Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Finding Magic in the Mess with Dr. Neeta Bhushan

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

On this week’s episode of the Language of Love, I am sitting down with wellness and emotional health advocate Dr. Neeta Bhushan, the author of the acclaimed book, That Sucked Now What? At a very young age Neeta experienced the loss of her brother and both her parents, leading her into a spiral of grief, an abusive relationship and struggles with codependency.  In this conversation, we talk about the ways that magical moments that can grow out of our deepest pain, as well as the many powerful strategies Dr Neetha shared to “sit with the suck” in order to move through it and thrive.   Visit my website and check out my books on love, sex and relationships. Be sure to tune in regularly to The Language of Love for great discussions and thought-provoking conversations with accomplished individuals and experts offering invaluable advice on how to love and be loved better.  Mentions: That Sucked, Now What by Dr. Neeta Bhushan. https://www.amazon.com/That-Sucked-Now-What-Embrace-ebook/dp/B0B4ZF99PS Dr. Neeta Bhushan https://www.instagram.com/neetabhushan/ https://www.youtube.com/c/NeetaBhushanofficial https://twitter.com/NeetaBhushan https://www.linkedin.com/in/drneetabhushan/ https://open.spotify.com/episode/7fHAmeOjc32wjpHulhr96U?si=05b42715c27a4f4c&nd=1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/solocast-why-i-decided-to-write-my-new-book-that-sucked/id1608226580?i=1000576347313 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and celebrities about love, sex, and relationships from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. and that way my goal is to awaken your mind body and soul it's time to become fluent in the language of love i'm so excited for this episode with nita buchan if you have been through a hardship and you

have if you're alive if you have lost something or been through a crisis or going through or have been going through, A Dark Night of the Soul. You are going to learn so much during this episode. Neva is the author of That Sucked, Now What? How to Embrace the Joy in Chaos and Find the Magic in the Mess. So her idea, what I call the AFGE, Another Freak and Growth Experience, she calls the magical moment of suck. And she describes, and we get into this in this episode, The five phases of what she calls the fly forward framework, basically how to move through something really, really painful that brings you to your knees, process it, heal it, learn from it, and then fly.

And boy, you know, this resonates with me because I've been going through it and we all go through these hardships. So I hope that you enjoy this episode with Neetha as much as I do. I think you're going to learn a lot. Neetha, I'm so grateful you are with us and I am so excited to dive into this with you. Thank you for joining us. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for having me.

I'm so excited to be here. So the book actually titled and very descriptively so, That Sucked, Now What? One of the things that I talk about with my peeps here all the time is what I call AFGEs. That's what I call the equivalent of what you call the magical moment of suck. I call it AFGE as in another fucking growth experience. I love that. They break you open, they break you apart, and then that all these gifts come out of it. And that's really what we're going to be diving into in this episode.

And I know that's sort of the focus of your book, but I want to talk about sort of the origin story underneath your book, that your magical moment or moments of suck was at age 16, your mom died, followed horrifically by your 15-year-old brother. and while your father for very good reason goes into a major you know kind of checks out and is depressed and like struggling you pick up the slack at 16 and are taking care of your younger brother and taking on one job after another and then at 19 when you're 19 he passes away at all as well so you find yourself an orphan way too young and I love how you you know you said if they gave an award for hard stuff for what you've gotten through, you would have an EGOT, right?

Yeah, I probably would, too. Just frankly, we both we both would be got worthy when it comes to magical moments of suck. But what I think is so powerful and obviously is the purpose of the book is that. You were able to move through those horrific losses, which for anyone at any age, that's too much to handle. But as a teenager, that is 100,000 times worse. And one of the things that I think is really important that you talk about is how it was sort of a while before you really started diving into and digging into the healing that would lead you to where you are today. So I was wondering if we could start there, what that journey was like. Oh, wow. Yes. Goodness. I think things had to get so bad before I could climb out of pretty much what I talk about, the suck. And after having gone through so much of that loss, and you beautifully narrated that, so well done on that.

