Episode 45 of the Fuel the Fire Podcast hosted by Shanon Safi, RD, LDN.
When I stayed abstinent from alcohol, I took four years of celibacy, of just nothing to just really clean my system, to feel what's really true for me. And so in the last almost eight years, it's been this interesting dance of like learning to hold and really figure out what it is that feels best for me and what I really desire and how I want to be met.
Hello, hello, welcome to the Fuel the Fire podcast with your host, Shanon Safi. Today we have Amy Guerrero, who is a powerful woman that supports others in regulating their nervous systems. I'm really excited to have her on here today. We just recently connected, so I'm excited to see what comes through in this conversation and, yeah, just really what's alive in this moment, and hopefully there's some really beautiful takeaways that you'll all have from this.
Thank you, Shanon, so nice to see you today.
Yeah, likewise. So, Amy, tell us a little bit about yourself outside of work before we dive into some of your expertise.
Oh my goodness. Yeah, you know it's interesting. I'm at this phase in my life where, outside of work, I'm just so chill. I was in a relationship last year and I moved to Boulder with him and so it was like we were on this beautiful journey of me opening wider than maybe I've ever opened in my life and we were adventuring all the time and doing all these things and then we came to a place in our relationship where it was just time to part ways and we parted ways and so I've spent the last. It's been a year, like today actually, where we where we parted ways and we've stayed in contact and we love each other very much.
But this year has really been about digesting and metabolizing and growing my roots deeper in what I learned in that relationship about myself, about what I desire sexually, what I desire from my partner, what I desire from with my business and my partnership. So I've taken the last year to really let all of that settle in and integrate. So it's included like lots of nourishment, a lot of time in California, a lot of time in the ocean, a lot of yoga. I'm like very much into how I nourish my body so that I can metabolize everything that I learn. So this last year has really I'm feeling like the end of that year, to just you know how naturally our bodies can feel that. So over the last few days I'm like wow, like I'm so grateful for that for him, and I have been a whole time, but now I can really feel the roots settling in of how beautifully I showed up in that relationship and how much I learned about how I want to relate. So, outside of my business, I'm practicing what I teach all the time.
That's such a good way to put it and it's so true. Especially as a coach, I feel like that is so important to really practice what you preach, as cliche as that is. I think that's so key. It gives you that ability to connect to people, it gives you more empathy, and I really love that journey. That's so exciting and mirrors in relationships are so powerful and it can reflect a lot back to you and, just like you said, it teaches you so much about yourself that in other cases you might not recognize otherwise. And different people are different mirrors, so different humans will highlight different aspects of you and take you in different directions that maybe weren't exactly what you expected or could have preconceived prior to yeah, for sure.
Yeah, and when I open to love and really like let it in, like I just open so wide and so like something that I've really learned about my system is like that I have a lot of capacity.
A lot of capacity because I've been through, I've lived through so much, and something that I think that I really took away from this relationship is like how do I slow down and hold myself more in the width of my capacity without like blowing out the nervous systems of the people around me?
So you know, it's a deep, deep, deep responsibility.
When you're like living with someone and you have a little bit, you can take a little bit more, but then I'm so committed to being in the receptivity. So because I can take more doesn't mean I need to do more. It means I need to sit back and receive and like let it be there and realize that like everyone's capacity, you know just it comes in in expansion and contraction and the importance of my urgency and my big love and how my nervous system just wants to play and like have people like meet this excitement that I have for life, which I always have, that like it can overwhelm a system very easily, and so, like, learning to sit back in that energy and staying open was probably my biggest learning for the year. Plus that we were like relating and it takes even growing my capacity more to like oh okay, I'm not going to close this energy off, but I'm also not going to like let it spill out and affect him. So like, let him come on his own and respect where his system's at systems at.
So it was a beautiful experience, Lots of learning. Yeah, I'm so curious for you to just expand on what it looks like in practical terms. To be more open and I think there was another phrase specifically used that is slipping my mind but just kind of what what that practice really looked like in day-to-day terms.
