Sheleana Aiyana - Forgiveness, Acceptance, And Becoming The One

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Talks Team, welcome back to the show. Thank you for tuning in today. We have a great episode, a little shorter than normal, but that's okay. I'm sure that my guest today will be back on. We have a great topic we're going to dive into and that I hope that you enjoy. But let me tell you a little bit about Shelina Ayanna, who is actually a friend of mine, an acquaintance that I have known for.

I guess, yeah, like nine or 10 years now. I've known Shelina for quite a while. I have seen her go through some incredible transformation in life. So let me tell you about Shelina and why I wanted to have her on the show.

So.

So she is the founder of Rising Woman, a growing community of more than 3 million readers. Her training and immersion in couples facilitation, Inherited Family Trauma, family systems, conscious relationships, somatic healing, and plant medicines inform her holistic approach to seeing relationship as a spiritual path. More than 30,000 women in 146 countries have taken her program Becoming the One. And in her new book, which we talk about, Becoming the One, which comes out, I believe, on June 14th, 15th, hopefully I'm getting that right, she talks about and takes you on a journey of transformational inner work to heal lifelong relationship patterns and reclaim power over your life. She lives with her husband, Ben Goreski, who has been on this show before and I've been on his a couple of times, who runs the Evolving man podcast. And she has done some incredible, incredible work. She has done Inherited Family Trauma, facilitating training with Mark Wolin, Imago Facilitation level one and two, Dynamic Attachment Reparenting level one, two and three. I mean, the list of work that this woman has done over the years is lengthy. Lengthy. One of the things that I know about Shelina and respect about her and appreciate about her is that she goes deep into as many topics as humanly possible. And she is a learner. She really, really, really is one of the most proficient and educated women that I know and I have the utmost respect for her. And so today on the show we are going to talk about some of the concepts in her book, which is called Becoming the One. And, and so we're going to talk about what does it actually mean to become the person you ultimately want to be in order to attract the type of partner that you want to attract or in order to reconcile and heal the relationship that you're already and currently in. So either way, it's about reversing the lens rather than trying to fix the other person, rather than trying to make sure you've found the ultimate right person. It is about becoming the person who is doing the choosing. So we talk about a number of things on this show. We talk about forgiveness. We talk about acceptance. We talk about the inner child, what that actually is. Shelina shares a little bit about her journey. And so this is a brief but also deep dive into what it looks like to become the, I guess, in my own words, I would say the most proficient and whole partner person that you can be to attract and reconcile with the relationship that you're either in or want to have. So, with all that said, please enjoy this episode. I encourage you to listen to it with friends, send it to friends, maybe listen to it with your partner. Let me know what you think. Message me on Instagram mantalks. Let me know if you want to have more conversations like this. What stood out to you, what you learned. And as always, thank you so much for sharing the show. Thank you so much for letting other people know about it. Thank you so much for subscribing to the show on whatever platform you're listening to us on and for leaving us ratings and reviews. It goes so far, so I appreciate you. Thank you. And we have been growing exponentially, like 10% month after month, the last few months, and that is all because of you. So thank you so much. And without any further delay, please welcome my guest today, Shalina Ayanna. All right, Shay, how are you?

Good, thanks. How are you doing?

Good. It's so wonderful to have you here and have you on the show. We've never done this before. We've known each other for quite a few years, and yet we've never sat down. And so it feels long overdue to get to have this conversation. And I'm excited to talk about your work and get into it. And so thanks for. Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So let's begin where we always begin, where I always begin, which is tell us a story about a defining moment in your life that made you who you are today.

