All About Trust: In Relationships & With Ourselves

What is trust? How does this fit into relationships - especially in the early parts? How does trust within work? Or trust in the Universe/God? Why is trust so fragile and challenging when it could be a rock that we easily rest upon?

Transcript

So today we're talking about trust. What trust is. One of the big things that came up when this talk was requested was about trust in relationships, Especially early on in relationships. So why do we want to talk about this? Why is this important? One of the big reasons is that we desperately want to have human connection. We want to have deep relationships. We want to have connection with each other. But we're coming out of a long history, Like millennia of history, Where relationships had nothing to do with trust. They had nothing to do with connection. They had nothing to do with love. They had nothing to do with kindness. They didn't really even have much to do with fidelity, Which is the number one topic that we're often talking about when we talk about trust. We come out of a history where we are trained to be codependent. We're trained to know that one partner is lesser than the other. You know, Historically in the heterosexual world, It was women who couldn't work. They weren't even people. So if they weren't married, They were nothing. Well, If you have no choice in the world except to be married, And if you're married, Then you have an identity. It's not your identity, It's your husband's identity, But at least you have an identity. This does not build healthy connection between people. It builds codependence. It builds anger. Human beings are sovereign, Divine creatures. To be pretending or to be playing this sort of game that I am a lesser being or something like that, Or this is a more exalted being, And we're supposed to play this out, This creates havoc in relationships. And in this moment that we're discussing this, We are the, I don't know, 120th generation of the result of this nonsense. It's nonsense. This is not human behavior. This is not how we are designed, But this was forced upon us by whoever, The church, The authority, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Whoever. Now we are sitting here in the year 2023 saying, I just wanna have a relationship with someone who I can trust, I can relax, I can open up to, I can know that we're telling the truth to each other. Is it such a big deal? But unfortunately, We have so much history, So many generations, So much personal experience that says that's impossible. I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't even know what that would look like. And yet we're still sort of playing a game, Living in a fantasy that, Oh no, No, We're just gonna do this, We're gonna jump in, And this time it's gonna be really good, And we're just gonna kinda close our eyes and hope for the best. But then we don't actually have any tools to develop that connection. So in many ways, The idea of having trust in relationships, We are all trailblazers here. This is new, The kind of real trust, Not this phony baloney trust that I trust that you'll take care of, La, La, La, All this nonsense, This weird, I trust that you'll protect me, And I trust you'll always honor me, And all this weird, It's kind of just words. And it's not only just words, It's words that we're supposed to say. They're words that we're expected to say, But you're allowed to say it and not mean it. It's like even the wedding vows. I honor, To love, Cherish you. How soon does that go out the door? The minute you're pissed off because they didn't meet up to your expectation, The minute this happens, And now you're mad, And you yell at them, Or whatever. What happened to honor, Cherish? These words we use, And we throw them around, But it's almost like we've been trained that we're allowed to say words that have no basis in reality. Can you imagine actually making the promise to look into another person's eyes and say, No matter what happens, I honor your journey as a human. I honor your satya. I honor that you are here incarnate on this planet Earth to take a journey, And I honor your journey no matter what. Can you imagine actually making that promise to another person? I honor to cherish you no matter what. Very often, The problem isn't that this person did this, Or this person did that. The problem is that we just throw words around, And then get mad if the other person, I don't know, Doesn't do it. But we all say this nonsense. So to actually begin today, In all of our relationships and with ourself, If we wanna cultivate trust, We have to be very clear what we're saying. We have to be very clear what we desire. Because historically, It didn't matter. You just said the words, You put the ring on your finger, And then you just wrote up the expectations of your partner and forgot all the vows. Forget about fidelity. We forgot all of them. We forgot about love. We forgot about kindness. We forgot about everything. And they're all interconnected. So to really kind of sit with this whole concept that we're gonna talk about today as trailblazers, And not just trailblazers, Because part of the problem with being hundreds of generations later is that there's also a lot of pain, And there's wounding. And sometimes we have had really difficult childhoods, Because what comes out of this very angry coupling is the same connection or disconnection perpetrated upon the children. And then those children get together in disconnection and perpetrated upon the children, And this continues. So very often, At this point, We might be looking around going, I know I