Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - The Path to Liberated Love with Mark Groves and Kylie McBeath

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Imagine having a blueprint for love that empowers you to design the kind of love that fulfills you, lifts you up, and sets you free. In this Language of Love Conversation, I’m sitting down with two remarkable guests. Joining me is  Mark Groves, a human connection specialist and founder of Create the Love, and Kylie McBeath, a certified health coach and host of the Journey Home podcast. Together, they form a powerhouse couple who have co-authored the book “Liberated Love.” Mark and Kylie introduce us to the concept of liberated love, a term that encapsulates a commitment to truth, transparency, and honoring each other's individual paths in a relationship. This approach to love is about not trying to fix or control one another but rather supporting each other's growth and authenticity. Their personal journey, which they candidly share, took them from a phase they refer to as relationship 1.0—a time marked by unconscious dynamics and codependency—to a transformative period they call the sacred pause. This mutual uncoupling allowed them to embark on a journey of self-discovery and growth, which eventually led them back to each other, ready to begin relationship 2.0, a renewed and more conscious partnership. Here is what we unpack with Kylie and Mark: The concept of “liberated love” and its principles The significance of the “sacred pause” in relationships An exploration of codependency in relationships Recognition of blind spots and masks in relationships Self-awareness, healing from codependency, and personal growth before entering new relationships Intergenerational patterns and societal influences in shaping beliefs about relationships Check out Liberated Love by Mark Groves and Kylie McBeath. Whether you're single, in a relationship, exploring a transition, or seeking growth, this book is for you. You can also find Mark on Create the Love and Kylie on Instagram for more inspiring content. Also, do not forget to check my website for more resources to take your intimacy to the next level. 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 really excited about this episode of the language of love about liberated love. A really, really beautiful concept. We're going to be getting into this episode with Mark Groves and Kylie Macbeth.

They are a married couple, but both major healers and helpers in their own right. Mark Groves is a human connection specialist, he calls himself. He's the founder of Create the Love and host of the Mark Groves podcast, and his work bridges the academic and the human. So he's inviting people to explore the good, bad, the ugly, the beautiful sides, all aspects of deep and meaningful connection. And Kylie Macbeth, also known as Being is Beautiful, that's her Instagram handle with her over 100,000 followers, she shares her daily guidance and teachings on relationships,

spirituality, and embodied liberation. She is also a certified health coach and the host of the Journey Home podcast. In this episode, we're getting into their journey to what they call liberated love. and it's also the title of their new book. Mark and Kylie, I'm so excited to speak with you guys. Thank you for joining us on The Language of Love. Thanks so much for being here. Very excited to be here.

So the book, Liberated Love, I just want to start by saying, and I don't say this lightly, Sam, my producer, knows that I'm picky about books. I read them every time I'm interviewing someone. And this one got me, as my grandmother would say, a little verklempt. Like I got emotional reading it in a good way because as someone who's been committed and devoted really since I was a little girl, but professionally for the past 30 years of

just like trying to help people heal and trying to help them love and be loved better. It's so like, I can't do it all. I don't want to do it all. And nor do I imagine, you know, I ever would or could. So when I discover others who really get it and get what's required to release, to heal, to shift, to move, to step into your full potential in love, I get so overwhelmed with gratitude. So that's what I felt. Just to open this up, that's what I felt when I was reading it. And so I just wanted to share that with you off the top and also tell my peeps here that that's how I feel about your book because it was really, really good. Wow. What an honor. Thank you so much for sharing that. As you say that, like the emotional piece, I feel it too. And I really

just appreciate your devotion to love and to helping people liberate themselves from all the things that are in the way. Like you're right. It's going to take a whole paradigm shift and a lot of different people continuing to speak into this and provide templates and conversations and spaces for us to do this work. So thank you so much. And I have felt so many times in my life, not that there aren't plenty of love coaches and therapists and people working with love, but I don't meet many who, in my opinion, and it's just my opinion, get it and really get what's necessary. So the book is called Liberated Love. So let's just start with your definition of that. What is liberated love? And also as part of that, I mean, start there, but also share

the brief summary of your love story if you don't mind and how you got here yeah yeah you kick it off babe yeah liberated love so just for some context liberated love the the words came into my consciousness like right during mark and i's reunion process which i'll go into in terms of our journey of relationship 1.0 the sacred pause and 2.0 but it kind of landed in my field and i was just like, what is that? Liberated love. Why is that so loud in my consciousness right now? And I was like, oh, Mark and I are walking that path. This is a part of our work in the world. It kind of blew me away because I was like, that's exactly what we're doing. We're trying to liberate love so that it can flow again. Looking at all of the imprints, all of the ways

that love has been blocked in our lives, personal, historical, intergenerational, like there's a lot in the way of love and of our ability to reconnect to our hearts, to reconnect to our bodies and to open and to feel safe again. So I think through our personal journey, but then professionally, it's like, we've been devoted to this path of love, of helping people heal and open so that they can go deeper in love. So liberated love and how we define it in the book is it's a devotion to truth above everything. Like we are devoted to bringing the truth forward in our relational dynamics as a tool to help us liberate and go deeper so that we can be transparent and create the emotional and psychological safety we need to foster more

intimacy and connection. So there's no withholding, there's no manipulation, no trying to control another. Another big principle we talk about is honoring your path alongside somebody else's path and not trying to fix, save, or heal another being at the expense of yourself. And then another big tenant I'll just speak to and I'll let Mark chime in here is practicing unconditional positive regard for self and another. So like at the baseline, it's a respect, like we must have respect for ourselves and for others who we're relating with. And yeah, those are some of the main pieces. Yeah. At the core of this is a dedication to the truth, a dedication, not just telling the truth but being in truth and we saw that unconsciously so many of our

