Love and The Courageous Heart

Robert Maldonado  00:22

We’re back. 

Debra Maldonado  00:23

We’re back soul sessions.

Robert Maldonado  00:25

Yeah, we hope you guys are doing okay and staying positive and staying active.

Debra Maldonado  00:31

And we hope you are all registered for our spiritual course The Seven Spiritual Principles for the Awakening Soul. It’s absolutely free. It’s a seven part program. We already had two classes. The next live one is on Monday. So we hope to see you there and then also there’s visualizations in there as well. 

Robert Maldonado  00:48

So yes, some great visualizations. 

Debra Maldonado  00:53

Yes, Rob did one actually. That was wonderful. I love it. The Book of Life. A lot of people are saying what an impact that’s had on them.

Robert Maldonado  01:03

Yeah, I thought I’d chime in, do something a little bit different.

Debra Maldonado  01:07

And we also have a new one I added that wasn’t advertised. It’s Mind Body Health. So those of you who want to stay healthy, or if you’re feeling a little throat stuff, just pop that audio in, and listen to it. And it’ll help, you know, work with your mind to bring your mind back into balance. And people are saying Happy Saturday. I love the Book of Life. Yes. You know, the first time I listened to The Book of Life meditation when you played it for me, I felt my whole body vibrate. It was just amazing how much energy was in that beautiful, beautiful piece you did. So you have magic Rob.

Robert Maldonado  01:51

No, you. 

Debra Maldonado  01:52

You. Okay, so today’s topic is our favorite topic. Yeah, we love the courageous heart.

Robert Maldonado  02:02

Yes. So we’re going to be kind of addressing a few questions that are inherent in the kind of work that we do as coaches. One of them is definitely what is love? Because it’s hard to define. I mean, one of the reasons psychology never really developed a good theory of love is because it’s so difficult to define. The other question is, why do people, all of us, why do we play out these patterns? Right? We’ve all noticed that there’s a pattern somehow that’s related to the way we approach relationships. And then thirdly, what is the courageous heart like? What does that mean? What does it mean and how do we do it? How do we get there? And of course, we’re going to be talking about more of a conversation we didn’t want to necessarily teach but more have a candid conversation between two coaches. 

Debra Maldonado  03:08

Candid? I’m just kidding. It’s like we’re gonna reveal it all. We’re gonna tell you the truth.

Robert Maldonado  03:17

Right. Because often when we’re teaching, it’s about the content. But here we want to kind of give you all the back. What do they call it? The backstage? 

Debra Maldonado  03:30

Yeah. 

Robert Maldonado  03:31

How we think about things and how we approach these questions.

Debra Maldonado  03:37

So let’s start with what is love. I think the first person that we learn that from is our mother and whether we have a good relationship or not. But that’s kind of this concept of human love is through the mother, and the mother provides us everything, some warmth, comfort food, changes our diaper when we need it. So that one person that was there in the beginning really forms our conception of love. But it’s an ego conception. It’s not like a true love. I mean, there is love. The mother loves her children. But it really, you know, starts that conditional process of when you feel loved when she’s around. And if she leaves, you’re not loved. And then you start to identify with the response from the external as to how lovable you are. And so when we define love, we think it’s about us, like how good we feel about ourselves, really. But we tend to define it by how other people treat us. So if that person calls us, they love us. If that person wants to commit to us, they must love us. And if they love us, there’s some kind of comfort and security with that. So we end up confusing what real love is through what we learned early in life. But what do you think your conception of love is when you like, when you first started dating, experiencing love for yourself?

Robert Maldonado  05:17

Yeah. You know Freud himself in developing his theories about the unconscious mind and how the psyche works. He said, everywhere I go, meaning in his exploration of the theme of the human mind and the unconscious and love. He says, Everywhere I go, the poets have been there before, meaning the poets had a direct experience of it. You know, when you talk about poetry, they were intuitively apprehending what love is, how we experience it as human beings. And he says his job as can we systematize this or can we at least develop a theory to explain what does that do? Like you were saying, our primary relationship is our mother. What does that do to us as far as how we see relationships as adults, especially romantic or love relationships? And he certainly saw that there was a strong imprint left on us by the impression that we got from our mother, and it was an emotional one. It was logical that we were thinking,  

Debra Maldonado  06:41

it was about safety or security or feeling comfort, at pleasant pleasure and unpleasant. 

Robert Maldonado  06:47

That’s right. 

