The Beauty of Heartbreak with Bernardo Mendez

The reason why I wouldn't say I believe I know

heartbreak is beautiful, is because it allows us to life is

a series of deaths and rebirths. So it allows you to die in some

way, and then there's a part of you that needs to come out that

wouldn't have come out if you hadn't had that experience of

heartbreak, of really falling to the floor, metaphorically or

physically or both, and recognizing in several moments

what you value, who you are, who the people who really love you

are around you and what's really worth living for.

Hello, Beauty. I am so excited for you to hear this

week's amazing conversation with this incredible man. Bern

Mendez. Bernardo Mendez, he is a huge YouTuber. If you watch

dating and relationship advice on YouTube, you might already

know of this beautiful soul. He is a dating relationship coach

with over 14 years experience who helps accomplish women in

midlife meet the love of their lives. His work draws from

attachment research, somatic practices in neuroscience, and

his YouTube channel is one of the 12 most followed dating

advice sources for women in the world, with over 30 million

views in total and 228,000 subscribers, he is a big deal.

He's coached women in 24 countries, from Fortune 100

executives to physicians, attorneys, scientists,

therapists, entrepreneurs and my bestie. He was my besties,

dating and relationship coach so long ago, maybe like 10 years

ago, and she is now has the most beautiful love with the love of

her life, and she couldn't be happier. And burn was such a big

part of her life, because they worked together for about a year

that he became a part of my life. We had dinner together

over 10 years ago at Jeff's restaurant. AnnaLena. So I'm so

excited to be reconnected with Byrne. He's such a love. He is

such a powerful communicator. He's a poet. He shares so much

of his poetry in this episode. So if you are a woman with a

broken heart or an aching heart or a questioning if love will

ever come, this episode is for you. There is so much wisdom,

beauty and poetry in this episode, may it warm your heart

and also get excited, because burn is coming back for a part

two episode. Enjoy.

Hello, beautiful. Welcome to the new truth podcast. I have a very

special man in the house. We have not had a man on the new

truth in a while. I think it's been at least a year since we've

had a match. I feel honored.

You are honored. I think it's so it's such a cool like I'm so

happy you reached out to me that day. What a cool turning point.

You worked with my best friend. That's how it's so funny,

because burn is a phenomenal women's dating relationship. I

do work with men too, but yeah, oh, you do now. Okay, yeah,

mostly

with women, but I'm starting to work with men

these days because it's needed.

Yeah, I feel like his women are the ones who

invest in themselves, even in business, I was a business

coach, and our clients were mostly women. But yeah, so you

worked with my bestie Andy, who I've had on the podcast a few

times over the years. And how many years ago do you think that

was maybe,

maybe around that time, I think, yeah,

yes, I remember the time so clearly she you. She was

so close with you. She talked about you all the time, and it

felt like I knew you, and I felt close to you, even though I'd

never met you. Live in Austin, Texas, and and then you, you and

your wife and kids came to town, and we all went to AnnaLena, my

former partners, your wife at the time. Sorry, you single

ladies, your wife at the time? Yes, which will will weave into

today's episode, for sure. But yeah, so you were, you were with

your wife, I think were your boys at the dinner, yeah, yeah,

yeah. So your whole family went to AnnaLena for dinner in

Vancouver, the best night. And then I haven't talked to you

since then. I don't think, I

don't think so. No, maybe in Facebook every now

and then, or something. But yeah, yeah,

how cool. And you just showed up at the perfect

time. And for the the the most important conversation. I love

this title, so burn one thing you should know, ladies, not

only is he single, but he's also

a poet. Oh, you're not something very

special right now. So I wouldn't say I'm single at the moment.

Oh, okay, so he's not entirely available, okay?

Oh, I love that. Okay, he's not available. However, he's a poet,

and he's an amazing, amazing, deep, deep, deep soul. Your

poetry just moved me so deeply when we had so we had a catch up

call a couple weeks ago and and decided to record an episode,

and he wrote the title today's episode, the. Beauty of

heartbreak. So I think that's such an it's such a

counterintuitive, extraordinary, exquisite title. And let's

unpack that you so obviously you had some changes in your life.

Share whatever you feel compelled to share, but the

beauty of heartbreak, let's Let's start. Let's unpack it.

Where do you want to begin?

I think everyone sets out in life to

accomplish certain things, and you have an idea of what life

supposed to look like. I know I did, for example, and especially

being a relationship coach, I had an idea of precisely how

life was supposed to go. So I was married for 20 years, for

example, and and having an experience of choosing not to be

married after 20 years is something I would say heartbreak

is a small word to describe everything that's on that's

followed since that moment. But the reason why I wouldn't say I

believe I know heartbreak is beautiful is because it allows

us to life is a series of deaths and rebirths. So it allows you

to die in some way, and then there's a part of you that needs

to come out that wouldn't have come out if you hadn't had that

experience of heartbreak, of really falling to the floor,

metaphorically or physically or both, and recognizing in several

moments what you value, who you are, who the people who really

love you are around you, and what's really worth living for.

There's a famous well. Was a famous philosopher Camus who

talked about leave to the point of tears was one of his

aphorisms, you know, and leaving to the point of tears inevitably

carries heartbreak, because it means you you feel life more

intensely. And that's both, that's the pain and the

incredible experiences of joy and passion and love and things

that are worth living for. So, so I would say part of my

experience of heartbreak happened, I mean, from

childhood, right? Because there's this you have, who you

think you are in the world, and then you go through experiences

in, you know, with painful experiences that break your very

tiny heart and then teach you in some ways how to be, I mean, and

then, then there's the work of a lifetime to undo what we were

taught that we weren't really meant to take for ourselves. So

there's a heartbreak in this is the way life is, and then being

either emotionally or physically slammed down to where you feel

life is different, and then I must act a certain way to

survive. And I think the majority of us, regardless of

how much work we've done, how much therapy, chanting Himalaya,

some people do plant medicine, I mean, there's still some essence

of that that is like the legacy of that, which, I mean, gets to

be worked on and healed and not healed, sometimes through

multiple heartbreaks in life. So for me, there's heartbreak in

parenting, having two kids who are their own human beings.

They're not really your children, even though there's

that feeling of my childhood, their own human beings, you're

there to guide them a little bit. So between what you want

for them and what they decide for themselves, there's

heartbreak. Between what you imagine that you are as a human

being and what you end up being. There's tremendous heartbreak.

So I think that in parenting and working in relationships that

are not romantic, definitely romantic relationships, there's

a ton of heartbreak. So for me, I would say the last six years

have been a continuous series of heartbreaks that have taught me

how to be, who to be, what to value, how to stand up again. So

but I but as I shared with you before we start. I think part of

the beauty and heartbreak is it's

like there's this vessel that you have inside of you, and it

has a certain, certain there's a container, and that containers,

I think part of the mission in life is to expand that

container. And you can just expand that container through

beautiful experiences, because you don't value them as much if

they're just beautiful experiences. You have to go

through losing some of those, and even losing yourself to

value what you what you have. So that would be my introduction to

hard. I think it's something that is necessary. It's

essential. I wouldn't want any wouldn't want any other works.

