Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - The Love Thief with Arielle Ford

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

Have you ever felt a calling in your heart or mind that you just really don’t want to answer? You know, the kind of nudge that just won’t go away despite all your efforts to ignore it? More often than not running, hiding or pushing it away just doesn’t do the trick because in truth, that calling is probably part of your higher, divine purpose.  On this episode of The Language of Love, I speak with renowned author Arielle Ford. Arielle is a woman who made her name writing non-fiction advice books on love. That is, until she started feeling called to write a fictional story she had zero interest in writing! Her journey to ultimately answer the call resulted in The Love Thief. Arielle and I discuss the journey that led her to write this story of healing and redemption, the miracles and manifestations that made it impossible not to write it, and the lessons she wants every reader to take from this book, including powerful lessons on narcissism, codependency, mother-father wounds, spiritual awakening and so much more. If you’ve been running or hiding from a calling in your own heart, or if you just want a great beach read, Arielle and her story will inspire you.  Resources and Links Dr. Laura Berman Language of Love Podcast Laura Berman Instagram – Dr Laura Berman Facebook – Dr Laura Berman Youtube.com – Dr Laura Berman  Our Guest  Arielle Ford is a leading personality in the personal growth and contemporary spirituality movement. For the past 30 years she has been living, teaching, and promoting consciousness through all forms of media. She is a celebrated love and relationship expert, author, speaker, and is the co-creator and host of Evolving Wisdom’s Art of Love series. Her mission is to help women Find Love, Keep Love and Be Love. Arielle Ford The Love Thief by Arielle Ford Arielle Ford – Website Arielle Ford – Twitter Arielle Ford – Instagram  Arielle Ford – Facebook  Arielle Ford – YouTube   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 ariel ford is a leading personality in the personal growth and contemporary spiritual

movement boy for the past 30 years she's been teaching and promoting consciousness through all forms of media she's written a dozen books she's the co-creator and host of evolving Wisdom's Art of Love series. Really, her mission has always been to help us find love, keep love, and ultimately be love. And after writing all of these nonfiction, many of them bestselling books, Ariel took a turn in her career and has written her first fiction book, which is a gorgeous story about heartbreak, healing, and transformation called The Love Thief. There are messages there about narcissism, about heartbreak, about healing, about opening your heart, moving from depression and hopelessness and fear of the future to true belief and healing and transformation. So I hope

you enjoy this episode as I dive into The Love Thief with Arielle Ford. Arielle Ford, I am so glad to have you on The Language of Love. Thank you for being here. Oh, I'm always so excited to talk to you, Ms. Love, the love doctor. So yes. Let's do this. So Arielle and I, we've known each other for many, many years, and many of you probably know her. She's written over a dozen books on love, on finding love, on keeping love. She was the host of Evolving Wisdom's Art of Love series, really a leader and a teacher around how to find and keep love. And it's always been nonfiction, instructional, inspirational tomes that you've written, Ariel. And I'm really excited because now you've taken

all that wisdom and fashioned it into what I like to call transphotainment in the form of your first ever fictional book, which I got to dig into with you because I have all these fiction fantasies and I'm scared to death to write fiction. But by transphotainment, I mean that it's informed by all you understand about love and finding love and keeping love, but it's a story told about a fictional, quote unquote, fictional character, I'm sure based on real life as well, but it's called The Love Thief and it's your first ever novel. So congratulations on that. Thank you.

It was four and a half years of being scared to death every time I sat down to write. It was? Yeah, the fear never went away because I never once had the conscious thought, oh, I should write a novel someday. Never, ever had that thought. And yet this book came to me, it unfolded in my head like a movie, and it insisted on being written. Like I had no choice about it. And I knew enough about fiction, because that's almost all I read, that I didn't know what I was doing. That it's, in fact, at the end of the day, what I've discovered is that when you write self-help or you write nonfiction and then you write fiction, the only thing that's in common between the two is that they both use words. Oh, gosh, really? I don't even know. I'm scared. Nothing about writing nonfiction informs how to write a novel.