Yeah, I think it's. It's open and receptive, because I think you know, when growing up in a home where you have a lot of energy let's just say I'll just give an example that maybe everyone can relate to or you don't have a lot of energy and your parents do have a lot of energy and so you don't feel met. You know, it's like you're ready to go outside and play and your sisters and brothers are in front of their well, probably TVs at the time, cause we didn't have all these devices back then but like, and so you, you feel left out, you feel lonely, you feel sad, you're, you're feeling all these sensations in your body and they contract inside your body. You're just like oh, nobody wants to play with me, and so the system kind of closes when we feel unmet. And then the other way around, if you just don't want to do anything and you really need that downtime, but everyone's kind of forcing you and pulling you to all these activities that don't feel good to your system, again you kind of close and go inward and you're not really available for connection and co-regulation with everyone because you're like I need to rest.
It can be really confusing to a child because we don't have agency at that point. We're depending on our family to take care of point. We're depending on our family to take care of us, we're depending on our caregivers. And then when we get into relationship, when we feel unmet, we can go into those same survival strategies where we shut down and we feel unmet and then we make them wrong for it and we feel frustrated or angry and don't know how to communicate it clearly and consciously and compassionately. And so to stay open is like, wow, I feel unmet right now and it's not his fault, like he truly doesn't have the capacity for it. So it's bringing that consciousness and holding my younger part and knowing like I can go out and do this on my own without him and we're going to be okay. I can trust that. But it takes a real practice of conscious awareness, because if that was my childhood, then it's easy to just act out in that younger part and never really grow her up or hold her on my own.
And so I just started to notice I had this pattern really strong in my relationships before, where I would feel unmet and I couldn't help it. I would just slide down into like a functional freeze where, like, my body was still moving, but I just didn't have a lot of access to communicate like, hey, I need some help around here, and so my partners would feel me frozen and cold and it was really difficult for them because I'm a very open and warm, central, erotic woman, and so they'd be like what's? And then I couldn't get words out to explain it and then it would just cause like massive ruptures and I didn't call them that then, but like it would cause fights and tension, because then they would try to fix me and I would get more annoyed and then I would close down more and I was just like so to learn to stay open and receptive and fold myself in that and be able to clearly communicate. Like I feel unmet and that's okay, it's not your fault, so I'm going to go take care of myself was like so beautiful Does that land for you?
Yeah, I think a big part of that is, or I guess a lot of people listening might kind of feel, or at least okay, let me speak in my own terms, because who knows what people are listening or exactly thinking. Just from past experiences with clients and friends and just conversations around relationships, I think it's really easy to get lost in projecting what you're feeling onto the other person and feel that it's something that they need to shift in order for you to feel safe, for you to feel met in the relationship. When you're reflecting and taking time to learn about who you are in relationship, how to show up what you want, what's an ideal balance look like for you, it can sometimes feel difficult to differentiate what's a projection and what's genuine in the way you're relating or the connection that you have to the other person and really know what is it that I need to really look at and heal within myself versus? Is this something about the connection that I need to explore and see if this is truly the right connection for me?
Yeah for sure, and he was in the work too, and so we would have like beautiful opportunities to really reflect that and actually go like no, this we actually meet each other here, we, this actually works. But my system goes slower than yours, and can that be okay? Right. And so then I had to hold myself a little bit wider and bigger to stay open of like, yeah, that can be okay, because I process quickly, I digest quickly, I'm actually metabolized quickly the, the information, and I just always have. It's just how my system is, and so then I would just give him space and then he'd be like okay, I get it, I know where I stand.
And we actually, just a few months ago, got to process it at an even deeper level, with about not six months of of us not living in the same place, and then he, he even realized more of where he felt he wasn't holding himself, and then he would project that onto me as if it was my responsibility to do that, and then he'd feel guilty and spin around in his mind, and so it was just like it's so fascinating how we meet each other in relationships and it does. It takes practice and no one's at fault, you know, like how can we do that in a beautiful way that like it's no one's fault? It just isn't. It's like that's the way we showed up, and look what we got to learn.
