." It took her a couple of days, but she went deeper into this. And she said, "Stef, I spoke to my brother. I rang him and I said, 'Did anyone ever call us pathetic? Did dad, mom call--'" Whatever.

[01:39:00] And he's like, "No, no, no. I don't remember that specifically." And so she put it down. He rings her back and he says, "Yeah, our eldest sister did that. She used to call us pathetic all the time." And so it landed for her. And so the aversion she was having with this word, that wasn't her. That was her sister imprinting that upon her when they were young.

[01:39:23] This isn't about blaming her sister, but my point is her level of discernment and exploration got her to a place where she can now work with that in a more tangible way and move that out of her nervous system. That's not her story. That's her sister's projections. And her sister was young as well. She's not wrong. It's not about that. But do you get my point.

[01:39:41] Luke: Yeah, yeah.

[01:39:42] Stefanos: Powerful, man. That shit's healing.

[01:39:45] Luke: Yeah. 100%.

[01:39:47] Stefanos: Liberating, liberating.

[01:39:48] Luke: Yeah. Around that idea of how other people can see us with unconditional love and in a way that is sometimes difficult for us, one of the things I do to help me embody that is I'll actually, in my imagination, transpose my awareness of myself through Alyson or through my dad.

[01:40:11] I was doing that the other night, just a really special moment we shared where he was looking at me with such pride and joy, and he was just, the fact that I existed was all that was required for that love. And I remember this particular moment and I was trying to-- we were on a canoe and I was trying to put myself in his eyes and look at myself. And just, what did he see?

[01:40:35] And how can I see myself like that? And it's interesting that it's that difficult. You know what I mean? It is a rude awakening. A, it's difficult to picture yourself. I don't know what I look like unless I see a picture or look in the mirror or something. So that was part of the block.

[01:40:51] But it was like, it wasn't even about the visual. It was more about, wow, imagine living a life where I really felt that way about myself predominantly. It's a great goal. It's a great benchmark. And also unnerving to see that that's not already in place. It's like, wow. God, man. Really went through a lot of shit in life and harmed myself in so many ways and was harmed by other people. That that's even so difficult.

[01:41:17] Why is that even a question? I think it's difficult sometimes for us to just see ourselves as other people see us, in the way that other people value us. I'm sure some people sitting where you're sitting think, "Wow, Luke, what a really great guy. That was an excellent conversation."

[01:41:33] Or people listening to this are watching this, it's like, what's it like for them to see me for who I am? It's a potent practice. Back to going into a bit of the shame, I know when you were a kid, which is hard to imagine because you're such a unit now as an adult, a big fit guy, but you were overweight when you were a kid and you were bullied and things like that, which is hard to imagine.

[01:42:00] What did that do in terms of your relationship to shame, and how have you worked to overcome that apart from just becoming an adult and being fit and taking care of yourself?

[01:42:10] Stefanos: Yeah. So a couple of things I want to say to some of the things that you just shared around harm. It's interesting because I think part of self-harm is associated with self-loathing, self-hate, self-dislike, low self-worth. But if all you knew was harm and being harmed, then why wouldn't you harm yourself? Because it's just familiar.

[01:42:30] You, myself, so many others, it's all we think we know. That's why we need people, man. I was going to actually ask you-- I don't do this often enough, and I think I'm going to practice it a little more. It involves being vulnerable, but it also involves us really dancing with this edge of our own narcissistic ego and personality.

[01:42:49] Going to Alyson and say, "Hey, Alyson, would you just reflect back to me all the things you really love about me? What's good about me?” And put a timer on. Three minutes. Go.

[01:43:00] Luke: Wow.

[01:43:01] Stefanos: Imagine that.

[01:43:02] Luke: That's a great idea. I'm going to do that.

[01:43:04] Stefanos: I'm going to do it as well.

[01:43:06] Luke: That's a great idea.

[01:43:07] Stefanos: I've done it before, but I don't do it enough. Actually, I'm going to ask Christine, I'm going to instigate a bit of a practice and let's see how that helps us even bond and get closer.

[01:43:17] Luke: Yeah. That's beautiful.

[01:43:17] Stefanos: That's an interesting dance. I think actually what it does is it fucks with the codependency piece. Like, "Oh, I shouldn't be asking that. I'm just relying on what she--" No, you're actually not. Maybe, but if you are, you get to work with that. But what if you can actually surrender to what you spoke to earlier around just really being in that unconditional love and receiving that?

[01:43:39] Luke: I dig it.

[01:43:40] Stefanos: Yeah.

[01:43:40] Luke: I dig it.

[01:43:41] Stefanos: I dig it too.

[01:43:42] Luke: We got to patent that shit.

[01:43:43] Stefanos: Yeah.

[01:43:44] Luke: That's a great practice.

[01:43:45] Stefanos: I think we should. Let's do it.

[01:43:46] Luke: That's a great practice. And it goes without saying that one would want to approach that of a place of non-attachment. You don't want the ego to be able to grab that and be like, "Yeah, I'm the shit."

[01:43:58] Stefanos: But what if it does? Great. You get to work with that part of you in an objective, non-judgmental way. That's the practice. Because it will come up, I'm sure.

[01:44:06] Luke: Yeah. And also the awareness to not let that blind you to the things that you still need to work on.

[01:44:12] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah. And maybe not that practice in that moment, and we're just riffing here. This is on the fly, but part of that is, "Hey, and tell me the areas where I can improve."

[01:44:21] Luke: Mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[01:44:22] Stefanos: Let me be humble to that as well, or really open. And can you apply as much love of self to that feedback as you can to all the goodness? That's power.

[01:44:33] Luke: That's beautiful.

[01:44:35] Stefanos: Back to your--

[01:44:35] Luke: Thank you for sharing that.

[01:44:36] Stefanos: Yeah, of course.

[01:44:37] Luke: I'm seriously going to do that.

[01:44:38] Stefanos: Yeah. Likewise.

[01:44:39] Luke: I think those things happen, but it's more like--

[01:44:42] Stefanos: But more deliberate.

[01:44:43] Luke: Yeah. It's spontaneous. Alyson writes me really beautiful cards for my birthday or holidays and things like that, and I save them. I read these cards, I just start bawling because those are the types of things she shares with me. But I think sometimes in our daily lives, yeah, we don't have necessarily that on automation. It's like special occasions or a moment of depth or intimacy brings that about. But it's not like, "Hey, let's sit down for five minutes and do this thing."

[01:45:11] Stefanos: Every breath of life is important.

[01:45:14] Luke: That's epic. That's epic. So back to back to the body. And also just framing this around, I think a lot of it is rooted in our misidentification with the body as being who we are in that self-judgment. It's like thinking you're your car. That's how I think of the body, as like a vehicle.

[01:45:37] So it's like, if my whole self-worth was attached to my car, I'm going to have problems in the same way that if my self-worth and self-love is attached to the way I think my body should look or perform.

[01:45:49] Stefanos: So yes, I was quite overweight, quite chubby, overweight, really, very self-conscious, bullied a fair amount.

[01:46:00] Luke: I don't think I was classically bullied. I got picked on a little, but not like beat up by five kids in the alley. Your experience of bullying was like physical abuse and like torture.

[01:46:14] Stefanos: Emotionally. Torture, I don't know. I don't know about torture.

[01:46:17] Luke: Torture might be a strong word.

[01:46:19] Stefanos: It was emotionally torturing.

[01:46:20] Luke: I mean, yeah, physically assaulted.

[01:46:22] Stefanos: Oh yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

[01:46:24] Luke: Oh, man.

[01:46:24] Stefanos: A few times, not a lot. Again, it's all relative. But yes, a few times. Yeah, caught quite a few times. In primary school and a little bit in high school as well. Probably less in high school. No, sorry, I should say more in high school. A little less in primary school, but a little bit in primary. We had a very small primary school, so it was less in primary school, like two or three in incidents, but in high school, a lot more. Yeah. And then it stopped, obviously.

[01:46:52] Luke: Thank you for clarifying.

[01:46:54] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:46:55] Luke: I think that we sometimes discount how harmful that is. Even the few times I got picked on and things like that, it was--

[01:47:04] Stefanos: So harmful to our self-esteem.

[01:47:06] Luke: It's terrifying.

[01:47:07] Stefanos: Ruptures us, man.

[01:47:07] Luke: I think what I was saying, the terrorizing part, it is terrifying when you're a kid and you know there's some kid waiting to kick your ass after school. That is so scary. I had a couple of those situations and you feel like you're going to die. it's literally terrifying.

[01:47:27] Stefanos: Definitely. Deeply scary, deeply scary. And not knowing what to do and not really feeling I could talk to anyone about it, mom or dad. Because I didn't feel that they could hold that and I didn't-- my dad would just probably blame me. That was my story at least. Or he'd get angry at me and upset at me and be hard on me for that.

[01:47:51] And I just felt very alone in that experience. Very alone and very isolated. And that also shaped-- 12 steps, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. So I got to that point where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired or sick and tired of copying this and being treated this way.

[01:48:12] And that's where I started to get angry. I started finding that fire and started fighting back, started being proactively aggressive. And underneath that though was still terror and fear, but I pushed through it and moved through it. So there's a parts of me that still live wanting to hide and also wanting to terrorize other people because I was terrorized.

[01:48:36] That's where the aggressiveness comes from, with all the stuff that happened in my home. But then the shame piece, because your original question was around body and shame and so forth, I heard Dr. John deMartini-- have you ever had John deMartini on your show? Do you know who he is?