And fortunately, I didn't know that when I started, you know, and I would have never done it. I was just dumb enough to think, well, I know I'm a really good nonfiction writer. Yeah, I knew that the last book I delivered to HarperCollins, my editor said to me, this is so good. We're not going to change a word of it. I'm at it. Wait, no, yes, way.

Yeah, that doesn't happen. And he said, we'll copy edit it, you know, correct it. but we're not changing a word. Wow, you get feedback like that. And you know, it's like, okay, I have an ego like I can write a good writer, you know, and then you tackle something like this. It was quite the process. Fortunately, the longest chapter in the book is the acknowledgments. That's how much help I had. I had so many freelance editors, I had my agent, I had book doctors. I had all of my friends who are writers. Every editor I ever worked with in the past and every agent I ever knew giving me feedback and being really kind and sweet about it.

It was terrifying. And yet I knew I had to do it. Well, that's what I think is so, I mean, there are many things that are important about this story, but so many of my peeps here and myself included, you feel this calling, right? And maybe even a nudge and then a pull and you want to do something. You're feeling called to do something. I'm sort of in this phase in my life now where I'm calling, just do the thing. Just don't overthink it. Something is calling to your heart. Something is calling to your soul. Something wants to be created and we can get really in our heads about, well, how would I do that? And I've never done that before. And how would I market it? And you have to have a team in place and you have to know what you're doing and you have

to have to have to, right? And I've just finally been in a phase of fuck it. Just do the thing. Don't wait. And for many of us, we have the thing that's calling us. Maybe it's a thing that we want. Maybe it's a thing that intrudes like yours did, like you never thought about. It wasn't like a goal of yours to write a fictional book or a dream.

So I want to ask you how that happened because I don't think everybody, I mean, yours sounds like it was a pretty obvious insistence. I want to hear your story about how it all unfolded and how you actually ended up following through and doing this, right? Because you felt the nudge and then what happened? Then the sledgehammer came. In what form? Well, here's how the whole thing started. I was sitting here at my desk one day, just doing my thing. And my husband, Brian walked in and he said to me, you should write a book about me. And that was such a weird thing for him to say. And he said, and the title of the book should be, I married an alien. And I started laughing and I said, I would never write that book. And then he walked out. It was

just, and it was just so not like him to say that. And I started thinking, well, if I was going to write a book about Brian, what would it be like? And I realized I would want to capture his personality because Brian believes that his mission in life, the reason he's in a body on earth is to make sure that everybody he comes in contact with has the experience of being loved. Oh, Brian, I've never met him, but I really want to. Oh my God. Well, you two would just, you know, it would be love at first sight for sure. And I thought, well, yeah, so that'd be a cool personality for a character to have. Yeah. And then I forgot about it. And then the next day, the first line for this book came to me. And the first line is

my mother was right. And I was like, oh, my God, what a killer line. My mother is right. And then I forgot about it. And then the next day, the title came to me. And then the day after that, I started to see this movie. And the movie that I was seeing was this story that takes place in Rishikesh, India. Now, Rishikesh is a place I've been to a few times. It is the holiest city in India. It's a very cool place. But I'm thinking to myself, I don't know how to write fiction. I don't want to write another book. God, I've written 11. Isn't that enough, right? So the next day after that, I got an email from masterclass.com and masterclass was offering a new course with Dan Brown and was called how to write a thriller. I love to read thrillers. Dan

Brown's my favorite author. I'm never going to write one, but I have the year pass. Let me sign up for the course. I signed up for the course and it's incredible. You're sitting with Dan Brown and he's looking right at you and he's telling you all his secrets and one of the episodes was location as a character in the book it was talking about how Florence Italy was a character in the Da Vinci Code yeah and I was like oh god that's the coolest thing ever and and that story in my head well Rishikesh would be a character in this book I'm never going to write so the movie's playing and playing. And I'm like going, go away, go away. I am not writing any more books, let alone a novel. And it wouldn't go away. So finally I sat down and I said to God one day,

I said, listen, God, this is very annoying. And if I'm supposed to write this book, then I need to manifest a $7,000 business class ticket to India. And business class, because it's like a 20 hour flight, right? Like you got to go in style if you're going to go. And I don't even want to write this book. So right. And I'm five foot eight and I can't, I can do coach for six hours and that's my limit. Yeah. So I felt this great relief. It's like, Oh, this is never going to happen. I'm off the hook. I made, got a deal. It's not going to happen. Two days later, I had the ticket in my hand. How I ran into my old business partner and we started kibitzing.