relationship patterns before each other but also in relationship 1.0 was that there was self-abandonment or there was you know not using our voice not honoring ourselves not honoring each other not one person needing to identify as being broken so the other person could have value in trying to fix them like we just saw all the you know and when you study codependency and you study how powerful it is on an unconscious level you could have one person who's sick and one person who's well and when the person who's sick get better the other person gets sick so that there's always this i'll keep you close by needing each other but we're doing it in unhealthy ways and we're saying hey you know what the things that are brought forward in your relationship like what an honor

that your relationship is saying we need to work through these frictions because in order to make more space for love in order for you to heal maybe bags you were handed not even your bags but they became your bag right and so we really see liberated love as as turning towards the material from a place of curiosity accountability humility and responsibility so that we can actually work with it and become better, you know, become. Yeah. Because it's like the relationship actually demands that you become the best possible version of yourself. And so like what an honor that is that love trusts you with that, you know. So beautiful. And I always say that our partners are our greatest, greatest teachers. And we are always going to choose someone and fall in love

with someone. And this is part of the gift of love who's going to trigger our shit. Right. And this is, and that's what I think you go into. We're going to get into codependency because that's obviously part of the subtitle of this book. It's part of the underbelly that, you know, rolls through everything you're teaching here. But I absolutely agree with you that really the only way that, you know, what you're talking about is pure authenticity and openheartedness and willingness to go into the belly of whatever beast is coming up in service to your own personal growth, but also in service to the growth in the relationship. So you get into in the book and you're referring to it here, relationship 1.0, the sacred pause and relationship 2.0,

which you're in now. But I feel like that's such a beautiful container for this conversation. And I know it's the container in many ways for the book. So can you give that summary of how you got to where you are now? Yeah. Relationship 1.0 was birthed through Instagram. That's actually how we met i'm like all great love stories it's like a modern day notebook in relationship 1.0 was the unconscious entering of the relationship where we were still playing out these codependent relationship dynamics for kylie there was very much and i'll just speak for you but of course please intervene uh that he's wrong yeah yeah just please tell me that i'm wrong that see i can hold that now i can hold that no problem for kylie there was this like what's

wrong with me that I can't choose this relationship with Mark. And for me, it was, oh, Kylie's got a challenge. Well, shit, I have a whole business based on fixing relationship challenges. I've monetized my codependency. So I would love to just have another client. So through her own self-identification, I then had value because I'm like, here, let me support you in navigating this. Meanwhile, I'm in a relationship with someone who's not sure they can fully choose it. I'm somehow missing that very important part where she's like, I desperately want to, I'm not sure I'll be able to fully. So I'm living in my wound that I'm never fully chosen. They never fully choose me. And our relationship, what was so beautiful is that we loved each other enough

and so much that we were like, why isn't this working? Like we are two relatively intelligent, caring curious people who want to grow but it's not working and because we were trying to do everything but honor kylie's deeper sense that she couldn't continue the relationship and you know maybe based on the timelines we were both navigating i wanted to have kids at a certain time blah blah blah that was what the subject that was coming forward but instead of kylie saying why can't I choose this relationship we started to see that perhaps what Kylie was actually sensing is you know she was the canary in the coal mine that she was picking up on the codependent dynamics and we just couldn't label them and where she was conditioned like most people are

especially women to think there's something wrong with her that she can't we were like what about if there's something right with you yeah like what happens if this is actually wisdom that we've been taught to say is brokenness and that shifted everything everything it was like the first time in my life where that reframe or shift into oh maybe i'm not broken maybe this is actually wisdom maybe this is actually my body screaming at me to listen and that there is something more here available to us and like many but for myself included i didn't have another template for love Like this codependent dynamic and what Mark and I were or how we were relating was very common. It was just normal. And so I was like, I don't think it gets better than this. So I should just stay here. But I'm thinking about something that you talked about that so resonated with me. And I know, well, so many people listening is the fear. You know, you have this great guy. You have this life you've built together. But inside yourself, you've got this resistance. And then there's all this fear around being that I think women in particular, but all of us struggle with.

I know Mark spoke to this too, as in the book of being alone, right? Fear of, of leaving a great guy in a great relationship and then making a huge mistake and being alone for the rest of, you know, there's all of those additional fears that set in as well. Oh, absolutely. They were so loud. And that's why I didn't leave. Cause I was like, well, he's a great guy.

I should be able to make it work. Like what's wrong with me that he's like, this isn't going to work. And I was so angry at the end of relationship 1.0 with the big you God, however we wanted to define that. I was just like, why can't I just be in a relationship like everybody else? Why can't I just create love? Why can't I just use Mark and get a dog, build a family? And I remember some of my mentors being like, ha ha, you're funny, but you're not here for normal. You're not here to walk just a path. You're here for more. I didn't see it at the time, but in retrospect, what was happening. And I've kind of zoomed it out a little bit larger than just Mark and I have not speaking

about like now that we're parents and we have a son, it's like, I knew in my body, in my being that I couldn't birth a child into this world that from the space I was in from like the immature maiden woman, like where I didn't have access to my voice, where I didn't have access to my needs. Like I knew that that pattern, that cycle had to break with me. Yeah. You felt that at the time you didn't know that until later. Yeah. Right. But that knowledge was your body's resistance to being there. That was how it's translating. I think that's really important to highlight, guys, because this is what happens. It's so freaking scary. You have something good or you have something, quote unquote, good enough. And you're feeling this doesn't fit. I'm in resistance. It's not working. I can't fully commit or something's off and we just want to bury it. Right. And what I think is so magical and what is the beginning of this story is that for whatever reason, probably because of the work you've already done, had already done at this point because of your soul's path, because of miracles, any number of things you listened.