Debra Maldonado  06:48

There actually, I want to just talk about this because it wasn’t planned. But I just want to mention, I was reading Freud’s book on the pleasure principle. And you and I talked about this before, but I want to share this idea of how children play hide and seek because the mother is there and then she’s not there. She has to do her work and she leaves the baby in the bassinet. And then when the mother returns the child, if you’ve ever noticed when you see children, when they see their mother, they get all excited. You know, even like, there was actually a video of a dog Mother. And the puppies are all excited that the mother’s there because she represents food and comfort. And so we play. The kids started acting out the game later on of hide and seek. They like playing, you know, like you’re there and then you’re there. And we kind of get addicted to that return of that comfort return. There’s some, it’s like a carrot at the end of a stick. We keep wanting that return, wanting more. And that’s kind of how the ego’s designed and then we think that that’s love. We were fooled to think when they give us comfort and security, that means love. And we know that sometimes mothers can be there for us all the time they’re working, or they’re going through divorce. Or maybe some people I’ve spoken with, their mothers were depressed. And then they make it mean that they’re not lovable because their mother wasn’t there. And so early in life, we have that pattern in that we’re seeking that return. We’re seeking, when is she going to stop hiding and come back? And it’s a joy of that Hide and Seek game. And so we play that our whole lives. That we’re seeing, unconsciously, if we don’t see it in the physical world, we think it’s gone. But it’s actually there all the time. The Love is always there, but we’re playing in this game of hide and seek with ourselves is looking for it to return again.

Robert Maldonado  08:42

Yeah, certainly one of the universals, meaning that it’s something most of us or maybe all of us experienced is this heart break. The heartbroken. And that’s when a lot of people come to the work is because they’ve experienced heartbreak.

Debra Maldonado  09:02

But you always say it goes right back. That pain goes back to where the very first time you were let down. The very first time. So you think it’s about this person who left. This Joe, who was so great, and then he left me for another woman. But no, it’s that first experience of that. She’s gone or she pulled away or she wasn’t there when you cried. And then we’re there, whatever emotionally was stored and imprinted on us. 

Robert Maldonado  09:33

Yes. 

Debra Maldonado  09:33

And so when we meet someone and we’re dating. And we’re like, oh, you know, Joe, this new guy is coming. It’s like almost like that eternal return again of the joy is returning back and it’s like that. And then when they go away, it’s that hiding. And we all know that when we’re dating and texting people, that ghosting is that kind of that game we keep playing. It’s like waiting for that external to come back, but the pain is from that initial time.

Robert Maldonado  10:00

Yes, but if it’s a universal, I mean, how do you see it as a function? Why is it set up so that we all have this experience of breaking our heart?

Debra Maldonado  10:13

Well, I think that initially the ego is designed to preserve the body. So the mother, if we were helpless as children, so we can’t walk. We can’t feed ourselves. We’re not like most animals, you know. They kind of like the horse walks in the first hours after it’s born. A baby human baby takes a long time. And so we kind of are in survival mode, and we’re confusing survival with love. And so, if we’re pleasing to the mother, and we’re pleasing, we could stay alive and she’ll feed us and take care of us. And so I think it’s an instinctual leaning to survive. And then the pain is like, if we didn’t have that pain, we probably would die. You know, if we didn’t have that urge to get her approval or, you know, we kind of related it to survival.

Robert Maldonado  11:02

Yeah, because if we follow kind of Freud’s idea, okay, the poet’s kinda understood a lot of what love was already through that emotional, intuitive way. Like a poet like Rumi, what he’s saying is, when your heart gets broken, it’s like a calling to understand your deeper self. Right? It’s breaking the shell of the ego.

Debra Maldonado  11:30

Well, I think what Jung said is that we in the beginning of life, the first 30 something years of our life, we’re building up the ego. So we’re driven by that need to look for security externally. We develop ourselves, and then after 30, we individuated. So I think it’s a process of us becoming something that we’re not and then I’m doing it. And in that undoing, you know, we get to really discover who we are. I don’t think if we’re born thinking that we’re unlimited, I don’t think that would be that big of a surprise. That’s what Freud was saying with the hide and seek that if you don’t hide, you don’t get the joy of the return. So I think we’re built with finding the joy of the soul of who we are is that beautiful return to ourselves. And the heartbreak serves as that tool. But we needed the mechanism to condition us for us to have the joy of returning to our soul and love. What do you think? Do you concur or do you disagree?

Robert Maldonado  12:35

I mean, there’s many layers. Right, but one of the layers is that most people interpret the heartbreak as the end, in essence. They think, well,

Debra Maldonado  12:47

Or they did something wrong.