If you ask someone, for example, who's listening right now, they

have an incredible experience, and then they lost someone. And

they could be someone as, I think, probably the most

profound loss you could ever experience as human beings, the

loss of a child. And people experience that, you know, and

they live through it. I don't know how, but they do live

through it. And there's the losing parts of you that have

transformed and can no longer get back. There's. Losing,

obviously, relationships, but that vessel continues expanding

as a result of that, and it prepares you for something even

greater. There's something I call the alchemy of turning

grief into devotion, right? So how do you use that pain? You

don't have to, and it's okay if you don't, if you can't, even

for a time period. But there's comes a time where there is a

need for that thing to be alchemized into something. It

can be alchemized into bitterness, into numbness, or

into art of some sort, or creation. And there is so much

freaking fuel in that heartbreak to create. I mean, if think

about the best works of art. Most of those have only come as

a result of someone experiencing that depth of loss and then

alchemizing, and it's something greater. So I think that's,

that's part of the work that we have here. You know, alchemizing

shit into gold.

I love it. And I feel like, God, there's so many

things I have. Like, I know, 10 million off points. I want to

like, just like everything you said is so beautiful, and just

to the creation piece, I feel like, if you are stuck in the

story about the heartbreak and being a victim of it, and of

course, that's phase one, and that's totally normal, but if we

stay years later in the This shouldn't have happened, I want

my ex back, or I want this situation to be different. We

keep breaking our own hearts over and over again, versus,

like, actually coming to that moment of being able to

alchemize it and being able to create. I just think of like,

how many TV shows, movies, songs were written, books were written

from someone's inside, someone's heartbreak, and then they took

it and created characters from it, and created another world

from it, and that became, you know, or pieces of art, or, I

mean, poetry, spoken word like you. I mean, you didn't you

discover poetry, yeah.

I mean, I think I discovered it earlier in life,

but I lost it. You know, like many things in life, you connect

with something, and then you have a passion for it, and then

you do it in some way, and then you lose it. It comes and goes.

I think life is really the essence of life is being as best

as you can on the path, and most of the time being off the path,

and then whatever needs to happen for you to come back on

the path, that is the reason you're here, you know. So, yeah,

I lost it, and then it came back almost like in a flash, all at

once. And it came back at a moment where I was experiencing

a lot of pain and grief, and I was walking down to the river

that I used to go to every single day. I go now maybe

three, four times a week, but I live two blocks away from that

nature preserve, so I'll go every morning to the river and

sit there, and I have even I include the river in somebody,

but watching my portrait, because it's been such giving of

life, you know. And so I was going down, and I was feeling so

sorry for myself and all these experiences. And I had a brief

moment, I don't know if you ever had one of those that changes

your life, and I saw in a flash the image of the tiny version of

me, maybe I don't know, four years old, looking up to me as

if, and asking me with eyes like, what are you going to do

about this? Like, what are we going to do? You know, like, and

almost feeling the responsibility of helping that

child, because that child can't help himself, but I can, and

showing up, not for me necessarily, but for the version

of me that I felt compelled to move by. I mean, look at myself

in the mirror. I didn't feel the I mean, compelling enough to do

it. But for that, it's almost like, if you have a child, you

do anything for your child, even if you wouldn't do for yourself.

So it was a can like that, and and something came up said, your

face is a blessing. And that's the thing. Your face is a

blessing. Is I wrote that, and then from there, I continued

writing, because I felt moved. So I think the best poetry, like

the best anything in life, moves you so much that you can't hold

it inside as you say something to a lover that comes out

beautifully. It's not effortful, it's you feel it so much that

you can't contain it so you express it, because you don't

want to die with it inside of you and how they receive it. Of

course, there's fear, but it's almost like secondary to the

need to share it because, and that's the way, for example, for

some people, it's music. For some people, it's some form of

dancing. For me, poetry, either listening to it or expressing

it, has been life changing. I don't think it's luxury. It's a

sustenance thing. For me, it's like taking vitamins or taking a

medicine that's really, really important. That's what it is for

my experience.

And you know, I feel like even everything you've

said so far is poetry, like, even, even, even this perception

is so beautiful. It's like, how much more interesting is it to

have a conversation with someone who's like, fully alive and

feeling everything and in relationship to all of life,

right? Like, I think it would, did you read something to me

about seasons last time where you said, In nature there? See,

like, some, I can't even remember what it was. I've said

it to a few clients, but I'm pretty sure it was from our

conversation. Maybe it was a David J white thing. Yeah, that

you read, but it was something about how, like, just in nature,

there's seasons, and it's like, we expect it just to be summer.

Like the fantasy of life is just that it's summer all year round.

Okay, my life kind of is summer all year round because of where

I live. But, but, but just the fantasy that is just like, happy

and joyful and adventurous and perfect all the time, and all in

the name of trying to make it like that, and also trying to,

trying to hide ourselves from our pain, we end up kind of

numbing everything like we can't. I just, it just breaks my

heart to think of how many people are just on

antidepressants because they're afraid of their pain and not in

relationship to their pain, and don't know how to outcome, and

this is said with love, love and reverence, but don't know how to

alchemize their pain, right? And don't know how to create with

their pain and express and feel and be with their pain and love

those younger parts of themselves that are there

through heartbreak. And I love that you talked about all of the

heartbreaks of life, not just romantic heartbreak, but

heartbreak. It's we're constantly. Our hearts are being

broken constantly. That's a human experience. Don't like,

we're just not set up for it. There, it cut out for one sec,

so there was a little bit of an overlap there. We're just not

set up to like, the the systems tell us, like, oh, you feel

pain. Okay. Like, here's some pills numb your pain, rather

than like, hey, let's teach you how to be in relationship with

your pain and and when we're numbing it even just a little

bit, it's like, whether it's with food or whatever, self

medication, medication, it's like we're actually stopping our

ability to feel. Also feel the greatest pleasure, which is

probably the thing that scares us even more than our pain is

our ability to actually feel intimacy and pleasure in the

most expensive way. So it, it's, yeah, I just love all of this,

because it's, it's the beauty of of actually being with the range

of who we are as humans, which is not only positive, only

happy, only good feelings, interesting situation.