But one of the things, and I think your audience and you would appreciate this, as we talk about the language of love, I think for me, I needed to be around other people. And my coping mechanism became fill every single moment that you have with other people. And I really loved community. I was great at community building even when I was 16, because that's what my upbringing called for. That's what growing up being Filipino and Indian, we come in droves many times. That's what that called for. But what I'm really referring to in my romantic relationships, I held on to a lot of relationships far too long. I definitely had codependency through and through. I was so afraid of being alone. And that really, really linked me up into some very wild relationships. And I say this jokingly and casually now, it wasn't so fun going through the process, obviously, because that would lead

me into the biggest growth edge of my life. And that was getting married to a narcissistic partner. And of course, it would make so much sense. It makes so much sense because I fit the profile. And I was looking for love like all of us. I think that when you've been through some hard things, especially at a young age. And quite frankly, I didn't have the tools coming from a background that really lauded success, education, monetary success, accolades, all of those things. And that's what really was in my emotional bank account. I have to make good for my parents to live their legacy, to be the good Indian Filipino daughter, whatever that meant. I mean, it obviously meant striving and all of those things and excellence, which I did.

I became a cosmetic dentist and all of those things were so shiny on the outside. I purchased a practice early on before I was 30. I already hit seven figures. So things were definitely great on the accolades part, but where I was really struggling and I did not want a single soul to know, because we don't talk about divorce in our cultures. It's so taboo to even talk about, God forbid, that you have disagreements in your love life. And I definitely was in a very toxic, very unhealthy relationship. And that's where you're referring to the point in my book where I talk about on December 31st, that would be the last time I would allow my ex-husband to strike me in the face.

and like I said, things had to get really low for me to understand my worth. Looking at the mirror on supposedly the happiest day of the year, New Year's Eve, and I'm in fear and in shock and I'm thinking my entire world is crumbling because for the first time, I really needed help. And my life was being threatened. I needed to come clean because on the outside, everything looked picture perfect. You had this beautiful, fancy wedding. I lived in this amazing home. I thought I would kind of recreate my life from the loss, from the depths of my own despair. And to be quite honest, I was looking for Prince Charming to come in and save me. But that day I actually had to be brave and save myself. And so that then began

the beautiful journey of healing over the next six years, which I mean, I dove into full, just allowing myself to get spiritually, emotionally naked and basically come to Jesus moments, coming down to my knees and saying, okay, wow, I need help. Those are the three magic words that I think so many of us are so afraid of, especially if we are high ambitious or have big goals or we present in a certain way. For perfectionists like me, we're covering type A. I love many things about your story, but what I love is how beautifully it depicts something that I talk about so often that we get these, the universe, spirit, God, whatever you want to call it, sort of taps at the door, scratches at the door. We're still not listening. Knocks a little

louder, eventually starts pounding. And when we still aren't accepting the invitation to shift, change, do that thing that we're too scared to do in your case. And for many, like many of us to leave a relationship that is really not serving us and even emotionally and physically and or physically abusive, eventually the universe just fricking blows the whole house down. and, and then we have no choice, right? We have no choice. And then we, right. And then we sort of hit that quote unquote rock bottom that you describe really, as you talk about these, the whole book is about, and I know a lot of you teach this, this book is a reflection of a lot of what you teach is about how to move through the suck to thriving basically. Yeah. And we're going

to go through the steps a little bit, I think is probably the best way to tackle this. And what you're describing is the first step, right? Which is, as you describe it, which is the fall, right? Where you're hitting rock bottom, some unexpected crisis or something happens, or even, you know, it could be a job, it could be a relationship, whatever. You're in that really dark night of the soul. Yeah. Yeah. And that dark night of the soul, I mean, we're in it. We're literally embracing swimming in the suck. And I think for so many of us, it's so easy because in just human nature, we want to avoid, we want to numb, we want to distract, we want to squash down because of what we were told about sucking when we were younger. Did we have a space to even