Yeah. I appreciate you for saying that, but I almost like, it felt like a life or death decision towards the end. Like I was so sick. Yeah. Like I was energetically bleeding out. I had zero energy. I could barely get out of bed and I was just like, okay, Kai, like you're going to choose

to leave and live, or are you going to choose to stay and wither away? Yeah. And I hate that it has to get to that point sometimes, but that's how deep and old this programming is. Well, I'd say it even goes further often because not for you, but for most people, because we've said to people, if you have anxiety or depression or challenges, there's something wrong with you and you need to take a drug. and I'm not saying there aren't times for those interventions. That's the cultural conversation

is to completely bypass your somatic soul intuition instinct and label it as a diagnosis as opposed to like, wow, perhaps there's actually something incredibly brilliant about you and probably has been shut down in your lineage. You know, if you go all the way back and, you know, here's this opportunity for us to actually say, hey, if something's coming up for Kylie, it's coming up for me. I just might not sense it yet. Yeah. And this was that huge piece of restoring self-trust. Yeah. I was like, could I trust what was actually emerging for me and my body in the conversation of with my soul, with my path, and then also trust Mark and I's path at the same time that if it really is a no for me, then it's a no for us. Yeah. Yeah. And that's

okay. It was an inversion too of like when I was 27, I was engaged and I needed to go. I didn't know why I needed to go but I needed to go and I couldn't make sense of it then it was because I was so terrified of receiving love this person wanted to love me wanted to choose me but it was showing up as I couldn't choose this thing but oh my god I had so much deeper work to do that it just looked like I didn't want to get married at the time which was true it was a lot more than that oh my god it's what led me to start to study relationships and create all the things I've created. And that's the thing is you don't know what the somatic invitation is actually bringing you towards. Like, look what it's brought us towards. Look what yours has brought you towards.

And I think about that all the time is like, you only see what you're going to lose because it's in your life. You don't see what you're going to gain because it's not here yet. Yeah. And often the pain of being in the situation has to get greater than your fear of leaving it. And then once you leave it, that's when the path starts to emerge. And then once you're further down the path, you're like, holy, yeah, right. Holy, like, oh, now I get it. It's that pivotal point of taking that leap that you're so petrified to take. And you took it and you took it together, even though Kylie was the one that said I

can and her body was you know and all that was happening it was a for all intents and purposes a conscious uncoupling that you did at that point very much very much so it was a mutual uncoupling for sure and then how long were you in the what you call the sacred pause and what did that look like we get to call it a sacred pause because we got back together if you don't get back together i think it's not a breakup yeah it's not sacred and it's not a pause okay yeah that's not got it You can still have a sacred break up and you can have a sacred pause that turns into a sacred break up. It was a sacred pause. Well, the way we ended relationship 1.0 really set the stage for the coming back together. We just didn't know that because we did a closing ceremony,

which was about honoring the relationship and having a deep sense of reverence for the experience we'd had together. We lit a fire and we played music that was important to us. We shared different prompts. And that was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had. When we ended the relationship, I was done. Like I was done with being in a relationship with someone who couldn't choose me. I'd finally chosen myself. I'd honored her and her experience. And I was, we lived our breakups very differently. You know, I said to Kylie, are you okay with me sharing with people about my experience as I go through this? And she said, yes, absolutely. So on my podcast i actually shared a lot of what i was navigating at the time and she went into a

cocoon and went into a different place she was off social media for the most part although we had no contact which was part of the sacred pause and you know meanwhile as all that's happening there's like a worldwide health drama going on so where that's going on and we're you know you're thinking like if anything's gonna make you break your agreements it's like the quote-unquote world is ending who do you want to be you know there's all this music that you listen to it adele's playing in your speaker you're like i gotta text her but i didn't we didn't break our no contact rules ever uh did we yeah i did oh you did yeah i didn't i mean we yeah that's in the book yeah that's in the book that's right she did sorry so yeah for the sacred pause looked like for kylie

a very intentional time. And for me, it was intentional. It just didn't look exactly the same. Like I didn't take a no man diet. I didn't do that. I'd done that previously before I met Kylie, but I wasn't dating. I was definitely in my own get your poop in a group. Let's move forward and get life rolling. Well, I love this part because you did speak to this in the book or write to this in the book around. And this is something I feel so passionately about. There's that old idiotic adage that so many subscribe to that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. You know, you're just going to be repeating the same toxic patterns. And so I'm always just like begging people, when you break up with someone, pause, even like I even

created this metric, just commit for like half the time you were in the relationship up to four years. Right. So if it was a 20 year relationship, you don't have to stay single for 10 years. And you don't have to stay single the whole time, but don't get into another big commitment. Like take that time because you are going to, if you allow yourself, you're going to recalibrate, you're going to heal, you're going to learn, you're going to grow, you're going to shift so that you're not the next time just repeating the same patterns. And you guys really did that. How long did your pause end up being and how did you know it was over?

Yeah, the sacred pause was 10 months. And how did we know it was going to be over? Yeah, I entered into inside of the sacred pause. I entered into a container with Kendra Kuna called the no man diet container. And essentially it was being able to reestablish choice in relationship to men. Whereas historically I didn't feel like I had choice because I was sourcing safety. I was sourcing security. I was sourcing validation. I was sourcing so much from the male gaze and also the men in my life that I really unconsciously or consciously felt like I had choice, but like deep down, there was still older patterns and imprints operating that I was unaware of, of like how much I actually was sourcing from them. And it kind of shook me to my core when I entered into that container intentionally

and said, for the next three months, I'm not going to seek men, talk to men romantically, of course, but, or just like even social media creep or even dream about like all these things. Oh, I got to talk to Mark. It really shook me when I entered into that space. And it was like, my nervous system went full tilt. Yeah. It was like, you're going to die. You're not capable of doing this work. You're going to be alone forever. Kind of like we were talking about earlier. And I was like, whoa. And I remember my somatic therapist at that time being like, have you ever been alone? And I was like, I think so. But then I like had to sit with it because I was like, actually, no, I don't know what it feels like to be alone. And I'm terrified

of being alone. And so this was a really beautiful opportunity for me to actually one, commit to being alone and learning myself and healing. And for me, a big part of that process was reconnecting to anger. For most of my life, I've been disconnected from anger and a good way of like being able to honor my own internal limits, being able to set boundaries with others, being able to communicate my needs effectively. And so this restoration process inside that container allowed me to reconnect to my body, reconnect to clean anger in a really good way so that I could feel safe in my own body and being. And I'm just so grateful for that container and what it provided. But at the end of, I'd say about, yeah, month 10, and I had completed the