Robert Maldonado  12:48

Or there’s something wrong or this is not the way for me to go. Right? I have to protect myself. I have to go back, defend my heart. Because this is painful, right? Because I tried something and I got burned. I’m not gonna go there anymore. The mind kind of has that survival mechanism of if something leads to pain, don’t go there. Yeah, don’t do that. And so we, you know, a lot of people interpret the heartbreak as that means I’m not meant to have love or experience love,

Debra Maldonado  13:24

Or I have to protect myself so it doesn’t happen again. And that really comes from survival. So we have this, we have these survival mechanisms that we’re, as children, we are babies. We learn, early on before we’re five, emotional survival. But we confuse that with social survival. And so when we get older, it’s like, it feels like death when someone rejects us. It feels like we’re gonna die but it really is, like you said, the heartbreak is a calling. It’s a wake up call for us to say, wait a minute. How much of my life am I hanging on to. I had a way when I first started doing hypnotherapy. My very first client actually was married for 20 something years and had kids and everything was great. And then the relationship fell apart. And it was like, Oh my god, but she didn’t realize how much she was tolerating and all these things in her life and how she wasn’t truly living until that happened. So it’s like, we seek all these comforting things. And then when it’s taken away, just like what’s happening right now in the world, it makes us question do we really want this in the first place? Do I really want that job? Do I really want that career? Do I really want this relationship? Was it really satisfying? And so that’s where I think the heartbreak helps us see is that if we move toward it, we really find that we’ve been crushing on ourselves from that heartbreak and tolerating people that aren’t willing to love us the way we want to be loved, to be with us the way we want to be, us being open the way we want to share love. We’ve been kind of holding our souls back all along. I know a lot of times when I was first, before I did this work and I was very unconscious, I remember just not telling people how I felt. I would just avoid talking to them. I didn’t know how to communicate. And then I remember dating this one guy, and I was telling him how, like, he wasn’t being open to me and how he was shut down and how he didn’t want to. And he was like, No, that’s huge. And it was so weird like to have that conversation. It was like we don’t even realize that we’re in these patterns of protecting ourselves. And so those heartbreaks give us an opportunity to say what is that? So the pattern, defining love before we get into the patterns is love to me is that it’s kind of that unconditional self of knowing all of who we are. All our human self, all the faults that human life has, you know, the little things that we do, the behaviors that we do aren’t really, we don’t, I’m not proud of sometimes, and then accepting all the parts of ourselves that haven’t been integrated yet like our divinity and our love. And so it’s true love is really loving all of us like loving every aspect of ourselves with non judgement. And so it’s not loving it like, Oh, I love that the fact that I’m insecure or loving the fact that I get angry sometimes. It’s that kind of, it’s not loving that sense. It’s more like an acceptance. It’s more like, non judgement, more of a blissful kind of energy.

Robert Maldonado  16:46

Yeah, I mean, again,

Debra Maldonado  16:47

And that’s what you bring into a relationship is that kind of calmsense of you’re not defining yourself by your behaviors and your just knowing that innately. You are worthy. You have the soul here that awakening soul that we talk about.

Robert Maldonado  17:05

Yeah, Rumi talks about dying, like not physically, but the death of the old self in a being able to kind of surrender completely to love. And that dying, of course, he’s talking about the ego, the persona in the Jungian sense that you have to be able to go beyond the ego to really experience love. If you want to stay protected and stay safe, you won’t be able to go there. And it’s that ability to transcend the ego. Right?

Debra Maldonado  17:44

That’s what I’m saying like the ego wants to push away in the shadow the things that aren’t acceptable and that are too light or too dark for society. Like we can’t walk in and really feel good, like light about ourselves or love ourselves. Even people get mad when people brag, you know, like, I’m really proud of what I did. And it’s like, you know, be modest. And then all the things that we don’t like about ourselves, like I act a little rude to that customer service rep or I was being impatient here. And it’s that kind of the ego defends against that and pushes that in the shadow. And that’s what you’re saying is that that ego kind of little limited, surface self is just trying to survive. And that’s not really, you can’t love from that place because you’re in defense at the same time. You can’t be open hearted and defending at the same time.

Robert Maldonado  18:39

Yeah, so I guess the definition would be then it’s transcendent state of mind where you’re able to perceive the beloved, the other on an equal basis as yourself.

Debra Maldonado  18:55

So it’s basically identifying, not from the Ego but from the soul, from the true self and then you could see someone else from their true self. And then they’re shut. They’re not perfect as a human being. You can see above that and you see the Divinity. It’s that saying that they say in yoga, nama stay, which is the divine in me recognizes the divine in you. And so it’s about recognizing the divine in you. And that’s really where Jung’s work, I think, takes it takes over. Because that’s really what individuation is, it’s about letting go of our identification with the ego, like making it shiny and perfect. You know, when I first started doing hypnotherapy, it was all about training my mind to think I’m good enough. I’m confident and I’m a beautiful woman and men love me. And you act calm and me and those are great. But if that’s who you you think you’re this like kind of physical like surface self, you can’t help it defend because you’re putting out there what you think other people will find pleasing. And that’s the definition of the ego is that’s how the ego’s designed again for survival because we need each other to survive. But there is a higher level of being. And if we want a higher level of love, that’s what we need to see. So what were you going to say that half a person?

Robert Maldonado  20:19

No. The second question is then why do we play out these patterns? You know, a lot of our clients come to us and say, you know, here’s the pattern. And I know this pattern, but it hasn’t changed. 