actually allow this comfortable feelings or uncomfortable feelings to rise to the surface and actually be felt. And I think what I'm hearing is a lot of your listeners, probably we were all not given that space, or it was shameful, or you felt guilty because you were feeling this way, or there was just no room for that. So then what do we do? We then judge ourselves for feeling a certain way. And I think for myself, at that point in stage of my journey, I had no choice. I was like fully in it. And I was like, all right, give it to me, universe. Like, let's be in it. And many times you do feel hopeless. You do feel defeated. You can feel depressed. And this is where we get into, you know, that next. And I think that for that

fall, for whoever is listening to this, that fall began not just on December 31st. We start to see the red flags. And because I did go to therapy, I tried to get my partner to go to therapy as well. I wanted to save that relationship, but I needed to see that it wasn't just me anymore, that I needed to take action and say, wow, because I was in such denial that I could ever be in an abusive relationship. Like a lot of people in abusive relationships, yeah, you make excuses for them, you gaslight yourself, you let them gaslight you, right? You make all these justifications because it's so hard to admit to yourself. And also once you admit it to yourself, then you're going to have to step into the unknown. And the unknown is so scary because,

which is why, I mean, there's, there's crazy stats out there and, and, you know, I used to be better at the stats, but there's a reason why so many women go back. They go back and it's harder to see the uncertainty than be okay in the certainty of walking on eggshells around somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. And the devil, you know, right. Yeah. And I think that especially coming from, you know, my lineage of many of my cousins on my dad's side, who's from India, they were taught growing up to say, okay, yeah, this is what we do. We adjust in marriage. When I came out for the first time sharing just that I was going through this situation, coming out, getting an actual restraining order. So that's part two is like the ignition, the step. That's the first

part is the fall. And you know that you've reached a fall because you're like, all right, I need to face this fear. And the ignition is like, okay, here's that diagnosis. Here's you found evidence of you getting cheated on. You found evidence of you getting betrayed or getting bad mouth somewhere else. This is the ignition. Do you stay? Do you go? Do you stay? Do you go? And for me, it was December 31st. And for me, I said, okay, that's it. I have to walk out. And the walking out took obviously so much courage, so much bravery, but then we get into the rising stage. And when we're getting in the rising stage, this meant for me to actually share openly, all right, this is where I'm at. I need support. I need help. And I honestly don't care if you

don't support me right now. There are many people in my family who to this day, we don't really talk. But again, I don't really have to see them every day because they're in different parts of the world. And that's not their life. It's my life. And I think to get so clear, it depends on where I'm speaking around this in different parts of the world, because now I do speak on this. And I think many times we're so afraid that we're going to be shunned by our society. And I think that for a moment in time, maybe you will, but you know what? This is where in rising, we're okay with uncertainty because we know that we're starting to lean into our inner voice, our inner thought, and really going into full protection of ourself.

Yeah. I think that's beautiful. And somewhere in there, I don't know, I know this weaves probably through all of the steps, but I think in particular in the beginning, and you alluded to this, it's so for every single one of us, regardless of your culture, it's not emotional self-regulation and in particular, emotional expression, and in particular, emotional expression of fear and sadness and rage are highly repressed. And so we don't really have any kind of template, most of us, or resource or model for how to move through that. And we imagine, especially when some huge magical moment of suck happens, right? You have all of these huge emotions and the tendency is want to be like, nope, I'm going to move right to fix managing

and control. I'm going to fix this situation. And one of the things when I was first starting to read the book and I read the whole thing, you get to it pretty quickly. But before you did, I was like, oh, I hope this isn't another bypassing book, but it isn't. So thank you for that. Oh, we talk about the bypass. I really appreciate that because a lot of people, personal empowerment teachers don't acknowledge how important it is, how crucial, mandatory it is to feel your feelings. I mean, that's what this one is about. It's about like sitting in the suck. And I think so often because we're taught to, like you say, control, manage, fix. For me, it's like, yeah, we distract, we numb, we avoid, we squash down. And many times it's because