want a trusting relationship, But I don't even know if I'm capable of being trustworthy, Really. And again, Getting rid of this, We will talk about fidelity, But getting rid of that idea for a moment, And imagine that we are trusting ourself, That we have integrity with ourselves, That our words are fully grounded in action, That we will honor our truth at all times. This is very new. So just to kind of take this whole topic as something new. So first of all, I wanna define what I mean by trust, Because again, Because we use this word, We just think, Oh, I can't even trust you. I can't trust anybody. I wanna be able to trust that person, But it's an empty word, Unless we are really clear about what we're talking about. Like I did a little Google search before class just to kind of see, You know, What are people talking about? And it was so funny because it was like, Everybody had an article, The three Cs of trust, The seven pillars of trust, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, And everybody had all these definitions of what trust is. So this is really important in our hearts to be clear, What do I actually mean by trust? In the same way, When we use the word love, What do I really mean by this? Because this is the problem. If we're interacting with another person and we wanna have a relationship, We wanna actually have a heart open relationship, Then we need to know that the words we're using, We're actually defining the same way. Otherwise we could be having a conversation. One person says trust is really important. The other person says, Yep, It sure is. But how they define trust is completely different. So in the context of our talk today, There are three aspects of trust that we're gonna talk about. And there may be 10 more. The first aspect of trust is the idea of fidelity, Monogamy, Whatever that is for you. It's actually not gonna be a big part of our talk today, But it is gonna be one of the first things we talk about because it's the number one thing that we are concerned about often. Because if we've been hurt in past relationships, When I say I just wanna be able to trust someone, What we're actually talking about is fidelity. So we are gonna talk about that. But a more important aspect of trust, In my opinion, Which blends into all of this, Is integrity. And what integrity means is that how I present myself is exactly who I am. I'm not pretending to be anything I'm not. If I say that I believe in something, My actions reflect that. If I say I'm gonna do something, I 100% will do it. And this isn't like you can trust me to do it. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I wouldn't have agreed to it if I didn't have 100% intention of following through. Isn't it curious that, Again, We have these empty words that say, Oh yeah, Sure, I'd love to do that. But to realize that for many people, They don't mean they're gonna do it. They're just simply making you happy in the moment, And that's all they really want. Whether they do it or not is irrelevant. And this is very common. This is what maybe we learned as children, How to make our parents happy. This is how we learned in school to keep our teachers happy. Because the thing is, What happens is people ask you a question, And they're actually asking you to lie. Do you want to do this, Johnny? You absolutely don't want to, But there's only one answer you're allowed to give. Yes, I would love to do that. We're actually taught to not have integrity around authority. We have to have this opinion. We have to have this thing. In relationships, Do you mean you're not even attracted to me anymore? There's only one answer you're allowed to give to that. True or not? And so to be really clear that integrity is a personal choice, That no matter what, If you ask me a question, I'm gonna answer you honestly, That lying, Even white lies, I can't handle. And this kind of integrity is new. And again, It's not even accepted. Like I remember one time a couple came to me for counseling and they brought their teenage daughter with them. Basically, The teenage daughter was getting into trouble and she was hanging out with kids who were doing drugs and whatever, They were doing things. And they basically brought her to me so that I could gang up on her with them. Katrina, You need to talk to her. She's lying to us. She's lying to us. Every time she goes out and then when she comes back, She won't tell us the truth. And it was so funny and the girl's just like sitting there, Right, And she's just pissed off that she even got dragged there. And I looked at them and I said, Well, Is she allowed to tell you the truth? Or is the only thing she's allowed to do is lie to you? What's the basis of your relationship? They're like, No, She has to tell me the truth. And so I said, Okay, So you ask her, Who are you going out with tonight? And she says, Well, I'm gonna go out with so and so and so and so, And you don't like them. And you say, Well, Then you're not going. Well, Her human desire, Her soul has a desire to do something and so she's going to do it. But you're basically forcing her to lie in order for her to be able to do what she wants to do. She's an independent soul. Like this idea that we own our children, It's very curious. So then let's say she goes out and yeah, They smoke some pot and they cause some trouble and they whatever, Whatever they do. And you say to her later, Well, What did you do last night? What's she gonna say? Is she allowed to tell you the truth? Or if she tells you the truth, Is she in trouble? And so we ended up having a big conversation about truth. And so again, This integrity is a