Debra Maldonado  20:33

Yeah, I know I attract unavailable people. I have a hard time keeping boundaries. I know that I settle a lot in relationships. I keep doing this, but why do I keep doing it?

Robert Maldonado  20:44

Yeah. And part of the answer is that insight is not enough. We know insight is an important element in transformation and personal transformation. You need to be able to understand what kind of pattern have I’ve been playing out and almost see the connection to your early history. Like we were talking about, you know, our relationship with our mother. She, in a very simplistic way, she gives us the blueprint for the world, how we’re going to perceive the world and by default, how are we going to perceive the other person in our life?

Debra Maldonado  21:25

And I think, here’s the important thing is that a lot of people will say, Oh, no, now I’m screwed. They don’t say that. They used to say the F word because my mother was this or she was an alcoholic or she was depressed or she wasn’t there for me or they got divorced or she was angry, critical, whatever it is. Here’s the thing, what you want to do is not try to fix all that. I think that’s a lot of what happens in personal development. We’re trying to fix the past. We’re trying to say, oh, well, I had this past that wasn’t, you know, set me up for not having love, so I need to fix it. And we don’t need to fix the past. We need to be in the present and start to take steps forward in who we want to be in the future. So if we’re fixing the past, what we’re doing is we’re shining up that ego. We’re making the ego better, putting little healing salve on the ego and making it better and, you know, fluffing it up a little bit and making the persona pretty. But we’re still carrying on that resentment and even the assumption that what your mother did was wrong. That she was wrong and now my life is screwed up. And now I gotta forgive her and, you know, all those things that I think keep us stuck in the past. And really, to break a pattern is to recognize the pattern. And even know that pattern doesn’t define you. Because if you try to fix it, what you’re doing is saying that pattern is more powerful than me. And there’s a part of you, your true self has never been harmed is not affected. By that pattern, it’s like you can step into that tomorrow. You see a lot of people have those spontaneous changes. And they’re in this like life threatening situation. And they’re kind of forced out of their pattern. They have to dig to get there. And when you said that heartbreak is the perfect time, I mean, even now what’s going on in the world, these things that are in upheaval, it’s a perfect time to say, I need to step into something else. I need to stop looking backwards trying to fix everything and move forward and say, who do I want to be now, today? Recognizing I know what I’m conditioned to be, but I want to start becoming or seeing things as they really are and me as I really am. And part of it is, I mean, I think, you know, working with the shadow is one of the ways that we face it, but we’re not working with the shadow to fix the past. We’re working with the shadow to make our unconscious conscious. So do you want to talk about the shadow a little bit of how how that works?

Robert Maldonado  23:59

Yeah, and the shadow, it’s almost impossible to understand the shadow without understanding projection because projection is the defense mechanism that the shadow or the mind uses to try to absolve itself of the shadow to say, I’m not those things. Other people are those things. I can see it in other people, but it’s not me. And of course, in relationships, the other is a perfect target for our shadow because they’re right there. And when we’re suffering or experiencing difficulty in the relationship, who do we have to blame? If it’s not me, it’s the other person that’s causing me these problems. And we repeat those patterns again.

Debra Maldonado  24:53

Well, it’s like, if you think about your mother, that’s a projection to your thinking she’s, I mean, physically, she’s the source of survival but all this other stuff is projection of that she is the divine the wind, you know, the guide to me, the divine in me. And then we forget that it’s in us.

Robert Maldonado  25:15

Yeah so projection, it cuts both ways, right? Because 

Debra Maldonado  25:20

You projected divine onto your partner so they’re gonna come save me. Either they’re the source of my happiness, they’re the source of comfort and love and acceptance. And, you know, when we’re in love, everything feels right with the world. When you’re in love, you’re just like, I’m invincible, like you kind of have that feeling of I’m invincible because this person has said, I like you. And you get, even if you just first meet someone, you get that kind of, you know, that feeling. And that’s really the projection that we’re feeling but we’re seeing our own self, our divine self, but we don’t realize it.

Robert Maldonado  25:54

Yeah, in that a lot of people think that, Oh, if we’re saying that it’s projection, we’re saying we’re that we’re devaluing it. But it’s not really devaluing because we’re just understanding the way the mind works. In other words, when we talk about reality, we we project our reality. That’s the only way we can experience it. And so love is no different. We have to experience it through our own mind.