No Man Die container, I started to get really curious about reentering into a relationship with Mark and what might be possible for us again. And the only reason I felt really comfortable and engaging in taking that step to explore another relationship with him is because we created a dating container or I wanted to create a dating container. I didn't bring that up to Mark. I hadn't yet, but I was like, Oh, at least I have this framework or this like structure in place so that we don't collapse into old patterns. Like we can create agreements. We can create a container upfront and be proactive about it so that we can really answer and live into the question. Like, is this right for us? Is a romantic relationship right for us? Is it good for us? Is

it leading into more connection and more love or is it not? And since we had like a structure, I think it really, for me at least, allowed me to feel safe in my body and my being to enter back into conversation around what relationship 2.0 could look like. And so you started to explore that. And one of the things that you speak to and I feel so passionately about is that, I mean, this is just like a fundamental foundation. And I think this is probably part of what coming into 2.0 allowed you to do and all the healing you did during that almost year pause is the only way that we can get our needs met in a healthy way in a relationship, each of you, anyone, is if you are in active choice, you know, if you can, not that you want to, or it's hanging over

your head that you can walk away at any point. But like, you know, what I often speak about is that for the past 15 years, every single morning, I, my husband always wakes up like an hour before me. I come downstairs, he's made the coffee. He comes out, we give each other a heart to heart hug. And I say to myself, I've never said it out loud. And he just recently, I didn't realize I never told him I said it. We've obviously talked about this principle, but he didn't realize until recently when he heard me giving a talk that I actually say this in my mind. But every day I say, I'm choosing you. I'm choosing to be here. I am choosing you. Because for me as a recovering codependent, being in choice where I can walk away, I have the internal resources and ability

to walk away if I need to or want to, that allows me to do everything else that supports the relationship. Without that, you're stuck. 100%. Couldn't have said it better. It's all about choice, active choice. Yeah. And the recognition of choice, Like the recognition that like we romanticize through movies and Disney and all this, this idea of total self-abandonment that someone completes you that, you know, these hate that line from Jerry Maguire. Oh, my God. And I remember at the time, everyone thought it was the most romantic line ever. Like, I desperately want a man to say this to me. And I'm sure I think I used to use that line as a joke often.

but it's such a thing that we deny which i think is because we actually have a really poor relationship to things like death and endings but we deny the reality that your partner can leave you in any moment that because they made a quote let's say a vow they can't go anywhere and the reality is they can go everywhere they can leave in any moment and it's actually through as you're saying laura it's through the recognition of that choice that if wait if they can go but they're not that means they're choosing to be here like i recognize that out of all the people that kylie could be with she chooses me for me to say she couldn't be with someone else is a total pipe dream bullshit right like of course she can but it's like we actually get to honor the the power

and the potency in how deliberate and intentional and sacred that act is. It is a sacred act to choose. It is. And it's real choice. Like, and that's what I think when you were saying that, Laura, is like you have the resourcing

to know the difference. Yeah. Like to actually be able to choose. To have to. That was the big piece for me and my journey was actually creating that internal foundation for real choice to exist.

And it didn't before. Me either. I'm in recovery. I've been in recovery for 15 years, but I'm completely I've been married for 21 years and I am a completely different human being than my poor husband married. I mean, he's risen to the occasion every time, but he married someone totally different. Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman. I've been a sex, love and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is, how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous relationship?

Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not, check out my free course on quantum sex. It's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level, capable of full body orgasms, how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams. and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner. Just go to drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the homepage, the Quantum Sex free course. Check it out and let me know what you think. And so let's get into, because what you're referring to, and I know both of you speak to this in your own ways, is this idea of the way that codependency plays out, not only in our relationship choices, obviously, but in our ability to choose, to be our whole authentic

self, to be in truth, the way that you were referring to, to have our needs met, to be able to meet our partner's needs in a healthy way, to be able to grow together, right? So much of it comes down to this idea of healing these codependent patterns. And, you know, I speak about codependency on the show a lot, but let's just take a moment because I want to hear from you guys, your sort of the way that you define codependency and how it plays out in love. Yeah. So our working definition in the book and how we relate to it in the book is codependency is any relational dynamic where we source safety from someone or something outside of ourselves at the expense of our wholeness,

at the expense of our core needs and at the expense of our wellbeing. And the key word here, I think for this definition to really land is at the expense of, because of course we're humans, we have needs and we rely on other people and that's the beauty of interdependence. But when it comes at the expense of your wellbeing,

at the expense of your voice, at the expense of your true needs to be seen, to be loved, to be cherished, to be all of those things, that's when it becomes sticky And that's when it becomes codependent is like, you're actually not in a dynamic in your fullness in all of who you are. And you have to either bend yourself into a pretzel to meet the other person's needs. You have to sacrifice your aliveness.

You have to bypass or truth or what you really need to say, do, or be what you imagine or getting the clear message that your partner needs you to be. And if your partner isn't okay, then you're not okay. You know, and you guys speak to this. I do, too, about all of these patterns. You know, they develop in childhood. Right. They develop through our primary early relationships. And the historical kind of discussion of codependency is that you had to have an addict for a parent or a severely abusive parent to be dependent. And I certainly don't think that's, I mean, that's certainly true to an extent, but it's not at all the only way that codependency develops. So what would you say? Are all people codependent?

How common is it? And what's your definition of where it starts, these patterns? It's such a good question because I would say five years ago, I would have said, oh, like 60%, maybe, you know, it's like when people talk about our attachment styles and they're like, oh yeah, like 60% of the population is secure. Then you're like, no, I would say most people are codependent until they're not. And that's such a human nature evolutionary reason. Gabor Mate talks about how humans have two needs.