Because I think for some people, that's like the

first path, you know, the first path has to be numbness and has

to be darkness, so that they can recoup again. And sometimes

medication is part of that. I think, if it's I mean, and some

people unfortunately, I say unfortunately, because it, in

some ways, it can numb. You need to do it for life. But I think

that when you start working with that, and also start finding, as

you're saying, the ability to feel the pain a little bit more

and know that it's okay breathe into it. And then you can find a

bit more joy in because emotions are like this, if you think

about the cold water tap water thing. And I mean, like the

valves, you know, for cotton cold water, they're tied

together. So if you shot the one for feeling pain simultaneously,

you shot the one for feeling joy. So that's the double edged

sword of if you feel a lot, you'll feel a lot of pain, but

you also feel a lot of joy, and so, but not getting stuck in the

pain. That's that's the challenge, because pain is very

addictive. Heartbreak can be addictive, you know, if you

don't want to put yourself out there again, and then just

remembering what happened creates a lot of emotions in

your heart, and you feel the rush of intensity of life

through the pain, and that's the only flavor you know, that will

feel better than feeling dead inside. So a lot of people turn

exclusively to pain as a source of fuel, and that's where being

able to do both, and it's a lifetime thing, because you gain

it and you lose it, and you gain it and you lose it. And there's

days where you wake up and you don't want to get out of bed. I

know I have plenty of those, you know, in my life. And then one

day, something happens, and you're just tired of that, and

you start seeing the light again, and you start walking,

and then things start happening accordingly, you know,

yeah, yeah. And, and I just think, like, the more

that we can be liberated to feel and be surround ourselves with

communities and teachers and guides who can help us learn how

to be in relationship with our feelings. Like, I like what you

said, yes, if there's a time and a place like for what you need

at the time, and then there's always more. And so to be able

to actually use like, know that there are tools and teachers and

guides that can help us. I mean, I've certainly had many. I'm

sure you have to help us along the way. It's like I've never

did that alone. I never learned how to be with my pain before. I

just numbed my pain before. Because none of us know we're

thrown in the deep end. You know,

I would not be here if it weren't for people

around me, including lots of people who have helped me, like

I've paid for help, and I've also had the blessing of family

who is just who have lifted me up, literally when I couldn't

walk. And I think that the sooner someone who's

experiencing heartbreak gets a chance to connect with someone

other than themselves, i. Safe person and share a bit of what's

going on, and then see that that person's probably gone through

the same thing, or is going through part of the same thing.

They're not feeling the aloneness of the whole thing is

probably the most devastating piece of it. It's it's

necessary, because you need to understand how to be with

yourself. And at the same time, there comes a point where it's

too much. You need others to like this. You weren't designed

or created to be by yourself like DNA wise, every part of you

has co regulates with the world around it and other people. So I

was gonna I remember something I wanted to share here, because

let me see if I can find it. Was, let me see where it is. It

said this, it's very short, and it says, by Mary Oliver. She

said someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It

took me years to understand that this, too was a gift. So that

is, that's true for someone, but that heartbreak is also part of

that. No, there's always a gift in it. And I think the sooner

you get on with the program, the sooner you realize that you you

can't it's going to the swimming pool. Say, I'm not going to get

wet. Like it's impossible you will get wet. So instead of

saying, How can I avoid heartbreak? Is how can I have

heartbreak over things that matter? How can I choose people

and things that really are worth me experiencing heartbreak about

so that when I come to the end of my life, it was a full life I

really expected there was nothing left to give.

Yeah, beautiful and so many people's heartbreak. I

was just thinking of all the clients I've worked with over

the years who we've been doing, like, a process at the immersion

where, in Greece that I have coming up in a couple of weeks,

and there's like, allowing yourself to go fully into the

fuck you. Like, how many women I've worked with whose partners

have cheated on them or whatever, and they go to the

bottom of the fuck you, and at the bottom of the fuck you is

thank you, because they've had their awakening because of this

hurt, and also they were lying in the relationship too, because

they were out of alignment with who they really are playing

whatever role, you know, often in relationships, for

especially, I mean, I guess in all relationships, especially

romantic relationships, each person's playing a role. And

then, you know, the one person goes over here, and it like

ruptures the relationship. But also, like, if you look at your

part, you were playing a part in that dynamic too, even though

one person looks like the bad guy. This was kind of tied into

the episode I did last week. One person looks like the good guy

and the bad guy. But ultimately, both of you played a role. And

even though the heartbreak, especially betrayal, like if the

heartbreak hurts so bad because of betrayal, obviously that one

is blindsiding, and there's so many layers to it, but once you

want, like so many women, that becomes it's like having a car

accident, like a near death experience, and then having your

awakening. It's like such a call to rise, because it's so

painful. It's almost like, the more painful the rupture, the

more catalyzing it is, eventually, for the

transformation, right? Obviously, not. Some people just

stay in the in the dip, forever, but it can be a huge, life

altering transformation.

I think that there's, there's like, a

sequence of events, there's the heartbreak, then there's the,

obviously, the denial, there's going to be the anger, there's

going to be the, I mean, I can finally the full understanding,

you know, okay, I have, okay, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna share

this right now, because this is really a poem. It's not mine,

it's David White's, but it's a poem about heartbreak, and it's

a poem about the need to experience life with the

intensity. He wrote this in a moment where he saw a

documentary of life of monks. And there was this guy who had

experienced his entire life of silence. And at some point, he

starts talking about how he used to pray every day, and then he

stopped praying. And then for a second he thought, well, this

man obviously lost his faith. And then he said, because every

part of my life became a prayer. And then so he sees that, and he

sees the the I mean, you can just sense in someone the depth

you can sense in someone if they have silence or anger in their

heart. So just really evolves being first shot. Second shot is

him in his deathbed. I mean, that was him talking his

deathbed, and then he's basically being buried on the

ground, and he felt such a sense of beautiful pain and heartbreak

from seeing that, obviously, because it's you can't see that

and not imagine your own disappearance, right, or

transformation. So he wrote something called your prayer,

and it says, your prayer only began with words, each one you

realize just the hand on the door to silence, even in your

gathered chanted strength, what you said in the end, what? Is

only a shoulder against the grain of wood trying to keep the

entrance open until that door, which had been no door at all,

gave way to necessary grief. That's heartbreak, you know,

which is really only the full understanding of what you were

missing all along, which is really just that vulnerability

you needed to make a proper invitation, which is really just

you admitting the full depth of your love, at last, the

heartbroken heart coming to heartfelt rest, the opening

inside you, now filled to the gleaming brim and casting its

generous beam, the part of you you thought was foolish, the

wisest voice of all, and what is that part that you think is

foolish, the I'm going to say this, or I'm going to express

myself, or I'm not good enough, or the part of you that wants to

give and express, but that is the essence of a life you know

heartbreak is inevitable, and the more you come to understand

that really what's needed is that invitation, right? It's

express your vulnerability, your fear, your anguish, your pain,

and then you'll find and I know because when I've done this, I

have found, at least in my work, so many people who say, Oh my

god, thanks for putting into words what I was feeling, or

thanks for giving me a way to understand things that I felt

but I I didn't know how to translate into language and and

also, for someone going through heartbreak, I would say, if you

haven't made friends with poetry, I can think of something

more powerful to wake you up and to give you strength, like if

you listen to a poem by Mary Oliver, not this one. There's

other ones, and I have one. I mean, read later if you want

that talks about I mean, I don't know if you've ever been in a

relationship. I know I have where you know you need to leave

and you cannot leave, and every part of you is telling you you

need to do it, and you're suffering and you're but you

just can't do it. And then you read something like this, and in

a few stanzas, you have a different a different way of

understanding life. You know,

it's so powerful. I feel like I'm appreciate. It's

interesting because I love Mary. Mary Oliver's quote, what are

you doing with this one wild and precious life? And David J

white, my favorite one is, I say it all the time on the podcast.

How do you know you're on the path? Well, the path disappears.