[01:48:49] Luke: Not familiar. No.

[01:48:50] Stefanos: Oh, you don't know who he is. Man, he's old-school personal development. He's probably near maybe 70, maybe 71, whatever he is. But he's old-school in terms of Tony Robbins, or even maybe he was around before then. He's been around for a long time.

[01:49:06] Anyway, his thing is a study of axiology, values, and he's a bit of a savant. Anyway, super smart guy, and I've done a number of his workshops. I remember one thing he said. He said, "Our greatest voids often become our greatest values," which I sit with very interestingly.

[01:49:26] So the things that we lacked growing up essentially, or that we really wanted and yearned for often become the things that are most important to us growing up. And so for me, I lacked having a great connection to my body. I was ashamed of my body. I was very embarrassed.

[01:49:53] And so it became a priority for me as I got older. I started losing weight at like six. I did something called the milk run. It was a job. Literally back then-- I'm 43, so don't know, whatever, 20 years ago or close to, or more than 20 years ago, I would be jumping off the back of a truck delivering milk, milk and orange juice and eggs to houses.

[01:50:02] Luke: Really?

[01:50:03] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:50:03] Luke: That sounds like it would've been in the 1920s or something.

[01:50:05] Stefanos: I know, man. I was doing it 20-something years ago.

[01:50:07] Luke: Yeah, it's funny.

[01:50:09] Stefanos: He was making great money. The guy that was-- what was his name? I'm trying to remember his name now. Anyway, it will come to me. But I started losing weight. I thought, oh, okay, I feel a little bit better. So then I started going to the gym and then I became obsessed.

[01:50:24] I thought, well, I can make my body strong. I can hide my shame. But the shame still lived there. And even today, man. Even the shame still lives in me today, where, oh, I want to be leaner. I'm not lean enough. I'm carrying little excess body fat. I don't like that.

[01:50:39] Now, over the years, I've made that mean less than what it means, meaning I don't berate myself for it, and I come back into deeper self-love faster. But there's still parts that feel shame about the way that I look even. And I think it's an ongoing relationship and shifting that.

[01:50:59] And wherever the shame we hide-- so I still catch myself hiding in some places because it's not just in the body. It translates to other areas as well. So for me, my work, or part of my work and my responsibility to myself and those that I care for is to notice where I'm hiding and go beneath, below, and beyond my shame.

[01:51:17] Again, something my teacher shares-- beneath, below, and beyond my shame. And when I do, man, I'm able to be less reactive in conversations. I'm able to be objective and look at that thing, look at my body as an object, but not make it mean anything good or bad, or judge it. If anything, just look at it as a thing of beauty or just a thing that is serving me.

[01:51:40] And I can also be more frank and more honest and more open in relationship and communication, because I'm not living from shame. I'm not trying to hide. But I notice the places where I still hide it. Sometimes it starts in my body. I'd like, less fat around here, or less fat here.

[01:51:56] But then I'm also not necessarily willing to engage in-- because I'm a foodie. I love food. Engage in a nutrition plan that would grant me that, or whatever it is. And then I spiral into, "Oh, I'm just being undisciplined." And then I'm shaming myself for not being disciplined.

[01:52:11] But then I say, "I'm disciplined in these areas in my life." And I go into these stories and stories and stories. So I've just got to notice that, slow down, be with the parts that are coming up, work with it in real time. Make some decisive choices around where I want to go, commit to it, and live in self-compassion. Now, it's a little easier said than done, but it's still a beautiful practice and it's worth pursuing.

[01:52:35] Luke: You just reminded me of something that happened this morning. I was in the backyard. We got some sun today in December, which is beautiful. Anytime there's sun, I'm out in the backyard naked and I'm sitting in a chair. And I lost a bit of weight like last year or something and was feeling a little better about myself in that regard.

[01:52:54] And I looked down this morning. I was like, "Cool. I'm in my first trimester again. How did that even happen?" And then I start thinking, "Oh my God, the amount of work." I got to cut out ice cream at 10:00 PM, just like doing cardio or whatever. I don't even know how you lose weight exactly.

[01:53:09] But I just had the realization, I was like, "You know what, man? I'm 55. I'm married. It is what it is." When am I going to stop fighting myself about this? Like, if I really cared, I would do something about it. But I don't care enough. But it's still that little seed of shame that's like, "Oh, definitely you do not want to be on Instagram without your shirt on." You know what I mean? That kind of thing.

[01:53:34] Stefanos: Yeah. I think about that too sometimes.

[01:53:37] Luke: It's like something I want to hide. I don't want people to see. And I was looking at that like, what is up with that? Who cares?

[01:53:45] Stefanos: You care.

[01:53:46] Luke: Yeah.

[01:53:46] Stefanos: We care too much. That's the fucking problem. Most people don't give a shit about what you look like. In fact, the vast majority don't. Same with me. People don't care about what I look like. It's me that cares so much. It's my story. Whatever those stories are, we've got to get out of our own way, out of our own egos.

[01:54:05] Luke: Dude, and also, not only do other people not care, but they're all thinking about their fat thighs or their gut, or their receding hairline, which is another one for me.

[01:54:15] Stefanos: Likewise.

[01:54:16] Luke: You know what I mean? It's like other people are thinking about how they're being perceived and judged. They don't even have the bandwidth to judge you. And furthermore, if someone didn't want to be my friend or do business with me or whatever because I have a fat stomach, that's not someone I would want to engage with anyway.

[01:54:35] I don't care what someone's body looks like. Literally, I give zero shits. It has no impact on how much I value someone or how much I'm going to contribute to our relationship. I don't judge people for that. So I want to be around people like me that don't judge people for something external and so superficial and meaningless.

[01:54:54] Stefanos: And you judge yourself for it.

[01:54:55] Luke: Yeah, exactly. But it's just one of those things that has no basis in reality, yet it can still weigh so heavy on so many of us.

[01:55:04] Stefanos: It is so sad, man, the way we see ourselves. It's really painful. Maybe you've heard this saying, if you could only see yourself like I see you. You ever heard it?

[01:55:18] Luke: Yeah.

[01:55:18] Stefanos: Yeah. Maybe movies even. And it's such a true statement.

[01:55:23] Luke: That's what I was getting at earlier.

[01:55:24] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:55:25] Luke: Is like I'm able to see people in their perfection of just everything about them. It's like, why is it so hard to look in the mirror and have that same experience? Again, not from a position of superiority, but just an actual realistic self-appraisal of one's own value. Which is, of course, inclusive of the things that you're still working on in your shortcomings and things.

[01:55:51] Stefanos: That. That's the thing, what you just said then. When you say like, "Why can't we embrace that?" Why can I see others in their magnificence yet I cannot see myself? To me, the exploration or the answer lies in the fragmented embrace that we have of ourselves.

[01:56:15] We often only want to show the world the convenient, lovely parts of ourselves, and we shun the parts of ourselves that we do not like, the parts of ourselves that we think are ugly. And so we fracture and fragment ourselves internally. So when we embrace ourselves in a whole way, and I've had many moments of this with myself, but it's not continuous, I just naturally judge less.

[01:56:41] I love more myself, others, all of it. And I allow more love in. Which then magnifies the self-love. But then life happens and I revert back to old, conditioned stories or wounds or personality or survival, and we start the process again.

[01:57:00] Luke: Yeah. Wow. Something I've observed about shame too is when I identify patterns of behavior that reinforce shame, if they're left unobserved and uninterrupted, they're self-perpetuating. It's like an energy that just keeps refueling. And when I've been able to identify things that I do that cause even the slightest amount of shame, it seems that the pull toward them diminishes.

[01:57:40] Say I'm trying to discipline myself to not do something that I feel shameful about. It's like the more I can go deeply into that shame and see that there's almost an addiction to that behavior, it's like a self-reinforcing kind of shame. And just seeing it objectively and observing that pattern has an uncanny way of disengaging me from that behavior where it's not even something that I had to quit.

[01:58:09] It took no discipline or really any effort. It's just like, "Oh God, I don't want to feel that way." But I would keep doing that for decades if I never identified, ah, when I do that thing, it reinforces that feeling. Do you think there's an addictive nature to shame that we're largely unaware of?

[01:58:27] Stefanos: Yes. Let me go in that in a second. And two things. The truth shall set you free and shame lives in the shadows. So when you bring shame to the light, you are acting in truth. Shame can't live in the light. Shame can't live in the openness. So it begins to dissipate. It will fight, but it will begin to dissipate.

[01:58:47] It will fight to be in the shadows and be insidious in that way, but it will begin to dissipate. That's the light. That's the truth. Is shame a self-fulfilling prophecy? Yes. Is it a means to control and get stuck in the ego and the personality? Yes. It's a way to keep us from ourselves.

[01:59:08] It's a way to keep us from our humanness. It's a way to judge us and make us wrong so we're perpetually in that. So we're perpetually in survival and protection. because that's the role of the personality and the ego, is to protect what's familiar. And so shame and being shameful about being in shame is going to keep you in the grounds of the personality.

[01:59:30] So when we recognize that and we apply a consciousness of no problem, oh, that's shame doing its thing again. And we smile at that and we love that part of ourselves. Compassion. We dissipate that part. It changes. It shifts. That's very helpful. That's us bringing shame into the light. and not wanting to hide it, not making it wrong.