We have the need to be authentic and self-express, and we have the need to belong. And when authenticity threatens self-expression, or sorry, when authenticity threatens belonging, belonging usually wins until it doesn't. And so we're deeply encoded to be compliant, to maintain relationships. And we learned very early on, and we talk about this in the book, you know, that what's your blueprint? What were you taught? You know, what did culture teach you? But, you know, ultimately, our families still were about eight were being taught, who do you need to be in order to be loved? And so we make all these rules unconsciously about what emotions are safe, what self expression is safe. You know, as you said, traditionally, the idea or the word codependency really gets its sort of origin popularity through Al-Anon and through the really incredible book by Melody Beattie, Codependent No More. I love that book. But yeah, as you said, you know, it's like we think about it being in relationship with addicts, being in a relationship with someone who has a dependency issue.

But man, it shows up in, did you have to navigate an overwhelmed mother and soothe her? Did you have someone who had a chronic illness in your family? Did you have someone with anger issues, narcissism? Like, insert every human system dynamic, because ultimately what it either causes is someone to leave their childhood, navigating and sort of pivoting around other people's needs, which then, as you said, becomes the adult, we do the same thing, or we're someone who identifies as being the problem. Like we source connection and keeping people close through needing support, through, you know, what might also be labeled as under functioning. And so, yeah, I'd say all of us. All of us have some in us, yes. And most of us have a lot of codependency. And I love how you guys get into, I mean, because I thought it was a really beautiful way to kind of lead the reader through understanding ways, all the myriad of ways that we may be playing out these codependent patterns or be stuck in codependent patterns that we may not even be aware of when you're getting into the masks, for instance. there are all these masks that they wear so like for me I was giggling to myself at some of the masks but like I was a combo of the damsel in distress the high achiever and the play girl you know like I had those are my three main masks that I kind of would combine into one I'm in the same camp as you yeah you are yeah yeah I'm definitely a playboy for sure was one of mine

uh mine was also the uh like the humor jester comedian the comedian yeah we'll get into the masks, but they're the masks. And then there are sort of these blind spots, right? These ways in which, so I'm wondering if you can speak to that a little bit, because you kind of guide people through recognizing what masks, what blind spots, and then we're going to get into how to resource yourself for healing. The blind spots and how we describe them in the book are the things that actually prevent us from, from being in right relationship with quote unquote reality of like being able to name and identify what is actually here, what is actually going on, what is true. and these are all the ways that our bodies and also our minds prevent us from moving towards

that and so we've listed 11 in the book and i don't have them all memorized off the top of my head but some of the big ones being like shame yeah like taking on the narrative of i'm broken there's something wrong with me when we're stuck in shame it's very hard to access agency or choice yeah because we're just spinning out in this spiral like i'm broken i'm broken there's something wrong with me. There's something I need to fix. And it's like, we're not actually being able to maybe go beyond that, heal the shame and say like, there is something right with me, or there is something coming up for me and I need to step into choice or agency. Yeah. And that's what you did. You went into shame, right? Or the fantasy that felt I can

save them. Right. Which was smart. Right. Like I can make this better. This will work out. This will all be good. And it's like, what is actually going on right now? yeah you know is like this is not going well this is hard this is challenging this is this is stressful i don't want to be here like there's something off and the masks are ways that we don't show up as our true authentic self they're sort of these strategies we develop that got us love affection approval safety you know pick your collection of poisons but we wear those that cover up our true authentic selves. Yeah. Yeah. To create safety to, you know, and the irony is, is, is like we do it to try to preserve, protect connection or preserve or

protect ourselves, maintain our value, whatever it is, but ultimately to keep people closer, to keep people away. And we end up perpetuate perpetually living in the wound of never being seen. We don't even know. And this is what the sort of beautiful complexity to it is. It comes from a kid who this is the strategy or strategies that they've figured out are the best way to survive. And so that's why context is so important. And that's why we talk about context in the book so that people can see like, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. You actually, it's the most beautiful thing you chose, but as an adult and what you ultimately want to create with your life, it's not going to serve you anymore. What I will say that I find very fascinating about people's

survival strategies, their masks, when having the understanding of their mask and it's no longer a place to protect them from being witnessed, it actually can become a superpower because it's an overdeveloped skill set generally. Yeah. Just like intuition. I always say that about intuition. Those of us who have strong intuition or empathetic abilities or even psychic abilities, most of my friends who are psychic mediums will say, unless they died and came back, that's a different story. But for your average person who didn't die to get their psychic skills, it usually develops in childhood in order to keep yourself safe. Like you needed to know when you open the door to the house, if it was safe to go inside or if you needed to get back on your bike

and ride to the park for several hours. And so it became a survival strategy that you develop these senses to heightened vigilant because of heightened vigilance. And it's the same thing with these masks we develop. I mean, I was just remembering not even too long ago, I had this like and I'm in my fifties now, but I've always known, and it's been this family joke because I, these friends of my parents would all, every time I would see them would repeat it that when I was like four years old and they asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, I said a comedian or a nurse. And they thought that was hilarious. And so did I, I was like, what the fuck, a comedian or a nurse? I never even thought about it. I mean, I knew I was funny and a caretaker, but I didn't

really put the two together until really like a year or two. And I was like, oh, the only way that I could avoid violence and distract my dad from his narcissistic rages was by being hilarious. Like if he laughed, it would diffuse his anger, but also activate my mother who was a severe codependent and really would go into these deep depressions. And the only way that I could get my needs met by my mother was to first meet her needs, to get her out of bed, to get her to the kitchen so she could make me something that I couldn't make myself. So of course, those were my There weren't female doctors back then, or I probably would have said a doctor because that was my own. I didn't even know about therapists at three or four years old. So because I was a girl and a caretaker, I knew I was good at that. OK, so I'll be a nurse or a comedian because those are two things I'm really good at. And they have both, as you said, been sublimated into superpowers because I can be a total dorky ham and I'm very funny. And that is a big part of my work. I think I think I'm funny. You are all validated. And I'm a caretaker, right? So, so those early wounds really do like,