And he said, well, what are you up to, Arielle? And I said, oh, nothing much. I'm trying to manifest the trip to India. And he said, well, when do you want to go? And I gave him, I threw out some dates and looked at his phone and he said, well, I'll take you. Last time we went to India together, we had a blast.

And just like that, I had my business class. And what was even better at the last minute, he couldn't go, which was great because I didn't really need him. I didn't need to be distracted. So off I went to India and that, that was when I knew I had no choice that somehow, somewhere in some dimension, I had agreed to write this book, birth this book. So that's, that's how it came to be. So you went to India and I want to just unpack something, a few things you mentioned earlier, as you were leading up to this part,

where you were saying you got the first line of the book and then you got the title of the book. And just for people who are listening and thinking about like where and how those signs come from, that's something that I try to really cultivate in that awareness in people a lot, because we don't always catch the signs unless they fricking hit us over the head. And so when you got those things, what were you doing? How did they come through? Sometimes I'm sitting in the bathtub because I sit in the bathtub every morning and that seems to be the place where the veils are thinnest for me.

I mean, when the first line of the book came, I was just standing by the door to my office, just standing there. And I heard this voice that said, said my mother was right. And I got full body chills. And I knew what it was. I knew it was the first line of the book. And when my friend Mike said to me, I'll take you to India. I was like, all right, I guess this is happening. I'm going, you know, and then crazy part, I get to India. And all the scenes in my head that have been playing like a movie, I tripped over, I walked into, I had known that a lot of the story would take place in a spiritual bookstore. I walked into that bookstore. It's like the one in my head. It was so crazy. Every day that I was in India, I was having instant manifestation. Like, I'll give you one example. I was walking through the main part of Rishikesh, this little section called Tap of Van. And I noticed that everybody in Rishikesh had a little red ribbon or string on their

wrist. And I thought, it must be some kind of a blessing. And I would like to have a blessing like that. I turned around and there was a man dressed up as Hanuman, the monkey god. And he said to me, Madam, may I give you a blessing? This happened. I was there for seven days. And every day this kind of stuff happened. So, you know, I wasn't saying to myself, I am going to manifest X. I would have this thought, oh, wouldn't it be lovely if, and then boom, there it was.

Wow. You were really supported. And even though it took four years, was that because you were in your own way? Was it because it wasn't flowing? Was it just because you were, what was it that took four years? Because I know you don't take four years to write a book normally. You're normally prolific. I have a plan and I can do any book, any nonfiction book in six months. I write 500 words a day and it's not, it's effortless for the most part. But with this, you know, so the first time I had a sense of how I wanted the book to end, you know, and I didn't want it to have a typical happy ending. I wanted to have an ending where my heroine, Holly, has an epiphany or an enlightenment experience where she comes back to herself.

Yeah, she awakens, basically. Exactly. She has an awakening. And that's where the first part of the book ended. Now, this took place. It ended in I went to India in December of 2018, and I finished the first draft or what I thought was the finished book. in November, 2019. And I thought I was done. Now, while I was writing, I also had this knowing that there would be a sequel. And I didn't exactly know what the sequel would be, but I had some ideas about it. So in February, 2020, we started hearing about COVID, right? On March 20th, 2020, we went into lockdown here in California. And for the first time ever, I started to realize, oh, my God, I really am going to die. And I could die this year if I get a really bad

coronavirus or whatever we called it back then. Right. Yeah. And then, of course, you know, they said we're only going to be in lockdown for two weeks. And it was on and on and on. So I started thinking, well, if I'm going to die or if I have the possibility of dying, I need to write the sequel now. And why write the sequel? Why don't I just fold it into what I've already got? And the reason I did that was because I had sent what I thought was my first draft of a finished book to two friends. One was a literary agent and one was a Random House senior editor for 30 years. Both of them came back to me with the same feedback. And the feedback was, loved the book. Oh my God, you can write. And my only feedback is I wish it would have had a happy