[01:59:49] That's a very empowering act. Remember, most trauma is disempowering. Power given away. power lost, power taken. When we act in an empowered way, we're also healing unprocessed trauma, neurologically, physiologically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually.
[02:00:05] Luke: That speaks to something you mentioned earlier about having someone with whom you can be completely transparent and talk about those shameful things that are trying to stay embedded in the shadows. That makes a lot of sense because it's like feelings or thoughts we have around shame are actually not true.

[02:00:25] They're falsehoods. But every falsehood has the capacity to remain active until it's opposite. The antithesis of that being true. So it's like by sharing something with you, they're like, "Oh my God. I can't believe I'm telling this." I did this the other day with someone actually, and I was like, "The thing that I don't want to admit to right now, I know what it is because it's trying to protect itself, and I just came out and said it." And it's like I noticed--

[02:00:58] Stefanos: Ease after you said it.

[02:01:00] Luke: Yeah. And also it just let all the air out of it. It was just like, oh, that? There came an instantaneous self-acceptance and almost like a humor. And it's like, yeah, dude, you're a human being. It's like, relax. You know what I mean?

[02:01:14] Stefanos: That's the power of relationship.

[02:01:15] Luke: Because the things we hang onto that we-- I'll say I. I am assuming some people listening also do, but it's like those little pockets of shame, it's like they get empowered with our energy the more we sort of covet them and hang on to them. And they become a inappropriately and unrealistically bigger in our life than they deserve to be or need to be. You know what I mean? And it's like letting the air out of a balloon just telling someone. I think that's probably one of the main--

[02:01:47] Stefanos: It's being witnessed with non-judgment.

[02:01:48] Luke: Maybe one of the, I don't want to say only, but in my experience, probably the only real value in talk therapy, is just having an objective, non-judgmental human being to be able to hold space for all of the shit that I don't want anyone to know.

[02:02:03] It's like confession in religion, the principle of just telling your secrets and allowing them to come to light. And in doing so you see it's a phantom, it's a ghost. It's not even fucking real. It's not true the things that we're holding. It's not true. Therefore, exposing it exposes the fact that it's not true and it makes it easier to not believe in it.

[02:01:26] Stefanos: Yes.

[02:02:26] Luke: It's amazing. On that note, in terms of relationship we want, with our partners, we obviously want to be seen and have a depth of intimacy. As a man in a relationship with a female, do you think there are times where it's more or less appropriate to be completely transparent about every single thing going on in our psyche and subconscious?

[02:02:56] Stefanos: I do. I do. Yeah. In the realm of masculine feminine dynamics, in the. realm of honoring our partner's needs and nervous system, just because I'm having big feelings about something or I need to process something, my partner may not be able to process that. She may be going through a really difficult unresourced time herself, and just because I want to express or I want to share a load with her, an emotional load, that may not be appropriate.

[02:03:25] Again, depending on what vantage point you take, but for me, I have three ports of core. Or I'll say it this way, if I'm going through something big within myself, the first port of core is I want to go within. I want to sit with that. I want to feel it. I want to be with it.

[02:03:43] I don't want to necessarily make it sound logical or rationalize. I want to experience it in a deeper way with greater intentionality. If for whatever reason it doesn't settle and feels very unresolved, I would want to actually take that to men in my life that I trust, respect, and revere that can hold that and reflect back to me, challenge me in healthy ways, but hold me in the ways that I need to.

[02:04:05] That's the power of being surrounded by men and being in a men's group as an example. Then if I'm going to bring it to my partner, I can be vulnerable, I can be real, I can be all the things, but I want to ask, not so much for permission, but I want to know that she's able and willing and wanting to hold that.

[02:04:25] Because me just dumping it or vomiting on her is not really fair. So I want to go to her and just tangibly, I want to say, hey, I've got some big stuff I'm feeling. Here's somewhat what it's in relation to. Do you feel you can hold that, something you're willing to do? And here's what I want.

[02:04:41] My request is that you just hear me, or my request is that you hold me, or my request is that you give me guidance or whatever. And then having that agreement prior to, like how you guys bring big stuff to each other and having agreements around that in the relationship proactively is very helpful as well.

[02:04:57] So there's not a, "Hey, I've got big feelings, bang, I've got to bring to my partner." I want to really be with that. I want to learn about myself. And it's okay by the way. Sometimes there will be times where you just in a very raw, unscripted, spontaneous way, bring stuff. That will happen.

[02:05:14] Luke: And if I'm really conscious and aware, I want to go within myself. I'm want to bring that to my men. I want to be mindful of her experience as well. Very important. Especially as the feminine pole in our relationship, I want to be mindful of what her inner experience is.

[02:05:28] Luke: Yeah, that makes sense. Sometimes I find it useful just thinking in terms of just weight I'm carrying, finances, just the house, the responsibilities, just being concerned about money, that thing, business decisions and so on. Intuitively, I don't know if I heard this somewhere or just started doing it, I find it more productive if I'm able to go, say, to a men's group or go to a friend like you and just diffuse the charge of the stress.

[02:06:04] Maybe the lack of clarity or the fear I'm having around it and start to arrive at least at the starting point of a solution. I know what I'm going to do about the thing before I bring it to my wife. And I think I've arrived at that because it has to do with the polarity thing.

[02:06:23] I don't want to put the stress on her of having to take the masculine role in the relationship and "fix" the problems or keep the boat afloat. But I also don't want to withhold from her my inner experience and have her wonder like, what the hell's wrong with him lately? And I'm just swimming in all these unresolved challenges. Does that align with what you're saying?

[02:06:44] Stefanos: Yes, very much so. That was part of what I was referring to her being the feminine pole and her holding and not holding and so forth. And there's something I have labeled vertical vulnerability, meaning that you can be vulnerable with your partner, but not vomit on her as the man.

[02:07:01] You can be honest with, "Hey, these are some of the things I'm experiencing," but you are expressing from a very stable place. And you may say, "Hey, this is what I'm experiencing internally. This is how I'm working through it. I want you to know that I'm with this and I'm feeling and moving through it, and I will come to you soon when I feel ready to do so." Or whatever. I'm just giving as an example.

[02:07:25] But just letting her know, "Hey, this is my inner experience." That can be enough. You're letting her into your world, but you're not necessarily just being reactive all over her. Or, again, I use the term vomiting. Vomiting your emotions all over her, which then forces her to be in that containment, [Inaudible].

[02:07:40] Now she has to be the container, which is a very masculine, energetic, which is-- look, sometimes that's going to happen, but if you're constantly doing that, that can be problematic in your relationship in terms of depolarizing the relationship. That can cause further intimacy issues, connection issues.

[02:07:56] It can cause resentments if you don't know how to communicate effectively. It can cause feeling unsafe emotionally and relationally. It hinders you from relational contact. You drift. And then all of a sudden you're edgy and you guys aren't turned on. There's very little passion.

[02:08:11] There's a cascade of effects that come from that. So being responsible for your own stuff and knowing where to take that in the context of your own life is very helpful. And how to take that.

[02:08:21] Luke: Yeah. That's really valuable. It seems to me in the times that I've been exploring this is, it's like if I were to go to her with a bunch of big life problems, thinking just more in terms of finance and business and things like that, not so much like my dad died-- sometimes I just fall apart and she's there for me in that way, and it's totally spontaneous.

[02:08:45] I'm not going to be like, "Oh, I need to go to my men's group and feel these feelings of grief." It's like I wake up in the morning, I'm crying, and she's like, "Oh, I got you." So it's not that, but it's just more about the stresses of just being, I don't know, the anchor of the home and our life and all of that. It's like the times when I've prematurely gone to her with those kind of things--

[02:09:07] Stefanos: That's key premature.

[02:09:07] Luke: I can sense a lack of safety in her.

[02:09:11] Stefanos: You are leaky.

[02:09:12] Luke: Yeah. And then--

[02:09:14] Stefanos: You are uncensored. You're unconditioned. You haven't thought that through. You haven't been sincere in it. You're just leaky. You're codependent

[02:09:21] Luke: Ah, there you go. Full circle.

[02:09:23] Stefanos: In those moments.

[02:09:24] Luke: Full circle.

[02:09:25] Stefanos: Me too. I say you, but we.

[02:09:26] Luke: Totally. Yeah.

[02:09:27] Stefanos: Codependent in those moments, like, fix me. I'm going to blah, get leaky. Fix me.

[02:09:33] Luke: Yes.

[02:09:33] Stefanos: That's the thing that disrupts the polarity. That's this thing that disrupts safety and intimacy and connection. It's like, you need to fix me now. That action, if I'm just going to vomit everything, be leaky, please fix me. That's what's unattractive.

[02:09:48] Luke: Yeah, yeah. Fix me or else I need you to hold this because it's too much for me.

[02:09:53] Stefanos: Which means you're unwilling to look at the thing that's going on within you. You just want to pass it on. Well, that's not very safe.

[02:10:00] Luke: Yeah. And then there's that. It's like someone has to be steering the boat. So if I'm coming and saying, "I give up. This boat's too much for me."

[02:10:09] Stefanos: Just take over without even actually having a grounded discussion about it.

[02:10:12] Luke: Then her natural response is going to be get in her masculine, grab the steering wheel, and start leading the boat, which is not what she wants to do and not what I wanted to do. It's not the chosen dynamic of the relationship.

[02:10:24] Stefanos: Correct. And you are actually not incapacitated in that moment. You're just unable, unwilling to really ground yourself, and you have the capacity to do so.