I love that this idea of them, that there's this shadow and light side of everything. And the shadow side is that pain and that codependency and that those blind spots and masks. But the light side is these are these beautiful superpowers and gifts that we develop in service to the world. The uncoupling of the survival needs underneath these gifts is such a huge reclamation of these superpowers that we have and have been cultivated over time. It's like, okay, I don't need to use this for my survival. Now I can just use this for my enhancement or for my shining in the world. Like you said, the light side. It really honors the experience too. I know it can be very challenging to hold the idea that everything that's happened into our life happens for us because, of course, the complexity of that is you're talking to someone who's been through abuse and they say, oh, great, my abuse happened for me. And of course, yeah, that's not saying that. I think the complexity of that is to be able to say, look, we can't change what we've been through. And so recognizing that you can still find really productive, beautiful things from our most painful experiences is actually what honors them and gives them purpose. Otherwise, they just become sources of trauma and pain. And I think about every experience in my life that was most transformative, although universe, we will take gentle messages moving forward. We don't need any more harsh ones. Yeah, they've been the most painful things.

They've been the things that have really brought me back into my heart, brought me back into my soul. I think of the grief that I had when Kylie and I broke up. It was the first time I'd ever gone through a breakup sober. And I was forced to feel so much, but so much of the grief that was brought forward by the ending of our relationship was actually unresolved grief from every ending of relationship I'd ever been through. and all the times I remember sitting with our at the time couples therapist and I had this awareness of like just this deep sense of sadness for myself but in a beautiful way of like where did I learn like somewhere along the line I learned that not being fully chosen was actually appropriate yeah and deserved somehow yeah and and that I just am now through

the beauty of our relationship learning that that is not something I ever want ever again and that I'm willingly walking myself into these circumstances like that was a really painful yeah bring levity to it please but there was like a really painful I don't know why I'm laughing me neither but it was funny Kylie started laughing and then I did yeah thanks thanks for laughing but seriously and with the humor because i i think there is a genuine nature to like yeah it's ironic the sort of level of masochism we have for our own well that's what i'm laughing at is that we're all we're all doing these incredible crazy things to ourselves that right are funny when you look at them from the meta view they really are even though they don't

feel funny right they're familiar though yeah familiar to our nervous system equals safe yeah and so it's like i know this i know how to dance in this dance because i've danced in it for my whole life yeah it's actually even scarier to leave the dance that's familiar that's the ironic part because you're like well i know how to operate from this damn zone distress distress i know how to be broken and powerless in this world but i definitely and i don't know what it looks like to be a powerful embodied woman who uses her voice and who is connected to her roots and like I don't I don't have a model for that is that safe like because what does that even look like yeah right my all of my survival instructions through my matrilineal line is like stay small

stay quiet don't rock the boat do what you need to do in order to keep him close so that you're safe and okay and it's like bumping up against those intergenerational storylines is very deep work it's very deep and I think we might have had the same I mean you're like speaking to my patterns it's really funny like i was this exactly the same way the same sort of dynamic it's really kind of cute i love you our shared suffering and best friends yeah we're in the shared the shared tree of being a woman on the planet at this time i think a lot of us can resonate with a similar storyline because i mean look at the inquisition from 1300 to 1700 in europe like they killed nine million women like do you think that doesn't affect the way women relate to their power to

their voice to their to their gifts like of course it does and we haven't ever until more recent years had a model of what a fully embodied empowered grounded divine feminine woman who is in her voice and in her power and in her choice and is comfortable alone or with someone else and is her own amazing, delicious cake in and of herself. And someone else is the icing and sprinkles and wonderful and beautiful, but not necessary for her deliciousness. Like we have had no model for that. Well, ladies, let me be the first to be in such deep reverence for the model of all this deliciousness. I love that. That was perfect. That is exactly that clip right there. That's that's it. We haven't. Well, and I think like it's so it's interesting because it speaks to

a lot of what we're talking about, which is can for me to heal, which is, you know, not by choice, but by observation and all the things it's like the recognition that my wife and a woman being in her most powerful state, her most powerful expression is not a threat to my power, right? It actually enhances the experience of the power of both of us, but also what we bring into the world for each other. Like her fully expressed means I get feedback. I don't always like the feedback, but the feedback is expansive always. Yeah. And we need more of that. Like, look at the way the world changes when women get fully self-expressed. I mean, there'd be a lot of shit that's not going on in the world today if there weren't such a silencing in terms of, I mean,

name the thing, but I think it really also begins with birth and the womb and all the stuff. Yeah, it really does. And I know even with my husband, he's an alpha. He doesn't need to control, but he will not be controlled. There have been so many phases in my recovery through the years where I have thought to myself, I don't know if he's going to be able to hang with this. We'll see. But I'm in choice and this is my truth and I'm stepping into it. And what I've seen, just speaking to what you're referring to, Mark, is that he not only and I thought he might be threatened or felt put upon or because my model was you are kind of submissive, but your power is more manipulative or indirect. It's that codependent, passive aggression, manipulation, whatever. And one of the beauties of him is that he's so freaking smart. Like I manipulated every relationship I ever had. You and I have talked about this, Mark. Until him, he just will not let me manipulate him.