big deal. It's not just some character flaw. We have been trained to lie to keep people happy. So it is a conscious choice to live in integrity. And it's really something to be with someone who lives in that kind of integrity all the time. Because the problem is even if you are honest, Can the other person, You know, Can you handle the truth? And not a brutal truth and not a truth like, I think you're fucked and I think you're a loser. That's not truth, That's just nonsense judgment. But I mean in an intimate relationship, If you're having a real conversation and you're honest, Is the other person gonna lose their mind? Is the other person gonna have a temper tantrum? Are they gonna be pissed off? Well, If they are, You're not gonna be honest. So we have to be really clear that we are all living in integrity. So that's one definition is integrity. And the third definition of trust is that we are safe. That we're safe to be open with each other. If I can trust you, It means I can trust you with my heart. And I don't mean here I give you my heart, Keep it safe and do not tread upon, Not that. I don't know where that Hallmark weird stuff came from. But we don't give our heart to someone. We are whole, Integral beings. We are divine refractions of God incarnate on earth. We don't give our heart to another human. This is my connection to the divine. This is my connection to the galaxy. If I choose to love you, If I choose to be with you, I choose to be with you, But I don't lose my own integrity. So that's not what I mean by being safe. This is again, This is some leftover from weird codependence from way back. I gave you my heart and you stomped on it. Come on, Like that's, We are whole people. And don't get me wrong, It can be really painful if someone acts out of integrity and we didn't see that coming. Like I'm not saying that doesn't happen. But we have to be really clear how we set ourselves up for that. And again, It comes out a lot of this weird kind of damsel in distress and I trusted you and you had my heart and you didn't, And it's like, Hmm. We might have to retell that story. We may have to create a new mythology. Remember Joseph Campbell said that, That in many, And this was a long time ago, He said we have to write some new mythology to live up to. Because the old mythology, It's all based in this inequality, Especially inequality in the sexes, Especially inequality in relationships. So to be safe in a relationship, What this means is that the other person is kind. That if I say to you, I'm really struggling with something and they say, Yeah, Okay, Like let's chat about it, Whether it's about them or about something from my past or something going on at work or whatever, And I share something really vulnerable, That the other person receives it in kindness and empathizes with you, That's all. But unfortunately, Again, Historically, We have not been safe. Sarcasm is normalized. Oh, You just gotta toughen up. That's ridiculous. What the hell were you doing there anyway? Why do you give a crap what they think? Mer-da-da-da. And then we just shut down and we stop talking because they're not trustworthy. We can't actually share our truth. It's that great phrase in the Bible, That don't throw your pearl before the swine, Lest they trample them, Your pearls. And it's the same thing. It's like, If I can actually sit with you and share my deepest heart, My deepest fears, And you will just be my friend and honor that. And you don't have to do anything. This isn't like you have to go and do something about it, But just to lovingly witness me. Because sometimes we just have to say things out loud and be witnessed. That's safe. You know, It can be even, We have a lot of meanness that we've lived with. Even in intimacy, Like in sexual relationships, How terrified we are to make sound or to admit our fears or to, You know, In intimacy, A lot of stuff, There's a lot of potential for a lot of interesting things to rise. First and second chakra fears, Things like that. And yet we are so frightened of the other person's reactions to us. But what if you could trust the other person that no matter what happened in intimacy, They would just love you even more. It's being a friend on the journey. It's a really big deal. And of course, Part of that trustworthiness could be that, You know, You're not gonna go and blab that stuff to other people. But this is personal. How to be a confidant, How to actually hold things as sacred between two people. These are interesting things to be trustworthy. So those are the three things, The fidelity, Integrity, And being safe so we can all be open. So we have some hurdles to get over though. One, We have to trust ourselves. We have to actually be present in our own self and stop putting all the onus on the other person. We have to be able to listen to our own truth. We have to be able to trust our spidey senses when something doesn't quite sound right. And we say, Hold on a minute, What are we really talking about here? What's really going on? Something's not feeling right. And I'm not saying they've done something wrong. I'm saying there's something funny that's going on between us. What is it? Oh, It's nothing. No, It is something. Like, Do we trust ourselves? Do we trust our own instinct? Do we trust our own intuition? This is really, Really important because if we felt something was wrong and we didn't do anything about it, We're the ones ignoring the check engine light. It's an important piece of the whole. It's not everything. It's a piece of the whole. A lot of us were raised in codependence. So we're going into relationships because this