Debra Maldonado  26:27

I love that because you had said once to a woman, you were like, she was having trouble with her husband and some issues, and you were like, you can’t experience another person except through your own filter. So when you see a person, you’re seeing it through your own mind. You can’t step outside of your mind and say, is Rob really Rob? Or I’m seeing, in my mind, I have an image of Rob. My judgments of Rob, my feelings for Rob are all from me. There’s no independent objective Rob out there except through my own mind. And so this is why I think you always say, we don’t fall in love with the same person. We’re seeing people through our filter. So for someone on, you know, you’re dating and you’re like, Ooh, this guy’s great. Someone else would be like, Oh, that’s not my type. And so it’s that kind of, you have to realize that love is here, what you see. And then the amount of love that you can feel for yourself is what you bring to the relationship. So if you don’t feel love for yourself. Or you’re connected to the source, and that person becomes a source. They’re going to, that’s kind of the way that relationship’s going to play out. And that’s why your heartbreaks. And then your heartbreaks, and then it’s an opportunity to say, wait a minute. It’s like the illusion ended and you have to go back inside. It’s always every time you’re heartbroken, it’s such an opportunity to pivot back in and stop the projection. So it’s almost like we created our own heartbreak, in a way, unconsciously so we can find ourselves. Which is kind of weird, but that’s kind of the purpose of it is to break the pattern. If you can’t uphold it, that other person cannot uphold. And we all know when someone loves us and they’re infatuated with us and we’re just like, whoa, wait a minute, like slow down, mister. You know they’re so into you. You know that you’re freaking out. You know, you’re kind of like, you’re seeing something that’s not really me or you don’t trust it. And if that’s true, you shouldn’t trust that kind of deep, you know, total projection when they’re looking at you in that pedestal as well. 

Robert Maldonado  28:38

Yeah. It becomes his kind of house of mirrors. But back to the heartbreak then. If the heartbreak is an opportunity, like like Rumi says, The Wailing of broken hearts is the pathway to God. He it gives us that opportunity to to integrate our shadow, in essence, right? Because if we examine what happened in that relationship, like how did it fall apart? And what was I expecting in the first place? In the expectation, we see the positive projection, right? The divinity of that person‘s going to save me, and then they’re going to give me everything I desire and give me that kind of oceanic sense of being one with a universe. And then, when that projection starts falling apart, we see the human being that they’re flawed. They’re just like us. They’re not this divine being.

Debra Maldonado  29:40

Or we get angry that they don’t call us, and they’re, you know, they’re mistreating us. Or they’re, you know, being passive now, and they were into us and now they’re not. And that kind of like, you get angry at them, but you already gave them all that responsibility to make you happy.

Robert Maldonado  29:57

Right. If they can make you that happy and they’re the source of identity, then they can also take it away of course and take you to the opposite place. Instead of having to, you know, you’re in hell, in essence, and therefore you have to understand projection in relationships. Otherwise, you get caught up in that kind of expecting the other to fulfill all your needs when, like we were saying, in the beginning love is really a giving. It, you know, it’s an expression sharing. Nobody can really fill you with love if it’s not coming from within you, if you don’t have the capacity to express it. So, this integrating of the shadow in the relationship,

Debra Maldonado  30:55

Which means it’s here retrieving the projection. And a lot of people think integrating the shadow means I’m going to get rid of all the negativity, get rid of my shadow. No, it means that I’m going to take back my divine self and say, it’s in me. It’s not in you. And then you can really truly see the other person as who they are versus through the filter of the ego. You start to see, it’s almost like you have two minds. You have the divine mind, that intellect that’s that pure awareness. And then you have the ego that’s like you’re wearing glasses that have a filter of all the past experiences. And you’re seeing them through that. Wouldn’t you want to see someone basically almost with your third eye? Like you see them through another aspect of your psyche. I mean, that’s kind of how I felt when I met you. I mean, I still had my ego and stuff like that, but there was something about that pleasant projection that I felt. It felt like home. Because when I was around you, I didn’t feel like you were going to leave. And that’s, I think now I’m realizing it just now in this moment, is the reason why it felt like home is because I, in some intuitive way, I knew that I was feeling myself. I was feeling the home within myself. And that’s where you can truly be in love with someone is that you don’t expect them to fill an empty cup. You come fully with that love and you don’t have all the fears that you would normally have of them slipping away or that I can’t wait to see them again. And now you know if they don’t show up tomorrow, I’m gonna fall apart that kind of roller coaster. It felt very solid. I mean, I remember thinking, he’s never gonna leave like he’s not leaving. It feels like home was solid. And I think it’s because of that. 

Robert Maldonado  32:43

You couldn’t get rid of me.

Debra Maldonado  32:44

I couldn’t get rid of you. No, but it was more like it was coming from inside of me not through you. Like I was seeing you, but I was seeing myself. And it was coming from that third eye, kind of divine mind. And that’s really a beautiful place to love someone because then there’s expectations that the ego has no one can fulfill. Oh my god, can you imagine? I mean, we’re already pissed off at our parents for not being there for us. Can you imagine what we’re going to project onto a partner is like, Why didn’t you love me? And that’s not love. That’s transactional.

Robert Maldonado  33:15

It’s so unfair. Yeah, it’s so unfair to kind of place that burden on another person. Yes, you’re going to save me. You’re going to fulfill all of us.