Yeah, for me in those moments so you talked about how maybe you were processing or your system was moving faster than his In those times where you have to hold space for the other person to explore or reflect on the certain situation, explore or reflect on a certain situation how do you move through that? Because I know for me like sometimes anxiety comes up or it's something that might play on my mind and I feel difficulty with showing up normally in the relationship until this thing is resolved or until there's more reflection on this subject.
Yeah, beautiful. Thank you for asking that question, because that was probably one of the biggest things that I worked with to get to where I. You know, cause I, when he was very clear about how a system moved slower then I was. I I'm really great at communicating, so human design, like the only things that I have defined are my sacral and my throat, so I can bring things through quickly and easily. And so I was like, okay, it would be really helpful for me to hear you say I need time to digest this. Like, can you give me a moment here and then tell me when you'll, when you can predict being back to complete the cycle that we're in, because if you leave me hanging, I have abandonment wounds and I will. My anxious attachment will come for you. It will. And so I explained it.
I mean, this was in our first like week together. I think I was on our first weekend date together. I told him all of this because it's just so important and if you're slow and I'm fast and then we don't, you don't tell me when we're going to come back and complete this, I will, my attachment system will get activated, I will get anxious and I'll be weird. I'll be really weird. I'll be like, which will make him go into his avoidance, and so that was one thing.
And then I would go to yoga.
I'd go we were I would go play in the mountains, I'd go for a drive, like I would do something to give my system, my nervous system, that release of the energy as well, and let my little girl play too, cause she didn't have those words back then and so she acted anxiously in so many relationships and just tell myself like we didn't do anything wrong.
He just needs a little space, he just needs a little time, and with more practice he would come back faster to be able to tell me every once in a while. I would send him like 10 videos on Instagram, like showing him the pattern, like see, see, this is what's happening. And then I'd be like I couldn't help it. Sorry, yeah, I did it totally imperfectly, but it wasn't about him, it was about me expanding my capacity to hold it or going. I don't want to fucking practice this Peace out Right, and I never decided that, because I know for me it was something that I want to practice and I wanted to hold myself in and that it truly didn't have much to do with him.
Do you feel that you could join in relationship with virtually anyone, so long as you're able to communicate effectively and both be transparent and conscious and have these times where you sit and talk about patterns, behaviors, what you're working to overcome?
yeah, I do. Yeah, I just I don't believe that. I don't believe like that. We're incompatible.
I believe that our systems have a certain amount of capacity and it may not be that we're going to be intimate partners for the rest of our lives or whatever it is, or friends even, because this is a friendship thing too. You know, like this is with every relationship. This is something I teach deeply in my work because I do believe it's possible. It does. Take two willing, sovereign adults that are like yo, let's talk around and find out I don't know what's gonna happen, right, yeah, and every system doesn't agree with that.
But, like I just look back on my friendships of people I used to really party and throw down with, and now, as a conscious, sober woman, there are many people that I'm still super deep and close with that.
We've had these conversations to maintain those talks that we would have on ecstasy at night until two days later, whatever it was. But now we can have them with me in full consciousness because I'm the same person, full consciousness because I'm the same person. I'm just not partying like I was and our connections have deepened and like lovers that I'm, that I still. You know that I still play with that we're able to connect at this deeper level because I choose to hold myself and make it clear like in order for us to continue this relationship. This is necessary for me now because I practice what I teach and I'm not going to put myself in a situation where I feel like I want to go backwards so when you say play, would you say like you're open with multiple people or multiple past lovers, or yeah, that's where I am at this journey of my life, like when I was in partnership.
I was, we were monogamous for a while, and that was his first time to be monogamous in a long time too. So but right now this year, I'm just like I don't want a boyfriend. I don't. I just needed that time to digest everything that happened. I just wasn't ready. I still loved the man and like I'm like I can have lovers right now, but I can't have like deep, intimate, day-to-day relating one, because I'm in a healing process too, because, like I'm not living anywhere permanently and so I'm just like moving around a lot and I'm like this just works for me.
Things will shift. Yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you feel like it is to be open with multiple people versus being monogamous in a monogamous relationship. How different do you feel your nervous system has to be, or are there different practices you have to do to be able to hold, like, multiple playful relationships versus one monogamous, serious, committed relationship?