So I was intrigued by that and fell in love with that because I knew I wanted to stop that way. But it was hard. And when I got to the point where I started to really step into my power, I wasn't sure how he was going to hang with that or if he was going to still find me attractive or still feel connected to me. And it actually has been the opposite. it. It's not just the feedback I give him, I think, but it's also that I am showing up more fully and more authentically in the relationship, which he's always wanted. And he feels the energy of my wholeness and responds to that and loves it and is the opposite of threatened by that, welcomes it, which really kind of shocked me because I never had a model of anybody welcoming

that. So let's get into just a little bit. I mean, I could talk to you guys for hours, but let's get into the healing piece. It's not just laying out the problems and the masks and the stories we tell ourselves and the blind spots. But now that you kind of come back together, and even during this pause, you've been doing this healing, right? Because I love Codependent No More, and there are lots of books out there that talk about healing codependency, but you guys really did a beautiful job of delineating how to go about healing this. because we can't have liberated love without healing. There's the healing that each of us has to do individually. And then there's the dance that we have to do together to support

each other in the liberation. So can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, the healing is where it's at, right? This is the work and it works. You're such a beautiful testament to that, that once you devote your time and take your personal responsibility for your life and step into choice, that if you do this healing work, you can actually heal and create liberated relationships where there's space for you to step into your fullness and that your husband creates that space and you co-create it together for each other. I'm so grateful to hear your story because I'm like, yes, thank you for modeling that for the world. So our healing in the way we describe it in the book is it really comes back to the word resourcing is like being

able to resource. And we have inner resources. So like cultivating self-trust by honoring your own limits by honoring your boundaries, uh, nervous system regulation, that being a really huge piece of learning how to regulate and be in your body and understanding your nervous system. And when you're activated, how do you come back into center? If you probably might not even know what center feels like, because most of us have been dysregulated our whole lives. So it's like really gaining those skills to be able to regulate our own nervous systems, right? Like coming back into the driver's seat of our own nervous systems is a big component of this huge huge can't do anything until you have that you really can't I think that's why so much of the you know because

the nervous system was not part of a conversation up until let's say five years ago really more mainstream and really this work is all incomplete without that look you can do nervous system work without knowing you're doing nervous system work and build capacity and that's why things like gallon on work because you get externally resourced because you now have a community and now you have other people who are cheering you on you're hopefully coupling that with some meditation some awareness so we talk about becoming internally and externally resourced in order to build the capacity to be in what you were both talking about it's like the familiarity of relationship patterns it's a familiar wounding it's it's familiar so it's safe quote-unquote perceivably safe

So to actually step into the thing that is uncomfortable, the boundary, the sovereignty, the voice, it's got to happen on a somatic level. Yeah, I mean, I opened the page to the resources because I kind of just like, it's hard to list them all off my head. You don't have these memorized? I don't have them memorized, but I know them in my being and body and part of this conversation. but the emotional regulation, I think this is a really big one in something since it happened so long ago, I think in our path that we tend to just like override it, but like really being able to process and honor your own emotional impulses. Like, do you know what emotions you're feeling? And then most of us have, I didn't have any clue what emotional most people have no idea. So how

do we feel safe if we don't even know what's happening below our neck? Like, yeah. So we've all been taught that that's all it's real. Right. I know. And that's another big piece we talk about in the book is like reconnecting the mind and body is like, actually the state of your nervous system determines the story in your head. So you really need to start looking at the state you're in and being able to differentiate. Like when I move from a dysregulated or activated state into a more regulated state, how does the story shift? And how does the way I'm going to respond shift? And how does what I want shift? And how does my perception of what just happened shift? And there's so many resources here, guys, you know, I'm just telling my peeps about how to kind of step out of these codependent patterns, how to set yourself up to be supported and to start moving through.

You know, my kids, when I was when they were growing up, always called me a talking doctor because that was like their sense. They had the doctor, the pediatrician they went to. Right. That was a doctor and therapists were talking doctors. And that's amazing. I'm a talking doctor who actually at this point in my career does a lot less talking, you know, over the past five to six years because this piece is such a huge, I mean, immense foundation of everything else. being able to be with your body, know what you're feeling, move the energy of those feelings through you in the moment so that you can ground and internally resource yourself and then look at the issue again with clear eyes and then honor the somatic messages that you're getting through your body and translating those so that you can get clear. You know, the body is the bridge to the soul. It is so wise and so powerful. And I myself didn't even fully understand. I've been

a therapist for 30 years. And like you were saying, Mark, it's really only been developing into the mainstream over the past five years. And I kind of knew about it and understood it and would play with it and refer people out to it when it seemed relevant, if they had extreme trauma or something like that. But it's only when I went through my own horrible trauma and went deep into that, that I really discovered how profoundly powerful it is. And now I can't stop talking about it, but like this, I think is such a huge piece. And you guys do such a beautiful job of walking us through, like, how do you internally reference? How do you externally reference? How do you set your, how do you handle it when you're, how do you create a sacred pause in a relationship?

How do you create a sacred pause if you're single? How do you move? And let's just talk about that for a second because we've talked about relationships for people who are single, right? And dated. What advice do you have for them? I mean, we could talk for an hour about that too,

but what advice do you have just applying this to your dating life in terms of moving through and toward dating in a liberated love mentality? well a lot of us have fear of dating or we have a an anxiety when it comes to dating because really what we're anxious about is that we don't believe that we could trust ourselves in our choices and and that we can be discerning and you know we'll say like well i just can't help who i'm drawn towards and i'm like well have you been drawn towards some toxic people yeah well that

means you don't believe there's a space where there's a choice between what you have a charge towards and what you choose, which right away we already, that needs to be inserted. So in the book, we talk specifically to people about dating because we're saying, Hey, you can actually turn dating into the most empowering, fun experience where you get to test out these things. And you look at like, what was dating or relationship 2.0 was created through the foundation of a dating container, quote unquote, which really was being very explicit about what are the agreements that we have. And when there's agreements, there's clarity, there's intention, there's shared creation of those things. And Stan Taken talks about how the reason relationships

fail or end is because people fail to create agreements at the beginning. Dating, because a lot of us enter relationship never having even thought about agreements. Like we did some vows that some people handed to us, you know, till death do us part, honor and obey. That one's out now. And I now see like for people who are in relationship to then say, hey, we've been in this for 15 years. We need to actually get clear on what our agreements are. That could be really challenging. And we talk about that in the book, but that could be challenging, of course, because through bringing forward even that sentence, you are destabilizing the familiarity of the relationship and the unspoken agreements that might be, Hey, you don't have a lot of needs or