Yeah, it's such a good question. And I wonder where I should start with that, because there's a lot of places that defined me and my life. I feel that probably one of the most significant pieces that made me who I am today would be my early childhood experiences, because all of those are what sort of sparked me onto this path, like, onto the healing path in the beginning. So when I was really young, I had a moment where I entered the foster system without any notice. My mom sort of Just packed me up and dropped me off and left. And that was the beginning of a very deep abandonment wound that just continued to form throughout my life through multiple more experiences that were similar to that. And it created a deep wound in me and a deep longing. And yet, when I turned 24 and went through a massive experience of betrayal when a relationship ended and I lost everything, it was that early experience that woke me up to doing the work, to finding healing, and to pursue a spiritual path. And then that propelled me to create Rising Woman and to write my book and all of the things. And so, you know, I was talking to my mom on the phone yesterday because I'm about to send her my book. And we've been talking about it a lot because I said, you know, it's going to be really hard for you. There's a lot of things that you weren't around for because you weren't in my life when I was young. But there's also a lot of stories about our relationship, you know. And she said, yeah, you know, I know that and I know it's going to be hard, but it's your journey. But we just talked about how it's nice that we've come full circle, you know, that we are here now. And I don't think I would be here if not for all of that pain. So it was those experiences that shaped me and prepared me to be of service.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I appreciate, I appreciate you sharing that. And I, Yeah, I mean, it's funny, I had to have a conversation with my dad as well. I'm like, by the way, you're in the book. And. Yeah, and he's like, what do you mean? And I thought it was a book about men's work. And I was like, yes, exactly. And so I understand that conversation well. So, okay, so mums, in the book you talked about this concept of like the, the wound that you experienced, but also the path that that wound put you on. I'm curious what prompted the concept of the book. Right. Because the book is called Becoming the One, which is beautiful, by the way. It's brilliant. So what prompted that in your own life to want to sort of become the one?

Well, given my own early experiences, because I had this deep abandonment wound and I had extremely low self esteem. You know, I grew up without a father. I was living in a situation of poverty. Often I was in foster homes. Which already makes you very different and kind of weird. You know me, I'm very small. Like, I'm like four, nine, right. So when I was young, I was like really tiny. I had crooked teeth, I couldn't afford braces. Like I just was this tiny sort of reject, you know, alone in the world. And I was very guarded and very, very scared. And as a result of growing up around people who weren't safe and running in very dangerous crowds with people who are much older than me, I just learned to be very defensive and to use anger as a way to protect myself from being even more hurt and not to show my vulnerability. But at the same time, once I started engaging in romantic relationships and they were all extremely unsafe and they were sort of rooted in the chaos that I had known to be love, which was very up and down. You never know if someone's staying or going. There's physical violence, there's emotional abuse, there's no clear commitment, there's no clear communication and everything is just sort of unsafe.

So this idea, this notion of becoming the one. Right, Becoming the one in the context of relationships, can you just elaborate on that a little bit more? Because I think people get the idea, but I want to make sure that we have the foundation before we start to get into the actual pillars and structure of what that looks like. Real time.

Yeah. So as I was saying, you know, my own history in really just having no self esteem and constantly attracting relationships that were unsafe, it led me to chasing unavailable love and looking for completion or healing unconsciously in the wrong places. And many of us, if not most of us do operate from this belief that we are somehow broken or that we're, you know, in the religious context, everybody, you know, you're born a sinner and then you have to repent. And in the spiritual world it's, you're half a person or you're half a soul and then you meet your twin flame and then you complete your karma. And it's. It really, there's all of these ways that we make ourselves incomplete and broken and not enough. And that's sort of the human condition. And so becoming the one is sort of a flip on that script. It's really returning us to the seat of our power and bringing us home to ourselves and remembering that we are whole and that it's when we acknowledge that that we can actually cultivate the kinds of relationships that we want. So becoming the one is a response to that and it's really about rebuilding, sometimes for the first time ever, the relationship that we have to ourselves so that then we can operate from a place of truth and authenticity.

Yeah, I love that. And I mean, I Think for me, you know, that that certainly resonates with me because I, you know, for years I sought a sense of wholeness and completion through relationship, through sex, specifically through women. Women's validation.

Yeah.

And that, you know, know, as I've talked about on the show a number of times, led to all kinds of problems in my life, to say the least. You know, and more pain, more shame for. Enacted in my own life, but also, you know, within the lives of. Of the women that I engaged with. And so. Okay, so I think part of what you talk about in the book is you kind of start by reclaiming the relationship to self and this notion of coming back into the body, but also connecting with your inner child. And I'm just hoping that you can give a sense of the importance of what that actually is, you know, what the inner child is, how we begin to connect with it. Because I think some of these things, the term inner child, I've noticed, gets thrown about a lot, but I think that a lot of people actually don't have a context for, like, what is that actually? And how do we begin to build a relationship with it?