person, I need this person. Without this person, I'm nothing. Without any other person, I'm nothing. This is a huge problem if we want to have trust in the relationship because with codependence comes white lies because the other person is not allowed to actually live their true life because they have to fit whatever it is you need, Whatever your expectations and your needs are. The other person has to fit it. And even if they tell you that what's going on isn't okay, If our codependence is high enough, We won't even be able to hear it. We'll say, I don't want to hear it. No, No, We're not talking about this. We're not talking about this. Now, You'd be surprised how many people divorce. And the one person's like, I don't even know where it came from. And the other person's like, Are you kidding me? I told you like literally a hundred times. Oh, I know, But you were just, It's like, No, You didn't want to hear it. So the codependence is a huge problem if we want to have trust, Which is ironic. Sometimes we have a lot of unhealed pain from the past. And if we have, And it's true, We've been hurt. It could be from our childhood. I would almost say most people had very difficult childhoods. And if they weren't abusive or neglectful, They were just simply part of this paradigm that says, Swallow your emotions, Control your emotions, Do as you're told. Children are to be seen and not heard. Go to your room until you're feeling better. These weren't necessarily bad parents. This was just the zeitgeist we were raised in. This is just the idea that we're not actually gonna connect with you as a human being. You simply have to be quiet and not cause a ripple in the family. So just go to your room until you can be quiet. How do we bring that into relationships? We're afraid to even be emotional. We don't know how to process our emotions. We don't even know how to handle it. We get upset by something and all we know is to either go to our room and be quiet, Go away and have a drink, Do something, So that when I return to the relationship, I'm not upset anymore. But it's in the relationship that we're supposed to sort it out to begin with. But we don't know how, Because we were raised by perhaps well-meaning people who trained us to ignore our emotions and that there was something wrong with being upset. And very often we were trained that there was no solution. You can be as upset as you want, But nothing's ever gonna change. So that also can be a great hurdle to this. Another big piece is that historically, We weren't trained to live in our own truth, Which is obviously connected in with this integrity question. But we've done a lot of talks here about honoring satya, Honoring our truth, Living our true path. Well, When we honor our own true path, We actually want other people to honor their true path. And what this means is suddenly, If I'm in a relationship with you, I don't have an expectation of how you should act, Live or the choices you make. My only hope for you is that you also walk in your truth, In the same way that I'm walking in my truth. Because when I walk in my truth, I also understand how challenging that can be in a world that asks us not to, In a world that asks us to say whatever everyone else is saying and to agree with whatever that group is saying and to just blindly trust whatever authority is telling us what the truth is and to actually sit quietly in meditation and know what your truth is and walk that truth no matter what. If you are personally doing this, Then you understand the challenge that is. And if you're in a relationship, It is all you want for this other person. If you love them, What would you ever want besides that person getting to walk their honest truth? But if we aren't living in our satya, We unconsciously expect others not to also. We expect them to bend their truth for the sake of the family, For the sake of the relationship, For the sake of the peace. Whether we're even doing it consciously, We are doing it unconsciously. Oh, For God's sake, Just suck it up. Suck what up? A reality I don't even live in? So it's very important to consider these hurdles as we're discussing how to build trust in relationship because if we're struggling with any of these, They have to be addressed first. So the first question becomes, In relationship, Why am I in the relationship? Why do I wanna be in a relationship? Whether it's the relationship I'm in now, And we're talking about romantic relationships. Why do I want one? Because of course the premise here is, I'm gonna want trust in the relationship. I'm gonna want fidelity, Integrity, And I want it to be safe. Well, We have to be really honest with ourselves. Am I in the relationship because I'm lonely? Do I just simply wanna have somebody in my life? Is that what I want? Is my own life kind of drab and boring and I want someone else to be in my life because that'll make it exciting? I'll have this whole new topic and this whole new person to play with. Is that why? If this is true, If the truth is we just, Really just want somebody in our life, We just want someone to care for us, We want someone to love us, We want someone to make us feel like we matter, That there's something about us. You can hear all this, Right? This is my struggle. It has nothing to do with anyone else. Sex, Sex, And more sex. See, Because even the sex thing, People are like, Oh, I wanna be in a relationship because I wanna have a lot of sex. And even there, Society, Hollywood, All these things have driven us into being sex obsessed. I teach Tantra. I love sex. I love making love. I love all the bazillion potential experiences