[02:10:34] Luke: Yeah. Man, so many cool things I want to talk about with you and so many things you highlighted in your book, which again, I just have bullet notes on. And we've covered a lot of them, but one thing that you talk about that I don't hear that many people talk about, maybe because they haven't had the experience is around this issue of enmeshment between parent and child and the emotional incest piece.

[02:11:04] I don't know. I'm a guy so I only know it from my own experience, but I'm sure there's dads that have that too. But most of when I've seen that played out has been through mothers and their boys. So can you speak to that? It's going to be new information probably to a lot of people, but there are some telltale signs of how that plays out as an adult.

[02:11:25] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah. I've gone deep down this rabbit hole, man, and continue to do so. And I think the interesting thing is my dad was very overt in his abuse, and for many years it was very difficult, the relationship with my father. There was a lot of underlying anger there, and I truly feel in my heart that's very deeply reconciled.

[02:11:45] And the interesting thing is, is I started unpacking more of my life and my childhood. I realize this mother wound that I have, this enmeshment, entanglement. And even now, where I'm right now, the last two years I've spent a fair amount of time working on this mother wound.

[02:12:01] And I have before in previous stages of my life, like in my early 30s and even in my 20s. After having my daughter, it's another layer of that. And so I guess I'm in deeper process with my mother at the moment. Definitely some deeper healing has taken place, but it's still there, to be honest.

[02:12:20] So many boys experience this growing up. And some of the reasons why is because-- and I did a lot of specific work around this with one of my therapists, John Lee. He used to live in Texas. He's not here anymore. Older guy in his 70s, very well versed in this subject matter and a great human being.

[02:12:42] So many boys are impacted and afflicted by this mother wound. So their first example of-- and mother wound, by the way, it's not a formal diagnosis in any books or DSM? Are we up to now DSM 5? I think. The psychology book of conditions and so forth. It's not a formal condition. It's just an affliction or way to explain this pattern and relational dynamic between mother and son or between parent and child, I should say.

[02:13:24] It could be called parentification, enmeshment, entanglement, emotional incest. I know that sounds very heavy. It's not physical or sexual abuse or incest. In that case it's emotional entanglement.

[02:13:36] And so what it looks like essentially is the mother usually unconsciously projects all of her needs on her little boy, on her boy. Because she's not having her emotional and relational needs met by her husband, the father of the child.

[02:13:50] There are many cases where that may be the father's absent. They're divorced. She's still hurt. She has her own wound with the masculine. It can be part, I'm projecting all my needs on you, so you are my little man. You are my hero. A lot of pressure on that little boy. So he has to grow up very fast as an adult.

[02:14:07] Or it could also be I hate men, therefore I fucking hate you. It can be physical abuse as well, and emotional abuse too. That little boy's never going to be good enough. I'm giving you some examples. His first experience--

[02:15:18] Luke: No, this is great. This is great.

[02:14:20] Stefanos: Yeah. Of the feminine is pretty unsafe. She may be over mothering, overbearing, over nurturing, doesn't let him do anything, very rigid, wants to control him, have him close. Sleeps in the same bed until he's 13, 14, whatever it may be. Molly coddles him. Overprotects him. So he doesn't learn how to take risk. He doesn't become a man.

[02:14:41] He doesn't transition from boyhood to manhood. Or doesn't nurture him, doesn't hug him, doesn't tell him that he's worthy and that she loves him, doesn't show him that. Shows him harshness. All of this impacts how he then treats women, how he interacts with women as an adult.

[02:15:01] There are men that in their 20s and 30s will be married, will try and marry early. Not because they want to get married, but because they want to escape their mother. And will constantly seek approval. Like, mom, what do you think of this woman. Unconsciously or consciously? And then when the wife needs something, she's in constant competition with the mother. Another example, right?

[02:15:23] Luke: Yeah.

[02:15:24] Stefanos: This pattern's insidious, and it's a tough one. And so many men experienced this growing up and so many men carry this on into adulthood. And some men will hate their mother because she constrained them so much. So what do they do? They treat women in abusive ways. They hate women secretly.

[02:15:42] They develop fetishes around sex, hard sex. It has to be violent. Give me some more extreme examples here, right? Prostitution. They see women as objects. They can't settle down. Fear of commitment. The moment they get close and intimacy and vulnerability arises, they're like, "No, suffocation. I'm feeling engulfed. Sense of annihilation. Let me get the fuck out." That was part of my story.

[02:16:05] Luke: I relate.

[02:16:07] Stefanos: It's not spoken too much, man. And again, I'm not blaming mothers. I want to be really clear here. I'm not blaming mothers. I'm not blaming women. This isn't about blame or shame. Because part of what contributes to that is an absent father, emotionally and or physically. This is a societal issue.

[02:16:28] This is familial issue. Boys aren't taught how to be men. They're not transitioned. There's no formalized deliberate rite of passage. The mother struggles to let the boy go. So she holds on a little more. She keeps him really close. If the father is available and wants to really take that boy into manhood, doesn't allow him or is manipulative or whatever.

[02:16:55] Hurt people. Hurt people, man. We know that. And that's not an excuse. Nothing I say is excusing behavior. I'm just giving context and understanding. Because if we seek to understand each other, it matters. It's important. And if we then meet that understanding with compassion, we're able to break through and move through that.

[02:17:13] And so when men realize this and they realize how they've been behaving as adults, which is really keeping them away from intimacy, and they're realizing maybe they're attracting either similar women to their mothers, or they're attracting the exact opposite of their mothers, but they're pushing it away because it's so unfamiliar, and they start to really actively heal this wound, it changes their lives and it changes the lives of the women in their life as well, their sisters, their wives, their friends, their daughters.

[02:17:38] It's massive man. It's not unspoken to completely. It's just not acknowledged in the ways that it probably could be in our society. And I definitely want to bring more awareness to it. It's been my own personal experience. But man, I can't tell you how many men I've worked with-- high-level men. I tend to work with very high achievers, high performers, high net worth individuals, successful individuals that have this wound.

[02:18:04] And for most of them, it plays out very simply in two ways. They either push women away, so they're fully emotionally unavailable, or they treat them like shit. And the don't know why.

[02:18:15] Luke: Yeah.

[02:18:16] Stefanos: That's pretty much why.

[02:18:17] Luke: It's a really important issue. I suspect one of the reasons it's not something that's more readily known or identified is just because it has that word incest, emotional incest. You're just like, "Duh, I don't want to look at that or talk about that."

[02:18:35] So I'm glad you parsed it out on an emotional level. I think that word is obviously very problematic for people. But when you were talking about the competition between the mother and the girlfriend or wife or whatever, I haven't really experienced that myself, but my dad definitely had that where there was a point in his life where he kind of had to divorce his mom because mom never approved of any of his-- well, his mom approved of my mom incidentally.

[02:19:06] But subsequent wives, there was a lot of undermining by his mom of trying to infiltrate the relationship and cause drama. There was a lot of jealousy there. They're both dead now, so I feel at liberty to air their dirty laundry, respectfully, because it's just in service of us learning. But looking back, it's like my dad's mom acted like a jealous ex and would like insert herself into those relationships.

[02:19:39] Stefanos: That was her relationship with your father for so many years because her husband or her ex-husband--

[02:19:42] Luke: Was an alcoholic who was totally checked out. Yeah.

[02:19:45] Stefanos: Unavailable.

[02:19:45] Luke: Yeah.

[02:19:47] Stefanos: And we all need to be seen. We all need to experience love, and when we're hurt, we'll do it from a hurt place. We'll do it in an immature, unconscious way. We'll seek it in manipulative ways. We'll seek it in unhealthy ways. We'll hurt others just to get the hit and feel alive ourselves.

[02:20:03] Luke: Yeah.

[02:20:03] Stefanos: People just want meaning in their lives, man. That's why the man turns to that old story of, oh, he's not getting love at home, so he'll go and immerse himself 16 hours in work because at least he gets validated there.

[02:20:17] And men thrive in being useful, not from an egoic perspective, but from an evolutionary perspective. Hey, man, if you were of utility back 500,000 years ago, a million years ago, guess what? You contributed to surviving just an extra day. So utility matters, Our usefulness is very meaningful to us as men.

[02:20:37] And so we just want to be validated. But that's a human need. It's not just a man thing. I just use that as an example. It's a human need to be of value, not always from ego or codependence. From a fundamental, I fucking love you. I want to be in this in-group. I want you to be in this with me. What do I need to do?

[02:20:54] We all just want to be loved, man. That's what I'm saying. I'm not blaming the mother. However, as adults, it's our responsibility not to project onto our children either. And we also don't know what we don't know. And I'm not saying all these counter positions to confuse anyone. I'm saying it because it's a very complex relational dynamic.

[02:21:14] And here's the thing. Shit happens. That happened to you. It shouldn't have happened to you.? That's a loaded statement. But it did. Well, you are a functioning adult now. You have capacity, agency responsibility and sovereignty, empower yourself to choose differently. Break a generational pattern. You can do it. I believe you can do it. Some people maybe can't and won't, and won't ever, for whatever reasons. But for the majority of the time, you can do it.

[02:21:42] Luke: It's super inspiring. I mean, looking at you and Christine and your daughter, your daughter's going to have such a radically different experience in life because of the work you two have put in.

[02:21:54] So I look at my younger brother, Cody, and his wife, Emily. They have two young boys and it's like-- my brother's worked so hard to break those patterns, and they're so invested in raising their kids in a different way. It's just like you can look into the future generations and see the cascade of not only the net positive impact on your lineage or their lineage, but just on society as a whole.

