Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Finding Your Own Magic with Anna Kloots

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

Have you ever found yourself bending over backward to please others and losing sight of your own needs and desires? Anna Kloots, bestselling author and content creator, is joining me today during Language of Love’s conversation to discuss how you can cultivate your inner relationship with a fear of the unknown, the beautiful process, and finding your own magic. She talks about how to thrive in unknown scenarios and create new comfort zones. Anna's journey of self-discovery and self-love is a true testament to the power of resilience and hope. She sheds light on the idea that the problems we experience in love aren’t about giving away too much of ourselves to someone, but about not knowing our true worth and thus giving it to the wrong people who can’t or won’t reciprocate.  Listen in as Anna shares the lessons she’s learned through her own journey of heartbreak that woke her up, led her back to her own magic, and allowed her to manifest the beautiful life and love of her dreams.  If you’ve been struggling to claim your worth or take that big leap your soul is calling you to make, this episode will inspire you to go for it all.  Visit Anna’s website, and check out her upcoming book My Own Magic: A Reappearing Act releasing May 16th, and follow her to check out the amazing journeys she’s on. 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. It was Anna Klutz's innate sense of adventure and love for the unknown that led her to move abroad, travel to 80 countries around the world, start a business, and marry a magician all before her mid-20s.

And from the outside, it looked amazing. but on the inside, Anna began to realize that perfection that seemed to be who she was and her relationship on the outside was just another illusion and that she had given up so many parts of herself to make the relationship work that she had almost disappeared. So in her newest book, she's a bestselling author. She is a small business owner. She's a content creator in her newest book, My Own Magic, a reappearing act. She gets into the story of her journey, of how she was brave enough to leave a relationship that not only didn't serve her, but was squelching her truth and step into the unknown. So if you are feeling stuck in your life, if you are feeling scared and

thinking that maybe you'll stay with the devil you know, rather than the devil you don't know, because you're scared of the unknown, this episode of The Language of Love is really going to inspire you. Anna Klutz, I'm so excited to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining us on The Language of Love. Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here. So you're already a bestselling author. And I know you wrote a book with your sister. We'll talk about that a little later. But what I'm really excited to talk about, and the backstory behind it, is your new book, My Own Magic, a reappearing act. And so we're going to get into the backstory of that. It gets released on May 16th. It's out for pre-sale now. And I've been following you for some time, really, I guess, probably starting,

my guess is I started around the same time as many people started. Not that you didn't have a following before, but when your brother-in-law, Nick Cordero, was one of the first COVID casualties. And that's really what led to your first book with your sister, which was a bestseller, Live Your Life. But what I love about what you post is a lot of influencers. I don't know what you call yourself. You probably don't call yourself an influencer. You probably call yourself a content creator, right? Because that's... When I have to choose that, either or I do go with content creators. Someone I was with who's from Dubai said it's being rebranded as Key Opinion Leader. And I was like, I like that. Yeah. But, you know, a lot of people who post and

I know you're a photographer and you post these beautiful images and you look very beautiful in them, but they aren't like braggadocious or aspirational or like a lot of people who have your similar job, you know, and do make their living in similar ways and have a huge social media presence. Most of their posts are you want my life and and that is your energy as well. Right. We all are trying to show a better way. They're very natural. It's very girl next door. It's very much like I'm your friend and I'm just taking you along the journey. So I wanted to compliment you on that? Because I think it's a really fine line between that and then trying to post images that are kind of an illusion, right? That aren't real. Yeah. Well, I truly appreciate that so much. Like

that, that particular compliment means more to me than you can imagine, because that really is what I, like I said, I don't really consider myself an influencer. I certainly don't consider that my job. I consider my job a writer. And the reason I ever started an Instagram in the get go, which I talk about in my book, you know, this was in 2014 that I started an Instagram and a blog. And it was with the hope of drawing attention to my writing and being able to attract a literary agent. And then, you know, what happened to Instagram, who would have known, you know, like that influencer wasn't added to the dictionary until 2019. like it wasn't I was not aspiring for that it wasn't a thing it all just kind of happened and I've kind of just found a way to just use it very naturally to share the way I look at my life and the world and you know share my travels with with the hope that it's inspiring and and uh and entertaining not braggadocious or I forget the other adjective you use well no I think that's that inspiring versus aspirational is the difference, right? Like when you're inspiring