that are there way beyond the act of intercourse. But when it comes right down to it, What we really want is human connection. We're told that we're just horny rabbits walking around just wanting to have sex with somebody. But once you have all the sex, You realize you just want connection. Sex is just one of those things you want when you don't get it, Just like money or relationship or no relationship or kids or no kids or whatever, All those things. The challenge is is that if we want a relationship because we are lonely or we're bored or we don't like our life, When a person comes into our life, We will overlook everything because this person has chosen us. This person is willing to be with us. Even if they say, And we will have so many expectations of them, So many expectations, We will need them to act a certain way. We will need them to pay a certain amount of attention to us. We will need them to do whatever. The person themselves that we want to be in the relationship with, They're an object in our lives. They're not even a person. They're not a divine being following their satya. They are fulfilling my loneliness and my sadness or my horniness or whatever. So I've already crafted how they should act, How they should look, How they should be, What they should do, All these kind of things, And they're just an object. They're not a person. Well, As soon as someone is objectified, And it doesn't matter who they are, Maybe you're objectified because you have money and that makes me feel secure, So I want to keep you in my life because I like to maintain this sort of level of wealth security. Well, Now you're nothing but a bank. You're not a human. This isn't loving and cherishing. This isn't living in integrity. This is just objectifying the other person. We'll be very judgmental of the other person if they don't live up to what we require them to be in this codependent state, Because again, If we need someone in our life, That badly, It is a codependency. I am dependent. My happiness is dependent on whether or not you're in my life or not. Well, How can there be trust? How can there be integrity? How can this be safe? Nobody's allowed to be themselves, Not the person who's codependent and not the person who, Well, They're both gonna be codependent. You're supposed to play a role for each other. Your true self is hidden way, Way back in the back, But here's who I'm gonna present to you, And these two kind of representatives are just gonna kind of keep battling it out. Who's back here, What the soul is doing? Well, If it goes on for enough decades, You might forget who you ever were, But what if you were already happy? I mean, This is the spiritual journey. What if we were already happy? We're content. We love our life. We're engaged. We create things. We're involved in the community. We go out, We make friends. Maybe we volunteer. Maybe we have work that really is fulfilling. Well, Then all of a sudden, Whether or not we are in a relationship or not is a choice. Historically, We didn't have choice. Historically, We had to get married in order to maybe have children, And maybe you had to have children because the land was gonna be passed down through the generations. There was no birth control. So you got pregnant if you had sex. Men couldn't control their ejaculation. They had no way of controlling that. It just simply happened. So there was a lot of weird entanglement and strange things in the past. Maybe you had sex. Maybe you got married. Now you have babies. Well, You automatically move in together. You automatically are now completely connected and codependent and merged together. It's even part of our marriage ceremony, You know, That we will merge together. We will come together as one, Which personally, As an aside, I believe actually is a spiritual aspect of true intimacy that you merge as one. It's the foundation of tantric intimacy, But it isn't about our day-to-day life. And so historically, If you were in a relationship, You would live together. Do you have to? Do you have to live together? If you're perfectly happy and content, Could you be in a relationship where you live separately? What if you wanted to have children? Do you have to have a single partner? Or can you go and go to a sperm bank? Or can you do whatever and raise the child on your own? Women can now work and be financially independent. We can live with friends. We can do all kinds of things that historically we couldn't do. We could choose to be lovers for the rest of our lives, Or we could choose to, Maybe the old pattern is perfect for us. We live together, We have children, We live happily ever after. Maybe that's our perfect world, And maybe that happens. But when we are already happy, When we are already living in integrity, And we are engaged in the world, Then all of a sudden, When we come into a relationship, Trust is easy, Because we expect integrity from everybody. Of course I'm safe. Of course you're safe. Why wouldn't you be? You're a content, Happy person. You don't need to send jabs my way. You don't need to make fun of me. You're not uncomfortable with intimacy. You're not uncomfortable with vulnerability. You're whole. It all really comes down to ourselves. It has so little to do with the other person. It's so important. So let's first talk about this idea of fidelity. How can I trust someone that they will honor me and not fool around on me and whatever? Well, First of all, We have to go in to our history and first understand what we're talking about. We're historically, Women specifically could not have multiple lovers because the land was passed down through the patriarchal