[02:22:22] It's like when you look at what's wrong with the world and why we're so dysfunctional, it's like if everyone was doing the work we're talking about here, we would live in a completely different world.

[02:22:33] Stefanos: Fractional.

[02:22:33] Luke: Yeah. It's like every generation would be like another broken link in that dysfunctional chain.

[02:22:40] Stefanos: Even if it wasn't the whole world, man, even if those that are capable, even those that have their basic needs met, and I'm not getting into Maslow's hierarchy of needs here. I think there's some complexity to that, but you have capacity to think beyond survivability, even if we just did a little bit every day.

[02:22:58] Those people that have access that would impact the world in a more profound way. And you know what, man? Maybe not. Throw it out the fucking window. Maybe none of it matters. But you just get to choose how you want to live your life. That's it.

[02:23:10] Luke: I think you and I share, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the perspective generally speaking, that the entire purpose of being a human is to grow, to evolve.

[02:23:22] Stefanos: Prime directive for me. Growth is a prime directive.

[02:23:24] Luke: It's like, why else would we be here?

[02:23:27] Stefanos: I don't know. Yeah.

[02:23:28] Luke: To make money? What? You know what I mean? I love making money, but--

[02:23:31] Stefanos: Yeah, likewise. Yeah.

[02:23:32] Luke: I don't know. That's the only place from which I can derive meaning and purpose.

[02:23:39] Stefanos: Growth. Yeah.

[02:23:40] Luke: Which is a positive thing, but also I want to see if you share this too. There's something to be said for periodic pauses for some self-appreciation.

[02:23:53] Stefanos: It's part of growth.

[02:23:54] Luke: Right. Integration. Okay, there you go. Okay, there you go.

[02:23:58] Stefanos: It can be, but I don't see it as stagnation. There's a question someone asked the other day. It was a client of mine. He asked about that and I said, "Hold on, hold on. You slowing down integrating an experience is growth." You got to look at timelines.

[02:24:15] Luke: Ah, that's cool.

[02:24:16] Stefanos: It has to be.

[02:24:17] Luke: I never thought of that because I'm just wired, and I think this is partially due to just the framework of addiction, recovery being my foundation, is you're always looking like, okay, what's under the hood? What character defect, what flawed am I starting to identify that I need to work on? And it can become kind of a trap, right?

[02:24:37] Stefanos: It is a trap. Not kind. It is.

[02:24:39] Luke: Okay.

[02:24:39] Stefanos: 100% it is.

[02:24:41] Luke: So it's harder for me to stop and go, "Wow, Luke, you're a really honest person. You're high integrity. You're kind, compassionate. Look at how much you've evolved and changed." I go, "Eh." Just take it for granted. You just move on to the next thing that I need to work on.

[02:24:57] Stefanos: It's part of the addiction sock where you're replacing one addiction with the other. Here's the analogy or metaphor I have for this. Say you're playing Mario Kart. Do, do, do. You know Mario Kart?

[02:25:06] Luke: Oh, yeah.

[02:24:57] Stefanos: Not Mario Kart, sorry. Mario Brothers. Mario Brothers. And at the end of Mario Brothers or any game, that particular game though, you've got to defeat the big bad guy. You defeat the big bad guy, level one, and how do you know that you've gone to level two because you've defeated the big bad guy.

[02:25:23] But the computer, the game life has acknowledged that you've done this thing. But in a split moment, it's acknowledged even algorithmically or zeros and ones in the computer console, it's acknowledged that-- acknowledge is the key word here-- that you've defeated this thing. You've done this thing to progress you to the next level.

[02:25:43] Our problem as humans is we don't acknowledge the work we've done. If we have sat here for a moment, from how I know you, the shit that you've done in your life that I know of, that you've overcome, that you've gone through, if you just pause a little more often and acknowledge how far you come-- because we fear that's going to cause complacency, especially for high performers. Oh, I don't need to do anything anymore because I've done so much. No.

[02:26:10] Luke: Complacency or also the, the risk of becoming egoically identified with it, I guess, which could lead to complacency, but just arrogance or concede or feeling like you're the shit. I'm like so grossed out by that.

[02:26:24] Stefanos: Yeah. But that's judgment. So what does judgment do? Perpetuates more survival, more shame in subtle ways. So you're not actually growing. You're doing the opposite of what you really want to do. But if you actually acknowledge yourself more often, that lays foundation for next thing, if we're to look at linear growth like that, which it's not, by the way.

[02:26:43] It's like this. It's like that. It's like this. It's everywhere. But it's not linear. Life isn't linear. And so when we acknowledge ourselves, we give ourselves permission to reset, integrate that experience, let it land in our nervous system and our psychology, create a new way of operating, and then move on, go beyond that.

[02:27:03] Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. The more we slow down, we'll get there faster, wherever there is. And then we get there and it ends up being elusive and it's never there anyway. It was always here. That's part of the acknowledgement piece. That's part of growth.

[02:27:16] Luke: I love this idea that the acknowledgement is integration. Integration's a really popular word nowadays, thankfully, in the context of plant medicine work and all this stuff. But I think it's used so much we don't stop to think about its various implications and areas in which it can be applied.

[02:27:36] I'm going to really log that. This has been an incredible conversation, I feel like. I've really personalized this conversation, so my apologies. I'm hoping that it's useful to people. So thank you for the free coaching session, I'll just say.

[02:27:47] Stefanos: I think it's very useful.

[02:27:48] Luke: But every time we chat I'm able to see things from a different perspective, and you're always illuminating, I don't know, yeah, different ways to approach life that I haven't necessarily thought through or arrived at some complete understanding.

[02:28:05] I want to say something just about the acknowledging progress piece and how important that is. I had an experience the other day when I was looking into like shame and self-love and all this. I was on some mushrooms and a really beautiful healing session, um, that involved body work for many hours, and I'll do a podcast about it soon.

[02:28:25] It was incredibly transformative, and one of the key peak moments there, I'm on a massage table with my little mushroomed face in there, just in a deep and beautiful experience. And I was just talking to myself or my soul's talking to me and we're just looking at things, and I'm just going inward and dissecting some things.

[02:28:48] And I had the realization, and it's hard to put these experiences into words without them sounding trite or like, yeah, duh. But it's like, it was so meaningful to me that-- thankfully, I remembered it. But it was that I was recognizing that I had, speaking to what you were alluding to earlier, where I came from in life and the chances of success that I had were pretty low.

[02:29:14] Stefanos: Very low, man.

[02:29:15] Luke: And so there was that, but what I was pinpointing was that I'm an honorable man. And I was just like, "What a fucking accomplishment? Oh my God, dude, you're a trustworthy, integrist man of your word." Not that I'm perfect and I don't make mistakes, but by and large, if I say I'm going to do something, I do it.

[02:29:44] I'm honest. Which for me is huge because I came from just so much confusion and deception. But that word honorable, that's not a word that I use. I don't talk about honor, honorable. It just came out of the ether and it was like, look at this. And it was like, yeah, my higher self showing me how meaningful that is, how deep that is.

[02:30:07] I'm like, what an exceedingly rare thing that is for a human being to achieve, let alone a human being that's had a challenging life path. It's like, wow, I could die today-- not that I want to die. I want to stick around. There's more to learn here, more to love. But it was like, dude, relax. You did that.

[02:30:35] It was like, take a breather, bro. Just take a moment to take that in. Just how deep and beautiful and meaningful that is that you've accomplished that thing that so few people do. And especially so few people that lived in such opposition to that, that were completely dishonorable most of my life, and had no concept of what that even meant, or any desire to become that.

[02:31:02] It wasn't even the goal. It's a net benefit of all of the work that I've put in. It was just so profound and something that really now am holding. And I'm so glad that you framed it as that that's part of the growth. It's not like, oh, yeah, yeah, so I'm honorable. What's the next thing I need to work on? Oh, I'm still neurotic about this and that, or whatever. It's like, dude, chill. Just take a moment to savor that.

[02:31:29] Stefanos: It's the conditioning of not being in worthiness that you go to the next thing.

[02:31:32] Luke: Yeah. And just thank you so much for framing those pauses and just self-reflection and appreciation as growth and integration. It's like, wow, cool. Why don't I just sit with that for a while? Not be complacent, but just go, "Dude, that's huge. That's massive. How cool?"

[02:31:49] Stefanos: Do you feel you've grown from that moment, even though it was only a few days ago?

[02:31:53] Luke: Absolutely. I am taller. I'm taller. I've noticed that. And as I said earlier in just examining my value and my standards and how those have been mismatched, that my value is much higher than my standards represent. Just for what I'm willing to accept or tolerate or what I require in life and relationships, immediate shifts in that internal and also manifestations of that in real life of just like, what am I doing here?

[02:32:25] We're done. Yeah. And a couple of things related to business specifically, I was just like, "What? I can't believe I've put up with this incompetence." What? Dude I deserve better than that. Not because I'm better than other people. It's not good enough for me. So yeah, real internal recognition, but also reflecting in choices that I'm making and decisions I'm making to do things or not do things. It's huge. Yeah.

[02:32:58] Stefanos: Can I share a couple of things with you?

[02:33:00] Luke: Share everything with me.

[02:33:01] Stefanos: One may feel-- I don't want to assume. It may be a little awkward. I'm just going to do it anyway. I'll share this one first. So a moment ago, man, when you were talking, and it's happening now, I feel like I'm on a medicine journey right now. You mentioned psilocybin, and I literally feel like you are not looking how you are looking right now.