Yeah, I think from the nervous system capacity it's the same nervous system work Right and what you know? It's interesting because before I got sober, before I don't I don't even like to use that word like before I remained abstinent from alcohol and drugs. Like it was pretty common for me to have a partner alcohol and drugs, like it was pretty common for me to have a partner and then something would happen in our relationship where it would open. And then it was either I would be like I need to see other people or dah dah dah, but it was always so messy and I wasn't really able to hold it and there was alcohol involved and there was all these things and I could tell my partner the truth of like I don't feel met here and so I'm probably going to have sex with somebody else or do this or do that, like I could communicate it, but my behaviors were really messy and out of control. And so when I stayed abstinent from alcohol, I took four years of celibacy, of just nothing, to just really clean my system, to feel what's really true for me. And so in the last almost eight years it's been this interesting dance of like learning to hold and really figure out what it is that feels best for me and what I really desire and how I want to be met.
And so I think that, to answer your question specifically, it's like it's not much in the nervous system that needs that needed to change for me from this practices, but it's being really clear about what I'm available for and then checking in over and over again because I can say I'm available for one thing and then it can change and like for the masculine men that I primarily enjoy being with and I do have a tendency to go go to old lovers because of the familiarity so there's like an established relationship there.
Like when I change my mind that can whack them where I'm just like oh, I'm not available for that today or anymore, and then they're like wait, we already agreed to this. And I'm like yeah, but like today it's different, and like we've got to be flexible in our systems for that, because that's what's following truth of the moment is, you know. So I think it takes a lot of consciousness to to relate period, but especially to relate to more than one person at the same time in a, in an integral way. I feel like that's key, yeah, and I don't see a lot of that, but I'm starting to see more of it.
Yeah, just from hearing you speak on that, one thing that came up for me was kind of this fear of not knowing if one day someone's going to change their mind. So, like when you're in a monogamous relationship or when you're in any kind of situation, any degree of partnership with a person with some significant level of intimacy, there's this fear and I'm sure it's attached to a deeper wound, but maybe a common one that, okay, this person could change their mind at any point. Right, and now it's just a lot more common, especially when you see divorce rates being higher now. So there's almost like this greater fear or greater probability, statistically speaking, for relationships to split. How would you navigate that feeling just in terms of making peace with it or relieving the anxiety from it, or regulating your system to not constantly be on alert or concerned about it?
Yeah, it's a big one and thank you for bringing this in because I think so many people don't have words to explain it. And I'd love to expand on this because I have that wound right, because my mom split like right after I was born. So I have that abandonment wound. So my nervous system, my animal body, is constantly scanning the environment for are you going to leave me? Not just in my intimate relationships, in every relationship, like it's just, my animal body will always have that intuitive survival strategy period and so deeply knowing that about yourself, like if you have that, really fully approving of it, knowing it deeply, I tell all of my friends, all of my partners, all of my students that I have that because at the end of the day, I'm just an animal and when I'm in my animal, I do not have access to this beautiful, smart brain of mine and I will respond weird, I'll get clingy, I'll be like a little monkey under your armpit, like don't, or are you going to leave me? Are you going to leave me? Which is annoying because you know to the other person, if they don't know that about you, if they know that about you, then it's a whole different game. So I tell everybody. And this I've been practicing actually even when I was still using alcohol and drugs to cope, like I'm just, like I have this and so it's really important to me because I can neurocept withholding. So neurocept means that, like I can smell, taste, feel the texture of anyone anywhere, withholding from me any information at all times, like a dog, like a trained drug dog, like anybody anywhere, trying to lie or withhold. I'm like I know what's happening, tell me the truth. And that can be really aggressive. Or I can say I feel really activated in my abandonment right now. So I'm going to give you the opportunity to share with me anything that you may be withholding.