You can't see where you're going. And I but I'm not, I

wouldn't say I've been a hugely like into poetry, although

sometimes when I'm really rooted, I'll write raps, I'll

write poetry like things will come through. But it, I think

for all of us, you know, I feel like even, even you know, people

identify as a writer or not a writer. But I think we all are

all forms of artists when we're plugged in and that there's so

many ways to express and that we can grow into expressing. And

how cathartic and healing, I imagine it's been deeply healing

for your journey to reclaim this part of yourself, and also

imagine you've deepened. I mean, what you read?

Will you read one of yours? This was the last

thing I wrote maybe a few months ago. There was all these things

coming to a halt. A relationship ended. It was really

heartbreaking. I needed to move homes. Home. I lived for five

years that I loved because they were going to sell it and I was

not going to buy it, and I had four giant oak trees that are

100 years old, each, you know, and the closest to the river.

All the experiences that I live there, my children went from

young kids to young adults. One of my sons started driving, and

the transformation like just disappearing into his own world

with friends, you know, my other son going to college. So all

these things coming and then me needing to find something almost

like there's a part of me that wrote to myself so that I could

remember, you know, there's a I was sharing it by John

O'Donoghue, David White's best friend who died in his sleep at

52 he was a theologian, he was a philosopher, he was an

incredible poet, and he shared that every human being deserves

to write a blessing for themselves, even if it takes

them two to three years to write so that in the moments of

deepest anguish despair, they can pull it out and remember the

truth of why they're here and what's out there for them behind

beyond what they can see. So with that in mind, I said, I

said, I need to write something for myself, because I was really

struggling with with the whole thing. So I need to write

something for myself, almost like a call to arms that calls

me to understand what's going on and reminds me of what I need to

do when the time comes. So I that one is called to be free

again. And I wrote it thinking about I wrote it in front of,

uh. Um, one of my trees, you know, like the one of the four

trees, the one I loved most. So there's an image of that.

There's imagery of the go to the river, especially if I go at

sunset. There's some beautiful cliff, some beautiful limestone

cliffs, and then there's, you can see the orange sky. It's

just an incredible experience. So, I mean, I'll just, I'll just

read it, okay. It says to be free again. I long for this pain

to burn and set me free again, to lay silently over the ashes

under the oak tree and kiss its living roots so I can be held by

loving arms that never deny the essence of what first brought

them close. And I wrote that because sometimes you connect

with someone who loves part of you and the part of you that is

the part of you that they loved is now the part that becomes the

part that they don't no longer want or like. It's too intense.

It's too something, you know, so, so that's that line to make

time stop and cradle the sacredness of this moment before

it slips through my fingers one more time without cause or

warning to remember, never to forget that this instant will

never again take place in space or time, but it will deceive me

into thinking it is one of many I want to stand quietly under

the wind and shed my shoes and socks right at the Bank of my

river as It sinks of life and forgiveness through its unending

generosity of rushing waters for a cold wind to awaken my face as

I watch in reverence the orange fire in the distant clouds from

an altar in the sky as an offering to God to see the sun

hide beneath the limestone cliffs and let the light of the

first evening start stop this grief from holding me back when

the time comes to stand up and walk boldly into a future I

can't yet imagine, through a path that has been prepared for

me by the great spirit and is calling me yet again to close my

eyes and trust this dark night with the same effortless faith

with which I surrender to my breath when I fall asleep, to be

willing to be born again from clay and Angel Dust and reemerge

in that silent place when there's no difference between

you and me, to fervently love this life with my whole being,

until that fateful moment when it's taken away from me, but not

without foreshowing my devotion and gratitude from The rooftops

for everything has been and everything it has failed to be

for every blessed being I've lost, I've loved and lost along

the way, but carry with me through every waking heartbeat

and for the depth of pain it took to wake me up, to leave, to

sing, to laugh, to grief, to learn To love again and come to

die with an open heart.

What's your what's your moon? Sign, I'm like, I

feel like you have a Scorpio moon. It was one

September 13, so that's a Virgo. But I'm not

sure what the

your Virgo sun, but I feel like your moon is a water

sign, and it feels Scorpio. I don't know, I'm not an

astrologer, but obviously I hung out with Andy for a long time,

so I learned a lot over the years. And it's just like, so

beautiful and deep, like, just the waters run deep, and oh my

gosh, I every you read that one to me last time we talked. And

the line that gets me the most is like something about the dark

night, trust the dark night. Surrender, like surrender, like

I do to sleep every night, close my eyes and to

close my eyes and trust this dark night with

the same effortless faith with which I surrender to my breath

as I fall asleep. Because there is that thing, there is just

completely you. I mean, you hope you're gonna wake up, but you

don't really know.

And many people don't, yeah, and we don't like,

we don't even know where we go, what happens? I was watching a

YouTube video about this the other day, like we trust it, and

yeah, and we probably go to other dimensions, other places,

but we we go, we surrender to it, except for those insomniacs

who can't fall asleep after writing this

work I have. There's so much power in words,

like I have this place. This is my new studio that I moved to.

It's very similar, and I have a really close friend, Michelle.

Is her name, and when I was at my lowest of lowest, she would

just be there, you know, like a really awesome human being. And

when I came to this place, I was like, I don't know if I should

change the color of the wall, because I don't, like,

absolutely change it and I'll go there to paint it with you. So

she came here and helped me paint this. But she said, before

you paint it, I want you to close your eyes and I want you

to think of, what are the intentions you have for this new

life that you're experiencing in this metaphorical new house?

It's a new home. It's a new beginning, it's a new way of

working. So I want you to and she I did this exercise that She

guided me through, and then said, wake up and then, like,

write those things in pencil on the wall of what you're

committing to, what you. Want your intentions, and I the

entire wall behind me is full of those words, and then the pain

comes over it, but there's like I feel the presence of that. I

feel like there's moments in recent life where I've had two

choices and I've gone for the one that is most aligned with

this version of myself that I did not have in me, but I called

out into being through putting it on paper. And so that's and

that's been thresholds of my life where sometimes it's not me

writing it somebody else writing those words, but me say, still

feeling compelled to go there.

I feel like that's even why people listen to

podcasts. Like, you know, we listen to those that resonate

with us and bring us a sense of peace and bring us a sense of

hope and inspiration and and spark and and I this is so cool,

because it's like, what a beautiful, unexpected

conversation for women to hear. You know that that like to

inspire them to make art with their pain and their grief and

just thinking how, as you're talking about this whole

process, I'm just imagining women going through labor. It's

like, even, and even if we haven't, it's like you can

imagine, like you don't just say no doctor, like, I'm sorry, I'm

I give up. Like, I quit. Actually, you know what? Forget

it. Let's just leave this baby inside like, I'm it's too

painful, right? It's like she will go and go and go, even if

she's tired, even if she's scared, even if she's fed up,

even if she's fucking

danger of death. I mean that. So there's

you take the ultimate risk, yeah.

And like, back in the day, like, women died all

the time in childbirth, and they still do actually know of a

woman, a friend of a friend in Australia, who died in her third

having her third baby, yeah. And she was, like, 30 something,

like, it's, it is a risk, and it's like, but the willingness

to do whatever it takes, and then the gift of holding this

precious, beautiful life on the other side of that, and that is

like the willingness to feel our feelings and our heartbreak. And

so many times, as you're talking, I'm also feeling like

heartbreak is love, you know, like grief is love, even like,

especially when we lose, it's inconsequential.