well, what were we taught about? There's a concept I talk about in the book around strengthening our ability to bounce back from certain things and certain life things as our relationships. We are not taught that. We don't have a barometer for that. Well, the first part of sitting in the suck and the reframe around it is, well, let's look and see what threads from our past and our patterns, kind of like our upbringing, were we allowed to actually sit in it? What does it mean to sit in something, to sit in failure, to sit in setback, to sit in circumstances that we couldn't control? Well, yeah, that's going to make us feel like crap. And I describe, I mean, one of the things you describe, which I so appreciate because it's

such a huge part of what I try to teach and work with people around is what is essentially, well, as you said, you talk about what you call the bounce factor, right? Which is how quickly basically you can, it's your resilience essentially, right? Your ability to bounce back in a healthy way from setbacks, AFGEs, magical moments of suck. And you talk about how it's, like you said, about your upbringing, your environment, just like the emotional capacity you've developed over time to feel your feelings and how self-aware you are. But I think that you describe at this one point about what is essentially somatic work of a process of really what it looks like to actually feel your feelings. Oh, yes. I mean, how to embrace the suck. And I think I wish I was given

permission to do that. It's in part one of the book where I have an image because I'm very visual and I needed a visual representation of to take someone through five steps on literally how to actually take two minutes and you get an email or you get gaslit by a friend or maybe the babysitter decided not to show up and decided not that they were not even going to tell you. So you plan this beautiful date with your partner. And now you can't go. By the way, that's happened to me many times. And so I think that in our brains, we're so wired to skip over it. We're so wired because we're taught about the positivity and the optimism and the positive psychology and let's pick a positive thought. And I used to be that way too. In fact, toxic positivity was my

coping mechanism. And of course, that was a survival technique for me for a very long time until it no longer worked. Well, I mean, when you were a kid, there was no freaking room. You were keeping the boat afloat. Right. So there was no possibility to like you got to keep it two together to feel anything. Right. So you learned then probably much earlier than then, but you put it into action then how to squelch. Yep. I mean, that was that was literally the only option. And And I think even to bring about sad feelings or, you know, there's a, there's a part of my book where maybe I don't share the full story in the book, but I now share it, you know, on stages is the time where the doctors came in the room and they told my dad, he had stage four lung cancer.

And this was after losing my mom to a six-year battle and losing my brother to an asthma attack suddenly a year after she died. So if you can only imagine, I'm 18 at this time. I couldn't go away to college. I am taking the burden of my family. And I'm now in a room with these doctors telling me that my dad has nine months to live and has stage four lung cancer. I was so furious and so angry, but then thinking in my head, okay, I don't want my dad to see me upset. I don't want him to see me angry. I was livid because I'm like, how could this happen again? Again, who's failing me? Right. And so I didn't even feel the amount of rage that I felt during that time until I was actually a month postpartum when I had my son, where a lot of these uncontrollable

urges and feelings finally started spewing out of my body. Like it was full somatic sensation where my now husband, who's like the greatest man and the best co-pilot, but he's like, okay, where is this coming from? What's going on? Where did my wife go? And I was like, all right, we need to sit with this. This is so in my body right now. It just needs to come out. And we needed to work through it. And that's kind of what an example of a somatic expression, how we can actually practice this in our daily practice. And I tell people now, all right, one of the practices I talk about in the book is, all right, take a pillow with you. I have a pillow in the back of my car because either I'm doing pickups and drop-offs. I have two kids. They're

toddlers. And sometimes there's going to be really big emotions. And now teaching my children this, I mean, this is honestly what sparked the book is now having to retrain myself and really heal that inner child that didn't get themselves to process or sit in those uncomfortable feelings. Yeah. And it's such a great example of so many things of not only modeling for your kids. I do the same thing. In fact, I still do. And I had my kids in our house when they were growing, you know, number the youngest is