Debra Maldonado  33:23

And that’s why we get scared when other people project that onto us when someone’s pursuing us. We feel that kind of tightening. And they’re going to control us, and we’re going to feel responsible for giving them love back. And, you know, it’s a burden. And love shouldn’t be a burden. It should be like this place of openness and giving and you just show up as you are.

Robert Maldonado  33:44

Yeah. So ultimately, the relationship when we approach it from this perspective, it is the perfect platform from which to grow to do our personal development, our spiritual life, whatever you want to call it in this kind of true relationship. You’re able to grow because you’re able to get in touch with that deeper true self in you not just the the ego persona because love opens you up to that possibility of transcending the ego.

Debra Maldonado  34:22

That’s the end of part one of love and the courageous heart. Part two is also available here in this podcast. We’ll continue the conversation over there.

You’re able to grow because you’re able to get in touch with that deeper true self in you. Not just the the ego persona but right because love opens you up to that possibility of transcending the ego. And we’ve all felt it when we when we’re dating or in a new relationship. It’s like the emotions overwhelm the mind and then we get into ego when we get Very reactionary. And there’s a lot of passion there. And it’s great. But we’re not like balanced. Sometimes when we’re thinking with our head, we’re moving with our heart. And a lot of our our ego basically takes over the decision making process, and it’ll make the decisions based on security, survival, and how do I keep my heart closed, you know, not open it too much. and protect myself. And so that keeps people at that distance. And so when we think about the heart, the courageous heart, what is that? What would we do to change? Yeah. And how do we get there?

Robert Maldonado  01:39

Yeah, yeah. happy to work with you.

Debra Maldonado  01:42

Well, first of all, courageous heart doesn’t mean that you have armor on and that you’re out there fighting a battle. The courageous heart means you drop the armor. And you see that there’s no fear. There’s no harm to be no one can ever really hurt the true true me. A lot of people ask me, How come you How did you get you know, everything you wanted in the career, that relationship? And I always say I never gave up and it’s because every time I had a disappointment, sure, it’s like the tendency to shut down our heart. The egos a tendency is to kind of shut down, be careful pullback. We’ve all done it. But the courageous heart is it stays open, it stays open to knowing that there’s no threat, there really is truly, no one’s going to kill you. You know, if you get your heart broken, like the only reason we’re heartbroken is because we gave them permission to we under have that understanding.

Robert Maldonado  02:39

Yeah, I mean, it. Part of it is understanding that the pain is its inherent in in love. Mm hmm. Right. We all know that. If I, if I love this person, and I allow that’s in my heart to be open to them. There’s There’s a type of suffering involved already because you’re going to experience kind of what they’re experiencing. And you’re you’re going to take on their burdens become your burden. Yeah,

Debra Maldonado  03:13

like their emotion if you can’t you’re not comfortable with your own emotions and upsets that you have, why bring someone else in like a tornado coming into your home? Why bring that into because they’re gonna have their feelings and, and so I think a lot of people are more comfortable in their bubble. And they say that they don’t like to be they want to find someone but they kind of like being alone because they don’t have to deal with they can’t even deal with their own emotions, meanwhile, deal with other people. Is that what you’re saying is

Robert Maldonado  03:40

Yeah, part of it part of it is loss. Right? Because why do we hold them back? Because we’re afraid of loss? Yeah, right. That what if this person rejects me or leaves me or all that stuff? Mm hmm. Well, loss is inherent in it again, because none of us are going to live forever. I know in the fall when I think about you But that’s part of the deal. Right? That Yeah, if you want to experience that transcendent love in the human form, you’re going to have to accept that inevitable loss in the sense that it’s it’s part of it in a sense that you’re you’re like

Debra Maldonado  04:19

dealing with the Devil You Know, you sign up with blood that I fall in love with this person and I know one day you’re gonna be gone and I’m gonna have to live my life without you.

Robert Maldonado  04:29

Yes, baby, but it also it also proves that love is real innocent. Yeah, cuz you’re saying I understand that but I’m still signing up. Yeah, still in.

Debra Maldonado  04:42

It’s like a soldier going in battle knowing that they’re going to maybe they’re going to die but they’re going to because they love the because of the journey is or their purpose is much greater. And that’s really I think that come to have a courageous heart. We need to know what our purpose is for love. And if our purpose is to survive, we’re going to settle for a relationship that’s mediocre or not at all because we feel like it’s a threat to our survival if we get heartbroken again. So, what do you what is it? The courage? How do we cultivate that courage and, you know, a lot of times, people when they start facing the Shadow Work, you know, you know, law of attraction stuff is great and it’s really nice and light and you can think positive. But then when we do the Shadow Work, it kind of gets to a place where people that’s where people start to resist. And the resistance is that fear of what’s in the shadow. It’s stuff we pushed away, so of course, the ego is going to continue to defend against it. And Jung says it takes great courage to face your own shadow. And that’s really what the courageous heart is to face the parts of ourselves that we’ve pushed away, that are too light into dark for society and face ourselves and they really come to know who we really are. And it’s a beautiful journey, but the ego will resist. And so we need to know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. What would you say to someone who resists the Shadow Work?