[02:33:25] Luke: Mm.

[02:33:25] Stefanos: I have just gone through this process when you were sharing that really beautiful story about recognizing yourself and where you've come from. I saw your little boy in your face. I saw you as a 900-year-old man. I'm seeing you differently now. It's not like I don't recognize you. It's just really trippy because we haven't had any substances.

[02:33:46] Luke: Well, speak for yourself.

[02:33:47] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just speak for myself. I haven't had anything, but--

[02:33:51] Luke: No, not today.

[02:33:52] Stefanos: And maybe I'm just in the ether of it with you, by osmosis, but I'm just seeing you in this really beautiful way. I'm seeing the timelines that exist in you right now, in your own recognition. I really love seeing that. It's really trippy and really cool. And I just love seeing you like this.

[02:34:09] Luke: Yeah. Thank you.

[02:34:10] Stefanos: So there's that. Yeah.

[02:34:11] Luke: Thanks. I appreciate that.

[02:34:12] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah. And the other thing is, man, I just want to share with you, firstly, what an amazing conversationalist you are. How natural, organic you-- this is a craft, but it feels so intentional and real and authentic. And I feel I'm a better human after spending these couple of hours with you in this very deliberate manner.

[02:34:38] I genuinely feel inspired. I have a lot of energy right now. I am inspired to be a better human, a better partner, just listening to how you are with Alyson and in objective ways, non-shameful ways, seeing where I can do better and be better.

[02:34:53] Just being in your presence, you're just an amazing human man. I just want to reflect that back to you. And I truly fucking mean that. I truly, truly mean that. And it is evident why you are successful in what you do, because of how you engage with people and how natural that is and how invested you are.

[02:35:11] Again, man, 25 years, I've been in personal transformation working with people. I've worked with people from all walks of life, man. And I'm telling you, brother, where you've come from, I don't know what the percentage is. I'm not going to claim to know with accuracy.

[02:35:28] Very, very few people out of hundreds of thousands or millions are able to outgrow what you were in. I don't know if you really recognize the magnitude of what you've accomplished. Massive. I honor you for that.

[02:35:47] Luke: Thank you for that. I appreciate it. And I will receive it. I think that's what I got a glimpse of the other night when I had that awareness around, around just being honorable. Which is funny because it's like, on one level, that should just be the base, what do you call it, standard operating system. It's like, well, yeah, duh, of course. But because I've known the polarized side of that, it just hit me like that. Just like, wow.

[02:36:21] Stefanos: Probably more meaningful to you.

[02:36:21] Luke: What an accomplishment. And also just looking at the level of-- I shouldn't do this, but I do pay a little bit of attention to what's going on in the political theater in the world. And it's like, just seeing how many of those people-- I'm talking about like alternative media people-- are being exposed or just being completely dishonest and fraudulent and they've sold their souls.

[02:36:47] So I think there was some contrast there of just going like, "Wow, yeah. Should be just base level that you're somewhat of integrity, that you're an honorable person?" But because it's so rare and so few people seem to do it, there was contrast there and had me arrive at that appreciation.

[02:37:06] But thank you for your kindness and reflection, and I think in these conversations, it's like I really love the people that are listening. Hearing people talk about or write or speak or whatever about the things that we've shared here today changed my fucking life, dude.

[02:37:30] Hear someone illuminate an idea, a principle, a practice, a teaching, and I go, "Hmm, there's something in me that resonates with that. Let me try that on and put it in my life." And my life is transformed so radically to be able to participate in that, in someone else's life. Tens of thousands of people I'm never going to meet.

[02:37:51] I have no idea what's going on in their life and the impact that it could have. But my intention is always that. And I think that's maybe why sometimes things get pretty cool here, because there's a foundation of love and wanting to help. Because I miss being of service. You work one-on-one with people, right?

[02:38:13] Stefanos: Yeah, yeah. Groups, one-on-one.

[02:38:14] Luke: Yeah, I don't do that at this time. It's something that I did for many years, and I really miss that. I miss the tangible, the rewards of truly being of service, of selfless service, and to bear witness to someone's process and journey and to be able to participate and support their transformation.

[02:38:33] I don't really have that in my life. I have people like you that are peers, and we teach each other and stuff, but I'm not changing your life. You're working on your own shit. You found your--

[02:38:42] Stefanos: Yeah, you're contributing to my life changing.

[02:38:44] Luke: Contributing, yeah. But when someone's in a really tough spot and you have some codes and you share some codes, and you get to watch them flower into who they really are, it's really meaningful, and I miss that.

[02:38:57] Stefanos: Maybe you're being called.

[02:38:58] Luke: Yeah. I really am actually. I really am. And we could talk about that off camera because I'm like, "I don't know how you do that." I have this weird aversion, actually. I'll just share it now. Fuck it. Anyone's still listening at two hours and 43, they're ready for the real shit.

[02:39:13] But I think about the fact that I miss that and how much I really love pouring myself into someone on an individual level. But I have a real aversion to-- and there's some judgment in this, I'll admit, but it's like the coaches coaching coaches who coach coaches. The whole coaching industry, especially it's very prevalent in Austin--

[02:39:36] Stefanos: Yeah, it's fucked, and I'm in it.

[02:39:38] Luke: I'm sure there's skilled people, talented people, people helping people. There's nothing wrong with that. It just cringes me out.

[02:39:46] Stefanos: It's become a little bit of that.

[02:39:47] Luke: And so it's like, I want to do something like that, but how can I create something that doesn't feel cringey to me? And there's also like a little bit of a block there too because most of the help that I've had was totally for free and it was in the confines of recovery.

[02:40:08] I had sponsors that just poured literally hundreds, if not thousands of hours into my wellbeing solely for free. Just truly an act of selfless service. And so I have that belief and ingrained in me that it's predatory or-- what's the word? Exploitative?

[02:40:30] Stefanos: Exploitative.

[02:41:30] Luke: Exploitative to get paid to help people in that way. Because I did it for 20 years for free, just because that's what was done for me. So there's a bit of a block there too. Just probably one of the reasons that I perceive some of that world to be cringe, yet there's a part of me that's like, God, I'd love to be doing some more of that just because it's so fulfilling.

[02:40:53] But it's like, how does the financial piece the exchange of energy, how does that play in, and how could that look in a way that feels really good for me within my own integrity? So it's interesting.

[02:41:07] Stefanos: Yeah. I don't think there's any immediate answers for it, nor should there be. I truly believe though the "answers" for you are found in the exploration of the cringe, of the judgment, of the trigger, of the belief system. Literally just exploring that. Not making yourself wrong for it. Just exploring that.

[02:41:24] And I truly feel that you will find a path and a framework that works for you, that satisfies that need for service, but also satisfies your need to be with your wife and make time making money and resourcing yourself to support yourself, your family. So you'll find the way. I think you'll find the way in the exploration of the judgment or the cringe or the curiosity or whatever.

[02:41:47] That's where you'll find your way. Because I don't think you're wrong in what you're saying. It's not about wrong or right anyway. It's more about how you relate to that thing and what you want from it. But again, the exploration of the value of it and where it's coming from and why do you want to be of service, and what does service look like for you. Just sitting with those questions and exploring them on an emotional, relational level, you'll get some clear answer, clarity.

[02:42:07] Luke: Yeah. But I'm starting to lean into that a little bit. There's also another piece in that. Just like, fuck it, let's just do this right now. I would talk to you about this when we're done recording. Like, "Hey, I've been thinking about this. What's your take?"

[02:42:19] Another piece of that is like, in terms of the value that I have to offer of life experience and, and wisdom in a positive sense, and just think like, okay, in February it'll be 29 years that I've been on my path of waking up, growing, doing all the things we talked about today.

[02:42:41] There's value in that, and it's pretty easy to attribute a monetary compensation in order for me to share that value. Logically, that makes sense. It's like if someone's like on year one or year five of their journey and I'm 25 years ahead of them, so to speak, in terms of life experience and things that I've sorted out and worked on, it's like, there shouldn't be anything wrong or any guilt associated with getting paid to share that value with someone. And I think like that's where the conflict is.

[02:43:18] Stefanos: You're a blip in a blip.

[02:43:19] Luke: If I'm honest about it, it's like I know what I have is valuable, but on a spiritual level, it's like I have this belief that everything spiritual should be free because God is free and nature's free.

[02:43:33] Stefanos: Is God free?

[02:43:37] Luke: Well, that's a good question. It hasn't been, for me. There's been a lot of surrender and a lot of sacrifice in order to avail myself of the grace of God. The grace of God is free, but my capacity to receive it has certainly been earned.

[02:43:51] Stefanos: And the effort.

[02:43:52] Luke: Yeah, the effort.

[02:43:53] Stefanos: Effort has been earned. It's not free. It's taken your time, your resources, your energy. It's taken your ego. It's taken your life, close to it. It's not free. What's free? Everything's an exchange. I said earlier, you're a blip in a blip. You, you know Carl Sagan?

[02:44:11] Luke: Yeah.

[02:44:10] Stefanos: You know Pale Blue Dot?

[02:44:11] Luke: Uh-uh.

[02:44:11] Stefanos: Oh bro. Pale Blue Dot, people. It's a little clip on YouTube.

[02:44:17] Luke: We'll put it in the show notes.

[02:44:18] Stefanos: Yeah, put it in the show.

[02:44:19] Luke: lukestorey.com/relationship.