Yeah, I mean, our inner child is that young part of us. It's literally who we were when we were children. And if we are experiencing pain from the past past, that causes us to act out in our present day. And that's our wounded inner child at the wheel. Right. So when we are really angry at our partner for something that seems so minimal, and yet we are just flying off the handle, oftentimes it's touching on a very old wound. It's this old feeling of not being understood, not being seen, you know, being made wrong. And we can all remember times where we felt just totally helpless or powerless as children, or just totally dismissed or disrespected or disregarded. And so it's, in essence, it's just that small little you that is always there, but that shouldn't be driving your car. And many of us, and I know you work with men. My husband works with men. I get the pleasure of being surrounded by amazing men who are doing the inner work all of the time. You know, we live on 10 acres. We have 10, 12 guys over here for weekends all the time. And I really get to see the vulnerability and the depth. And I also see how many of them have only just learned how to validate their own pain. And for most of us, it really does take encouragement to give ourselves permission to be righteous in our grief, in our anger, in our sadness, and to really connect to that loss of what we maybe didn't get or how we didn't feel seen or protected. And through that we make our way to forgiveness and acceptance. But it really is feeling that is the first step. And doing that work is pretty vital to knowing ourselves deeper and understanding why we feel the way we feel and why we go after what we go after in love and what hurts us or what causes us anger. You know, it's really an element even of shadow work, you know, to know ourselves on that level.

Yeah, it's interesting. I remember when I first started working with my mentor years and years ago, probably like a decade ago or more, and he started, you know, asking me about my childhood. And I was like, why does that even matter? You know, I had so much resistance to it. Like, like a lot of guys do, and I think some women as well, but specifically with us guys, it's like, I don't. Why would I talk about my childhood? Like, what did that have to do with it? And then just seeing how that childhood was the foundation of how I actually operated in relationships, communication, attachment, intimacy, all of it, really. And it was, it was hard to come into contact with at first because I didn't want that to be true because I. I hurt a lot when I was a boy. You know, I felt abandoned, I felt abused, I felt neglected. And to see, you know, there was a part of me that hoped that I could just leave all that in the past and not have it affect present day relationships. And I guess what I hear you saying is that might not be possible, or at the very least, it is beneficial to be able to go back and reconnect with that part. So what is that? What is that reconnection with our inner child? Look like, how do we begin to take some first steps towards reconnecting with our inner child?

Well, look, we all have conditioning and it comes from somewhere, right? And from the moment we're born, we're being conditioned by our parents, by our society, by our environment. We're literally mapping how things are. You know, that's how the brain is, that's how the nervous system is. It wires to the environment, it wires to the conditions that we are being imprinted with. And reconnecting to our inner child or going back is often about leaving that headspace of logic and everything needs to make sense, which, you know, as, you know, men are really good at. And going to the heart and to the body wisdom and just letting the feelings be feelings. I hear people say these days, you know, there's this real polarity especially you see on social media you have these therapists who are all about the inner child. And then you have these therapists who are like, you're not a child. You know, this is. No, get over it. And it's very polarizing. And I think the misconception is that, you know, doing inner child work is about giving your inner child free reinforcement. And it's the exact opposite. When we're working with that inner child, what we're doing is we're acknowledging that unfinished business, those undealt with feelings so that we can grow up, mature, step into our wise adult. Otherwise we're just bypassing. Right. If we don't know what conditioned us or what's creating some of those feelings that just tell us something is off in our life or why we keep attracting the same type of relationship that is clearly not serving us, then just trying to skip that step doesn't help. And so when we tune back into our bodies and we just feel and we give ourselves validation, like, yeah, you did feel abandoned. And we just say to ourselves, I'm sorry that you felt abandoned and I want you to know, like, you're safe now and, and I've got you and I'm here. And to really give ourselves permission as that small part of us to feel that longing. We all deserve to feel protected, to feel cared for, to feel safe. And yet so many of us didn't, and our parents didn't, and their parents certainly didn't. And so if we can just accept and acknowledge that, then we can actually liberate ourselves from that feeling of being a victim of our circumstances and being in that anger and in that resentment, because we can liberate it by feeling it. And so I think that's the piece that some people might miss is it's not about staying there and wallowing in it, it's really about just processing it. And then we can move to a more empowered state.