someone like, look, you can do this too, versus being aspirational, like you wish you had my life. It's a very different energy, if that makes sense. So. Thank you. I really appreciate that. So in the last 12 years, I know that travel is a huge part of who you are and a huge, really probably foundation of what you write about. And I know that's a huge part of your newest book. And you talk about how in the last 12 years, you've lived in New York, London and currently Paris, traveled to 83 countries and across six continents. But my sense is that the real catalyst for this book, the core of the story is your journey in this book is about it started when you got divorced, correct?

Well, yes. I mean, basically my book starts when I'm about 18 and I'm kind of telling the tale of how I started my adult life as like one very clear, distinct person with clear dreams and sort of like an insatiable appetite for adventure and sort of this mindset that I could go do and be anything. and how ending up in a relationship that, you know, clearly wasn't the right one for me

really changed me and really limited me and kind of constrained me and kind of stripped away who I was and could be. And then when I'm ultimately out of that relationship, how I'm able to kind of get back in touch with that old self, use parts of the new self that I, you know, those experiences for the good, take away the good from that, you know, marriage instead of just focus on the bad and ultimately have the courage to step forward and kind of pick up where I left off is kind of how I think about it. Like, that's really what I did. I said, if this marriage would have never happened, what would I have done? And and I kind of said, OK, well, then let's do that. And how old were you at that point? So this was like when you were 18. This was all

you kind of went back to that same beginning, but how many years had it been? I got divorced at 30. It had been the last 10 years of my life that I was with my ex-husband. So it was quite, you know, defining years. Yeah. This is a show about how to love and be loved better. And one of the things my peeps always are struggling with that so many of us struggle with is, you know, you're in a relationship and maybe it's not ideal or maybe it's, you know, unfulfilling or it's a little conflictual or it's a little controlling or restricting. It's like there's this fear of the unknown. It's better to be with the devil, you know, than the devil you don't know kind of thing. And so I'm wondering if you can share to whatever

extent you feel comfortable what it was, because I know you describe in the introduction or in the summary of your book, at least one of the terms I saw you use, which I felt was really powerful, is how you felt trapped in a box, right? Like you, and this happens, I think, to many people in relationships that aren't really working for them, where you feel like you're slowly disappearing as you, you know, I call it bending yourself into a pretzel to accommodate that either that other person's needs or the way that the relationship has evolved and developed, you know, to try to accommodate that. So I'm wondering if you can share some, you know, some of your experience with that. Yeah, definitely. I mean, new from Nespresso blend wellness into your coffee routine

with a coffee plus range infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight. Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on Nespresso.com. Truly, that is that very notion that you just, you know, that issue that you described is why I wrote this book. I had that exact basic thing. I knew my relationship was wrong and I was terrified at the thought of being out on my own, especially because I had only been married for, you know, three, four, four years when he got

divorced, but I had been with that person since I was 19. And it was the first real relationship I'd ever had. And so much of my life I built around him because of how young I was when I met him. I talk a lot in my book about how I was so willing to just bend and mold into the exact companion I realized he needed because I didn't have my own needs yet. I hadn't identified them. You know, I was still in college and I didn't even know who or what I really wanted to be yet, what I was good at, what I was passionate about. I had a, you know, I had some things, but so many things I was just willing to trade away to please this person that I was just infatuated with. And I didn't realize how much of myself I was really giving up and that I would

never be able within that relationship to get her back. What's funny is a magician's assistant, which is what I ultimately ended up being the industry term is a box jumper. And when I first started my travel blog and my Instagram account, it was called travel outside the box. And that was a allude to my life as a box jumper, but that I was traveling and I was doing it in a very unusual way. And so they kind of went perfectly. And yet, you know, I didn't really realize that my job I was signing up for sort of came with these metaphorical handcuffs and came with this imagery of like actually being closed into a box as part of the job I signed up for. So powerful. And not just the job you signed up for, but, you know, obviously your job was also your husband. You know what I mean? It was both. I want you to share a little bit more, if you will, both about the way the aspects of your personality that you felt.