And it's interesting because with my last partner we got into a place where he was withholding and I could sense it, and then I went and looked for the evidence and found it, and he wasn't ready to hold himself in that truth, and so he was like you're being jealous and I'm like I'm not, but I can see how that would be an easy way to avoid this conversation. And so I sat down on the floor and I was like I'm five right now. My mom showed up at school again to try to kidnap me. I feel abandoned, I'm scared, like that's what's happening in my system. You're withholding brings that part of me up. So you don't have to tell me now. But I'm not jealous, I'm scared and I'm young, even though I'm in this 47 year old body. Right At the time, and he was like I really get it and I'm like, okay, when you're ready, I'm ready to talk about it, right, but I need to like find my 47 year old before we have this conversation, right, but like that was a really clean way to communicate what I was feeling.
But this takes practice. This takes a lot of awareness of yourself and it's vulnerable. It's much easier to be like you're right, I'm jealous and da, da, da and like, have all these like ridiculous? You know well, I don't want to say they're ridiculous. It's much easier to talk about the symptoms rather than the root cause. I'll put it that way.
And so we end up arguing about the same thing over and over and over again, rather than just going right for the meat and right for the root and I'm a go right for the root gal at this point in my life. But, like I have several students right now who are in relationship where their younger part is so afraid of their partner leaving them and the relationship's not really working. But they can't stop it. They can't stop the pattern, and so I'm just really working with attuning them to their younger part until we get to the spot where their self and their leadership can just hold that part of them and realize that they're making these decisions to stay out of fear and narrow assumption of danger, of being alone forever, which is not like what your beautiful, smart, you know conscious person, connected to god and everything bigger than you, is thinking. But that little part of me is like so does that land?
it does it does and I I really feel like, because it just makes me, as you're speaking, I keep reflecting back on different scenarios and different examples in my own life in ways of relating where previous patterns. It was a lot more challenging to like own my shit or own my part of the pattern, of recognizing when I am activated or when a part of me is not. Like what's the word? Like regressing to a previous emotional wounding pattern. So it's like, oh, I'm in my child element where this wound is feeling activated and this is what's coming up. And then this is actually how I'm dealing with it. And now I see myself as, when these feelings come up, I have so much more consciousness and it took a long time to finally say like, okay, I'm going to break this pattern and start to show up differently in relationships and own my role in why relationships were not working. A big thing for me once I started to notice that was just being able to communicate that to someone else and I guess you know the curiosity. Like now in my relating patterns, like I think with my current partner I can communicate clearly hey, this is what's coming up, they receive it, they understand the process and they're willing to meet me there and reflect on what role they played in it. But I think the other part of me is curious.
If you're with a partner who maybe isn't as conscious, right? So you're saying like, hey, I'll use this specific example. Like I didn't hear from you at all today and when you finally texted me at 9 pm you were like, hey, I'm too tired to talk today, let's chat tomorrow, like as an example, and that could just like activate you. It's like, oh my God, we have this pattern and we normally talk every day and you know, is there something that he's not telling me?
And it can sort of go into this pattern of thinking that, like you did something wrong or there's a disconnection in the relationship. Like, like, how, how do you handle that if they're not willing or ready to talk about what's truly going on on their end? Because I think sometimes you might sense, okay, is they, are they truly tired or is? Is there something else going on? Like is there an unprocessed emotional experience they're having? And like, say, that pattern carries on for a week and you're like, okay, something's definitely off with this person. I'm recognizing their pattern. That activates my pattern. Like, how, how, how do I overcome this if they don't have the consciousness to know that it's not me that's causing it, but something within them.
Yeah, oh, it's such a good one, okay, so there's a few things that I want to say here, because I think that like I work with a lot of men, and so I can speak from the masculine man's perspective and then I can speak from the feminine bodied, feminine woman perspective as well, and then I'd work with gender fluid people, but it's still, they still seem to have like a place where they respond from, seem to have like a place where they respond from.