17, but we call it the bat station. And we had this huge round pillow and those and two or three plastic bats. And whenever they or I or their father, you know, whenever anyone was like angry, we're like, all right, go to the bat station. And it felt so good to beat the shit. I still beat the shit out of a pillow. But I do. Yeah. I mean, and when you're going through the initial phases of a huge crisis or loss or trauma. I've talked about this a lot and I modeled a lot on social media with the loss of my son a few years ago. I, you know, in the beginning, I would all throughout the day have to stop and rage and cry and scream. And each time, and this is what I think is important for you guys to understand. And I know you, this has been your experience

too, Neetha, that one of the fears, not only our lack of experience and understanding of how to do it, but also one of the fears is, God, if I open up this fricking Pandora's box, like I am never coming back. It feels like it's going to be so overwhelming and I will never, I will never stop crying. And what I try to remind people is that at the bottom in the story of Pandora's box, which most people don't know, they just know it's open the box and all kinds of shit comes out at the bottom of Pandora's box is hope, which I think is such a beautiful metaphor. And if you allow yourself to fully sit with the suck, as you would call it, then it takes like maximum 10 minutes, usually less. And the pressure valve has released. You feel clearer and calmer. You can access grace

at that moment. For me, that was always when I could connect with my son and access the divine. it was after I had done a huge release. That's how it started for me. So at the beginning, you're releasing, releasing, releasing, and then eventually it gets less and less. And then you move like, then I started doing it because I was just still really in the pain, but moving through it more successfully, I just like do it as a daily practice. So, and then I started noticing that like, okay, now I'm feeling better. I'm kind of fine today. I don't want to sit with anything, But I forced myself to still just sit and check in for a minute and see what wanted to come up. And now I just do it when I'm feeling really like my cue is when I'm feeling really stuck or really like resentful, which is not ever something that I typically would feel unless triggers coming up or if I'm feeling depressed and immobilized. And I'm like, OK. And I just go into the garage or, you know, or when the kids are at school, I'll tell my husband, all right, I'm going to go process some emotions. That's that's high sign for put in your earphones. Don't pay any attention to the screaming on the other side of the house. Nothing bad is happening. And he knows.

I think we need to have these, you know, it's interesting because even in my book, we even have like, okay, what are the rage practices? What's your rage playlist? Because we think that we're going to get stuck in that emotion. But like you were saying, I mean, I say this all the time. I'm like, we are going to blow up on someone if, and it's going to be a friend, it's going to be an assistant, it's going to be someone who's just there, but they're going to get the brunt of it. if we are taking and creating our own little processing sack, AKA your pillow, or it's one of the reasons why I now have one of those boxing bags. I don't, you know, I'm not like a professional boxer, but that's one of the things that I actually did in my healing. I started taking a boxing and Muay Thai, not for self-defense, but I felt like I grew up dancing and boxing in Muay Thai, it's, there's a dance, there's coordinated effort there. That's why I can't do it. Cause I'm a spaz, but I do like, you're just like, let's go. Let's just hit it. I'm not graceful. There's no grace in it, but I mean, there's so much power in that release. And that

was so cathartic and so healing. I think more than just breath work, more than just the yoga and the meditation where you are sitting. This is like the somatic experience of moving that energy. And yes, I do talk about, well, when you are angry, when you are rageful, go out and stand up, get off the couch, get off of your phone, get off of the email. Because what do we do? Our shoulders go up to our ears. We tense up our fingers. We tense up our fists. and we start ruminating in our head versus bringing it back down to our heart so that we can rest and regulate and digest and activate our vagus nerve, which is why the screaming is so important. Yeah. And it also very often, I don't know if you find this to be true, but for me,

even before my son, and thank God I understood this and was already doing it to a certain extent in my own life for my own healing before he died. But when you express, when you release the rage, very often the rage is just a first layer. And then once the rage expresses after a few minutes of like breathless screaming or pounding something, then the tears come. And it's like very often, that's why I guess they say depression is anger turned inward. Very often underneath the rage is deep emotional sadness, grief, pain that has been waiting to come out, but the layer of rage has been on top of it. And then once you release the rage, then you'll have a few minutes of bawling. And then the divinity, then there's like a psychedelic experience.