You only grieve because you love something, and

it can no longer be in the same form,

which changes you, like whether someone dies or

someone or you you know someone leaves your life, even a friend

or a job or whatever it's like that grief, it has to change

you, because you have to change when that person thing

experiences no longer in your life. And so it's like the the

process of feeling it fully, and the gift in that and and I just

think like, what, what is, what an inspiration for women to have

something to because I imagine that some women click, some

women just listen to every episode. But I imagine some

who've clicked on this episode are go or sharing this with a

friend who are going through deep heartbreak right now, and

so how, like, what would you say? So, if I'm going through

deep heartbreak right now and I'm in the agony phase and I'm

in the like, what would be some steps to take to start to like

actually, because it feels inspiring to be able to take

that pain and

create two things, amazing question. And I

have something that I wrote that I think will will help, in part,

answer that. But as you were talking about this birth,

birthing experience, I one of the biggest heartbreaks of my

life was the very same, because I've been to childbirths, my own

children, and I know the stillness of that room, and I

know how one moment you go from stillness medical shit taking

place because it was in hospitals, because C section,

both of them almost like a clinical white Light. That's

just hospital, and then you go from that to in one cry, the

soul of that child feels up the entire room, and you're blessed

with that for the rest of your life. Life changes for you. So I

know the experience of childbirth, the other experience

that I know is death. I mean, I was with my father, holding him

in my arms as he died. He took his last breath, surrounded by

his family, everyone touching him, but the experience of that

was the most birth like experience I've ever had,

because there was music in the background. My brother was

guiding him into breathing and letting go, the same way you you

guide someone to, like, release and push. It was like the same

thing, but on the other end of life, you know? And then that

moment, which is, I mean, I have two birthdays, September 13 and

February 2, which is when my father died, because that's the

moment, that moment he took his last breath, was. Moment I said,

Okay, I I will share my gift like it took he my grandfather

died two months ago. He died then, and then I am next, and I

will not die with this inside of me. So I will do whatever it

takes. I made a promise to him, before he died, that I was going

to start doing this, and when he died, it was like the commitment

of starting my business. I remember back in the day where

nothing was working. I was working. I was creating videos

for two freaking years without anything happening, just like no

one would watch them, like 20 views, I mean videos, you know,

and crying in my desk at night, completely heartbroken until it

started working. But that experience of heartbreak was the

biggest force for me not to die with my music in me, because I

just had to. I just had to. I wish I could have learned this

book, but I didn't, or a podcast or a teacher or therapist, but

it took that experience of having this close death for me

to go. So to answer your question, I'd say there's two

stages. One is the compassionate stage, and the other one is the

uplifting stage, because if you skip the Compassionate One, then

it's too forceful, you know, I said I wrote something. Let me

see if I can find this, this thing that I wrote, this line of

what I wrote that said trying to visualize a new love when the

heart and a new love doesn't just mean a new partner, it just

means the the new experience you want. You know whether that's a

new job. Whether that's something with your family when

the heart needs to heal, it's as violent as asking your own child

to run when she's starting to crawl. So what I mean by that is

the first stages may not necessarily be the alchemy. It's

too soon sometimes, you know. So there's, there's an aspect of

heartbreak that is going into darkness. And going into

darkness is where you get to in that dark night of the soul.

Feel your pain without forcing into anything, until you feel

the current is strong enough to float you out, right? You don't,

you don't get addicted to it, and that's the danger in going

to pain. But you also don't force it. And then there's a

moment where you start feeling when you feeling, when you start

feeling, you know what? I've had, some moments of joy.

That's, that's the best moment to start alchemizing, because

it's, there's a vibration that's, it's like, you don't try

to take the apple from the tree when it's green, because it's,

it's not a good apple. It's not going to taste good. It's just,

it's violent thing, but once the thing starts ripening, if you

let it too long on the tree, it will rot, you know, so, or it

will fall and then just decay. So do you want? Is it okay? If I

read something here that I wrote about this, okay, meaning, so,

here's what I said,

darkness, if we allow it, has a deeply healing vibration, so

long as we understand it as a temporary resting place rather

than our new home, it is human and easy to confuse the

seasonal, nurturing power of darkness with a new, permanent

identity. But darkness, grief and all of its seeming horrors,

are in many ways, the rehabilitative space where we

can start to exhale, heal and learn to listen to our souls

again, where we can let go of the dreams we so perfectly

curated so that even bigger ones can emerge in ways we could not

have imagined. I'm inviting you to feel now the many times in

your life where you almost wished something into being,

prayed, pleaded, perhaps even begged for it to happen, and yet

it didn't, and your heart broke into a million pieces, and you

couldn't understand why. And then, in ways, all wasting more

time than you wanted to, the wish to cut a new form, a new

opportunity, a new job, a new relationship or a new job. And

when it did, the bigness of it made you understand in a flash,

with infinite waves of gratitude, why the previous

incarnation of it did not happen. It wasn't until you,

until that sacred moment, that you finally felt how an

unconditional love you did not think you deserved was carrying

you on its shoulders all along, especially those nights you

thought you were walking solo. Moments like this make faith

visible, giving us a glimpse into why, even when something

isn't happening now, which is the essence of all heartbreak.

It's not a punishment, but a protection and a silent

invocation for something greater, a spiritual delay

orchestrated by our benefit, for our benefit so that it can make

our hearts wide enough to be capable of receiving what's

about to come and to give us through sharp contrast, the

needed appreciation we will need to fully receive and feel its

beauty with every atom of our being. Once it arrives,

something perhaps so beautiful we cannot comprehend it from

this grieving resting place, a welcome sunrise of pink, orange

and yellows, and as I wrote this for my old office, and as the

light comes through my window, I'm inviting you to a way of

being that moved me to tears through the ending of a poem by

Antonio Machado, I still remember the moment I first read

it in my parents' bedroom when I was 10 or 11. And I'll put the

part in Spanish. I'll just skip that. I'll say the part in

English. I translate it to English. And when the day of the

last journey arrives and the ship that never turns back is

about to. Apart, you will find me on board traveling light,

almost naked, like the children of the sea. So perhaps what I'm

trying to say is that you don't need to see the full path ahead

to make it through heartbreak. All you need is to let go of the

need to know what's next and rest in the felt knowing that no

winter, no night and no storm is permanent, and that you don't

need to promise yourself to close your heart indefinitely to

keep yourself safe, embrace the night, but refuse to get lost in

the darkness. Remember that all deaths are followed by a

rebirth, even when we don't know what, we don't understand where

or how or from where, like Meru that once wrote, remember that

the night that the moment right before the sun breaks in the

east is always the coldest point in the night. Refuse to give up

on the love that is waiting for you on the break of dawn. Don't

give up on the lover who's still aching and longing for you. Be

humble to what you don't yet know. Be grateful for the

heartbreak that cracked your heart open to finally be capable

of allowing the first moonbeam back into you, rest in this

holding space, until you feel a ray of sunlight about to emerge

on the horizon. Smell its scent of rain and gardenias even

before it arrives. Sing to it like the morning birdsong does,

full of faith, even like Tagore once said, when the night is

still dark and when he finally reaches your eyes, take a deep

breath and rise to meet it, naked and with open arms. That's

the calling again, the calling to you, stay in the silence.