[02:44:21] Stefanos: Yeah, it's so good. But we're a blip in a blip. You said earlier, your podcast as an example of one of the things you do and your book coming out-- that's not a secret, by the way, is it?

[02:44:36] Luke: Oh, no, no. I talk about it all the time.

[02:44:38] Stefanos: Okay, good.

[02:44:39] Luke: People are like, when's this thing coming out, dude? Yeah.

[02:44:41] Stefanos: When is this thing coming out?

[02:44:41] Luke: Yeah.

[02:44:43] Stefanos: That's 20, 25, $30, whatever it is. That is fairly affordable for most people that are going to get a ton of value. Your podcast is technically free, meaning someone has to have a phone, an internet service to access it, whatever. But it's free.

[02:44:58] You give a ton of value in that way. Let's just say you charge, I don't know, 5,000 bucks a month or 10,000 bucks a month to work with you in a-- or 2000 bucks a month, whatever. The number is irrelevant. You are attracting people that can afford your services.

[02:45:10] If someone comes to you and says, "Hey, man, I've got to hock this and sell that and go into debt," just say, "I'm not working with you. I work with people that can afford me at this level." And then what? You want to save the whole fucking world, Luke? You want to save the whole world?

[02:45:24] It's a fucking illusion, man. You ain't saving the whole world. I ain't saving the whole world. Oh, when I was six, I wanted to be United Nations Secretary General. Sure. I wanted to save the whole world. Then I woke up, realized what a fucking fuss the United Nations is--

[02:45:36] Luke: You learned about the UN. Yeah.

[02:45:37] Stefanos: And everything else. You can't save the whole world, and you're not meant to, and you never will. So play the game ways that you can. And when you get to a place where you don't need to "make money," or you believe or feel or whatever you, you have relationships not needing to make money, then give your services for free in the ways that you want to give them for free, if that's what you want.

[02:46:01] And I'll also say that the people you'll work with in a one-on-one capacity that you're giving your services away for free will probably frustrate the fuck out of you, at least at the beginning. Unless you're completely enlightened and detached, because they won't necessarily-- we live in a world where sacrifice and effort and earning, to some degree, matters.

[02:46:22] Not that I'm a full blown dogmatic Christian, but you look through the Bible and a lot of it is sacrifice and effort and trust and surrender. But it requires you giving of yourself, really giving of yourself. And there's a weight that's carried there, a perceived value. Like, oh, I'm putting all of this in here. I need to show up.

[02:46:45] It's not about money. It's not about money, man. It's about our disillusionment of, oh yeah, we can save the world. So therefore it should be-- and I've had that, and I still have that, that thought around, oh, it's "spiritual" or it's of service. It should be for free. And I also do a lot of shit "for free," a lot.

[02:47:04] I ran a men's group for years here in Austin. Every week, showed up. Didn't charge the men shit. I constantly do that. I believe you do that as well. At the end of the day, man, what is your value? There's no right or wrong with this. What do you want to do?

[02:47:22] I'm more curious about your exploration around the inclination you have of to be in service in a new way or in a different way than you have been in many years. That to me is what my curiosity and focus is. What you charge, how you charge that, it comes later.

[02:47:36] Luke: Yeah. I think the impact that this work has-- I know it has an impact because I meet people sometimes out in public and they're like, "Oh my God, this changed my life," and yada yada. But then it's like, they're gone. It's like I don't really get to see it play out. And I think that's the part I miss. It's just so rewarding to be able to see that you have a small role in someone's life improving, and get to bear witness to that.

[02:48:01] Stefanos: Yeah, it is beautiful.

[02:48:02] Luke: I just want to touch on one more thing-- thank you for humoring me-- is around the monetary side of it. If it wasn't about like helping someone in the ways that we're talking about, if someone just came to me and said, "Hey, I want X amount of hours for your time that you--"

[02:48:23] Stefanos: Design the house for me, whatever.

[02:48:24] Luke: Yeah. Whatever. My hourly rate is a lot. I don't want to say what it is, but if I think about how much I am per hour, it's more than a lawyer. You know what I mean? So it's like, okay, if I were to work with someone like you work with people, it's going to be many thousands of dollars just for me to feel like it's worth my time on a business level.

[02:48:46] And that's where the conflict is because it goes back to wanting to save the whole world. And it's like, oh, so I'm only going to help people that have their money figured out? It's like, that doesn't seem right.

[02:48:58] Stefanos: I'm going to keep steel mounting what you're saying because it's not wrong or right. But what if that person that you help that has got money, that has access to resources, that has accumulated or created wealth for themselves, that values, runs an organization of 1,000 people.

[02:49:12] And that individual that you help make better, that you help expand his heart, just use an example, or her heart, whatever, it doesn't matter. They then, by osmosis, passed that onto those people. And those people are inspired because they're treated better.

[02:49:25] And maybe that individual says, you know what? I'm raising everyone's salary. I'm doing things differently in my business. I'm doing things differently in the way I work with my family. And maybe that person, because of the work they did with you and because of what you charge them, where they were able to perceive value in that, raises a son or a daughter that becomes the next president of the United States of America that does a really fucking good job. You don't know that.

[02:49:46] Luke: Right, right?

[02:49:47] Stefanos: Because you're making all these stories about what you're not charging. You can't be all things to all people. Bro, Jesus got killed, and he was great.

[02:49:57] Luke: Yeah.

[02:49:58] Stefanos: My point to that is you can't be all things to all people. I often get people that say, "I can't believe how much you charge. It's disgusting." That hurts me sometimes, and I just get to deal with-- the invitation is to be with that hurt and really sit with, okay, should I create another program? Or is there some truth in what they're saying? Yeah, maybe there is truth, but it's their truth. I get to be with that and make a decision about where I want to go with that.

[02:50:25] Luke: Beautiful. A way out of that is you can always have a scholarship program.

[02:50:30] Stefanos: Which I do for my programs as well. Absolutely.

[02:50:32] Luke: Yeah, yeah. That's something I thought about. You know what I'm realizing as we've like totally gone off the rails here on this--

[02:50:39] Stefanos: Have we though?

[02:50:40] Luke: No. I mean in terms of where I thought this conversation was going to go. Again, someone three hours in, they're probably interested, and those that aren't have already tuned out. But what I'm seeing here, if I'm really honest with myself is a lot of this inner debate and turmoil is, at least some of it, just an excuse for me to not do the thing. It's just like, ah, it's just too hard. I can't figure out the ethics of it and how I feel good. So it just--

[02:51:07] Stefanos: Excuses.

[02:51:08] Luke: It's like, eh, I just won't do it another year and another year, and I just keep doing this, which is great, but I know I have more to offer.

[02:51:14] Stefanos: But get to the core. What is the fear? Is it fear of humiliation? Is it fear of being told you're wrong? Is it fear of rejection? Is it fear of abandonment? What's the fear that's underneath the excuse making? Because there's a fear there. There's an energy and a charge there. You have to figure it out. Now, I'm just saying.

[02:51:27] Luke: I would say all of the above. If I'm really honest in the moment, fear of judge.

[02:51:36] Stefanos: Fear of judgment. You can unpack that.

[02:51:37] Luke: You getting messages from people that are like, "Oh, you're disgusting. I can't believe you charged this much." It's that like. At least part of it is that. The people that I look at and judge as cringe in this space, I don't want people to look at me like that, which is ridiculous. Who cares?

[02:51:55] Stefanos: I have people saying, oh, I'm a single mother or a single father. Or, what you're charging I making a year. Or whatever it may be. They're projecting their stories on to me. And they're not necessarily wrong in the statements they're making, and their charge is their charge.

[02:52:11] I just got to love them through that. And also listen. Listen. [Inaudible]. Is there truth to what they're saying? Okay, maybe there is. What do I want to do with that truth? What does that look like for me? Do I feel that I'm in integrity? Do I offer-- Because I do want to be of service.

[02:52:24] Bro, go to my Instagram, I've got nearly, I think-- I don't know how many posts. Six and a half, 7,000, seven and a half thousand posts on Instagram. I post three times a day. I do my best to add value, real value in terms of messages I'm communicating. I put a lot of thought and effort into that. That's free.

[02:52:45] It's not just the lead magnet. It's not just, "Hey, I'm doing this so I can be known for a particular niche that at some point someone will see me and pay me for my services." It becomes a natural byproduct. I was doing this shit. I was posting, I was doing live videos when I was getting zero views, zero likes, zero anything. I just kept doing it because I wanted to help.

[02:53:05] I kept doing it when I had no followers, and I would do it now. I love creating content. I love creating thought-provoking, heart-opening content. At least that's my intention. Some things are going to come with a cost. Some things won't that. But we all get to work through that. I've gone many times in my career where I've like, "Oh, I think I charged him too much."

[02:53:28] I've had this conversation with Christine. I charge more than what she charges, and she's not comfortable with what I charge. She's like, oh, I just don't think it's right. She has her language around it, and that's cool. I don't get offended. It's her opinion, it's her perspective.

[02:53:42] Luke: That's funny. I would have the opposite. Alyson's always like, "You need to raise your prices on everything."

[02:53:48] Stefanos: And I'll be clear. It's not like Christine has a limitation around this. It's that she has a belief around the thing that she does, and the way she does it is this is what it warrants. Maybe it is a belief. I don't know, whatever.