We have this really as, as women, we have been coded, like with so much it's my fault, with so much it's my responsibility, with so much um over thinking, over analyzing, feeling dropped, and then um going into our minds to like whip it around in 300 different directions and then go to bed with our phones close to our heart, like I don't understand what's happening and he doesn't have the capacity to hold me here and nah, and I think sometimes it's the very like hard decision of just like he's not my guy because he's not willing to do his own work to get here, he's not, as I would say, like on his mat and he's not willing to go to work with a third party, with me, and maybe this isn't working. But sometimes what I notice women do is like they stay there and they look for evidence that it's their fault and they work harder and harder and harder and harder with their therapist, with their group coaching, with their this, with their that, with their food, with their da-da-da. They just they go into this masculine doing mode of like. If I change, he's going to change, mode of like, if I change, he's going to change. And I'm like okay, maybe, but I don't think that that's really what's called for. I think it's just a pattern that we've been developed, that we've developed, that we've been coded with like be the good girl, like, do everything to make him happy and one day he'll magically show up for you and have all this emotional capacity. Oh, probably not. And then, for really masculine men, they have often this wounding of like men don't talk about their emotions. Men keep that to themselves. I don't want her to see me like that, because if she does, she'll reject me and just right, there, we're just missing each other.
And so often I'm like, can we be in the invitation that he's a super hyper masculine man who's been coded with. It's not right for him to process this stuff with you, and so can we. If he's open to it, can he find a different, new way to process that with other men or in some kind of you know work with someone where he can open that up and realize that that's not the true coding of his system, cause he feels unmet too and he's scared too. But if he's a no to it, he's a no to it. And if she's a no to it's a no to it. And if she's a no to it?
Because sometimes I'll meet men who've been on their mat, like with me, for instance, like they'll be, they open, they get like erect in their spine and open in their heart and they're just in there like, oh, just this place where I'm just like brother, oh my gosh. And then their partner is like this is too much for me because she's so closed and she's so mask in her masculine, you know doing ways and he wants her to soften now because he's ready for that. And then it's the same thing where it's like then he feels unmet and she feels like why is he so fucking emotional? You know why. You know he's like why didn't you call me to check in when you got to the hotel? And she's like I was at the bar.
I don't understand, you know, and it's just like it can go through either.
You know, whatever sex, uh and sex genitalia we have, it doesn't really matter. It's just like it's these patterns and this coding on our systems of like a choice and to communicate. You know, I, my suggestion, when someone's in that holding their phone and going to sleep with it waiting for them to text back, is like you know, can we start practicing holding yourself and showing them how painful it is that they're not showing back up for you? But if you go to try to fix them, coach them, you know, mommy, daddy them like it's going to completely blow up the relationship because there's no agency there and you'll end up in a relationship where there's power over instead of power with, and that's just no fun. At the end of the day it might be familiar. You know your younger parts might like it, your parents might live like that, your grandparents might live like that, so it'll feel really familiar. But if you're on the path of consciousness, at the end of the day it's not going to be fulfilling or satiating.
Beautifully said. Beautifully said. Beautifully said.
It's so easy to stay in relationships that feel familiar and comfortable, even though there's internally, deep down, a part of us that recognizes this isn't healthy, this isn't optimal, it could be different.
This isn't optimal, it could be different. The challenge with that is it's like that fight between the head and the heart. It's the logic piece saying, yeah, that deep down there's that piece of you that knows something needs to shift in this relationship, otherwise it's not going to have longevity. But then the other part of you starts to say, well, look at all of these good things that I should be grateful for, look at all of these other positive things that I'm really happy about. He's actually a really good person.
What if I don't find someone else that has this degree of consciousness? Could I really leave this partnership and find someone that could meet me closer to where I'm at? And it just creates this feeling of stuckness in us because we can't walk away, because we're convincing ourselves that it's okay, but we're not really thrilled to be in the space that we're in, because we don't feel fully met or we don't feel fully seen. How do you know know how to know when it's time to walk away from a partnership versus continue to have the patience and hold space for a person to reflect and shift a pattern that they're not recognizing within themselves.
Yeah, I love. Thank you again. Like what you said is so beautiful, right, like there's that journey between the heart and the head and then there's a nervous system between there that connects everything, right? So when you say you feel stuck, you actually do, because there's like a mixed bag of frozenness and flightness. So you're you're fighting and flighting and you're frozen at the same time, right, like in your every time you get together, you're arguing about the thing, but then you can't actually move from the relationship. But then you can't actually move from the relationship. All right, so you, you don't feel satisfied, but you're arguing every time you're together and then you're really not satisfied.