Stay in the silence. And then you start feeling a glimpse of

the light coming through. Yes, open to it and follow through

with it.

I'm just like, I'm, as you read that, I was just

feeling the, you know, like in the Western world, there's this

tendency to numb everything, right, to just numb out with

Netflix, with our phones, like we're just trained to even

walking, yeah, walking down the street and seeing, like everyone

on their phones, even in Greece, like, even on the island of

Corfu, like everyone's just on their devices, kind of like in

that sort of in between state that has us miss the sunset and

miss the magic and miss the beautiful moments and or or even

if we notice them, we don't feel them as deeply, but then just

feeling the being so raw in heartbreak, and then you See the

sunset, you're so much more open, like it's it, I think you

said it in one of the poems. It's like the heartbreak is the

thing that cracks US Open, that cracks the heart open, and now

the light can come in. And I think that's a that's a known

statement, right? So, yes, your capacity to love, your capacity

to receive life, your capacity to and and I think we also

perceive love in such a limited way. But love is so much bigger

than one person, one romantic person like the more we crack

our hearts open and feel fully and let ourselves go to those

darkest corners, the more we can experience the light and love

that is everywhere, that is in everything, that's in every

flower and butterfly and every person and every culture like

love is everywhere, and we've just been taught. And so I think

often when people get trapped in a heartbreak, they're actually

trapped in their mind and in wanting to control the story, as

opposed to the poem you just read, is about how, like,

essentially, the life that's meant for us reveals itself when

we're willing to actually, like, go into the rupture so that we

can experience the thing we're meant to experience.

Next, you're standing, holding, Holding,

holding, and finally, you keep the calling, and you take the

first step. And then, because the way, as that poem that you

alluded to describes you will not you will feel like and I

know, because I've experienced this so many times, especially

in recent history, I'm just gonna fall. There's nothing to

hold me. This is the end of the line. And then something shows

up. If you take the step, something shows up for you.

Always, yeah, it makes sense later.

It makes sense later, for sure.

Wow, that's so beautiful. Like this is this

conversation just feels so poignant to the title of the

beauty of heartbreak

from what you shared. I mean, men, a lot of

your audience is women who listen to this podcast? I'm sure

there's men as well.

Yeah, there's some men. Hey, David, my friend, my

clients, husband listens and and some gay men,

for sure. Because if women, and I'm I'm

thinking women who are listening to this are looking for men in I

mean heterosexual women looking for men. I heard something

really beautiful. There was an interview Alain de boton, which

I really admire as a human being, as a writer, as a

philosopher, as a therapist. And he was talking about, he said

something like, the best men are broken men, men who have. Gone

through, have fallen from wherever they were and were

broken in so many different ways, but found their way back.

Because when you connect with someone who has gone the path

and has healed in some way, there's an essence of empathy.

There's an essence of of humility. You know, here you

are, thinking you're king of the world. Nothing you do can go

wrong, and then you fall further than you think you can ever

recover from, and then you find your way back. Then there's

going to be some sense. I mean, obviously I'm not suggesting

that they go find someone who's in that state of brokenness at

the moment and be healed through them, because that's not a

suggestion. But when somebody's doing not a fixer upper, not a

fixer upper, through some of that pain, I think they'll find

themselves with someone who has more empathy, more capacity to

feel, understand. You know that?

Yeah, more depth, more like, look at you now. I

mean, okay, you were amazing before. I love do, but this is

like, I'm just like, every time we talk,

you're amazing. I don't share the things I share

in every podcast same way. If you don't have the capacity or

the lived experience or the suffering you've gone through to

understand what I'm about to say, then I'm going to

naturally, without even thinking about share a lot less, because

I don't feel held or understood in the essence what I'm sharing.

So the fact that I'm sharing this way, you hold great space,

you understand this, you appreciate so it allows me to

share more powerfully in ways that I maybe

I wasn't ready for it before, so you were already

like this

powerful for we're all, in some way still

broken inside of us, and we're all healing. But I think there's

something really beautiful about understanding life as that you

know, like the you'll go, you'll you'll fall, and then you'll

come back from it, and if you're lucky enough, it will happen

with people that you care about, and that's all you can ask for,

because you never know when you're going to go. I think that

I've had more people in my life go sooner than I would have

hoped to from the early stage of I mean, I was a child when my

first friend, at 13, committed suicide, you know? And so, yeah,

so I've seen that happen in so many different ways and forms,

and now it's just like young people at 50, young artists just

gone so because we don't know how long we will live, we have a

commitment to to understand heartbreak and and really just

commit to doing it through things that matter to us more

than, rather than unconsciously, because if you don't,

it's a lot, it's aliveness. It reminds me of the

covid times like, obviously, in the beginning, we're all just

freaked out, and nobody knew what was happening. But, but

like, 123, years later, I mean, my parents, this, this woman is

a dear family friend of ours. Okay? She's now like 101 last

time I spoke to her on the phone was in 2023 almost said 1993

like whoa back in town, 2023 so she was like 98 when I talked to

her last and she was still afraid of covid. And it was 2023

and and December and I, and I said, Joan, like, what? What do

you mean? She was like, oh, yeah, I'm not leaving my house.

She has literally still not left her house. She's still living

I'm like, you. She's the most beautiful woman when she was a

last time I saw her in person, she was like, 96 she looked like

she was probably 70. Like, I'm not kidding. So beautiful, so

young, so vibrant, so cool, so alive, and she had not left her

house. And my mom said it's the same. She's still like, people

go there and visit, but she's still afraid to die of covid.