ending. A man and a woman both wanted the happily ever after. I like the happy ending too. I never like it when, I mean, at least some sort of, it doesn't have to be perfect, but I like a happy ending too. All right. So that start, that was, you know, then I started rewriting and then the the senior editor guy said to me, I know the perfect agent for this. And he names this woman who I said, Oh my God, I've known her for 30 years, but I thought she only did nonfiction. Oh no, she does fiction too. So I sent this woman the book and she wrote me back and she had the exact response I wanted from somebody was, which was, Oh my God, I'm madly in love with this story and I can see what it needs. Let me guide you through the process. And that was the response

I got the book is great. And here's what it needs to be. Yeah. And that was the start of two years of torture from this agent. She did sign me. But every time I give her the draft, the next draft, it was more and more and more. And of course, by the time I was able to hand her the finished book, I also sent her, you know, hundreds of roses, because the book would never have been what it is had she not pushed me like she did. Right. That's a gift. So the book was written. It was rewritten. It was edited. Then we came out of the pandemic. I had sent it to a book doctor because the pandemic was woven through the story who said, we're all sick and tired of the pandemic. Every reference to the pandemic has to come out. Right. You know, 350 pages and there's

some pandemic reference on every other page. So it was rewritten again. So it was for, it was a lot of rights and rewrites. Listen, regardless of your sexual orientation or your gender or your relationship status, every single one of us has struggled at one point or another with a lackluster or disconnected sex life or difficulty finding the partner that we most desire. So I have designed an amazing program for you. Seven days to better sex. Each day, you're going to get a video and an information packet, all designed to help you jumpstart your love life. Just go to www.drlauraberman.com. Let's dig into the story a little bit because it is a story of transformation. We're not going to give a lot away, but it's about the

protagonist, the main character is this young woman named Holly, who goes through really what I like to call an AFGE, another fricking growth experience, a big kahuna of one with her heart broken, her dreams crushed. She almost dies. And she imagines she's never going to be happy again. Right. And we've all been there where she's feeling angry and depressed and hopeless and fearful about what the future is going to hold. And she doesn't really have any kind of, like most of us, myself included, she wasn't raised with any kind of spiritual practice or faith practice or understanding of any kind of higher power. So she's just deep in her hopelessness and despair and feeling really dismal about the future. And then what happens?

it's not that she wasn't raised with a spiritual practice her mother is a new age baby boomer right right oh that's right reaction to anything her mother ever wanted her to do she thinks meditation and yoga and affirmations are total bs yeah it's a baby her mother hung dream catchers over her crib Like she is so not into it. And her mother's boss, who is also her auntie, is just like that. So the two of them her whole life have been quoting Esther Hicks and Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson to her. And she's just like, no, she's just rejected it. So she hasn't bought into any of it. No. And what ends up happening is that she's devastated, she's crushed, and she ends up going to Rishikesh, India because she's a chef and there's a cooking school there she wants to go to. She's interested in learning how to cook Indian comfort food. And she is clueless that Rishikesh is the meditation and yoga capital of the universe. She doesn't know that the Ganges

is considered a goddess, and that there's spirituality everywhere. And she gets there, and she starts to have these experiences that every time they happen to her, all she can think of is like, why isn't this happening to my mother? My mother would love this. She lives for this though. And yet it's happening to me. And so the healing process begins. And every day it gets wider and deeper, and she's transformed by it. At the same time that all this is happening, she's having all these hate and rage and evil thoughts about what she wants to do to her ex, because he's ruined her life. And she gets an opportunity to get revenge without killing him. It takes that opportunity. So the books, you know, there's a whole big piece of it that's

love, peace, and happiness. And then there's a whole piece of it about, is there justice in the universe? Yeah. And also I think a really important part of the transphotainment aspect of this story is that it really kind of demonstrates the trajectory of a relationship with a toxic narcissist, right? Because she really, the book kind of begins with her in this being loved, bombed by this amazing, perfect man. And all of her dreams are going to use everything she's ever wanted. And anyone who's been in a relationship with a toxic narcissist has definitely been there, myself included. And then it turns out that not only is he a narcissist and a gaslighter, but he's a crook. He's a criminal. Yeah. Serious criminal. And she