And then you have makeup sex, which feels good for the moment, but then you're there's more resentment later and my thing is like and this is very unique to to my lived experience, and then the hundreds of people that I've sat with over the many years that I've been doing this it becomes this interesting pattern of the same. It lights up the same parts of the brain that chemical dependency and addiction lights up. Because it's very interesting what happens biochemically in this process, because then we get into this pattern where we're getting dopamine hits for every time we get through a little bit and then there's an expectancy that it's going to change. From there the behavior doesn't actually change. We go down low, so serotonin, dopamine drop. You know there's that little bit of depression, there's telling all your friends about it and being in like victim to your relationship and your choices. And then then you go and you have the argument again about the same thing and you get all this dopamine and all this rush because you get somewhere again, because you don't want to break out, because you're chemically dependent on each other.
And then you have sex and you're like, oh my God, it's going to be okay. And then a week later, bam, you're in the same pattern and then it becomes this like love addiction, relationship addiction, sex addiction, like whatever I don't love the word addiction, that's not my bag. It becomes a chemical reaction that your body gets so fully familiar with that you can stay stuck there for years with the anticipation that one of you is going to change and it actually feels okay, it feels good and you've trained your system to that familiarity. And so it becomes even more difficult to know when to leave, because you feel split down the middle and you're kind of high on this circular pattern that you're in. It's so interesting to observe, observe and you know, to put it in the models that I've been trained in through my own chemical dependency, I'm like it's not different, it's just not. And so it can be really hard to leave because the chemical come down from.
That experience is like detox and I have detoxed dirty and I get it and sometimes I'll sit with my students that finally say this has got to stop and we're in detox for like 90 days and there's no literal physical, you know, dependency on a substance, but they're dependent on that chemical cascade of what they were in for so long, waiting for the other person to change and being so consumed by that pattern. Being so consumed by that pattern and yeah, it's, it's quite something. And so it's like when, when we, when we know we're ready to leave, is when we're deteriorating sometimes and I'm like my thing is like my rock bottom was so horrific that like I really start to call the patterns when I see this in other people with love and relationship, because I'm like, oh, we don't want to have to hit the rock bottom of this, we just don't. So I'm going to start calling it now and I'm a guide Like you're going to make your own choices and I'm not going to interrupt with God's plan for you, right, like at the end of the day, you're a sovereign adult. I'll just give you all this information and then you'll decide to get on the new groove, which is going to require a detox, and it's not a two week detox, y'all Like.
That's why I've spent the last year mostly single, because it would be old behavior for me to have gotten back into a relationship right away Now, for me to play with some familiar friends and like have a good time totally a different thing.
But if I would have gotten back into another relationship right away, then that would have been my old behavior and I was just I'm not willing to play in that playground anymore.
And so now I've had all this time to metabolize it and I'm like, oh, I can be in a relationship again now, right and so, yeah, I can go on and on about that. Shannon, there's so many parallels that I think you know we don't spend a lot of time talking about because people have such a stigma around those, that chemical cascade of reactions that we call addiction, and we're, in my opinion, everyone experiences that chemical cascade of reaction, but they don't want to call it that. So let's call it something else. But let's call it because it'll help you get out of the cycle faster and just like you started and you reflected to me so beautifully like every relationship isn't forever, but it is definitely there to be a mirror for you, and every person can teach you something beautiful when we start practicing letting go when it's no longer working when we start practicing letting go when it's no longer working.
Yeah, that's so well said and I really appreciate you kind of breaking it down in that way and I love your phrase of just like. You just have to call it like yeah, whatever you want to call it, whatever aligns with your wordage or beliefs. But it's a thing and we just need to acknowledge it. And it's hard sometimes to take full responsibility for these things and to own this in yourself because it's so much easier to externalize it and say it's not me, it's them. If I just had a different partner, things would be different. And we search and search and search, when in reality it's work that we have to do internally to be able to be with a partner and actually make it work and to hold space for each other to process and move through these different things.