line so the patriarchy had to know that this child was the father's because money was involved. Whether the man fooled around here and there was irrelevant. Nobody could leave. The women couldn't leave. You weren't allowed to divorce. It was quite irrelevant. And in many cultures, It was fine for the men to have many wives or many women or many lovers. The women couldn't because again, There was this weird inequality and things like that. And in many ways, This still whispers inside of us. There's some weird stuff in there that as women or as the feminine partner in the same sex couple, We don't have the choice. We're at the whim of the masculine partner. We're at the whim of their whatever. So we just have to be careful of how much history we're sort of repeating whether it's karmically or something. Historically, Connection didn't matter. Like what is the actual nature of your relationship? Is it loving? Is it connected? Can you actually have open and honest and friendly conversations? Do you at least have friendship with each other? Because it's an amazing thing how many in how many relationships when someone has gone off and had an affair or something, The relationship was hurting big time. There are times that that's not true, But very often the relationship is really hurting. Sometimes it's because of external circumstances, Illness, Death, Work, Who knows what different things. But we are not trained to look at those issues. We don't even value the connection because we get so busy in our lives. So if we really want to have this trust and love and connection with each other, Then we have to honor connection. And when something's amuck in the relationship, If it doesn't quite feel right, We sit down and we say, Something's not feeling right and we're not blaming anybody. We're not saying that you did this and that. It's like, No, I feel distance with you. No, There's no distance. Yeah, I do, I feel distance. I don't know what's going on. And to actually be able to openly have this conversation, That it really matters. You know, And maybe we have a lot of history where we just ignore it, But we really need to honor it. If it matters, Then we have to actually stop our lives, Sit down and spend time together. Go away for the weekend. Oh, I don't have time for that. Yes, You do. If we think this relationship is important, Then we do have time. Oh no, But the kids have a hockey game that weekend and there's this going on. But what's like, If all of that stopped, If we value this relationship so much, It has to take priority over other things. You have to take that time to stay connected. And we also have to talk about the nature of human sexuality. One of the problems when we get married, Especially when we get married young, We have been trained for millennia that the ideal situation is two virgins getting together and getting married. Virginity, Above all things. Well, What if that's actually not human nature? What if it isn't our human nature to have sex with one person in our lives? What if it's human nature to play the field? To have sex with all kinds of people? What if the journey of intercourse and relationships and sex and all these things is actually part of our personal growth as a human being? What if through multiple partners, I actually figure out who I am? What if I learn that I'm actually a sexual being? What if I actually understand something about me because I've had sex with 20 people? What if that's interesting? I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying, What if it is? What if it's interesting? What if it's important for our personal growth? And the funny thing is, If you said to someone, Well, I've had 20 sexual partners, We have some taboo about that. It's like, Oh, Wow, Aren't you something, Something. Why? So now all of a sudden, We force each other to get married in our 20s. But what if our soul doesn't want to be with one person? And I'm not saying being polyamorous, You can do whatever you want. You can have multiple partners. You can have beautiful, Open marriages. You can have anything you want. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if you want to be in a relationship, We have this thing where we force the other person to get married, And then we shame each other. If the bottom line is, I kind of just want to have a lot of partners for a while. What if one of the number one reasons there is so many problems with infidelity is that we're not supposed to get married as virgins. Just as a possibility. Imagine a society where it was completely normal when we're young to have sex with lots of people, And there's no commitment. I'm 17 years old. What do you mean commitment? I'm not even fully formed yet, And I'm committed to you for life, Or I'm 20, Or I'm 25. So let's just imagine another world. Let's imagine a world that says it's completely natural as we develop ourselves as human beings to have many sexual partners. And then at some point, We feel complete, And then we meet someone, We say, Wow, I would love to now that I know who I am. I know who I am sexually. I know who I am as a person. I would love to dive deep with you in intimacy. I would love to explore tantra. I would love to explore what else is possible. When you dive deeply with another soul, What if we have it backwards? Because it would seem this way. What if the idea of marrying young and forever is not actually healthy? And again, Sometimes it works brilliantly. I haven't really met anyone where this works brilliantly yet. Even couples that have been married for 60 years, I'm not saying I've never met a couple that was actually really