And I think that's so powerful and so true, because listen, when we're 18, your brain's not even fully developed till you're 27. But certainly, you know, having the life experience to really know who you are and most importantly, want to be in the world and in love. when you sign up super early for a relationship, even if you don't get married, like you said. I was with my ex-husband from the time I was 15. I have a very totally different but similar trajectory to yours because I met my ex-husband when I was 15. I married him when I was 27.

Okay. And I divorced him when I was 30. And it was a horrible relationship. He was very emotionally abusive. And the reason I left him ultimately is because I found out he had been cheating on me our entire marriage and like being a double life. But I was so freaking scared to leave. And it was one of those experiences where had the universe not conspired to totally

kick me in the ass and make it impossible for me to stay. I feel the same happened to me. It did. that's what I was going to ask you, like what the catalyst was, how you realize, because in my case, I didn't realize it. I just got kicked out by universe, God, spirit, Jesus, you know, whatever you call that higher. Like it literally was just like, sorry, girl, you're not listening to the clues here. We're going to blow your life up so that you do. Sometimes that is that's what happens. And I most of the people I know, it's funny. That is what happens. It's it. I have

met very few women who they were like, you know what, one day I was fed up and I walked away. Yeah. I, why is it that we feel this need? At least me? Like I just, I would not give up. I just kept fighting. And I, and in the fight to save my marriage, I was just willing to give up more and more and more of myself in order to, to do it, to make it work, to make someone else happy, to make someone else love me. It was so strange. And yet I was, I was very deep, deep down, aware this isn't right and yet fighting for it. Yeah. What was your kick in the ass? Well, you know, ultimately what's strange is that it was ultimately me. I started seeing a therapist. We started going into couple therapy together. And then I started seeing her kind of alone on

the side when my ex-husband could no longer come. And she was kind of a big wake up call to me because I had justified all the abnormal behaviors in my relationship as normal. I had come up with all the reasons why everything I was thinking was insane and I was overreacting and every- Gaslighting yourself, basically. I gaslighted myself for years.

I say that exact line in my book. And it was really pouring out, having someone else not be fooled for a second by everything I had worked so hard to fool myself at was kind of a wake-up call. And that inspired me to basically, you know, it was really her who started questioning me of like, are you actually happy? I know you're telling everybody you are, but are you? So then the more that those ideas started playing in my head, I basically then just started to be me again and not

please and not accommodate and kind of fight for who I was and what I wanted and stand up a bit more and have a bit more of a voice. And that is what ultimately broke us. I believe like. Yeah. Cause once you changed how you were showing up, he couldn't tolerate it and then things escalated and then it was impossible to stay. Yeah. And I think it, it made us both very aware, um, at least from my perspective of like, this isn't going to work. You're not fulfilling my needs and I'm not fulfilling yours. And, and when we did eventually divorce, it was weird. All the other times that we almost did. Cause there were a couple of times, you know, we almost did. And every time I fought and fought and fought. And by that last time I was just so, I was like, okay,

you know what? We have tried everything. And I think that was it for me. I needed to know I had tried everything and started to realize toward the end of like, I have given up as much of myself as I can possibly give. And I'm not now willing to do what I know is necessary to save this relationship because I know how that makes me feel. And I can't live my life like that. So I was okay in the end to, you know, to accept I have to go live a life by myself. That's so powerful because so often, you know, that's the question in the mind of anyone who feel stuck in a relationship that isn't serving them or often not serving either one of you. And, you know, when do I throw in the towel? Right. And I always say kind of the same thing

that you just described. You at least have to try counseling, you know, because the truth is, if both of you are willing to show up for the therapy and both of you are really able and I don't even mean willing, willing is first, but able because some of us are just so wounded that, you know, we're just, it's not easy. Yeah. Unable to really create the shifts and changes that are required to make the relationship work. You know, sometimes you're not able because like you, it is not aligned with who I am. Like to be what is needed for this relationship is out of alignment with one of one or all of my core values or the way that I really live in the world. You know, that's an example even of not being able, or sometimes people are just so wounded that they