Yeah, I love that distinction because I think in some ways, and please correct me if I'm wrong or reword what I'm about to say, but it almost sounds like what you're saying is that the inner child work is so that we can take that wounded child out of the driver's seat, because it often is the part that shows up when we're afraid or we feel like we're being neglected or we're reactive to our partner and getting in conflict. And so it's almost like we learn how to tend to that part. So it's not calling the shots, especially in the moment of conflict. Is that accurate, or how would you reword that?

Absolutely. And I actually say something very similar to that. In my book. It's. We want to let our inner child speak. They have a voice, but they're not the driver. And if they are driving your bus or your car, then chances are your relationships are a mess. And I know mine were like, Mine were a total mess. I know yours were a total mess. We've known each other for a long time. We've watched each other go through many different cycles and phases. I've seen you in your mess. You've seen me in my mess. And, you know, it doesn't work very well when the inner child is at the wheel. So we have to really take the wheel back and. But we can't just push them aside and say, your voice isn't important. I'm just gonna bury you, because they'll find a way, right? It's like you lock a kid in the. In their bedroom, and then they just start banging on the door and screaming on the door until eventually maybe they give up and they stop, but they're still there, and the hurt is still there, you know? And so we're really giving ourselves this place to just acknowledge whatever needs to be acknowledged so that when we do encounter conflict or we do encounter something that challenges us in our relationships, then instead of running away or avoiding it because we can't handle the feeling, because we don't let ourselves feel, we have the center to stay and to lean in. And that's what maturity is in relationship, you know? And so many of us either avoid or. Or we chase. And both of those come from different expressions of a wounded inner child who either didn't have safe conflict, and so they just learned to retreat or who, you know, never knew what the situation was going to be, if they were going to be welcomed or rejected. And so they became very anxious and they just pursued and chased. And when we become mature adults, we learn how to be in conflict and how to have differences while also honoring ourselves and our own boundaries and honoring those of our significant other or our friend or our parent. So it's pretty vital that we learn how to stay in the game with relationship. Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. I love that distinction. And I appreciate you just digging into the inner child. It makes me recall this conversation I had with a man named Stephen Jenkinson, and we were talking about elderhood and what it looks like for a human being to step into maturity. And he said, childhood is the casualty of initiation. Childhood is the Casualty of initiation into maturity. And he elaborated on it. But essentially what I took from that was that we take the child out of the driver's seat of our life in many ways, and we stop hoping for a return to that childhood in some capacity. And it almost sounds like that's what you're saying is that we mature into this newer version of ourselves. And it's not that we kill off the child in some, you know, sort of dramatic psychological fashion, or that we embolden it to take the wheel, but that we actually integrate it. What I hear you really talking about is integration. Yes, there's. Okay, so there's a lot that I want to get into and I wish that we had like five hours to have this conversation. But one of the things in the, in the second part of the book that you talk about is forgiveness and acceptance.

Yeah.

And you know, I've done a lot of work with men over the years, and one of the pieces that I've come to know and come to realize is that forgiveness is very hard for us. And that might be for women as well. But I'm just speaking to the, the experience of the men that I've worked with. And so I would love for you to just unpack in terms of becoming the partner, becoming the one, how does forgiveness and acceptance play into this? And maybe from a, dare I say tactical perspective.

How do we even embark on this journey of forgiveness, which can seem vague and overwhelming at times.