And I'm like, but you're missing the the end of your story. Like,

go out with a bang, and if you get covid Like you are not. And

I said that to her on the call. I said, Wouldn't you rather live

like you're 98 you've done very well, like this is you're going

strong and and, and so it's her journey, bless her heart, and

she's just doing what feels right for her. I don't say any

of that from judgment, but more from like, how many people did

that? We're all in the name of not dying, and this covid is a

metaphor. We do this in so many ways, all in the name of not

feeling pain or feeling heartbreak. So we stay in that

relationship, even though our gut and body and everything's

screaming leave. We stay in the relationship. We stay in the

job. We stay all in the name of not feeling the pain, not

feeling other people's pain, other people's disappointment,

our own pain, our own disappointment. We don't live,

yeah. And like you said, we don't know how much time we have

to live, and we're here to, I don't know about you, that's I

just want to live while I'm alive and and so I feel like

that's such a beautiful theme of this episode, in this

conversation, even I was moved to tears. And you're talking

about your father, and you all being in the room and holding

his hand and and, and like, that's what death teaches us

more than anything. I've lost a lot of people in my life too,

and it's like it's taught me more than anything that, like,

what matters is that we're living and loving period and

like, the willingness something. It was you said that earlier,

too, in a poem, I think, or maybe it was in your poetry,

poetic, just communication, but, but about like, if I'm not like,

if I'm afraid to love fully, or if I feel like I have to protect

my heart because I've been hurt in the past, so all in the name

of protecting myself, I'm not experiencing love. But that's

why we're here, is to have the human experience

and to feel judgment, because I've been in

spaces where that's the dark, you know, the dark night that

I'm talking about. But some people get the overstay their

Yeah, it's like an old welcome guest. It's after some time on

the darkness, like there's the need to move you share the

example of that woman who's 90 something, and even though she

looks younger, but there are people in your audience right

now listening who are far younger, who unconsciously may

have made the decision I'm throwing in the towel. I've

gotten too much pain, and again, not judgment is just like if you

have 40 more years to live. The difference between being with

the right partner or not, is Jay fucking antic. It is not, it's

not. The icing on the cake is a new universe with ice creams and

with new things we haven't even discovered. So I think I shared

this with you through my work. I have people send emails and

comments, and in this case, this is maybe 1012, years ago, I had

a woman from Argentina who wrote to me so moved by the work that

the things she'd been learning on the videos, and she said that

she didn't have cash to work with me because she was facing

stage four colon cancer, and she had a daughter. She's three

years old, and her money is all going to of course. So I said,

hey, it was a Christmas Day. I remember. I said, Hey, Christmas

gift to me. Can I have a conversation with you? You know?

And we spoke on Skype back then, which the FaceTime wasn't a

thing. So we spoke on Skype, and I said, help you, and I want to

help you. You don't have to pay me. So I started having

conversations to help because she did not want to die without

experiencing love. So we started having conversations. And long

story short, the point in her life came where she didn't find

what she was looking for. But I remember, through in between

chemos, her talking about the guy she was interested in,

asking questions like going for it until her last breath, dying

in the attempt is a worthwhile cause.

You know what the love was with you? That's what

I'm getting right now. She's on the other side. That's what I

just heard. That's what I just heard. I have a connection

that's opened up a lot lately, and I just heard it was for you.

It was like her love with you and being loved by a man, not in

a romantic way, but being loved by a man and seen and held and

cared for and like you, showed up for her at a time where she

needed love the most. So it was actually all that other stuff

too, but like your love and that, I mean, my biggest

takeaway is, like, the willingness to be heartbroken.

Like, may we all live life so fully that we're willing to face

heartbreak over and over and over and over again, because

we're going to it's a human experience. It's going to happen

in all the ways. Like you said, heartbreak by every phase your

children go through, and you let go of the old phase, and then

you got the new one. It's it's life is going to heartbreak us

and smack us in the face over and over and over again. And may

we love and live so big that we're willing to feel all of it.

May we all learn how to be in relationship with our feeling,

so that we can navigate so we can navigate it and actually

dance with it, as opposed to deny it or repress it or hide

from it, or because how many people are not living, yes,

while they're here on the name of not feeling pain, it's just

and then you're suffering. You're feeling so much more

pain, actually, than just feeling.

There's something beautiful about going

for it again and find, obviously there's that's why there's

resources, right? Love is feeling, but it's a skill like

so if you really want something special, and it's very complex,

especially nowadays, then to think that you'll get it just by

winging it is not a thing. I mean, at least in my experience,

I haven't seen it work that way. So I want to read something. And

for anyone right now who's in that space where, and this is

called blessing for a requited love. Is David White's but it's

not something that a requited love is, not necessarily just I

want this person to be mine, and they choose not to be mine. But

sometimes it's the love of something that you want to be

that just didn't work out. But in the case of someone really

that. In their hearts, feeling that sense of it didn't happen

for me or the person that I loved loved me, but not in the

way that I needed to. That is for them, and it's basically and

he wrote it based he wrote it for someone he deeply loved who

did not love him back. And that is his alchemy of heartbreak

into into poetry, and it says a blessing on the eyes that do not

see me as I wish, a blessing to the ears that can never hear the

far inward footfall of my own shy heart. Blessings to the life

in you that will live without me. To the open door that now

and forever takes you away from me. Blessings to the path that

you follow alone, and blessings to the path that awaits you

joining with another, a blessing for the way you will not know me

in the years to come, and with it, a blind, outstretched

blessing of my hands on anything or anyone that cannot ever come

to know Me fully as I am, and therefore a blessing, even for

the way I will never fully know myself above all the deepest,

kindest wishes of my own hidden and untrammeled heart, for what

you have to hide from me in you, let me be generous enough and

large enough and brave enough to say goodbye to you Without

understanding, to let you go into your own understanding. May

you always be in the sweet, Central, hidden shadow of my

memory without needing to know who you were when you first

came, who you were, when you stayed, and who you will became

in your freedom now that you are passed through my life and gone.

Mm, yeah. I mean, so if that doesn't move you, what does you

know for me? Because I have many, I've had many of those

experiences in life, starting from an early age, because I

fell in love at the age of 11, you know the first time.

I'm not surprised, so beautiful. And, yeah, and I

love that you said unrequited, like, because people have

unrequited dreams, you know, and like and, and, yes, life

redirects us. And there's different, you know, often we

have a we want to go here, and then we end up over there, and

it doesn't look how we imagine it's gonna look. But, yeah,

there's such a beauty in it. I love it. So, okay, so for you in

terms of your work now, what? Who are you helping? How to how

do we follow you?