would need to do so much. They need to do so much and have to be willing to do so much individual work to be able to serve the relationship. So it's really about trying, trying everything you can. And if that person is unwilling or unable, or maybe you are unwilling or unable, that is when it's really time to walk away or to throw in the towel. And I think your story is a beautiful example of that. And I honor how hard that decision is and how freaking petrifying it is. I know you write about this, but I'm wondering if you can share some of, because, you know, in the movies and in the stories and in the popular media, it's like you walk away and you see her going out into the sunset with her suitcase, finally standing for herself, but then

you don't see what happens the next day. Right. And the week after that was not me. I did not proudly walk away. I I walked in a daze uptown to where my parents were living and my sister and left my apartment with nothing because I couldn't I was in such shock. And, you know, like I was like, I can't even pack a bag. I could barely move. I don't think I stopped crying for a solid three weeks, even though I knew it was right. And, and I write this and I talk about this. I say, I knew it was right. I, and I didn't, what I was crying for wasn't my ex-husband. I didn't, I didn't miss him. I didn't want him back. What I missed was myself. And what I wanted back was the woman I'd lost. And I felt like I have such a long road to go until I get her back.

and how am I going to do it? But then that fear became motivation. You have to feel. And I think so many people who are grieving for whatever reason. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with the Coffee Plus range,

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to my mom and my sister and my brother-in-law for weeks because I was mourning the loss of an entire life that I thought I was going to have of, you know, of a person who I knew wasn't right for me anymore, but who I had also shared a very important decade of my life with. I definitely sobbed for a good long time. And then one day I was like, you know what? I can't just live in limbo anymore.

I have to start making a plan. And then I very quickly became really excited about the prospect of what comes next instead of afraid of it. Because when you do let go of something that is so wrong, I was sad, but I was also relieved. I was relieved. I was just like, okay, that fight is over and I need to cry it out. And then I just get to focus on healing and healing's beautiful. Like there are days now, you know, this was four years ago, almost this happened to me now. And there's, there's days I'm like weirdly, uh, nostalgic about that time. And I almost want it back because it's this amazing period of like possibility. It's like, you get a chance to do everything over now and you're a hero.

and like, what are you going to choose? Who do you, you can choose everything over when your whole life falls apart. And then you, you rebuild it very intentionally and it's, and it's beautiful. I want to put a pin in that because with your nostalgia, because I do think that we tend to feel like that's over once we start moving in a direction, right? That we can't redesign or have the blank slate or whatever. And obviously you're not going to have as if things are working, You're not going to throw those babies out with the bathwater. But I do think that one of the messages I get from just your life is that it's always that possibility for you is yours to take, to redefine your life, to redirect your life.

But I also love anyone who listens to me or follows me knows how passionate I am about not bypassing the hard feelings because they do keep you so stuck. I mean, our instinct is to not feel the pain and the grief, the very natural grief that happens when a relationship ends, even if you were so it was so obvious and you don't want to be with that person anymore. It's still a grieving process. And it's so easy to want to run away from pain, from emotional pain and just, you know, positive, think it away or tap it away or distract yourself or stuff it down and go

on with your, you know, but it's going to come up. one way or another, and it's going to limit you and create density, even energetically, much less logistically. So and I think you kind of alluded to this part of this, this feeling of like one day and, you know, maybe it took a month, maybe it took a couple of months. One day you were clear. And because you had cleared so much of the grief, the energy of creation and possibility was able to flood through you because now you had room for it. Yeah. And that's really beautiful. You know, I realized, like we said, it's that fear of the unknown that prevents you from leaving. But so much of what I realized was that I thrived in the unknown. And that sort of,

it took me looking back at all the experiences I had had in all these various countries I had visited and the two other times that I, no, I grew up in Ohio. So I moved to New York City at 18. And then I moved to London at 21. And, you know, in New York City, I had my sister, but in London, I had nobody. And I had been able to, you know, in that unknown scenario, thrive and figure it out and build. And, and so part of me realized, you know, I'm back in those shoes. It's different, of course, but I'm back in the unknown and I can treat the unknown as my comfort zone instead of this scary place and use it, look back at my life at other times I've been in the unknown, made it through, made things grow, and I can do that again. Yeah. Boy, does that make you relax