you're the person that we focus around, whatever it might be. So when we're dating, we have this opportunity to start with this knowledge to actually say, Oh, you know what? I'm going to be really clear about what I actually want. Like one of the, throughout my work, what I've always found so interesting is that when we declare that we want something and someone else doesn't want what we want. For a lot of us, that's now a challenge to actually get them to want what we want. Not seeing that if someone doesn't want what you want, what have you done? We need to get better at saying no to the wrong people faster. And that's a lot of resolving our own wounds and actually staying in the space of discernment and saying, is this relationship

right for me? Is this a match? We need to allow someone to become the one, not give them the title. They have to earn it by ensuring alignment. So in the book, we talk about creating those agreements, really stepping into dating from an empowered space where you cultivate confidence, self-trust. What do you think? Did I miss anything? No, I think you nailed it. But I just want to drop in for the single folks or those who are dating is like this intentional cocoon of taking a pause on even dating or seeking is actually really deep medicine for those who are, who are, who are dating, because it's like, if you're keep attracting the same type of person, you know, I'll just insert like the emotionally unavailable man. And we hear that a

lot, but it's like, okay, can you take a step back? Can you enter into this container? Can you look at what might be coming up for you? Because when we do take this intentional pause, what, what we notice and what I've heard from clients is like, I didn't realize how much of my energy was going towards seeking or finding the one. Or it's like, pull all of that energy back into you. I think begin to process, like we spoke about earlier, but this like the ability to be alone. It's huge.

It's everything. If you have to be able to be alone in order to find healthy love. I really believe it's a foundational piece of like being okay on your own. Like I know in my bones, just as you do, I'm okay alone. Yeah, you don't want it. it might suck. You'll curl up into a ball for a while, but you will be fine. Right. You will be

fine. But there's a lot of grief in that process. Even in that container, when you intentionally enter into it, it's like, Oh, the grief of all the times where I've overridden, where I haven't honored myself, where I lived in scarcity around, is there more men out there? Am I going to be like all of this stuff? It's like, okay, come back home for a second. Let's nurture all of these pieces and, and come back into choice by being able to have this felt sense of safety within self of like, I know I'm okay, no matter what happens. And when I know I'm okay, no matter what happens, I have choice. Amen. And even on an energetic level, a la quantum love. Yeah. When we are in our wholeness, that doesn't mean we don't want the icing and the dressing and the

sprinkles and that doesn't mean I don't need anybody. But when we are in our wholeness, we are attracting someone who is in our wholeness. We are only going to attract in and be attracted to people who are at our same emotional level. It's like that line from the musical Rent I love where they say, I'm looking for someone whose baggage goes with mine. We're always going to be a match to people who are a frequency match to us or who mirror our wounds, right? So the more you heal and become whole and internally resourced on your own, the better, more quality, more emotionally available, more emotionally healed and whole individual you're going to attract in and be attracted to. And so that's why I always tell people like, watch out for the butterflies,

right when you meet you date them and you have that like when you really find the right one there's a feeling of coming home you know coming home to your dream house that you're like thrilled and excited and feel excitement around moving into there is a charge around it for sure but it's not that like stomach dropping like that's the body's warning you know that people mistake for the one. I think you get so much clearer on this when you take that pause you're talking about. So I love that so much. I love this whole conversation. Me too. Take the pause, baby. Come back home. Yeah, this is great. You guys, thank you so much for being here. Is there anything else that I mean, I know there are a million things, but is there anything else that you think is

really crucial to this conversation that i haven't asked you about or you want to share well i'll say that don't wait till you have to do this you know most of us i've waited till i had to so i say that from a recognition it's like we we often equate change to rock bottoms you know or to like i got to the place where it was so painful that i had to change we're saying choose this like the book goes through everything we've learned up until this moment and that you can walk this path like everything you actually desire in relationship is 100 possible and it's not just occurring on the as you and i have spoken about laura like on the logistical level like of the how we speak you know how we navigate our patterns and the context our attachment styles all that is covered in the book

but it's also on that quantum level, like the nervous system. And then the nervous system being the doorway, I believe to the soul to like, yeah. So the frequency. Exactly. So do this work like this work works. And this idea that you can't have everything you want relationship is total BS. It's because whoever's telling you that doesn't want you to change. And we're saying like you coming fully alive is actually in service of love and the relationship. It just might not feel like that at first, but it always is like your liberation is other people's liberation. And that is just, I think for everyone listening, like, don't wait, don't stop, like go now do it. And you will notice a complete transformation of every area of your

life. Cause if you heal self erasure, self abandonment, codependency, all of that stuff interpersonally, I mean, get ready. You're going to start a podcast, have a YouTube channel. You're gonna do all the things yeah everything changes and you guys have been in 2.0 how many years now in relationship 2.0 almost four we have four years and a little baby how old is your son now our son is 11 11 and a half months turning one in two weeks i'm freaking out i can imagine well we'll have to come back and do a podcast about liberated parenting because yeah i love i follow you, Kylie, and I'm as a mother of three boys, I'm like, yes, you know, I'm feeling your I'm feeling your messages about raising sons and the ways in which you guys are setting about

conscious parenting. I know there's going to be a books at some point. I would love to talk to you about that. Sure. You have a lot of wisdom for me. We'll have to have another conversation about that at some point. But in the meantime, guys, check out Liberated Love, whether you're single or in a relationship or just getting out of relationship or thinking about getting out of relationship or stuck in your relationship, or you just want to take it to the next level, check out Liberated Love by Mark Rose and Kylie Macbeth. And if people want to learn more beyond that and find you guys online, where should they go? You can find me at create the love Kylie. That being is beautiful on Instagram. And you can find my podcast, Mark Rose podcast, which you were just on.

Yeah. And so thank you, everyone. When you buy the book, you can go to createthelove.com slash liberated love, and you can get a free meditation and a workbook that goes with it that all you got to do is put in your order number and it's boom, it's yours. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing together and in the world and for love and helping us all love and be loved better. Thank you so much. I went to the doctor Said I'm crazy for your love

Wrote me a prescription But there's no cure for a crush all i wanna do i wanna do is take you home with me i wanna make a move i wanna make a move