gets to be the witness that puts him away. Yeah. So it's really beautiful. And what I was able to do was, so the hero of the book is a man called Deepak. He's a retired professor of counseling psychology, born and raised in Rishikesh, but educated and lived in America. Now is back in Rishikesh as the owner of a spiritual bookstore and they become friends and he becomes a sort of guru mentor to her. But what she doesn't realize is that while he's counseling her and healing her and explaining to her what love is and what love isn't and all of this, her care for him and her appreciation of him is healing him as well. So it's this beautiful love story that is not at all sexual yeah because she grew up a healing story she she was the only child of

a single woman and it was a one-night stand her mother doesn't even remember the guy's name she said the only memory she has of that night is that she consciously took a quaalude and she sex with a roadie out of a van. So she's grown up without a father here. Yeah, this guy becomes that figure. It's a really beautiful story. And I guess what I want to also pick your brain about, because I feel like this wisdom was naturally folded in. And that's what I think about when I think about if I ever get the balls to write a fictional story, like what would be what's exciting about it for me is not just the storytelling, but being able to infuse the story with teachable moments and kind of stealth information for people who maybe aren't

reading self-help books, but could use a little inspiration or guidance or direction. And I know so much of what you've written in the nonfiction world has been about calling love in and really cultivating healthy love in your life. And so just give us a sort of summary of some of the pearls or the themes that you feel like you most wanted to, and maybe it wasn't even conscious. I feel like it was to a certain extent, what you most wanted to translate into the story that you wanted the people reading it to digest along the ride. Yeah. I didn't intentionally write it that way because it was a movie in my head. So I was following the movie. I was translating what I was seeing and feeling. It wasn't until the book was done and I had to reread it a million times to

copy edit it, be looking for the mistakes that I realized sort of the biggest takeaways. And one of them, which was certainly true and is still true in my life, is that when you're at the bottom of the pit, when your life is the biggest kind of hell and you don't think you're going to survive, ultimately the greatest gifts of your life come out of that. And that in retrospect, if you could go back and change anything, at least for me, I wouldn't, even though they were the lowest points of my life and I wanted to die and I thought I was going to die, who I am today and what I have in my life today is as a result of that level of pain and suffering. So that was one of the biggest takeaways. The other was having

witnessed that my closest girlfriends go through the heartache of betrayal, of being a victim and being prey, because most people don't understand that these toxic narcissists prey on smart, beautiful, successful women. If you've had this experience, it's not because you're ordinary and average. They don't go after ordinary and average. They only go after really special women. And there's such a level of shame that comes with that. Like, how did I not see? How did I get taken? And I explain in the book, how that happened to you. It wasn't your fault. What happened was you were love bomb. Now, what does that mean? That means that you've got this guy who's super smart, charming, charismatic. He knows because you're so successful and so smart

that the only thing your heart is craving is love and connection. He knows how to whisper in your ear, everything you ever wanted to hear. And the first couple of months he whined and dined you and romances you until all the oxytocin blows your mind. And now addicted, you are now a junkie. You're a junk, a sick, twisted fucker. Oops. That's okay. You can say that. And then all you want to do is get him back. You know, that is in there. You want him back? What did I do to push him away? What can I say? And then even worse, this is the most horrible part. These guys are so smart that when you confront them on, let's say a lie that they told you half the time, they'll say to you, yes, you're right. I wasn't a hundred percent truthful. And the reason is

because I love and admire and respect you so much that I'm afraid that you would see this side of me. And I want you to love me. And it's your love who's making me the man that I am. And I promise, I swear to you, on my mother's grave, I'll never do it again. Wait a minute. Have you met my ex-husband? Because you just said it perfectly. All right. So Laura, here's the crazy part. So I wrote this book thinking of three women in my life. I'll tell you another part of that in a minute. But after I wrote it, I still, I get calls and emails from women who say to me, you wrote this book for me. And I started to realize this phenomenon isn't just for a few, it's more common. Oh no, it's huge. It's huge. And I would