into life, right? I've learned to thrive in the unknown because Lord knows that is an extremely valuable skill, but I didn't come by it naturally. But I think it's crucial because life is full of unknowns and it's what keeps you flexible and what keeps you willing to take risks and take leaps into the unknown where all the juicy stuff is found. If you can feel confident that you can move with it or maybe just feel like you know you'll be supported through it, you know, or whatever it is, it's such an important piece of it. And I know a big leap into the unknown for you was you'd always had this dream since you were much younger of living in Paris, and you decided not knowing anyone to just pick your butt up and move to Paris.

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and just felt, you know, like honestly happier than I ever had. I had made it. It was my dream. This apartment I rented sight unseen, just prepared for it to be terrible was gorgeous. It was my dream place. And I, I started making friends and I started taking ballet classes and cooking classes, like, I just started creating my dream life. And then all of a sudden, it was like my divorce all over again. Like overnight, everything I had was gone. And I couldn't do anything about it. And it was outside my control. And I had to leave and knowing I don't even know if I'll ever be able to come back to this. You know, those early, early days, like no one knew what was going on. And when I made the choice to leave Paris, I was very much like I might never

get to go back to that life that I just started. And that was crushing. I mean, it was that first week of quarantine, you know, before anything was wrong with my family, before anyone was really aware of just how, you know, how serious and horrible everything would get. I was just selfishly mourning the loss of this new life. And then the unthinkable happened and your brother-in-law not only got COVID, but died from it. And during the 90 something or three months, whatever it was that he, I think it was around three months that he was 95 days that he was in the hospital before he died. You were living with your sister, Amanda. I think your brother maybe have been, may have been there too. And basically what was a very new baby. I mean,

I know he wasn't a newborn, but you're 10 months old and you basically just moved in and were her support system. And during this really horrific time, can you share a little bit, I know you talk about, you know, you share a lot of it in your book and in the book you wrote with her, but I'm wondering if you can share just some of the pearls or the, the truths that came out of that time. New from Nespresso, blend wellness into your coffee routine with the Coffee Plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like Coffee Plus B12 to help support immune function and Coffee Plus B6 to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose Ginseng Delight, our new double espresso with ginseng

extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on Nespresso.com. Well, you know, I was terrified to go there because I was really the only one that could. Every other one of my siblings had husbands, families, jobs, and I had none of the above. And so I was like, okay, I'm up. And I, of course, wanted to go more than anything, but I was a mess myself. And I remember thinking as I was packing to go out there, like, how am I going to hold someone else up when I can't even hold myself up right now? And I've, I said this in, I talk about this in my book. I think we wrote about this in live your life. That whole experience ended up healing me in the most unusual way because I was very

convinced that I had just spent 10 years giving every minute of my day to someone else and just doing everything for someone else and putting them first and prioritizing them. And I really went into my life in Paris being like, this is my time to be selfish. I'm not doing anything for anybody. I don't even live on the same continent as anybody I could do things for. So it is me time. And I was really convinced that that was what was required for me to heal and for me to be happy and to like, you know, be successful and kind of get my dreams in order. And instead, I end up in the most selfless position anyone could ever be in. I didn't have a minute to myself for three months. And instead became part of this community that was just

all soaked up in, in love and kindness and giving. And I mean, the, the cracks in my heart just filled and cemented. And I realized it is not about, you know, the problem isn't giving too much of yourself away to someone. It's about who you're giving it to and what they're going to do with it. And when you give it to the right people for you, it gives you everything in the world back. You don't end up depleted. You end up more full than you could possibly imagine. And, and being surrounded by, by family and love and, and seeing my sister fight for her husband that way was just this insane reminder that, you know, what I had lost in my marriage, you know, where I thought I lost this love, maybe I lost the love of my life.