Yeah, I love the tactical. It's a very masculine orientation. What are the steps? You know, and I always say, you know, there's no formula to healing. There's no two step process that's going to get you there. But there are definitely different layers that we have to go through. And in my book, I do break down and there's like eight layers of moving toward, you know, acceptance and forgiveness or acceptance or forgiveness. Because sometimes forgiveness just doesn't feel right. You know, there are things in our lives that feel unforgivable. And I think it would be really dismissive to tell everybody that in order to heal they have to forgive because there are some very awful tragedies and things that happen that I can't make sense of. You can't make sense of, nobody can make sense of. And to forgive, it would just feel foreign and just not right. And so if forgiveness doesn't feel accessible, I'm not saying you have to get there, but we do have to get to acceptance at least if we can't accept our past, if we can't accept what happened? We can't move forward. We can't create anything new. Right. Because we're in resistance to reality. So I always say, you know, take that frame with you. First of all. And of course, as all things in healing, what is the first step? Even in the 12 steps, it's just admit that you have a problem. And that's a pretty good tip. The 12 steps do have a lot of value. You know, I don't resonate with every single aspect of the 12 steps, but actually, if you look at the 12 steps, and my husband's an addiction counselor, so I get to see this a lot. The first step of accepting that you have a problem or the first step in acknowledging that you have pain, right? Acknowledging that you are angry or acknowledging that you are feeling resentful, that actually it's not okay what happened first. You actually have to let that in. Because so often we're hurt or betrayed, and our pride just walls us up, and we're like, okay, well, didn't matter, you know, or that didn't faze me, or I don't care, or I'm over it, or it's in the past, or why do we need to look at that? Or why do we need to dredge that up? Doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with this. But in reality, it often does. Those unhealed relationships do come back to haunt us until we close the loop. And so, really, accessing, you know, where are my unhealed relationships? Who am I holding anger toward? Who am I still in resentment with? You know, who do I still feel grief around? Or what do I still feel grief around? And then there are processes that I've outlined in my book. One of them is a letter ritual. Writing a letter, you know, to that person, not to give it to them, but to complete that experience in your own mind. Ritual is one of the ways that all human beings create a sense of acknowledgement and closure. So I have. I have been in birth work for many years, and I've often done ritual around loss, around pregnancy, release, around birth, you know, just creating that completion. And we do that as well when we're in the process of acceptance and forgiveness too, right? We have to ritualize it and take it slow so that when we do get to acceptance and. Or forgiveness, it's a true peace. It's not like a skipping over of anything. We've given ourselves that time and that space to validate our feelings, to empathize with why that hurt and why that wasn't okay. And then we can move on to simply seeing them for humans and seeing them in their innocence and accepting that we can't change the past, but that we can do something different moving forward?

Yeah, I love that. Would you say that forgiveness and acceptance, maybe both, or one or the other, is an unfolding versus a location? Because I feel like oftentimes people look at forgiveness and acceptance, and it's like, I'm going to get there, I'm going to get to this place and I will have forgiven or I'm going to do something and I will have accepted what it was unequivocally, and I'll never have to revisit that. And that might be true sometimes, depending on the transgression. But would you say that forgiveness and acceptance are an unfolding, a process that needs to happen, that requires time and space? Or how would you describe that?

Yeah, unfolding is a great word choice because you can't force this process. And these old wounds that we're working with, especially things like betrayal and abandonment, neglect, abuse.

We will find those wounds being triggered in our relationships over and over and over again, and we'll have to process it over and over and over again. And if we're with a safe and willing partner, there will be space for that. But it won't be over the first time you talk about it. And it probably won't even go well the first, second, third, fourth, fifth time you talk about it. But maybe the tenth time that you process it, it'll emerge in a new way and you'll approach it differently. And the energy of that wound will transform the more it's met with love. And so that is really what it's about. And I talk a lot about transforming your relationship patterns rather than obliterating them or smashing them or killing them.

Oh, I dunk on them.

Yeah. It just doesn't work that way. The energy is transforming as we are transforming and meeting ourselves with love and with depth. And it doesn't happen overnight. And often there's many times that we have to have experiences and interact with new parts of ourselves, meet new parts of our partners, meet new people in the world. There are things that are shaping us and that are preparing us to really reach a new understanding of our own histories. And we don't get to control all of that. Right. It's. It's really not about getting there. It's just about slowly moving toward more peace in our lives. And really just having that awareness helps us slow down in the moments that we need to slow down most so that we don't react so we don't implode our lives, so that we don't assume the worst of our partner's intentions, or so that we can actually be with them when they're reacting from their inner child instead of just getting triggered and leaving and not being in the fire with them. You know, it's what gives us the capacity to just slow down in presence a little bit. And that's a pretty vital aspect of being a conscious partner.