Robert Maldonado  06:15

I like the, the idea of cultivating because it is very much like we’re cultivating a garden. We have the seeds, we all have the seed of love, the divine potential in us, but you have to cultivate it, it’s not going to grow if you don’t pay attention to it if you don’t care for it if you don’t provide the conditions for its growth. So that’s why we have this incredible consciousness because we’re able to determine what are the conditions for that I need to grow that divinity within me that that love that spirituality? And you have to ask yourself, honestly, what is it that I can do? Given my current situation, my history, my tendencies, all that stuff, to cultivate that openness and courageous heart.

Debra Maldonado  07:10

Well, you know, what I think I see is that the way we’re with ourselves is the way we’re going to be in relationship. So if you pull back or you get triggered because of criticism, or you get you get hurt, or you interpret something as criticism that’s coming from inside of you. And so it’s about being with yourself and not pushing yourself away. You know, I remember when I was first started doing my journey. Someone had said to me, it’s like this part of you that you just want to get rid of like that insecure, Debbie. I want to just get rid of her. She is no room in my life. I don’t like her. She screws up my love life. She’s bad. I you know, the parts like, you know, you get mad at yourself. And you’re just kind of like, I don’t want to be like that anymore or someone accuses you of something and you’re just like triggered and you know that it’s true in a way. But you don’t realize it that’s being intimate with yourself and being courageous to look at those judgments at those labels that we, that we’ve given that we kind of judge ourselves by, and realize that it’s a battle within ourselves that we’re really dealing with, like you said, the yardstick we measure others, we measure ourselves. So when we’re in a relationship, we’re really just, it’s an inner battle. And so many times when I’ve done Shadow Work, I remember just being like, projecting, projecting, projecting that person so badly, but and then I realized, Oh, my God, it’s me, I’m fighting. I’m fighting an idea that, you know, this, I’m perceiving that this person says, I’m not good enough. And I’m fighting that person and how dare they, but really, I’m fighting my own fear of not being good enough. And so we have to kind of come inside and face that yucky feeling and be and see that it’s not real. And that’s really where we free our mind. Otherwise, if we don’t free it, we’re going to keep projecting it out there. And people are going to we’re going to miss read people, their interpretation of us as it’s really what we feel about ourselves. And so I feel like it’s that’s really courage the courage comes is to go inside and face those parts that we push away the insecurity the angry the jealous the feeling not good enough the fears that we have is to face them head on and be be strong with ourselves and love ourselves in that way. Not like us, Pinkie, soft, a little light, love, but really a truly like it’s okay like seeing it as neutral. It doesn’t define me if I act silly one day or act cold one day, it doesn’t define me which defines me as my soul which is has never been harmed by the human experience. Yeah. And so that’s where Shadow Work, I think in a nutshell really helps you see is that you see this illusion of this image of yourself that you’re kind of trying to keep up And you see that it’s just a facade. It’s not even it’s not real. It’s so thin like paper, and you’ve been defending it your whole life. And then you realize, oh my god, there’s this other knee. That’s like so great. And so powerful that I’m not even letting out because I’m too busy keeping this paper mush a part of me up, propping it up.

Robert Maldonado  10:22

Yeah, I think a lot of people interpret that self love as polishing up the persona

Debra Maldonado  10:28

of paper making it thicker, maybe or Yeah, repainting it,

Robert Maldonado  10:32

but the self in self love is really the higher self. Yeah. That that, that divine kernel in you, that you need to cultivate and having the courage to go where it leads you. Because often it leads you into what from the ego you perceive as the scary stuff, right? It leads you into unknown part. to yourself, and you have to be willing to follow that voice and really listen to it and obey it in a sense.