And I was very just reminded like that was never the kind of love I needed, you know, that to see her fight for someone like that just reminded me like fighting for someone who wasn't willing to really fight for me in the same way. Yeah. And he wasn't receiving it fully, was receiving it in a different, in a way that was depleting versus fulfilling. I think that that gave me chills as you were saying it, because it's such an important truth. And it's so common that we when we've been hurt in love, that we go to the other end of the spectrum and we kind of not that you were shut down to love. But, you know, you were like, OK, I'm done giving for now. Right. And, and what a beautiful experience, not only just the experience itself is painful and it's in the category of what I call terrible, beautiful, you know, what a beautiful experience you had with your family.

Um, and I know I can only imagine, not that you weren't, I do want to ask you about your family because I'm jealous being, uh, estranged, unfortunately from my own sister, you know, to see, and she's the only, you know, she's the only sibling I have and my, both my parents are now gone. And so to see the love that you guys have for each other, all of you, your parents did a really good job somehow. I mean, I'm sure they did a good job in lots of ways. But what I think is most powerful is what a good job they did cultivating a community among the siblings. I know they all made us really, really love each other.

I realize how rare that is. And I consider it my greatest blessing in the world. It is. We've asked them how they did it. And, you know, they both like they like, we don't know. We just did that. Like, I honestly don't know. And neither do they. But it's we did everything together as a family all the time. And, you know, we fought as siblings, of course. But, you know, at the end of the day, like we were always all together and we were all each other's best friends in the time we were little. And then that just never ended. Yeah, I think I know the A answer. I'm not saying it's the answer, but having thought about this a lot and even thinking about your family and the little bit, I mean, obviously we just get a glimpse into your family life. But I think because I've thought a lot about what creates competition.

I mean, listen, all siblings compete. That's just the name of the game. But what creates the kind of competition that creates lasting conflict or inability to resolve the conflict in a way that's super healthy? And like, obviously, one of them is that you have to, you know, having now just recently interviewed Gabor Mate and his amazing book, The Myth of Normal, which anyone who is a parent should read as well, or going to be a parent as well as Dr. Shefali's The Parenting Map. But they both talk a lot about the ways we as parents respond to our children's needs,

develops everything around how able they are to feel comfortable being their true authentic selves and to allow others and to not, you know, therefore be in conflict and competition with others. So I think that's part of it, that they probably were just really loving and emotionally supportive parents. But also I think with the competition among the kids, and I'm curious if this was true in your family, in those families where approval and love are really confused, which happens in any family where a narcissist is in charge, or you have really emotionally immature parents who just aren't conscious. So, approval and love are confused, and there is not enough approval to go around, right? That there's such limited approval.

Then I see the sibling rivalry take on unhealthy proportions, let's just say, and the lack of connection among siblings is really founded, but I'm curious. I've never actually even thought of rivalry as the source of the lack of connection or the eventual disconnection. That's how removed foreign the idea of considering any of my siblings arrival is to me. And I don't know, maybe it's because my parents were all, I mean, yes, the, the love support the you know be you always but also like they made us be each other's cheerleaders in the time we were little like if someone was in a dance recital we were all there cheering if it was a football game and my brother was playing the saxophone we were there if it's my school play

everybody was there and it was you know they weren't saying to one of you can't look look at Anna how amazing she is don't you want you know why aren't you more like her or no they definitely against each other, never, ever, or said you should do this because it's what your sister did, or, you know, you have to do that because your brother did. That was definitely never said in our household. Yeah. They weren't comparative at all. I should interview your parents sometimes. I wish my parents would do so many things. I want to know more about how they, about their philosophy. They don't even know their philosophy. They just lived it, but I want to pick it out for the rest of us. It's the bottom of it. Yeah. Let's kind of Xerox that

and use that as our parenting model. So when was it? Cause I know that you now have found a beautiful love. You really manifested it. You know, I know you don't really speak this way, but you are a damn good manifester. it is scary to the degree with which I manifested my current relationship like it really is well tell us the story because I think it's a really hopeful one especially for those who are either thinking about leaving a bad relationship as we were talking about earlier or are single and really feeling disillusioned with love or scared about finding their love well when I moved to Paris. I went on a couple of dates just for fun. Cause I basically was terrified of the idea of