Well said. Yeah, being. Not being in the fire with them or like observing the fire without getting caught on fire.

You talked about transforming our relational patterns, and I'm hoping that you can just unravel that a little bit more for the listeners who are like, okay, I think I have a sense of what you're talking about. I can see that there's patterns in my past relationships or my current relationships that are yielding results that I don't want. And there are patterns that I don't know necessarily how to deal with in communication or sex or whatever it is. How does one begin to identify their own patterns and then begin to work with them? I know that's maybe a large question, but I would love for you to just tackle that.

Yeah, the. The process of identifying our patterns. I have broken down a whole process in my book, but essentially it starts with taking an inventory of all of your past relationships. And a lot of times when I work with people, they say, oh, well, they were all so different. And, you know, there's no similarities. We're not talking about, like, were they all the same height and they had the same eye color? I mean, for many of us, that is the case. Right. We do go after, like, some very similar types, and there's that whole thing as well. However, that doesn't matter so much as it does what the emotional theme is. And so the emotional theme is that consistent thread that you've carried with you. What did you consistently feel or not feel or long to feel in all of those relationships? And when might you have felt that first? You know, when do you remember feeling that first? How old were you? And when you really tune into that feeling, how old is that feeling? You know, how old are you in that experience? Are you 3? Are you 5? Are you 10? Are you 12? And so really, just getting in touch again with that inner child as well helps you see what it is that you've been consistently creating or consistently going after. And often we will attract people who do mirror back parts of our wounds or those things that we didn't get, and they're often, they hold a lot of polarity. They're like opposite to us in ways because they are reflecting back the areas that we long to grow in. And. And yet we often in relationship, we try to make each other be the same, and we get really upset when we're so different. But if we realize, oh, well, it's like yin and yang, right? It's like my opposite, actually. If you put those two together, you have a power team. That's a really good combo. You don't need two of the same skill sets. We need differences. That's what makes a team. So there is also this process of maturing and rising in partnership where we learn how to bring those differences and put them together. But until we get there, what we find is that most of our relationships have had a lot of conflict around those differences because we so badly want to be seen and understood in the ways that we weren't when we were young, that we can't handle the opposition. We can't handle that our partners are different than us because our inner child just wants to be met fully. So really looking at, you know, what those themes were, how did we show up consistently in the relationship? What was our behavior like? How did we respond when conflict hit, you know, what kind of partners did we attract or call in or did we allow? You know, that's a better word because, you know, we all attract all sorts of things. It's the allowing that's really where we want to put our attention. Right. Because we can all attract all sorts of people, and that's never going to change. We can call in all sorts of different energies, but it's do we allow certain behaviors and why? And so that's sort of the short of it. And it is as well a very confronting process because we have to be willing to be responsible for our part. And that's not always easy, but it is liberating.