You don't need the psychedelics for it. That honestly was the beginning of my spiritual, I would say my spiritual reawakening started about 12 years ago, but two years ago when my son died, I very quickly realized that right after that, and yes, during breath work too it happens, but right after that is all of a sudden I would viscerally feel him. I would get chills all over my body. I would get a message from him. All these butterflies would fly by, which is my animal for him or the hummingbird, which is my mom's or the hawk or all three. You know, you would have these really amazing experiences. Another really good one.

I don't know if you do is screaming into a bowl of ice water. Oh, no. Ice water. It feels so good. stick your whole face in it and go into the water. Oh, okay. That's good. That's good. Okay. Okay. Ice water. Listen, we need all the options. We need all of it. All of it. I just took my, my son is in Taekwondo mixed martial arts. He's four. So I'm like, all right, we're going to take, they have these like big, you know, square pillows. We just, and I'm like, all right,

we got to order some of those. Cause that's going in the, that's, that's going in the emotional release room yeah those are good aka the garage yeah whatever it takes it would be nice if houses were made with an emotional release hey we've got a zen room i think laura we can start doing this this would be great they have sex rooms they have sex rooms yeah we should have a rage room a rage room without having to go to one of those places i think the nearest rage room here is like I don't know, an hour away, but yeah. That's a good idea. We're on to something. Yeah, we are. As most of you know, for the past several years, I've been on a pretty intense grief journey and it's been a path of healing. I've shared lots of that healing with you and lots of the healing

resources that I found. And I am so thrilled to announce that I am doing my first ever retreat for grieving mamas. So if you or someone you love is a mama who has lost a child in any way, at any stage, at any age, I would love for you to come join me at 1440 Multiversity in the Redwoods near Santa Cruz, California for four amazing days of beautiful, uplifting community and healing. We've got David Kessler. We've got Paul Selig. We've got Catherine Woodward Thomas, we've got me, we've got body work, we've got organic food, beautiful rooms, go to 1440.org. Check it out. It's right there on the homepage. I really hope you can join us. So after the fall, you talked about that deep dark night of the soul, then you're sort of

mobilizing and saying, okay, I need some help. Then you begin to rise, right? Rising is stage three, where you're now saying yes to opening to new things and learning new things and accepting your new reality. And then you move into magnifying. So let's talk about both of those before we get. So when we're in the rising stage, I mean, we're kind of like rising like a phoenix. We are tender. Our heart is tender. We might not trust anybody, but we're coming from a place of curiosity. We are literally operating the opposite of how we would normally operate. And that operation is scary. It's new. There is this newness around it. It's kind of like you are emotionally naked. You're doing things perhaps sometimes for the first time. Maybe you

are seeking support. Maybe you are going and seeing and working with a therapist or a coach. You are doing these somatic practices that you might be judging yourself for. I know a lot of times I would judge myself when I was screaming in a pillow, when I was doing laughing yoga, just so that I could start to reach that point that you talked about, the divinity. I mean, for me, I even ventured into, you know, psychedelic retreats, plant medicine, all of those things. And that was in that rising stage. It was a year of yes for me. And one of the concepts also that can come in frequently is exposing yourself to good stress, which is also saying yes to all of these new things, even though you don't want to, even though you'd much rather, what, cry on the couch. in a ball. You'd much rather hide in a closet, you know, not see anybody. And I think for myself, I knew that I was leaving a community that was very near and dear and I needed to start a brand new community. I need to find new friends. And that was that, all right, maybe I'll join this thing. I will take singing lessons. I don't know. Like I started taking improv. And so I think that in and of itself leads you then to the magnify stage because in the magnify stage, you are fully

accepting your new reality and you're not caring what other people think because you are so focused and you are so convicted in your healing. And as a result of that, yeah, maybe you are in this duality of two different emotions. Maybe you are still feeling reserved, but you kind of want to date again. And so you're curious, maybe you're skeptical, but you are open still. And I think really normalizing the duality that it's not going to be black or white, that there are going to be the shades and you might still be grieving that loss, but you're also kind of like starting to find the joys in the newness of your self-care routine or what you're prioritizing for yourself at this stage. And that's really beautiful. And I think in particular, when it comes to love,

which, you know, I'm always going to come back to, of course, it's about opening to, especially when it's about when your grief is about the loss of love or leaving a horrible relationship or taking that leap into the unknown. But I think this is true with anything, not just with love. To me, your magnifying stage is everything you said, obviously. And it's also a time where you start to get clearer, I think, on what it is you really want, right? Like now that I understand who I am in this new lobster who's shed its old toxic shell, right? And now it's growing a new skin. I feel a little raw. I feel some nostalgia for my old lobster shell, you know, and curiosity and concern about what the new one's going to look like.