Debra Maldonado  11:08

So the courageous heart is really you taking on yourself, the journey of personal development or self individuation, basically it’s that, that how do I see my patterns, not judge myself for them, but men transcend outside of them without trying to fix myself. And it’s kind of a tightrope, because we have the tendency to judge it as wrong the pattern. And so the first step is to realize that what you’re seeing is a projection in love. The second step is to understand that projection is reflecting your patterns. And then the third step is to do the shadow work so you can really, really have a direct experience. Now. A lot of you are listening to this and saying, Oh, yeah, that sounds great. I, I just need to come from my true self. You can’t come through it by listening Just to talk about it, you have to do the shadow work you have to, you know that you face the shadow. If you’ve been extremely uncomfortable, where you are like, it’s a very it’s a heightened emotional experience. And then it’s like, it’s a force almost like a, that breaks you free. It’s like indescribable. It’s not something where you have an insight and oh, I feel better. And now I understand my patterns. It’s not like that happy, little feathery insight. It’s more like a powerful like, you feel your whole body shift. I mean, a lot of our clients would say that. I mean, we see them and they look different after they do it. Like their physical changes in their face, the stress in their face goes away, they’re glowing and they’re, it’s almost like that little pent up persona that they’ve been trying to hold on is finally let go and then the true shot, self starts to shine. And that’s where you’re really attractive to someone and you’re courageous. You’re not worried. You’re not proud. Wrapping up that paper Michelle, you anymore. You’re saying, This is who I am. But it’s not about an intellectual understanding. It’s really through the Shadow Work. And and we recommend coaching you have to get you get someone we have plenty of coaches that we trained in our coach training. We have our mentors here. Robin, I do it. It really is worth the time. Because How much longer do you want to keep repeating the patterns?

Robert Maldonado  13:28

Yeah, and, and it seems to be our, our destiny, right? We we incarnate in essence to challenge ourselves through this process. And if we don’t do it, it’s like we’re missing the opportunity that that we’ve been giving. You know, in Buddhism, they talk about this precious human life. Why is it so precious? Well, it’s because we have this opportunity to really face the scary stuff in us and to integrate it right See that it’s it’s really us that we’ve been hiding from and running from.

Debra Maldonado  14:04

Yeah, it’s almost like the more discomfort you can face about yourself and look at like, turn the mirror inside, the more you will love yourself. A lot of people run away from that they run they run. And you know, I’ve seen a lot of people who come to us and then they go off and do like a simpler law of attraction kind of coaching and then they come back and they’re like, okay, that didn’t get me anywhere. They waited a year, and they come back and it your ego will resist this, the ego will resist working with the shadow, because it takes courage. Now you have to ask yourself, are you courageous? Are you willing to face yourself in a real deep way because the deeper you can dig within yourself, the deeper love you’ll be able to have, the more the more connected you’ll feel to someone else in your life. If you keep it on the surface, and you’re In that paper, Michelle, you that we’ve all been conditioned to be that relationship that you meet, you see this with your family and friends, they’re distracted, they’re watching Netflix, they’re, you know, not even thinking about personal development. And they live that kind of, they don’t have those deep conversations and that zest for life, that, that passion for spiritual work and you know, understanding deeper concepts and reading poetry and richness that life is, and that’s really what it is. It’s that journey within that keeps you keeps life more interesting while we’re here. I mean, and then to share that with someone else is really amazing. So, so that’s a, that’s a the courageous heart is to understand that love is already inside of you. That it is not romantic love, but it’s more of a divine self reflection. We have patterns that the ego created based on early experience. With our mother and then carried on through life looking for it outside of us trying to reclaim like, we keep looking for ourselves, our divine self in everything and money and career and love. And we’re just chasing this carrot but when it’s really inside of us, so when we have a heartbreak, it gives us an opportunity to say, Okay, wait a minute, let me look inside. Let me let me turn around and stop grasping out there. Let me start grasping inside. Let me look inside. Let me dig inside. And can you imagine having that much passion for chasing love is you’re chasing yourself chasing your spirit. Imagine that like search being so important that you’re you’re you die for it, you know, you’re hungry for that. And that’s really what we want is the passion we want for those material things. We want to turn it to a passion toward our own to self discovery.

Robert Maldonado  16:51

Absolutely. We want to attend to it. We want to pay attention and create the conditions for its growth. For our own growth.

Debra Maldonado  17:02

So what questions do you have? While we’re here? Let’s see interesting comment, the name of the fish that builds the Mandela, that the sands attracted me. I don’t know that but that’s a beautiful fish. Yeah.

Robert Maldonado  17:12

So the video, it’s an incredible sand Mandela that he creates. Yeah. And

Debra Maldonado  17:17

that’s really what it is. It’s that you don’t have to chase it. You have to, of course you have to take action but you have, you’ll attract what the Mandela that the person you are will attract the mates that you attract. There’ll be a reflection of what’s in your mind. I don’t see any questions. I think we’re everyone’s just kind of thinking about their journey. So we’ll be posting in the group. We’ll see you at the seven spiritual laws, seven spiritual principles. You don’t like loss legal. And we’ll have the next session on Monday module number three We’ll talk about emotional wisdom. And and then we’ll have another another section on Thursday. So we’re really excited to see you in the program with a rich topic. We love you, and you deserve great love and just remember, be courageous. There’s nothing bad can happen. It’s like you just be willing to just put yourself out there.

Robert Maldonado  18:25

The poet boat is one thing we’ll never regret in life is being courageous. Okay.

Debra Maldonado  18:33

I like it. I like it. You’re welcome, everyone turn inward. We’ll see you on the flip side. Take care.