take it one step further in your description of the women who get taken in by this. I agree with everything you've said. And almost all of them have a mother or father wound where they didn't really feel like they had the love, affection, acceptance, consistency that they were literally physically or usually emotionally abandoned either through neglect or shutting down or hyper-criticism. And it's a big part of what drives them, us, to be super successful and a great catch. But when a man comes in with that degree of charm and confidence and power and tells you everything you've ever wanted to hear about how worthy of love you are, it's seriously intoxicating. I don't know if you remember this part of the book, but there are two evil people

in the book. One is Barry. The other is Barry's mother is equally as evil, you know? So without even, I'm not, I don't have a PhD. I'm not a therapist. You know, all of what I know is, is really from observation and watching it. But, but that, that character is in there as well. Yeah. They definitely have that wound and the victim. We have that wound. I said that to my dad as we were kind of having our final conversations in the end of his life. And one of the things I said to him is like, you think that I became this clinician and sex therapist and someone who helps couples because you were so inspiring and encouraging and that's part of it, but really it's something else.

It's all the ways you wounded me. It's all the things you did, all the horrible affairs you had, all the times that you chose the booty over your family. And when I came to you at age 18 and said, if you keep doing this, I'm never going to speak to you again. And you actually chose to keep doing it. I didn't understand addiction back then or sex addiction or any love addiction, any of that. And I was a kid. I was 18. But when you did that, that changed the trajectory of my life in such huge ways and led me to make these horrible decisions in love, but I wouldn't change a thing. And I not only forgive you, I thank you because I wouldn't be where I am. You know, so along the lines of really

understanding the gifts of our hardships, I get that, but it's a powerful message. I think that is embedded intentionally or accidentally, whatever it was in the storytelling here, because I do think, and this is why, you know, people are, you see narcissism all over the place on social media, people are really waking up to this, that it is a big deal and really, really common. And I thought the story was really beautifully folded that whole part of the story in not only how easy it is to fall prey to that and how it kind of escalates, but also what healthy resolution can look like. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say the other big takeaway for the book is really when Deepak is always explaining to Holly what love is, because one day she gets really angry

with him. And she said, I just want to be loved. Did he ever really love me? Did I ever really love him? And he gives her the whole explanation of what a toxic narcissist is. But the line that I love so much is when he says to her, Holly, asking a man like this to love you is like asking a man with no arms to hold you. Or to paraphrase the Buddhist quote, it's like trying to get bread in a hardware store. Yes. You just can't. It's not possible. So it's not that you did anything wrong, right? There's just no love there. I'm going to stand up for one second because I have to tell you this crazy story and I need a show and tell. You need a prop? All right, go get your crop. So this is the cover of my book, right? The love, the beautiful woman sitting in a yoga

position, right? A couple of weeks before the book came out, I got an email from a woman who said to me, you and I share a friend named Tatiana. I'm thinking to myself, I don't know anybody named Tatiana. Anyway, she showed me your book page, the love thief.com. And I want you to know, I am your cover girl. And she attaches this picture. Oh my gosh. This picture of her in Rishikesh, India. And did you use that picture or did you just conceptualize that? I mean, cause that's the same woman. Did you find that picture in stock photos or something? Well, here's what happened. I immediately got hold of my cover designer and I said to her, what is the origin of this thing? And she said, well, I went to my stock photo place.