I love the lobster analogy because lobsters literally shed their shell when they get too big. Oh, I didn't know that. Shedding off their shell. And then they're vulnerable for a while before they grow a new house for themselves. That cute. It's just another option. The butter, you know, there's the butterfly, the, Oh, the lobster. Okay. That's a good one. Yeah. You can use that if you want. I'll give it back to you. Okay. But I do think it's a time where you start to kind of get and it's a really important time for what you're going to manifest because of where you've come from and the growth you've already done and the reality that you're starting to step into. You can get clear about, OK, so what is it that I do really want? I've been grieving the loss of what I had.

I've been healing. I've been falling back in love with myself. I've been honest with myself and letting myself release emotions. And now with everything I understand, what is it that I really want? Right. Would you say that happens at this? Oh, absolutely. In my magnify stage, and you'll like this because this is, you know, this is leaning

back to love for me. I actually made a commitment to myself and I actually married myself in Bali. I had my own little eat, pray, love adventure. And it took me to the other side of the world, Indonesia. and I knew, and this was by the way, the first time I would ever travel solo in my life, which was a huge deal for me. And I think that for those listening, you don't have to have your eat, pray, love adventure, but maybe you can go to a new coffee shop. Maybe you can commit to yourself and do things on your own, explore and perhaps maybe date yourself because that marriage

to myself was literally just a commitment and a recommitment annually. I only married myself once, but I still remember that date. It was February 15th, actually. It was a day after Valentine's Day. It was years ago. But what it did unlock was that I was always going to put those needs for myself first. By the way, this was pre-kids. This was pre even my partner now. And that would unlock those very steps because I was so clear on, I'm actually okay with myself. And then that led to meeting my now husband. I met him actually two months to that date. We reconnected again in Kuala Lumpur. And that's where we reignited over there. But I mean, it was two months later after I had made that commitment that I wanted to date myself. So many times when you're magnifying

yourself and you're in that stage, you are completing yourself and you're excited about where you're at. You're content. And that's what brings more and more of what some people like to call the law of attraction, right? I call it that all the time. But yeah, it's funny because I did an interview recently with Anna Klutz, who is sort of a travel writer and a best-selling author. She wrote a book with her sister. But her recent book, I think it's called My Own Magic, she obviously shares her journey.

She ended a really bad relationship, basically went through the suck. And I think her story and yours, and even mine, because in that interview, I won't go into it too much, but in that interview, I shared my, for I'm now married to a wonderful man of 20 for 20 years. But when I was younger, I was married to someone who was toxic, narcissist, emotionally abusive, cheated on me like horrific, all of it and took the leap and left and went into the suck, went into that AFGE. But in each case,

in my case, in her case, in your in all these cases, and this is what I want you guys to really here. Like, fuck Jerry Maguire. Nobody completes you. You fall in love with yourself, maybe for the first time. Become your own delicious cake, whole, complete, delicious. Someone else coming in is the icing. You don't need the icing to be delicious, but it tastes even better when you have the icing. And it's got to be an icing that complements the cake because the cake is already whole and not changing the recipe oh yeah it's just the top layer yeah that's it yeah and so how beautiful and the same you know she met her now love saying got really clear like I'm not going to settle for any I don't need to settle I don't want to settle I got something