Yeah, yeah, that's very well said. It is almost never easy, but it can be liberating. I want to pull at a thread of something that you had said just before, which was that I'm going to get this wrong a little bit, and hopefully, you know what I was talking about. But you had mentioned something along the lines of that we attract the people who possess the things that we're sort of missing or wanting to cultivate. And I'm hoping that you can speak a little bit more about that, because I think that's very relevant for a lot of people that get into relationships and then begin to see their partner Both as the thing that they admire, and then that can oftentimes turn into the thing that they resent as well. So I'm hoping that you can just talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. It's like when we go from the honeymoon phase into the phase where we're having a lot of conflict. At first, we're really enamored, and we're so drawn to this person because of how different they are, you know, and then it starts to bother us. And a great example. I. I could just use my own marriage as an example of this, because we went through this where, you know, Ben is very detailed, very detail oriented, very good at math. He's got the brain of an engineer. He knows how everything works, and he knows how everything won't work. He can point everything out that won't work. And he's also, like, very, you know, fiscally responsible and, you know, more of a. Not even a saver, but just, like a little bit more tight. You know, he's financially tight, keeps a close eye on things, and very. Everything's very organized. And I am creative visionary, abundance oriented. Very much not principle oriented. Like, I have my own morals and principles, but I'm not living my life as a routine, oriented, disciplined being. I'm much more like, how do I feel today and what do I want to do? And all I. I said I was gonna do that thing today, but as long as, no, I haven't made a commitment to anybody, I might change my mind if I feel like doing this instead. You know, I'm very driven by my creative impulses, and we're just very different in those ways. And of course, in the beginning. That's lovely. And then you merge your life and we begin to judge each other for how different we are. And he used to judge me as being more impulsive, and I would judge him as being, you know, stingy until. And we would have conflict about this, and I would come to him with these big visions that I had and these dreams, and the first thing out of his mouth would be all of the ways that it wouldn't work. And I would get so upset and, why are you pooping on my dreams? You know, you're. I can't share anything with you. And all, you know, the. The classic. And soon we realized, you know, after a few years of this dance, that we were actually the perfect team. We just hadn't realized it. Like, I had, like, CEO visionary energy, and he had CEO, like, engineer energy. And so we started to create meetings to share visions and create Plans and to talk about money and to set goals and make agreements. And, you know, we've been together for seven years now, and it's like the most amazing team and the most amazing partnership. We have finance meetings or boardroom meetings, know, once a month. And we. We have learned each other's gifts. And so I know that when he is challenging me or saying, you know, here's all the things that won't work with your idea, he's not saying, I don't like your idea or I don't want to make it work. He's actually saying, I'm gonna make this work, but first I have to backwards engineer it. And so I just have to be like, oh, wow, isn't this amazing that this person wants to help make my vision a reality. And he's seeing all of these things that I wouldn't have seen. And if I just tried to do it, it wouldn't have worked because I didn't have those details. And he, you know, when he's out on the land or he's implementing a project here, you know, he'll call me and say, well, how do you want this to look? You know, we're building this thing right now. Like, what's your vision? And so we've just learned how to team up. But it wasn't that way. You know, it started out in this resistance of like, why can't you be like me? And so that's often what we attract. Though most of my friends who are couples or who are married, there's opposite. It's like one person's really. Usually it's one person's really good at math, and the other person is a lot more creatively inclined. It's not to say that everybody isn't creative, but you know what I'm saying here, where we just, like, have these. We hold these different poles. And so I find that those are always the opportunities for us to come together and also to take on some of each other's energy. Like, I've learned how to be more disciplined. I've learned how to slow down instead of making fast decisions and really give time, you know? And often, if I do think things through in the way that he would, I sometimes change my mind. I make a better decision because I've learned how he makes decisions, and he leans in more to certain ways of being that he wouldn't have before. So that's how we transform together.

That's well said. And I was kind of chuckling there. I had myself on mute, but I was kind of Chuckling as you were talking. Because I was like, yep, check. Yep. Vienna and I did the exact same thing. You know, she had her spreadsheets out when we started dating for her business with, like, her Excel, tracking the weekly finances for the business. And I was like. I remember we got into a number of conversations where she's like, why don't you do this? And how could you should be doing this every week? And I was like, no, I shouldn't. Like, somebody does it in my business, and that's not for me to do. And I, like, sit in this position of, like, here's the ideas, here's the visions. There's people that execute. So I was getting a good kick out of that. Well, okay, I do. I want to shift, because I think one of the other things that would be helpful is kind of getting into this concept of I realize that we don't have a ton of time, and so I was going to ask you about projections, but I think I'm going to move away from that because that's a little bit of a longer conversation. And I would like to just. Yeah, that's a big one. Maybe just talk about red flags, green flags. And I feel like that could be very helpful in terms of who we're being, what's being revealed about us in the relationship, and then how do we determine if the dynamic and the other person is. Is also correct for us? So I'll just hand you the. The torch on that one.