happy. Right, It's an ideal, But I'm not sure it's real. So just to be conscious of this curious question of fidelity. If we were really honest with each other, And we said to each other, Would you like to commit to being monogamous with me? Or do you have a little feeling inside that you kinda have some wild oats to sow? What is your truth? And am I whole enough in myself that if the other person said, Honestly, I kinda feel like I just need to play for a while, That I can say, You know what? Then you need to do that. You need to do this for your personal growth. And I am not so incredibly dependent on this person for my own happiness that I can honor their satya. But can you imagine? This sounds like crazy talk, But imagine that's how we lived. Imagine we could actually say to our partner, You know, I've also got this other person in my life that I'm really fond of, And I kinda would love to have an open relationship. And maybe this other person says, Really? Yeah, I actually have someone like that in my life too. Maybe we can, Whatever, We can figure something cool out that really suits everybody. Or maybe the other person says, Really? I'm actually really seeking a monogamous relationship, But I really honor you on your path. And you happily part as friends, And you know what I mean? Like we can be mature about this. We can be loving. We can honor each other's satya without saying you're a horny pervert. Like what's wrong with you? Is one woman not enough? Am I not enough? It's not about us. It's about that person's journey. You know, So this is one of the big challenges in relationships when it comes to fidelity. Can we be honest? Can we allow each other to honor our satya? Can we allow each other to be completely in our integrity all the time? And again, In the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, Can you handle the truth if that's not the other person's truth? Fidelity is a very deep question. Because at our very foundation, We don't allow the conversations to happen. We don't even allow the reality that says, You know, How often people say, I'm not ready to settle down. Why can't we hear that? Why is that not an okay thing to say? Or people like, I'm not really into getting married, But I thought you loved me. These are two separate things. Choosing to be married, Choosing to be in a committed relationship, Is one thing, That's one thing. That has nothing to do with whether someone loves you or is attracted to you or anything else. This is choosing to kind of create an institution or to create a promise or a covenant with another person. These are very different things. So again, This is where we have to trailblaze a little bit. And I'm not saying that playing the field is right, Or marrying your high school sweetheart is right, Or monogamy is right, Or polygamy is right. Or polyamory is right, Or anything. There is no right. All that matters is what your truth is. What is your soul calling? And if your soul is calling to do this, When I got divorced, I had a beautiful lover, A beautiful man after, And he was just wonderful, Beautiful human. But I had this weird knowing inside of me that I was supposed to have a gazillion lovers. And I had no idea, I'd been married for 20 years. I was so, So deep into that monogamous thing. And my soul was so like, But you're supposed to go out and have other experiences, Katrina. And I actually told this man, I said, If we're gonna continue, We're gonna have to be polyamorous because my soul needs to have all these lovers. Which is so funny today to think back like 10 years ago that I would have said something like that because that's not something, It's not a definition of who I am in relationship. But in that moment, I knew that this was on my path. And so we actually separated and I went off and had a gazillion lovers. My friends like to call it market research for my book, Tantric Intimacy. And it was so interesting when you follow your soul's path because even through that journey, Not that that's what this talk is about, But through that journey of having a gazillion lovers, I processed all the weird slut shaming and things that we live with in our society and all that kind of thing. And I'm not interested in that now. This is not a definition of self. Satya shifts as our soul shifts and works along our path. So again, It's very interesting to be in a relationship that's dynamic, That allows our soul to take a step forward in whatever that is. That's living in integrity. And if you're living, If you're in love with someone like that, You can trust them to live in their integrity. You can trust them that if you ask them a question, They will tell you the truth. That's trust. Not whether they're gonna sleep around on you. Because if the person is in their integrity, They're gonna say, I'm not actually ready to settle down with anyone right now. And you're gonna say, But I love you. And you're gonna say, Yeah, But this is my truth. And then we have a choice to make. So it's a very interesting thing to hold space for someone to be allowed to be in their integrity with you. And this is new. And it requires incredible communication. The last thing I wanna mention is, There's something really interesting, Again, About this personal integrity and trust. And it all comes down to trusting self or trusting God, Trusting the universe, Trusting reality, However, Whatever word makes sense to you. And for me, I really, And for me, I really trust in me. I trust in my spiritual guidance. I trust that I'm on a path. And that's really something. Because then all of a sudden, When I trust my path, When I trust that journey, Whoever