really good right here right and this is what I want and I'm excited for it to come in when it comes in, but I'm in no rush and boom. And that's the beauty of it. And I think that also we have to get so clear if we are looking for that next partner, if we are in that magnify stage and, you know, there are prompts inside of that suck now what on how to actually do that, but how to actually go in with yourself and see, okay, what is it? And how is it that I want to show up in my next relationship and to ask like, okay, if I want my partner to be X, am I actually being honest with myself? If I want my partner to be vulnerable, am I actually being vulnerable with my girlfriends or with my guy friends? Because that will tell you who you're also

going to be attracting because we have to be that for ourselves first. Amen. You're a freak. You got to be a frequency match, right? That's what I'm always talking about in quantum love. You have to be a frequency match to that which you desire. So if you are not someone who's comfortable, even though you crave it in someone else, if you're not someone who's willing to be vulnerable in this example, who cultivates vulnerability, who invites and lives in a way that's conducive to vulnerability, you ain't going to attract people who are comfortable with vulnerability. So yeah. And then you magnify it. So that's beautiful. And you're really owning during that stage, you're really owning your power, right? And you're fully owning your power. And because you're magnifying, you're also magnetic, which then leads us to the thriving stage. And the thriving stage doesn't mean like, okay, all is well and glory. And, and, you know, there's, you're never going to get a suck again. I mean, this is so cyclical and it's primed for you to go through those stages. It's prime for you, kind of like playing Mario Kart back in the

day. It is like a video game, right? That first level is going to be so easy. That second level, when you are doing that work, a lot of other things are going to show up, pop up to the surface for you to work through. But now you have the tools. Now you probably even have emotional regulation rage room in your house, courtesy of this podcast, but that you can actually allow yourself to sit in the sock. You won't judge yourself when you're going through certain hardships. You're not going to think that it's the end of the world in your current relationship that's so new if things are a mismatch because you'll now have the tools to create those boundaries for yourself. And so in magnify, as well as in thriving, what you're doing

is yes, you're flourishing, but you have this radical self-awareness that you now know when things are off kilter, when things are off balance and you're not judging yourself for if it doesn't go all to plan because it won't, because you will have another suck eventually. And that's the beauty of life, but you will know, and you'll have your checklist. I mean, I have a whole sheet of your thriving checklist in your personal relationships in your life. How are you checking your boundaries with other people, with yourself, with your new love, whether it's also in your work life, all of those things. And how often are you checking in with that? I actually call it your POC, your personal observation check-in to just check in with you. But that's

kind of the maintenance that we need in the thriving stage. Yeah. And I also think it's like you were alluding to, it's not just maintenance. I mean, this is what I say to people all the time, especially those of us who have been really hurt in love. It's so easy to be scared to love. And I always say the one thing I guarantee you is that you're going to have your heart broken. Guaranteed. You're going to have your heart broken many, many times before you die, assuming, and may you live a very long time. And if you aren't willing to get your heart broken, then you are not willing to love or be loved because you can't open your heart completely unless you're willing to get it broken. And what I love about

what you're just saying and about just the book in general and the idea of it as a toolkit is that once you kind of get this, then you're much less scared because there's a roadmap where you understand that, yes, it's going to suck, but you can survive it and move through it and actually be stronger, clearer, and discover all kinds of gifts. Not that you wanted that thing to happen or you asked for it or you would choose it, but there are all of these beautiful gifts that are available to you through each heartbreak if you move through it with consciousness and grace. And so I think this is such a great, well, this is, I know you don't have a ton of time, but this is a great place to end because I think that's really what your book is about, right?

It is. It's finding the magic in the mess and giving you the tools to then fly forward past those sucky moments so that you can love again, so that you can create an incredible next chapter for you, for yourself and the love that you will be calling in. Yes. And that you so deserve. Thank you so much for being with us and for sharing your time and your work and being the light in the world that you are. We will put all the information on Neetha's book, That Sucked Now What? And she has these cool conversation starter cards and journal prompt cards to do your check-ins and to move through the different phases. We'll put all those links in the show notes.

But thank you, thank you, thank you for joining us. Appreciate you so much, Laura. This was fantastic. I went to the doctor, said I'm crazy for your love. Wrote me a prescription, but there's no cure for crying. Thank you.