Yeah, it's not. Not a very short answer either. Red flags and green flags. I mean, what we're really talking about here is reeducating ourselves on how relationships should look. And in order to do that, we have to understand what our conditioning is. What do we believe about love? What do we believe about relationship? What have we trained our bodies to dismiss or to ignore? Because that's all, you know, noticing red flags is about. And it's also just, do we give validity to that or do we dismiss it? Many of us pick up red flags all the time. We can feel something's off. We don't like the way that that person spoke to the waiter or the waitress. We don't like the way that they raise their voice or the energy that they shot at us in the first conflict we've ever had. We don't like the way that they drive aggressively when they're feeling upset or something, but we don't say anything. We don't set a boundary. That's where we want to look, is, are we picking it up and just Dismissing it or are we totally missing it? Right. And those are two different conversations. But ultimately they always lead us back to the body being more in our body, having our hearts, our heads, and our bodies connected. So we have that communication channel. Okay, I'm feeling this. I'm going to run this through my filter. And how am I going to appropriately respond to this in order to keep myself safe, to have my own boundaries, and also to either strengthen this relationship or to potentially not engage in it if it's not right for me? And so I talk a lot about green flags in the book because for me, Becoming the One is a re education on relationships. That's one of the reasons I wrote it, is so that we have sort of a template for what is acceptable and what we should expect versus what we are conditioned to accept. And so it takes a bit of searching, you know, in our own history to notice when were we picking up on something and we just ignored it? And did we do that in our childhood? Was that a common thing in our family? Did we do that to keep ourselves safe? Have we turned down the volume on our inner compass? Do we trust ourselves? These are the questions that we want to ask. And oftentimes, you know, people ask me, like, well, how do I deal with a red flag in relationship? Like, if I pick up a red flag, should I just break up with them? And of course, if it's something abusive or really unsafe, then it's not as safe. You don't engage. But a lot of times when we are still healing, we might become on high alert. And sometimes it's a false alarm. And so I have a whole section in that chapter on false alarms and how to detect them. And I think that's a really important piece to go into. What are false alarms and how do I know? Because sometimes we think we're picking up a red flag, but really we're actually just a little bit scared. And there's a way that we can test the relationship in a healthy way to see if it's really a red flag or if that's just yellow flag energy that could be transformed by having a conversation or setting a boundary. And so it's important not to just run the other direction every single time you think something's off. And instead, you know, lean in a little bit and challenge them on that. Ask them what their intention was and have a conversation. And how people respond in those moments will tell you everything you need to know about whether or not this is a relationship that you can grow in or not.

I love That, I mean, a couple of things stood out to me there. The reeducation of relationships, I think, is brilliant in a lot of ways. So that we're reorienting ourselves to what relationships should look like and our stories and our narratives around them, but also who we are in them. And then just that concept of, like, being able to test the dynamics sometimes, you know, to verify. I mean, it's almost like a scientific rigor that you're talking about in some ways of like, being able to recognize whether or not what we are experiencing is true, what is happening within the relationship, whether the relationship can withstand something. And to kind of get, like, to have an evidence procedure within, you know, within the context of the relationship, I think is important. So that's me putting my orientation on it.

But evidence, I'm sure the men listening will love that.

Yeah. Thank you. Well, listen, I want to honor your time. Unfortunately, I mean, this went by very quickly. You know, we're up for today. I would love to have you back on in a couple months when things have. When the waters have settled for you. But I appreciate this conversation, this initial dialogue, and where can people go to pick up a copy of the book and any final things that you would like them to know?

Thanks. Yeah. The book is available in all major bookstores and of course, online on Amazon, independent bookstores. And you can also, you can go to risingwoman.com btobook or you can also go to my personal website, which is shalinayana.com which I'm sure you can add to the show notes because most people won't know how to spell that. There is a heart of belonging, meditation that is free, and I have my free Healing your inner child meditation and rising woman. Those are great places to go if you want to get access to a free tool. Calming your nervous system and learning how to tap into your body wisdom and also connecting to your inner being. So I would say go there, go get those gifts and. And then that will keep you in touch with me and my work, if that's something you're interested in.

Awesome. Outstanding. Thank you so much, Alina, and appreciate you joining me. For everyone that's out there listening, thanks for tuning into the show. Don't forget to share this episode with somebody that you know will enjoy it and find value in it. And if you're in a relationship, this might be a good one to tune into with your partner, invite them into listening. And until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.