comes along in my life, Whoever comes along, Whether they're an intimate relationship, A friendship, A colleague, An opportunity, Whatever it is, I trust that for some reason, They're on my path. And because I trust that, I don't question it, I just trust it, I also assume that the only reason they're here is for us to act in truth, For me to act in truth, For them to act in truth, For everyone to act in full choice. There's no expectations, There's no judgment, There's nothing like that. Those things, The expectation judgments, That all belongs in those relationships where we can't leave. We have no choice, We are bound in this relationship through codependence, Through economics, Through fear, Through whatever, All that stuff belongs there. And if we focus on that, And we focus on the struggles and the dysfunction of that, Where do we go? We don't go anywhere. So we kind of have to create a new possibility, A new kind of relationship, A new relationship with ourself, And then every person that comes into our lives, We really see them, Like we really look at them and say, I see you, I see the soul. You know, What is our journey together? And we just act in truth. And then you can totally trust each other, All the time. I feel like we could have talked for a few hours about this, But I'm gonna stop for a moment. And if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Can you talk more about developing trust in a trustful relationship with yourself? And this is where we really look at this study of satya, Which means truth, To actually imagine that I'm not supposed to be like other people. I'm not supposed to live up to your expectations. I'm not supposed to be what my parents wanted. I'm not supposed to be what society says. There actually is guidance within me that I'm meant to listen to. And every time we listen within and we honor that truth, We are on path. I think there's a visceral connection between I listened, I acted. I listened, I acted. Someone said something. I listened, I spoke the truth. I responded, And always in kindness. This is never a brutal truth. Always in kindness. And then it just naturally grows to the point that it's just totally natural. You can't even imagine anything else. It is true that lies, Betrayal, Infidelity can break you utterly, Regardless of personal responsibility, Trust, Integrity, Can without intention or erode over time, Leaving one utterly isolated. It's so true. It's one of those challenges that very often, When we've been really broken through relationship, It just drives us inside into great healing. It's kind of like being in some brutal accident, Like just some brutal accident that you just destroyed every organ and every, You were just in a train crash or something, Or a plane crash. And then someone says, Oh, Well, You just have to get up and walk or something. It's like, No, We really need to take time to heal. We really need to take the time to heal all the organs, All the things. It's like, You know that movie, There's a guy called the Miracle Man? He was in this plane crash. And literally his entire, His lungs were collapsed, Everything, Like his whole body, He was in a coma. And he was lying in the hospital bed. He was hooked up into all this life support. And he could only blink. And he blinked to his partner or the nurse or whoever, That he was gonna walk out of the hospital by Christmas. And this guy was like practically a vegetable. And when you think of it, In many ways, If we've been really hurt, That is how we can feel. We honestly feel like we are broken from the inside all the way out. And what he did is he listened to cassettes of meditations and listening within and doing all these things, Like all of these healing meditations. And he literally began the journey of healing himself from the inside out. And he was in a coma for all, Like he wasn't in a coma, He was awake, But his body couldn't move. He was completely destroyed. And he slowly built himself from the inside out. You know, He just slowly healed himself. And by Christmas, He was actually able to, He was able to be in a wheelchair and they wheeled him to the edge of the hospital. And he stood up and he took a few steps outside the hospital. I think you can Google it. It's like called the Miracle Man or something. But in all fairness, That is what it can feel like if we've had brutal relationships and brutal childhoods and been really hurt in relationship. But we really have to give ourselves patience and time to heal way from the inside out. The challenge is, Is if we keep going into relationship into relationship and we're still so broken, Like if you have this visual of this guy in the hospital, We really have to become whole ourselves again. And the journey might be through meditation or yoga or journey or whatever, Like it may be through something very different or art or who knows. But it's something that we really need to do before we can even talk about finding trust in relationships. It's that massive healing journey that's needed first. Well, Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟Very, very profound 💯especially the points on commitment, integrity, patriarchal control, and taking lots and lots and lots of time to heal (read: healing from patriarchal control). I will be sending this to a lot of people. Thank you for this gift🙏

Katrina, you always have such powerful insights to share. This was a beautiful talk and one that I deeply needed to hear. Thank you 🦋🪷🌱

I have enjoyed this talk very much. Most of the content I had already heard elsewhere, however, here it is summarized and beautifully communicated. Thank you! ❤️🙏