dating and was just like, I need some practice. Like I've been married for five years. I've really only been on a date with one person ever. So I was dating sort of just for fun. And then the pandemic happened. And then I got back here in the summer and was, that's when I really seriously started to be like, okay, like let's date. And I think my standards were just really high because I had been through a failed marriage, and I knew what didn't work for me. So I wasn't willing to entertain those thoughts again. And I just very clearly, I really focused on my relationship with myself. Because like I said, when I when my marriage ended, I didn't miss my ex husband, I missed myself. And so I really, I worked on myself and really tried to, you know, remember

who I was and what I wanted and and treat myself well and kind of fall in love with with myself. And then once I had done that, I was so happy that I was very much like, I don't need to bring someone else into this right now. So unless they're going to seriously add, then they don't need to be here. So a man sister, let me just pause you right there. I want to hear the rest this story, but like you literally just said verbatim almost what I say to everyone, especially women, like do not jump into a new relationship. It is about falling, usually for the first time, falling in love with yourself, sometimes re-falling in love with yourself. But for most of us, it's finally falling in love with ourselves and realizing F you, Jerry Maguire, nobody completes

you. And once you are your own delicious cake, then someone else is an amazing icing that adds so much to the cake. But cake is still unbelievably delicious without the icing. It can stand. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so, okay. So kudos to that. I like wanted to snap or applaud while you were saying that. So I had to interject, but keep going. So that's the state I was in and I was going on dates and my friends would ask me afterward, like so how was that date and I'd be like it's fine you'd be like what I feel like he's nice took me you know went for wine he was perfectly polite you know texted me afterward like that

was cool and they're like so and I was like I'm not impressed where's my flowers and they're like what and I was like I mean it he dropped me off he knows my address where are my flowers all right and and you know people were my friends would look at me like I was nuts and I was like I'm not actually saying I need a thousand roses on my door, but I mean like what's tangible. Yeah. I don't want a text like that was cool. Hope to see you soon. Like, I'm sorry. That's the laziest thing in the world to me. Yeah. If I had just met someone that I thought was great and I don't want to be with someone who doesn't walk away from the first time they met me going, wow, that girl is great. I want her. So I'm putting myself in the shoes going. If I had just met me,

I would do more than a text of like, that was cool. You know, you know, my address, leave a note, write it, write your own handwriting and put it in my mailbox. I hope I can see you again. Put one little, you can pluck it from the yard for free. I don't care, but leave a flower, like, you know, something. And I, and I was saying these things aloud and everyone was telling me I was nuts. They were like that. Sorry, that doesn't happen anymore. like, your expectations are too high. That's not a thing. The kind of you're like, too bad. I'm already in my own cake. And I just kind of kept saying that, like, well, you know what, until that's what I find, I'm not interested. And I was okay to just keep being me. And truly, like when

I absolutely least expected it, because Paris was going, Paris kept going in and out of lockdowns, which they call confinement. And they announced a big... And it definitely feels like confinement. Oh, yeah, especially here. You couldn't leave your building. You couldn't go more than a kilometer from your home. So I was really confined to my building. And I knew I would be. And I was like, in a way, I had just gotten the green light to start writing Live Your Life. I was annoyed with dating anyway. And I was like, this is perfect. Now I don't need to feel guilty about not dating. Because you know, when you're not

even trying, then you feel like I'm not even out. I'm not putting myself out there. So that was part of it. I always felt like I need to be out there. But I was like, now that guilt of putting myself out there is over and I can just sit in my apartment alone and work on this book. This is going to be great. And lo and behold, as I'm walking to my apartment door, the night that the lockdown is beginning in the morning, I bump into a man who turns out to be my upstairs neighbor who lives in my building and spend the entire of confinement, you know, basically with him every evening. He comes over and we cook and, you know, basically like fell into a relationship in reverse, you know, where like instead of dates and, you know, playing it cool, it's like we saw