I researched yoga and Rishikesh. This picture came up. I licensed it. And then I did this with it. Wow. Now, wait, it's more than that. And then in the rest of the email, she says, not only am I on your cover, girl, that picture was taken of me in Rishikesh when I was at the lowest point of my life, I had gone there to overcome a relationship with a toxic narcissist. Oh my God. I just got chills everywhere. You have written my story in your book. I said, listen, we have to zoom. I have to hear the whole thing. It turns out she lives in Serbia. She's a Serbian woman who went to Rishikesh to take yoga classes to heal her heart. While she and i are on the zoom my tech guy steve is over there fixing another computer in my office and

steve pops up and he says oh i'm going to serbia next week why don't you sign some books for her and i'll take them to her this is the kind of crazy magic now next we have to get steve and the serbian together wouldn't that be a good love story steve is happily married and too bad that are in college and he was my intern when he was in college. But how crazy is that? So, you know, that's a beautiful story. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. So shocked because here there's 8 billion people in the world. Yeah. And what are the chances we would connect? And that's when I, when I'm coaching single women and they say to me, all the good ones are taken. There's nobody out there. I'm too old. I'm too fat. I'm too damn blah, blah, blah, blah. And I remind them

there are 8 billion people in the world and half of them are single. There is no shortage of love in the world. And you are a great Testament to that. You fell in love and got married for the first time in your forties, right? Yes. And our 25th anniversary is next week. Ah, Mazel Tov. That's beautiful. Yes. I got three emails this month from women that I've coached all over 60, two of the three have never been married, all now engaged or married, over 60. Yeah. I know that about you. I know that a lot of your books and courses are about The Soulmate Secret, which is one of your most popular ones. And you do so much teaching around manifesting love. And I think, yeah, you're a great testimony to that. Is there any other

message that you want to make sure people take from the book or is hidden in the book or anything like that before? The one thing that I did was at the book website, the love thief.com. I put together eight yoga videos by eight of the world's top yoga teachers, people like Sean Korn and Paul Denniston. And I gave each of them a difficult emotion. And then they made a video talking about the yoga philosophy of heartbreak or betrayal or depression or anger, and then showed the yoga poses to heal that. And those are all free when you go to the website and order the book from the website. So I just want people to know, because I kept thinking, even though Holly doesn't start doing yoga in the book till the very, very end, yoga has heart healing solution.

It really does. And so many people, when we are in heartbreak, I mean, I obviously being a couples therapist for 30 years, I'm dealing with people trying to keep their relationships together to avoid heartbreak, but also very often recovering from heartbreak. And when you have had your heart broken, haven't already lived through heartbreak and know what helps, which many of us haven't, or at least not successfully healed from heartbreak. You don't really know how to move through those emotions, how to process them, how to heal. And I remember this one woman who had been married for 30 years and her husband had really just betrayed her and was unwilling to do the work. And she really just finally got to a point where she needed to let it go.

And she was devastated. And I was looking all over the place, trying to find her some sort of community. I mean, she could have come and work. She did come and work with me, but I wanted to find her like a community or a retreat for recovering from heartbreak. Now there's a few more, but I couldn't at the time find one. And I sort of put together a little program for her piecemeal of what I thought would help.

But I love this idea of yoga strategies for different forms of heartbreaks and pain and loss and grief and breakups and all of that. So I think that's such a beautiful thing that you created for people. I love that it's free when you buy the book and that it's out there. I think that's great. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for writing the book.

Thank you for being here. If people want to come learn more, they go to thelovetheath.com and they can go, you can get it on Amazon too, I'm assuming. But if you go to the website, you can get all the yoga stuff as well. Yeah. I use it all the time, especially the one on anger when I get annoyed. That's good. It's helpful.

I mean, it's all a form of somatics, which these guys know I'm a big fan of and believe in very deeply. Thank you so much for joining us, Arielle. I'm excited for this next phase of your journey. I know there's going to be a movie. Maybe there'll be a part two as well. Well, the title for the next book has come. and i'm just saying i'm not going to say what it is yet but i bought the url the movie hasn't

started yet so until the movie starts there's nothing to do because unless the movie comes i'm not going to be writing i mean that was so helpful you know it's like okay what you know what are we writing about today what's coming up next and uh because it like i said it was hard and i'm so glad that i did it now that it's done i discovered how needed i am I always saw myself as a very confident, secure person until I started writing this. And then I needed constant positive feedback from everybody I knew. Well, I'm glad you got it. And I'm glad you have that community there to support you.

And we are cheering you on and wishing every success for this and everything you do. Thank you, Arielle. Thank you. Thank you. You're just like my sport car Driving fast, you go fast When I'm sitting by you, we get high