[02:54:00] And she's not judging me. I don't feel judged by her. It's just more like her perspective. But I take that on like, okay, let me sit with that. Let me be with-- I look at my clientele, man. They're people that are influential. Not all of them in that way mass influence, but they're people that can afford my services.

[02:54:15] They're people that see value in it. There's people that get a lot of value out of it. The people that then as a result of that change other people's lives. That's important to me. And I have a stack of free stuff. You go to my website, I have five or six free things, and that's all effort.

[02:54:27] That's programs, like breath work programs I've created, sacred union processes Christine and I have created. Meditations that I've created. A stack of stuff, man, like guided visualizations, tools that are really helpful, somatic practices, all for free. There's only so much I can do as well. Yeah.

[02:54:47] Luke: Beautiful. That was an unexpected turn. I've got a lot to contemplate there. I appreciate that. And I'm going to add one more thing.

[02:54:57] Stefanos: Yeah.

[02:54:58] Luke: Because I'm just realizing this. Okay, early on when I started the podcast, 2016, it was not monetized at all. And I was paying probably three to four grand a month to produce it. It's a lot more expensive now to produce it because production value has gone up and so on.

[02:55:14] But I was just paying out of pocket. I'm like, I need to make find a way to turn this into a business model, or I'm not going to be able to afford to keep doing it. So I started my first coaching program, one-on-one coaching. I plugged in on the podcast, and I took on the first client, and I just winged the program.

[02:55:31] It was three months. I think it was five grand. And I took the one client to just test because I already worked with tons of men, and I had proven concept in terms of like, hey, if I share some things with you and you apply it to your life, it'll work. Because it's not my stuff. It's just principles.

[02:55:47] So I did that with a client for three months and he was a really sweet guy, but he was really stuck in a lot of different patterns. And I would give him directives, read this book, do this meditation, do this breath work, here's what you eat, the whole thing.

[02:56:01] And the funny thing about it is he was very compliant. He really took direction. I was like, "Oh this is amazing." Because I'm sure you know how frustrating it is. You try to work with someone and they just want to siphon your energy but not actually implement the tools you're laying for him.

[02:56:18] Anyway, he was really great about all of that, and we concluded the three months, and so we had like a little feedback session. I want to get his feedback at the end. And I'll never forget this, dude. If you're listening, you know who you are, and thank you for this gift, kind of.

[02:56:33] At the end of it I said, "What have you learned? Have you changed, yada yada?" And he goes, "Luke, can I be really honest with you?" I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Man, I feel like I just wasted five grand." He goes, "My life is no different. It's exactly where it was. I'm exactly where I was like. This really did nothing for me." I was shooketh, son, because I had poured everything I knew into this guy, and he actually did the stuff.

[02:57:00] And I was just so perplexed, like, how does this not work? What is up with this guy? His life should be in three months, like night and day based on the tools that I transmitted to him and the fact that he used them. So I think that was part of it. I was just like, I have a fear around that happening again.

[02:57:17] Looking back, it's not my fault. I did everything I could. He did everything he could. I don't know why he was stuck and felt there was no change, but that definitely left an imprint on me to the point where I was like, "Cool, I'm not doing that anymore. And that was the last client." Because I'm just like, that was--

[02:57:33] Stefanos: You got some PTSD.

[02:57:34] Luke: Yeah, yeah. It was like coaching PTSD. Incidentally, he contacted me years later and said, "You know what, on second thought, these are the changes that I saw. I couldn't see them at the time, but I want to thank you, and you know, I want to rescind my comment about I wasted five grand."

[02:57:52] Stefanos: It's very good of him to do that.

[02:57:54] Luke: Yeah, it was helpful. So I think there's like a little bit of a hot stove moment there. I was like, "Oh, maybe that's not for me."

[02:58:01] Stefanos: Can I shed some light on that?

[02:58:04] Luke: Yeah.

[02:58:05] Stefanos: So there's a couple of things that happen. Firstly, we are not in control of whether a person "heals" or changes, irrespective of how we show up. We can pour into them. We can be intentional. We can give them the best tools. They can actually do them or appear to do them, and nothing "appears to change."

[02:58:25] And I've learned this the hard way. You've got to let go of that because transference is a real thing in a therapist-client relationship or coach-client relationship, where you're constantly transferring on each other, projecting on each other. I'm so invested in you that you have to heal and I have to fix you, and I have to give you all the right things to help you, and blah, blah, blah. Then all of a sudden, it's not about them, it's about you, right?

[02:58:51] Luke: Right.

[02:58:52] Stefanos: And that's codependency, and that happens early on.

[02:58:55] Luke: Oh, God. Damn it.

[02:58:56] Stefanos: Bang, back to codependency. That happens early on in the coach and client relationship, or you as an early coach. Even though you were doing it for years before that, you formalize it. You were getting paid. It's different. The relationship is different. There's more at stake. There's that part.

[02:59:10] The other part is, man, you ever notice how-- have you ever done this maybe? You are driving and you're daydreaming and you're doing a thing. You're driving. And all of a sudden, you're like, how the fuck did I just get to my destination? Where was I just now?

[02:59:24] Well, he could be doing the tools, but is he really doing the tools? Is he really in the practices? Then the last part, I'm sure there are many more, is integration. You need time. Three months is good, but people are looking for peak experiences. Fast this. Fast that.

[02:59:44] Let the experience integrate. Let the tools integrate. Let the practices be with you. Hence why many years later he rang you and said, "Yo, man. Rescind comment. This is what actually happened." It's very mature of him too to do that, by the way. I think that's fucking awesome

[02:59:59] Luke: Yeah.

[03:00:00] Stefanos: And I hope you really receive that. Again, you cannot control what people experience or don't experience. I'm not in control. I'm not that connected to my-- I'm going to show up in the best way I can for my clients, but I'm not attached to what or what does not happen. If they're willing and I show up, we are good. The rest is up to God.

[03:00:25] Luke: Staying out of the results.

[03:00:27] Stefanos: That's it.

[03:00:28] Luke: That's what they used to say in recovery.

[03:00:29] Stefanos: Yeah, I love it. Recovery is awesome, man. 12 steps is awesome.

[03:00:31] Luke: You're not in the results business.

[03:00:33] Stefanos: You're not, no. Not even as a coach.

[03:00:35] Luke: You're in the effort business. You do the thing, let it go. It's up to God.

[03:00:39] Stefanos: Give it to God. Yeah.

[03:00:40] Luke: Beautiful. Thanks, man. It's great--

[03:00:42] Stefanos: Let me say one more thing, sorry. One more thing.

[03:00:43] Luke: Yeah, go for it.

[03:00:44] Stefanos: I know you put it in the show notes, but I want you to give another title--

[03:00:47] Luke: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[03:00:48] Stefanos: The link to my book.

[03:00:48] Luke: And also, this conversation comes out on February 17th, and your book comes out on the fifth?

[03:00:55] Stefanos: February 3rd.

[03:00:56] Luke: Third. Okay. So it's going to be out. Give us the pitch, and we will link to it in the show notes.

[03:01:01] Stefanos: tunedinandturnedonbook.com. There's a stack of bonuses, interviews with Christine and I, some sacred sexuality practices. There's hundreds of dollars’ worth of bonuses just by buying the book through tunedinandturnedonbook.com.

[03:01:14] Of course, you get it from Amazon or wherever else books are [Inaudible] or whatever. And Barnes & Noble. But you can get it there and stack a bonuses. So I'm excited for that.

[03:01:23] Luke: Epic. I'm glad you brought that in because I was going to do that anyway. I want to say to those watching and listening, as someone who has now gone through the process, although I'm not done, of writing a book, dude, I've sat here with so many people. We set their book right there. We talk about their book, and I'm like, "Oh, that's nice. You have a book."

[03:01:41] And I encourage people to buy people's book if they resonate with the guests. But I'm telling you guys, buy his book. The amount of heart and soul and dedication and discipline that goes into writing a proper book, unless you've done it, there's no way you can understand it.

[03:01:58] It is, in my experience, really difficult. I watched Alyson do it when we first got together and I was like, "Damn, I didn't know it was like this much work." But I really know what goes into it. And having just, as I said, speed read your book, it's amazing. And all the things we talked about, you go into much more depth in your book.

[03:02:17] So if somebody enjoyed this conversation, they're really going to get something out of that. And the beauty also of a book, whether you have the audio or the printed book, is like---- when you listen to a podcast, you go, "Ooh, I resonated with that." And then it's gone. You're in your car. You walk into 7-Eleven. It's like, poof.

[03:02:31] There's so much value, I think, in just a written record or a spoken record that you can go back to and go, "Oh, I didn't really understand that when I read it the first time. But let me go back. What is this? Enmeshment? Hmm. Oh shit." It's like you can really take your time with the teaching when it's in book form. So thank you for putting that into the world and I'm hoping that so many of the listeners support you in that.

[03:02:52] Stefanos: Thank you.

[03:02:53] Luke: Because what a book means to someone like you or to me, is that you then have the opportunity to reach and help more people. It's like there's going to be thousands of people that discover your book that have never heard of you.

[03:03:04] If someone said, "Hey, you should read this," and they read it and their life changes, boom, boom, boom, there's a real beautiful chain reaction that takes place. So wanted to make sure I encourage people to support you in that. And like you said, books are 20, 30 bucks. It's a pretty low-hanging fruit in terms of getting a lot of value for very little money.

[03:03:25] Stefanos: Yeah, for sure.

[03:03:27] Luke: All right, brother. Until next time.

[03:03:28] Stefanos: Thank you.