each other every single day and did nothing but sit in the apartment and cook. I mean, it was down to like down to me saying, I want to meet cute. I don't want to meet someone online. I want to meet cute. Yeah, I got my meet. Yeah. And I love the part of the story where you share, you know, the first night you met, because I think that was a beautiful story. Yeah. On these rants where I was saying, I want flowers. I want leave a croissant on my door. I was like, I want a stranger to ask me to dance. I want my date to just stand up and ask me to dance. And the night I met my boyfriend, he came in to the showed up at my door with wine briefly after we met on the street in front of the apartment door, knocks on my door with wine. He has a vase because he saw I

had all these flowers in my hand and comes in. We're talking and just having, you know, good conversation. And he suddenly gets up, pulls, puts out his hand and goes, will you dance with me? Oh, my God. And I mean, I wish I could tell you that he had he had known he had thought he was following me on Instagram. He knew he didn't have a clue who I was. He did. My name wasn't on the mailbox. It was literally the first time we met. And what I love about that, especially, you know, hearing you tell the story, little pieces of it I didn't know, is just the ways in which you claimed what you wanted and how you wanted to feel. And you said it out loud and you weren't willing to settle for less. And so, of course, the quantum field is going to listen and is going to say,

okay, here he is, you know? And so you fell in love, basically pseudo living together, or at least in the same bubble, right? Above each other. And I know you found many croissants on your doorstep, right? So I told him to stop because I was like, this, look, my pants don't fit. You know, this isn't working. So you can cut with the croissants now. But yeah, there was a on my door every day for a solid three, four months. Even he brought me home flowers tonight just for no reason. He is literally the most considerate, like the exact person I manifested after my divorce, the polar opposite to the way I was felt and was, you know, felt I was treated in my marriage is, is what I now have in a relationship that is so was almost hard to even accept is real

because it's like, wow. So what you designed, basically, yeah, could design if you would have designed if you could design it. Yeah. I think that's such a powerful message for people not because, you know, and the same thing happened to me when I left my I was the one who left. I mean, he wanted me to just accept and so did his family. Like, this is just what men do. They cheat. You know, you got to come back. And I decided to leave and had my period of mourning and grief and then my period of extreme relief and then my period of falling in love with myself again and then met the love of my life who I've been married to for 20 years. But I had to go through that to get really clear about not only my own value, but also what I really wanted in someone else.

And part of that was informed by what I didn't want, but part of that was informed by who I am and letting that self-actualize and then determining from that what I want, right? Because what you and I both did is we got deeply committed before even really knowing who we are as our own delicious cake and therefore knowing what we want as the icing, right? And so your story really reflects that beautiful pattern that I think is so important for anyone thinking about or going through a breakup. up. You're talking to me from Paris and it's late there. We don't have all night, although I could talk to you all night. What advice would you leave people with around, you know, how to find their

own magic? I think honestly, it requires time of like deep self work. And you really have to look deep in yourself. And I think it starts with identifying what you really love and really focusing on that and not I love reality TV. What things deeply move your soul? What makes your soul sparkle? And when do you feel the most alive? And then identifying those things and then feeding them. That's what I did. And that's what ultimately made me realize what I really shined at. What made me the most me. And then when I just started to own that instead of try to hide it or willingly trade it away, that's when I sort of started to feel unstoppable. And I think that's the advice I would give is find out what those things are, feed them, nourish them. Don't stop searching

until you find those things that make you feel incredibly alive. And when you do, never give them up never sacrifice it for another person or for any other reason because that is your magic and you have to hold on to that and you have to let that be the thing that guides the way you live your life because like that you will always feel this incredible joy and sparkle inside and that's that's the magic that's when you also become that magnet for magic as well that's beautiful, beautiful ending to such a wonderful conversation. I thank you so much, Anna, for taking the time with us all and for sharing your journey. And we'll put the links to your website. I know you have, you're an amazing photographer. You have your photographs for sale. You have,

you know, your hooray line of t-shirts, you have your books, you have your blog. So we will put the links to your website, to the new book and to everything else in the show notes for everyone. And thank you again, just for your thank you. Thank your parents like thank you for light you're shining in the world. Oh, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. It was such a pleasure.