I think now especially, it's just so easy to find a new partner because everyone's out there and I think there's just a greater feeling of loneliness in people than ever before, even though we have so much more opportunities for connection. I think it's that quick fix that we've gotten so accustomed to seeking and that instant gratification. So it's like, okay, we just enter these new partnerships without ever really reflecting or changing old patterns, and the newness is exciting and your system is excited and you start to idealize what this new partnership could be and you project this image onto them about like yeah, this could be the one. They're this, this and this and it's. It's just like an image you're creating in your head without really changing your system, or like even seeing the person for who they truly are, which is a human that also has growth to do in this lifetime.
Yeah, when I first started going to 12 step and I didn't last long in those rooms because it just didn't resonate. But I remember saying in my second meeting fantasy was my first drug of choice Because to live in my little body when I was two, three years old was so hard, such a strong fantasy world, that it was hard for my dad to like connect with me because I dissociated that way, which was a brilliant survival strategy. But when we're doing it as adults in our relationships, it's not working. And if you just want to play in that, then you've got to strengthen your nervous system to play in the fantasy world and be a sovereign adult, which means probably having multiple partners and being in these communities where you where, that's okay. But if you're, if your true desire is, oh, that deep intimacy which mine is like, you gotta own that too, and so it's just like. But if we keep living in fantasy, it's it's a very strong chemical response in there truth.
Uh, an hour flies by, so oh my god, it's been an hour, I never in a million years would have thought that this is where I would have gone today and I'm so glad it did. It felt so delicious to talk to you about this and really feel this all the way through.
Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I know when we first spoke about doing an episode, it was kind of like what should we talk about? And we're like it's just going to take us where we need to go and we'll see what comes up. And I think it's really fun that this came up.
I think relationships are so powerful. So often we think about them through a really narrow lens or just a fraction of our life. But I feel like it's through relationships that we really learn who we are. It's like a really great opportunity and almost just like an expedited way to learn you. So it's like the more you're around other people, the more you see about yourself, especially when you reflect back and you're kind of like, oh, I felt really activated in this way. This must mean this about me or this is something I need to move through or work through. It's, yeah, I feel like it's like an incubator for growth, when sometimes people maybe look at it the other way, like I need to spend, like I mean, it's a healthy balance, like spending time alone versus spending time with other people. They're both valuable in their own respective ways. But yeah, I love that this came up and I'm excited to hear what people really took away from this or what was reflected in them from listening to some of these stories and observations. Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, beautiful.
Well, Amy, if they enjoyed this conversation, how can they connect further with you?
Instagram and everything. Facebook all of the things are at regulate with Amy. That's the best way to come into my field. And then, if you like it, there's several. The pathways are, like, very clearly laid out, where I have a school that you can just come in and meet with me once a month and take in hundreds and hundreds of hours of yummy content on relationships, on money, on business. If you're ready to go into more deeper work and really lay the foundation of your new way of life, roots is the program where we really like create the roots of your new way of life. And then I have an inner circle for people that are in that advanced leadership spot where they really want to be a part of that conscious creation process is called lead with love.
Oh, that's so fun, they sound so awesome, and we'll link that in the show notes so people can check it out and explore a little bit further. Thank you All right. Well, thanks for tuning in, guys. I'm sure both of us would love to hear your feedback. So if you had any thoughts or takeaways, feel free to DM us.
Thanks so much for listening to hear your feedback, so if you had any thoughts or takeaways, feel free to DM us.
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're enjoying listening to this podcast, I have a special gift for you. If you leave a review and send me a screenshot, I will send you something personally in the mail just to show you how much I appreciate your help in helping me spread the empowerment across the world and showing other women the magic that they have within themselves, just the same way you do. Babe, If you're enjoying this episode, then I would love it if you took a screenshot and posted it on your story on Instagram and tagged me at fuel the underscore fire. Let's have a conversation about it. Let's chat about it. I love to hear your thoughts and your feedback. I'm here to support you in any way that I can. I love you guys so much and I'm excited to keep coming at you with some new guests, new information and new techniques to keep blowing your mind and making you feel invincible. Thanks for listening. Love you Bye.