Okay, where to find me? Vern mendez.com, is a

place you can find me, and from there, most of my work is shared

on YouTube. That's my main platform. I I write a lot for my

newsletter for people who are on my email list. Time wise, poetry

was an essay, essay of the darkness into light. So I write

those things. I write more than just that, but I write that in

my newsletter. I started to convert it into different I need

to start a stop stock. But so it's not that I've shared some

things in LinkedIn, but if you go to my website, Berman, as a

com, or YouTube me, you know, and YouTube Bern Mendez, you'll

find you'll find me. And what I do is I help women, typically at

this stage, in midlife, who are looking for something very

profound, and are not willing to settle both on who they want,

but also who they wish to become, because there's the give

and take and there's match, right? How do you become the

match to what that would you seek and and the essence of the

of what I do, because there's so many ways of doing relationship

work, for me is how to help someone to remember who they are

like, see them in the way they're meant to be seen, and

help them in that gap between what they think they want and

what they really want and what they're doing, what they need to

be doing, and what they're being when, who they need To be being

like in that little closeness. That's it, finding the person I

haven't had done this for many I mean, 15 years now, and weddings

and childbirth and all the things that have happened

through this work, I just find it fascinating. I just find it's

it's so moving to see someone two things, a obviously the

first part, which is somebody's light coming back into their

eyes. Remember who they are, and maybe some form what I shared,

how I shared it, something brought them back, you know,

they said the freeburator, and, you know, starts the heart

starts beating again, and then then going out into the world

and sharing that in a way that they hadn't before. And

something that wasn't happening, just happening as a result of

how they show up and what they asked for, the boundaries they

set the whole thing. Because if you don't

like, if you don't become it, and you're just

trying to get it. And I think so many women are trapped in that,

trying to get the love, trying to get the guy, trying to get

the perfect person on paper, but if you haven't become the woman,

you're not going to be a match to it. And I even think about

Andy. Me and like, what a beautiful testament. Like, she

you were huge. I You were like, she worked with you for, I

think, a year or something, and I remember how much she

transformed in that time. And she didn't meet her partner for

probably another eight years. But, but, but it was actually

she says now she, she her only advice to her past self is like,

I wish I knew it was, it was inevitable, which I think on a

soul level, she did. Because now that she has it, she's like, oh,

all those years I could have, you know, really enjoyed the

face that I was in, relaxed into knowing. And I think we can just

trust that you know, if you, in your deepest heart and soul,

know that you're meant to experience deep love, and it

many. Maybe it'll be many relationships like you're you're

experiencing, you had your marriage, and then another

relationship, and now a new one. It, it's um, it. We don't know

how many we're going to experience, but if you want to

experience deep soul love with another person, you will,

because you're you wouldn't feel that desire in your body and

your heart and your soul if you didn't. But, and there's a we

need to become the woman in order to be and they and they

also divine timing. So I think of Andy and Jordan. When I met

her partner, I was like, Oh, there you are. I He was exactly

it was, like he was always there, you know, like she her

vision she had in her, in her body, and how she shared it the

for the 15 years I've known her, I I met him, and I'm like, Oh

yeah, okay, of course, you're him. Like, it just but not in a

fantasy way, in a deeply rooted like, oh yeah, there's your soul

match. Because she became the woman, and he had to become the

man, and all the timing things that they both had to go through

to become those people, so we don't have to control it. But I

feel like the work you do is so powerful and beautiful to help

women really, really rise into the woman who is open and

willing to receive, go

find it. I think that what you said is

really beautiful. It's like that there's the being and there's

something we say about the doing. I mean, yes, be radiant

goddess house and both really challenging. Yeah, totally. You

can go out and do the apps and the whole thing, but you're not

really feeling it, then it's gonna take a lot longer. I'm not

saying it's not gonna happen. It's just Yeah, but there's ways

to compress time as much as possible within your your

destiny, yes, yeah,

totally, it's both the being and doing, for sure. I

love that. Yeah, I love it. You're amazing. Wow. Thank you

for sharing all your gifts like you. I mean, I'm gonna listen to

this episode over and over again. I feel so honored to

share your magic here, and maybe we'll do this conversation. And

again, your poetry is incredible and and really deeply moving.

And I also do, I have one other question so you, because I know

you work with couples too, yes, and now and occasionally you do

live events.

It's been a little while since I do but

every now and then I do live events, yeah, like a three day

retreat, for example.

Yeah, yes, amazing. I'm just thinking about all the

women who've listened to this episode and are curious about

the creative part. Do you help your clients access that? If

they're going they're going through heartbreak, or they're

like, the the poetry is

that part of the other way. So I felt,

obviously, some people than others, but I think that

there's, I mean, I think a friend of mine described it

powerfully, said, well, at the essence of what you do is you're

going to help people through the way you're showing up in life,

remember who they are, and also kind of like the essence of what

they're seeking in themselves and another. And it's an

activating but for me, I do whatever it takes. I start a

session, and I don't have notes, I just I'm going to sense and

feel and like brush strokes, you know, paint. And then something

amazing will come. I don't even know what's going to come out of

it, but I guide myself through my heart in the work. And then

when I feel something, i i Pro and then I go with it. And

sometimes I find, typically, at some point, I'll find the thing

that needed to be found, because there's so many things you can

focus on. There's one that's a major thing holding somebody

back, you know? And then once you go into that, then you don't

have to worry about the minutia of rearranging the desk or, I

mean, you just make send that email that's going to get you a

million dollar client, instead of doing the 50 other things

that are not the best use of our time. So metaphorically, that's

what I help somebody do. Just find their most important thing

every week, week after week, go into it, hold themselves, to the

light of what they can do, and also to the accountability of

you didn't do it. It's okay, okay, but let's do it again. You

know, this week,

you know, I feel like a part of the healing, even

witnessing Andy and what, what the what I felt with that woman

who passed away, is that that's also part of the healing of

women working with you, is that is working with them a divine,

no, I mean, I mean, like you, like you're human, and you

shared all your. Vulnerabilities intrusive. I don't mean that in

a like fantasy way, but, but, but in a deeply like it's deeply

healing to have a man who's loving and and solid in his

masculinity and can hold you and guide you back home to yourself.

And that's part of the healing. I had a massage therapist in

have he, I still in Athens who I all my clients go to. Everyone

thinks they're in love with him when they have a session with

him, everyone him, everyone's like, there's a special

connection. I'm like, You're gonna feel like there's a

special connection. He's He's very sensual. It's very slow,

and he's deep and spiritual, and he talks to you after, and he

does sound bath at the end, and for those last 45 minutes,

actually. So it's really profound experience. Yeah, it's

very Greek. No, it is very Greek. It's very sensual. But

the first few times I had a session with him, I just cried

and cried and cried, and I was like, whoa. I think there's some

like guards. I feel like there's layers of distrust that I had

with men that I didn't realize I'd kind of collected from doing

the work I do with women that I had all this like stuff that

that got released in these massages with him, where it was

just like it went. It wasn't, I didn't feel that romantic thing,

but it felt so healing to be with such a loving, solid, safe

man. So I think that I imagine, there's such a gift in women

working with you too, before they open to love or heal

their hearts, or to have, I mean, to hold that

container in that boundary, you know, because I think I've done

this work for a lot of time, and I've connected even, I mean, I

won't say names of people who to do this, and they get, they

really get something out of it in a way that crosses the line,

and that's like, so, yes, just not wrong. Because, like,

somebody's coming to you with their full vulnerability, and

it's a power position. I don't Yes, mess with that, you know.

So, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. I think that's a

huge part of the healing that I've Thank you, Kate and I feel,

yeah. So, so the beauty of heartbreak, any final

statements, final words of wisdom or poetry or love that

you want to share. The final

thing would be that wherever you are right now,

it's okay if you're listening to this and you're feeling anxious

about not fully getting how heartbreak can be beautiful.

It's okay if you're feeling right now that you're in this

definitely dark night of the soul and that you don't you're

not ready to come out yet, that's okay. And if you're

feeling that calling again and the jitters of then do something

about it, whatever that is. I heard something beautiful the

other day, which is like, if you're what you want to do, you

find yourself not able to do what you want to do, is because

it's too big right now for where you are. Make it the smallest

thing you can think of, so small you can't fail. And then do that

little thing. That thing might not be to put yourself out

there. Might be just there. Might be just to write a

sentence about the type of kind of human being that you want to

be with. That might mean to listen to a song create a

playlist for yourself, like the smallest step you can take that

will guide you to the next step. So don't force yourself into

anything. There is something to be said about getting help. I

mean, like women work with you for a reason, so just do

something to get yourself give yourself the help you need.

Yes, yes, help is all around and you're listening

to this podcast. So there's step one. Thank you so much. Love and

as always, share this episode with every woman you know who

needs to hear this message thank you or I meant them, but you

too, I share with all your friends and yeah, thank you for

all your beautiful words and love. See you soon. See you.